The mystery of number Seven is shrouded in the Brahmanical traditions and the Chaldæo-Judaic Kabbalah. The sacredness of numbers begins with the great First — the ONE, and ends only with the nought or zero — symbol of the infinite and boundless circle which represents the universe. Number Seven is the most sacred of all. Vach, the sacred word or speech, is personified in Sarasvati, the consort of Brahma, who is the goddess of the sacred or “Secret Knowledge.” It is impossible to study with profit the Brahmanical and Buddhistic sacred books without having a perfect comprehension of the esoteric meaning of the Pythagorean numerals. The chief problems of every theology lie concealed beneath an imagery of fire and the varying rhythm of its flames. Every sin becomes incarnated and, like an avenging fiend, persecutes its perpetrator. For every sound awakens a corresponding one in the invisible world of spirit, and the repercussion produces either a good or bad effect. The Vedas, established long before the great wave of emigration from Asia all over the Occident, proclaim their parentage of every philosophy and every religious institution developed later among Semitic peoples. The numerals most frequently occurring in Sanskrit chants, those sublime hymns to Creation, to the unity of God, and to the countless manifestations of His power, are One, Three, and Seven. Our object is to show the existence of a religious system in India for many thousands of years before the exoteric fables of the Garden of Eden and the Deluge had been invented, hence the underlying identity of doctrines. The Hindu gods are masks without an actor, names without being — not beings without names. What the world-renowned and subtile intellect of the ancient Hindu sages failed to understand, no modern scientist, however learned, can hope to fathom. Without esoteric interpretation, the Old Testament becomes an absurd jumble of meaningless tales — nay, worse than that, it must rank high among immoral books. The word veda is synonymous with the Greek theoseveia, which Plato uses when speaking of the wise. To banish the Brahmanas is to fling away the key that unlocks the door of the Rig-Veda. Why the contemptible disdain of a conclave of European and especially German savants for Hindu scholars? Are Max Müller’s “Whoish” hymns of the Rig-Veda less reverential than the “I-amish” psalms? The Pythagorean Tetractys was the square placed below the triangle; the latter, or the Trinity, embodying the invisible Monad or Unity, was deemed too sacred to be pronounced except within the walls of a sanctuary. The Jews borrowed their Sabbath from the ancients, who called it Saturn’s day and deemed it unlucky, and not the latter from the Israelites when christianized. Sheer religious tyranny was the Christian Sabbath introduced by Protestants. There was no need of the observance of Sabbaths before Moses, neither now is there any need of them after Jesus Christ. The people of India, Arabia, Syria, and Egypt observed weeks of seven days; and the Romans learned the hebdomadal method from these foreign countries when they became subject to the Empire. With every new quarter, the moon brings changes in the atmosphere, hence certain changes are also produced throughout the whole of our universe, of which the meteorological ones are the most insignificant. On this day of the seventh and most powerful of the prismatic days, the adepts of the “Secret Science” meet as they met thousands of years ago, to become the agents of the occult powers of nature. Who are these Elohim but the euhemerized powers of nature, the faithful manifested servants, the Laws of Him who is immutable law and harmony Himself? Matter is defied Spirit and the subordinate of Spirit. The allegorical curse under which it labours is that it only procreates, it does not create. The curse will last until every single particle of matter on earth shall have outlived its days and, by gradual transformation, re-integrates into the One Living Soul. The “days” of Genesis are the same as the “days” of Brahma, i.e., periods of cosmic activity where worlds are being evolved, passing through four ages of existence. Properly speaking, the story of the formation of our earth, or “creation,” as it is very improperly called, begins with the rescue of Noah from the deluge. Noah is pure spirit, floating on the waters in his ark, and becoming intoxicated with the fumes of earthly life as soon as it is finally imprisoned in matter. The Hindu accounts of the “deluge” maintain that a partial cataclysm occurs at the close of every “age” of the world, which does not destroy the latter, but only changes its general appearance. New races of men and animals and a new flora evolve from the dissolution of the precedent ones. For the Christianesque Orientalists the biblical Noachian ark has been a Procrustean bed to which they had to make everything fit. Ethnology would have been the gainer if the three sons of Noah had been washed overboard and drowned before the ark reached land! Noah, like all the euhemerized manifestations of the Unrevealed One, was androgyne. The Ark, in which are preserved the germs of all living things necessary to repeople the earth, represents the survival of life and the supremacy of spirit over matter, through the conflict of the two opposing powers of nature. Noah is Logos. The animals shut up in his ark are the human passions. Adam is the prototype of Noah. Adam falls because he eats of the forbidden fruit of celestial knowledge; Noah, because he tastes of the terrestrial fruit: the juice of the grape representing the abuse of knowledge in an unbalanced mind. The allegories of the “fall of man” and the “deluge,” are the two most important features of the Pentateuch. The very absence of all mention of the deluge from the oldest books of the Hindus suggests that the Vedas would never have failed to contain a few hymns on the terrible disaster which, of all other natural manifestations, must have struck the imagination of the people who witnessed it. The fullest account of the deluge is found in the Mahabharata of Veda-Vyasa, a poem in honour of the astrological allegories on the wars between the Solar and the Lunar races. The Mahabharata by far antedates the age of Cyrus, a Zoroastrian. Astronomical calculations show that it is at least 20,000 years old. There are no proofs of the twelve tribes of Israel having ever existed; that of Levi was a priestly caste and all the others imaginary. Herodotus, who was in Assyria when Ezra flourished, never mentions the Israelites at all. The story of the conquering army of Alexander penetrating into Northern India, itself becomes more doubted every day. No Hindu national record, not the slightest historical memento, throughout the length and breadth of India offers the slightest trace of such an invasion. Nevertheless, heathen fables are far less preposterous and blasphemous than those imposed upon Christians, ever since the Church accepted the Old Testament, and the Roman Catholic Church opened its register of thaumaturgical saints. The Christian clergy, instead of allowing the interpretation to those who have the key to these seeming incongruities, they have assumed to themselves the office and right to interpret these in their own way. They have thus deprived the Hebrew clergy of the means to interpret their scriptures as their fathers did. Myths are now proved to be fables, just in proportion as we misunderstand them; truths, in proportion as they were once understood. Our ignorance has made a myth of history; and this ignorance is a Hellenic inheritance, the result of Hellenic vanity. Max Müller cannot make up his mind about the condition of nirvana. What is certain is that nirvana is an impersonal but actionless state, and a refuge from rebirth. Out of the sacred writings of all nations, that sprung from the primitive stock of mankind, Christianity picked out for its guidance the records and scriptures of a people perhaps the least spiritual of the human family. A strange and most unfortunate choice! Egypt owes her civilization, commonwealth, and arts, especially the art of building, to pre-Vedic India. She was a colony of dark-skinned Aryans, those whom Homer and Herodotus term the eastern Æthiopians, i.e., the inhabitants of Southern India, who brought to her their ready-made civilization. The Æthiopians were originally an Indian race, compelled to emigrate from the mother-land for sacrilege and regicide. Hence the consanguinity between the Æthiopians and the Aryan, dark-skinned races, and between the latter and the Egyptians. The earliest form of Egyptian religious worship and government, theocratic and sacerdotal, habits and customs, they all indicate an Indian origin. Of all the dialects and tongues alleged to be Semitic, the Æthiopian alone is written from left to right, like the Sanskrit and that of the Indo-Aryan people. Edward Pococke belongs to that class of Orientalists who believe that Buddhism preceded Brahmanism and was the religion of the earliest Vedas, Gautama having been but the restorer of it in its purest form, which after him degenerated again into dogmatism. In in his most ingenious work, India in Greece, Professor Pococke advocates and endeavours to establish the identity of the Egyptian, Greek, and Indian mythologies. King David is the Israelitish King Arthur. The stories of Samuel and David and Solomon are mythical. There are two parallel streams in the religious worship of the Israelites: one belonging to the state religion and adopted to fit political exigencies; the other, pure idolatry resulting from ignorance of the esoteric doctrine preached by Moses. Hezekiah was the expected Messiah of the exoteric state-religion. But he tore violently away the people of Israel from the religion of their fathers, and the secret rites instituted by Moses. There is no real history in the Old Testament, and the little historical information one can glean is only found in the indiscreet revelations of the prophets. The primordial “moisture” is the sea, an infernal goddess. In the world of stars and planets she is known as Ishtar or Astoreth. She is identical with Venus and every other Queen of Heaven, with Eve, the mother of all that live, and with Mary. Woman stands in cosmogony in relation to primordial matter, or the great deep as the “Virgin of the Sea,” who crushes the “dragon” under her foot. The multifaceted meanings of treading upon the “serpent” and crushing its head explained. To the eyes of the hypocrite and puritan, certain old Pagan symbols appear scandalously immoral, thus perverting the purity of ancient thought. The biblical allegory of Cain and Abel embodied in the philosophical conception of the eternal struggle of good and evil. Shiva is the destroyer, but he is also the regenerator. Cain is a murderer, but he is also the creator of nations, and an inventor. It is no accident that in the Sethite table Enoch comes second from Adam, and is father to Cain. This inversion of paternity is intended to create confusion and baffling inquiry. Cain presides over the Taurus. Abel is the female counterpart of Cain, for they are twins and probably androgynous; the latter answering to Wisdom; the former, to Intelligence. Twelve great gods preside over the twelve months of the year and the twelve signs of the zodiac. The Progenitors of the human race, the “Mind-born Sons” of Brahma, were degraded from their exalted positions of gods into mere patriarchs. Anak is Enoch, the patriarch, who “dies not,” and who is the first possessor of the “mirific name.” The biblical patriarchs are mirrored backwards in the vedic patriarchs, who are the primitive types upon which all the others were modelled. But before comparison is possible, the Hindu myths must be comprehended in their true significance. The Jewish Adonai and the Hindu Ardhanari are one the same, symbols of Humanity’s hermaphrodite Third Race. Enoch is the type of dual man, spiritual and terrestrial. He and Michael are one and the same. He “walked with God” and “did not die” for he is eternal in spirit and eternal in flesh, though the latter undergoes endless death and rebirth. His place is the centre of the astronomical cross. The gross materialism of the Pentateuch exceeds any theistical conception in Pagan literature. Who were those who dared to reject the dogma that Jesus was the son of God? Nearly all the prophecies about Christ are credited to patriarchs and prophets. Only the Zodiac, when interpreted esoterically, will shed light on the relation of its signs to the progenitors of the human race. The key to unlocking the relationship between the biblical patriarchs and the mind-baffling Wheel of Ezekiel lies in the Hindu Cosmogony. Two mystical signs were inserted into the Zodiac as blinds, to conceal the true names which gave the key to the whole secret of creation. According to the esoteric doctrine of the Wisdom-Religion, Scorpio is the patriarch that degraded the whole universe by leading the cosmic evolution downward and outward, from the subjective realms of being to the objective, physical existence. When woman issues from the left rib of the second Adam of dust, the pure Virgo is separated and, falling “into generation” or the downward cycle, becomes Scorpio, emblem of sin and matter. The sign of Libra was invented by the Greeks. The scales stand for equilibrium which is necessary in a universe of harmony, of exact justice, of the balance of centripetal and centrifugal forces, darkness and light, spirit and matter. Though the Book of Genesis belongs to an immense antiquity, it is of a much later date than the invention of Libra. This patriarch is identical with Enoch and Hermes. Oannes is the emblem of priestly, esoteric wisdom; he comes out from the sea, because the “great deep,” the water, typifies the Secret Doctrine. Water represents the duality of both Macrocosmos and Microcosmos vivified by Spirit — which Spirit (Nous), by agitating the mighty mass, unfolds and evolves our beautiful little world from the Universal Cosmos. The ten biblical patriarchs are identical with the Hindu Prajapatis, and the Sephiroth of the Kabbalah. By converting one name into another, the Masorah has helped to falsify the little that was left original in the primitive Scriptures. The Wheel of Ezekiel explained exoterically and esoterically. And the names of the patriarchs listed as they ought to stand in their relation to the Zodiac. Their names were not originally Hebrew, though they may have been Hebraized later on; they are evidently of Assyrian or Aryan origin. The antediluvian dynasties of the Prajapatis reigned for 4,320,000 human years. Each of the twelve “hours” of Nychthemeron typifies the evolution of a new man, and in its turn is divided into four quarters or ages. In each of the four yugas-ages of the world, which proceed in succession during the manvantaric cycle, human life loses one-fourth of its lifespan. Like the stars, the shape of the archetypal man was spheroid for, being a pure spiritual entity, he had no use for limbs. The real Hebrew Bible is a secret volume, unknown to the masses.

This ground-breaking study sets out a new understanding of transformations in the interaction between religion and political authority throughout history.

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Animals in Religion explores the role of animals within a wide range of religious traditions. Exploring countless stories and myths passed down orally and in many religious texts, Barbara Allen—herself a practicing minister—offers a fascinating history of the ways animals have figured in our spiritual lives, whether they have been Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or any number of lesser-known religions. Some of the figures here will be familiar, such as St. Francis of Assisi, famous for his accord with animals, or that beloved remover of obstacles, Ganesha, the popular elephant god in the Hindu pantheon. Delving deeper, Allen highlights the numerous ways that our religious practices have honored and relied upon our animal brethren. She examines the principle of ahimsa, or nonviolence, which has Jains sweeping the pathways before them so as not to kill any insects, as well as the similar principle in Judaism of ts’ar ba’alei chayim and the notion in some sects of Islam that all living creatures are Muslim. From ancient Egypt to the Druids to the indigenous cultures of North America and Australia, Allen tells story after story that emphasizes the same message: all species are spiritually connected.

"A provocative essay challenging the idea of Buddhist exceptionalism, from one of the world's most widely respected philosophers and writers on Buddhism and science. Buddhism has become a uniquely favored religion in our modern age. A burgeoning number of books extol the scientifically proven benefits of meditation and mindfulness for everything ranging from business to romance. There are conferences, courses, and celebrities promoting the notion that Buddhism is spirituality for the rational; compatible with cutting-edge science; indeed, "a science of the mind." In this provocative book, Evan Thompson argues that this representation of Buddhism is false. In lucid and entertaining prose, Thompson dives deep into both Western and Buddhist philosophy to explain how the goals of science and religion are fundamentally different. Efforts to seek their unification are wrongheaded and promote mistaken ideas of both. He suggests cosmopolitanism instead, a worldview with deep roots in both Eastern and Western traditions. Smart, sympathetic, and intellectually ambitious, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in Buddhism's place in our world today."--Provided by publisher.