H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Volume 3
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- Seeing Sounds and Hearing Colours - (Page 459)
- (Page 460)
- Planetary and Human Bodies - (Page 461)
- Planets Days Metals Parts of the Body
- Planets and Faculties - (Page 463)
- Spring Summer Autumn Winter
- Youth Adolescence Manhood Age
- South West North
- SIMON MAGUS THE MAGICIAN (Page 465) What Magic is, in Reality
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This is the arrangement now adopted by Christian Astrologers, with the exception of the order of the days of the week, of which, by associating the solar planetary names with the lunar weeks, they have made a sore mess, as he has been already shown in Paper I. This is the Ptolemaic geocentric system, which represents the Universe as in the following diagram, showing our Earth in the centre of the Universe, and the Sun a Planet, the fourth in number: 
But the correspondences given in these Papers are purely Esoteric. (Page 458) For this reason it follows that when the Planets of the Solar System are named or symbolized (as in Diagram II.) it must not be supposed that the planetary bodies themselves are referred to, except as types on a purely physical plane of the septenary nature of the psychic and spiritual worlds. A material planet can correspond only to a material something. Thus when Mercury is said to correspond to the right eye, it does not mean that the objective planet has any influence on the right optic organ, but that both stand rather as corresponding mystically through Buddhi. Man derives his Spiritual Soul (Buddhi) from the essence of the Mânasa Putra, the Sons of Wisdom, who are the Divine Beings (or Angels) ruling and presiding over the planet Mercury. In the same way Venus, Manas and the left eye are set down as correspondences. Exoterically, there is, in reality, no such association of physical eyes and physical planets; but Esoterically there is: for the right eye is the “Eye of Wisdom,” i.e., it corresponds magnetically with that Occult centre in the brain which we call the “Third Eye”; [See supra, ii.302. et seq.] while the left corresponds with the intellectual brain, or those cells which are the organ on the physical plane of the thinking faculty. The kabalistic triangle of Kether, Chokmah and Binah shows this. Chokmah and Binah, or Wisdom and Intelligence, the Father and Mother or, again, the Father and Son, are on the same plane and reäct mutually on one another. When the individual consciousness is turned inward, a conjunction of Manas and Buddhi takes place. In the spiritually regenerated man this conjunction is permanent, the Higher Manas clinging to Buddhi beyond the threshold of Devachan, and the Soul, or rather the Spirit, which should not be confounded with Ãtmâ, the Super-Spirit, is then said to have the “Single Eye.” Esoterically, in other words, the “Third Eye” is active. Now Mercury is called Hermes, and Venus, Aphrodite, and thus their conjunction in man on the psycho-physical plane gives him the name of the Hermaphrodite, or Androgyne. The absolutely Spiritual Man is, however, entirely disconnected from sex. The Spiritual Man corresponds directly with the higher “coloured circles,” the Divine Prism which emanates from the One Infinite White Circle; while physical man emanates from the Sephiroth, which are the Voices or Sounds of Eastern Philosophy. Seeing Sounds and Hearing Colours - (Page 459) And these “Voices” are lower than the “Colours,” for they are the seven lower Sephiroth, or the objective Sounds, seen, not heard, as the Zohar shows, [Op. cit., ii. 81.6.] and even the Old Testament also. For, when properly translated, verse 18 of chapter xx. Exodus would read: “And the people saw the Voices” (or Sounds, not the “thunderings” as now translated); and these Voices, or Sounds, are the Sephiroth. [See Frank’s Die Kabbala, p.314, et seq.] In the same way the right and left nostrils, into which is breathed the “Breath of Lives,” [Genesis, ii, 7.] are here said to correspond with Sun and Moon, as Brahmâ-Prajâpati and Vâch, or Osiris and Isis, are the parents of the natural life. This Quaternary, viz.: the two eyes and two nostrils, Mercury and Venus, Sun and Moon, constitutes the Kabalistic Guardian-Angels of the Four Corners of the Earth. It is the same in the Eastern Esoteric Philosophy, which, however, adds that the Sun is not a planet, but the central star of our system, and the Moon a dead planet, from which all the principles are gone, both being substitutes, the one for an invisible inter-Mercurial planet, and the other for a planet which seems to have now altogether disappeared from view. These are the Four Mahârâjahs, [Supra, i. 147.] the “Four Holy Ones” connected with Karma and Humanity, Kosmos and Man, in all their aspects. They are: the Sun, or its substitute Michael; Moon, or substitute Gabriel; Mercury, Raphael; and Venus, Uriel. It need hardly be said here again that the planetary bodies themselves, being only physical symbols, are not often referred to in the Esoteric System, but, as a rule, their cosmic, psychic, physical and spiritual forces are symbolized under these names. In short, it is the seven physical planets which are the lower Sephiroth of the Kabalah, and our triple physical Sun whose reflection only we see, which is symbolized, or rather personified, by the Upper Triad, or Sephirothal Crown. [We may refer for confirmation to Origen’s works, who says that “the seven ruling daimons” (genii or planetary rulers) are Michael, the Sun (the lion-like): the second in order, the Bull, Jupiter or Suriel, etc.: and all these, the “Seven of the Presence,” are the Sephiroth. The Sephirothal Tree is the Tree of the Divine Planets as given by Porphyry, or Porphyry’s Tree, as it is usually called.] Then, again, it will be well to point out that the numbers attached to the psychic principles in Diagram I. appear the reverse of those in exoteric writings. This is because numbers in this connection are purely arbitrary, changing with every school. Some schools count (Page 460) three, some four, some six, and others seven, as do all the Buddhist Esotericists. As said before, [Supra, i, 147.] the Esoteric School has been divided into two departments since the fourteenth century, one for the inner Lanoos, or higher Chelâs, the other for the outer circle, or lay Chelâs. Mr. Sinnett was distinctly told in the letters he received from one of the Gurus that he could not be taught the real Esoteric Doctrine given out only to the pledged disciples of the Inner Circle. The numbers and principles do not go in regular sequence, like the skins of an onion, but the student must work out for himself the number appropriate to each of his principles, when the time comes for him to enter upon practical study. The above will suggest to the student the necessity of knowing the principles by their names and their appropriate faculties apart from any system of enumeration, or by association with their corresponding centres of actions, colours, sounds, etc., until these become inseparable. The old and familiar mode of reckoning the principles, given in the Theosophist and Esoteric Buddhism, leads to another apparently perplexing contradiction, though it is really none at all. The principles numbered 3 and 2, viz : Linga Sharîra and Prâna, or Jîva, stand in the reverse order to that given in Diagram I . A moment's consideration will suffice to explain the apparent discrepancy between the exoteric enumeration, and the Esoteric order given in Diagram I. For in Diagram I. the Linga Sharîra is defined as the vehicle of Prâna, or Jîva, the life principle, and as such must of necessity be inferior to Prâna, not superior as the exoteric enumeration would suggest. The principles do not stand one above the other, and thus cannot be taken in numerical sequence; their order depends upon the superiority and predominance of one or another principle, and therefore differs in every man. The Linga Sharîra is the double, or protoplasmic antetype of the body, which is its image. It is in this sense that it is called in Diagram II. the parent of the physical body, i.e., the mother by conception of Prâna, the father. This idea is conveyed in the Egyptian mythology by the birth of Horus, the child of Osiris and Isis, although, like all sacred Mythoi, this has both a threefold spiritual, and a sevenfold psycho-physical application. To close the subject, Prâna, the life principle, can, in sober truth, have no number, as it pervades every other principle, or the human total. Planetary and Human Bodies - (Page 461) Each number of the seven would thus be naturally applicable to Prâna-Jîva exoterically as it is to the Auric Body Esoterically. As Pythagoras showed, Kosmos was produced not through or by number, but geometrically, i.e., following the proportions of numbers. To those who are unacquainted with the exoteric astrological natures ascribed in practice to the planetary bodies, it may be useful if we set them down here after the manner of Diagram II., in relation to their dominion over the human body, colours, metals, etc., and explain at the same time why genuine Exoteric Philosophy differs from the astrological claims.
* [Esoterically, green, there being no black in the prismatic ray.] † [Esoterically, light blue. As a pigment, purple is a compound of red and blue, and in Eastern Occultism blue is the spiritual essence of the colour purple, while red is its material basis. In reality, Occultism makes Jupiter blue because he is the son of Saturn, which is green, and light blue as a prismatic colour contains a great deal of green. Again, the Auric Body will contain much of the colour of the Lower Manas if the man is a material sensualist, just as it will contain much of the darker hue if the Higher Manas has preponderance over the Lower.] ‡ [Esoterically, the Sun cannot correspond with the eye, nose, or any other organ, since, as explained, it is no planet, but a central star. It was adopted as a planet by the post-Christian Astrologers, who had never been initiated. Moreover, the true colour of the Sun is blue, and it appears yellow only owing to the effect of the absorbtion of vapours (chiefly metallic) by its atmosphere. All is Mayâ on our earth.] § [Esoterically, indigo, or dark blue, which is the complement of yellow in the prism. Yellow is a simple or primitive colour. Manas being dual in its nature—as is its sidereal symbol, the planet Venus, which is both the morning and evening star—the difference between the higher and the lower principles of Manas, whose essence is derived from the Hierarchy ruling Venus, is denoted by the dark blue and green. Green, the Lower Manas, resembles the colour of the solar spectrum which appears between the yellow and the dark blue, the Higher Spiritual Manas. Indigo is the intensified colour of the heaven or sky, to denote the upward tendency of Manas toward Buddhi, or the heavenly Spiritual Soul. This colour is obtained from the indigofera tinctoria, a plant of the highest occult properties in India, much used in White Magic, and occultly connected with copper. This is shown by the indigo assuming a copper lustre, especially when rubbed on any hard substance. Another property of the dye is that it is insoluble in water and even in ether, being lighter in weight than any known liquid. No symbol has ever been adopted in the East without being based upon a logical and demonstrable reasons. Therefore Eastern Symbologists, from the earliest ages, have connected the spiritual and the animal minds of man, the one with dark blue (Newton’s indigo), or true blue, free from green; and the other with pure green.] ¶ [Esoterically, yellow, because the colour of the Sun is orange, and Mercury now stands next to the Sun in distance, as it does in colour. The planet for which the Sun is a substitute was still nearer the Sun than Mercury now is, and was one of the most secret and highest planets. It is said to have become invisible at the close of the Third Race.] ** [Esoterically, violet, because, perhaps, violet is the colour assumed by a ray of sunlight when transmitted through a very thin plate of silver, and also because the Moon shines upon the Earth with light borrowed from the Sun, as the human body shines with qualifications borrowed from its double—the aerial man. As the astral shadow starts the series of principles in man, on the terrestrial plane, up to the lower, animal Manas, so the violet ray starts the series of prismatic colours from its end up to green, both being, the one as a principle and the other as a colour, the most refrangible of all the principles and colours. Besides which, there is the same great Occult mystery attached to all these correspondences, both celestial and terrestrial bodies, colours and sounds. In clearer words, there exists the same law of relation between the Moon and the Earth, the astral and the living body of man, as between the violet end of the prismatic spectrum and the indigo and the blue. But of this more anon.] (Page 462) Thus it will be seen that the influence of the solar system in the exoteric kabalistic Astrology is by this method distributed over the entire human body, the primary metals, and the gradations of colour from black to white; but that Esotericism recognizes neither black nor white as colours, because it holds religiously to the seven solar or natural colours of the prism. Black and white are artificial tints. They belong to the Earth, and are only perceived by virtue of the special construction of our physical organs. White is the absence of all colours, and therefore no colour; black is simply the absence of light, and therefore the negative aspect of white. The seven prismatic colours are direct emanations from the Seven Hierarchies of Being, each of which has a direct bearing upon and relation to one of the human principles, since each of these Hierarchies is, in fact, the creator and source of the corresponding human principle. Each prismatic colour is called in Occultism the “Father of Sound” which corresponds to it; Sound being the Word, or the Logos, of its Father-Thought. This is the reason why sensitives connect every colour with a definite sound, a fact well recognized in Modern Science (e.g., Francis Galton’s Human Faculty). But black and white are entirely negative colours, and have no representatives in the world of subjective being. Planets and Faculties - (Page 463) Kabalistic Astrology says that the dominion of the planetary bodies in the human brain also is defined thus: there are seven primary groups of faculties, six of which function through the cerebrum, and the seventh through the cerebellum. This is perfectly correct Esoterically. But when it is further said that: Saturn governs the devotional faculties; Mercury, the intellectual; Jupiter, the sympathetic; the Sun, the governing faculties; Mars, the selfish; Venus, the tenacious; and the Moon, the instincts;—we say that the explanation is incomplete and even misleading. For, in the first place, the physical planets can rule only the physical body and the purely physical functions. All the mental, emotional, psychic and spiritual faculties, are influenced by the Occult properties of the scale of causes which emanate from the Hierarchies of the Spiritual Rulers of the planets, and not by the planets themselves. This scale, as given in Diagram II, leads the student to perceive in the following order: (1) colour; (2) sound; (3) the sound materializes into the spirit of the metals, i.e., the metallic Elementals; (4) these materialize again into the physical metals; (5) then the harmonial and vibratory radiant essence passes into the plants, giving them colour and smell, both of which “properties” depend upon the rate of vibration of this energy per unit of time; (6) from plants it passes into the animals; (7) and finally culminates in the “principles” of man. Thus we see the Divine Essence of our Progenitors in Heaven circling through seven stages; Spirit becoming Matter, and Matter returning to Spirit. As there is sound in Nature which is inaudible, so there is colour which is invisible, but which can be heard. The creative force, at work in its incessant task of transformation, produces colour, sound and numbers, in the shape of rates of vibration which compound and dissociate the atoms and molecules. Though invisible and inaudible to us in detail, yet the synthesis of the whole becomes audible to us on the material plane. It is that which the Chinese call the “Great Tone,” or Kung. It is, even by scientific confession, the actual tonic of Nature, held by musicians to be the middle Fa on the keyboard of a piano. We hear it distinctly in the voice of Nature, in the roaring of the ocean, in the sound of the foliage of a great forest, in the distant roar of a great city, in the wind, the tempest and the storm; in short, in everything in Nature which has a voice or produces sound. To the (Page 464) hearing of all who hearken, it culminates in a single definite tone, of an unappreciable pitch, which, as said, is the F, or Fa, of the diatonic scale. From these particulars, that wherein lies the difference between the exoteric and the Esoteric nomenclature and symbolism will be evident to the student of Occultism. In short, kabalistic Astrology, as practised in Europe, is the semi-esoteric Secret Science, adapted for the outer and not for the inner circle. It is, furthermore, often left incomplete and not infrequently distorted to conceal the real truth. While it symbolizes and adapts its correspondences on the mere appearances of things, Esoteric Philosophy, which concerns itself pre-eminently with the essence of things, accepts only such symbols as cover the whole ground, i.e., such symbols as yield a spiritual as well as a psychic and physical meaning. Yet even Western Astrology has done excellent work, for it has helped to carry the knowledge of the existence of a Secret Wisdom throughout the dangers of the Mediæval Ages and their dark bigotry up to the present day, when all danger has disappeared. The order of the planets in exoteric practice is that defined by their geocentric radii, or the distance of their several orbits from the Earth as a centre, viz., Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon. In the first three of these we find symbolized the celestial Triad of supreme power in the physical, manifested universe, or Brahmâ, Vishnu and Shiva; while in the last four we recognize the symbols of the terrestrial quaternary ruling over all natural and physical revolutions of the seasons, quarters of the day, points of the compass, and elements. Thus:
But Esoteric Science is not content with analogies on the purely objective plane of the physical senses, and therefore it is absolutely necessary to preface further teachings in this direction with a clear explanation of the real meaning of the word Magic. SIMON MAGUS THE MAGICIAN (Page 465)
Esoteric Science is, above all, the knowledge of our relations with and in Divine Magic, [Magic., Magia, means, in its spiritual, secret sense, the “Great Life,” or divine life in spirit. The root is magh, as seen in the Sanskrit mahat, Zend maz, Greek megas, and Latin magnus, all signifying “great”.] inseparableness from our divine Selves—the latter meaning something else besides our own higher Spirit. Thus, before proceeding to exemplify and explain these relations, it may perhaps be useful to give the student a correct idea of the full meaning of this most misunderstood world “Magic.” Many are those willing and eager to study Occultism, but very few have even an approximate idea of the Science itself. Now, very few of our American and European students can derive benefit from Sanskrit works or even their translations, as these translations are, for the most part, merely blinds to the uninitiated. I therefore propose to offer to their attention demonstrations of the aforesaid drawn from Neo-Platonic works. These are accessible in translation; and in order to throw light on that which has hitherto been full of darkness, it will suffice to point to a certain key in them. Thus the Gnosis, both pre-Christian and post-Christian, will serve our purpose admirably. There are millions of Christians who know the name of Simon Magus, and the little that is told about him in the Acts; but very few who have even heard of the many motley, fantastic and contradictory details which tradition records about his life. The story of his claims and his death is to be found only in the prejudiced, half-fantastic records about him in the works of the Church Fathers, such as Irenæus, Ephiphanius and St. Justin, and especially in the anonymous Philosophumena. Yet he is a historical character, and the appellation of “Magus” was given to him and was accepted by all his contemporaries, including the heads of the Christian Church, as a qualification indicating the miraculous powers he possessed, and irrespective of whether he was regarded as a white (divine) or a black (infernal) Magician. In this respect, opinion has always been made subservient to the Gentile or Christian proclivities of his chronicler. It is in his system and in that of Menander, his pupil and successor, that we find what the term “Magic” meant for Initiates in those days. Simon, as all the other Gnostics, taught that our world was created by the lower angels, whom he called Æons. He mentions only three (Page 466) degrees as such, because it was and is useless, as we have before explained, to teach anything about the four higher ones, and he therefore begins at the plane of globes A and G. His system is as near to Occult Truth as any, so that we may examine it, as well as his own and Meander’s claims about “Magic,” to find out what they meant by the term. Now, for Simon, the summit of all manifested creation was Fire. It was, with him as with us, the Universal Principle, the Infinite Potency, born from the concealed Potentiality. This Fire was the primeval cause of the manifested world of being, and was dual, having a manifested and a concealed, or secret, side. The secret side of the Fire is concealed in its evident [or objective] side, and the objective is produced from the secret side, [Philosophumena, vi.9.] he writes, which amounts to saying that the visible is ever present in the invisible, and the invisible in the visible. This was but a new form of stating Plato’s idea of the Intelligibe (Noêton) and the Sensible (Aisthêton), and Aristotle’s teaching on the Potency (Dunamis) and the Act (Energeia). For Simon, all that can be thought of, all that can be acted upon, was perfect intelligence. Fire contained all. And thus all the parts of that Fire, being endowed with intelligence and reason, was susceptible of development by extension and emanation. This is our teaching of the Manifested Logos, and these parts in their primordial emanations are our Dhyân Chohans, the “Sons of Flame and Fire,” or higher Æons. This “Fire” is the symbol of the active and living side of Divine Nature. Behind it lay “infinite Potentiality in Potentiality,” which Simon named “that which has stood, stands and will stand,” or permanent stability and personified immutability.
From the Potency of Thought, Divine Ideation thus passed to Action. Hence the series of primordial emanations through Thought begetting the Act, the objective side of Fire being the Mother, the sacred side of it being the Father. Simon called these emanations Syzygies (a united pair, or couple), for they emanated two-by-two, one as an active, and the other as a passive Æon. Three couples thus emanated (or six in all, the Fire being the seventh), to which Simon gave the following names: “Mind and Thought; Voice and Name; Reason and Reflection,” † [Nous, Epinoia: Phôni : Onoma : Logismos, Enthumesis.] the first in each pair being male, the last female. From these primordial six emanated the six Æons of the Middle World. Let us see what Simon himself says: Yüklə 2,81 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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