Planetary Rounds Of The Divine Monad

Overview of the doctrine of septenary chains of worlds in the Solar Kosmos. A Master of Wisdom explains the struggle of Monadic Consciousness passing through seven man-bearing planets. At the dawn of a new Solar Manvantara progressed entities from the previous manvantara are born in the First Race of the First Round ahead of the Elementals, and remain as latent (inactive) spiritual force in the aura of the nascent world of the new manvantara until the stage of human evolution is reached. They will have then to accept to the last drop in the bitter cup of retribution. The passage of human races in-between planets being critical, requires the presence of a Dhyani-Chohan. Gautama is the fifth leader and spiritual teacher in this round on this planet, and the fourth who became Buddha. The one who will appear at the close of the Seventh Root-Race, before the occupation of the next higher planet by humanity, will again be a Dhyani-Chohan. At the beginning of each round, it is the duty of the First Race to choose fit recipients among its sons as vessels to contain the whole stock of knowledge to be divided among future races and generations until the close of that round. Every round on the descending arc is but a repetition in a more concrete form of the previous round, a grosser and more material copy, supervised and guided by special “Builders” and “Watchers.” Rounds and their role in the serial evolution of nascent material nature is explained cosmologically and anthropologically. Earth, as we know her now, had no existence before the Fourth Round. In the First Round our planet was fiery, cool, and radiant, like its ethereal men and animals; luminous, more dense and heavy during the Second; watery, during the Third. But the Elements have been since reversed: none were then as they are today. In the course of the rounds, Earth is being progressively spiritualised. She will reach her true ultimate form, corresponding inversely to that of man, after the Seventh Round at the close of the manvantara. There is a predestined moment in the geological life of our globe, as in past and future chronicles of races and nations, when effects will once again reconcile with causes, and the original balance restored. Genesis’ six days of creation meant six periods of evolution plus a seventh, that of culmination of perfection (not of rest), and correspond to our Seven Rounds and Races. Man was on earth in this round from the very beginning, having passed through all the kingdoms of nature in the previous three rounds. His inner constitution reflects the evolution of the first Three Root-Races. His Fifth Principle, Manas, was quickened at the close of the Third Race. That of the animals, remains inactive, paralysed. Though the human embryo has no more of the ape in it than of any other mammal, it contains in itself the totality of all kingdoms of nature. Intellect and materiality always precede intelligence and spirituality. Physical intelligence is but the mask of spiritual intelligence. There is a spiritual, a psychic, an intellectual, and an animal evolution, from the highest to the lowest, as well as a physical development from the simple and homogeneous, up to the more complex and heterogeneous. Mind moves matter. Without mind, the Divine Monad has no hold upon the mere form. It is like the breeze where there is no tree or branch to receive and harbour it. The evolution of the human body is governed by terrestrial forces; that of the thinking man, by spiritual forces. Every form on earth, every atom in Space, strives to follow the model placed for it in the Ideal Man. Molecularly constituted matter is not man’s grossest aspect. The vulgar and vile middle principle is the most offensive and sole stumbling block to progress. The Angels doomed to embodied existence are still in chains of flesh, under the darkness of ignorance. They remain unrecognised and unthanked in the injustice of the human heart until the “Great Day” that will come after the Seventh Round in post-manvantaric Nirvana. Then, the Dhyani-Buddhas and the Planetary Spirits, who laboured for long kalpas without condition or any hope for reward, will have their rest. “The chief object of our struggles and initiations is to achieve this union while yet on this earth. Those who will be successful have nothing to fear during the fifth, sixth and seventh rounds,” says a Master of Wisdom. Round 1 builds sthula-sharira. Round 2 forms linga-sharira. Round 3 breathes prana. Round 4 arouses kama. Round 5 uplifts manas. Round 6 activates buddhi. Round 7 merges the human monad into Atman, the Divine Monad. Appendix A. Esoterically, Manu Vaivasvata, the Progenitor of our Fifth Race, is one of forty-nine that emanated from the Root-Manu. Exoterically, he figures as seventh because this round, though the fourth, is in the preseptenary Manvantara, and the round itself is in its seventh stage of materiality or physicality. Manu Vaivasvata, though seventh in the order given, is the primitive Root-Manu of the fourth Human Wave while our Vaivasvata was but one of the seven Minor Manus, who preside over the Seven Races of our planet. Appendix B. Duration of each Planetary Round in this Minor Manvantara. Duration of humanity in this Round, on each Planet. Duration of human life-waves in this Round, on Planet Earth. Appendix C. Genesis’ three Adams untangled: Adam 1 is Kadmon or the “Heavenly Man” made “in the image and likeness of god,” i.e., Second Logos. Adam 2 was neither in the image nor in the likeness of god before he “ate the forbidden fruit,” i.e., the mindless, hence sinless, First Root-Race. Adam 3 is the Third Root-Race that separated, whose eyes opened outwardly and acquired knowledge of good and evil. The Jewish Kabbalists dwarfed the duration of each terrestrial round by six zeros. Allusions to the septenary constitution of earth and man, and to the Seven Rounds and Races, abound in the New as in the Old Testament. The Seven Sabbaths are seven pralayas, between seven manvantaras, or what we call rounds. More allusions about meat offerings to the Lord, the woman in purple and scarlet, the mystery of the woman and the beast, and other instances of farcical worship unpicked.

The Ancients have neither mistaken stars for gods or angels, nor the sun for the highest gods and God, but have worshipped only the Spirit of all — though they reverenced minor gods who are identical with the hosts of Angels, Cherubs, and Planetary Archangels. Saturn, the Father of Gods, must not be confused with his namesake — the planet with its rings, moons, and moonlets. The two, though in one sense identical, are equivalent to physical man and his soul. Nevertheless, astrology is proclaimed as a sinful science and, together with Occultism, tabooed by the Churches. If Mars is the personified strength of the One highest impersonal Deity, Mercury personified as its omniscience, Jupiter as its omnipotency, and so on, then the superstition of the Pagan has indeed become the religion of the masses of the “civilized nations.” Mikael is the regent of planet Saturn. He is also the informing Spirit of the Sun and Jupiter, and even of Venus. The Sabæans separated and distinguished planet Saturn from its God far more than the Roman Catholics do their angels from their stars. The dogmas and rituals of the Romish Church seem like pages torn out from the history of Occultism, plagiarised, and then distorted. A very thin line separates the Kabbalistic and Chaldæan Theogonies from the Roman Catholic Angelology and Theodicy. The history of the Jesuits is intimately bound up with that of Occultism. It is that Protean and all-pervading organisation which has kept back the great truths of Occultism, making its name synonymous with charlatanism, fraud, and demon worship. To this purpose was the Inquisition organised. The history of Jesuitism is the history of assassinations and poisonings, underhand dark plottings against Kings, Princes, Churches, States, and solitary individuals who consciously or unconsciously cross their path. Many a maniac in a madhouse owes the calamities which drove him there to their contriving. Divine Astrology is for the Initiates; superstitious Astrolatry, for the profane. Astrolatry, or the adoration of the heavenly host, is the natural result of only half-revealed Astrology, whose Adepts carefully concealed from the uninitiated masses its Occult principles and the Wisdom imparted to them by the Regents of the Planets. Sidereal influence is dual: there is a physical and a physiological influence, that of exotericism; and the high spiritual, intellectual, and moral influence, imparted by the knowledge of the Planetary Gods. The Celestial Bodies are the cause of all that happens in our sublunary world; they do influence human actions; but not all the effects produced by them are unavoidable. All great astrologers admitted that man could react against the influence of the stars. The origin of Astrology is lost in hoary antiquity, contrary to the plea of some Orientalists who declare that the Zodiac was the invention of the Greeks of the Macedonian period. Primitive Astrology was as far above modern Astrology, as the Planets and Zodiacal signs are above the lamp-posts. All the Zodiacal monuments in Egypt were chiefly astronomical. The Heavenly Bodies are closely related, during each Manvantara, with the mankind of that special cycle. Each great character born during that period has (as every other mortal has, only in a far stronger degree) his destiny outlined within his proper constellation or star, traced as a self-prophecy (an anticipated autobiography), by the indwelling spirit of that particular star. Primitive Occult Astrology was on the decline when Daniel, the last of the Jewish Initiates of the old school, became the chief of the Magi and Astrologers of Chaldæa. In those days, even Egypt that had her wisdom from the same source as Babylon, had degenerated from her former grandeur, and her glory had begun to fade out. Chaldæan Astrology was believed in by most of the great men in history. Judiciary Astrology is used today by the Kabbalists. Eliphas Levi, the French Magus, teaches its rudiments in his “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie.” But the key to ceremonial or ritualistic Astrology is lost to Europe. Hence, our century of materialism shrugs it shoulders and sees in Astrology — a pretender.

A distinctive feature of Philaletheians’ compilations is that headings (and side captions, when available) function as subtitles: when read sequentially, they impart the salient points of the entire compilation. The value of this feature becomes apparent in long and complex analyses, where Contents double as Train of Thoughts. In this book, pages 2-18 provide an outline of the main points, the syllogism of propositions, and further elaborations.

Divine Astrology is for Initiates; superstitious Astrolatry for the masses. The Occultist’s reverence for Planetary Spirits is not worship as the word is commonly under-stood. For the Theosophists, planetary “angels” occupy no higher place than that which Virgil assigns them. Each and all are occult potencies having sway over certain attributes of nature. Worship of Planetary Spirits is idolatrous Astrolatry. The Church is not against magic proper, but only against those magicians who fail to conform to her methods and rules of evocation. Worship of the “Seven Spirits” by the Church has been legal in all the ages. No truth, upon any subject whatever, has been ever made complete by the Church. Otherwise, where would be the mystery so absolutely necessary to the authority of her incomprehensible dogmas? The Seven Sabian Gods, and the Seven Seats and Virtues of the Kabbalists have become with the Catholics their “Seven Eyes of the Lord,” and the “Seven Thrones,” instead of Seven Seats. The “miracles” performed in the bosom of Mother Church, from the apostolic down to the ecclesiastical miracles at Lourdes, are pernicious in their result upon the human mind. While the Church feared to adopt even the Chaldean substitutes for the “mystery-names,” as they had been so “desecrated by magical practices,” it embraced other “mystery-names,” far less known than their substitutes have ever been. A terrible epidemic of obsession and possession broke out in 1553, when almost all Rome found itself possessed by the devil. The worship of “mystery names” under various substitutes continues to this day. The Jesuits rejoiced the most at the resurrection of the old worship, in view of the prodigious help they received from it. Church services in honour of the seven “Spirit-Stars” have never been abrogated since. Bolstered by the courage of true believers, the Christian defenders of the Seven Star-Angels deny nothing and keep silent whenever accused of rendering divine honours to Chaldean and other gods. Every planet is septenary, like man. The visible planet is the physical body of the sidereal being, the Atma or Spirit of which is the Angel, or Rishi, or Dhyani-Chohan, or Deva, etc. This is the tenet of the Secret Doctrine — minus its idolatrous element. As taught in the Church and her rituals, however, and especially, as practised, Angel-Worship is Astrolatry pure and simple. The Great Pyramid was erected as an observatory of Occult Astrognosy, at time when Draconis, the then Polar Star, was at its lower culmination and the Pleiades were on the same meridian above. Retrograding minds, while unable to follow their forefather’s grand ideas, were yet anxious to prove that they knew as much and far more. Having reviled Astrolatry, and trampled under their feet the sacred bulls Apis and Mnevis, they then instituted a Pastoral Religion in which, instead of the sacred Bull, they worshipped a Lamb. They allowed all the heathen names of Stars named by their idolatrous forefathers to remain status quo, and, at the same time, perverted their meanings in the most cunning way. Plagiarising, Christianising, and degrading Pagan Astronomy — wild beasts in scarlet clothing. Respect the Spirits but keep them at arm’s length.

The world is asked to believe that, while the Planetary Angels of the Church are divine Beings, the genuine Seraphim, these very same angels under identical names and planets are the “false” Gods of the Ancients. The circle dance of the planets, prescribed by the Amazons for the Mysteries, is called “lascivious” when performed by the Pagans, but not King David’s reprehensible dance, during which he uncovered himself before his maid-servants in a public thoroughfare. It was David who introduced Jehovistic worship into Judæa, after sojourning so long among the Tyrians and Philistines, where these rites were common. Having borrowed Osiris from the Egyptians, the Church Fathers thought little of helping themselves to his brother Typhon. The seven-branched chandelier of the Israelites, as well as the “wanderers” of the Greeks, had a far more natural meaning, a purely astrological one to begin with. But, symbol for symbol, we prefer the sun to a candlestick. One can understand how the latter came to represent the sun and planets, but no one can admire the chosen symbol. There is poetry and grandeur in the sun when it is made to symbolise the Eye of Ormuzd, or of Osiris. One must forever fail to perceive that any particular glory is rendered to Christ by assigning to him the trunk of a candlestick in a Jewish synagogue. The chandelier represented the motion of the seven luminaries, describing their astral revolution. To the right and the left of that candelabrum projected six branches, each of which had its lamp, because the Sun placed as a candelabrum in the middle of other planets distributes light to them. There are two suns, a sun adored and a sun adoring. There are seven series of Cosmocratores, which are double: the higher ones are commissioned to support and guide the superior world; the lower ones, the inferior world. The Zoroastrians, Mazdeans, and Persians borrowed their conceptions from India; the Jews borrowed their theory of angels from Persia; the Christians borrowed theirs from the Jews. The Zoroastrian Aryans transformed the Devas, the bright Gods of India, into daevas or devils. It was their Karma that, in their turn, the Christians should vindicate on this point the Hindus. Then Ormuzd and Mithra became the daevas of Christ and Mikael, the dark lining and aspect of the Saviour and Angel. The day of the Karma of Christian theology will come in its turn. Hence, the latest interpretation by Churches that the seven-branched candlestick represents the seven Churches of Asia, and the seven planets which are the angels of those Churches. And yet, in the face of all this evidence, sun, moon, planets, are shown as being demoniacal before, and divine only after, the appearance of Christ. Then Jehovah then is made to be the Sun, and thence also the Christ of the Roman Church. The only point of difference between the exotericism of the Latin Church and that of the old Astrolators lies in the entirely arbitrary interpretation of emblems, symbols, allegories, and even names which have been shown to be identical in both.

Why do celestial orbits perpetually shift their position and form? Speculations galore, enough for every taste and brain power, on the origin of rotation, and of the seven planes and comets. Science lies on a Procrustean bed of its own making. Count de Maistre and William Herschel cut the Gordian knot by saying that the planets rotate because they are made to rotate, for a will is needed to impart a circular motion, and another will to restrain the former under the perturbing influence of the Sun. The planetary orbits are far from immutable; on the contrary, they are subject to a perpetual mutation in their position and form. As orbits are alternately widening and narrowing, their great axis lengthens and diminishes, or oscillates at the same time from right to left around the Sun, raising and lowering itself periodically while pivoting around itself with a kind of tremor. Gravity is an obsolete law in starry heaven and mother earth. A comet whose tail defies the law of gravity right in the Sun’s face can hardly be credited with obeying that law. Science is like Cæsar’s wife, she must not be suspected, but she can be respectfully criticised, nevertheless. It is hardly surprising that many learned astronomers favour the Kabbalah and ancient systems to the modern dreary and contradictory expositions of the Universe. Spirit is the first differentiation of eternal Beness or That. It is the Causeless Cause of Cosmos, manifesting through a plurality of Creative and Intelligent, yet contrary, Forces — centripetal and centrifugal — possessing inherent powers of their own. Intra-Cosmic Forces are not suppositions and abstractions, they are acting realities whose attributes can be determined by direct observation and induction. Deity is Life and Law, and vice versa. Deity is a Soul in an orbicular Fire (Democritus). That Fire is the Sun, which is the image of divine Intelligence (Iamblichus), and an immortal Living Being (Plato), whose visible parts are its organs.

Beyond the cosmic veil, the heart and head of our Solar System rotates and beats; externally is spread its robe, the nature of which is not matter, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous, but vital electricity, condensed and made visible.

The companion globes of our Earth are not separate bodies, they interblend with each other. Though united by growth (co-adunition), they are not of the same dense substance (consubstantiality) as our Earth. They represent different states of consciousness. Life evolves along seven planetary bodies in seven rounds, from unconsciousness to full consciousness. Each body is the focus and locus of ascending states of monadic consciousness, from inorganic to organic. Neither Mars nor Mercury belong to the Earth-chain of globes. They are, along with the other planets, septenary units in the great host of “chains.” In our sevenfold constitution the body represents the Earth in her septenary chain, but we cannot see objectively any other of our principles, let alone the principles of other planetary bodies, unless they are on the same plane of development as our Earth is now. It is neither necessary nor allowed for us to know the relation between Mars, Mercury, and the Earth, nor to know whether Mars and Mercury are in any particular state.