Band 2 Anthropogenesis - H.P. Blavatsky

evolution of life on Earth, there may be another allegorical meaning attached to this Sloka, or indeed, as is taught,
several. The FLAMES, or "Fires," represent Spirit, or the male element, and "Water," matter, or the opposite element. And
here again we find, in the action of the Spirit slaying the purely material form, a reference to the eternal struggle, on the
physical and psychic planes, between Spirit and Matter, besides a scientific cosmic fact. For, as said in the next verse:--
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9. MOTHER-WATER, THE GREAT SEA WEPT. SHE AROSE, SHE DISAPPEARED IN THE MOON, WHICH HAD
LIFTED HER, WHICH HAD GIVEN HER BIRTH (a).
(a) Now what can this mean? Is it not an evident reference to tidal action in the early stage of the history of our planet in
its fourth Round? Modern research has been busy of late in its speculations on the Palaeozoic high-tides. Mr. Darwin's
theory was that not less than 52,000,000 years ago -- and probably much more -- the Moon originated from the Earth's
plastic mass. Starting from the point where research was left by Helmholtz, Ferrel, Sir William Thomson and others, he
retraced the course of tidal retardation of the earth's rotary motions far back into the very night of time, and placed the
Moon during the infancy of our planet at only "a fraction of its present distance." In short, his theory was that it is the
Moon which separated from the Earth. The tidal elevation concurring with the swing of the globular mass -- centrifugal
tendency being then nearly equal to gravity -- the latter was overcome, and the tidally elevated mass could thus separate
completely from the Earth.*
The Occult teaching is the reverse of this. The Moon is far older than the Earth; and, as explained in Book I., it is the latter
which owes its being to the former, however astronomy and geology may explain the fact. Hence, the tides and the
attraction to the Moon, as shown by the liquid portion of the Globe ever striving to raise itself towards its parent. This is
the meaning of the sentence that "the Mother-Water arose and disappeared in the Moon, which had lifted her, which had
given her birth."
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[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* But see the difficulties suggested later, in the works of various geologists, against this theory. Compare Sir R. S. Bull's
article in "Nature" (Dec. 1, 1881), and also what the American geologists say.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 65 DIVINE WILL BECOMES EROS.
10. WHEN THEY (the Rupas) WERE DESTROYED, MOTHER-EARTH REMAINED BARE,* SHE ASKED TO BE DRIED
(a).**
(a) The time for its incrustation had arrived. The waters had separated and the process was started. It was the beginning
of a new life. This is what one key divulges to us. Another key teaches the origin of Water, its admixture with Fire (liquid
fire it calls it),*** and enters upon an alchemical description of the progeny of the two -- solid matter such as minerals and
earths. From the "Waters of Space," the progeny of the male Spirit-Fire and the female (gaseous) Water has become the
Oceanic expanse on Earth. Varuna is dragged down from the infinite Space, to reign as Neptune over the finite Seas. As
always, the popular fancy is found to be based on a strictly scientific foundation.
Water is the symbol of the female element everywhere; mater, from which the letter M, is derived pictorially from
[[diagram]] a water hieroglyph. It is the universal matrix or the "Great Deep." Venus, the great Mother-Virgin, issues forth
from the Sea-wave, and Cupid or Eros is her son. But Venus is the later mythological variant of Gaia (or Gaea), the Earth,
which, in its higher aspect is Nature (Prakriti), and metaphysically Aditi, and even Mulaprakriti, the root of Prakriti or its
noumenon.
Hence Cupid or Love in his primitive sense is Eros, the Divine Will, or Desire of manifesting itself through visible creation.
Thence Fohat, the prototype of Eros, becomes on Earth the great power "Life-electricity," or the Spirit of "Life-giving." Let
us remember the Greek Theogony and enter into the spirit of its philosophy. We are taught by the Greeks (See "Iliad" IV.,
201, 246) that all things, gods included, owe their being to the Ocean and his wife Tethys, the latter being Gaea, the
Earth or Nature. But who is Ocean? Ocean is the immeasurable SPACE (Spirit in Chaos), which is the Deity (see Book
I.); and Tethys is not the Earth, but primordial matter in the process of formation. In our case it is no longer Aditi-Gaea
who begets Ouranos or Varuna, the chief Aditya among the seven planetary gods, but Prakriti, materialised and localised.
The Moon, masculine in its theogonic character, is,
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* The goddess who gave birth to these primordial monsters, in the account of Berosus, was Thallath, in Greek Thalassa,
"the Sea."
** See, for comparison, the account of creation by Berosus (Alexander Polyhistor) and the hideous beings born from the
two-fold principle (Earth and Water) in the Abyss of primordial creation: Neras (Centaurs, men with the limbs of horses
and human bodies), and Kimnaras (men with the heads of horses) created by Brahma in the commencement of the
Kalpa.
*** See Commentary following Sloka 18.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 66 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.