An Invitation to The Secret Doctrine — H. P. Blavatsky Selections from The Secret Doctrine — Volume II Title Page Preliminary Notes Stanzas of Dzyan — Anthropogenesis Conclusion "And now to conclude." THE SECRET DOCTRINE: THE SYNTHESIS OF SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND PHILOSOPHY. H. P. BLAVATSKY AUTHOR OF "ISIS UNVEILED "There is no Religion higher than Truth." VOL. II. — ANTHROPOGENESIS. London: THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED. 7, Duke Street, Adelphi, W.C. WILLIAM Q. JUDGE, 1I7, Nassau Street, New York. THE MANAGER OF THE THEOSOPHIST, Adyar, Madras. 1888 Modern science insists upon the doctrine of evolution; so do human reason and the "Secret Doctrine," and the idea is corroborated by the ancient legends and myths, and even by the Bible itself when it is read between the lines. We see a flower slowly developing from a bud, and the bud from its seed. But whence the latter, with all its predetermined programme of physical transformation, and its invisible, therefore spiritual forces which gradually develop its form, colour, and odour? The word evolution speaks for itself. The germ of the present human race must have preexisted in the parent of this race, as the seed, in which lies hidden the flower of next summer, was developed in the capsule of its parent flower; the parent may be but slightly different, but it still differs from its future progeny. The antediluvian ancestors of the present elephant and lizard were, perhaps, the mammoth and the plesiosaurus; why should not the progenitors of our human race have been the "giants" of the Vedas, the Voluspa, and the Book of Genesis? While it is positively absurd to believe the "transformation of species" to have taken place according to some of the more materialistic views of the evolutionists, it is but natural to think that each genus, beginning with the molluscs and ending with man, had modified its own primordial and distinctive forms. — "Isis Unveiled," Vol. I., p. 153. PRELIMINARY NOTES. ON THE ARCHAIC STANZAS, AND THE FOUR PRE-HISTORIC CONTINENTS. "Facies totius Universi, quamvis infinitis modis variet, Manet tamen semper eadem." — Spinoza. The Stanzas, with the Commentaries thereon, in this Book, the second, are drawn from the same Archaic Records as the Stanzas on Cosmogony in Book I. As far as possible a verbatim translation is given; but some of the Stanzas were too obscure to be understood without explanation. Hence, as was done in Book I., while they are first given in full as they stand, when taken verse by verse with their Commentaries an attempt is made to make them clearer, by words added in brackets, in anticipation of the fuller explanation of the Commentary. As regards the evolution of mankind, the Secret Doctrine postulates three new propositions, which stand in direct antagonism to modern science as well as to current religious dogmas: it teaches(a) the simultaneous evolution of seven human groups on seven different portions of our globe; (b) the birth of the astral, before the physical body: the former being a model for the latter; and (c) that man, in this Round, preceded every mammalian — the anthropoids included — in the animal kingdom. (1) The Secret Doctrine is not alone in speaking of primeval MEN born simultaneously on the seven divisions of our Globe. In the Divine "Pymander" of Hermes we find the same Seven primeval men (2) evolving from Nature and "Heavenly Man," in the collective sense of the word, namely, from the Creative Spirits; and in the fragments (collected by George Smith) of Chaldean tablets on which is inscribed the Babylonian Legend of Creation, in the first column of the Cutha tablet, seven human beings with the faces of ravens (black, swarthy complexions), whom "the (Seven) great gods created," are mentioned. Or, as explained in lines 16 and 18 — "In the midst of the Earth they grew up and became great . . . . Seven kings, brothers of the same family." These are the Seven Kings of Edom to whom reference is made in the Kabala; the first race, which was imperfect, i.e., was born before the "balance" (sexes) existed, and which was therefore destroyed. (Zohar, Siphrah Dzeniouta, Idrah Suta, 2928, La Kabbale, p. 205.) "Seven Kings, brethren, appeared and begat children, 6,000 in number were their peoples (Hibbert Lectures, p. 372). The god Nergas (death) destroyed them." "How did he destroy them?" "By bringing into equilibrium (or balance) those who did not yet exist" (Siphrah Dzeniouta). They were "destroyed," as a race, by being merged in their own progeny (by exudation); that is to say, the sexless race reincarnated in the bisexual (potentially); the latter in the Androgynes; these again in the sexual, the later third Race; (for further explanation, vide infra). Were the tablets less mutilated, they would be found to contain word for word the same account as given in the archaic records and in Hermes, at least as regards the fundamental facts, if not as regards minute details; for Hermes is a good deal disfig...