[Auszüge aus dem Buche Dzyan von H. P. Blavatsky. Die Entstehung des Menschen.]

Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl[1]  [2]

The following second part[3] of the Secret Doctrine contains the oldest record now in existence regarding the origin of the human race, and we find in the Book of Dzyan the foundation upon which later the Vedas, the Bible and all the various ancient and modern religious systems, theologies and mythologies were built. The proof of this will become obvious to everyone as soon as he learns about the matter.

The Emergence of Man[4]

[Die Entstehung des Menschen[5]]

[Stanza] I.[6]

The Beginning of Sentient Life.

[Śloka] 1. The Lha (angel) who moves the fourth world (our globe) is the servant of the Lhas of the seven (planetary angels), who move in circles on their triumphal chariots around their Lord, the one all-eye of our world. His breath gives life to the seven. It gave life to the first. They are the Dragons of Wisdom.

          The word “Lha” means a celestial or supernatural entity, whether referred to as “angels,” “devils,” “spirits,” etc., or as “intelligences.”[7] The lower intelligences are as subordinate to the higher being as the planets of a solar system are to the sun of the same, and as the physical sun gives life to all planets, so the spiritual sun of the universe is the source of consciousness in the universe.

[Śloka] 2. The earth said: “Lord of the radiant face (the sun), my house is empty. Send your sons to populate this globe. You sent your seven sons to the Lord of wisdom; he sees you seven times closer and feels your presence seven times more. You have forbidden your servants, the little rings, to catch your light and your warmth and to hinder your great goodness on their way. Now send them to your servant.”

          This verse expresses the longing of the earth spirit to receive the power of the sun of the higher intelligence [Mercury][8]; but he was not yet ready for this, and the existing earthly human bodies were not yet suitable to serve as dwellings for the sons of light.[9]

[Śloka] 3. Then the Lord spoke with the beaming face: “I will send you a fire when the work has begun. Raise your voice to other lokas; turn to the Father, the Lord of the lotus; for his sons, thy people, shall be under the dominion of the fathers (Pitri-pati) [pitṛ-pati]. Your people will be mortals. The people of the Lord of Wisdom (Buddha) and not the sons of Soma (the moon) are immortal. Stop complaining. Your seven robes are still hanging on you. You are not ready, your people are not yet mature.”

          The Pitars or Pitris [pitṛ-s] (fathers) are these sons of the gods or sons of light, the begetters of men. Only the heavenly “Adam” was created in the image of God, the earthly Adam is made of the “dust of the earth.”

          During each age the human organism is constituted in a way that suits its environment. The first race of men was ethereal to the same degree that we are of a material nature, and their organism corresponded to the conditions then prevailing. The evolution of physical (material) man, the “Lemurians,” took place only 18,000,000 years ago.

          At the beginning of each kalpa (round) the earth is reborn anew. Just as the jiva [jīva] (monad) of man clothes itself with a new body at each incarnation, so the jiva of the earth unfolds a new robe at the beginning of each “creative period” in that it again steps out of the subjective state into an objective existence in space.[10]

[Śloka] 4. And after great labor pains she (the earth) threw off her old three (robes), clothed herself in seven new ones, and stood there in her first (garment).

The earth shed her three “skins” or “robes” after surviving the first three evolutionary periods (rounds). We are now in the fourth of the seven comprising the great world period.

[Stanza] II.

Nature Alone, Without Help From Above, is Not Perfect.

[Śloka] 5. The wheel whirled through thirty crores (300,000,000 years) and produced rupas [rūpa-s] (forms). Soft rocks that hardened and hard plants that softened, the visible out of the invisible, insects and small creatures. When these forms pressed the mother, the earth shook them off her back. After thirty crores of years the earth turned around. (The tilt of the Earth’s axis changed.) She was lying on her back, on her side. She cried for no sons of heaven and asked for no sons of wisdom. She created from her own breast, she brought forth merpeople terrible in form and evil.

          This verse refers to changes in the tilt of the earth’s axis and associated “deluges” and chaotic conditions during which monstrosities, half human, half animal in nature, arose. The water-men referred to here were a failed attempt by nature to create human forms fit to serve as the abodes of the gods.[11]

          According to the Hindu Puranas [purāṇa-s], various failed creations took place in which Brahma “amused himself” in creating worlds, until finally the one which “God saw was good” came about. (Moses I, 31.)

“Out of the depths of the waters and darkness sprang ugly creatures; Humans with wings, four- and two-faced humans, those with billy goat legs and horns, centaurs, oxen with human heads, dogs with fish tails, etc. All sorts of combinations of animal and human limbs, fish. reptiles and vermin of all kinds.”[12]

[Śloka] 6. The terrible and wicked Water-men, she (the earth) created herself. She fashioned them from the remains (the types) of others, of the First, Second and Third periods. The Dhyanis [dhyāni-s] (angels) came and saw. The Dhyanis from the radiant parents (father and mother in one); from the white (sun and moon) regions they came; from the dwellings of the immortal mortals.

          This period of evolution is referred to in the mythologies of various peoples; the Puranas, the Zohar, Chaldean cuneiforms, the Cutha tablets, etc. speak of it. These animal-men, as described by Berosus, were possible at a time when nature was not yet sufficiently imbued with the spirit of the higher intelligence to bring forth its creatures in the order that now prevails.[13]

          But the Dhyanis are the “sons of wisdom,” the mortals, spawned from a previous creation, who attained immortality.

[Śloka] 7. They (the sons of light) found no favor. “Our flesh is not there” (they said). “These are not proper forms for our brethren of the fifth (race); no homes for their lives. They must drink pure water, undefiled. Let’s dry up the water formations.”

          The Tibetan Commentary says:

“It is material worlds from which descend those who form the physical man in each new manvantara. They are the subordinate Lha (angels or spirits) who have a dual nature (an astral body within their etheric form). They are the creators and shapers of our illusory body (which is a product of will and delusion).”

          Before the light was revealed there was darkness with the spawns of darkness, the products of the lightless nature. Therefore also in the Babylonian story of creation we find “in the first days the evil gods; for the angels who were in rebellion (which refused to incarnate in such ugly forms) in the lower part of heaven,” and Christian theogony, when freed from the common perverse conception, teaches the like; for the “Fall of Lucifer” actually means the descent of the “Light-Bringer” into matter, by which alone matter can be illumined and permeated by spiritual consciousness. Without the “fall” of an angel there would be no salvation of man, without individualization in human forms there would be no spiritual individuality.

[Śloka] 8. The Flames came, the Fires with their Sparks, the Fires of the night and those of the day. They dried the murky dark waters; with their heat they destroyed them. The Lhas came from above and the Lhamayin from below. They destroyed the two-faced and four-faced forms, they fought the goat-footed and dog-headed people and the fish-bodied people.

          The “Flames” are the “Seraphim”; the Lhas and Lhamayin the angels of the various spheres of the heavenly regions.[14]

[Śloka] 9. The mother ocean, the great sea, wept. She rose and disappeared into the moon that raised her and from which she was born.

          According to the Secret Doctrine, the moon is much older than the earth, and indeed the earth was born of the moon, and not the moon of the earth. But that the moon attracts the water is testified to by the phenomena of ebb and flow.[15]

[Śloka] 10. When the Rupas [rūpa-s] (creatures) were destroyed, Mother-Earth remained empty. She asked to be dried.

          This was the beginning of a new and higher life on our planet. Only after the earth had become emptied of the ideas of its own making could the “Spirit of God,” which hovered over the deep, penetrate into the darkness and illumine the deep with its light. Then the twilight of the dawn of wisdom began and the Redeemer was born.[16]

[Stanza] III.

Attempts to Create Man.

[Śloka] 11. The Lord of all Masters came. From the Body he separated the Waters and this was the upper heaven, the first Heaven (the atmosphere, the firmament).

          After evolution had risen to a certain degree in the preceding kalpa, the time now appeared when bodies could develop which served as the habitation of the human spirit. God revealed himself anew in a new form.[17]

[Śloka] 12. The great chohans (masters), called the Lords of the Moon, whose bodies were aeriform (ethereal). “Bring forth people,” it said, “people after your nature (images). Give them their inner form; nature will build up the outer bodies. They will be male and female (in one) and also the Lords of the Flame (of the Light).”

          The Chohans or Elohims of the Bible are the spiritual forces (beings) that create in nature. The “moon” is the symbol of the fruitive body-creating matter, which is fertilized by the spirit.[18]

[Śloka] 13. They (the gods of the moon) each went to their assigned area. There were seven, each in his district. But the Lords of the Flame stayed behind; they did not want to produce (themselves).

          The Secret Doctrine speaks of twelve classes of creating beings, of which four have attained perfection (freedom), the fifth is on the way there, seven are still under the direct influence of the law of karma. Only the inferior “spirits” could connect with the inferior human forms; nature had not yet created a suitable dwelling for the “Lords of the Flame.”

          The primitive man brought forth by nature was therefore a human-like creature who lacked what is peculiar to man, namely manas, the light of higher intelligence, or true self-consciousness. He certainly had an “animal” soul, not a divine one; the latter cannot develop from the animal without a divine germ being present. Only after this light was “breathed into” him could it be revealed in him.

[Stanza] IV.

The Emergence of the First Human Races.

[Śloka] 14. The lords born of the will (mind), impelled by the spirit of the life-giver (fohat), separate people from themselves, each in his own zone.

          It goes without saying that the “Adam” of that period of creation should not be thought of as a human being as we know them today; rather, these beings were of an ethereal nature, unisexual and reproduced in a different way than is known today.

          According to this view, we are not dealing with a creation of man from “nothing” (in the commonly assumed sense), nor with a development of man from a “Darwinian monkey,” but here it is a spiritual, a psychic, an intellectual one and to consider animal evolution; a growing revelation of spirit, and a progressive improvement in the organization of matter, during periods lasting beyond our comprehension. There is a descent of spirit into matter and an ascent in relation to matter’s ability to serve as an instrument for the manifestation of spirit’s workings.

          The Pitris [pitṛ-s] (Elohims) are the progenitors of our bodies with their lower base; they are ourselves and we are them. (They created or revealed themselves as earthly people); but our self-conscious immortal being does not come from these “Spirits of the Moon,” but from the “Solar Angels,” the “Lords of the Flame.” The “angel” in man has a different lineage than earthly man, even though both originally came from the same source. That in us which can think is different from the tool with which this thinking happens.[19]

[Śloka] 15. Thus seven times seven shadows (chhayas) [chāyā-s] of the future humans were born, each class according to its own quality and kind, and each less perfect than its progenitor. The boneless fathers could not give life to beings who had bones. Their ancestors were bhuta [bhūta] (phantoms) without form and without mind. Therefore this (first) race of man was called a Chhaya (concepts, appearances or shadows).

          “Manu” (man) comes from “man” (to think). However, this first generation had no principle of thought (manas or mens) and was therefore called “amanasa.” [amānasa][20]

[Śloka] 16. How are the real Manushyas [mānuṣya] (thinking people) born? How are the manus with mind-power, made? — The fathers take their own fire (Kavyavāhana) to their aid; it is the fire that burns in earth (matter). The spirit of the earth called upon the fire of the Sun (suchi) [śuci] for help. These [three] together (the Pitris and the [two] Fires) produced good forms [rūpa-s] by their combined action. These could stand, walk, run, lie down and fly; but were still nothing but chhaya [chāyā] (images), shadows without mind [understanding].

          Here the inability of material nature to produce a perfect animal, let alone a human being, without spiritual help is set forth. The “fathers” or “lower angels” are the spirits (conscious forces) in nature and elementals; but since they themselves do not yet have any higher intelligence, they cannot produce rationally thinking people either. This required the “living fire” (Lucifer, Prometheus, etc.) and the “animal fire” (the will). The ability of instinct comes from nature, the divine intelligence from Mahat. The comment says:

“The sons of Mahat give life to the human plant. They are the Waters that fall on the dry ground in which life is bound, and the Spark that enlivens the human animal. They are the Masters of Eternal Spiritual Life. In the beginning (of the second race) some of them breathed only a part of their being into the Manushya [mānuṣya] (people), others took up residence in them.”[21]

          Thus, the “rebellious angels” (who refused to incarnate in half-animal bodies) became our saviors; for if they had not waited till men were able to absorb them, they themselves would have been so debased that man would never have been able to use their power to rise up. All this is symbolically represented in various allegories in the religions of the Indians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, Jews and Christians, which, however, cannot be understood without knowledge of the secret doctrine and are therefore incomprehensible to the majority of our modern scholars and are taken by them for senseless fables.[22]

[Śloka] 17. The breath [human Monad] needed a form; the Fathers gave him the same. The breath needed a material body; the earth formed him. The breath needed the Spirit of Life; the sun’s Lhas breathed into its form. The breath needed a mirror of the body (an astral body); the Dyanis [dhyāni-s] said, “We give him ours.” The breath needed a substance for its desires (Kama Rupa) [kāma rūpa], and the water spirits (Suchi [śuci], the fire of passion) said, “Let it have it.” The breath needed one mind (manas) to comprehend the universe. “We cannot give this,” said the Fathers. “I never had it,” said the Earth Spirit. “The form would burn up if I gave it mine,” said the Great (Solar) Fire. Man remained empty, a meaningless Bhuta [Bhūta]. Thus the boneless gave life to those who (later, in the third race) became bone men.

          The “Father” of the original physical man who builds his body is the living (“electrical”) force of the sun. The moon is his mother,[23] because a mysterious power comes from it, which also promotes the growth of plants and animals. The “wind” or “cosmic ether” is the conductive substance between the celestial bodies, by means of which the above influences reach earth; but no true human being can achieve all this. This can only happen through the “Divine Fire.”[24]

          The first race of men had three rudimentary elements within them, and as yet no “fire,” because man’s evolution depended on the earth’s parallel evolution, and the latter had not yet progressed sufficiently to form a man worthy of the “gods,” which could have served as a dwelling. The “Elements” and the senses develop in a parallel direction, so that the manifestation of a new element results in or conditions the development of a new sense, as the following table illustrates:

      1. Ether. — Hearing. — Sound.
      2. Air. — Feeling. — Sound and touch.
      3. Light (fire). — The face. — Sound, touch and color.
      4. Water. — Taste. — Sound, touch, color and taste.
      5. Earth. — Smell. — Sound, touch, color, smell and taste.

          Each newly appearing element has added to its own property to those of the preceding ones.[25]

          The humans of the first and second races were not physical beings of our kind, but rather ethereal appearances (bhūtas), “ghostly” types of future humanity. God (the All-Cause) created Himself, i.e., in the All-Cause a first cause arose, which successively revealed itself in the descending (material) direction in the following way:

      1. Mahāpurusha or Paramātma. — The highest world spirit.
      2. Atman [Ātman] or Pūrvaja. The living Spirit of Nature.
      3. Indriyātman or Hrishikesa [hṛṣīkeśa]. The spiritual, intellectual soul. (Mind.)
      4. Bhutatman [bhūtātman]. The soul, the life.
      5. Kshetrajna [kṣetrajña]. The embodied soul; the universe as spirit and matter.
      6. Bhrantidarsanatah [bhrātidarśanaḥ]. The material world of appearances.

          (Deception, Maya.)[26]

(Sequel follows.)

[Stanza] V.

The Emergence of the Second Race.[27]

[Śloka] 18. The first [Race] were the sons of Yoga. Her sons (the second race) were the children of the sun and the moon, nourished by the wind (ether).

          [Commentary] They were the shadows of the shadows of the Lords. The shadows expanded. The Spirits of the Earth clothed them, the Lhas (angels) of the sun warmed them. The breaths had life, but no knowledge [understanding]. They had neither fire nor water of their own.

          [a] This reminds us of the well-known Tablet of Hermes [Tabula Smaragdina of Hermes], which says: “The one and only thing (man) has for father the sun (God, i.e., the divine self), its mother the moon (knowledge), the wind (life) carries it in its belly and its nurturer is the (spiritual) earth.

          During this earth life man’s higher, spiritual nature is in the power of his lower material nature (Christ the God-man is crucified in the animal man); but the divine fire (divine love) enables man to take refuge in the light (Ātma-buddhi) which affects his salvation.[28]

          Just as a plant does not thrive without the light, so too, without the influence of the divine light, the personal ego of man cannot attain either the knowledge of truth or the consciousness of immortality within him. Immortality without self-awareness is unthinkable and has no value. Therefore man can only be immortal when he becomes spiritually self-conscious of the divine essence indwelling him, or in other words, when he sees the Redeemer—not as a “historical personality alien to him”—but as the divine indwelling one Power and divinity is felt and recognized in the heart.

          But the “shadows of the shadows” are the astral bodies of people, to which their physical visible bodies are built and which were born from the transfigured bodies of the originally god-like beings (devas). These bodies had no (spiritual) fire of their own, i.e., no power of self-knowledge, and no “water,” i.e., not a “God-breathed” soul. The shadows, i.e., the human forms could only attain a divine nature and its knowledge through the incarnation of the divine light. However, all divine powers are also contained in this divine nature and can develop in man, although not through the efforts of his animal self-will, but through the power of the divine light in him when he submits to it.

          The first race of men thus consisted of the astral images or “doubles” of the “Fathers,” who were the “Sons of Yoga,” i.e., “those connected with God.” By the end of the third round, through the progress of evolution, they were capable of producing human forms suitable for their incarnation.

[Śloka] 19. The second race began to flourish and spread. The a-sexual form arose from the a-sexual shadow. Thus came forth, O Lanoo, the second race.

          Since the second race “flowered” out of the first, there can be no question of a “sexual” process; but a scientific description of this “blossoming” is of course an impossibility, since human science has no experience of it and scientific language has no words to describe it. As long as the human mind is not on a spiritual level, spiritual truths can only be perceived and understood spiritually, but not made palatable to modern science. We must therefore content ourselves with symbols and allegories and imagine this process as a manifestation arising from an appearance.

[Śloka] 20. Their fathers were born of themselves [self-born]; the natives, the chhaya [chāyā] of the luminous bodies of the Lords, the Fathers, the Sons of Twilight.

          The “self-born” are the “shadows” of themselves born of the will of the being. The “fathers” (Pitris) [pitṛ-s] are the sons of the dawning light who have sprung from the womb of the deity.

[Śloka] 21. As the race grew old, the old mixed with the fresh waters; when the drops became cloudy, they disappeared and passed away in the newly created stream, in the warm stream of life. The exteriors of the former became the interiors of the second. The wing became the shadow and the shadow became the wing.

          The first race merged into the second and became one with it. The etheric and spiritual bodies, in which a material core had formed, merged into this core and became its inhabitants. The divine entity is and remains what it was from eternity, but the “shadows” (people) it produces change. These shadows became more and more material and corporeal. Human beings procreated by the indwelling spirit creating and dwelling in a new shadow of itself. There was no “death,” only a change of form, and the new form emerged from the old. When the etheric (astral) body develops the flesh body, it disappears into it. What was the shadow now becomes the body (wings) and the former body the “shadow.” The process is allegorically depicted in the mythologies of various peoples, including the fables of Leda and the swan, Psyche and Cupid, and so on.

[Stanza] VI.

Development History of the Second Race.

[Śloka] 22. Then the second race brought forth the third, those born of sweat. The sweat increased, its drops multiplied and these drops became hard and round. The sun warmed it; the moon cooled it and formed it, the wind nourished it to maturity. The white swan of the starry sky (the moon) overshadowed the great drop, the egg of the future race, the Human-swan (Hamsa) [haṃsa] of the last third. First man-woman, then Man and Woman.

          Here, too, it is a matter of intuitive perception rather than objective understanding, although the original struggles to make the process comprehensible to the outer mind. Many processes also take place in the human embryo that have not yet been adequately explained scientifically, but are nevertheless facts. For our purpose it suffices to state that at the time of the third race a division of the sexes into male and female took place because at that time the human forms became too material to continue to procreate in the earlier “spiritual” manner. In other words, “Adam fell into a deep sleep,” he lost the realization of his divine nature, and from his “rib” came the earthly Eve. Like all religious allegories, this fable is nonsense, where there is no meaning to comprehend it, but deep for the one who comprehends it. Aristophanes in Plato’s Banquet is more explicit about this. We don’t have the space for further explanations.

[Śloka] 23. The Self-born were Chhayas [chāyā-s], the shadows of the bodies of the Sons of Dawn. Neither fire nor water could destroy them. Her sons weren’t like that.

          The ethereal beings of the earlier race were impervious to fire and water, but their material descendants found their downfall in it. Four such catastrophes are known to the Secret Doctrine; the fifth is yet to come. The last “deluge,” in which the continent of Atlantis perished, occurred approximately 869,000 years ago.

[Stanza] VII.

Period from the Demigods to the First Human Races.

[Śloka] 24. The Sons of Wisdom, the Sons of Night, ready to be born again, descended. They saw the (intellectually) ugly forms of the [first subrace of the] third race. — “We can choose,” said the Lords, “we have wisdom.” Some entered the Chhayas, others let a spark penetrate them, and still others hesitated to incorporate until the fourth race had come into existence. They imbued the greedy forms (Kama) [kāma] with their own essence. Those who had received (only) a spark (of knowledge) lacked (higher) wisdom. The spark glowed faintly. A third [portion] remained without mind, their jivas [jīva-s] (Monads) [were] not yet ready (to receive the divine spark). These were set aside among the seven (kinds). They became the weak-headed. The third were ready, and the Lords of Flame and Dark Wisdom spoke: “We want to dwell in them.”

          This verse contains within itself the key to explaining the origin of evil, the so-called “fall of the angels,” and many other things that puzzle philosophers. It enlightens us about the inequality of different tribes in their intellectual capacities and the operation of the law of karma in the history of mankind.

          The lack of space forbids us to follow the original in the details of his arguments. However, the Commentary makes the following points:

          First come the self-existent on this earth. They are the spiritual beings, brought forth by Absolute Will and Law, who awaken at the dawn of each day of creation. They are the divine Sishta [śiṣṭa].

          From these arise:

      1. The first race, the “self-born,” the astral images of their progenitors. The body was without any mind or will. The inner essence (the divine essence) was not connected to the earthly body, although it took root in it. The connecting link (Manas) was not yet there.
      1. From the first race came the second, the so-called. “Sweatborn” and the “Boneless.” This race was endowed with the first faint spark of intelligence by the Sustainers (Rakshasas) [rākṣasa-s] and incarnate gods (Asuras and Kumaras [kumāra-s]), and from these arose the following:
          1. The third race of the “double” (man and woman in one). The first subdivisions of these were soulless hells until they were “inhabited” i.e., were enlightened, by the Dhyanis [dhyāni-s].

          From the third came our present fourth race with separated sexes.

[Śloka] 25. What did the Manasa [mānasa], the Sons of wisdom, do? They cast out the Self-born. You are not ready yet. They refused entry to the sweat born. You are not fully ready yet. They didn’t want to go into those born from the egg.

          All human organisms were not yet sufficiently developed to serve as a dwelling place for the demigods. The beings striving for incorporation chose the most suitable for it.

[Śloka] 26. When the Sweat-born brought forth the Egg-born, the bisexual, the mighty, the strong endowed with bones; then the Masters of Wisdom spoke: “Now we want to create!”

[Śloka] 27. Then the Third race became the vessel (Vahan) [vāhana] of the Angels of wisdom. This produced the Sons of Will and Yoga. By the power of Kriyasakti [kriyāśakti] it created the same, the Holy Fathers, the Ancestors of the Arhats.

          Kriyasakti [kriyāśakti] is the mysterious power of thought by which, when developed through practice, external and physical manifestations can be produced. The reason that this power is almost unknown today is the general softening, self-indulgence, powerlessness and partial animality of the current generation. “Creation” is the activity of will and thought on the phenomenon, which is called “matter,” whereby new images and forms (bodies) appear. But the more man distances himself from his divine origins, the more he loses the divine power dwelling in him.[29]

(Sequel follows.)

[Stanza] VIII.

The Evolution of Mammals.

          The First “Fall.”[30]

[Śloka] 28. From the drops of sweat, from the remains of the substance, from the stuff of the dead bodies and animals of the previous period and from the excreted dust, the first animals (of our Period [or Round]) arose.

          According to the Secret Doctrine, mammals arose later than man in this round. The great manvantaric cycle of seven rounds, which begins in the first round with the mineral, the vegetable and the animal, halts its work of evolution in the descent midway through the fourth race and at the close of the first half of the fourth round, and after the human monad has passed through the preliminary stages to attain material embodiment, it arises [on] our earth (the lowest and most material level) as the first result of this level of evolution, to begin the ascent, so to speak, after the completion of the descending cycle.

          At this level, spirit and matter are in equilibrium and the battle of spirit over matter begins on this earth. Only in the seventh round will the victory of humanity as a whole over matter be complete.31] Then man will be what he was before his “fall,” namely a spiritual being, free from the imperfections of “matter,” but he will also possess what he did not possess before the “fall”; namely, the wisdom and self-knowledge gained due his “sins” and experiences.[32]

[Śloka] 29. Animals with bones, dragons of the deep, and flying snakes to creeping things were added. Those who crawled on the ground gained wings. The long-necked creatures of the water [such as the Plesiosaur] became the progenitors of the flying beasts of the air.

[Śloka] 30. During the third (race), the boneless animals grew and changed. They became beasts with bones; their chhayas [chāyā-s] (images) became dense.

[Śloka] 31. The animals first separated (into male and female sexes).

[Śloka] 32 [Resumes from 31].[33] They began to reproduce (by mating). Then the twofold (bisexual) man also separated. He said (to his female half): Let’s do like animals. Let us (our bodies) unite and create creatures. They did.

[Śloka] 33 [32]. But those who had no spark (of spiritual self-consciousness)[34v] took to themselves female beastly monsters, and from their mating the dumb races arose. They were mute themselves. But their tongues were tied. The tongues of their ancestors remained speechless. They spawned behemoths, a race of misshapen, red-haired beasts that walked on all fours.[35] A race that was mute lest shame be revealed.

          Those humanoid creatures in whom the true self-awareness of their human dignity was not awakened by the divine spark degraded themselves to cattle by mingling with cattle.

          By “man,” for the true meaning of that word, is meant neither his visible body nor his mind, but the spiritual unity, beyond description, from which spiritual self-consciousness springs when awakened by the divine spark; in other words, that in him which is capable of divine self-knowledge and is therefore God himself according to human concepts that one has of God.

          Though everything in the world originally came into being from a single source, yet man has, spiritually, a different origin from the animal body in which he inhabits, and a creation of spirit from a spiritless body is a meaningless theory which is contrary to both common sense and experience.

[Stanza] IX.

The Final Evolution of Man.[36]

[Śloka] 34 [33]. When the Lhas saw this (mingling with the beasts), those (sons of light) who had not created human beings (had refused to do this) mourned and said:

[Śloka] 35 [34]. The A-manasa [a-mānasa] (Mindless) have defiled our future abode. This is karma. Let’s look for other dwellings. Let’s teach them better, otherwise worse could come of it. They did.

[Śloka] 36 [35]. Then all were endowed with Manas (mind). They saw the sin by the mindless.[37]

          The senseless had sinned because they had become unnatural as a result of their unnatural fornication, i.e., had acted against the dictates of their nature and thereby degraded themselves. But this happened unknowingly before the ray of divine reason had entered their mind. But just as the other races were led onto the path to knowledge by the influence of the power coming from above, this degenerate race will also pass into a higher state “by the last day.” The Tibetan commentary says the following about this:

At the beginning of the fourth period of evolution, the human kingdom divided in different directions. The outward forms which it produced were not all of the same kind; for these vessels, before they had hardened, came into contact with beasts of a genus unknown to-day, and which sprang from nature’s first attempts at the development of form. Out of this came monstrosities that were half human, half animal. These failed creatures did not breathe and live long, although the “eggborn” sons mated with various of these female beasts and produced human monstrosities, and this was because the psychic power over the physical being was still very feeble and undeveloped. Gradually the balance between the humanoid and animal forms was established; they separated and never reunited. Man no longer created forms, but generated them; but, as before, he still produced animal forms. Therefore the sages speak in truth when they narrate of male beings who were no longer procreative by will, but mated with the daughters of other sexes, and begot with them various animals or hybrid species besides the Danavas [dānava-s] (giants), and that afterwards these male beings no longer wanted to be considered the fathers of the mute races. As a result, the kings and fathers of the last races (3rd and 4th) decreed the prohibition of this sinful association. This prevented the karma from working and thereby created new karma. The (divine) kings punished the guilty by barrenness. They destroyed the red and blue families.[38]

[Sloka] 37 [36]. The fourth race developed language.

          The Commentary says: The first race was speechless; ethereal beings devoid of human analytical irrationality. The second had a tonal language consisting only of vowels. The third improved these natural sounds to a higher degree, and from it developed human speech in its infancy, perfected in what is now the fourth race.[39]

[Sloka] 38 [37]. The One became two, and likewise all the living and creeping things which were yet one; the giant fish, birds and snakes with shell-heads.

In this way “Eve” was created from “Adam’s rib” and the man obtained his wife, while still underlying the sexless “man.” Both are essentially one. The woman, the symbol of femininity, has also the masculine in his nature, and the man needs the femininity in his character.

          With regard to the antediluvian creatures, however, among which man dwelt, though not in the form in which he now exists, the Tibetan Commentary says:

          When the third (race) separated and fell into sin by producing man-animal, the animals went wild and the humans and animals sought to destroy each other. Until then there was no sin and no murder. After this separation (into two sexes), Satya Yuga came to an end. Eternal spring became perpetual change and the seasons followed one another. The cold forced people to build houses and invent clothes. Then man turned to the higher Fathers (gods or angels). The nirmanakaya [nirmāṇakāya] of the Nagas [nāga-s],[40] the wise Serpents and Dragons of Light came, and the forerunners of the enlightened ones (Buddhas). Divine Kings descended and taught men sciences and arts; for man could no longer live in the first land (Adi-Varsha [ādi-varṣa] or Paradise) since it had become a cold corpse.

(Ending.)

[Stanza] X

The History of the Fourth Race of Man.[41]

[Śloka] 38.[42] Thus two by two, in the seven regions, out of the third (race) the fourth (human race) was born. The gods (suras) became no-gods (A-suras).

          As described above, (genderless) humanity evolved into (bisexual) humans. From the brown and yellow giant race of beings, “spiritual” in modern terms, that inhabited the continent of the old continent (mentioned by Plato) “Atlantis,” the race of man as he now exists, male and female, was born. In the so-called “scientific” sense, one can only speak of a development of the “human race” from the beginning of the fourth race onwards; the preceding period of development was more metaphysical than physical; since only through the “fall” did the human animal attain a perfection of its organism, in which the divine powers that had come to embodiment in it could develop and unfold. As a result, however, the original god-like beings lost their spiritual and sublime nature, but at the same time the basis was created created to develop their individuality and self-awareness.

[Śloka] 39. The First (race) in each of the (seven) zones was moon-colored (whitish-yellow), the Second yellow like gold, the Third red, the Fourth brown, and it became black with sin. The first seven rungs (of mankind) were all of the same color in the beginning; the next (sections of the same [sub-races]) began to mix their colors.

          The primeval history of mankind, like everything based on natural laws, is simple and would be easy to understand if modern theology had not, for centuries, because of its complete ignorance of the events which took place, the allegories representing the “fall of man,” etc , given a totally wrong interpretation, thereby perverting and complicating the simple truth, and making the natural unnatural and perverted. Without penetrating matter, the spirit would have had no opportunity to learn about its relation to matter and to gain dominion over it; without the emergence of the delusion of the “self” man would still have no possibility today of overcoming this delusion and becoming aware of his divine power at work in him. His divinity would have remained a dream for him, an unrealized ideal; only by overcoming the resistance offered by matter can the ideal in him become reality and be understood as such. “Lucifer,” the “Light-bringer,” the intellectual principle in man, however, when misused, is the enemy of the divine; but by—not ignoring—this principle, but overcoming it, it becomes the basis of the knowledge of the Divine and man’s Redeemer.[43]

[Śloka] 40. Then the third and the fourth (races) grew up full of pride: “We are the kings, we are the gods!” (they thought to themselves).

          These were the ancient Atlanteans, the first physically evolved and “material” humans in today’s terms. Here the battle of the spirit struggling for divine self-consciousness with matter began. Those in which spirit conquered matter separated from those in which material prevailed, and so arose the struggle that led to the fall of Atlantis.

[Śloka] 41. They took women who were beautiful to look at; Women from the tribe of the ignorant and “narrow-headed.” They gave birth to monsters, vicious demons, male and female in nature, also khado[44] (dakini) [dākinī] with little reason.

[Śloka] 42. They built temples for the physical body and worshiped the Male and the Female. Then the third eye lost its sight.

          The loss of perception of the inner ideal led to the search for outer ideals, and the idealization of the outer led to the disappearance of the realization of the inner. Both are mutually dependent, like the egg the hen and the hen the egg. Thousands who refuse to believe that Adam lost his mind by biting the apple Eve gave him have bitten that apple themselves and lost their minds as a result. Woman is the symbol of beauty, but as a mere symbol she has no other value than the charm of her appearance; only those who possess it recognize, in truth, the essence itself.

          But because inward worship was lost and outward reverence spread, the power of inward spiritual vision was also lost. The stimulus exerted by the sense world brought the outer sense to full development and the spiritual eye closed. People only saw the form and could no longer recognize the being represented behind it. The phallus and yoni have been, and continue to be, openly and secretly revered throughout the world as supreme.

[Stanza] XI.

The Civilization and Destruction of the Fourth [Third] and Fifth [Fourth] Races.[45]

[Śloka] 43. They (the Lemurians and Atlanteans) built great cities. They built them from selected earths and metals. The fires (volcanoes) vomited (lava). From the white stone (marble) of the mountains and the black stone (of the subterranean fires) they made their own images (statues) in life size and shape and worshiped them.

          An old but true proverb says: “The more learned, the more unreasonable.” Modern scholarly conceit is always apt to ignore that which does not agree with the learned knowledge from which it sprang, and will therefore be little inclined to admit the existence of the human being in the earlier epochs. The narrow-minded scholarly arrogance is no less self-confident than the narrow-minded clergy, and that is why the gigantic statues discovered on “Easter Island,” which represent the images of the human race discussed here in life size, ignored as much as possible by “Science,” notwithstanding that some of these are on display in the British Museum, and by their presence give a clearer testimony to the prehistory of mankind than any of the musings of a Haeckel, or the so-called “scientific conclusions” of any of his modern admirers. Happily for mankind, this science, which rests not on the knowledge of truth but on mere theories, is a very changeable thing, and what is now considered the pinnacle of learning will tomorrow be ridiculed by the descendants of those scholars. Of course, a period of many millennia elapsed between the first division of mankind into two sexes and the time when they began to build great cities. When these were in their prime, however, a high degree of civilization existed, especially where Madagascar now lies, and also in Peru. Then as now, there were civilized peoples and “savages.” The original inhabitants of Australia were the descendants of those who had bestially abused the divine fire bestowed upon them; the nobler race of the Aryans comes from the spiritual tribe of the Sons of Wisdom.

          Gradually the Lemurians disappeared and the Atlanteans spread. About this, the Tibetan Commentary says:

“The last survivors of the fair child of the “White Isle” were long gone. Their chosen ones had found refuge on the “Holy Isle” (Shamballah) [śambhala] and some of the rejected tribes, after their separation from the others, were living in the wilderness and in caves when the golden-yellow race (the fourth) was colored black by sin. From pole to pole the earth had changed her face for the third time, and was no longer inhabited by the sons of Sveta-dwipa [śveta-dvīpa], the Anointed One, and Adbhitanya [adbhutanya], the East and West, the First, the One and Pure, was corrupt. The demigods of the third (race) gave way to the half-devils of the fourth. Sveta-dwipa, whose northern parts of the Togambadhi [toyāmbudhi] had visited the seven Kumaras, the “white island,” veiled her face. Their children now inhabited the “Black Land,” where later Daityas of the seventh Dwipa [dvīpa] and Rākshasas [rākṣasa-s] took the place of the Sadhus [sādhu-s] who had descended from the higher regions during the Third Period.”[46]

          The third race had passed the midpoint of its evolution when a shift in the Earth’s axis occurred and the “Ice Period” appeared. About this the commentary says:

“The axis of the wheel changed. The sun and moon no longer shone exactly over the heads of those born in sweat, they got to know snow, ice and cold, and people, plants and animals became dwarfs. Those who did not perish remained like half-grown children of child size and intellectual development. This was the third pralaya of the races (in Lemuria).”

          All this did not happen through a “blind and accidental” operation of the laws of nature, but because the development of the planet itself goes hand in hand with the development of the inhabitants living on it, and both proceed simultaneously according to the law of karma. Behind every “blind law of nature there is a non-blind intelligence, which does not act according to its own discretion, but carries out the will of that original spirit, which is called “God,” since in it the concepts of absolute wisdom, love, intelligence and justice are in one flow together, but which cannot be explained scientifically, because it is not composite but only one, and which even the greatest mind cannot comprehend unless it is able to feel it.

“Humans became significantly smaller in stature and their lifespans were short. Having lost their god-likeness, they mingled with animal races and with the giants and pigmies (the dwarfs of the polar lands). Many attained spiritual and even more illegal (diabolical) knowledge, knowingly walking on the left path (of “black magic”).”[47i]

[Śloka] 44. They (the Atlanteans) made great images, nine Yatis[48] (meters) high [27 feet], corresponding to the size of their bodies. Inner fires had destroyed the land of their fathers (the Lemurians). Water threatened the Fourth race.

          The statues discovered in Ronororaka [Plain of Ronororaka, Easter Island] are nine meters high on average. After millions of years, mankind has shrunk from this natural size to about two meters, and the Asian races are generally even smaller. The great “flood,” which ended the existence of most of this continent, or rather the sinking of this continent, took place about 850,000 years ago, according to Indian chronology. Remnants of the same still exist as the island of Java and what is connected with it. However, similar upheavals have taken place before and will continue to take place in the future. According to Indian teaching, “the world” is alternately destroyed or transformed by fire and water.[49]

[Śloka] 45. The first great waters came. They swallowed up the seven great islands.

          This was the fourth great flood on our earth in the current round.

[Śloka] 46. All the wise were saved, the unwise perished. With them disappeared the majority of the large animals that had arisen from the sweat of the earth.

          The wise men or saints were not saved (as popular theology tells of Noah) by being warned of God as a reward for their virtue and accordingly by taking their hides to safety in time, but they owed their salvation to the purity of their nature, which enabled her to foresee the coming catastrophe by means of the “third eye,” consequently an effect of the law of karma. But in relation to our fifth race, the Commentary says:

“Only the chosen few, whose divine (unseen) teachers inhabited the Holy Island (the adepts) from which the final redeemer will come, prevented half of humanity from destroying the other half. Mankind got divided. Two-thirds were (and are now) ruled by dynasties of low material earth-spirits which took possession of the minds readily accessible to them; a third remained true to their own divine nature and joined with the first-fruits of the fifth race, the Divine-rooted Embodied. When the poles changed (changed position) (for the fourth time), it did no harm to those thus protected who had separated from the fourth race. Like the Lemurians, the godless part of the Atlanteans disappeared and was never seen again.”

[Stanza] XII.

The Fifth Race and Their Divine Guides.

[Śloka] 47. Few remained. Some of these were yellow, some brown and black, and some red. The moon-colored ones were gone forever.

          The commentary says:

The Great Dragon paid no attention to anyone except the Serpents of Wisdom, the Serpents whose dwelling places are now under the triangular stones.[50]

[Śloka] 48. The Fifth Race from the Holy Race remained. It was guided by Her First Divine Kings.

[Śloka] 49. (They were) the “Serpents,” who descended again, who made peace with the Fifth (Race), and they taught and guided [it].

          The “Dragon” or “Serpent” signifies a living, moving intelligent force and entity, and is therefore the symbol of spiritual “superhuman” intelligences or “spirit men,” whether manifesting their powers through a visible material body or being in the state of the Nirmanakayas [nirmāṇakāya-s].[51] In order to give spiritual instruction and purely spiritual guidance, no visible schoolmaster and no material books are required, but only the ability to intuitively absorb the truth, the mediator of which is the invisible spiritual guide, and to let it become a living force in you. Already modern science has accustomed itself to recognizing the possibility of direct transmission of feelings and thoughts, a fact long known to every non-scientifically educated person. But if an ordinary person is able to implant his feelings and thoughts in another person, how much more must this be the case for a person who, through spiritual development continued through many reincarnations, has attained complete spiritual self-knowledge and godlikeness? But that there are such world-wise as to suppose this is contrary to both common sense and logic, and is confirmed by the experience of those who have had the good fortune to associate with such people, or rather, who have been found worthy of association with them to be allowed to contact and to be instructed by them. But among these was H. P. Blavatsky, to whom we owe the translations of the excerpts from the book Dzyan, of which the above represents only brief outlines, since it is not possible in the small space of this journal to deal with the matter as thoroughly as the original happened. On the other hand, these outlines afford the reader the advantage of having a brief outline of what the Secret Doctrine is about, a circumstance which will greatly facilitate his going into detail later.

          Of course, these excerpts are written only for those who have an interest and ability to understand them; for everyone else they have no value. Occult science differs from everyday science in that in common science one needs nothing but external powers of observation and a good memory, while in occult science one must be able to feel one’s way into the matter, to live it, to see oneself and to recognize it.

          But to those who have no spiritual understanding and also do not know what is meant by it, but nevertheless reject the secret teaching, which will remain secret for them forever, since they do not have the ability to understand it, and want to keep others from themselves. To deal with this, let us recall the words of a well-known philosopher:

“It is a sign of a most silly suggestion to despise and declare false what does not agree with traditional or popular opinions and theories. He who believes that everything he does not yet know is false and impossible is a conceited fool who claims divine omniscience as his person. There is nothing more foolish and ridiculous than to believe that the whole of nature is bound in its workings to the limitations of a limited mind.”

          If you don’t want to know the truth, you won’t know it either. But whoever absorbs the teachings of wisdom and strives to grasp them, enters the circle of those seeking truth (Satya-Kama) or students in the spiritual (Chelas) without any further ceremony, of which it is said:

“He who seeks will find; it will be opened to anyone who knocks.”

          And also:

“Whoever has much (wisdom) will be given more, but whoever has little (and does not use it) will be deprived of even what he has.”

          In conclusion, however, we must still remark that whoever does not understand the Secret Doctrine need not worry about it, nor would it do him any good, since inner enlightenment does not depend on human brooding. No man’s salvation depends on his knowledge and theories, but on the revelation of truth through the power of truth within him. Therefore, even these translations do not aim to satisfy scientific curiosity or to augment the already existing theories related to world history, but their purpose is to dispel, through a reasonable exposition of the subject, the erroneous views related to it, which detract from the knowledge of the get in the way of truth. When these obstacles are removed, the knowledge of the truth comes naturally.

          Outer words, even if spoken by the highest Adepts, are no more than what they are. They are not truth itself, but symbols; they can awaken the truth hidden in the heart of man, but they are not the truth itself, and whoever has no truth in his soul cannot reveal it either. Outer teachings may well instruct us to seek the way of truth. But we must find it ourselves, and once we have found it, we need no further proof; the knowledge of truth rests on nothing other than itself; or in other words: The proof of the truth is there as soon as one really knows the truth.

Notes:

[1] Excerpts from the Book of Dzyan of H. P. Blavatsky. The Emergence of Man. Notes by Franz Hartmann, M.D. [Auszüge aus dem Buche Dzyan von H. P. Blavatsky. Die Entstehung des Menschen. Anmerkungen von Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 2, no. 10 (July 1893), 493-519; Excerpts from the Book of Dzyan of H. P. Blavatsky. Notes by Franz Hartmann, M.D. [Auszüge aus dem Buche Dzyan von H. P. Blavatsky. Anmerkungen von Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 2, no. 11 (August 1893), 579-592; Excerpts from the Book of Dzyan of H. P. Blavatsky. Notes by Franz Hartmann, M.D. [Auszüge aus dem Buche Dzyan von H. P. Blavatsky. Anmerkungen von Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 2, no. 12 (September 1893), 655-666; Excerpts from the Book of Dzyan of H. P. Blavatsky. Notes by Franz Hartmann, M.D. [Auszüge aus dem Buche Dzyan von H. P. Blavatsky. Anmerkungen von Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 2, no. 13 (October 1893), 734-754] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}

[2] Excerpts from the Book of Dzyan of H. P. Blavatsky. The Emergence of Man. Notes by Franz Hartmann, M.D. [Auszüge aus dem Buche Dzyan von H. P. Blavatsky. Die Entstehung des Menschen. Anmerkungen von Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 2, no. 10 (July 1893), 493-519

[3] {The first part in the series (being extracts from the Cosmogenesis, volume I of The Secret Doctrine) was a five-part series, serially: Excerpts from the Secret Doctrine of the East of H. P. Blavatsky. Remarks from the translator [Franz Hartmann, M.D.] [Auszüge aus der Geheimlehre des Ostens. Von H. P. Blavatsky. Vorbemerkungen des Übersetzers.] Lotusblüten 1, no. 6 (March 1893), 165-168; Die Evolution des Weltalls. I. II. Lotusblüten 1, no. 6 (March 1893), 169-190; Auszüge aus der Geheimlehre des Ostens. III. IV. Lotusblüten 1, no. 7 (April 1893), 283-304; Franz Hartmann, M.D.] [Auszüge aus der Geheimlehre des Ostens. V. VI. Lotusblüten 1, no. 8 (May 1893), 356-404; Auszüge aus der Geheimlehre des Ostens. VII. Lotusblüten 1, no. 9 (June 1893), 448-483]}

[4] Just as there are two things to be distinguished in man, namely his material body and the consciousness that animates it, so too a distinction must be made between the evolution of the animal-like body and the development of the human intelligence inhabiting it. Neither the one nor the other, but both together make the human being. No man is so unreasonable as to confuse a plant in the field with the sunlight that gives it life. Likewise, the spirit manifested in man is not a product of the human body, but a general principle manifested in the human organism, and by which animal-man becomes real man. The evolution of the spirit and that of the material organism are therefore two different things.

[5] Wie am Menschen zweierlei zu unterscheiden ist, nämlich sein materieller Körper und das denselben belebende Bewusstsein, so ist auch zwischen der Evolution des tierähnlichen Körpers und der Entwicklung der denselben bewohnenden menschlichen Intelligenz zu unterscheiden. Weder der eine noch die andere, sondern beide zusammen machen den Menschen aus. Kein Mensch ist so unvernünftig, eine Pflanze auf dem Felde mit dem Sonnenlichte, welches ihr Leben giebt, zu verwechseln. Desgleichen ist auch der sich im Menschen offenbarende Geist nicht ein Erzeugnis des menschlichen Körpers, sondern ein allgemeines Prinzip, das im menschlichen Organismus offenbar wird und wodurch der Tiermensch zum wirklichen Menschen wird. Die Evolution des Geistes und diejenige des materiellen Organismus sind daher zwei verschiedene Dinge.

[6] {Robert Hutwohl—I have used the beginning of Hartmann’s study from the following editions, of The Secret Doctrine II Anthropogenesis, for those readers who have any of these editions. At the time when Dr. Hartmann published these articles, beginning in July 1893, five years after the English first edition was released to the public in 1888, Dr. Hartmann proceeded to work with Robert Froebe, PhD, to translate into German from the English Third Edition. Froebe signed his Foreword page: “Wien, am 12. August 1899.” The President of the Theosophical Society, Annie Besant, sent a letter to Dr. Hartmann: “London, Septh. 29. 1895.” The translation must have started shortly thereafter.

Preliminary notes by Robert Hutwohl.

It is only the larger type text, most of which numbered which are from The Secret Doctrine and not Dr. Hartmann. Otherwise, all additional text has been provided by Dr. Hartmann or an occasional comment from me or where the correct Sanskrit word in scholarly format has been inserted in italics. When translating from German to English, it is often difficult to determine where the English word is intended to be capitalized because all German nouns are always capitalized, therefore I sometimes referred to the original Secret Doctrine text. Dr. Hartmann included, above, in the title of these articles, “Aus dem Tibetanische übersetzt,” which in English is: “Translated from the Tibetan.” However, the original stanzas from the Book of Dzyan are in the Senzar language. There is probably a Tibetan translation from the Senzar as we can see Chinese, Tibetan and especially Sanskrit words may be found throughout the Stanzas. This would indicate it exists along with other texts within the secret tradition which is accessible by Masters, Initiates and Chelās within the hidden fastnesses of Tibet, China and India. This corresponds to the tradition from which The Book of the Golden Precepts, parts of which were memorized by H. P. Blavatsky, may have been translated into Tibetan. The idea of an anthropomorphic God as defined by the fundamentalist Christian, Judaic and Islam religions is not conceived in The Secret Doctrine and therefore should not be considered, even with the word brahmā. See Letter X in The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett [and others]. Reading and understanding Rig-veda (Ṛg-veda) maṇḍala (book) X, sūkta (hymn) 129 (X.129) may be useful at the beginning of these verses. These articles were reformatted from the originals but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}

          In this series of articles, it will be noticed they were written before the official German edition of The Secret Doctrine, vols. I and II were released, i.e., 1899. Possibly Dr. Hartmann consulted the Third Edition English version of The Secret Doctrine for these articles. The Third Edition of The Secret Doctrine came out in the same year, 1893, as these articles came out. Dr. Hartmann frequently referred to the Third Edition for his Lotusblüten journal articles but sometimes referred to The Secret Doctrine First Edition before the Third Edition came out.

            Editions referred to:

  1. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine II Anthropogenesis, H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings (Adyar, Madras, India: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1979), 22 (The Boris de Zirkoff edition.)
  2. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine II Anthropogenesis, Quest Edition, H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings (Adyar, Madras, India: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1979), 22 (The Quest Edition follows the Boris de Zirkoff edition, but with ongoing subsequent corrections of spelling errors, etc.)
  3. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine II Anthropogenesis, Third Edition (London: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1893), 25
  4. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Volume 3, The Adyar Edition, Adyar, Madras, India, The Theosophical Publishing House, 1971), 27

          Die Geheimlehre von H. P. Blavatsky, Band II Anthropogenesis, übersetzt von Dr. Phil. Robert Froebe (Leipzig, Verlag Wilhelm Friederich, 1899), 25

          Die Geheimlehre von H. P. Blavatsky, Band II Anthropogenesis, übersetzt von Dr. Phil. Robert Froebe (Den Haag, Verlag J. J. Couvreur, (1 Jan. 1980), 25}

[7] This does not mean that the terms personality or egoism can be adapted to these spiritual forces or forms of consciousness. They are functions of what Schopenhauer called the “will” in nature, but for which the term “spirit” seems more appropriate, since it is not a question of a blind will, but of a willing, intelligent imagination. All is indeed spirit, formless or formed, not manifest or manifest in matter. A man is spirit in the form of a man, an ox is spirit in the form of an ox; but the spirits are different in nature. The consciousness of a human being cannot reveal itself in an ox, but only in a human being, and even in this only when the human organization has attained the necessary maturity for this. Therefore the “sons of the gods” only married the “daughters of men” when they saw them “beautiful,” i.e., were fit for incarnation. (Compare Moses VI, 2.)

[8] “Mercury” represents Buddhi, the spiritual intelligence which must enlighten Manas before man can become what he is naturally destined to be.

[9] As in the large, so it is in the small. In man, too, anticipation and with it the longing for higher knowledge comes before he is sufficiently cleansed to receive it.

[10] The pagination space for the “Lotusblüten” does not allow us to settle all the questions that arise here and to answer all the learned objections which might possibly be made. This is done, as far as possible, in the original work of H. P. Blavatsky. Such a digression would serve to make us lose sight of our goal. The point here is only to give the reader a clear picture of what the Secret Doctrine is about. The details of these teachings can only be discussed once the whole is known.

[11] “And God repented that he had made men of the earth, etc.” (Moses VI, 6). Perhaps the above serves as a key to explaining this enigmatic passage, and the mythology becomes history if properly understood.

[12] At that time, Oannes, the fish avatar, ruled.

[13] Those who are curious to know what these creatures looked like and whether they really existed need only learn to observe themselves, for what is an animal passion inherent in man but an animal force combined with a human form. The process of creation is an eternally repeated one. What happened millions of years ago in the organism of the whole is still taking place in the individual human being today, and as it happened then on the whole, so it still happens today that God leaves a degraded human being because he finds that his soul there is no suitable apartment for him.

[14] There are many people who cannot see anything in the mythologies of peoples but figments of fancy and superstition; but the battle of the gods with the titans still takes place today in the individual human being, and the overcoming and annihilation of the “goat-footed and dog-headed self” by the power of the divine ego is still man’s highest goal and the purpose of his existence Earth.

[15] Here, too, we find the key to the explanation within ourselves through introspection. What the moon is in our solar system is the imagination in man. His earthly and animal conceptions and desires are born of his imagination, and through the light of knowledge they disappear like dreams in the realm of imagination.

[16] The proof of this is, among other things, that the same spectacle takes place in the individual human being. The German mystic, Meister Eckhart, says: “When the soul has rid itself of all its own content, it returns to its own ground, which is at the same time the absolute ground of God. Cling boldly to your bare nature and needless nothingness, and seek no other dwelling place than this. God, who created you from nothing, should himself be your dwelling place after his needless nothingness and his immobility. Where God finds his own will, he pours himself into it and surrenders himself to him and all that he is. The man who wants to see God must be dead, for no one can live (in one’s self) and see God. If the soul is to recognize God, it must also forget and lose itself, because while it sees and recognizes itself, it does not see and recognize God. If God is to enter into you, the creature must necessarily go out of you. At any moment it can become bright and light in man, as soon as we only gain control of our free will, which up to that point has been the slave of sin.” (395, 20.)

[17] Compare, Moses I, 6–9.

[18] Compare, Moses I, 26.

[19] This goes without saying, but it is precisely for this reason that it is least understood.

[20] Neither the space nor the purpose of these leaves permits us to follow the commentary of the original and penetrate into the labyrinth of gods, angels, and demons, with their various classes and subdivisions. Also, attempting to answer the questions that arise would cause us to lose sight of the primary aim, which is to present to the reader the basics of this scientific doctrine of religion.

[21] Thus, the entry of “Jesus” into the heart of man took place from time immemorial, and only in this way did man attain his divine immortal nature. Many spirits are needed to create a perfect human being, and each spirit can only contribute what it has itself. Just as no life can come from a dead piece of wood, no intelligence can come from mere vegetable life, so no human being can come from an animal, and no spiritual self-knowledge can come from mere intellectual life. Kerning says, “Nothing goes up to heaven other than what came down from heaven.”

22] Everything is meaningless to those who have no sense of understanding.

[23] Compare, the tablet of Hermes: “His father is the sun, his mother is the moon; the wind carried him in his belly, and his body is made up of the human races.”

[24] This “divine fire” is called “divine love,” without which man can only be an appearance but not a real man. So, it is not empty sentimentality, but a scientifically based fact that Paul is talking about when he says: “But if I could prophesy and knew all mysteries and all knowledge, and had all the faith so that I could move mountains, and If I didn’t have love, I would be nothing.” (1 Corinth. XIII, 2.) Knowledge and erudition do not yet make a man, but own possession of the power of self-knowledge, which is called “divine love.”

[25] See Lotusblüten IX. “The Essence of Alchemy.” The Tattvas.

[26] This does not mean that the world itself is an illusion and does not exist, but that he who only sifts and judges its external, sensually perceptible appearance does not know its true nature and is deceiving himself by mistaking himself and the world for holding something that it isn’t, and for that very reason cannot recognize what it is. On this superficial and deceptive observation of outward appearances, without any knowledge of the true nature of things, rests the greater part of the modern “scientific” and theological views of our age, and it would be a vain effort to attempt to reconcile the doctrine of truth with the perverted concepts which spring from delusion. Comparison, inference, etc., are functions of the lower intellectual activities of the soul; the self-knowledge of the truth springs from inner enlightenment, which can only come about when the spiritual organ necessary for its revelation is sufficiently developed. It cannot, therefore, be our intention to impart the sublime teachings of the Book of Dzyan to the narrow minds of those who seek only external evidence and have no knowledge of their own, but the purpose of these disclosures is to replace the previous petty ones with a sublime, all-encompassing view of the world and limited conceptions, which enables man to awaken to the feeling of his own divine origin and to reach inner spiritual self-knowledge from the realm of merely outward speculative research.

[27] Excerpts from the Book of Dzyan of H. P. Blavatsky. Notes by Franz Hartmann, M.D. [Auszüge aus dem Buche Dzyan von H. P. Blavatsky. Anmerkungen von Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 2, no. 11 (August 1893), 579-592.

[28] All this is also represented symbolically in Christian teaching and an objective explanation of these religious mysteries is not necessary as long as man is able to feel inwardly the truth on which these symbols are based. But since today the brooding mind rejects everything it cannot explain, and in this way too often suppresses the feeling of truth (belief), these revelations serve to aid belief and to bring feeling and understanding into harmony bring.

[29] This mental degeneration is also based on “precisely scientific” reasons. Today’s generation lives less within itself than outside itself; most people live only in their imagination (in the head), but the heart is empty. “Knowing” is considered the highest, knowledge through the mind is considered enthusiasm. Everyone lives in the thoughts of others and only a few have the strength or the will to think something for themselves and to create their own or original thought. A “scientific” progress of this kind can only have one goal, namely that one finally knows everything only theoretically and at the same time has nothing more practical.

[30] Excerpts from the Book of Dzyan of H. P. Blavatsky. Notes by Franz Hartmann, M.D. [Auszüge aus dem Buche Dzyan von H. P. Blavatsky. Anmerkungen von Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 2, no. 12 (September 1893), 655-666.

[31] However, this does not prevent anyone from fighting for this victory now. The “seventh day” is eternity; in it there is no past or future.

[32] The same teaching is found in the Bible. Genesis gives intimations of the history of the first three rounds and the three races of the fourth [round], up to the creation of man by the Elohim. In the first [book], animals appear before man. In the second book, Adam, the sexless man, comes first, and after him the animals. But Adam’s “sleep” means his spiritual inactivity. The same allegory is found in other forms in the religious systems of the East.

[33] {R.H.—The numbering in the Hartmann article is an error and does not correspond to Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine. Thus the reason for the correction and the following corrections. Thus, the original śloka is struck out and its correction follows, in brackets.}

[34] See verse 24.

[35] Not the present race of ape, but an ape-like race, resembling that which the “anthropologists” conceive as the “missing link,” and which certain naturalists choose to regard as their pedigree. Today’s ape is the direct descendant of that senseless and mindless human-like race, which never possessed any spiritual intelligence and therefore could not develop any. True, there may be keen thinkers among the apes, but mind alone is not mind, and mindless thinkers are not uncommon.

[36] {R.H.—The Lotusblüten print copy has “IV.” This typo has been corrected to correspond to The Secret Doctrine text and to also correspond to the preceding commentary sequence of Dr. Hartmann’s article. Further, the śloka numbering sequence continues to be in error from the previous two śloka in Stanza IX and is corrected by me.}

[37] The German term “Gemüt” gives only very imperfectly the meaning of “Manas.” Manas is that principle from which springs the feeling for the noble, which underlies the higher cognition. Without this feeling there is no knowledge of the divine. See Annie Besant, “The Seven Principles.”

[38] All of this is symbolized in various mythologies and fables. But it is much easier to declare a fable to be nonsense with an arrogant smile than to seek and understand its meaning.

[39] That our language has not yet reached the climax of perfection is shown by the fact that there are feelings and thoughts which there are no words to express or communicate. Thoughts and words are not, as is claimed, identical, but language is often a very imperfect means of expressing thoughts.

[40] See: Lotusblüten III: „Auszüge aus dem Buche der goldenen Lehren.”

[41] Excerpts from the Book of Dzyan of H. P. Blavatsky. Notes by Franz Hartmann, M.D. [Auszüge aus dem Buche Dzyan von H. P. Blavatsky. Anmerkungen von Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 2, no. 13 (October 1893), 734-754

[42] {R.H.—The numbering and sequence resumes being correct for the ślokas in the Hartmann text.}

[43] While modern theology’s conception of creation, as to reason, science, logic, and even common sense, is a slap in the face, the truth underlying these religious allegories everywhere is, as explained in the book of Dzyan, entirely in keeping with common sense and the demands of unbiased science.

[44] {R.H.—Tibetan, mKha’-’gro-ma}

[45] {R.H.—The original edition of The Secret Doctrine (1888), page 316 and the 3rd Edition (1893), page 330 and the German, Die Geheimlehre von H. P. Blavatsky, Band II Anthropogenesis (1893), page 330, all have “The Civilization and Destruction of the Fourth and Fifth Races.”

The Secret Doctrine II Anthropogenesis, H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings Edition (1979) (Boris de Zirkoff) and the Quest Edition and The Secret Doctrine, The Adyar Edition, Volume 3 (1971), page 316, all have “The Civilization and Destruction of the Third and Fourth Races.”}

Obviously the “The Civilization and Destruction of the Third and Fourth Races.” is correct, since the destruction of the Fifth Race has not yet taken place.

[44] For lack of space we must refer those who require further discussion of what has been said to the original.

[47] “Magic” in the true sense of the word, is the science of using mental powers. When these powers are used for good, it is “white magic”; when used for evil or selfish purposes, it is “black magic.” Of course one must first possess a power before one can learn to use it, and since modern official science has nothings to do with spirit nor spiritual development, it has no spiritual powers and neither white nor black magic.

[48] {R.H.—Sanskrit, as many as}

[49] It is claimed that such a change will perhaps affect part of Europe as early as the end of this century.

[50] The mystical meaning of the triangle △ will be clear to the reader. {R.H.—The Pyramids of Gizeh and Meso-America.}

[51] See, Lotusblüten III: „Die sieben Pforten.“ [The seven gates.]