The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 of 4: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and PhilosophyBlavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna)
Religion
The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 of 4: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy
Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna)
Theosophy
(1.) _Materialism_, the theory which regards mental phenomena as the
product of molecular change in the brain; _i.e._, as the outcome of a
transformation of motion into feeling (!). The cruder school once went so
far as to identify mind with a “peculiar mode of motion” (!!), but this
view is now happily regarded as absurd by most of the men of Science
themselves.
(2.)_ Monism_, or the Single Substance doctrine, is the more subtle form
of negative psychology, which one of its advocates, Professor Bain, ably
terms “guarded materialism.” This doctrine, which commands a very wide
assent, counting among its upholders such men as Lewes, Spencer, Ferrier,
and others, while positing thought and mental phenomena generally as
radically contrasted with matter, regards them as the two sides, or
aspects, of one and the same substance in some of its conditions. Thought
as thought, they say, is utterly contrasted with material phenomena, but
it must be also regarded as only “the subjective side of nervous
motion”—whatever our learned men may mean by this.
To return to the commentary on the Four Mahârâjahs, however, in the
Egyptian temples, according to Clemens Alexandrinus, an immense curtain
separated the tabernacle from the place for the congregation. The Jews had
the same. In both, the curtain was drawn over five pillars (the Pentacle),
symbolizing our five senses and five Root Races esoterically, while the
four colours of the curtain represented the four cardinal points and the
four terrestrial elements. The whole was an allegorical symbol. It is
through the four high Rulers over the four points and elements that our
five senses may become cognizant of the hidden truths of Nature; and not
at all, as Clemens would have it, that it is the elements _per se_ that
furnished the Pagans with Divine Knowledge or the Knowledge of God.(226)
While the Egyptian emblem was spiritual, that of the Jews was purely
materialistic, and, indeed, honoured only the blind elements and the
imaginary “points.” For what was the meaning of the square Tabernacle
raised by Moses in the wilderness, if it had not the same cosmical
significance? “Thou shalt make an hanging ... of blue, purple, and scarlet
... five pillars of shittim wood for the hanging ... four brazen rings in
the four corners thereof ... boards of fine wood for the four sides,
North, South, West, and East ... of the Tabernacle ... with Cherubims of
cunning work.”(227) The Tabernacle and the square courtyard, Cherubim and
all, were precisely the same as those in the Egyptian temples. The square
form of the Tabernacle meant just the same thing as it still means, to
this day, in the exoteric worship of the Chinese and Tibetans—the four
cardinal points signifying that which the four sides of the pyramids,
obelisks, and other such square erections mean. Josephus takes care to
explain the whole thing. He declares that the Tabernacle pillars were the
same as those raised at Tyre to the four elements, which were placed on
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