Band 2 Anthropogenesis - H.P. Blavatsky

originals, who were symbolized by serpents and dragons? These "originals" -- called to this day in China "the Dragons of
Wisdom" -- were the first disciples of the Dhyanis, who were their instructors; in short, the primitive adepts of the Third
Race, and later, of the Fourth and Fifth Races. The name became universal, and no sane man before the Christian era
would ever have confounded the man and the symbol.
The symbol of Chnouphis, or the soul of the world, writes Champollion, "is among others that of an enormous serpent
standing on human legs; this reptile, the emblem of the good genius, is a veritable Agathodaemon. It is often represented
bearded. . . . . That sacred animal, identical with the serpent of the Ophites, is found engraved on numerous Gnostic or
Basilidean stones . . . . The serpent has various heads, but is constantly inscribed with the letters [[CHNOUBIS]]."**
Agathodaemon was endowed "with the knowledge of good and evil," i.e., with divine Wisdom, as without the former the
latter is impossible.*** Repeating Iamblichus, Champollion shows him to be "the deity called [[Eichton]] (or the fire of the
celestial gods -- the great **** Thot-
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* This is about as just as though -- a few millenniums hence -- a fanatic of some future new creed, who was bent on
glorifying his religion at the expense of ancient Christianity, were to say: "Everywhere the quadruped lamb was adored.
The nun placed it, calling it the Agnus, on her bosom; the priest laid it on the altar. It figured in every paschal meal, and
was glorified loudly in every temple. And yet the Christians dreaded it and hated it, for they slew and devoured it. . . ."
Heathens, at any rate, do not eat their sacred symbols. We know of no serpent, or reptile-eaters except in Christian
civilized countries, where they begin with frogs and eels, and must end with real snakes, as they have begun with lamb
and ended with horse-flesh.
** "Pantheon," 3.
*** The solar Chnouphis, or Agathodaemon, is the Christos of the Gnostics, as every scholar knows. He is intimately
connected with the seven sons of Sophia (Wisdom), the seven sons of Aditi (universal Wisdom), her eighth being
Martanda, the Sun, which seven are the seven planetary regents or genii. Therefore Chnouphis was the spiritual Sun of
Enlightenment, of Wisdom, hence the patron of all the Egyptian Initiates, as Bel-Merodach (or Bel-Belitanus) became
later with the Chaldeans.
**** Hermes, or rather Thot, was a generic name. Abul Teda shows in "Historia Anti-Islamitica" five Hermes, and the
names of Hermes, Nebo, Thot were given respectively in various countries to great Initiates. Thus Nebo, the son of
Merodach and Zarpanitu (whom Herodotus calls Zeus-Belos), gave his name to all the great prophets, seers and Initiates.
They were all "serpents of Wisdom," as connected with the Sun astronomically, and with Wisdom spiritually.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 211 TWO SCHOOLS OF MAGIC.
Hermes), to whom Hermes Trismegistus attributes the invention of magic."*
The "invention of magic!" A strange term to use, as though the unveiling of the eternal and actual mysteries of nature
could be invented! As well attribute, millenniums hence, the invention instead of the discovery of radiant matter to Prof.
Crookes. Hermes was not the inventor, or even the discoverer, for, as said in the foot-note, Thot-Hermes is a generic
name, as is Enoch (Enoichion, the "inner, spiritual eye"), Nebo, the prophet and seer, etc. It is not the proper name of any
one living man, but a generic title of many adepts. Their connection in symbolic allegories with the serpent is due to their
enlightenment by the solar and planetary gods during the earliest intellectual Race, the Third. They are all the
representative patrons of the Secret Wisdom. Asclepios is the son of the Sun-god Apollo -- and he is Mercury; Nebo is
the son of Bel-Merodach; Vaivasvata Manu, the great Rishi, is the son of Vivisvat -- the Sun or Surya, etc., etc. And while,
astronomically, the Nagas along with the Rishis, the Gandharvas, Apsarasas, Gramanis (or Yakshas, minor gods)
Yatudhanas and Devas, are the Sun's attendants throughout the twelve solar months; in theogony, and also in
anthropological evolution, they are gods and men -- when incarnated in the nether world. Let the reader be reminded, in
this connection, of the fact that Apollonius met in Kashmir Buddhist Nagas -- which are neither serpents zoologically, nor
yet the Nagas ethnologically, but "wise men."
The Bible, from Genesis to Revelations, is but a series of historical records of the great struggle between white and black
Magic, between the Adepts of the right path, the Prophets, and those of the left, the Levites, the clergy of the brutal
masses. Even the students of Occultism, though some of them have more archaic MSS. and direct teaching to rely upon,
find it difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the Sodales of the Right Path and those of the Left. The great
schism that arose between the sons of the Fourth Race, as soon as the first Temples and Halls of Initiation had been
erected under the guidance of "the Sons of God," is allegorized in the Sons of Jacob. That there were two schools of
Magic, and that the orthodox Levites did not belong to the holy one, is shown in the words pronounced by the dying
Jacob. And here it may be well to quote a few sentences from "Isis Unveiled."
The dying Jacob thus describes his sons: "Dan," he says, "shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth
the horse-heels, so that his rider shall fall backwards (i.e., he will teach candidates black magic) . . . . I have waited for thy
salvation, O Lord!" Of Simeon and Levi the patriarch remarks that they" . . . are brethren; instru-
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* "Pantheon," text 15.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 212 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
ments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly."* Now in the
original, the words "their secret" really are "their SOD."** And Sod was the name for the great mysteries of Baal, Adonis
and Bacchus, who were all sun-gods and had serpents for symbols. The Kabalists explain the allegory of the fiery