Band 2 Anthropogenesis - H.P. Blavatsky

[[Vol. 2, Page]] 144 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
identifies "Titea," Noah's consort, with Rhea, the mother of the Titans, and with Ida -- both being goddesses who preside
over the Earth, and the mothers of the Manus and Manes (or Tit-an-Kabiri). And "Titea-Aretia" was worshipped as
Horchia, says the same Berosus, and this is a title of Vesta, goddess of the Earth. "Sicanus deificavit Aretiam, et
nominavit eam lingua Janigena Horchiam." (Ibid. lib. V. fol. 64.)
Scarce an ancient poet of historic or prehistoric days who failed to mention the sinking of the two continents -- often
called isles -- in one form or another. Hence the destruction, besides Atlantis, of the Phlegyae. (See Pausanias and
Nonus, who both tell how:
"From its deep-rooted base the Phlegyan isle
Stern Neptune shook, and plunged beneath the waves
Its impious inhabitants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."
-- Dionysius lib xviii. p. 319).
Faber felt convinced that the "insulae Phlegyae" were Atlantis. But all such allegories are more or less distorted echoes of
the Hindu tradition about that great Cataclysm, which befell the Fourth, really human, though gigantic, Race, the one
which preceded the Aryan. Yet, as just said, like all other legends, that of "the Deluge has more than one meaning. It
refers in Theogony, to pre-cosmic transformations, to spiritual correlations -- however absurd the term may sound to a
scientific ear -- and also to subsequent Cosmogony; to the great FLOOD of WATERS (matter) in CHAOS, awakened and
fructified by those Spirit-Rays which were swamped by, and perished in, the mysterious differentiation -- a pre-cosmic
mystery, the Prologue to the drama of Being. Anu, Bel, and Noah preceded Adam Kadmon, Adam the Red, and Noah;
just as Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva preceded Vaivasvata and the rest." (See "Isis Unveiled.," Vol. II., pp. 420 et seq., where
one or two of the seven meanings are hinted at.)
All this goes to show that the semi-universal deluge known to geology (first glacial period) must have occurred just at the
time allotted to it by the Secret Doctrine: namely, 200,000 years (in round numbers) after the commencement of our
FIFTH RACE, or about the time assigned by Messrs. Croll and Stockwell for the first glacial period: i.e., about 850,000
years ago. Thus, as the latter disturbance is attributed by geologists and astronomers to "an extreme eccentricity of the
Earth's
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[[Footnote continued from previous page]] Egyptiis vocatur Ertosi (plantare, generare). Significat autem hoc omnis
generis procreationem et vivificationem, omnisque substantiae et materiae naturam et vim ordinantem atque
procreantem." It is Earth as "source of being"; or, as explained by the author of "The Source of Measures," Arts is the
same in Hebrew and Egyptian, and both combine the primeval idea of Earth as source; precisely as in the Hebrew itself,
under another form, Adam and Madim, (Mars) are the same, and combine the idea of Earth with Adam under the form of
H-Adam-H.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 145 THE JEWISH NOAH AND THE CHALDEAN NUAH.
orbit," and as the Secret Doctrine attributes it to the same source, but with the addition of another factor, the shifting of
the Earth's axis -- a proof of which may be found in the Book of Enoch,* if the veiled language of the Puranas is not
understood -- all this should tend to show that the ancients knew something of the "modern discoveries" of Science.
Enoch, when speaking of "the great inclination of the Earth," which "is in travail," is quite significant and clear.
Is not this evident? Nuah is Noah, floating on the waters in his ark; the latter being the emblem of the Argha, or Moon, the
feminine principle; Noah is the "spirit" falling into matter. We find him, as soon as he descends upon the Earth, planting a
vineyard, drinking of the wine, and getting drunk on it, i.e., the pure spirit becomes intoxicated as soon as it is finally
imprisoned in matter. The seventh chapter of Genesis is only another version of the First. Thus, while the latter reads:
"and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," in ch. 7 it is said
" . . . and the waters prevailed . . . and the ark went (with Noah, the spirit) upon the face of the waters." Thus Noah, if
identical with the Chaldean Nuah, is the spirit vivifying matter, which latter is Chaos, represented by the DEEP, or the
Waters of the Flood. In the Babylonian legend (the pre-cosmical blended with the terrestrial event) it is Ishtar (Astaroth or
Venus, the lunar goddess) who is shut up in the ark and sends out "a dove in search of dry land." ("Isis Unveiled" Vol. II,
pp. 423 and 424).
George Smith notes in the "Tablets," first the creation of the moon, and then that of the sun: "Its beauty and perfection are
extolled, and the regularity of its orbit, which led to its being considered the type of a judge and the regulator of the world."
If this story related simply to a cosmogonical cataclysm -- even were this latter universal -- why should the goddess Ishtar
or Astoreth, the Moon, speak of the creation of the sun after the deluge? The waters might have reached as high as the
mountain of Nizir (Chaldean version), or Jebel Djudi (the deluge mountains of the Arabian legend), or yet Ararat (of the
Biblical narrative), and even the Himalaya (of the Hindu tradition), and yet not reach the sun: the Bible itself stopped short
of such a miracle! It is evident that the deluge of the people who first recorded it had another meaning, less problematical
and far more philosophical than that of an universal deluge, of which there are no geological traces whatever.
As all such Cataclysms are periodical and cyclical, and as Manu Vaivasvata figures as a generic character, under various
circumstances and events (vide infra: "The Seven Manus of Humanity"), there seems to be no
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* Chap. lxiv., Sect. xi.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 146 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.