Band 2 Anthropogenesis - H.P. Blavatsky

** "The body in the Soul," as Arjuna Misra is credited with saying, or rather the "Soul in the Spirit," and on a still higher
plane of development: "the SELF or Atman in the Universal Self."
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 640 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Such indeed, is this holy forest . . . . and understanding it, they (the Sages) act accordingly, being directed by the
KSHETRAGNA. . . . "
No translator among the Western Orientalists has yet perceived in the foregoing allegory anything higher than mysteries
connected with sacrificial ritualism, penance, or ascetic ceremonies, and Hatha Yoga. But he who understands symbolical
imagery, and hears the voice of SELF WITHIN SELF, will see in this something far higher than mere ritualism, however
often he may err in minor details of the philosophy.
And here, we must be allowed a last remark. No true theosophist, from the most ignorant up to the most learned, ought to
claim infallibility for anything he may say or write upon occult matters. The chief point is to admit that, in many a way, in
the classification of either cosmic or human principles, in addition to mistakes in the order of evolution, and especially on
metaphysical questions, those of us who pretend to teach others more ignorant than ourselves -- are all liable to err. Thus
mistakes have been made in "Isis Unveiled," in "Esoteric Buddhism," in "Man," in "Magic: White and Black," etc., etc.; and
more than one mistake is likely to be found in the present work. This cannot be helped. For a large or even a small work
on such abstruse subjects to be entirely exempt from error and blunder, it would have to be written from its first to its last
page by a great adept, if not by an Avatar. Then only should we say, "This is verily a work without sin or blemish in it!"
But, so long as the artist is imperfect, how can his work be perfect? "Endless is the search for truth!" Let us love it and
aspire to it for its own sake, and not for the glory or benefit a minute portion of its revelation may confer on us. For who of
us can presume to have the whole truth at his fingers' ends, even upon one minor teaching of Occultism?
Our chief point in the present subject, however, was to show that the Septenary doctrine, or division of the constitution of
man, was a very ancient one, and was not invented by us. This has been successfully done, for we are supported in this,
consciously and unconsciously, by a number of ancient, mediaeval, and modern writers. What the former said, was well
said; what the latter repeated, was generally distorted. An instance: Read the "Pythagorean Fragments," and compare
the Septenary man as given by the Rev. G. Oliver, the learned mason, in his "Pythagorean Triangle" (ch. on "Science of
Numbers," p. 179).
He speaks as follows:--
"The Theosophic Philosophy counted SEVEN properties (or principles), in Man, viz.:--
(1.) The divine golden Man;
(2.) The inward holy body from fire and light, like pure silver;
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 641 HYPNOTISM IS -- SATANISM.
(3.) The elemental man;
(4.) The mercurial paradisiacal man;
(5.) The martial Soul-like man;
(6.) The passionate man of desires;
(7.) The Solar man; a witness to and inspector of the wonders of the Universe. They had also seven fountain Spirits, or
Powers of Nature."
Compare this jumbled account and distribution of Western theosophic philosophy with the latest theosophic explanations
by the Eastern School of Theosophy, and then decide which is the more correct. Verily:--
"Wisdom hath builded her house,
She hath hewn out her seven pillars." -- (Prov. ix, 1.)
As to the charge that our School has not adopted the Seven-fold classification of the Brahmins, but has confused it, it is
quite unjust. To begin with, the "School" is one thing, its exponents (to Europeans) quite another. The latter have first to
learn the A B C of practical Eastern Occultism, before they can be made to understand correctly the tremendously
abstruse classification based on the seven distinct states of Pragna (consciousness); and, above all, to realize thoroughly
what Pragna is, in the Eastern metaphysics. To give a Western student that classification is to try to make him suppose
that he can account for the origin of consciousness, by accounting for the process by which a certain knowledge, through
only one of the states of that consciousness, came to him; in other words, it is to make him account for something he
knows on this plane, by something he knows nothing about on the other planes; i.e., to lead him from the spiritual and the
psychological, direct to the ontological. This is why the primary, old, classification was adopted by the Theosophists, of
which classifications there are many.
To busy oneself, after such a tremendous number of independent witnesses and proofs have been brought before the
public, with an additional enumeration from theological sources, would be quite useless. The seven capital sins and
seven virtues of the Christian scheme are far less philosophical than even the Seven Liberal and the Seven Accursed
Sciences -- or the Seven Arts of enchantment of the Gnostics. For one of the latter is now before the public, pregnant with
danger in the present as for the future. The modern name for it is HYPNOTISM. In the ignorance of the seven principles,
and used by scientific and ignorant materialists, it will soon become SATANISM in the full acceptation of the term.