Band 2 Anthropogenesis - H.P. Blavatsky

North, East, and West, their cords are on him. Har-ru-bah has knotted him.'* These were the cords of the four Quarters,
or the cross. Thor is said to smite the head of the Serpent with his hammer . . . a form of Swastica or four-footed Cross. . .
. In the primitive sepulchres of Egypt the model of the Chamber had the form of a Cross.** The pagoda of Mathura . . . the
birth-place of Krishna, was built in the form of a Cross . . . . ***
This is perfect and no one can discern in this "sexual worship," with which the Orientalists love to break the head of
Paganism. But how about the Jews, and the exoteric religions of some Hindu sects, especially the rites of the
Vallabacharyas? For, as said, the Lingham and Yoni of Siva-worship stand too high philosophically, its modern
degeneration notwithstanding, to be called a simple phallic worship. But the tree or Cross-worship**** of the Jews, as
denounced by their own Prophets, can hardly escape the charge. The "Sons of Sorcerers," "the seed of the adulterer," as
Isaiah calls them (lvii.), never lost an opportunity of "enflaming themselves with idols under every green tree," which
denotes no metaphysical recreation. It is from these monotheistic Jews that the Christian nations have derived their
religion, their "God of gods, the One living God," while despising and deriding the worship of the Deity of the ancient
philosophers. Let such believe in and worship the physical form of the Cross, by all means.
But to the follower of the true Eastern archaic Wisdom, to him who worships in spirit nought outside the Absolute Unity,
that ever-pulsating great Heart that beats throughout, as in every atom of nature, each such atom contains the germ from
which he may raise the Tree of Knowledge, whose fruits give life eternal and not physical life alone. For him the Cross
and Circle, the Tree or the Tau, are, after every symbol relating to these has been applied to, and read one after another,
still a profound mystery in their Past, and it is to that Past alone that he directs his eager gaze. He cares little whether it
be the seed from
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Apophis or Apap is the Serpent of evil, symbol of human passions. The Sun (Osiris-Horus), destroys him, when Apap is
thrown down, bound and chained. The god Aker, "the chief of the gate of the Abyss," of Aker, the realm of the Sun (xv.
39) binds him. Apophis is the enemy of Ra (light), but the "great Apap has fallen!" exclaims the defunct. "The Scorpion
has hurt thy mouth," he says to the conquered enemy (xxxix. v. 7). The Scorpion is the "worm that never dies" of the
Christians. Apophis is bound on the Tau or Tat, "the emblem of stability." (See the erection of Tat in Tatoo, Ritual xviii.).
** So have the crypts in cis-Himalayan regions where Initiates live, and where their ashes are placed for seven lunar
years.
*** The Natural Genesis, Vol. I. p. 432.
**** The Cross and the Tree are identical and synonymous in symbolism.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 589 MAN, THE REVILER OF GOD.
which grows the genealogical Tree of Being, called the Universe. Nor is it the Three in One, the triple aspect of the seed -
- its form, colour, and substance -- that interest him, but rather the FORCE which directs its growth, the ever mysterious,
as the ever unknown. For this vital Force, that makes the seed germinate, burst open and throw out shoots, then form the
trunk and branches, which, in their turn, bend down like the boughs of the Aswattha, the holy Tree of Bodhi, throw their
seed out, take root and procreate other trees -- this is the only FORCE that has reality for him, as it is the never-dying
breath of life. The pagan philosopher sought for the Cause, the modern is content with only the effects and seeks the
former in the latter. What is beyond, he does not know, nor does the modern A-gnostic care: thus rejecting the only
knowledge upon which he can with full security base his Science. Yet this manifested Force has an answer for him who
seeks to fathom it. He who sees in the cross, the decussated circle of Plato, the Pagan, not the antitype of circumcision,
as Christian (St.) Augustine did,* is forthwith regarded by the Church as a heathen: by Science, as a lunatic. This
because, while refusing to worship the god of physical generation, he confesses that he can know nothing of the Cause
which underlies the so-called First Cause, the causeless Cause of this Vital Cause. Tacitly admitting the All-Presence of
the boundless Circle and making of it the universal Postulate upon which the whole of the manifested universe is based,
the Sage keeps a reverential silence concerning that upon which no mortal men should dare to speculate. "The Logos of
God is the revealer of man, and the logos (the verb) of man is the revealer of God," says Eliphas Levi in one of his
paradoxes. To this, the Eastern Occultist would reply:-- "On this condition, however, that man should be dumb on the
CAUSE that produced both God and its logos. Otherwise, he becomes invariably the reviler, not the 'revealers' of the
incognizable Deity."
We have now to approach a mystery -- the Hebdomad in nature. Perchance, all that we may say, will be attributed to
coincidence. We may be told that this number in nature is quite natural (so we say too), and has no more significance
than the illusion of motion which forms the so-called "Strobic circles." No great importance was given to these "singular
illusions" when Professor Sylvanus Thompson exhibited them at the meeting of the British Association in 1877.
Nevertheless we should like to learn the scientific explanation why seven should ever form itself as a pre-eminent number
-- six concentric circles around a seventh, and seven rings within one another round a central point, etc., etc. -- in this
illusion, produced by a swaying saucer, or any other vessel. We give the solution refused by science in the section which
follows.
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Sermon the 160th.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 590 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
§ XXV.
THE MYSTERIES OF THE HEBDOMAD.