The Great Secret (Library of the Mystic Arts)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1922. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II INDIA LET us first of all consider the conception of Deity which was formed by these ancestors, simultaneously with the Egyptians, or, as is much more probable, before them. Their traditions may lay claim to at least five or six thousand years, and they themselves received these traditions from peoples who to-day have disappeared, their last trace in the memory of man dating back, according to Timaeus and the "Critias" of Plato, one hundred and twenty centuries. I must apologize to the reader for the inextricable nomenclature of Oriental mythology and the multiplicity of tHose anthropomorphic divinities whom the priests of India, like those of Egypt and of Persia, and indeed of all times and countries, were compelled to create in order to satisfy the demands of popular idolatry. I shall also spare him the ostentation of a facile scholarship, lavish of unpronounceable names, in order at once to proceed to and consider only the essential conception of the First Cause, as we find it in the remotest sources, which, if not withheld from the common people, ceased gradually to be understood by them, until it became the Great Secret of the elect among the priests and initiates. Let us at once give ear to the "Rig-Veda," the most authentic echo of the most immemorial traditions; let us note how it approaches the formidable problem: "There was neither Being nor non-Being. There was neither atmosphere nor heavens above the atmosphere. What moved and whither? And in whose care? Were there waters, and the bottomless deep? "There was then neither death nor immortality. The day was not divided from the night. Only the One breathed, in Himself, without extraneous breath, and apart from Him there was nothing. "Then for the first time desire awoke within Him; this was ...