The Seventeen-rayed Sun stands for the emanations of the Divine Monas, from the Heavenly Man down to terrestrial men, and their respective hierarchies. The ten points inscribed within the Pythagorean triangle are worth all the theogonies and angelologies ever emanated from the theological brain.

Ancient India and Egypt were the oldest group of nations. The Egyptian Pyramids antedate the upheaval of the Sahara and other deserts. But there is no comparison between the Egypt of old, with its perfection of art, science, and religion, its glorious cities and monuments, its swarming The Egyptian art of writing was perfect and complete from the very first. It was used as early as the days of Menes, the protomonarch. Before Greece came into existence, the arts, with the Egyptians, were already ripe and old. Ancient Greece owes everything to Egypt. The Greeks learned all they knew, including the sacred services of the temple, from the Egyptians and, because of that, their principal temples were consecrated to Egyptian divinities. Orpheus was a disciple of Moses. Pythagoras, Herodotus, and Plato owe their philosophy to the same temples in which the wise Solon was instructed by the priests. If Chaldea, Assyria, and Babylon presented stupendous and venerable antiquities reaching far back into the night of time, Persia was not without her wonders of a later date. The Persian Empire was truly the garden of the world. Ecbatana, the cool summer retreat of the Persian Kings, was defended by seven encircling walls of hewn and polished blocks, the interior ones in succession of increasing height, and of different colours, in astrological accordance with the seven planets. The sublime profundity of the Magian precepts is beyond the reach of modern materialistic thought. Even the much admired Etruscan paintings and decorative borders, found on Greek vases, were but copies from Egyptian vases. Their figures can be seen on the walls of a tomb of the age of Amenhotep I, a period at which Greece was not even in existence. Egypt, grown grey in her wisdom, was so secure of her acquirements that she did not invite admiration and cared no more for the opinion of the flippant Greek than we do today for that of a Fiji islander. For she was much older and grander than Greece. The Egyptian Zodiac is at least 75 millennia old; the Greek, 17 millennia old. Egypt pressed her own grapes, made wine, and brewed her own beer. The superiority of the Egyptian lyre over the Grecian is an admitted fact. Pythagoras learned music in Egypt and made a regular science of it in Italy. The lyre, harp, and flute were used for sacred concerts; for festive occasions they had the guitar, the single and double pipes, and castanets; for troops, and during military service, they had trumpets, tambourines, drums, and cymbals. Amenoph II, who reigned at Thebes long before the Trojan war, is represented as playing chess with the queen. In India the game is known to have been played at least 5,000 years ago. The Egyptians had their dentists and ophthalmologists, and no doctor was allowed to practice more than one specialty. Phoenician sails whitened the Indian Ocean, as well as the Norwegian fiords. The Phœnicians were the earliest navigators of the world; they were Cyclopes, a one-eyed race of giants; they founded most of the colonies of the Mediterranean, and visited the Arctic regions, whence they brought accounts of eternal days without a night, which Homer has preserved for us in the Odyssey. Homer’s Odyssey surpasses in fantastic nonsense all the tales of the Arabian Nights combined; nevertheless, many of his myths are now proved to be something else besides the creation of the old poet’s fancy. Bel and the Dragon, Apollo and Python, Osiris and Typhon are all one and the same, and have travelled far and wide. The religious customs of the Mexicans, Peruvians, and other American races are identical with those of the ancient Phœnicians, Babylonians, and Egyptians. There was a time when Asia, Europe, Africa, and America were covered with the temples sacred to the Sun and the Dragons. It is true that the Phœnicians represented the Sun under the image of a Dragon; but so did all the other people who symbolized their Sun-gods. Initiatory rites and ceremonies were performed in crypts, catacombs, and temples interlinked by subterranean passages running in every direction. The perfect identity of rites, ceremonies, traditions, and even the names of deities, among Mexicans, Babylonians, and Egyptians, is ample proof of pre-historic South America being peopled by a colony which mysteriously found its way across the Atlantic. We believe the story of the Atlantis to be no fable, and maintain that at different epochs of the past huge islands, and even continents, existed where now there is but a wild waste of waters. At a remote epoch a traveller could traverse what is now the Atlantic Ocean, almost the entire distance by land, crossing in boats from one island to another, where narrow straits then existed. There never was, nor can there be, more than one universal religion. The Aztecs resembled the ancient Egyptians in civilization and refinement. Among both peoples magic, or the arcane natural philosophy, was cultivated to the highest degree. All ancient religious monuments, in whatever land, are the expression of the same identical thought, the key to which is in the Esoteric Doctrine. The grandiose Hindu ruins of Ellora in the Dekkan, the Mexican Chichén-Itzá in Yucatán, and the still grander ruins of Copán in Guatemala, were built by peoples moved by the same religious ideas, and who had reached an equal level of highest civilization in arts and sciences. The ruins of the past Egyptian splendour deserve no higher eulogium than those of Siam. If the same workmen did not lay the courses in both countries we must at least think that the secret of this matchless wall-building was equally known to the architects of every land. Nagkon-Wat is grander than anything left to us by Athens or Rome. On its sculptured walls there are several repetitions of Dagon, the man-fish of the Babylonians, of the Kabeirian gods of Samothrace, as well as of the reputed father of the Kabeiroi, Vulcan, with his bolts and implements. In another place we find Vulcan, recognizable by his hammer and pincers, but under the shape of a monkey, as usually represented by the Egyptians. The Ramayana itself, the famous epic poem, is but the original of Homer’s Iliad. The beautiful Paris, carrying off Helen, looks very much like Ravana, king of the giants, eloping with Sita, Rama’s wife. Herodotus assures us that the Trojan heroes and gods date in Greece only from the days of the Iliad. In such a case even Hanuman, the monkey-god, would be but Vulcan in disguise. Many historians claim that the Jews were similar or identical with the ancient Phœnicians, however, the latter were beyond any doubt an Æthiopian race. If the Jews were in the twilight of history Phœnicians, the latter may be traced to the nations who used the old Sanskrit language. All ancient temples and buildings belong to the age of Hermes Trismegistus. And however comparatively modern or ancient the temples may seem, their mathematical proportions correspond perfectly with the Egyptian religious edifices. The cold, stony lips of the once vocal Memnon, and of these hardy sphinxes, keep their secrets well. Who will unseal them? Who of our modern, materialistic dwarfs and unbelieving Sadducees will dare to lift the Veil of Isis? The Babylonian Nebo, the Thoth of Memphis, the Greek Hermes, were all gods of Esoteric Wisdom. Ammonius Saccas declared that all moral and practical wisdom was contained in the Books of Thoth-Hermes Trismegistus. Thoth means a college, school, or assembly, and the works of that name were identical with the doctrines of the sages of the far East. Thoth-Hermes, therefore, never was the name of a man, but a generic title. It is the Voice of Egypt’s Great Hierophants that speaks. Even in the time of Plato, Hermes was already identified with the Thoth of the Egyptians. But in reality Thoth-Hermes is simply the personification of the sacred teachings of Egypt’s sacerdotal caste. The first hour for the disappearance of the Mysteries struck on the clock of the Races with the Macedonian Conqueror. The Adepts of Egypt were then compelled to recede further and further from the laurels of conquest into the most hidden spots of the globe. And her sacred Scribes and Hierophants became wanderers upon the face of the earth. A dire prophecy about today’s Egypt, from a passage from the Asclepian Dialogue ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus: “Egypt shall be forsaken when divinity returns back from earth to heaven.”

Ambitious scholiasts, men of a small sub-race born but yesterday, and one of the latest issues of the Aryan stock, took upon themselves to overturn the religious thought of the world, and succeeded. For nearly two thousand years they impressed thinking Humanity with the belief in the existence of Satan. Plato merged the history of Atlantis, which covered several million years, into one event which he located on one small island about the size of Ireland, whereas the priests spoke of Atlantis as a continent vast as all Asia and Libya put together. The statements of Herodotus that the Atlantes who were vegetarians, whose sleep was never disturbed by dreams, and who cursed the sun because his excessive heat scorched and tormented them, are all based on moral and psychic facts and not on physiological disturbance. Atlas is the old continents of Lemuria and Atlantis, combined and personified in one symbol. He supports the sacred islands and continents on its shoulders. The poets attribute to Atlas a superior wisdom and a thorough acquaintance with the depths of the ocean because both Lemuria and Atlantis bore races instructed by divine masters; and both were transferred to the bottom of the seas, where they now slumber until their next reappearance above the waters. The feet of Atlas tread the earth while his shoulders support the celestial vault, an allusion to the gigantic peaks of the Lemurian and Atlantean continents. Proud Atlas, having sunk one third of its size into the waters, its two parts remained as a heirloom of Atlantis. Atlas and the Teneriffe Peak, now two of the dwarfed relics of the lost continents, were thrice as lofty during the day of Lemuria and twice as high in that of Atlantis. Alchemy had its birth-place in Atlantis during the Fourth Race, and had only its renaissance in Egypt. So secret was the knowledge of the last islands of Atlantis, on account of the superhuman powers possessed by its inhabitants (the last direct descendants of Divine Kings) that to divulge its whereabouts and existence was punished by death. To the uninitiated profane the dead letter was religion, and interpretation a sacrilege. Dead letter could neither edify nor uplift him. But to initiated philosopher Hesiod’s Theogony is as historical as any history can be. Poseidon-Neptune, the grandson of Ouranos, is the Hindu Idaspati, and identical with Narayana, the mover in (not on) the waters. Ouranos was the first astronomical teacher of men because he is one of the seven Dhyani-Chohans overseeing that second race. Ouranos gave birth to the Saturnian Titans of the Third Race, and it is they who mutilated him. For when creation by divine will was superseded by physical procreation, they needed Ouranos no more. Poseidon-Neptune and Nereus, who fathered the Nereids, are one: the former is the ruler or spirit of Atlantis before the beginning of its submersion; the latter, after. Poseidon is the titanic strength of the living race; Nereus, its spirit reincarnated in the subsequent Fifth or Aryan Race. Poseidon is of the earth earthy, strong and self-asserting, sensual, jealous, and vindictive, because he symbolises the spirit of the Atlantean Race that lives above the surface of the seas and which is composed of giants, the children of Eurymedon, the race that fathered Polyphemus and the one-eyed Cyclopes. The key to the mysteries of the Christian as well as of the Grecian Theogonies and Sciences, is the Secret Doctrine of the prehistoric nations. The standing army of Atlantis is given as upwards of a million men; its navy as 1,200 ships plus 240,000 men. Such statements are quite inapplicable to Poseidonis, a small island state of about the size of Ireland! Ethnologically, the seven daughters of Atlas or Atlantides are the seven sub-races, as they are credited with having married gods and having become mothers of famous heroes, the founders of many nations and cities. Astronomically, the Atlantides have become the seven Pleiades. Esoterically, the two are connected with the destinies of nations, as shaped by past events according to Karmic law. The Secret Doctrine shows that the founders of the Root-Races have all been connected with the Polar Star. The Aryan race was born and developed in the far north, however, after the sinking of Atlantis its tribes emigrated south into Asia. Hence Prometheus is son of Asia, and Deukalion, his son, the Greek Noah. Cyclopes, the beloved priests of Apollo, were the last three sub-races of the northern race, the Lemurians. The single eye stands for the all-penetrating spiritual eye, which atrophied when their pastoral life evolved into the sensual culture of the Atlanteans, only to be replaced by the outward-looking eyes of lust and greed. Odysseus-Ulysses belongs to the cycle of the heroes of the Atlantean Fourth Race. His adventure with the pastoral giants is an allegory of the gradual passage from the Cyclopean civilization of stone and colossal buildings to the sophisticated culture and physical proclivities of the Atlanteans. That other allegory, which makes Apollo kill the Cyclops to avenge the death of his son Asklepios (by Zeus with a lightning bolt fashioned by Cyclopes) refers to the Hyperborean Arimaspian Cyclopes, the last race endowed with the Wisdom-eye. In his occult aspect, Apollo is patron of Number Seven. Cosmically and astronomically, he is the Sun personified. Psychically and spiritually, his significance is far more important. The Greeks naturalised the gods they “borrowed” and made Hellenes of them, and the moderns helped them. To make a difference between Lemuria and Atlantis, the ancient writers referred to the latter as the northern or Hyperborean Atlantis, and to the former as the Southern one. Geologically, Leto-Latona is the Hyperborean Continent and its Race. The quarrel of Latona with Niobe, the Atlantean race, allegorizes the history of the two continents. Latona-Lemuria is transformed into Niobe-Atlantis, over which her son Apollo, or the Sun, reigns with an iron rod, truly, since Herodotus makes the Atlantes curse his too great heat. The Lemuro-Atlantean, is the first physical race, though the third and the fourth in number. The Lemurians, as also the early Atlanteans, were divided into two opposing fraternities, the Sons of Darkness, and the Sons of Light. There were terrible battles between the two. The island of Delos, the Asteria of the Greek mythology, was never in Greece, a country which, in its day, was not yet in existence, not even in its molecular form. Diodorus Siculus and Pliny place Delos in the Northern seas. One calls it royal; the other, the royal island of gods. Because the divine dynasties of the kings of Atlantis proceeded from that place. Occult records and linguistic evidence indicate that gods, religious beliefs, and myths have all come from the north, which was also the cradle of physical man. The Hyperboreans, the Cimmerians, the Arimaspoi, and the Scythians were descendants of the last Atlantean sub-races. But they were neither known to, nor communicating with, the Greeks. The Pelasgians, a remnant of an Atlantean sub-race, were certainly one of the root-races of future Greece. Noah’s Deluge is astronomical and allegorical but not mythical. However, the allegory about the antediluvian giants and their achievements in sorcery is no myth. Poseidon is not only the personation of the spirit and race of Atlantis, but also of the vices of the Nephilim giants of Genesis. The bestiality of the Satyrs was real, not allegorical. Esoteric records show these hairy Satyrs to be the last descendants of those Lemuro-Atlantean races, which begot children on female animals, of species now long extinct. They paid a very heavy price for their unnatural union. The whole globe is convulsed periodically; and has been so convulsed, since the appearance of the First Race, four times. Yet, though the whole face of the earth was transformed thereby each time, the conformation of the Arctic and Antarctic poles has but little altered. Continents perish in turn by fire and water: either through earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, or by sinking and the great displacement of waters. The three “imprisoned” polar giants, Briareus, Kottos, and Gyges, are three polar lands which have changed form several times, at each new cataclysm or disappearance of one continent to make room for another. When lesser gods and titans rebelled against Zeus, he hurled Lemuria amid thunder and lightning to the bottom of the seas, so as to make room for Atlantis, which was to be submerged and perish in its turn. The geological upheaval and deluge of Thessaly was a repetition on a small scale of the great cataclysm; and remaining impressed on the memory of the Greeks, was merged by them into, and confused with, the general fate of Atlantis. All continents are formed from North to South. And the tallest men are those in Northern countries, while the smallest are Southern Asiatics. Thus also the giants of Atlantis, as well as the Titans of Hesiod, are all Northerners.

Atlantis was a global configuration of islands covering what is now the mid-Atlantic Ocean, as well as portions of the Pacific, and had islands even in the Indian Ocean. Europe and America were connected by a land passage, of which Iceland, Madeira, and the other Atlantic islands are remnants.

Atlantis and its illustrious “Fourth Race” inhabitants sunk 856,000 years ago, coinciding with the elevation of the Alps.

Titans and Cyclopes of old belonged to that Root-Race. Progressively, the human frame consolidated and symmetrised. Two front eyes developed but the “seers” sinned and lost the third. After the separation of the sexes, Karman forced the creative gods to incarnate in mindless men. Then, sight and speech developed, for language is coeval with reason. Humanity had passed the middle point in the Great Cycle. The door for further monads entering the human kingdom closed and the balance struck. Many of us are now working off the effects of the evil karmic causes produced by us in Atlantean bodies.

Prometheus is the pre-eminent Atlantean hero and philanthropist. He bestowed to animal man divine mind. But the gift was abused and became a curse. The mystery of the Fourth Race “falling” into matter explained: Angels fell but not Man.

Eminent Atlanteans are still kindling the Promethean fire. Zoroaster, Ulysses, Noah, Kabiri, Telchines, and other heroic figures are none other than mankind’s divine instructors and true benefactors.

Atlantis was a land of beautiful and strong giants. Their initiates commemorated images of the five Races in stone for the instruction of future generations. Though perfected in materiality, they degenerated in spirituality. Black magic, bestiality, selfishness, and self-adoration spelled the demise of that proud race.

Gravity is an obsolete law in starry heaven. Among the materialists, gravity is the king of the all-potent imponderables. But among the students of the Sacred Science, gravity in one of the attributes of differentiation manifested as the law of attraction and repulsion between various states of matter. Newton did not use the word “attraction” with regard to the mutual action of bodies in a physical sense; to him, attractions were impulses; he believed that there is some subtle spirit, by the force and action of which all movements of matter are determined. For Pythagoras, Forces were Spiritual Entities (Gods independent of planets and matter, as we see and know them on Earth), who are the Rulers of the Sidereal Heaven. Light, heat, electricity, etc., are Affections, not properties or qualities of matter. Matter is the prerequisite and vehicle for the manifestation of Intelligent Forces on this plane. Newton had derived his knowledge of Gravitation and its laws from Jacob Böhme, with whom Gravitation or Attraction is the first property of Nature. Newton, whose profound mind had fathomed the spiritual thought of the great Seer in its mystic rendering, owes his great discovery to Böhme, the nursling of the genii who watched over and guided him. The voidness of the seeming full is the fullness of the seeming void. It was from Newton’s theory of a universal void that dates the immense scorn now shown by the moderns for ancient physics. Though the old sages had always maintained that “nature abhorred vacuum,” the mathematicians of the new world had discovered the antiquated “fallacy” and exposed it. More recently, modern Science vindicated, however ungracefully, archaic knowledge having, moreover, to also vindicate Newton’s character and powers of observation at this late hour. And now Father Æther is welcomed once more with open arms and wedded to gravitation. “Look back before moving forward” must become the motto of exact Science, in finding herself itself inexact every leap-year. Rough and up-hill is the path of Science; her days are full of vanity and vexation of Spirit. The metaphysical tenets of Kepler are purely occult. He was not the first to discover the theory of Attraction and Repulsion in Kosmos, for it was known from the days of Empedocles, the two opposite forces being called by him Hate and Love, or Repulsion and Attraction. Kepler also gave a pretty fair description of Cosmic Magnetism. Why should he be denounced then as most unscientific, for offering just the same solution as Newton did — only showing himself more sincere, more consistent, and even more logical? Where is the difference between Newton’s “all-powerful Being” and Kepler’s Rectores, his Sidereal and Cosmic Forces, or Angels?