There are those Orientalists and historians — and they form the majority — who, while feeling quite unmoved at the rather crude language of the Bible, and some of the events narrated in it, show great disgust at the immorality in the pantheons of India and Greece. ¹We may be told that before them Euripides, Pindar, and even Plato, express the same; that they too felt irritated with the tales invented —”those miserable stories of the poets,” as Euripides expresses it  (ᾀοιδὣν  ὄιδε δυστήυοι λόλοι, Hercules furens, 1346, Dindorf’s Edition).

But there may have been another reason for this, perhaps. To those who knew that there was more than one key to theogonic symbolism, it was a mistake to have expressed it in a language so crude and misleading. For if the educated and learned philosopher could discern the kernel of wisdom under the coarse rind of the fruit, and knew that the latter concealed the greatest laws and truths of psychic and physical nature, as well as the origin of all things — not so with the uninitiated profane. For him the dead letter was religion; the interpretation — sacrilege. And this dead letter could neither edify nor make him more perfect, seeing that such an example was given him by his gods. But to the philosopher — especially the Initiate — Hesiod’s theogony is as historical as any history can be. Plato accepts it as such, and gives out as much of its truths as his pledges permitted him.

The fact that the Atlantes claimed Uranos for their first king, and that Plato commences his story of Atlantis by the division of the great continent by Neptune, the grandson of Uranos, shows that there were continents and kings before Atlantis. For Neptune, to whose lot that continent fell, finds on a small island only one human couple made of clay (i.e., the first physical human man, whose origin began with the last sub-races of the Third Root-Race). It is their daughter Clito that the god marries, and it is his eldest son Atlas who receives for his part the mountain and the continent which was called by his name.

Now all the gods of Olympus, as well as those of the Hindu Pantheon and the Rishis, were the septiform personations (1) of the noumena of the intelligent Powers of nature; (2) of Cosmic Forces; (3) of celestial bodies; (4) of gods or Dhyan Chohans; (5) of psychic and spiritual powers; (6) of divine kings on earth (or the incarnations of the gods); and (7) of terrestrial heroes or men. The knowledge how to discern among these seven forms the one that is meant, belonged at all times to the Initiates, whose earliest predecessors had created this symbolical and allegorical system.

Thus while Uranos (or the host representing this celestial group) reigned and ruled over the Second Race and their (then) Continent; Kronos or Saturn governed the Lemurians; and Jupiter, Neptune ² and others fought in the allegory for Atlantis, which was the whole earth in the day of the Fourth Race. Poseidonis, or the (last) island of Atlantis “the third step of Idaspati” (or Vishnu) in the mystic language of the secret books — lasted till about 12,000 years ago. ³ The Atlantes of Diodorus were right in claiming that it was their country, the region surrounding Mount Atlas, where “the gods were born” — i.e., “incarnated.” But it was after their fourth incarnation that they became, for the first time, human Kings and rulers.

Diodorus speaks of Uranos as the first king of Atlantis, confusing, either consciously or otherwise, the continents; but, as shown, Plato indirectly corrects the statement. The first astronomical teacher of men was Uranos, because he is one of the seven Dhyan Chohans of that second period or Race. Thus also in the second Manvantara (that of Swarochisha), among the seven sons of the Manu, the presiding gods or Rishis of that race, we find Jyotis, ⁴ the teacher of astronomy (Jyotisha), one of the names of Brahmâ. And thus also the Chinese revere Tien (or the sky, Ouranos), and name him as their first teacher of astronomy. Uranos gave birth to the Titans of the Third Race, and it is they who (personified by Saturn-Kronos) mutilated him. For as it is the Titans who fell into generation, when “creation by will was superseded by physical procreation,” they needed Uranos no more.

And here a short digression must be permitted and pardoned. In consequence of the last scholarly production of Mr. Gladstone in the Nineteenth Century, “The Greater Gods of Olympos,” the ideas of the general public about Greek Mythology have been still further perverted and biassed. Homer is credited with an inner thought, which is regarded by Mr. Gladstone as “the true key to the Homeric conception,” whereas this “key” was merely ablind. Poseidon “is indeed essentially of the earth earthy . . . . strong and self-asserting, sensual and intensely jealous and vindictive,” — but this is because he symbolises the Spirit of the Fourth Root-Race, the ruler of the Seas, that race which lives above the surface of the seas (λίμνη, Iliad, xxiv., 79), which is composed of the giants, the children of Eurymedon, the race which is the father of Polyphemus, the Titan and one-eyed Cyclops. Though Zeus reigns over the Fourth Race, it is Poseidon who rules, and who is the true key to the triad of the Kronid Brothers and to our human races. Poseidon and Nereus are one: the former the ruler or spirit of Atlantis before the beginning of its submersion, the latter, after. Neptune is the titanic strength of the living race; Nereus, its spirit reincarnated in the subsequent Fifth or Aryan Race: and this is what the great Greek scholar of England has not yet discovered, or even dimly perceived. And yet he makes many observations upon the “artfulness” of Homer, who never names Nereus, at whose designation we arrive . . . . only through the patronymic of the Nereids!

Thus the tendency of even the most erudite Hellenists is to confine their speculations to the exoteric images of mythology and to lose sight of their inner meaning: and it is remarkably illustrated in the case of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, as we have shown. While almost the most conspicuous figure of our age as a statesman, he is at the same time one of the most cultured scholars England has given birth to. Grecian literature has been the loving study of his life, and he has found time amid the bustle of public affairs to enrich contemporary literature with contributions to Greek scholarship which will make his name famous through coming generations. At the same time, as his sincere admirer, the present writer cannot but feel a deep regret that posterity, while acknowledging his profound erudition and splendid culture, will yet, in the greater light which must then shine upon the whole question of symbolism and mythology, judge that he has failed to grasp the spirit of the religious system which he has often criticised from the dogmatic Christian standpoint. In that future day it will be perceived that the esoteric key to the mysteries of the Christian as well as of the Grecian theogonies and Sciences, is the Secret Doctrine of the pre-historic nations, which, along with others, he has denied. It is that Doctrine alone which can trace the kinship of all human religious speculations or even so-called Revelations, and it is this teaching which infuses the Spirit of life into the lay figures on the Mounts of Meru, Olympus, Walhalla, or Sinai. If Mr. Gladstone were a younger man, his admirers might hope that his scholastic studies would be crowned by the discovery of this underlying truth. As it is, he but wastes the golden hours of his declining years in futile disputations with that giant free-thinker, Col. Ingersoll, each fighting with the weapons of exoteric temper, drawn from the arsenals of ignorantLITERALISM. These two great controversialists are equally blind to the true esoteric meaning of the texts which they hurl at each other’s head like iron bullets, while the world alone suffers by such controversies: since the one helps to strengthen the ranks of materialism, and the other those of blind Sectarianism and of the dead letter. And now we may return once more to our immediate subject.

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¹ Professor Max Müller’s Lectures — “on the Philosophy of Mythology” — are before us. We read his citations of Herakleitos (460 B.C.), declaring that Homer deserved “to be ejected from public assemblies and flogged”; and of Xenophanes “holding Homer and Hesiod responsible for the popular superstitions of Greece. . . . ” and for ascribing “to the gods whatever is disgraceful and scandalous among men . . . unlawful acts, such as theft, adultery, and fraud.” Finally the Oxford Professor quotes from Professor Jowett’s translation of Plato, where the latter tells Adaimantos (Republic) that “the young man (in the State) should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes, he is far from doing anything outrageous, and that he may chastise his father (as Zeus did with Kronos) . . in any manner that he likes, and in this will only be following the example of the first and greatest of the gods. . . In my opinion, these stories are not fit to be repeated.” To this Dr. Max Müller observes that “the Greek religion was clearly a national and traditionalreligion, and, as such, it shared both the advantages and disadvantages of this form of religious belief“; while the Christian religion is “an historical and, to a great extent, an individual religion, and it possesses the advantage of an authorised codex and of a settled system of faith” (p. 349). So much the worse if it is “historical,” for surely Lot’s incident with his daughters would only gain, were it “allegorical.”
² Neptune or Poseidon is the Hindu Idaspati, identical with Narâyana (the mover on the waters) or Vishnu, and like this Hindu god he is shown crossing the whole horizon in three steps. Idaspati means also “the master of the waters.”
³ Bailly’s assertion that the 9,000 years mentioned by the Egyptian priests do not represent “solar years” is groundless. Bailly knew nothing of geology and its calculations; otherwise he would have spoken differently.
⁴ See Matsya Purâna, which places him among the seven Prajâpatis of the period.
The Secret Doctrine, ii 764–767
H. P. Blavatsky