The Secret Doctrine Volume 3.pdf

How comes it that so little has become known of the Mysteries and of their
particular contents, through so many ages, and amongst so many different
times and people The answer is that it is again owing to the universally strict
silence of the initiated. Another cause may be found in the destruction and
total loss of all the written memorials of the secret knowledge of the remotest
antiquity.
Numa's books, described by Livy, consisting of natural philosophy, were found
in his tomb; but they were not allowed to be made known, lest they should
reveal the most secret mysteries of the state religion. . . .The senate and the
tribunes of the people determined . . . that the books themselves should be
burned, which was done. [History of Magic, ii, II.]
Cassain mentions a treatise, well-known in the fourth and fifth centuries, which was
accredited to Ham, the son of Noah, who in his turn was reputed to have received it from
Jared, the fourth generation from Seth, the son of Adam.
Alchemy also was first taught in Egypt by her learned Priests, though the first appearance of
this system is as old as man. Many writers have declared that Adam was the first Adept; but
that was a blind and a pun upon the name, which is “red earth” in one of its meanings. The
correct information—under its allegorical veil—is found in the sixth chapter of Genesis, which
speaks of the “Sons of God” who took wives of the daughters of men, after which they
communicated to (Page 302) these wives many a mystery and secret of the phenomenal
world. The cradle of Alchemy, says Olaus Borrichius, is to be sought in the most distant
times. Democritus of Abdera was an Alchemist, and a Hermetic Philosopher. Clement of
Alexandria wrote considerably upon the Science, and Moses and Solomon are called
proficients in it. We are told by W. Godwin;
The first authentic record on this subject is an edict of Diocletian about 300
years A.D. ordering a diligent search to be made in Egypt for all the ancient
books which treated of the art of making gold and silver, that they might,
without distinction, be consigned to the flames.
The Alchemy of the Chaldæans and the old Chinamen is not even the parent of that Alchemy
which revived among the Arabians many centuries later. There is a spiritual Alchemy and a
physical transmutation. The knowledge of both was imparted at the Initiations.
SECTION XXXIV
The Post-Christian Successors to the Mysteries
(Page 303) THE Eleusinian Mysteries were no more. Yet it was these which gave their
principle features to the Neo-platonic school of Ammonius Saccas, for the Eclectic System
was chiefly characterised by its Theurgy and ecstasis. It was Iamblichus who added to it the
Egyptian doctrine of Theurgy with its practices, and Porphyry, the Jew, who opposed this
new element. The school, however, with but few exceptions, practised asceticism and
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