The key to the Mystery of Buddha and that of other Adepts lies in the correct understanding of the reflections in man of the Seven Principles or Powers in Nature, physically; and of the Seven Hierarchies of Being, intellectually and spiritually. The Seven Principles are the manifestation of One Indivisible Spirit, but only at the end of the Manvantara, when the seven merge once again into Absolute Unity, uncreated and impartite. The purified Egotistical Principle, the astral and personal ego of an Adept, though merging with its Highest Ego (Atma-Buddhi) may, for purposes of universal mercy and benevolence, separate itself from its divine Monad as to lead, on this plane of illusion and temporary being, a distinct independent conscious life of its own, under a borrowed illusive shape, thus serving at one and the same time a double purpose: the exhaustion of its own individual Karma, and the saving of millions of human beings less favoured than itself from the effects of mental blindness. Disembodied consciousness is not an effect, but a cause. Such consciousness is a ray of the all-pervading, limitless Flame, the reflections of which alone can differentiate. And, as such, consciousness is ubiquitous: it can be neither localized nor centred on any particular subject. Its effects alone are felt in the region of matter, but consciousness in itself remains the highest quality of the sentient spiritual principle within, the Divine Soul, and does not belong to the plane of materiality. After the death of the physical man, if he be an Initiate, his human consciousness is transformed into the independent Principle itself and, therefore, the former personal ego becomes pure and impersonal consciousness, untainted by any ego. The Bodhisattva becomes a Buddha (Enlightened) and a Nirvani through personal effort and merit, after having had to undergo all the hardships of every other neophyte — not by virtue of a divine birth, as thought by some. It was only the reaching of Nirvana while still living in the body on this earth, that was due to his having been in previous births high on the Path of Inner Wisdom. Once a man delivers himself from the snare of separateness, merging his self in the Universal Self, spiritual powers hitherto dormant in him are awakened, mysteries in invisible Nature are unveiled to him, and he becomes a Dhyani-Buddha — divine Flame and free Will in man. Then, as a Dhyani-Buddha himself, he can create mind-born Bodhisattvas. Twenty years after His outward death, Tathagata in His immense love and mercy for erring and ignorant humanity, refused Parinirvana in order that He might continue to help men on earth. Vajrasattva is the regent or chief of the Dhyani-Chohans or Dhyani-Buddhas, the Supreme Buddha; personal, yet never manifesting objectively. He is the “One without Beginning or End,” in short, the Logos of Buddhism. Vajrasattva is also Vajradhara, or Dorjechang. The two are one, and over them is the Supreme Unmanifested and Universal Wisdom that has no name. As two-in-one, They are the Power that subdues and conquers evil from the beginning, allowing it to reign only over willing subjects on earth, and having no power over those who despise and hate it. This dual personage has the same role assigned to it in canonical and dogmatic Tibetan Buddhism, as have Jehovah and the Archangel Mikael, the Metatron of the Jewish Kabbalists — which is an absurdity. The Roman Catholics identify Christ with Mikael, who is also his ferouer, or “face,” mystically. This is precisely the position of Vajrasattva in Northern Buddhism. For the latter, in His Higher Ego as Dorjechang, is never manifested, except to the seven Dhyani-Chohans, the primeval Builders. Esoterically, He is the Spirit of the Seven collectively, and Their highest principle or Atman. Metatron is the Greek Αγγελος (Messenger), or Great Teacher. Mikael fights Satan, the Dragon, and conquers him and his Angels. The War in Heaven of the Christian legend is based upon bad angels having discovered the magical wisdom of the good ones, and the mystery of the Tree of Life. Let anyone read simply the exoteric accounts in the Hindu and Buddhist Pantheons — the latter version being taken from the former — and he will find both resting on the same primeval, archaic allegory from the Secret Doctrine. At whatever age one puts off his outward body by free will, at precisely that age will he be made to die a violent death against his will in his next rebirth. Who, then, was punished by Karma? Karma cannot act unjustly. There is some terrible mystery involved in this story, one that no uninitiated intellect can ever unravel. Shankaracharya died at thirty-two years of age, or rather disappeared from the sight of his disciples, as the legend goes. All is darkness and mystery in it, for it is evidently written but for those who are already instructed. Lord Buddha lived one hundred years in reality though, having reached Nirvana in his eightieth year, he was regarded as one dead to the world of the living. It is not lawful to say any more, for the time has not yet come when nations are prepared to hear the whole truth. It will be sufficient to know that while Gautama Buddha remains merged in Nirvana ever since his death, Gautama Shakyamuni may have had to reincarnate — His dual inner personality being one of the greatest mysteries of Esoteric psychism. Karma exercises its sway over the Adept as much as over any other man. “Gods” can escape it as little as simple mortals. Karma is absolute justice and infallible in its selections. Thus Buddha’s first reincarnation was produced by Karma, and it led Him higher than ever; the two following were “out of pity” and [ . . . ]

The compound term Theophania (from theos, “God,” and phainesthai, “to appear”) does not simply mean the appearance of God in man but the actual presence of a God in man, a divine incarnation.

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The acquisition of the highest knowledge and power requires not only many years of the severest study enlightened by a superior intelligence and an audacity bent by no peril; but also as many years of retreat in comparative solitude, and association with but students pursuing the same object, in a locality where nature itself preserves like the neophyte an absolute and unbroken stillness if not silence! Where the air is free for hundreds of miles around of all mephitic influence; the atmosphere and human magnetism absolutely pure, and no animal blood is spilt.

Like Plato and Thales, Pherecydes obtained his knowledge from the secret books of the Phoenicians. Including a full refutation of the charges levelled against the sage by Madame Blavatsky.

The Eleusinian Mysteries were viewed as the efflorescence of all the Greek religion, as the purest essence of all its conceptions. The offering of bread and wine to the candidate by the Hierophant symbolised the spirit that was about to quicken matter: i.e., the divine wisdom of the Higher Self was to take possession of the candidate’s inner Self or Soul through what was to be revealed to him. The transformation of Cybele to Ceres-Demeter was the basis for the sacredness of bread and wine in ritualism. Cybele is the Moon-Goddess of the Athenians, Pallas or Minerva, invoked in her festivals as Monogenes Theou, the One Mother of God, and Virgin Queen of Heaven. Esoterically, Cybele is Kabeiros, a representative of the Phoenician Kingly Race. The Hierophant was always an old unmarried man. This and so many other features of the great archaic system, known as the Sacred Wisdom Science, have been appropriated by the Romish Church. One of the greatest mysteries is how the ever immaculate and yet ever prolific Divine Virgin who, fecundated by the fructifying rays of the Sun, becomes the Mother of all that lives and breathes on her vast bosom. Her very “Breath” is Akasha-tattva or Universal Essence, i.e., Vital Electricity — Life itself. The Mysteries are fragments of a grand pre-historic Philosophy, as old as the world itself. They are not only the foundation-stone of modern Philosophy, they also gave birth to hieroglyphics, as permanent records were needed to preserve and commemorate their secrets. The fact that the Sanskrit and Greek words for Initiation to the Greater Mysteries, Avapta and Epopteia, imply revelation not by human agent but by receiving the Sacred Drink, points out to the pre-Vedic origin of the Eleusinia. A cup of Kykeon, quaffed by the Mystes at the Eleusinian Initiation, forcibly connects the inner, highest “spirit” of man, which spirit is an angel like the mystical Soma, with his “irrational soul” or astral body, and thus united by the power of the magic drink, they soar together above physical nature and participate during life on earth in the beatitude and ineffable glories of Heaven. One well versed in the esoteric mythologies of various nations can trace the Mysteries back to the ante-Vedic period in India. Only those of the strictest virtue and purity were admitted. Those who consciously engaged in Black Magic or were responsible for homicide, whether accidental or not, and other evil acts were excluded. Every approach to the Mysteries was guarded with the same jealous care everywhere, and the penalty of death was inflicted upon Initiates of any degree who divulged secrets entrusted to them. Why Truth keeps hiding like a tortoise within her shell? Because Truth is too dangerous even for the highest Lanoo. No one can be entrusted with full knowledge of the Secret Science before his time. In Egypt the Mysteries had been known since the days of Menes. The Greeks received them much later when Orpheus introduced them from India. Thus, even in the days of Aristotle, few were the true Adepts left in Europe and even in Egypt. While darkness fell upon the face of the profane world, there was still eternal light in the Adyta on the nights of Initiation. Athenians, the real barbarians of Hellas, charged Æschylus with sacrilege and condemned him to be stoned to death because, they claimed, having been uninitiated, he had profaned the Mysteries by exposing them in his trilogies on a public stage. But he would have incurred the same condemnation, had he been initiated. Every truth revealed by Jesus, and which the Jews and early Christians understood, was concealed by a Church that has always pretended serving Him. To deprive the Greeks of their Sacred Mysteries, which bind in one the whole of mankind, was to render their very lives worthless to them. Blessed is he who has seen these things before he goes beneath the hollow earth; for he understands the end of mortal life, and the beginning of a new life. The Lesser grades of Eleusinia symbolised the descend of Persephone, Ceres-Demeter’s daughter, to earth and were preparatory to Greater Mysteries, when the daughter returns to her divine abode and is finally reunited with her mother. Similarly, Northern Buddhism has its “Greater” and its “Lesser” vehicle, the Mahayana or Esoteric, and the Hinayana or Exoteric School. The object of the Lesser Mysteries was to instruct the candidate about the condition of the unpurified soul invested with an earthly body, and enveloped in a material and physical nature that, until and unless purified by high philosophy and ethics, is destined to suffer pain and death through its attachment to embodied life. Selfishness is the prisoner of the divine soul. Physical body is the prison. And real hell is life here, on earth. The Book of Job is a complete representation of ancient Initiation, and the trials which generally precede this grandest of all ceremonies. Still, the cunning translators of the Hebrew Bible imply that Job’s “Champion,” “Deliverer,” and “Vindicator,” was Messiah. Nothing could be further from the truth. With the Hindus, the real Champion and Deliverer it Atman; with the Neo-Platonists, Nous Augoeides; with the Buddhists, Agra; with the Persians, Ferouer. The true Champion is the immortal spirit in every man. It alone can redeem our soul and save us from ourselves, if we follow its behests instead of squandering our divine inheritance by pandering to our lower nature. There were two classes of participants, the Neophytes and the Perfect. And two castes of Magi, the initiated and those who were allowed to officiate in the popular rites only. Neophytes first taught in upper temples were initiated in crypts. Oral instructions were given at low breath, in solemn silence and secrecy. Jesus and Paul classified their doctrines as esoteric and exoteric: The Mysteries of the Kingdom of God for the Apostles, the parables for the multitude. Aristides calls Mysteries the common temple of the earth. Epictetus says that all that is ordained therein was established by the Masters of Wisdom for the instruction of mortals and the correction of their customs. Plato asserts that the object of the Mysteries was to re-establish the soul in that state of perfection from which it had fallen. Baptism was one of the earliest Chaldeo-Akkadian rites of inner purification. Candidates were immersed thrice into water by Hydranos, the Baptist. At the Mysteries of the Anthesteria at limnai, i.e., the Feast of Flowers at the temple lakes, after the usual baptism by purification of water, the Mystai were made to pass through to the gate of Dionysus, that of the purified. After their Second Birth was accomplished, and the Mystai had returned from their baptism in the sea, the Tau or Egyptian cross was laid upon the breast. The Mysteries of the Jews were identical with those of Pagan Greeks, who took them from the Egyptians, who borrowed them from the Chaldaeans, who got them from the Aryans, who inherited them from the Atlanteans, and so on. But what Gods and Angels had revealed, exoteric religions, beginning with that of Moses, reviled, reveiled, and hid for ages from the sight of the world. The lure of lucre was the final nail in the coffin of the Eleusinia. An Athenian demagogue and sycophant, whose eloquence was described as of a coarse and vehement character, degraded the Sacred Mysteries by persuading the State to levy a charge for those seeking admission to higher life. Thus initiation had become a commodity — and as necessary as baptism has since become with the Christians. The first hour for the demise of the Mysteries struck on the clock of the Races with the Macedonian conqueror. The first strokes of its last hour sounded 47 BCE in the Thebes of the Celts. But the Mysteries of Eleusis could not be so easily disposed of. They were indeed the religion of mankind, and shone in all their ancient splendour if not in their primitive purity. It took several centuries to abolish them, and they could not be entirely suppressed before the year 396 of our era. The Eleusinian Mysteries were archaic Wisdom-Religion dressed in Greek garb. Prehistoric Greece was colonised by two great Indian races, the Solar and the Lunar dynasties. Springing up from the kingdoms of Cashmir and Tibet, the prehistoric colonists of Greece consisted of the two great primitive and radical races of Aryavarta, the Solar or ancient Budhistic dynasty (Surya Vansa), and the Lunar dynasty (Chandra Vansa). The former were the earliest settlers in Greece and their religious exponents appear to have been the Dodan, or Brahmanical priests of the great tribe, Doda. As history progressed, the original Lamaic system of religion has been so much modified and so far compromised, as to be compelled to seek refuge in the asyla of the Grecian Mysteries, instead of the state-position it once occupied. Inside Greece, Bacchus was a prosonym of Zagreus, the successor of the Lamaic sovereignty in whose service was Orpheus, the founder of the Mysteries. Outside Greece, Bacchus was the Tartarian Jupiter Hammon whose Lamaic worship accompanied the emigrants of Tartary to Egypt. In Budhistic belief, the young Lama is born again from the consort of the Jaina Pontiff, Semele or Su-Lamee, the Great Lama Queen. The Eleuth-Chiefs, who spread the Lamaic doctrines in the Attic territory, became Eleusine. Their forms of worship and Tartar ceremonials composed the staple of the celebrated Eleusinian Mysteries. The high-born Brahmans or Culini lived on the Peloponnesian Mount Cyllene. The Mysteries were communicated to Culyus-Celeus, ruler of the land of the Rarhya, by Demeter herself. Yet the Greeks besmirched their noble ancestry by belittling their Hierophants as troglodytes. Three Hierarchs represented Budhistical and Brahmanical power. Two orders of priests officiated over the initiations. The descendants of the High Budha Priest or Eumolpidai, and the Budhist Keerukos or Keryx, the sacred herald of the Greeks, the latter aided by the daughters of the late Eleusinian high-caste king Culyus or Celeus. Modern Greek authors who treat Eleusinian worship as mysteries, rather than the old national form of worship, name those admitted to the Lesser Mysteries as Mokshtai or Mystai, from the Budhist word Moksha. After taking an oath of secrecy to preserve the old religion of the country against the more attractive heresy of Homer and his popular gods, those admitted to the Greater Mysteries were styled avapta or epoptai. Iacchos (Bacchos), properly Yogin, who appeared on the sixth day of the Mysteries, is none other than Dio Nausho or Dionysos, son of the Jaina Pontiff (Jeyus), and the Great Lama Queen, Soo Lamee or Semele. Couros, a prosonym of Iacchos, is Gooros or Guru, a spiritual teacher. Hence, Demeter is styled by the Greeks Couro-trophos or Guru-nurse. Erectheus-Poseidon was worshipped jointly with Athene and is identified with Poseidon or Po-Sidhan, Prince of all Saints, Chief of Saidan, and Prince of Sidon. Saidan, Eracland, and Phœnicia, are in close proximity to Afghanistan; Sidan is repeated in the Phœnicia of Palestine. Poseidon was worshipped jointly with Adheene, the Virgin Queen of Heaven, modified by the Greeks as Athene. She is the Egyptian Neeti, corruptly written Neith. The mysterious name of Onge-Athene was also derived from AUM, the Triple Fire representing the highest Tetraktys.

Mastery of the universal magnetic sympathy that exists between men, animals, plants, and minerals, selects and directs powers by sympathy; and expels unwanted ones by antipathy. As love of physical beauty grows to an appreciation of divine beauty, so the old priests, realising the mutual alliance and sympathy that underpins all kingdoms of life, and investigating the kinship between the manifested world and the occult powers that govern it, they fathomed out the relationship between Concealed Potentiality and Infinite Potencies at every level. Inspired by the presence of a Divine Virtue within, the lower classes sing the praises of the pinnacle of their respective order; some intellectually, others rationally; some in a natural manner, others physically. Every order of being proceeds gradually, in a beautiful descent, from the highest to the lowest. Stones and plants honour the sun and, in turn, they receive the bounty of divine love according to their ruling divinities. Magic is based on the affinities between organic and inorganic bodies, the visible productions of the four kingdoms, and the invisible powers of the universe. Thus, inferior ranks of the same order invariably venerate their superiors. That is why the cock is very much feared and revered by the lion. Insights to phenomena allowed the old priests to understand the power of noumena, and to control the hidden forces of nature. By combining various odours into one, they demonstrated the unity of Divine Essence. For, while division weakens each part, unity restores the idea of their exemplar. A humble herb or a self-unconscious stone is often enough to bring into being divine works. The master key of Divine Magic or Practical Theurgy is the Neo-Platonic term Theophania, when the Over-Soul (Atma-Buddhi) of a virtuous man incarnates for purposes of revelation. Then, the Word is made flesh in actuality, not as a figure of speech. A temporary divine incarnation is termed trance; if life-long, samadhi, when the mystic may at times quit his body. Personal god versus Absoluteness is the most troublesome of all doctrines. Once the self-delusion of anthropomorphism is understood and overcome, every mortal will realise that he is but a reflection of his immortal counterpart. The sole aim of Practical Occultism or Theurgy is the conscious reunion of the part with the All. Many are those who are eager to study Occultism, but very few have even an approximate idea of the Science itself. What Simon termed Magic, we now call Theosophia, i.e., Divine Wisdom, Power, and Knowledge. Its source and basis lies in the holy union of Spirit and Thought (Nous and Epinoia), whether on the purely divine or the terrestrial plane. That union is Helena, the “marriage” of Atma-Buddhi (Nous) with Lower Manas (male-female, in this sphere only), through which Spirit and Thought become one here on earth and are endowed with divine faculties and powers. Theoretical Occultism is harmless but Practical Magic is perilous. The numerals of the Kabbalah are especially dangerous. Unity, physical and metaphysical, is the real basis of Occult Sciences. While the Aryans applied their Science of Correspondences to veil the most spiritual and sublime truths of nature, the Jews used their acumen to conceal the single most divine mystery of evolution, i.e., that of birth and generation, before deifying the generative organs. Only Pythagoras’ cosmological theory of numerals can reconcile Matter and Spirit, and cause each to demonstrate the truth about the other mathematically. Let us then allow the world cling to its gods, to whatever plane or realm they may belong. The true Occultist would be guilty of high treason to mankind, were he to break forever the old deities before he could replace them with the whole and unadulterated truth. And this he cannot do as yet. The Esotericism of Egypt was that of the whole world during the long ages of the Third Race for it was imparted by Divine Instructors, the primeval Seven “Sons of Light.”