Question: What is the viewpoint of the western esotericism concerning the
creation of the world in seven days? (Vol. I, #79)
Answer: There are two creation stories in the Bible. One commences with the
first verse of the opening chapter and ends with the third verse of the second
chapter of Genesis. Another account commences with the fourth verse.
These two creation stories seem to be greatly at variance in several
particulars. The first account states that in the beginning the Earth was
covered with water; the second avers that it was dry. The first informs us
that man was created last; the second version says he was the first creature,
etc. These discrepancies seem to be irreconcilable, and afford the skeptic
great satisfaction when he recounts them with a smile of supercilious pity for
the poor ignorant fools who believe such silly nonsense. Yet the two accounts
are not really incongruous, they are complementary and in harmony with
scientific facts. The first account deals with the genesis of form, the second
chapter with the evolution of consciousness. The human form as at present
constituted is the chef-d'oeuvre of evolution, built upon the basis of all
lower forms which have gone before. The Life which is man, the thinker, is
without beginning or end, eternal as God Himself, and that Life was here
before all forms, as told by the second creation story.
Regarding the time in which this creation of form is said to have taken
place, western occultism does not teach or believe that it was accomplished in
seven days of twenty-four hours each, but in our scheme of manifestation seven
great transformations of the Earth are necessary to facilitate the full
evolution of self-consciousness and soul power by the evolving spirits. Three
and one-half of these periods have been spent in obtaining vehicles; the
remainder will be required for the evolution of consciousness.
The opening verse of the Bible states that in the beginning the Earth was
dark and without definite form. That was in the Saturn Period, when the
incipient firemist was forming from the root substance of space.
The third verse informs us that God said "Let there be Light," a passage
which has been jeered at as showing the ignorance of the authors and the
inconsistency of the account with scientific facts; for, says the scoffer,
"When the sun and moon were not created till the fourth day, how could there
be light previous to that time? We are not dealing with the world as it is
today, a solid mass. That, of course, would be dark without an outside source
of light, but at that time the Earth was a world in the making, and according
to the nebular theory there must first be the stage of dark heat to which we
have given the name Saturn Period. Later the mist is ignited and luminous; the
light is within and is not dependent upon an exterior sun and moon. This
second stage in the development of our planet is called the Sun Period.
Next we are told that God said, "Let there be 'an expansion' in the waters
to divide the water from the water." The word here rendered "expansion" is
translated "firmament" in the authorized version, but we use the Masoretic
text, which was translated by translators of knowledge, who were unrestricted
by a royal edict such as that which hampered King James' translators. The use
of the term "expansion" harmonizes the Bible with the nebular theory, for,
when a firemist appears in space moisture is generated by the contact of this
heated mass with the surrounding space, which is cold. This moisture becomes
heated and expands into steam which rushes outward from the fiery core, is
there cooled, and condensed, and gravitates back to the source of heat. Thus
the expansion in the waters divided the water from the water, the dense
moisture remaining nearest the fiery core and the steam outside. This stage in
the consolidation of the Earth is called the Moon Period.
The continual boiling of the water surrounding the fiery core finally caused
an incrustation and dry land appeared. We are told that "God called the dry
land Earth."
During the first part of the present Period the Earth was as dark as in the
Saturn Period. Only mineral substances existed then. This stage is called the
Polarian Epoch.
The fiery Sun Period finds its replica in the Hyperborean Epoch, which is
described in verses 11-19 as the time when plants were generated, and the
Earth became a planet lighted from without by sun and moon. This ends the work
described as having been performed on the fourth great day in the development
of our Earth.
In the Lemurian Epoch we have a recapitulation of conditions during the Moon
Period, a fiery core and an atmosphere of fire fog, also the genesis of the
lower grades of animals, described in the Bible story as the work of the fifth
day.
In the Atlantean Epoch the vertebrate mammals and man were formed, as
described under the heading of the sixth day, and when man became a reasoning
being in the present Aryan Epoch, the Gods rested to let him work out his own
salvation under the twin laws of Rebirth and Causation.
The Biblical Fall of Man
Question: What was the sin or fall in Eden?
Answer: When the Earth came out of chaos, it was at first in the dark red
stage known as the Polarian Epoch. There humanity first evolved a dense body,
not at all like our present vehicle, of course. When the condition of the
Earth became fiery, as in the Hyperborean Epoch, the vital body was added and
man became plant-like, that is to say, he had the same vehicles as our plants
have today, and also a similar consciousness, or, rather, unconsciousness, to
that which we have in dreamless sleep when the dense and vital bodies are left
upon the bed.
At that time, in the Hyperborean Epoch, the body of man was as an enormous
gas bag, floating outside the fiery Earth, and it threw off plant-like spores,
which then grew and were used by other incoming entities. At that time man was
double sexed, a hermaphrodite.
In the Lemurian Epoch, when the Earth had somewhat cooled and islands of
crust had begun to form amid boiling seas, then also man's body had somewhat
solidified and had become more like the body we see today. It was ape-like, a
short trunk with enormous arms and limbs, the heels projecting backward and
almost no head — at least the upper part of the head was nearly entirely
wanting. Man lived in the atmosphere of steam which occultists call fire-fog,
and had no lungs, but breathed by means of tubes. He had a bladder-like organ
inside, which he inflated with heated air to help him leap enormous chasms
when volcanic eruptions destroyed the land upon which he was living. From the
back of his head there projected an organ which has now been drawn into the
head and is called by anatomists the pineal gland, or the third eye, although
it was never an eye, but a localized organ of feeling. The body was then
devoid o feeling but when man came too close to a volcanic crater, the heat
was registered by this organ to warn him away before his body was destroyed.
At that time the body had already so far solidified that it was impossible
for man to continue to propagate by spores, and it was necessary that he
should evolve an organ of thought, a brain. The creative force which we now
use to build railways, steamships, etc., in the outer world, was then used
inwardly for the building of organs. Like all forces it was positive and
negative. One pole was turned upward to build the brain, leaving the other
pole available for the creation of another body. Thus man was no longer a
complete creative unit. Each possessed only half the creative force, and it
was therefore necessary for him to seek his complement outside himself.
But at that time, "their eyes had not been opened," and the human beings of
that age were unconscious of each other in the Physical World, though well
aware and awake in the Spiritual World. Therefore, under the guidance of the
Angels, who were particularly fitted to help them in respect to propagation,
they were herded together in great temples at certain times of the year when
the lines of force running between the planets were propitious, and there the
creative act was performed as a religious sacrifice. And when this primal man
Adam came into the intimate sexual contact with the woman, the spirit for the
moment pierced the flesh and "Adam knew (or became aware of) his wife;" he
sensed her physically. It is this which the Bible has recorded, using that
chaste expression all through its leaves, for we are told that "Elkanah knew
his wife Hannah, and she bore Samuel." Even in the New Testament where the
angel comes to Mary telling her that she is to be the mother of the Savior,
she answers, "How shall that be possible seeing I know not a man?"
Sin is action contrary to law, and while humanity propagated under the
guidance of the Angels, who understood the cosmic lines of force, parturition
was painless, as it is now among wild animals, which propagate only at the
proper time of the year under the guidance of the group spirit. But when man,
acting on the advice of certain spirits half-way between humanity and the
Angels, undertook to create at any and all times of the year, regardless of
cosmic lines of force, that sin, or "eating of the tree of knowledge," caused
the painful parturition which the Angel proclaimed to Eve. He did not curse
her, but simply stated what would be the result of the ignorant and
indiscriminate use of the creative function.
The Tree of Life
Question: Is the Tree of Life spoken of in the Bible the same as the
philosopher's stone of the alchemists? (Vol. I, #86)
Answer: Yes and no. To understand the matter it is necessary to go back in the
history of mankind. There was a time when humanity was double sexed and
capable of generating a body without the help of another. But when it became
necessary to build the brain in order that the spirit might be able to create
by thought as well as in the Physical World, one-half the sex force was
retained to build an organ of thought. Then it became necessary for each to
seek the cooperation of another who expressed the opposite pole of the
creative force which he had available himself for sex purposes. Having no
brain, and as "their eyes had not been opened," they were of course
unconscious in the Physical World and unable to guide themselves. Therefore,
the Angels herded them together at certain times of the year when the
planetary forces were propitious to perform the generative act as a religious
sacrifice, whereby they gave up part of their bodies for the generation of a
vehicle for another spirit. In that close embrace, the spirit first pierced
the veil of the flesh and Adam "knew" his wife. Later on, when the
consciousness of humanity had become focused a little more upon the Physical
World and a few among them had begun dimly to perceive the bodies of which we
now are so thoroughly conscious, these pioneers began to preach the gospel of
the body, telling the others that they possessed a physical body, for the
majority were then unconscious of that instrument as we now are of having a
stomach when in good health.
Then it was noticed that those bodies died, and the question arose among the
pioneers as to how such a body could be replaced. The solution was given to
man by a certain class of spirits who were stragglers from the evolution of
the Angels, demi-gods, as we might say. These Lucifer Spirits, or light
givers, enlightened nascent humanity regarding their powers of generating a
body at any time. But these bodies were not perfect then — they are not perfect
today — and of course generation without reference to the planetary conditions
has produced even inferior bodies to what would have been otherwise generated,
in addition to the painful parturition prophesied by the Angel.
Since then the generative function has been exercised unrestrictedly by the
ignorant human race. But by the fact of death it has been possible for the
Angels to teach humanity between death and a new birth how to build a
gradually improving body. Had man learned in that far past how to renew his
vital body, as he was taught to generate a dense vehicle at his own pleasure,
then death would indeed have been an impossibility and man would have become
immortal as the Gods. But he would then have immortalized his imperfections
and made progress an impossibility. It is the renewal of this vital body which
is expressed in the Bible as "eating of the Tree of Life." At the time of his
enlightenment concerning generation man was a spiritual being whose eyes were
not yet blinded by the material world, and he might have learned the secret of
vitalizing his body at will, thus frustrating evolution. Thus we see that
death, when it comes naturally, is not a curse but our greatest and best
friend, for it frees us from an instrument from which we can learn no more; it
takes us out of an environment which we have outgrown, that we may learn to
build a better body in an environment of wider scope in which we can make more
progress toward the goal of perfection.
In this pilgrimage there comes at last a time when man is fitted to have the
powers of life. The body which he has made for himself becomes pure and is of
service for a much longer time than heretofore. Then he begins to seek after
the philosopher's stone, the elixir vitae, or whatever name he may choose to
employ. The alchemists aimed to manufacture this pure and holy vehicle, but
not by a chemical process in a laboratory, as supposed by the ignorant
multitude. Nomenclature which gave color to that idea was made necessary
because they lived in an age when a dominant and apostate church would have
brought them to death had the truth been known. When they spoke of transmuting
base metal to gold, they spoke the truth not only from the material standpoint
but also from the spiritual, for gold has ever been the symbol of spirit and
these alchemists aimed to spiritualize their bodies, which are of baser
texture.
Everywhere the pure and beautiful symbol of transparency has been given to
designate the power of purity. In the Old Testament we hear of the Temple of
Solomon that was "built without sound of hammer." The most beautiful ornament
there was the molten sea. Hiram Abiff, the master-workman, as his final
achievement, succeeded in smelting all the metals of the Earth into an alloy
as transparent as glass. In the New Testament we are told the last about a
beautiful city having in its midst a sea of glass. In the East, the initiate
aims to become the diamond-soul, pure and transparent. In the West the
Philosopher's Stone is the symbol of the purified soul extracted from the
bodies which have been transmuted and spiritualized. The soul that sinneth, it
shall die, but the pure soul is immortalized by the elixir vitae, the "Tree of
Life," into a vital body that will last millenia as a vehicle for the
spirit.
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