[Die Symbolik des Altertums und die okkulte Mathematik.]

Translation from the German by Robert Hütwohl

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An attempt at an explanation of the mystical meaning of certain Christian symbols from the standpoint of the Indian Secret Doctrine.

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Occult science differs from everyday petty knowledge especially in that it deals with conscious intelligent forces, while ordinary science knows only mechanical forces. In the former, life itself is the whole and everything else are only manifestations or manifestations of this One Life in the universe; but small and short-sighted science sees nothing but a multiplicity of forms in which being alive is an inexplicable factor. In the same way, in ordinary mathematics, too, one is only a limited number, like the others; in occult mathematics, on the other hand, unity is an inexhaustible source from which everything springs, and through which everything grows and multiplies; Unity is the Creator, Sustainer and Provider of all, Unity is God.

 The Secret Doctrine, the main features of which were presented in the first volume of the “Lotusblüten,” is not a human invention, not a play of the imagination and not mere philosophical speculation; but it sprang from the vision of the Sages many thousands of years ago, who had attained the ability to discern the deeper mysteries of nature with the spiritual eye, just as we are able to see an external object with the physical eye, and not ourselves to put together an idea of ​​it artificially, but to recognize by looking at what it is showing. The results of the considerations of the Theosophists, be they “Christian” or “pagan,” therefore all agree insofar as these Sages reached the same depth of perception and height of understanding, while the results of the investigations by our modern philosophers, where their consideration is only in the individual perception of their own fantasies and ideas obtained through reasoning, are widely divergent, different from one another and often downright opposed to one another. It is therefore not surprising if we find under the Christian symbols the basic features of the same secret science which was already known to the ancient sages of the East, for even among the Christians there were Sages who were capable of a higher spiritual perception, and in fact, true Christianity, which is well to be distinguished from modern churchdom, rests in the knowledge of one’s own divine infinite Self and its Mysteries, which are represented throughout nature by living symbols. However, the correctness of the knowledge gained through direct observation can be demonstrated by means of occult mathematics, just as the effect and size of mechanical forces in a machine can be calculated by means of ordinary mathematics.

 In order to make this clear by an example, let us examine any one of the many Christian symbolic representations which are to be found in Christian churches or buildings, and select a bas-relief for this purpose, which is appropriate as the centerpiece on the ceiling of a room in the k. u.k. Government archive in Salzburg [Salzburg State Archives]. Should any reader discover an error in our calculation, this proves nothing more than that one can make mistakes of this kind of calculation, but not that the occult mathematics itself is wrong.

 The picture, a copy of which is attached, represents the spiritual evolution of the universe as set forth in the Secret Doctrine as communicated to us by H. P. Blavatsky.

 It will be clear to every Christian even from a superficial examination of the image, and without further reference to chapter and verse of this or that “authority,” that it represents the revelation of the Deity in its own light, surrounded by its glory with spiritual intelligences (cherubims, seraphim and angels), who, the more distant they stand from the divine center, the more clothed, i.e. appear materially, while those closest to the deity appear naked, i.e. are unclothed by matter and formless.

 1. Deities, disembodied gods or “planetary spirits,” intelligent beings not limited by form. (Arūpa Devas.)

 2. Gods, intelligences which exist as formed beings, although we cannot imagine their size. (Rūpa Devas.)

 3. Astral beings, i.e., the forms which the desire for selfhood has brought into existence.

 4. Larvae, the products of the passions. (Māra-Rūpas.)

 5. Nature spirits, the spirits of the four elements.

 6. Animals, souls whose animal character is expressed in animal forms.

 7. Devils, beings in which the will has become free but is turned towards evil. (Black magic.)

 Just as the element of earth presents itself in various forms entirely different from each other, for example, as stones, soil, flowers, fruits, etc., all these classes also have their different subdivisions. In the attached picture we are dealing only with the heavenly beings, but not with those of the central region or the underworld. We see in it the revelation of the eternal and inexhaustible unity in the higher spheres of existence, in other words, a representation of the spiritual evolution of the world harmony, from which then the material world with its dissonances takes its origin. In the whole picture no essentially different things are represented, but only different manifestations of one and the same eternal unity; in each of these rays of light or “angels” is contained the eternal unity, only these rays of light, according to how distant they are from the center of Deity, are more or less clothed with the shadow of matter, and appear on the sensible plane as embodied figures in human forms. But the finite human mind can form no other than a finite conception of the infinite; therefore the eternal cannot be represented other than symbolically in limited forms, and we must think of the central sphere symbolizing the deity as a circle whose center is omnipresent and whose periphery is nowhere.

 The eternal, self-existing, all-embracing and inclusive unity, the circle, whose periphery is nowhere (because it is infinite) and whose center is everywhere (because unity is indivisible), reveals itself to itself (for there is nothing else to whom it could reveal itself, because God is all in all), contemplating itself as a trinity, or rather as a trinity, namely, that which knows, that which is known, and the knowledge (“Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit”), or It becomes aware of itself. The number two is the number of error and ignorance; for recognition can only take place where the above three factors are present; if one of them is missing, there can be no awareness, no recognition. Three is therefore the number of revelation, the number of existence, two the number of illusory, ignorant existence, of imagined separation from unity, the number of egoism.

 When the number two comes together with the trinity, two illusions result, namely two forms which have come into existence through the number three, in the cabalistic sense 33. These represent intelligences (living forces or forms of consciousness) in the universe, in the everyday language called “angels.” Indian mysticism names these as Devas (gods or elementals) and knows 333,000,000 of them, of which there are many classes; Christian mysticism divides them into archangels, angels, thrones, dominions, potentates, principalities, and virtues (powers).

 However, in order to prevent misunderstandings, it must be noted that the Indian does not understand the word Maya [Māyā] (illusion or deception) as a deception or fraud in our modern sense, but rather everything which Schopenhauer calls as an “imagination.” According to the Brahmin philosophy there is only one truth and reality, namely Brahma (God); everything else, including ourselves, is Maya (illusion) because it is based on the delusion of selfhood, i.e. of selfhood separate from God. Both good and evil are delusions in a certain sense; they have only relative existence; within themselves they do not exist at all. But because everything which does not have the basis of its existence in itself is also in itself nothing essential, but only seems to be, there is also basically nothing real but God, reality itself, the eternal unity, in which contains the ground of everything which occurs as appearance.

 We therefore find in the interior of the sphere the number 33 3 contained both to the right and to the left of the centre; for, as indicated by the horizontal line above the number, the power emanating from the divine sun manifests itself in two directions, viz., relatively good and relatively evil; as every thing in the world has its light and its dark side.

 Diabolus is deus inversus [God is the devil, inverted]. The same process which takes place on the light side in the heart of the universe also takes place on its dark side, and we therefore find on both the one and the other the number 3 connected with 3 to 33, 3 = 333 and these taken twice, makes 666, which is the number of a man in whom good as well as evil can be manifested. It is therefore the human being with his animal nature about whom it is said in the Revelation of John, Chapter XIII, V. 18: “Here it is a question of wisdom. Whoever has understanding, let him count the number of the beast; for it is a man’s number, and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.”

 Taking the matter further, a still further degree of densification of matter or degradation by 3 would make the number 333 in its incarnations 3 x 333 = 999, making the world even more alienated from God the One and would become complete Hell, as it is like halfway through now.

 If man were God himself, 33 x 2 = 66 rays of light would emanate from the eternal sun; but we find there are 76 rays or forces in the picture. This can be explained by the fact that through the connection of the unit (God) with the zero (the human being, who is an insubstantial nothing without God) the 66 was added to the 10, thereby losing his animal nature and becoming the god-man represented by the sun with its 76 rays. The whole picture thus represents the divine universal human being with the heavenly forces that have become conscious in him. Its center is God, its spirit as great as the world, its body all nature, and it clothes itself with matter the more, the farther it is from its own center, its true being.

 Below the number on the circle there is another inconspicuous sign, namely the Egyptian Tau 𝝩. This sign is of great importance; for the horizontal line signifies matter or nature, the vertical line the mind, spirit or consciousness. The latter is the generating principle (representation); the former the giving birth principle (will or substance). Spirit is the ideal which attains realization and essence through substance. When the will, the feminine principle, is permeated by the spirit of self-knowledge, the birth of the idea, the revelation of forms takes place. Through this permeation of matter by spirit, the evolution of forms takes place in the higher spheres as well as on the sensuous plane. Darwin and others only described the material part of the history of evolution, namely the development of the bodies inhabited by the souls, but not the history of the development of the beings invisible to us, without which these dwellings would be empty and insubstantial. This higher theory of evolution belongs to the field of occult science and is only recognized by the spiritual eye.

 If we now look at the details of this evolution of spiritual intelligences, the picture shows us how the higher forms of consciousness are born out of the light streaming through the whole, just as it is described in the Secret Doctrine. In the four corners of the picture we see four groups of angels playing music, or four archangels with their hosts. The Brahmins call them the four maharajas [Mahārājas], or rulers of the world, and mean by this the four “Regents of the universe,” who rule over the four regions, viz., north, south, east, and west, or what is perhaps better viewed from the center as the infinite could designate height, depth, width and length. The Secret Doctrine calls them “four winged Wheels. . . the four anointed with their Legions; . . . four mystical Powers, each with their own special properties; . . . the “Ambassadors” spoken of in Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Psalms, and represented on the material plane by the four elements, earth, air, water and fire.” Of course, we are not talking about material elements, but about forms of will and consciousness, just as the whole thing, because it is of a spiritual nature, must be viewed from a spiritual point of view, otherwise it can neither be explained nor understood. To the mystic, all substance, even the planetary nebula, is “earth,” and love as a fire of its own kind.

 If we now approach the fiery center again, we find it surrounded by six angels' heads. Why is it six? — We know that when the light of the terrestrial sun is refracted in the raindrop, a rainbow with seven colors is created. Likewise also a ray (Aditi) of the Sun of Divine Wisdom breaks into seven states of consciousness, but the seventh of which is not manifest, because it is one with the Unity, and this Unity itself is invisible. But just because there is a six instead of a seven, it also indicates that the whole is maya (illusion) when viewed from the divine point of view; although in truth from our point of view it is much more real and permanent than our world.

 There are seven “lights” or principles,² but only six of them are visible because the seventh (Ātma) in the middle, the most holy, unmanifested eternal light, is the spirit and clarity in all; as is also symbolically represented in the Catholic Church when three candles are burning on the right and left during the sacrifice of the Mass, while the Holy of Holies has no light, but is itself the light hidden in the dark. In the Apocalypse these seven are called the “seven candlesticks before the throne of God.” They are the Dhyan-Chohans of the Indians and the Elohims of the Bible, by whom the original Hebrew is said to have created heaven and earth. “Berashit [Bereshit] bara Elohim” (Moses I, i). The Secret Doctrine says, among other things: “The original seven, the first seven breaths of the dragon of wisdom, produce the fiery whirlwind through their circling breath. These make him the messenger of their will. The Dzy (Tibet.) becomes Fohat (life electricity), the swift-footed son of the divine sons, whose sons are the Lipikas”³ etc.⁴

 It would obviously have been easier for the artist to place twelve instead of ten angels’ heads symmetrically in the following circle; but this would not have corresponded to reality, for the number ten here represents the ten creative forces or “deities” which correspond to the ten Prajapatis [Prajāpatīs] of the Indians or the ten Sephiroth of the Cabala, namely:

 1. Kether. The crown of everything. The Highest.

 2. Chokmah. Wisdom. Self-consciousness.

 3. Binah. Understanding.

 4. Chesed. Grace. Love.

 5. Geburah. Strength. Might.

 6. Tiphereth. Beauty.

 7. Netzach. Overcoming.

 8. Hod. Glory.

 9. Yesod. Strength.

 10. Malkuth. Self-control.

 These are the ten Sephiroth, or powers, which each must find in his own soul if he is to know them; the ten emanations of the Deity at the core of the microcosm and macrocosm. These ten “Prajāpatīs” are also called the “Original Progenitors” or “Life-givers” because they are the outpourings of the awakening celestial life in man as well as in the universe as a whole. The seven in one are Brahma, the creative Word. These ten and seven Prajāpatīs, Rishis or Manus, are intimately connected with the mysteries of the Zodiac and the evolution of man, spiritually as well as materially; but this subject is too grand and vast to even touch upon the most important of it in this article.

 But how does the three become seven, and seven become ten? Occult mathematics gives us information about this. But, as the reader will have already remarked, occult mathematics must not be judged by the rules of ordinary arithmetic, but we must proceed quite differently, bearing in mind that we are dealing not with a trinity but with a trinity, i.e., that in all apparent numbers there is still the non-manifest, inexhaustible unity, which, however, can become apparent, whereby a new factor is always added, so that a kind of mathematics arises which can be called “mathematics with living numbers.” Thus, the three for example, properly a four, in which the underlying unity is not revealed in itself. If we take A, B and C and put these letters individually and together, in every possible way but without repetition [factorial], we have:

 1. A = 1.

 2. B = 1.

 3. C = 1.

 4. A, B = 2.

 5. B, C = 2.

 6. A, C = 2.

 7. A, B, C = 3.

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  Total  12.

 The number of perfection.

 Thus, the number three has become the number seven, and we have the seven principles of the macrocosm and microcosm, as well as the twelve signs of the zodiac in one figure. But the number ten arises from the number seven, in that the trinity of self-knowledge joins the seven. Those who have not studied this kind of worldview in depth may think it is a “Kabbalistic gimmick”; for the mystic, however, the Kabbalah offers the key to unlocking mysteries of higher natural science which would otherwise be closed and inexplicable to him. There can be no question here of going deeper into the laws of occult mathematics, and everything which has been said should not be regarded as “explanations” but rather as indications for finding the explanation.

 So far we have only dealt with angel chiefs, i.e., having to do with spiritual intelligence, will power and forms of consciousness, but now comes the next series, the seven human figures. Here it is no longer six, hidden or unmanifest, for now the divinity in the spiritual man has come to revelation and the number seven has become perfect. Hitherto we have had for our consideration creative powers which did not act of their own judgement, but which were so permeated with the light of divine wisdom that they had no consciousness of their own and could know or carry out no other will than the Will of God. But now man has become a temple of God, he has recognized the divine spirit as a part of himself and has thereby become a self-conscious being in God. In other words, as the first seven rays flowed from Deity there was still no opposition to their divine origin, no distinction between themselves and the source from which they flowed, no Antah-karana [antaḥ-karaṇa], and therefore no personal knowledge, no illusion of individuality or awareness of being separate with one’s own will and thinking.

 Man could not distinguish between the light and the shadow as long as he dwelt in the light and did not know the shadow; he had first to descend into material existence in order to get to know matter and then to rise above it; he first had to fall into “sin,” the error of being separate, before he could overcome sin, become master of egoism and truly recognize himself as one with the Deity. Once man recognizes himself, he stands higher than all gods and angels, devas and demons, as the crown of creation. He then recognizes himself in God as the highest and greatest of all creatures, who embraces heaven and earth and everything in love and wisdom.

 Thus we see in the seven winged and jubilant human figures standing on the angelic heads the seven Pitris [Pitṛs] or spiritual ancestors of the seven races of the human race on earth, whose material development is described in the “Secret Doctrine.” The wings signify the soul’s ability to rise to God; these angels are not linked by hands to indicate that although they are all rooted in eternal unity and are essentially one, yet that unity appears divided in them. I say “appears” because God, the Eternal One, the Essence in all, is indivisible and appears multiplied only in appearance or self-reflection.

 But of these Pitris or ancestors of the modern human race, H. P. Blavatsky says: “The Pitris are for us the most important groups among the Devas of the Indians and they are also the least understood by the “Orientalists.” The Devas are ethereal (airy) beings. The word Deva means “the shining one, radiant one” and refers to a host of diverse beings, including those intelligences from earlier manvantaric periods (periods of creation) who take part in the formation of new solar systems and are involved or occupied with the upbringing of the human races from their infancy.”

 But how this development of the human race takes place in seven rounds and races according to the Brahmin view, how the wave of life moves from one planet to the other in the course of thousands of years, how such a period of creation (Manvantara) takes 308,448,000 years, and everything which happens in it, how the original man (Adam), who is of an ethereal nature, gradually condenses until he becomes material man and bisexual (male and female), spiritualizing again at the lowest point of material existence through the redeeming power of God incarnate and is lifted up, until at last, in the accomplishment of yoga, he again returns to divinity one and self-conscious with the God in Divinity; There is not enough space in this article to even suggest all of this, as outlined in the scope of The Secret Doctrine.

 We therefore go on to the next outermost group, the “Sons of Light,” and here the fact that there are eleven may be noticed, since it would have been more appropriate to add twelve; but this has its good reason, which is again made clear to us by occult mathematics:

 God (Brahma) is unity, man without God is insubstantial and therefore nothing, a zero. That is why Joh. Scheffler (Angelus Silesius) also says in his “Cherubinischer Wandersmann” [Cherubian Wanderer], page 121:

“The numbers all flowed out of the one,

And the creatures have sprung from God the One.

Just as there is unity in every number,

So too is God, the One, in things everywhere.

Like all and every number without one cannot exist,

So the creatures must perish without God, the One.

The nothing, the creature, when set before God,

If nothing is valid, it is behind him, then it will first be appreciated.”

 Ten is therefore the number of Yoga, i.e. the union of man with God; but this union is not perfect unless one becomes conscious of it. In addition to the mere form (of the three), there must still be consciousness, the one, the truth must blossom in the three and knowledge must open up in it like a lotus blossom in the light of eternal wisdom, only then will man become aware of the divinity within him. So the one comes to the ten and the people reborn in God rise up, the sons of light, redeemed from the darkness of matter by the God-man, who speaks in the innermost part of every human heart: “I am the light of the world! Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness.” Eleven is therefore ten illuminated by unity, the number of light, and from it springs the number twelve when unity, man, has found himself in his own divine light.

 The meaning of the ten angelic heads between the eleven clothed and winged angels has yet to be examined. We see in them the symbol of the fullness of the Spirit of God in the universe, represented by the mystical number ten, which springs from the sacred tetrad (of the Pythagoreans) in the following way: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10, that is:

 ​​ ​​ ​​ ​​ ​​ ​​​​ ・ 1 The Eternal Oneness. God . ​​ . ​​ . ​​  Father.

 ​​ ​​ ​​​​ ・ ・ 2 “matter”, selfhood. Soul . ​​ . ​​ . ​​ . Mother.

 ​​​​ ・ ​​ ・ ​​ ・ 3 Shape, Nature, World ​​ . ​​ . ​​ . ​​ . ​​ .  ​​ ​​​​ Son.

・ ​​ ・ ​​ ・ ​​ ・ 4  „Space“  ​​​​ . ​​ . ​​ . ​​ . ​​ . ​​ . ​​ . ​​ . ​​ . ​​ . ​​ . ​​ . Spirit.

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  10  The fullness of the whole in the universe.

 However, the explanation of this representation of the harmony of the universe is far from exhausted with this; for all these symbols are capable of not just one, but different interpretations, and these interpretations are not arbitrary, but only differ from one another from the point of view of intuition. John Eckhart says: “The Holy Scriptures (occult doctrine) are like a sea, which gets deeper the further one goes into it. For one it is only up to the knees, for the other up to the shoulders, but the third immerses himself completely in it and finds the precious treasures which are at the bottom.” The purpose of this article is not to dig up these treasures and bring them to light for the satisfaction of scientific curiosity, but to encourage the researcher to plunge himself into that sea of self-forgetfulness at the bottom of which true immortal being and in this the knowledge of God is to be found.