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THE WHIRLING OF THE SOUI.. 621
learned Jewish Initiates never meant Palestine alone by the Promised
Land, but they meant the same Nirvana as do the learned Buddhist
and Brahman—the bosom of the Eternal One, symbolized by that of
Abraham, and by Palestine as its substitute on Earth.
Surely no educated Jew ever believed this allegory in its literal sense,
that the bodies of Jews contain within them a principle of Soul which
cannot rest, if the bodies are deposited in a foreign land, until, by a
process called the "whirling of the Soul" the immortal particle reaches
once more the sacred soil of the "Promised Eand."* The meaning of
this is evident to an Occultist. The process was supposed to be accomplished
by a kind of metempsychosis, the psychic spark being conveyed
through bird, beast, fish, and the most minute insect.f The allegory
relates to the Aioms of the body, each of which has to pass through
every form, before all
reach the final state, which is the first startingpoint
of the departure of every Atom—its primitive Laya state. But
the primitive meaning of Gilgoolem, or the "Revolution of Souls," was
the idea of the reincarnating Souls or Egos. " All the Souls go into
the Gilgoolah," into a cyclic or revolving process; i.e., they all proceed
on the cyclic path of re-births. Some Kabalists interpret this doctrine
to mean only a kind of purgatory for the souls of the wicked. But
this is not so.
The passage of the Soul-Atom "through the seven Planetary
Chambers" had the same metaphysical and physical meaning. It had
the latter when it was said to dissolve into Ether. Even Epicurus, the
model Atheist and Materialist, knew so much and believed so much in
the ancient
Wisdom, that he taught that the Soul—entirely distinct
from immortal Spirit, when the former is enshrined latent in it, as it is
in every atomic speck—was composed of a fine, tender essence, formed
from the smoothest, roundest, and finest atoms.\
And this shows that the ancient Initiates, who were followed more
or less closely by all profane Antiquity, meant by the term Atom, a
Soul, a Genius or Angel, the first-born of the ever-concealed Cause of
all causes; and in this sense their teachings become comprehensible.
They asserted, as do their successors, the existence of Gods and Genii,
Angels or Demons, not outside, nor independent of, the Universal
Plenum, but within it. Only this Plenum, during the life-cycles, is
infinite. They admitted and taught a good deal of that which modern
Science now teaches—namely, the existence of a primordial World
' Cse/n'j Unveiled, II. 152. + See Mackenzie, ibid., sub voc. X fsis Unveiled, I. 317