Theos-Talk Archives (March 2005 Message tt00554)

Mar 24 2005

Dear Friends: And S:

S wrote: “Well, Blavatsky did write an article about the White and the Dark
that are in perpetual struggle throughout the manvantaric manifestation. I
don't 
recall the name of the article right now, perhaps Daniel or another
archivist might 
locate it.”

--------------------------

Perhaps it is this lone written under the title OCCULTISM OR MAGIC
by H P B



 
Among the numerous sciences pursued by the well-disciplined army of earnest
students of the present century, none has had less honours or more scoffing
than the oldest of them—the science of sciences, the venerable mother-parent
of all our modern pigmies. Anxious in their petty vanity to throw the veil
of oblivion over their undoubted origin, the self-styled positive
scientists, ever on the alert, present to the courageous scholar who tries
to deviate from the beaten highway traced out for him by his dogmatic
predecessors, a formidable range of serious obstacles.

As a rule, Occultism is a dangerous, double-edged weapon for one to handle
who is unprepared to devote his whole life to it. The theory of it, unaided
by serious practice, will ever remain in the eyes of those prejudiced
against such an unpopular cause an idle, crazy speculation, fit only to
charm the ears of ignorant old women. 

When we cast a look behind us and see how for the last thirty years modern
Spiritualism has been dealt with, notwithstanding the occurrence of daily,
hourly proofs which speak to all our senses, stare us in the eyes, and utter
their voices from "beyond the great gulf," how can we hope, I say, that
Occultism or Magic—which stands in relation to Spiritualism as the infinite
to the finite, as the cause to the effect, or as unity to
multifariousness—will easily gain ground where Spiritualism is scoffed at? 

One who rejects à priori or even doubts the immortality of man’s soul can
never believe in its Creator; and, blind to what is heterogeneous in his
eyes, will remain still more blind to the proceeding of the latter from
homogeneity. In relation to the Kabalah, or the compound mystic text-book of
the great secrets of Nature, we do not know of anyone in the present century
who could have commanded a sufficient dose of that moral courage which fires
the heart of the true Adept with the sacred flame of propagandism, to force
him into defying public opinion by displaying familiarity with that sublime
work. 

Ridicule is the deadliest weapon of the age, and while we read in the
records of history of thousands of martyrs who joyfully braved flames and
faggots in support of their mystic doctrines in the past centuries, we would
scarcely be likely to find one individual in the present times who would be
brave enough even to defy ridicule by seriously undertaking to prove the
great truths embraced in the traditions of the Past....

In the first place, "Hiraf" doubts whether there are in existence, in
England or elsewhere, what we term regular colleges for the neophytes of
this Secret Science. I will say from personal knowledge that such places
there are in the East—in India, Asia Minor, and other countries. As in the
primitive days of Socrates and other sages of antiquity, so now, those who
are willing to learn the Great Truth will ever find the chance if they only
"try" to meet some one to lead them to the door of one "who knows when and
how." 

If "Hiraf" is right about the seventh rule of the Brotherhood of the Rosy
Cross, which says that "the Rose-crux becomes and is not made," he may err
as to the exceptions which have ever existed among other Brotherhoods
devoted to the pursuit of the same secret knowledge. Then again, when he
asserts, as he does, that Rosicrucianism is almost forgotten, we may answer
him that we do not wonder at it, and add, by way of parenthesis, that,
strictly speaking, the Rosicrucians do not now even exist, the last of that
fraternity having departed in the person of Cagliostro....

By forgetting to specify that particular denomination and by including under
the name of Rosicrucians all those who, devoting their lives to Occultism
congregated together in Brotherhoods, "Hiraf" commits an error by which he
may unwittingly lead people to believe that the Rosicrucians having
disappeared, there are no more Kabalists practising Occultism on the face of
the earth. He also becomes thereby guilty of an anachronism, attributing to
the Rosicrucians the building of the pyramids and other majestic monuments,
which indelibly exhibit in their architecture the symbols of the grand
religions of the past. For it is not so. If the main object in view was, and
still is, alike, with all the great family of the ancient and modern
Kabalists, the dogmas and formulae of certain sects differ greatly.
Springing one after the other from the great Oriental mother-root, they
scattered broadcast all over the world, and each of them desiring to
out-rival the other by plunging deeper and deeper into the secrets jealously
guarded by Nature, some of them became guilty of the greatest heresies
against the primitive Oriental Kabalah.

While the first followers of the secret sciences, taught to the Chaldeans by
nations whose very name was never breathed in history, remained stationary
in their studies, having arrived at the maximum, the Omega of the knowledge
permitted to man, many of the subsequent sects separated from them, and, in
their uncontrollable thirst for more knowledge, trespassed beyond the
boundaries of truth and fell into fictions. In consequence of Pythagoras—so
says Jamblichus—having by sheer force of energy and daring penetrated into
the mysteries of the Temple of Thebes, obtained therein his initiation and
afterwards studied the sacred sciences in Egypt for twenty-two years, many
foreigners were subsequently admitted to share the knowledge of the wise men
of the East, who, as a consequence, had many of their secrets divulged.
Later still, unable to preserve them in their purity, these mysteries were
so mixed up with fictions and fables of the Grecian mythology that truth was
wholly distorted.

As the primitive Christian religion divided, in course of time, into
numerous sects, so the science of Occultism gave birth to a variety of
doctrines and various brotherhoods. So the Egyptian Ophites became the
Christian Gnostics, shooting forth the Basilideans of the second century,
and the original Rosicrucians created subsequently the Paracelsists, or Fire
Philosophers, the European Alchemists, and other physical branches of their
sect. (See Hargrave Jennings’ Rosicrucians.) To call indifferently every
Kabalist a Rosicrucian, is to commit the same error as if we were to call
every Christian a Baptist on the ground that the latter are also Christians.

The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross was not founded until the middle of the
thirteenth century. and notwithstanding the assertions of the learned
Mosheim, it derives its name neither from the Latin word Ros (dew), nor from
a cross, the symbol of Lux. 

The origin of the Brotherhood can be ascertained by any earnest, genuine
student of Occultism, who happens to travel in Asia Minor, if he chooses to
fall in with some of the Brotherhood, and if he is willing to devote himself
to the head-tiring work of deciphering a Rosicrucian manuscript—the hardest
thing in the world—for it is carefully preserved in the archives of the very
Lodge which was founded by the first Kabalist of that name, but which now
goes by another name. 

The founder of it, a German Ritter, of the name of Rosencranz, was a man
who, after acquiring a very suspicious reputation through the practice of
the Black Art in his native place, reformed in consequence of a vision.
Giving up his evil practices, he made a solemn vow, and went on foot to
Palestine, in order to make his amende honorable at the Holy Sepulchre. Once
there, the Christian God, the meek, but well-informed Nazarene—trained ashe
was in the high school of the Essenians, those virtuous descendants of the
botanical as well as astrological and magical Chaldeans—appeared to
Rosencranz, a Christian would say, in a vision, but I would suggest, in the
shape of a materialized spirit. 

The purport of this visitation, as well as the subject of their
conversation, remained for ever a mystery to many of the Brethren; but
immediately after that, the ex-sorcerer and Ritter disappeared, and was
heard of no more till the mysterious sect of Rosicrucians was added to the
family of Kabalists, and their powers aroused popular attention, even among
the Eastern populations, indolent and accustomed as they are to live among
wonders. The Rosicrucians strove to combine together the most various
branches of Occultism, and they soon became renowned for the extreme purity
of their lives and their extraordinary powers, as well as for their thorough
knowledge of the secret of secrets.

As alchemists and conjurers they became proverbial. Later...they gave birth
to the more modern Theosophists, at whose head was Paracelsus, and to the
Alchemists, one of the most celebrated of whom was Thomas Vaughan
(seventeenth century), who wrote the most practical things on Occultism
under the name of Eugenius Philalethes. I know and can prove that Vaughan
was, most positively, "made before he became."

The Rosicrucian Kabalah is but an epitome of the Jewish and the Oriental
ones, combined, the latter being the most secret of all. The Oriental
Kabalah, the practical, full, and only existing copy, is carefully preserved
at the headquarters of this Brotherhood in the East, and, I may safely
vouch, will never come out of its possession. Its very existence has been
doubted by many of the European Rosicrucians. One who wants "to become" has
to hunt for his knowledge through thousands of scattered volumes, and pick
up facts and lessons, bit by bit. Unless he takes the nearest way and
consents "to be made," he will never become a practical Kabalist, and with
all his learning will remain at the threshold of the "mysterious gate." 

The Kabalah may be used and its truths imparted on a smaller scale now than
it was in antiquity, and the existence of the mysterious Lodge, on account
of its secrecy, doubted, but it does exist and has lost none of the
primitive secret powers of the ancient Chaldeans. The lodges, few in number,
are divided into sections and known but to the Adepts; no one would be
likely to find them out, unless the Sages themselves found the neophyte
worthy of initiation. Unlike the European Rosicrucians—who, in order "to
become and not to be made," have constantly put into practice the word of
St. John, who says, "Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by
force," and who have struggled alone, violently robbing Nature of her
secrets—the Oriental Rosicrucians (for such we will call them, being denied
the right to pronounce their true name), in the serene beatitude of their
divine knowledge, are ever ready to help the earnest student struggling "to
become" with practical knowledge, which dissipates, like a heavenly breeze,
the blackest clouds of sceptical doubt.

"Hiraf" is right again when he says that: "Knowing that their mysteries, if
divulged, in the present chaotic state of society, would produce mere
confusion and death, they shut up that knowledge within themselves." 

Heirs to the early heavenly wisdom of their first forefathers, they keep the
keys which unlock the most guarded of Nature’s secrets, and impart them only
gradually and with the greatest caution. But still they do impart sometimes.

Once in such a cercle vicieux, "Hiraf" sins likewise in a certain comparison
he makes between Christ, Buddha, and Khoung-foo-tse, or Confucius. A
comparison can hardly be made between the two former wise and spiritual
Illuminati, and the Chinese philosopher. The higher aspirations and views of
the two Christs can have nothing to do with the cold, practical philosophy
of the latter, brilliant anomaly as he was among a naturally dull and
materialistic people, peaceful and devoted to agriculture from the earliest
ages of their history. 

Confucius can never bear the slightest comparison with the two great
Reformers. Whereas the principles and doctrines of Christ and Buddha were
calculated to embrace the whole of humanity, Confucius confined his
attention solely to his own country, trying to apply his profound wisdom and
philosophy to the wants of his countrymen, and little troubling his head
about the rest of mankind. 

Intensely Chinese in patriotism and views, his philosophical doctrines are
as much devoid of the purely poetic element, which characterizes the
teachings of Christ and Buddha, the two divine types, as the religious
tendencies of his people lack in that spiritual exaltation which we find,
for instance, in India. Khoung-foo-tse has not even the depth of feeling and
the slight spiritual striving of his contemporary, Lao-tse. 

Says the learned Ennemoser:

"The spirits of Christ and Buddha have left indelible, eternal traces all
over the face of the world. The doctrines of Confucius can be mentioned only
as the most brilliant proceedings of cold human reasoning."

Harvey, in his Universal History, has depicted the Chinese nation perfectly,
in a few words: "Their heavy, childish, cold, sensual nature explains the
peculiarities of their history."

Hence any comparison between the first two Reformers and Confucius, in an
essay on Rosicrucianism, in which "Hiraf" treats of the Science of Sciences
and invites the thirsty for knowledge to drink at her inexhaustible source,
seems inadmissible.

Further, when our learned author asserts so dogmatically that the
Rosicrucian learns, though he never uses, the secret of immortality in
earthly life, he asserts only what he himself, in his practical
inexperience, thinks impossible. The words "never" and "impossible" ought to
be erased from the dictionary of humanity, until the time at least when the
great Kabalah shall all be solved, and so rejected or accepted. 

The Count St. Germain is, until this very time, a living mystery, and the
Rosicrucian Thomas Vaughan another one. The countless authorities we have in
literature, at well as in oral tradition (which sometimes is the more
trustworthy), about this wonderful Count’s having been met and recognizedin
different centuries, is no myth. Anyone who admits one of the practical
truths of the occult sciences taught by the Kabalah tacitly admits them all.
It must be Hamlet’s "to be or not to be," and if the Kabalah is true, then
St. Germain need be no myth.

But I am digressing from my object, which is, firstly, to show the slight
differences between the two Kabalahs, that of the Rosicrucians and the
Oriental one; and, secondly, to say that the hope expressed by "Hiraf" to
see the subject better appreciated at some future day than it has been till
now, may perhaps become more than a hope. Time will show many things till
then, let us heartily thank "Hiraf" for this first well-aimed shot at those
stubborn scientific runaways, who, once before the Truth, avoid looking her
in the face, and dare not even throw a glance behind them, lest they should
be forced to see that which would greatly lessen their self-sufficiency. As
a practical follower of Eastern Spiritualism, I can confidently wait for the
time, when, with the timely help of those "who know," American Spiritualism,
which even in its present shape has proved such a sore in the side of the
materialists, will become a science and a thing of mathematical certitude,
instead of being regarded only as the crazy delusion of epileptic
monomaniacs.

The first Kabalah in which a mortal man ever dared to explain the greatest
mysteries of the universe, and show the keys to those masked doors in the
ramparts of Nature through which no mortal can ever pass without rousing
dread sentries never seen upon this side her wall, was compiled by a certain
Simeon Ben Iochai, who lived at the time of the second Temple’s destruction.


Only about thirty years after the death of this renowned Kabalist, his MSS.
and written explanations, which had till then remained in his possession as
a most precious secret, were used by his son Rabbi Elizzar and other learned
men.

Making a compilation of the whole, they so produced the famous work called
Sohar (God’s splendour). This book proved an inexhaustible mine for all the
subsequent Kabalists, their source of information and knowledge, and all
more recent and genuine Kabalahs were more or less carefully copied from the
former. 

Before that, all the mysterious doctrines had come down in an unbroken line
of merely oral tradition as far back as man could trace himself on earth.
They were scrupulously and jealously guarded by the wise men of Chaldea,
India, Persia and Egypt, and passed from one Initiate to another, in the
same purity of form as when handed down to the first man by the angels,
students of God’s great Theosophic Seminary. For the first time since the
world’s creation, the secret doctrines, passing through Moses who was
initiated in Egypt, underwent some slight alterations.

In consequence of the personal ambition of this great prophet-medium, he
succeeded in passing off his familiar spirit, the wrathful "Jehovah," for
the spirit of God himself, and so won undeserved laurels and honours. The
same influence prompted him to alter some of the principles of the great
oral Kabalah in order to make them the more secret. 

These principles were laid out in symbols by him in the first four books of
the Pentateuch, but for some mysterious reasons he withheld them from
Deuteronomy. Having initiated his seventy Elders in his own way, the latter
could give but what they had received themselves, and so was prepared the
first opportunity for heresy, and the erroneous interpretation of the
symbols. While the Oriental Kabalah remained in its pure primitive shape,
the Mosaic or Jewish one was full of drawbacks, and the keys to many of the
secrets—forbidden by the Mosaic law—purposely misinterpreted. 

The powers conferred by it on the Initiates were formidable still, and of
all the most renowned Kabalists, Ring Solomon and his bigoted parent, David,
notwithstanding his penitential psalms, were the most powerful. But still
the doctrine remained secret and purely oral, until, as I have said before,
the days of the second Temple’s destruction. Philologically speaking, the
very word Kabalah is formed from two Hebrew words, meaning to receive, as in
former times the Initiate received it orally and directly from his Master,
and the very book of the Sohar was written out on received information,
which was handed down as an unvarying stereotyped tradition by the
Orientals, and altered, through the ambition of Moses, by the Jews.

H. P. BLAVATSKY. 



----------------------------------------



Best wishes

Dallas

================================
 
-----Original Message-----
From: samblo
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 5:16 AM
To: 
Subject: Re: : The Hierarchy of Evil


Vladimir and Cass,

Well, Blavatsky did write an article about the White and the Dark that
are 
in perpetual struggle throughout the manvantaric manisfestation. I don't 
recal the name of the article right now, perhaps Daniel or another archivist
might 
locate it. In one of the Mahatma Letters it is stated that they themsleves 
are restrained in their intervention and assistance to us as each time they
do 
so it changes the balance of energy between the White and The Dark and the
Dark then has right to equally balance the energy change with it's own 
compensation and action. ....

John