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
(b) The “Dragon of Wisdom” is the One, the “Eka” or Saka. It is curious
that Jehovah’s name in Hebrew should also be One, Achad. “His name is
Achad,” say the Rabbins. The Philologists ought to decide which of the two
is derived from the other, linguistically and symbolically; surely, not
the Sanskrit. The “One” and the “Dragon” are expressions used by the
ancients in connection with their respective Logoi. Jehovah—esoterically
Elohim—is also the Serpent or Dragon that tempted Eve; and the Dragon is
an old glyph for the Astral Light (Primordial Principle), “which is the
Wisdom of Chaos.” Archaic philosophy, recognizing neither Good nor Evil as
a fundamental or independent power, but starting from the Absolute ALL
(Universal Perfection eternally), traces both through the course of
natural evolution to pure Light condensing gradually into form, and hence
becoming Matter or Evil. It was left with the early and ignorant Christian
Fathers to degrade the philosophical and highly scientific idea of this
emblem into the absurd superstition called the “Devil.” They took this
from the later Zoroastrians, who saw Devils or Evil in the Hindû Devas,
and the word Evil has become by a double transmutation D’Evil (Diabolos,
Diable, Diavolo, Teufel). But the Pagans have always shown a philosophical
discrimination in their symbols. The primitive symbol of the serpent
symbolized divine Wisdom and Perfection, and has always stood for
psychical Regeneration and Immortality. Hence, Hermes calling the serpent
the most spiritual of all beings; Moses, initiated into the Wisdom of
Hermes, following suit in _Genesis_; the Gnostic Serpent with the seven
vowels over its head, being the emblem of the Seven Hierarchies of the
Septenary or Planetary Creators. Hence, also, the Hindû serpent Shesha or
Ananta, the Infinite, a name of Vishnu, and his first Vâhana, or Vehicle,
on the Primordial Waters. Like the Logoi and the Hierarchies of Powers,
however, these serpents have to be distinguished one from the other.
Shesha or Ananta, the “Couch of Vishnu,” is an allegorical abstraction,
symbolizing infinite Time in Space, which contains the Germ and throws off
periodically the efflorescence of this Germ, the Manifested Universe;
whereas, the Gnostic Ophis contains the same triple symbolism in its seven
vowels as the one, three and seven‐syllabled Oeaohoo of the archaic
doctrine; _i.e._, the First Unmanifested Logos, the Second Manifested, the
Triangle concreting into the Quaternary or Tetragrammaton, and the Rays of
the latter on the material plane.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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