Primordial Substance and Divine Thought: From Theosophy’s Sacred Teachings in “The Secret Doctrine,” Part 2 of 2

“It was taught in the inner temples that this visible Universe of Spirit and Matter is but the concrete Image of the ideal Abstraction; it was built on the Model of the first Divine Idea. Thus our Universe existed from eternity in a latent state. The Soul animating this purely spiritual Universe is the Central Sun, the highest Deity Itself. It was not the One who built the concrete form of the idea, but the First-Begotten; and, as it was constructed on the geometrical figure of the dodecahedron, the First-Begotten ‘was pleased to employ 12,000 years in its creation.’ The latter number is expressed in the Tyrrhenian Cosmogony, which shows man created in the sixth millennium. This agrees with the Egyptian theory of 6,000 ‘years,’ and with the Hebrew computation. But it is the exoteric form of it. The secret computation explains that the ‘12,000 and the 6,000 years’ are Years of Brahmâ, one Day of Brahmâ being equal to 4,320,000,000 years. Sanchuniathon, in his Cosmogony, declares that when the Wind (Spirit) became enamored of its own principles (Chaos), an intimate union took place, which connection was called Pothos, and from this sprang the seed of all. And the Chaos knew not its own production, for it was senseless; but from its embrace with the Wind was generated Môt, or the Ilus (Mud). From this proceeded the spores of creation and the generation of the Universe. […]”

“No one can seriously study ancient philosophies without perceiving that the striking similitude of conception in all of them, in their exoteric form very frequently, and in their hidden spirit invariably, is the result of no mere coincidence, but of a concurrent design; and that, during the youth of mankind, there was but one language, one knowledge, one universal religion, when there were no churches, no creeds or sects, but when every man was a priest unto himself. And, if it is shown that already in those early ages which are shut out from our sight by the exuberant growth of tradition, human religious thought developed in uniform sympathy in every portion of the globe; then, it becomes evident that that thought, born under whatever latitude, in the cold North or the burning South, in the East or West, was inspired by the same revelations, and that man was nurtured under the protecting shadow of the same ‘Tree of Knowledge.’”