SECTION I

THE CYCLES AND FORCES OF CREATIVE LIFE

In attempting to explain the sublime system of Esoteric Cycles, taught in the Occult schools of the Egyptian Magi, we shall notice their great Cycles first, which relate to Human and Planetary Evolution, as compare, or rather introduce, for the student’s comparison, the Sacred Cycles of Hindoo Initiates, and show some of their striking relationships to the well known facts of geological research, then and, lastly, attempt to show how these natural periods of action and reaction of the Cosmic life forces have formed the truthful foundation upon which the Astrological Mystics have elaborated their planetary periods and sub-cycles of celestial influence over nations, and which is further and more fully elaborated by Kabbalistical lore, in the rule of the Seven Arch Angels as the seven Governors of the world, which they say “after God actuate the Universe.”

NATURE’S TRIUNE INDEX

Nature has furnished her students with the means of reaching her mysteries, in the dual form of intuition and intellect, and of measuring her mighty forces in the forms of time and space. The first index of time is the rotation of the Earth upon her axis, the second by her annual motion about the Sun. These are broadly converted into days, months and years. The third index is that of the motion of the Earth’s center (the Sun) through space, around a still greater center; this is broadly divided into two measures, viz.; first, through one sign of the Zodiac, a period of 2,160 years, and secondly, through the entire twelve signs, which complete his grand revolution, or great Solar Year, in 25,920 years of Earthly time. The third and last face of the triune index is our Earth’s Pole. This magnetic point is the great finger of Nature’s Cyclic Timepiece, which governs and registers all the great Cosmic cycles of our planet and its circuit.

Remember this significant fact, then, that the motions of the Earth’s Pole is the motion of her Evolutionary forces, both Human and Physical.

POLAR MOTION

When this beautiful motion of the Earth’s Pole has become familiar, the student will begin to see the divine harmony of Nature’s grandest law, which law causes every portion of our Earth’s surface to become alternately a fruitful plain or barren waste; dry land or ocean bed.

The Earth’s Pole moves in one uniform direction, with a slow, imperceptible motion that forms a spiral path in the heavens, consisting of a number of small spiral orbits, or circles, one overlapping the other. These small spiral circles are termed Volutes, their true value in space being three degrees, thirty-six minutes, no seconds. 3° 36′ 00″.

The motion of inclination of the Pole is at the rate of fifty seconds of space per century, or one second in every two years. At this rate, it requires 7,200 years to move over one degree, and as there are 360 degrees in a circle, or the Pole’s orbit, it takes 360 times 7,200 years, equal to 2,592,000 years, to make a complete revolution of its orbit, or one hundred Solar Years. Each Volute being three degrees, thirty-six minutes, no seconds in true value, 25,920 years are required for the Pole to complete one small spiral orbit, and as there are exactly one hundred of these Spiral Orbits in the complete orbit, therefore 100 times 25,920 years equals 2,592,000 years, which period is termed, by Initiates, one Polar Day. One Polar Day equals one hundred Solar Years. We will now give a few brief examples of Polar Motion:

If the student will, for a moment, imagine our Earth’s Pole to be perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, and consequently coinciding with the Pole of the ecliptic; then the signs of the zodiac, and the apparent yearly path of the Sun will always be vertical at our Earth’s equator; hence universal spring will reign in the Temperate Zones gentle, continuous summer in all sub-tropical latitudes; it will cause the equatorial regions of the Earth to become blazing, scorching deserts. The great plains will be unfit for habitation, owing to the fierce rays of a vertical Sun, continuing for long ages. Only the mountainous portions will be the seat of human life. This condition will also cause equal day and night all over the globe, but as we recede from the Equator, north or south, the sunlight becomes less and less, owing to the Sun attaining a lesser degree of altitude with every degree of latitude; until, at the Poles, the Sun will only appear as a dull red ball of fire, moving along the horizon, from east to west, in the twelve hours from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., hence, darkness and uni versal winter reign supreme; and the Arctic Circle is an ever-lasting belt of ice and snow, whose frozen breath forms a complete barrier against the existence of human life.

Again, imagine the Earth’s Pole, after a lapse of 648,000 years, and we shall now find that it is inclined at an angle of exactly 90 degrees, for, during this Period, it has been slowly, but imperceptibly to the Earth’s inhabitants, moving or inclining away from the pole of the ecliptic. The twelve signs of the zodiac and the apparent yearly path of the Sun, are now vertical to the Pole of the Earth. What will be the fearful geological results? Why, that our polar regions will have a tropical summer. Each year the Sun will be vertical on the 21st of June to the North Pole, and on the 21st of December to the South Pole, and also that every portion of the globe, with the Sun and Earth’s Pole in this position, will witness a tropical summer and an arctic winter. This accounts for and fully explains the existence of fossil remains of the seal, walrus and polar bear in the burning plains of Africa and Hindustan, and of the tropical remains now being discovered in the Arctic regions. No human being now living can conceive the fearful natural phenomena yearly transpiring during this period. For instance, all latitudes below the Poles had two midsummers each year; namely, when the Sun ascended north, and when it returned south again. The rapid rate at which the Sun rose into the polar circles, and the terrific heat of a vertical Sun upon the ice and snow, must have caused the most frightful inundations upon all the plains and lowlands. No wonder that it was called the Age of Horror by the Hindoos and Egyptian Magi.

The walls of the mighty Babylon and the eight-volved Tower of Babel or cloud-encompassed Bel were never constructed to resist any mortal foe. NO. Those city walls, which were 60 miles in circumference, 200 feet high, 578 feet thick, were not made to defy the strength of armies, but to resist the fearful forces of Nature, the floods that swept the plains of Shinar, from the mountains of Armenia, every spring during this Age of Horror. The tremendous embankments and river walls constructed by the Ancients are monuments of human skill and enterprise belonging to an epoch that antedates by thousands of years the Age of their supposed builders.

These mighty monuments of old are indeed the sacred relics of our early forefathers; but modern historians are so nose-bound by Biblical chronology that they cannot yet see the light. Like young puppets, their eyes will not open to the light until they are nine days old. The student is here requested to notice that all the great solar and lunar observatories were constructed for a two-fold purpose. Their religion, unlike that of their degenerated descendants, was a pure, scientific theology, or “the Wisdom Religion.” Those nations and peoples whom our historians denominate “ancient” were but degenerated castes, and, in comparison with the nations who built “the cloud-encompassed Bel,” are quite modern. The grand, scientific Temples of the Sun and Moon, then, were erected at a period when the Sun was vertical to the latitude of the place, and their ages can be easily computed by the following simple formula. Our Earth’s equator is the zero, or starting point, of all computations; and was taken into consideration by the ancient artists, who always built with some significant occult purpose. Each zone was constituted by the Great Solar Cycle of 25,920 years, during which period the Poles moved over one volute, which they, in round numbers, reckoned at 4 degrees; and all those buildings will be found, when constructed on this plan, to point exactly to the time they were built, if their latitude corresponds with their symbol. For instance, the Tower of Babel was eight-volved; that is, with a spiral staircase winding eight times round it. This means that is was built when the sun was vertical in the latitude of 32 degrees; 4 times 8 are 32, or, as an initiate of our Noble Order, 63 years ago (1822), speaking of the awful Iron Age, says:

“In this dread time Chimera had her birth;
In this dread time the Cyclops cursed the earth.
And Giants huge, of horrid, monstrous form,
Who ravaged Earth, and strove e’en Heaven to storm.
This was the Iron Age; ’twas Python’s reign,
When Polar-suns burnt up the golden grain,
And sudden thaws inundate every plain.
Hence Towers and Walls and Pryamids arose,
Whose ponderous bulk might all their rage oppose.
Assyrian chiefs bade Babel’s tower arise,
On Shinar’s plain, aspiring to the skies,
Whose eight-volved dragon, turning round the whole,
Shows that eight cycles round the northern pole
At four degrees asunder, closed their view,
Which proves latitude was thirty-two.
And still in thirty-two, beneath the starry host,
The eight-coiled Dragon moulders in the dust,
By Cyrus overthrown, who raised the pile
Round which the Stars and Dragon used to coil;
But still its form, its history declares,
An hoary age of twice two hundred thousand years.”

It may be noted that the very ancient sacred towers in the Pagodas of China always (unless they are of modern construction) faithfully indicate their latitude and date of their first foundation by the number of stories or terraces. Of course it is not supposed that these towers, like our ancient cathedrals, are not periodically restored as they fall into decay, but always on the same principle.

A great deal more might be said as to the different climates that ensued under different inclinations of our Earth’s Pole, but these few illustrations will give the student a few ideas as to the actual cause of the various geological changes that are brought about by Polar Motion. Remember that the great Polar Day (2,592,000 years, moving once around, like the index of the clock) determines the duration upon our planet of that vital spiritual impulse of evolution, known among students and Initiates as the Great Life Wave. This Life Wave passes around the septenary chain, or circuit, of the seven planets, not in an even, regular, continuous action, but in waves or impulses. For instance, suppose the Life Wave of the mineral evolution commences, upon planet number 1; it will here and then, having reached its go through its active evolution, culminating point, it commences to flow, or pass on to planet number 2, and the vegetable, or next life impulse, begins upon planet number 1, and so on with the rest. Upon this point we would refer the student to Mr. Sinnett’s valuable book, Esoteric Buddhism, but reminding you that, although there are many outlines in the work similar to these teachings, they are, in reality, widely different, as will be seen when you read his conclusions and those of this revelation.

In order to better illustrate the evolution of matter and the involution of spirit, we will briefly describe in outline the systematic and harmonious process followed by Nature in the complete evolution of a planet, similar in construction to our earth.

In the first place, it must be borne in mind that there are Seven Kingdoms, Seven Principles and Seven Ruling Powers in Nature, a trinity of sevens, and also that matter, so called, is but the most remote expression of spirit. The further a state is removed from its source, the more dense it becomes, until spirit can express itself in metallic form and become materialized as veins and lodes of mineral ore in the body of a planet, and tower itself upon that planet’s surface in granite mountains, limestone hills or chalky dells; and that the boundless space is filled with a fine, invisible form of condensed spirit, known to scientists as cosmic dust; and, lastly, that Nature’s operations are performed in an endless series of waves, which, in their motion, form graceful curves, the rise and fall of the arc of the curve forming its cycle of duration.

The Seven Kingdoms are the Three Elemental and invisible, and the Four Objective and visible planes of Nature, while the order of the Seven Principles, or forms of evolution, is as follows; 1, the Spiritual; 2, the Astral; 3, the Gaseous; 4, the Mineral; 5, the Vegetable; 6, the Animal; 7, the Human. The Seven Governors, or Powers ruling a planet, are the Seven Angelic States, mentioned more fully in LaClef chapter VI. Having explained the rudiments, it will better express our meaning to use a Biblical illustration, so we will now esoterically explain:

THE SIX DAYS OF CREATION,

mentioned in Genesis, each Day being one Polar Day, as before stated, or 2,592,000 years of Earthly time.

The words “the evening and the morning” signify the two halves of the Polar Cycle. You will notice that “the evening” is mentioned first, and “the morning” last. This is correct. The dark or undeveloped portion of each wave is the first half, and signifies, symbolically, Night, and vice versa. Further, it must be remembered that the spiritual impulse, or wave, must of necessity pass round the orbit that has ultimately to be traversed by the future planet before anything can transpire. It is the Divine Will sent forth by the spirit-state that is equivalent to the Word or Divine Idea of certain ancient writers. This Fiat attracts within its orbit the latent cosmic matter of space, and transforms it into the embryonic, nebulous light, the star dust or radiant fire mist, which is the form, or primitive matter, of all creation. The student must strictly remember that there is no specific duration of this state. It may last for millions of ages before the actual evolution of a planet, and that previous to the symbolical Six Days of Creation this planet exists for untold cycles in a nebulous condition, the exact size of its orbital ring, This being understood, we will describe

• The First Day of Creation. The Supreme Angelic Governors project into active evolution the astral tide-wave, viz., the currents of astral light, and the nebulous matter is, at once, transformed into a rapidly revolving globe of fire, which solidifies and cools under the intense concentration of the Deific Will of the Governors in a wonderfully less space of time than any of our transcendental or spiritual writers can imagine. Fire was dominant for the first half of the Polar Day;— when its surface had become so far cooled as to allow the heated vapors of its immense atmosphere to condense and form water, which element was rapidly produced during the next half of the cycle. Thus, we see, that a rude globe was formed during the first day of creation; the first half, the evening, was given to the dominion of fire alone, and the latter half, or morning, was one ceaseless war between those opposing elements, fire and water. “And the evening and the morning were the first day.” These two periods of the Polar Cycle are each 1,296,000 years, and were called by the Hindoos the Treta Yug.
• The Second Day of Creation. The Supreme Angelic Governors now caused the first evolution of the gaseous or chemical tide-wave, and the evolution of a complete but dense atmosphere was the result. That is to say, the various constituents of the atmosphere were, by this wave, adjusted, and our planet’s chemical affinities duly balanced. This caused the whole of the superabundant gross matter, such as carbon, etc., to condense and fall to the surface of the planet. During this day, also, our planet’s surface was the scene of a continual con flict between heat and water; all was the scene of mighty volcanic action; mountain ranges continually rose and fell, and the ocean beds were always shifting.
• The Third Day of Creation. After the gaseous, the great mineral tide-wave commenced, and the spirit atoms of future egos became in dense matter for the first time, namely, in the stratas of rocks and mineral lodes which constitute the stony ribs and metallic veins of our planet. Mountains, valleys, islands and continents were formed; the land above the ocean level sank, and the bed of the ocean became dry land. Now, for the first time, the seas and oceans occupy their proper beds. “And the evening and the morning were the third day.” It must be added that during this period, also, the planet’s surface was the scene of continual volcanic action; as was each and every period. At the close of this, the third Polar Cycle, we see that the evolution of the astral, chemical and mineral waves have now prepared our Earth for the first vegetable forms of life. And here, be it noted, that the first forms of all things were born (that is, had their origin) in water.
• The Fourth Day of Creation. The vegetable tide-wave now reaches the barren shores of our planet, and produces the first rudimental forms of vegetable life, which develop into the most gross, gigantic shapes, rude and imperfect as the earth upon which they grow. But, as time progresses, so does the vegetable kingdom; each age giving more perfect forms. “And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.”
• The Fifth Day of Creation. The previous tide-waves having run their course, the animal life-wave now sets in, and from the lowest rudimental forms of life successively evolve the various orders of animal life, race after race appearing, running its course and becoming extinct, giving place to more complete organisms. “And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.”
• The Sixth Day of Creation. The preceding five tide-waves of evolution have now prepared our Earth for Nature’s grandest climax; the evolution of the human form, Man, for at this age we read; “And the Lord made man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul; and the Lord created man in His own image, male and female created He them.”

During the five days of creation the vegetable and animal have been evolved, and, when man appears upon the scene, everything is in a vastly improved and highly developed condition, compared with the condition of the early monstrous forms. “And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” And here we must digress.

Some students of the occult imagine (for certainly they are not properly initiated and trained in the schools of occultism) that the missing link, or first human form, the connection between the animal and human, was caused by a spiritual impulse union, which, acting upon the highest form of animal, an ape, for example, produced an entirely different species, quite human in their organism, but hairy, etc., and that from this missing link the human race, as at present, has been evolved.

But this is erroneous, and void of truth. While the spirit atoms have been evolving upward from the mineral, the spiritual form has been involving downward until it became tangible and objective, possessing at first a vast but loosely organized body. Each age saw it smaller and more compact, until, at the end of the Third Race of the First Human Round, the spiritual man had a compact, well-organized body, and the commencement of the Fourth Race, (the center of the seven) was the first point of contact, the focus of the spirit downwards and the apex of the material upwards. (see note below)

Matter and spirit met and formed the first real physical man of the human race. This is the great mystery;— the lowest point in the arc of spiritual involution impinges upon the highest arc, or culmi nating point, of material evolution, and forms the origin of man. The evolution of the remaining root races having taken place, the life impulse begins to ebb and slowly quits our shores, and our Earth for the first time enjoys a rest. The six days of creation are at an end, and the seventh is The Day of Rest.

Note: This needs a little explanation. The first race of human beings who existed upon this planet were really spiritual. Their bodies were quite ethereal, when compared with our gross organisms, but were sufficiently material to be objective and tangible. They were pure and innocent, true Adams and Eves, and their country was indeed a garden of Paradise. They were natural born adepts of the highest order. They played with the Akasa and the magnetic currents of our globe as the boys in Bulwer Lytton’s “Coming Race” played with the tremendous Vril. The elementals and nature spirits were, by their art, rendered objective, and performed the duties of servants to them. This was the true Golden Age. It was the first spiritual race of human beings; the progenitors of humanity upon our Earth. The race which followed them was termed the Silver Age in the arcane doctrine of the occult. Their descendants, altho pure and able to control the psychic currents, and Gods in comparison to ourselves, were far inferior to their forefathers of the Golden Age. Both these races, and also the third, viz., the people of the Copper Age, when they wished to die passed peacefully away, and their bodies were immediately disintegrated by the currents of vril. There were neither shades, shells nor phantoms in our atmosphere in those days. The third, or Copper Age, people were as inferior to those of the Silver Age as were the Silver to the Golden. Mankind was on the downward cycle; lies, deceit and selfishness began to be engendered, and consequently there arose a school of Black Magic. In this age the first elements of that curse, Caste, arose. This, the Copper Age, was the last remnant of those who inherited the Divine Wisdom of the Gods of the Golden Age. The spiritual races had now reached the lowest possible point in the arc of spiritual involution, and the Fourth race, or Iron Age people, were the first of the gross physical races, who became mighty hunters, and ate flesh meat, and whose animal passions alone ruled their From this date the nations became migratory nomads, and soon lost enjoyments. all traces of that high civilization which belonged to the early Copper Age races. This is, then, the esoteric explanation of the Four Ages of antiquity, and refers only to the first round of mankind upon any newly created planet, and also to the highest and two succeeding races previous to the life-wave leaving the planet, viz., the three highest states possible in any given round. The others cycles of years, termed Golden, Silver, etc., refer solely to polar motion and the change of our Earth’s climate.

The Day of Rest. The Sabbath of the Lord. The Earth slumbers and enjoys the peace of Nirvana. After this Sabbath, the first day of a new week commences, for the gaseous tide-wave, having gone the circuit of the planetary chain, once more reaches our globe. The atmosphere is again reorganized, purified, and galvanized with new life to make it fit to receive and sustain a higher phase of evolution. It breathes the breath of a new life upon our awakening planet. The life impulse that has been passive during the Sabbath of the Lord becomes again active.

After the expiration of the gaseous wave, and another Polar Day, the beds of the oceans have risen and become dry land, and the old continents are now at the bottom of the ocean, and, as this takes place slowly, the leading types of flora, fauna and surviving types of the seven human families retreat from the sinking continents and occupy the new-made land and mountains which are waiting to liberate their long-imprisoned spirit atoms, and this is affected, directly the mineral wave arrives, at the commencement of the Second Polar Day. The old mineral elements are now liberated, and the incoming mineral wave becomes incarnated in their place. By the time this tide has attained its climax the newly liberated spirit atoms of this planet form a new mineral wave, which, seeking reincarnation, begins to flow on to the next planet, which has already been prepared for it by the preceding gaseous wave. Then, in succession, comes the vegetable, animal, etc., to prepare a “New Heaven and a New Earth” for the incoming life-wave that shall evolve the Second Round of humanity, which, having again evolved its seven root races and their innumerable sub and offshoot races, again passes on its journey round the chain, leaving only a remnant of its seven leading types to survive the long ages of slumber, to give the struggling monads that Nature has left behind a chance of incarnating them selves to form the connecting links for the next round. And so does evolution proceed until each planet of the chain has evolved seven complete rounds of humanity, and then the Great Jubilee of the Earth takes place. Seven times 7 rounds equal 49; and 7 races of human beings on 7 planets is also 49; and the 50th. is the year of Jubilee, symbolized by the Jews every 50th. year, when no work was done and the land rested. “As it is below, so it is above, as on the earth, so in the sky.” Remember this. And now, as a conclusion to this part of La Clef Hermetique, we give the Cycles and Periods in full, tabulated, so as to enable the student to comprehend them at a glance. It only remains to say that at the end of every Great Period, of 1,016,064,000 years, the Sun of our system passes into a passive state of sleep, and remains so for 127,008,000 years. It is, in fact, the Solar Nirvana (just as the Earth enters Nirvana at the end of every complete evolution). All the planetary chains of the solar system are disintegrated during the great solar Nirvana, and recreated upon the awakening of our Sun from its cycle of rest. The alternate states of activity and rest are by the Hindoo Initiates termed the days and nights of Brahma.

THE CYCLE PERIODS OF THE GREAT LIFE-WAVE OF MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION

One Polar Day, which is also the cycle of duration of any life-wave on our planet, is, when measured by the common years of our Earth’s time, exactly 2,592,000 years.

And, although the 7 planets of our chain vary in the length of their respective life-waves, some a few thousand years more and some a few thousand less, they are, on the average, all of the same duration. Hence the great period of the life-wave, traveling once round our septenary chain of worlds, is 2,592,000 multiplied by 7, or 18,144,000 years. This is for the complete circuit of 7 orbs, but the cycle, or period, of the life-wave, from its leaving the Earth to its reappearance or commencement is 2,592,000 less than the above, or, in other words, exactly 15,552,000 years.

The period of evolution of the 7 great rounds of humanity, and producing 7 times 7, equaling 49, root races of immortal beings for each race contains its own immortals), is the period of the life-wave passing seven times round the chain, or 127,008,000 years. There are now say seven great planetary families, each family containing within itself seven root races, and each root race containing within itself, its numerous offshoot races. The perfected humanity, then, rests in the enjoyment of a blissful Nirvana, or The peace of God, which passeth all understanding,” for the 50th Period, that is to say, the 7 planetary families of our Earth have occupied 7 complete circuits of the life-wave round the chain, or 49 Polar Days. The 50th day is the day when those purified souls enter Nirvana, as a family, and this Nirvana lasts until the human life-wave has passed round the chain in a passive state and reached the shores of our planet again, or 18,144,000 years.

After the Jubilee of Nirvana, this vast, and now exalted, host of the 7 planetary families’ perfected souls become, in their turn, the originators and guardians of a new and fresh race of humanity, each planetary family, or state, becoming the especial rulers of their own sphere, while their own late Angelic Guardians, the 7 spirits (families of spirits) that stand before the Lord, termed Dhyan Chohans in Esoteric Buddhism, ascend still higher into more perfect spheres of creation. You will take note that each family, or new angelic planetary state of lately exalted human souls, rules the corresponding family upon Earth. Thus the first family, or that which formed the first 7 root races after their cycle, rules the first seven root races of their new creation, and so on with the others. These new races of human beings evolve and pass through the same harmonious process of evolution, from spirit to matter and back again to spirit, thus completing the great cycle of necessity. The planet itself is not recreated after each earthly Nirvana, but re-awakened into activity and life to pass through 7 times 7 races, or circuits of the life wave, or 127,008,000 years.

After the period has again expired, this race of guardians also ascend to higher planes, and the second planetary family enjoys Nirvana for 18,144,000 years, and then in their turn become guardians of the third’s 7 families (termed one planetary family). Then the third family originate, rule and guard the fourth, the fourth the fifth, and so on until our Earth (and the planetary chain in its turn) has evolved 7 great planetary families, each family consisting of 7 rounds, and each round of 7 root races, and has also enjoyed 7 Nirvanas. This makes up the grand period of 8 times 127,008,000 years, which, in its grand and complete total, equals 1,016,064,000 years of earthly time. This period is obtained as follows; 7 periods of 127,008,000 for the 7 great planetary families, and 7 Nirvanas of 18,144,000, which make the eighth; the total eighth. This great cycle, 1,016,064,000 years, is the exact term of our planet’s physical existence. The 7 great cycles and the 7 Nirvanas together constitute the eighth, and produce the sleep of death. Our sphere will then have completed the period of child-bearing; old age has gradually settled upon her; she has borne seven sons, and now sinks into the eighth period— sleep—the sleep of death and complete annihilation. Cohesion loosens its hold upon the molecules, and atom by atom the planet’s particles are disintegrated and dispersed in space. The great solar sleep, or Nirvana, takes place, and our Sun ceases to be active for a period of 127,008,000 years, viz., a complete evolutionary cycle; and it is only when the first warm breath of new spiritual life pulsates through the spaces of Aeth that a recreation of the planetary chains commences anew. The disintegrated atoms of former worlds are reconstructed with new cosmic matter, and once more evolution; but upon a higher plane; begins its almost ceaseless round.

Note the terrible significance of the figure 8. The eighth sphere of our chain is not a visible orb, but a lifeless, dark, semi-spiritual one. (see note below) It is the sphere of death, and the temporary abode of those souls, or shades, who have, through their depraved lives, lost their connection with the Divine Parent, the spiritual ego that gave them birth. Yet they have bartered a glorious, divine birthright for a mess of pottage, and now must sink unconsciously into the sleep of oblivion, while the enfranchised souls of their nobler brethren are urging their resistless course through the sapphire vaults and starlit realms of the Milky Way. And yet, O most esteemed and eternal brother, in the face of our eternal progress, these vast Periods are but a few Cycles and most awful, incomprehensible fast-fleeting moments of planetary existence. The whole eras of past eternity cannot bring one second more near the end of our immortal, deathless reign.

Note: This eighth orb is known to Initiates of the highest interior degree as “the Dark Satellite,” whose ruling spiritual hierophant is known by the name of Ob. From this name came that of Oberon and so evil and infernal is the power of this sphere that all cases of demonia, enchantment or possession came to be termed Obsession. The buried cities of the Gobi desert belong to races who were the devotees of this Ob. (This was after the Gobi had become a portion of the continent of old India and does not refer to the “Golden isle” of the sea, when the Gobi was a tropical ocean.) Hence its name, Gobi, that is, the followers of Ob, or the country of Ob. This is the reason for the awful traditions mentioned in “Isis Unveiled” as to the hidden treasures being guarded by a legion of infernal spirits. It is from this evil orb that the powers possessed by the Black Magi are derived, and, in fact, it is the Spiritual correspondence of those brothers on Earth. For, remember, there is not a class of people, or a society devoted to any subject on Earth, but what has a spiritual correspondence in the realm of spirit. The Hermetic Law is one grand truth, viz., “As it is above, so it is below, as on the Earth, so in the Sky.” St. Paul mentions, or rather refers, to this “Dark Satellite” when he publicly declares: “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities, princes of the air,” etc.