Volume Ill, Number 4 Wi nter 1999

Atfantis: L~eruf or History?

A Brief History of Afcfiemy

L. Gordon P(wnmer

Remembered

TfieHidden History of tfie Human Race

AVehicle for the Ancient Wisdom Tradition

Why Study Theosophy?

Geoffrey Farthing has put together another article reminding the various leaders of the Theosophi-cal Movement of the special legacy which they protect. The theosophical writings inspired by andto some extent written by the Masters, are safeguarded by Theosophists for future generations.This is a heavy responsibility and Geoffrey Farthing reminds leaders that this responsibility wouldbe better served through cooperation—after all we do espouse Universal Brotherhood.

Further Archeological Finds Given a Theosophical Twist in Theosophy

For those wanting to look at other exciting finds shedding light on the past, the November-De-cember 1999 issue of Theosophy published by The Theosophy Company has a selection of itemsin their section “On The Lookout.” A structure that appears artificial was found off the coast ofOkinawa 10 years ago and is dated at least 8000 BC. If indeed artificial, this structure indicatesa civilization with a high degree of technology. As well, a stand of trees of a type thought to beextinct for 30 million years has been discovered at a location not more than 150 kilometres outof Sydney, Australia. We are given these finds and several more with accompanying theosophicalliterature.

The Different Branches of Theosophy

In The Quest magazine, Eldon Tucker takes a look at the various Theosophical Societies that havebranched off from the original Society and judges their respective specializations as not to be abad thing. In an article titled “The Specialization of Theosophy” he takes a quick look at thedevelopment of various strains of modern Theosophy and questions how his own Society, TS inAmerica, might add to the overall Societal fabric. He leaves readers with the challenge of creatinga new direction through increased interaction among members within the Society and by reachingout to members in the greater Theosophical Society.

“Why Atlantis Was Not an Atlantic Continent”

This short article from Theosophy in Australia eloquently expresses, from the point of view of themodern geological theory of Plate Tectonics, the current scientific beliefs concerning submergedcontinents. Dr. Victor Gostin takes the reader step by step through the theory giving the readera good understanding of current scientific beliefs on this topic.

On Ghosts

The Word magazine is currently reprinting an article written by H.W. Percival for the first seriesof the magazine. This article, “Ghosts, Gods and Man,” gives a theosophically derived perspectiveof the various different natures of ghosts. This fascinating article could provide many hours oftheosophical discussion around a midnight camp fire.

Gnos-is, No More!

Gnosis magazine has been discontinued and current subscriptions are being filled by thepublication, Lapis, subtitled “the inner meaning of contemporary life.” Lapis focuses on theWestern Inner Tradition as it follows society’s transition into the new millennium looking ateverything from politics to spirituality.

Available From Wizards Bookshelf

A recent publication, Free Energy Pioneer: John Worrell Keely by Theo Paijmans, gives a fascinatinglook at the occult influences involved in free energy theory by researchers like John W. Keely.

This magazine is an invitation for followers of all traditions to enter into adialogue whose goal is Truth and whose means is Universal Brotherhood.

FOHATA Quarterly Publication of Edmonton Theosophical Society

ContentsEditor

Robert Bruce MacDonald

Managing EditorJoAnne MacDonald

Assistant EditorsRogelle PelletierDolorese Brisson

PublisherEdmonton Theosophical

Society

The pages of Fohat are an openforum dedicated to the pursuit ofTruth, and consequently theviews and opinions expressedherein are those of the authorsand do not necessarily reflect theviews of the publisher unlessotherwise specifically stated.

Any articles or correspondencemay be sent to:

FOHATBox 4587

Edmonton, AlbertaCanada T6E 5G4

E-mail: fohat@planet.eon.net

Subscription Rates:1 year (4 issues)

$15.00 Cdn in Canada$15.00 US in U.S.A.$20.00 US international

Become anAssociate of Edmonton TSand help support its efforts.

Additional $10.00Associates receive: ETS Newsletter

Cover Design: Donna Pinkard

ISSN 1205-9676

Volume III, No. 4Winter 1999

Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Letters to the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Atlantis: Legend or History? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78by Morry Secrest

The Darwinian Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82by Robert Bruce MacDonald

The Mystery of Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84by Claude Hughes

Alchemy and the Alchemists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85Reprinted from Transactions of the Scottish Lodge

Theosophical Friends Remembered . . . . . . . . . . 89

To be featured in coming issues:

The Judge Case and Its Effects on the TheosophicalSociety;

Questioning the Theory of Fossil Fuels;

An In Depth Look at the Power of Sound;

AND MUCH MORE!

Upsetting the MoneychangersThen Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, andoverturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold doves. - Matthew 21:12

For a meek and mild-mannered Prince of Peace,this one verse from the gospels seems to stand outas incongruent with the rest of the spin that theChristian religion wants to put on the life of Jesus.It is this incident that led to his eventual showdownwith the Priests and the Roman Authorities andconsequently could not be left out of the story; andyet why should he care what went on in the publicbuildings of the establishment—whether politicalor religious? Would it not have been simpler toestablish new temples for his followers where suchpractices did not occur? Perhaps an allegoricallook at this incident from the point of view of theadvancing initiate can shed some light on thebroader social theme.

As the initiate prepares himself for the final initiation,he must empty the temple of all those forces thatwould try to drag him down. The temple of God, aswe know, is the body or the lower self. “All those whobought and sold” are the initiate’s set of desires thatcontinually clamour for his attention under the as-sumption that some set of desires may actually bringpeace and contentment—an assumption that theinitiate knows intellectually to be a lie. “The tablesof the moneychangers and the seats of those who solddoves” refers to the business of religion. In a sensethe aspirant would like to change some aspect of hismundane self into a coin with which he could buyaccess to the dove—the symbol of the Higher Self orHeavenly Father. The aspirant realizes that he mustrid himself of the temptation of this thought andremove it from the temple. His only path is to spiri-tualise the lower self by removing all traces of themundane from it so that it becomes a fit vehicle of theHigher Self.

To now look at the broader social theme, we bringinto the riddle the knowledge of Christ as an Avatar.If the Avatar comes to the World during a time whenevil is pervasive, then we should see the life of Christin this context. The Priests and the Romans werescared of this man, so much so that they felt that theonly solution to the problem that he posed was hisdeath. What did Jesus know that made him sodangerous to the Roman Empire and the Priests ofthe Israelites? Why did Pontius Pilate try to washRome’s hands of this man’s fate when in fact it wasnot possible to do so—that is, what made him Rome’sproblem too?

The moneychangers play a dual role as they representthe tax-collector, both political and religious. Themoneychanger takes our coin—the fruits of our la-bour—and removes part of it to be spent on thereligious or economic infrastructure that we havecome to see as necessary to conduct our lives. Thisinfrastructure allows us then to purchase those luxu-ries that will enable us to obtain happiness in ourphysical life and allow us to pay the necessary relig-ious fees to get into heaven so that we can be happyin the hereafter. As long as we remain ignorant, thisarrangement works nicely. The funny thing aboutthe tax-collector is that the more that we want to holdonto our standard of living, the more he can chargein taxes for this privilege. The consequence of thisarrangement is the loss of personal freedom. Thetotalitarian government (the loss of personal free-dom), excessive taxation, and materialism all go handin hand. As we move today into a totalitarian WorldEmpire or New World Order, the question becomeshow do we get rid of the tax-collector?

A thousand years ago we went through a similarperiod with the end result being the establishment ofthe Common Law. The Common Law included suchdocuments as the Magna Carta and the Petition ofRights. The Common Law attempted to protect thesovereignty of the common man, especially againstinfringements by the State. The Petition of Rightsestablished in 1628 expresses one aspect of this rightto property as follows:

They do therefore humbly pray your most excellentMajesty, that no man hereafter be compelled tomake or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, orsuch like charge, without common consent by actof parliament; and none be called to make answer,or take such oath, or to give attendance, or beconfined, or otherwise molested or disquieted con-cerning the same or for refusal thereof; and thatno freeman, in any such manner as is beforementioned, be imprisoned or detained. . . .

The Magna Carta, as one step in the development ofthe Common Law, as well as the American Revolu-tion, were both motivated by excessive taxation. His-tory can be described as periods of excessive taxation,usually accompanied by moral decay, followed byperiods where attempts are made to limit such ex-cesses in the future. The protection of life, liberty,and property have been the birthrights of the sover-eign citizen. When the sovereignty of the citizen isprotected, the sovereignty of the nation is protected.

editorial

76 FOHAT

No power can make any lawful demands on a sover-eign people as they are answerable only to their ownhigher self.

The sovereign individual has two aspects to his life,the spiritual and the material. These two aspects arein fact one. In the spiritual or contemplative side hetries to understand and come closer to his HigherSelf. In the material or objective side he tries to reflectthis understanding into the world he lives in. If heloses sovereignty over one or both of these worlds, heis inhibited from spiritual growth. Rome and thePriests both were threatened by Jesus inasmuch asJesus was reminding the ignorant masses that theypossessed free will. A free will is the characteristic ofthe sovereign individual and a threat to the materialestablishment. A people who are heavily taxed are apeople whose wills have been captured by luxury andvice.

The Ilbert Bill in India was an attempt to give morepower to local authorities. The Mahatmas warnedSinnett that this Bill was aimed ultimately at Eng-land. Democracy is the ultimate in giving power tothe people. If you give the people the power to tradeaway their rights and freedoms for a more luxurious

life, will they do it? Without a group of educatedindividuals in a position to ensure that the people arenot deceived into trading away their sovereignty,tyranny is the result of democracy. In the twentiethcentury we have seen everyone enfranchised with thevote, and rights and freedoms curtailed. We are nowthreatened with a World Government in which trans-national corporations will decide the fate of the indi-vidual. Jesus had two sets of teachings, one for themasses and one for his disciples. Each had theirrespective areas of influence. The people must takesovereign responsibility for their own lives, and theso-called ruler or rulers need only ensure that thissovereignty is protected. Blavatsky writes thatChrist’s injunctions to take no thought for the mor-row, nor as to what we shall eat, drink, or clothe ourbody with, but to live as “the fowls of the air and thelilies of the field”, are but another version of theteachings of Buddha (Vide Matth. vi, 24-34 and vii).

If the people can be made to understand this simpleteaching, and a few made responsible to understandand protect its Spirit, this descent into the abyssmight be halted. The big question is how did Jesusget anyone to listen?

In this issue we look at mysteries. Several of thesemysteries are so because they arise out of the ancientpast. Morry Secrest takes a look at some of the assump-tions of modern Anthropology and Geology as well assome clever reinterpretations of the writings of Plato inorder to give a plausible time and location for thedestroyed civilization of Atlantis. This article is followedby “The Darwinian Filter” where some of the assump-tions of today’s men and women of science are taken totask by Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson. Thesetwo men present evidence that if looked at seriouslywould either call into question the dating of ages bymodern geology or push the age of man back to unimag-inable lengths. Either way it reminds us that the theo-ries of science are just that theories—this includes ofcourse the Theory of Evolution.

Claude Hughes next takes us on a short journey into

“The Mystery of Self.” By exploring the concept of duty,we are brought closer to understanding the mysteriousbeing that is Man. The mystery of Man is the field ofstudy for the subjects of our final article, “Alchemy andAlchemists.” This reprint from The Transactions of theScottish Lodge takes a brief look at the history of alchemyand its practitioners with special focus on their legen-dary abilities to transmute base metals into gold.

We end this issue by giving poetic license to those whoknew one of the well loved Theosophists of this century,L. Gordon Plummer. Personal reminiscences help toflesh out this man and give us some idea how he affectedthe lives of others.

Finally, the editors of Fohat would like to wish everyonea joyous holiday season and a happy new millennium.

Flora MacDonald’s sister Mary Merrill, who was char-acterized in the alleged fictional novel, Mary Melvillethe Psychic, 1900, has a close parallel in Mollie Fancherthe Brooklyn Enigma, by Abram H. Dailey, Brooklyn,1894. She is mentioned by HPB in The TheosophistVol. I, #3, Dec. 1879, p. 79 ���� ���� ��� � �� �� ashaving lived without food for 9 years, never slept, readsealed letters, described distant friends; though com-pletely blind perfectly discriminated colors; andthough paralysed embroidered canvas, and sculpted

accurate flowers in wax. The book, which was pub-lished after HPB’s death describes in detail a greatmany more inexplicable phenomena, and includesreferences to Richard Hodgson, and Prof. Elliot Coues,in its 262 pages. Both of these late 19�� centurywomen embody the 3�� Theosophical object, ‘the un-explained powers latent in man’CMiss Merrill by birth,and Miss Fancher as a consequence of two seriousaccidents. Of course the third way is through personalexertions as embodied by the Adepts.

������� ����

Letters to the Editor:

WINTER 1999 77

Atlantis:Legend or History?

Morry Secrest

In the book The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky,the former island of Atlantis is pointed out as beingthe homeland of the 4�� Root Race, the Atlanteans.It is further said that humanity of the present day(the 5�� Root Race) descended from the Atlanteans.�

It is important, I believe, to clarify the historicalveracity of this story because, if it be true, theAtlanteans are an important historical element of allthe present-day humanity.� However, this story isnot without difficulties which make it both intriguingand frustrating. Several inconsistencies within thattale make it hard to believe. Nonetheless, with somerecent archaeological discoveries and a careful read-ing of the original story, I believe it can be shown thatthe story of Atlantis is a historical, not mythological,work. We are encouraged to compare The SecretDoctrine with the findings of science by HPB herself.�

The story of Atlantis is first told in the dialogues ofPlato (Critias and Timaeus); it is an event in the lifeof Solon, who was a Greek statesman living duringthe period 638 to 558 BC. It was during a visit toEgypt at about 593 BC that he met with a numberof Egyptian priests. He found that their knowledgeof Greek history was far greater than his own, andtherefore asked to be taught the missing history. Thestory of Atlantis is a large part of the history asrelated to Solon by one of the Egyptian priests.

Two major inconsistencies have caused scholars todoubt the historical accuracy of this story, leadingthem to consider it a myth. For one thing, there isno evidence that an island of the size described, andin the location described in the story ever existed inthe Atlantic ocean. Several research efforts examin-ing the ocean floor in that area show nothing thatcould support that part of the story. It is a geologicalimpossibility. Second, the time stated for the dura-tion of Atlantis is incredibly ancient, placing a pow-erful bronze age civilization back at the middle of thepaleolithic (old stone age). This is an anthropologicalimpossibility. This difficulty is found within TheSecret Doctrine as well, causing its readers to doubtthe veracity of the theosophical world-view which itlays out.�

After carefully reading Plato’s story of Atlantis, I feelthat it is an amalgamation of two different stories:first, a description of the very beginnings of Atlantis,

in the Atlantic ocean at a time when the sea level wasmuch lower. And second, a description of the enddays of Atlantis just before its destruction, when itwas at the height of its wealth and power. Thesecond story took place much closer to Solon’s owntime and was located in the Aegean sea rather thanin the Atlantic. There are a number of clues withinthe narrative itself which lead me to believe that thistheory (of two stories joined into one) is valid, andthat the story of Atlantis properly understood ishistory, not fable.

The Time Factor

A confusing factor is the method of keeping track oftime. To begin with, it is known that all the ancientcivilizations kept track of time using the moon cycle.The yearly sun cycle is never used in any recordkeeping until the Babylonians began keeping trackof events in terms of solar yearly cycles, around theyear 550 BC.�

The Egyptian priest knew that the ancient recordsused the moon cycle as the means of keeping trackof time. He was likely to be unfamiliar with therelatively new method of timekeeping because itclashed with tradition. The Greeks, however, learnedeverything they knew within the previous few gen-erations, and being familiar with the Mesopotamiancivilization, learned of this new development (solartime keeping) about the year 530 when it was carriedfrom Babylonia to Greece by the Greek astronomerMeton. From that time on, Greece used only thesolar method of timekeeping. This factors in a mul-tiplier of about 12.3 to every date in Solon’s story.Using this factor, we find that 9000 moon cyclesequal nearly 730 years which takes us back to thetime of the eruption of the volcano which destroyedThera and its civilization. (This eruption is oftenplaced at about 1450 BC by archaeologists.) So thestory of the destruction of Atlantis then was actuallythe story of the Aegean civilization on Thera andCrete, which we know today as the Minoan civiliza-tion.

Durations given as of great length clearly make sensewhen the key is applied consisting of the conversionfactor between monthly cycles and lunar cycles. Forinstance, counting by moon cycles explains the enor-

78 FOHAT

mous ages attributed to many of the ancient kings,and for the remarkable ages claimed for Methuselahand his family. The age of a man, given as 1000moon cycles, would actually be an age of about 84years. This is an old man even today, and in thoseearly times before the Bronze Age, it was a remark-able age indeed, quite worthy of retelling from onegeneration to the next.

Two Stories in One

It is my theory that the Egyptians gathered twoseparate stories about ancient Atlantis and confusedthem. One story was about a landmass which ex-isted in the northern Atlantic ocean prior to 16,000years ago but then sank, depriving the indigenouspeoples of their homeland. At that time, the peoplewere most likely tribes of paleolithic hunter-gather-ers. Another story was of a brilliant bronze-agecivilization of sailors, traders, artisans and warriors,living on islands in the Aegean, which were destroyedalmost overnight by a volcanic explosion. The loca-tion of the first was retained correctly, but the loca-tion of the second was badly muddled because of theremarkable similarity of the directions to their loca-tions.

Immediately after describing the location, the Egyp-tian priest describes the vast periods of time thatpassed, including the many generations of kings thatruled Atlantis. Next, he describes the magnificentwealth and technical development of the Atlanteancivilization. For many readers a confusion ariseshere: The culture described is clearly a Bronze Ageculture, and we know that no Bronze Age culturesexisted prior to 3000 BC. Yet the reader assumes thedescription of magnificence applies to Atlantis fromits first days. This is due to the lack of clear transi-tions within the narrative. However, if we recognizethe assumption and allow ourselves to realize thatanother interpretation of this ancient story is possi-ble, we can see a new understanding of the Egyptianpriest’s description.

I suggest the following as an interpretation:

Atlantis had a long, continuous culture, from before15,000 YBP (Years Before Present) to 12,000 YBP. Itwas not always a wealthy, brilliant culture. It slowlygrew, as all cultures did, from primitive beginningsand achieved greatness after much time and effort.It was only late in the history of Atlantis that itswealth and technical ability reached the level de-scribed by the Egyptian priest. This description isclearly that of a late Bronze Age civilization around3000 YBP. They worked metals, had highly devel-oped ships, built bridges and aqueducts, and hadorganized armies with specialized weapons and 2-man chariots.

Today we can look in the archaeological record andfollow the development of every one of these technicalskills. All of them were created, from the earliestbeginnings, in several places nearly concurrently: inthe fertile crescent, in the mountains around theBlack Sea, and a little later, in the Nile valley. It isclear that these technologies were developed in thoselocations. It is also clear that these skills wereshared by travelers on ships to other areas. There-fore any advancement that developed in one area wassoon available to other areas and was incorporatedinto their array of skills also. The picture of develop-ment, then, is that the Bronze Age was a period ofdevelopment experienced by most of the civilizationsof humans; not simultaneously, but not totally inde-pendently either. The Atlanteans were most likely tohave been fairly close in their level of development tothose people in the Mesopotamian plain, in Egyptand the towns around the Black Sea, because theywere all in close and continuous contact by sea. Noone civilization could remain significantly advancedthan the others for more than a short time.

As the sea level rose, from about 16,000 to 10,000years ago, all dwellers on islands and along seacoastsfound themselves having to relocate from diminish-ing islands and move further back into the hills ofthe continents. This was certainly true for the Atlan-teans. During this time, all over the world, thevarious tribes, villages and cities in low lying areaswould have relocated in response to the receding icesheets, the rising sea level and changing climate.Villages and towns would have begun, flourished andthen withered, just as they do today. At any giventime, at least one of these cities would have beenlarger and more active than the others, and wouldhave been able to claim that it was the greatestdescendant of Atlantis. It was quite likely that theMinoan civilization on Crete was in exactly thatsituation: that is, it knew itself to be descended fromthe great and ancient Atlantis.

Thus the second story contained within the descrip-tion by the Egyptian priest was of a later Atlantis,having cultural continuity with the first one, but ina different place and at a different time.

Two Locations For Atlantis?

The description of the location of Atlantis is ambigu-ous. It is often assumed to describe a location in theAtlantic ocean. However, it could also have been adescription developed by the sailors of the peoplesalong the southern shore of the Black Sea.

These people lived on the north shore of the Ana-tolian peninsula and in the mountains of the Cau-casus. As their sailors explored the Mediterraneansea (during the Bronze age period beginning around

WINTER 1999 79

5000 YBP) and then returned home, they might havetold their companions the following (Paraphrasedfrom Plato’s story of Atlantis): “First you travel westuntil you come to the narrow opening from our seato the other sea. It is obvious that our sea is merelya large lake, but that other sea is a true sea becauseit is much larger. You then find, just past the strait,an island with a brilliant civilization. From thatisland you can come to other islands, and beyondthose, crossing the true ocean, you find the greatcontinent on the opposite shore. This great conti-nent is so large that it surrounds the true sea.” Thisis an exact physical description of the Black sea, theBosporus, the islands of the Aegean, the Mediterra-nean sea and the surrounding shores of North Africaand Southern Europe.

This description, developed by the Anatolian sailorsand told to their families and friends back home, wasundoubtedly carried with them as they traveledaround the Mediterranean. Meeting the Egyptians,they found the Egyptians willing listeners to every-thing the sailors were willing to talk about. This isknown from the comment by the Egyptian priest tothe effect that their records were far more completethan the Greeks, because they contained everything,not only what the Egyptians discovered for them-selves but also what others told them. Therefore,this description could have been relayed to the Egyp-tians, and written down just as it was told, as adescription of what the Anatolian sailors found, fromthe point of view of the Anatolian homeland.

At the same time, the Egyptians had in their ancientrecords the story of the early beginnings of Atlantis,when it was a large landmass in the Atlantic ocean.The Egyptians knew that when ships sailed westfrom Egypt they eventually came to a narrow straitwhich opened onto an enormous ocean beyond. Andtheir ancient records correctly described a large land-mass, with a huge nearly level plain, facing southonto the Atlantic ocean, with mountains on the northside to offer protection from the cold north winds.This set of directions would, 16,000 years ago, haveled us to the Celtic Shelf, which is a large, nearly levelplain of which the level part is presently submergedbut the highlands are today called Britain, Irelandand Scotland. This level plain, the Celtic shelf, wasslowly exposed as the ocean level receded during theonset of the most recent glacial age. As the polar icecaps grew, the ocean levels dropped. The peak of theice age occurred around 18,000 years ago, and aftera few thousand years, the climate changed, the polarice caps began melting, and the world oceans beganrising again. The Celtic shelf then began to slowlysubmerge over many thousands of years.

This single set of directions started from two differentplaces and led to two different destinations and both

of them led to a civilization called Atlantis. The firstwas an ancient set of directions, known to the oldestEgyptians. The second was a much more recent setof directions, reported to the priestly scribes by thesailors from the Anatolian peninsula as they werebeing interviewed. It is not hard to imagine that theEgyptian priests, unused to traveling themselves,handing on their written records generation aftergeneration, would have confused the two, imaginingthem to be both the same.

Are we justified in teasing apart this description intotwo stories? I think so. The priest said that theEgyptian records were very complete, being com-prised of not only their own observations but alsothose observations reported to them by travelers whocame to visit. Since this particular observation waswritten into their archives many hundreds of yearsearlier, prior to the destruction of that island civili-zation, it may easily have lost the associated verbalinformation identifying it as provided by Anatoliansailors. Further, the first story is separated from thesecond story by a large block of time, as evidencedby the priest’s recounting of the large number ofgenerations that passed. Therefore, Plato’s story ofAtlantis can be understood as literal, historical truth. . . in the form of two separate stories.

When Was Atlantis Culturally Advanced?

The early part of the Egyptian priest’s description isof an extremely primitive people, perhaps no morethan nomadic hunter-gatherers. In his telling, theremark is made that the first two generations ofAtlanteans were on an island surrounded by waterat a time before man had boats. This is a significantclue. Archaeologists have been finding and carefullydating the remains of boats all around Europe andthe Mediterranean Sea. The earliest evidence hintsat regular use of rafts and canoes prior to 7000 YBP,in Denmark. Looking back to a time before humanswere using boats, we must say that it had to havebeen considerably before 10,000 YBP.

Following this statement, the priest talks about thelarge number of generations of kings and their de-scendants. Then he begins to talk about the morehighly developed culture which Atlantis had devel-oped. Most of the story from this point describes aBronze Age civilization.

Since Atlantis was the premier ocean-traveling civi-lization on the globe, they would have gone every-where and therefore would surely have left traces oftheir bronze age handicrafts on every shore wherethey traded with the indigenous people. There is notrace of a Bronze Age civilization in existence prior to3000 BC, anywhere. This is why archaeologists are

80 FOHAT

fairly sure that a Bronze Age civilization called Atlan-tis could not have existed 12,000 years ago.

The Large Size of the Island

The description of the physical dimensions of theisland of Atlantis is quite ambiguous. From thedescription, it may be that the island itself was quitesmall, and was situated close to a landmass whichcould have been part of a continent. No landmassmatching that description exists now. However, theEgyptian chronicle states that it was in existence12,000 years ago. At that time, the ocean levelaround the world was considerably lower than it istoday. Was there, at that time, any landmass match-ing the Egyptian’s description?

Yes.

The British Isles, including Ireland, are situated ona large plateau which was almost entirely exposedabove the ocean level at that time. Called the Celticshelf, it is large enough to have held a plain with thelarge dimensions given by the Egyptian. It is lowenough to have had canals connecting directly to theocean. And it is level enough to have had thosecanals extend a considerable distance into the plainbefore the land rose high enough to have madesea-level canals impossibly deep. Further, the high-lands (what we now know as England and Ireland)would have represented enormous mountainousmasses, providing protection from the cold northwinds, exactly as mentioned by the Egyptian priest.The north winds would have been a problem, be-cause at that time, 12,000 years ago, the ice age wasstill at full strength and the accompanying ice capglaciers extended so far south as to actually cover thenorth half of England.

This broad continental shelf faced the Atlantic Oceanto its south, thus receiving full benefit from thecirculating North Atlantic current which bringswarm water up from the equator. The shelf had amild climate, a southern exposure, and plenty ofwater from streams and rivers coming down from thehighlands. It was very likely populated by humans,because it was such an inviting place. However,shortly after 12,000 years ago, the ice caps beganmelting due to the warming of the climate, and thesea level began rising. The rising continued to thepresent day, where even now there are historicallegends of villages to the south of England drownedby the rising Atlantic ocean as recently as a thousandyears ago.

The ocean rose slowly, and around most of the earthwould hardly have been noticed by the hunter-gath-erers who never stayed in one place but traveledaround constantly. However, the situation was dif-

ferent on the Celtic shelf because of the levelness oversuch a broad distance. The inhabitants would havenoticed a remarkably fast incursion of the sea intotheir lowlands, and would have retreated to the manylow islands that were formed. As these islands be-came smaller and disappeared, they would havemade use of their dugout canoes to travel from oneto another, constantly relocating their villages tohigher ground. This would have led to the legendthat their homeland sank beneath the sea, andwould have forced them to develop the skill of ocean-going travel unmatched by any other group of peopleat the time.

As the climate gradually warmed and the ocean rose,England and Ireland became more habitable. Theinhabitants moved slowly northward into Irelandand England, and eastward toward Europe, with itsreceding coastline.

We know that the Celtic shelf was almost entirelyabove water, 12,000 years ago. It very likely housedtribes of hunter-gatherers. There is no sign thattheir culture was more advanced than that on theEuropean continent. The evidence we have tends tosupport the idea that, at that time, all humans hadthe same culture and the same degree of cul-ture—none was more advanced than any other.

I theorize that as the Celtic shelf began to sinkbeneath the waves, the ocean encroached over a largearea and created many large, low islands and penin-sulas. The inhabitants moved onto their nearestisland or peninsula and two things occurred. First,this forced a separation of the people on differentislands. Separation of a culturally identical peopleallowed the development of slight differences in theirculture, parallel, basically similar but at the sametime clearly distinct. Second, it forced all thesepeople to become adept at ocean travel. Over somethousands of years, beginning 12,000 years ago, thepeople inhabiting the Celtic shelf became the world’spremier ocean sailors. They explored the Atlanticocean, as well as the Mediterranean sea, trading andcolonizing wherever they felt like it. The many is-lands of the Atlantic ocean, the large continentalshelves of the Iberian peninsula and of North Africa,and the large islands of the Mediterranean wereavailable to them.

This could explain the many occurrences of ad-vanced cultural activities suddenly popping up inmany places around the Mediterranean area. Thereare several instances of a mature culture appearingin an area where no antecedents exist. This hap-pened in the coastal area of the Eastern Mediterra-nean, in coastal areas of the Iberian peninsula andin some of the Mediterranean islands.

. . . continued on page 94

WINTER 1999 81

THE DARWINIAN FILTER

Robert Bruce MacDonald

Michael A. Cremo and Richard L Thompson intheir underground classic, The Hidden History

of the Human Race,* point to archeological evidencethat suggests that Man may very well have coexistedwith the dinosaurs. One piece of evidence is that ofa shoe print fossilized in Triassic rock. Quoting JohnT. Reid, the finder of the fossil in Nevada, we find out:

The analyses proved up [removed] any doubtof the shoe sole having been subjected toTriassic fossilization. . . . The microphotomagnifications are twenty times larger thanthe specimen itself, showing the minutestdetail of thread twist and warp, proving con-clusively that the shoe sole is not a resem-blance, but is strictly the handiwork of man.������� ������ �� ����

The Triassic period is believed to fall between 213-248 million years ago. Modern Man is believed tohave left Africa about one million years ago—whatdoes this type of evidence mean?

Before we try to decipher this type of evidence,perhaps the question of what exactly the DarwinianTheory states and implies should first be investi-gated. Modern scientific evolution postulates a cou-ple of premises. First, that organisms of today aredescended from other and different organisms in thepast, and a corollary, that today’s complex organismsare descended from simpler organisms. Secondly,this change and evolution of organisms over time isnecessitated by a changing environment. Thischange can be explained by an organism’s ability tohave more offspring than a given environment cansupport, the natural variation among individualmembers of an organism, and the competition amongthose members for the limited resources. Over timemembers with less desirable characteristics areculled from the group thereby creating new subspe-

cies and as this culling is done again and again, newspecies. As the theory progressed, genetic mutationbecame a means to explain the introduction of newtraits resulting in more profound changes in thedevelopment of species. This is the theory in a nut-shell. What are its implications?

The philosophy of René Descartes marks the estab-lishment of modern philosophy. What Descartes didwas to make Spirit and Matter two essentially differ-ent substances; this is fundamental separatism.Descartes argued that the material world could beexplained in terms of material laws and did notrequire spirit as part of the explanatory model. Asscientists seized on this idea they immediately per-ceived that spirit was not only not required in theirmodelling but that it was also a superfluous concept.Two essentially different substances cannot interactone on the other. Modern analytic philosophy there-fore feels that by analysing matter into its smallestcomponents, it can then determine how the universeworks—like the way a clock can be taken apart andthen put back together in order to understand itsworkings. The latest basic component for physics isthe super-string, a subatomic particle that is thebasis for all other particles. The vibration of thesuper-string will determine what type of particle thesuper-string expresses itself as. Descartes, know-ingly or unknowingly, ushered in the age of modernscientific materialism. Knowledge in this model be-comes that which can be measured by the senses orphysical instruments that aid the senses. Scientificproof has made superstitious the wisdom of theancient myths and legends. Yet scientific proof im-plies the acceptance of the doctrine of materialism.The deep underlying assumption of this doctrine isthat there is a linear development from simpler un-organized matter to more complex and more organ-ized systems of matter. The science of biology in

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82 FOHAT

order to be considered a real science must reflectthis. Darwinism does this admirably. The fossilrecord must demonstrate a progression from sim-pler organisms to more complex organisms. If thislinear progression is not there, this could upset theentire modern scientific paradigm. If you buy intothe paradigm, any evidence that does not fit intothis linear progression must somehow be ruledunfit. The modern scientific paradigm needs Dar-winism.

Michael Cremo in his introduction to The HiddenHistory of the Human Race writes that “there existsin the scientific community a knowledge filter thatscreens out unwelcome evidence. This process ofknowledge filtration has been going on for well overa century and continues to the present day” ������������� �� ������. Cremo not only points to filtration buthe also points to cases of suppression where tons ofartifacts undermining standard theory have gonemissing from modern museums. In a sense the entirescientific community has a stake in Darwinism forwhat is being undermined is not simply Darwinismbut modern scientific materialism. If man coexistedwith the dinosaurs hundreds of millions of yearsago, the concept of an orderly progression fromsimple to complex organisms would be destroyedthereby shaking the foundations of scientific mate-rialism. We would require some new theory such asmankind being extraterrestrial in origin, or at leastpartly so. If evidence at some point becomes irrefu-table, it may not be unreasonable for science toadopt such a theory, especially if it wants to hangon to its precious assumptions.

If the evidence thatCremo and Thompsonput forward has beenfiltered out, then its in-clusion would necessi-tate a very differentprehistoric past thanthe one that is now as-sumed. As well as thefootprint describedabove, a metallic vaseblown out of Precam-brian rock dating back600 million years inthe Dorchester, Mas-sachusetts area is alsodescribed. In fact thereis a large number ofanomalous finds de-scribed coming out ofNorth America thatdate back to incredibleages. Finds are notonly restricted to NorthAmerica; Europe has

its share as well. The Precambrian vase was workedin what appeared to be a zinc and silver alloy withpure silver inlaid into decorative figures that circledthe outside of the vase. If this vase is Precambrianin origin as the evidence suggests, we have evidenceof metal work 600 million years ago whereas metal-work of this type is not commonly believed to be morethan several thousand years old. Blavatsky in herCollected Writings writes of the bones of giants beingfound at a dig that dated back perhaps 5000 years���� �� ��� ����� ���� �� ���� and yet today we hear orread nothing of this and other like finds. What seemsclear is that science does not want to know aboutarcheological finds that do not fit its assumptions.Consequently, modern scientific theories on the ageof man and on his pace of development must besuspect. Modern anthropology has no room for ad-vanced civilizations rising out of our past. It is notinterested in proving the existence of civilizationssuch as Atlantis that are dated prior to 10,000 yearsago and according to popular myth supported anadvanced culture perhaps even by today’s standards.When such engineering wonders as the pyramids arelooked at, it is easy to discern that there is much thatis being left unstudied. Scientists simply discourageone another from even looking there. Human pre-history has not even begun to be written yet; it wouldbe a grave error to give too much weight to theassumptions of modern anthropology when lookingat historical myths reaching out to us from the past.As long as modern scientists are bent on protectingscientific materialism, Truth must take a back seatand theories of the past supported by their evidencemust be speculative at best.

Current Geological Time Line

MillionYears Ago Period Features

Quarternary1.8

Appearance of Early Man.

66Tertiary Mammals.

144

Cretaceous Extinction of Dinosaurs; First FloweringPlants.

Jurassic Abundant Dinosaurs; First Birds; FirstMammals.

208First Dinosaurs.Triassic

245Extinction of Many Marine Animals.Permian

286Sharks and Amphibians; First Reptiles.Carboniferous

360First Amphibians.Devonian

408First Land Animals and Plants.Silurian

438First Fishes.Ordovician

505Marine Invertebrates.Cambrian

570

"Age ofReptiles"

"Age ofAmphibians"

"Age ofFishes"

"Age ofMarine

Invertebrates"

Age

"Age ofMammals"

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WINTER 1999 83

The Mystery of SelfClaude Hughes

Every Ego has the Karma of past Manvan-taras behind him. The Ego starts with DivineConsciousness—no past, no future, no sepa-ration. It is long before realizing that it isitself. Only after many births does it begin todiscern, by this collectivity of experience, thatit is individual. At the end of its cycle ofreincarnation it is still the same Divine Con-sciousness, but it has now become individu-alized Self-Consciousness. (H. P. Blavatsky)

What is the difference between personality, individu-ality, and abstract Unity? It’s an interesting questionand more than one head has become white ponderingthe problem. Perhaps we could say that our person-ality—our mask or working garment for any onelifetime—is built by Memory. We might go furtherand say that discovering or discerning the individu-ality occurs by means of our bundle of experience.Now we come upon the wall of “What is experience?”It’s a tricky word and gets used and misused by everysect or group seeking a “following.” What if “Duty”and “Individuality” turned out to be next ofkin—“kissing cousins from a Royal Past”? If weremember that “Royalty” in occultism derives fromthe acquired ability “to wash other people’s feet,” notrunning a “new age boot camp,” then some hint ofwhat the word Individuality means may come to usfrom studying its beloved “next-of-kin”—Duty:

[O]ur philosophy teaches us that the objectof doing our duties to all men and to ourselvesthe last, is not the attainment of personalhappiness, but of the happiness of others; thefulfilment of right for the sake of right, not forwhat it may bring us. Happiness, or rathercontentment, may indeed follow the perform-ance of duty, but is not and must not be themotive for it. . . .

Duty is that which is due to Humanity, toour fellow-men, neighbours, family, and es-pecially that which we owe to all those whoare poorer and more helpless than we areourselves. This is a debt which, if left unpaidduring life, leaves us spiritually insolvent andmoral bankrupts in our next incarnation.Theosophy is the quintessence of duty. � �

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So Duty is a debt we owe the “Abstract Unity” andthat debt shows up in the form of events; it showsup quintessentially in the form of tiny little favorsasked of us from unknown, unnamed humans. You

know, that person who shoved in front of us at thepostal line this morning when we leaned slightly outof line to look at something; or maybe the person atthe office who asked us how to extricate themselvesfrom some computer problem. Of course they askedus when we were busy, but so were they.

Real theosophy is a 24 hour-a-day project and theevents that present themselves outside of the lodge,outside of meetings, outside of studying the S.D. areusually the more important. Why? Because they areso easy to overlook, to mentally dismiss. Greatnesscomes from the ability to “Stand and Deliver” as thepages of life flash by. It may take travel, it may takefixity, for the ability to adapt one’s thought to theplastic potency we bring to a plan is mysterious, andcannot be dogmatically mapped out in words butneeds the genius of each person’s discovery:

Those who practice their duty towards all,and for duty’s own sake, are few; and fewerstill are those who perform that duty, re-maining content with the satisfaction of theirown secret consciousness. . . . Modern ethicsare beautiful to read about and hear dis-cussed; but what are words unless convertedinto actions? Finally: if you ask me how weunderstand Theosophical duty practicallyand in view of Karma, I may answer you thatour duty is to drink without a murmur to thelast drop, whatever contents the cup of lifemay have in store for us, to pluck the rosesof life only for the fragrance they may shedon others, and to be ourselves content butwith the thorns, if that fragrance cannot beenjoyed without depriving some one else ofit. . . .

[N]o Theosophist has the right to this name,unless he is thoroughly imbued with thecorrectness of Carlyle’s truism: “The end ofman is an action and not a thought, though itwere the noblest”—and unless he sets andmodels his daily life upon this truth. Theprofession of a truth is not yet the enactmentof it; and the more beautiful and grand itsounds, the more loudly virtue or duty istalked about instead of being acted upon, themore forcibly it will always remind one of theDead Sea fruit. ������� ��� ���� ����

We are asked to “Drink without a murmur” what lifebrings us; what this abstract ONE SELF presents as

. . . continued on page 93

84 FOHAT

Alchemy

and the Alchemists*

Read before the Scottish Lodge, by the Vice-President, 19th October 1891

What was, and what is, alchemy? Is it a dream ora reality? A simple delusion, or a great and

elaborate fraud? Are its exponents to be understoodas speaking in a natural or in a mystical sense? Hereare questions which have been discussed for at leasta thousand years, and which seem as far from beinganswered in a satisfactory manner now as on the firstday that they were started. Each will answer themaccording to his own mental bias; each answer willprobably contain a portion of truth; and he whodiscovers the true answer will never reveal it, for withhis knowledge will have come wisdom. He will havelearned the secret which each inquirer must find forhimself. He will know that nothing that he can saywill convince the wilfully and perversely ignorant, oraid them one step on their way; rather will an ill-ad-vised laying bare of the results of his toil, to a worldunready for such knowledge, make himself and thetruth which he would teach a mark for the scoffingjeers of the multitude. For scorn to himself he wouldnot care; but the initiate knows the fate that awaitshim that would unveil the arcana before the eyes ofthe profane. “Alchemy is a delusion and a fraud!”cries the world; “we know it is; we have looked in ourbooks, and they say the thing is absurd; we havelooked in the books of those who profess to havesolved the riddle, and we could not understand theirmeaning. Is not this the nineteenth century? and donot we possess the sum of all human knowledge? Ifwe cannot understand the meaning, then the mean-ing does not exist; and it is a delusion or a fraud.” Itmay be so; but if it be, then is it a delusion that hasled men to give up their lives to it, happy at least intheir delusion,—and, strange to say, those who havegone furthest on the quest have said least of whatthey have found. Some there have been who haveloudly proclaimed their knowledge, and claimed hon-our and renown as the owners, and possible divulg-ers, of the great secret; and these men it is who havebrought evil repute on the mystery, and such asthese will bring evil repute on all mysteries so longas the world endures.

Alchemy, so far as is known, took its rise in ancientEgypt. We may be sure that among the priests all

knowledge was carefully kept from the uninitiated;and it is not therefore till the early centuries of theChristian era, when the remains of the mysteries ofIsis had passed to the Neo-platonists and the Gnos-tics, that we meet with the earliest alchemical trea-tises. In 296 A.D., Dioclesian is said to have burnedthe books of the Egyptians “on the chemistry of goldand silver”; and 700,000 rolls are said to have beenburned at Alexandria, some of which doubtlesstreated of the same subject. With the decay of theRoman Empire, and the invasion of barbarians fromthe North, learning of all kinds found its refuge in theEast. All chemistry was in the hands of the Arabs;and the very name of “alchemy” shows who were thetransmitters of the hidden knowledge. Avicenna,Geber, and others were the link between the lostlearning of Egypt and modern chemistry. The Cru-sades opened the East to Europe, and Europe to theEast. Great and varied were the treasures broughtfrom the East by the Crusaders; and no treasure wasmore prized than the treatises of the Arab writers onalchemy. The knowledge was of course very eclectic.In those days a manuscript was not common prop-erty, but the jealously guarded treasure of one man.

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WINTER 1999 85

There were, fortunately for posterity,no great libraries in those days, sothat manuscripts got some chanceof being read. There can be no doubtthat the Knights-Templars broughtback with them much occult knowl-edge, to their own destruction, as itproved; and many of the chargesbrought against them may havearisen from a misunderstanding of

the mystic language of the alchemical treatises. Tothis period belong some of the greatest names inalchemy. Albertus Magnus, who, as is related in the“History of the University of Paris,” when entertain-ing William, Count of Holland, at Cologne, prepareda banquet for him in the open air, though the seasonwas midwinter, and the ground was covered withsnow. To the astonishment of the courtiers, thesnow disappeared, the air became soft, the flowersbloomed, and the birds sang in the trees; to their stillgreater astonishment, as the banquet was ended andthe last dish removed, all these things vanished in amoment, and winter returned in all its severity.Thomas Aquinas, known as the Angelical Doctor,was a pupil of Albertus. In England, Roger Baconstudied not only alchemy, but every branch of natu-ral science; he knew and described the camera ob-scura, the microscope and telescope, themanufacture and use of gunpowder, and many otherthings usually supposed of much later invention.

In Spain, Raymond Lully, of whommany romantic stories are told, wasoriginally a soldier, and GrandSeneschal of the Court. He, at theage of thirty years, relinquished allhis honours and devoted himself tothe conversion of the infidels,founding a professorship of theArabic language in the convent ofSt Francis, at Palmes, for that pur-pose. In 1281 Raymond went to Paris, where, fromArnold of Villanova, he gained the first rudiments ofthe art. In 1311 he, while at Vienna, received lettersfrom Edward II. of England, and Robert, King ofScotland, inviting him to visit their realms. Ray-mond went to London, where he had apartmentsgiven to him in the Tower. The king pressed him totransmute metals, on the understanding that if Ray-mond provided the necessary funds, they were to beexpended on a mission to the infidels. Raymondaccordingly transmuted base metal into gold, whichwas coined at the mint into six millions of nobles,each worth three pounds sterling of the present day.The coins are well known to antiquarians by thename of the Rose Noble. They prove, in the assay ofthe test, to be a purer gold than the jacobus, or anyother gold coin made in those times. Lully, in his lasttestament, declares that in a short time, while in

London, he converted twenty-two tons weight ofquicksilver, lead, and tin into gold. He sent to KingRobert of Scotland a book of “The Art of TransmutingMetals.”

Arnold of Villanova was probably born about 1245,and died about 1310. His contemporary, the cele-brated jurisconsult, John Andre, says:—“In this timeappeared Arnold de Villeneuve, a great theologian, askillful physician, and a wise alchymist, who madegold, which he submitted to all proofs.”

The number of alchemists increased greatly at theend of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenthcenturies. With Basil Valentine we enter on a periodwhen alchemy tended to mysticism. He lived atErfurt, in 1413. In his writings he extols antimony,as the source of excellent medicines to those whoknow the secrets of alchemy, but that otherwise it isa poison of the most powerful nature.

John de Meun, who died about 1365, wrote the“Romaunt of the Rose,” which was translated byChaucer. Under the veil of a love tale is concealedan alchemical treatise.

Nicolas Flamel, whose name is per-haps better known than that of anyof the older alchemists, was a scriv-ener in Paris. About the year 1357he became an hermetic student. Hisown account of how he was led to thestudy tells us that, in the course ofhis ordinary occupation of writing,engrossing inventories, making upaccounts, keeping books, and thelike, there fell by chance into his hands a gilded book,very old and large, made apparently of admirablerinds of young trees. The cover of it was of brass; itwas well bound, and graven all over with a strangekind of letters, which he imagined to be Greek char-acters. The matter within was graven on the bark,in Latin characters, curiously coloured. It containedtwenty-one leaves, every seventh leaf being withoutwriting, but having images or figures painted on it.

On the first seventh leaf was depicted—(I) A Virgin;(2) Serpents swallowing her up.

On the second seventh—A serpent crucified.

On the third seventh—A desert or wilderness, inmidst whereof were seen many fair fountains, fromwhence issued out a number of serpents.

The fourth and fifth leaves contained in symbols thefirst matter or agent, and the process of transmuta-tion.

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First, there was a young man painted, with wings athis ankles, having in his hand a caducean rodwreathed about with two serpents, wherewith hestruck upon a helmet covered with its head; againsthim came flying a figure of Time, who with his scythemade, as it were, to cut off the feet of Mercury.

On the other side of the leaf was painted a fair flower,on the top of a very high mountain, which was verymuch shaken with the north wind; its footstalk wasblue, its flowers white and red, and its leaves shininglike fine gold; round about it the dragons and griffinsof the north made their nests and habitations.

On the fifth leaf was depicted a fair rose-tree, flow-ered, in the midst of a garden, growing up against ahollow oak, at the foot whereof bubbled forth afountain of pure white water.

On the last side of the fifth leaf was depicted a king,with a sword, who caused his soldiers to slay beforehim many infants; these infants’ blood was put intoa great vessel wherein Sol and Luna came to bathethemselves.

I have given an account of this book at some length,because the symbology of the figures seems interest-ing, and I should like to hear some opinions on thesubject. Flamel having for several years vainly triedto solve the riddle, set out at length on a pilgrimage,trying to find some learned Jew who might decipherthe figures. In Leon he met with a M. Canches, whoexplained to him fully the figures, and proceededwith him to France. Soon after their arrival, M.Canches died after eight days’ illness. After hisdeath, Flamel wrought for three years before, bycareful study of the writings of the philosophers, hesucceeded in preparing the powder. He made hisfirst transmutation on 17

�January 1382, when he

turned a pound and a half of mercury into pure silver;and his second, on 25

�April of the same year, when

he transmuted the same amount of mercury to gold.The wealth obtained by transmutation, Flamel andhis wife expended in building hospitals andchurches, at Paris and at Boulogne, having foundedand endowed with revenues fourteen hospitals, threechapels, and seven churches in each place. Hecaused the process to be depicted in hieroglyphicson arches in some of these buildings; and Langlet duFresnoy says that as late as 1742 these figures wereto be seen in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents, asalso in the church of St Jaques in the Boucherir, andin the portal of Little St Genevieve.

Paracelsus is a name known to all;he was born at Hohenheim, twomiles from Zurich, in 1494. He issaid to have learned the secret ofalchemy at Constantinople, froman Arabian, from whom he re-ceived the universal solvent,which he calls azot—death, or thatwhich putrefies; or alcahest—thespirit, which is the sophic fire.

The system of Paracelsus is as follows:—In the firstplace is the alcahest,* or spirit of nature, uncom-pounded; it is one, undecomposable, universal, mildattraction, passive and impotent, until by an al-chemical combination with any other matter it pro-duces in the union a new substance of prodigiouspower, according to the nature of the matter withwhich it is combined; these preparations are dissol-vent transmuters, and medicinal elixirs.

Beneath this monad, or principle of simple unity, isplaced the binary distinction of all nature, in a mildor harsh attraction and repulsion. This sexual classof nature is not a pure distinction; the male is partlyfeminine, the female is partly masculine.

The next classification of nature is the trinity,—a mildor hard attraction, repulsion, and circulation;� a rec-ondite salt, mercurial spirit, and sulphur; in theseprinciples, as before, each one contains a part of theother two. Each division of the quaternity, or fourelements, is still further removed from simplicity; thegreat visible masses of earth, air, and water, areinfinitely decomposable; and the fourth ele-ment—heat, is equally various in its nature; it isproduced by the equilibrious conflict of the binaryprinciples, and partakes of the nature of its origin inthe three principles or four elements, but with lessapparent predominancy of their qualities because itsbirth is in equilibrium.

It would be both interesting and instructive to exam-ine the symbolical meaning of these expressions.They seem to consist of seven: the first three of theelements—earth, air, and water—being absolutelymaterial; the fourth—fire, originating from thesethree; and above these, as I understand it, threeothers, since the trinity is spoken of as the result ofthe monad and the duad. Paracelsus himself seemsto have made very unworthy use of his great knowl-edge; he led a turbulent life, and died from drinking.�

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Passing over Picus de Mirandola, Charnock, andDenis Zachary, we come to the well-known name ofJacob Behmen, who may be called the father ofmodern mysticism. To us he is specially interesting,as being the first, so far as I know, who wrote ofTheosophy under that name; and here I would callattention to the fact that he defines Theosophy notas the “Wisdom Religion” (an interpretation which tome has always seemed forced, and doubtful, to saythe least, on philological grounds), but as the “DivineWisdom,” the wisdom of faith, which is the substanceof things hoped for, and the evidence of things notseen with the outward eye.

Jacob Behmen was born in Old Seidenberg, in Prus-sia, in 1575, and was apprenticed to a shoemaker.In 1598 and 1600, he was surrounded with theDivine light for several days; he saw the virtue andnature of the vegetable world, by the signature of theplants, as he sat in a field: his looking on a plate oftin was sufficient to inflame the glory of the lightwithin him. From this time he wrote several booksof the inward manifestations of Theosophy, until hedied in 1624, aged fifty.

In his writings on the Philosopher’s Stone, he says,“No skill or art availeth, unless one give the tinctureinto the hands of another; he cannot prepare it,except he be certainly in the new birth.”

In 1602, Alexander Sethon, a Scotchman, madeprojection at Erkusen, in Holland. Passing into Sax-ony, the Duke of Saxony seized him, and put him tothe torture, to make him reveal the secret, but invain. He effected his escape by means of one Sendi-vogius, to whom he gave an ounce of the powder ofprojection; and, worn out with troubles, died in 1604,only two years after he left his home.

Sendivogius made projections with the powder re-ceived from Sethon, and wasted the proceeds inriotous living. At Prague, he presented himself to theEmperor Rodolph II., and in presence of several lordsof the court the king himself made powder by projec-tion. Having exhausted all his powder, Sendivogiusbecame a common charlatan, obtaining money fromthe wealthy to enable him to make more of thepowder, though of its composition he knew nothing.

Richtausen, about 1648, made projection before theEmperor Ferdinand III., with a powder bequeathedto him by the Baron Busardier. One grain of thepowder converted three pounds of mercury into gold.The Emperor caused a medal to be struck, com-memorating the event, and enobled Richtausen. In1658, the Elector of Mayence himself personallymade projection with the same powder, taking elabo-rate precautions against deception. The master ofthe mint certified that the gold produced was more

than twenty-four carats fine; he had never seen suchfine gold.

Dr John Dee made transmutation several times, witha powder said to have been found in a tomb in theruins of Glastonbury Abbey. The English Ambassa-dor at Prague, Lord Willoughby, sent home to hiscourt a piece of a brass warming-pan, which wasconverted into silver by steeping it, red hot, in theelixir.

The learned Von Helmont testifies that he severaltimes made projection with powder that had beengiven him, though he did not profess to be able tomake it.

In 1666, Helvetius, a celebrated Dutch physician atthe Hague, testifies that he made projection on leadwith some powder that had been given him, andconverted it into gold. This gold was tested by themint master, Mr Porelius, both with acid and fire. Itnot only passed the tests triumphantly, but actuallyincreased in weight, having converted into gold aportion of the silver and the antimony used in testing.

Instances, excellently attested, of transmutation,might be multiplied, but it would be useless to do so.To myself the truth of the matter is beyond doubt;but in looking through the records of public trans-mutation, we are met by the singular fact that inalmost every instance the operator did not himselfknow how to prepare the powder, but had received itfrom some one else. Those who really had the powereither kept themselves secret, or refused to gratifygreed or curiosity by a public exhibition.

What was, then, this powder of projection, this phi-losopher’s stone? It was the final result of the alche-mist’s toil,—the red stone, or great work. It had threegreat properties, according to Denis Zachary—1��, totransmute metals into gold and silver; 2 �, to pro-duce precious stones; 3��, to preserve health.

It has been often said that the alchemists workedblindly; but this was not the case. Their theorieswere based on the law of the unity of matter. Matteris one, but it may take diverse forms, and under thesenew forms combine with itself and produce diversebodies. The first matter was a liquid or vapour,pervading all space. It differentiated first into sul-phur and mercury, and these two principles, unitingin various proportions formed all bodies. Later athird principle, salt or arsenic, was added, but therewas not assigned to it the same importance as tosulphur or mercury. These three principles must inno way be confounded with the ordinary substancesof the same name. They represented certain qualitiesof matter; thus sulphur in a metal represents colour,

. . . continued on page 95

88 FOHAT

On September 10, 1999 agentleman who had beenan inspiration to multi-tudes for many decadesdied of pneumonia atSharp Cabrillo Hospital inSan Deigo, CA. Dr. Plum-mer was born at the Head-quarters of the PointLoma Theosophical Soci-ety, on Point Loma, nearSan Diego, CA. He waseducated at privateschools and at the Theo-sophical University there,where he received a doc-torate in Theosophy andScience. He later taught

Mathematics and Science at the Raja Yoga School,and Astronomy and Mathematical Symbology in theUniversity.

In 1949 he joined the staff of San Diego’s City-CountySchool Camps for Sixth Graders. Outdoor educationand conservation were the primary interests of theCamp. He was involved with the camps until 1984.Life-long friends, Carmen and Emmett Small, sup-plied the San Diego Union Tribune with informationregarding Gordon’s amazing contributions. A staffwriter, in the Obituary published Saturday, October9��, included the following:

Generations of sixth graders knew L. GordonPlummer as the affable magician who treatedthem with tricks and tunes. If he wasn’tpulling something out of a hat or makingcards disappear, he was serenading them onthe accordion.

Due to his poor eyesight, Gordon apparently learnedto play the organ and accordion by ear.

After his retirement, Dr. Plummer became active inthe San Diego Hall of Science of which he was afounding member. He also conducted tours at theMount Palomar Observatory, including the site of the200-inch Hale Telescope and the Astronomical Mu-seum.

[Following are personal memoirs from a few of hismany friends.]

Our first contact with Gordon Plummer was in the1960s when as editors of The Canadian Theosophistwe began publishing some of his articles.

In 1978 Gordon approached us with the offer toundertake a lecture tour in Canada. Assured that hecould do it in spite of a severe sight impairment, wegratefully started planning a lengthy tour whichmight have challenged a younger and physically ableperson.

So, accompanied by his wife Esther, Gordon visitedVictoria, Vancouver and Calgary. (At that point, Es-ther had to return to their home in San Diego tohonour commitments there.) Gordon then went toEdmonton, Toronto and Montreal. Spending an av-erage of a week in each city, he generously gave histime to local Theosophists, giving public lectures andintensive study sessions at every branch.

He had a unique ability to make even the mostdifficult Theosophical concepts understandable tofirst time enquirers as well as to long time students.A gifted teacher, he knew how to hold an audience,and was particularly good with university studentswho attended his lectures.

Doris and Ted DavyCalgary, AB

We had the pleasure of meeting Gordon for the firsttime in 1978 when he lectured in Edmonton. We sawhim again in San Diego in 1988. He entered into theSmall’s home carrying his model of a dodecahedron,eager for an opportunity to discuss it. He still had achild’s enthusiasm for the subject, and that is theimage of him which lingers with us.

Rogelle and Ernest PelletierEdmonton, AB

Since 1961 I have visited Theosophical lodges in theOrient, Europe, and North America, but of all thepeople I have met in the Movement, I have been mostimpressed with the old Point Loma Theosophists.Among these was L. Gordon Plummer, or ‘Gordon’,as he dropped the Lafayette when very young. Oneof twins, he was born with but 2/5��� vision in oneeye, and early on showed an interest in science,magic (prestidigitation) and C puns, which kept peo-ple groaning or laughing for 75 years. A great deal ofhis knowledge was absorbed by listening as he grewup on Point Loma, though he could read with diffi-culty. He learned to speak with careful diction anddeliberate lucidity, and I can’t remember him jabber-ing in an off hand manner, as many do. This servedhim well as he lectured to countless school classeson science, or to Theosophical groups, in North

THEOSOPHICAL FRIENDS REMEMBERED

Lafayette Gordon PlummerAugust 8, 1904 - September 10, 1999

#���� ����� ����/ �!����� �� ���*

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WINTER 1999 89

America and Europe well into the ’80s. He had aninventive turn of mind as well, demonstrated by hisconstruction of a unique sundial which made use ofa suspended gnomon shaped like a bowling pin,giving great accuracy. This was placed at the en-trance of the Ruben H. Fleet Space Museum.

Gordon was never at a loss to occupy his time. Heauthored six books that I know of, best known forMathematics of The Cosmic Mind, for which he con-structed a complex series of models of a dodecahe-dron, icosahedron, etc., his lack of eyesight being aminor inconvenience, it would appear. When comput-ers came on the scene, Gordon delighted in his,though by then well into his =70s.

Gordon lived a life of self discipline. He embodied theTheosophical ideal of being impersonal, never fasten-ing on personalities, and he was always extremelypolite and well mannered, after the old school whichhas nearly vanished in our era. And he was verydiplomatic and tactful when the occasion arose.Once at an open gathering where a number of us gavetalks, I made some harsh remarks which outragedseveral members present. But amidst the tensionand clamor, Gordon stepped in and quietly put outthe fire with great acumen. All in all, a true and ableTheosophist, who ignored his dis-ability, to inspirethose around him in general, and myself in particu-lar.

Richard RobbSan Diego, CA

Like a journey to an enchanted isle it was, to haveencountered Gordon Plummer. Known to some asan “Instructor in Symbolic Mathematics”, brimmingwith wit and inquisitiveness, he conjured the worldof Space and Number for young and old alike.

I first met Gordon at mountain camp for sixth gradechildren in the Cuyamaca Range east of San Diego.As a teacher trainee chaperoning several classes, Iadmired his sense of humor as he regaled the kidswith magic tricks, accordion playing and astronomi-cal tidbits. Later in the evening we discussed philo-sophical ideas, and I said to him, “You sound like aTheosophist”. From this encounter grew a lifelongfriendship, as he would come up to Los Angeles tovisit his twin sister Gertrude and Boris de Zirkoff.

Gordon’s wife Esther had taught with him at a privateschool in Topanga Canyon (near Malibu, California)where they met. She was his guiding light in lateryears as he lost the sight in his one good eye.Sympathetic to Theosophy, she lived the life of aTheosophist, although more inclined to the Unitymovement.

Countless children in the San Diego Unified SchoolDistrict shared Gordon’s enthusiasm over the dec-ades. Nurtured by Theosophy, this enthusiasm con-veyed his certainty that we are innate Gods, evolvingtowards our true Divine stature, just as the stars areevolving suns. One of Mr. Plummer’s last titles, TheWay To The Mysteries, reflects all the wonderfulthoughts he shared with us during the Solstice andEquinox gatherings from the early 1980s onwards,until his eyesight prevented his long bus trip to LosAngeles. Earlier he had travelled on lecture tours, notonly in the United States and Canada, but also as farafield as Holland and Finland. In his declining yearshe used a huge magnifying glass to construct hisintricate geometric figures comprised of string anddoweling. These greater and lesser mazes were usedto tutor students, who still trekked up to his retire-ment home, into his late eighties. By one mobile of adodecahedron which enclosed all the other geometricshapes he taught the concept of interpenetratingworlds. Photographs and drawings of these shapesas well as the Platonic solids are found in his books.Even after totally losing his sight he fashioned moe-bius strips, scribbled with his beloved number se-quences.

Gordon had ventured beyond these teaching aidesby the invention of a universal self-correcting sun-dial, dedicated by the San Diego Hall of Science inNovember 1975. As son of the noted American geog-rapher, whose name is born by Plummer Peak in thestate of Washington, Gordon certainly made hismark upon the world, both inner and outer. We aredeeply indebted to him and wish him a restful so-journ within the Devachan of his celestial imagina-tion.

!���� ������� �� ������ #��� &��� ��� �� 0��"� 1����� 2��!���$�� ��3'

90 FOHAT

Gordon’s first book was From Atom to Kosmos, fol-lowed by Star Habits and Orbits, Astronomy ForTheosophical Students ��� � ������ �� !��" #��������

$��%���� ! &����� ��''�. In this latter book you find himunfolding the occult interpretation of nebular evolu-tion and sharing his boyish delight in the celestialorbs which never left him. His most popular bookMathematics of The Cosmic Mind �#�������� &()������

*(��� ����" ��%� ��� ��+��, was followed by three PointLoma Publications: By The Holy Tetraktys! ������, TheWay of The Mysteries, Insights on the Seven Jewelsof Wisdom ������, and Three Steps to Infinity ������.

Dara EklundStudio City, CA

[Reprinted with permission from Theosophy World, No. 40,October 1999]

“Sketchawampus”! Lo and behold! Coins wouldmagically appear from Gordon’s nose and ears!! “Ab-racadabra”? O NO! That is the word ‘tricksters’ com-monly use; it is tabooed by the ‘mathemagicians’! So!Whenever my family and I reminisce about Gordon,we say, “sketchawampus”!

This is neither a biography nor an obituary; it is justa walk down memory lane.

It was a sunny but nippy day in October, 1978, inEdmonton, Alberta. The doorbell rang and my friendSimon Postma accompanied our houseguest L. G.Plummer, to our home. It was the first time we metGordon, but there was no strangeness to our greet-ing. We met like old friends and immediately took toeach other. Gordon was especially delighted with my3 sons who were 11, 6 and 2 years of age, then. Thatwas 21 years ago! The 2 year old fascinated him andthrough the years, Gordon’s interest and relation-ship with him became more meaningful.

On that first visit, Gordon spoke gently and lovinglyof his wife Esther, and of a ‘magical’ land calledLomaland, in San Diego. He spoke of its history andthe 2 key people, dear to his heart, who played majorroles in building this fabulous Lomaland. He spokeof Katherine Tingley, lovingly called K.T., andGottfried de Purucker, called by those who knew himintimately, as G. de P. He also spoke very fondly ofhis 2 dear friends whom he knew from his good olddays at Lomaland. Of course, these 2 are none otherthan Carmen and Emmett Small.

When Gordon was not lecturing at the EdmontonLodge or visiting Nell and Simon Postma, he wastalking to our family of the 7 ‘Jewels’ in the crown oftheosophy. He fascinated us by the various shapeshe had made of the icosahedra and dodecahedra. Weheard with rapt attention what he had to say abouttheir place in the Maze, i.e. the Universe! Our eldest

son Nauzer, then 11 years of age, was so keenlyimpressed, he studied the 12 Manuals published bythe Point Loma Publications as guide to the study oftheosophy. Ordering these books directly, was ourfirst contact with ‘Lomaland’. Little did I know thenthat within a year, our lives were to change andunexpectedly, we would not only visit this ‘magical’place called Lomaland and meet Esther, Carmen andEmmett, but live and experience the cultures andclimes of Papua Niu Gini, the remnant of archaicLemuria and proceed from there to Brindisi andTaranto. Taranto is built over Pythagoras’ schoolcalled “Meta Ponto”, in Megna Grecia or South Italy.

We visited San Diego in December, 1980. O, it wasan enchanted event and a truly and equally en-chanted Christmas! Our dream came true and wewere actually walking on the sacred grounds of‘Lomaland’! The first thing we did after our arrival atSan Diego was to visit Point Loma with Gordon.Besides the beautiful and impressive buildings, themajestic Greek theatre and the canyon, the boys werefascinated by the ‘monkey-puzzle’ trees and the smallred coloured pebbles which they picked up as memo-ries of Lomaland. With Gordon as our guide,Lomaland displayed some of its past aura. We couldimagine the lights being turned on at the Coats’residence; G de P pondering over his books andpapers at his residence; voices echoing and applausethundering at the Greek theatre! Yes! Lomalandturned out to be all that we had imagined it to be. Itsserenity and sacredness were immediately etched inthe silent chambers of our heart. Fortunately, wewere able to revisit this remarkably beautiful placemany times, each time equally impressed and spiri-tually rejuvenated.

Of course, our meeting Carmen and Emmett Smallwas as fulfilling as our meeting Gordon and visitingLomaland. Our friendship has sustained over theyears and Carmen and Emmett have proved to be themost gracious hosts, always. As indicated before,this was the most memorable Christmas for myentire family. We had a party at the Small’s. Carols,skits, warm apple cider, sumptuously delicious din-ner, laughter, camaraderie and above all, “uncleGordon” was entertaining all of us, especially 3 veryamazement-struck, keen spectators who were my 3sons! And, ho, ho, ho! Santa Claus (Emmett, ofcourse), appeared with gifts, too!

Esther and Gordon accompanied us to Palomar Ob-servatory where Gordon used to conduct tours, andas it so happened, fortunately for us, the dome wasbeing serviced and we saw the portals of the domeopen to reveal the grandeur of the sky. He was afounding member of the San Diego Hall of Scienceand showed us the universal, self-correcting sundialhe had designed that was displayed at the Plaza de

WINTER 1999 91

Balboa. It was a memo-rable visit to San Diegoand Lomaland. And,happily, the beginning ofseveral future visits,each just as memorable.

Gordon loved childrenand when he was notplaying his accordion,‘magically’ producingcoins, telling funny sto-ries, or doing mathe-magical tricks, he wasimparting theosophicalteachings. He LIVEDtheosophy! He was one ofthe direct chelas of G deP and K.T. K.T. had metW.Q. Judge and theywere all much, muchnearer to the source of

present day theosophy as revealed by MadameBlavatsky. Perhaps now that Gordon has passed intoLight, Carmen, Emmett and Grace Knoche are theonly theosophists left of that Golden Era. How I wishtime could transport my family and I to those daysof spiritual vitality and exuberance that flowed fromevery molecule at Lomaland! However, as Gordonwould sometimes remind me, I have a piece of PointLoma in our own home and heart as long as we keepits memory alive and live up to its ideals.

After our first visit, not only were we fortunate to visitSan Diego many times but were equally fortunate tohave Gordon visit us in Toronto several times overthe years. He took great delight in teaching ouryoungest son Percy, mathemagical tricks; he visitedhis school to the delight of schoolmates and teachers;he walked the crescent where our home is located inorder to ‘straighten’ the crescent, Gordon wouldcomment! Later, in one of his letters, he wrote, “I canclose my eyes and see it as it was in the early morninglight.” Most important of all, every evening, aftersupper, Gordon would talk to us about theosophyand the teachings! All 5 of us would look forward tosuppertime because we knew that Gordon will thennourish our mental and spiritual needs.

In a letter dated August 5, 1991, Gordon wrote:“Above all the activities that are offered me when Ivisit, I prize above all, our evening talks around thedining table. Likewise, the talks we have in themorning before the boys are up…I am convinced thatwhen we are gathered around the table, our mindsand hearts are lifted to the degree that the Holy Spiritenshrined in the teachings is unquestionably amongall of us. And it is a very real thing which will tell veryfavorably for all during the years to come… I am

proud of all the boys, and if I seem to mention Percyoccasionally in my letters, it is largely because I amamazed that a 14-year old has already grasped someof the deepest aspect of Theosophy to the extent ofwhich his young mind is capable.” On February 28,1992, he wrote about his new book, “Three Steps ToInfinity”. He added: “To tell the truth, I had anintuition on my visit last year that it might be the lastof its kind, and for this reason, I gave all of you thebest of which I was capable in our ‘Round Tabletalks’. If you are able, will you consider that my newbook will be like another kind of visit, and it will beyours for keeps. As I am sending it to all of you atjust this time, you will know that in one sense, I shallfeel that I am back in my ‘Home away from Home’.”

Gordon (he seldom used his first name La Fayette),was always surrounded by laughter, music and spiri-tuality! Later in his life, he became hard of hearing,in addition to having poor eyesight. Despite hisphysical handicap, he could hear clearly and seemuch better than those who, having perfect physicaleyes, are spiritually blind and with acute sense ofphysical hearing, are equally, spiritually deaf! He wasa profound thinker; ‘thoughts’ are not just things;they are beings, he would admonish! His noble soul,his enlightened thoughts, his spirituality, are dis-played through his writings. His famous books areMathematics of the Cosmic Mind, From Atom to Cos-mos, The Way of the Mysteries, Three Steps to Infinity,and By the Holy Tetraktys. The last book Gordon waswriting is called “The Winged Globe”. He titled it sobecause he saw the ‘Winged Globe’ displayed aboveour fireplace. It is a symbol of the Zoroastrian relig-ion.

He gave Percy some of his mathemagical tricks, andhe gave me some of his articles which, I am sure, arepublished in the Eclectic and other theosophicaljournals. Some titles are: “The Inner Structure of theNumber 7”; “Divine Geometry”; “An Unfinished Uni-verse”; “Pathways of Light”; “The Mystery that isMan”; “In My Father’s House are Many Mansions”;“Egypt”; “The Egyptian Mysteries”; “Harmonics”;“Notes on Chelaship”; “I Am the Captain Of My Soul”;“Ygdrasil, the World Tree”; “Principles and sub-Prin-ciples”; “Who, What and Where is God?”; “The An-cient Mysteries and the Bible”; “Sun and His family”;“Man Know Thyself”; “The Universal Solar System”;“Who Are The Manasputras”; “Reflections”; “Evolu-tion, Creation, or What”; “The Theosophical Move-ment”; “Man’s Divine Lineage”; and an undesignatedpaper that may be entitled “Where Does Man Fit In?”.

In 1989, when one of my brothers passed into Peaceand Light, Gordon hastily penned an article andnamed it: “There Is Time For Everything”. He wrote:“First, we must recognize that in all of the kingdomsof Nature there is much variety among the denizens

#���� ����� ���(/ �!����� �� #�����

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92 FOHAT

we walk through life caged in our emotions and thethousand tears that flesh is heir to. That’s a toughidea. Do you know anyone who does it, or evenseems to?? If we could be as enthusiastic and grate-ful in our effort to serve others when personal tragedyand disgrace visit our playing field as we are whenit’s raining violets, The Voice of the Silence would notneed to warn us that we are entering a Path of Woe.However, in one place it does say that if we succeedin becoming as hard as stone to our own private “upsand downs” and as soft as the bright mango pulp forthat of others, we will, in time deserve the epithet:

Oh, Conqueror of Weal and Woe

Friend, if you think we are talking about “ethics”perish the thought! or, if you are willing to callknowledge and ethics siamese twins, then we willallow it in the same sense that Gandhi identifiedmeans and ends:

There is no wall of separation between meansand end. We have control over means�, notover the end. Realization of the goal is inexact proportion to that of the means. . . . Themeans may be likened to a seed, the end to atree; and there is just the same inviolableconnection between the means and the endas there is between the seed and the tree.

Sir John Maddox� pointed out that “the nature of ourpresent ignorance points to problems science cannotavoid”—the most obvious being, “what happens inour head when we are thinking.”

Investigators in various fields of study arerealizing how little they know in comparisonto what needs to be known, and this is evok-ing in them a sense of humility. “We shoulddiscard the idea that scientific inquiry willever be complete,” says Maddox. “What weknow so far is that each question answeredmerely spawns another.”

As HPB stated at the end of Volume I of Isis Unveiled:

The few elevated minds who interrogate na-ture instead of prescribing laws for her guid-ance; who do not limit her possibilities by theimperfections of their own powers; and whoonly disbelieve because they do not know, wewould remind of that apothegm of Narada,the ancient Hindu philosopher:

“Never utter these words: ‘I do notknow this—therefore it is false.’ Onemust study to know, know to under-stand, understand to judge.”

���������'�� � -+���"'". � %� ����� ��% ���"'" � "&&"�%� �7����2(� 8���� ��� ���" S.D. �� 9�

�*�� ���% �"���" &��' :��( � � �" �& The Theosophical Movement ��'��( ����� #� ��%���" �� Time '�!�;��" <��%%"��( +�� :��� 7����1 &��'"� "��%�� �& Nature � �"��! =��%"��

. . . Mystery continued from page 84

therein. Differences are seen among humans, morein terms of mental and spiritual faculties than inoutward appearance. Would it not follow that in thehigher kingdoms, there must be differences asamong the Manasputras for instance, and likewiseamong the Spiritual Monads. Surely they are not allcut out of one piece of cloth, so to speak. The MonadicEssence is a stream of consciousness flowing fromthe Divine Monad, through the Spiritual Monad,then the Higher Human Monad, and so on through-out the entire human constitution. Since the doc-trine of Swabhava which means literally SelfBecoming is essentially the consciousness of theMonadic Essence itself, it would appear that everySpiritual Monad has its own individuality, hence itsown Karma… It seems likely that the quality of theafter-death experience will vary according to thekarma of the Spiritual Monad itself.”

On Friday, September 10, 1999 I had a strangedream. I dreamt that a room was filled with beautifulflowers and more and more kept filling up the room.The atmosphere in the room was peaceful and pleas-antly lit. Three days later, when Carmen called to say

that Gordon had passed into Peace and Light,strangely, I anticipated the news before she said it. Iam sure I dreamt of Devachan, the spiritual abodewhere Gordon’s consciousness is now transmitted.Truly, birth and death are mere transient events inthe life of an immortal, peregrinating Soul. I knowthat Gordon was never bound or handicapped by hisphysical sight or hearing; and now, he is free of allphysical limitations. His spirit soars to the stars; hisconsciousness experiences the spiritual fulfillmentof Devachan.

La Fayette Gordon Plummer, the name and thepersonality now survive only through his numerouswritings that are the manifestations of his illuminedconsciousness on the physical plane. Live on, myfriend. I am sure that some time, our paths will crossagain. As friends, we will share the sublime brother-hood through time and eternity. Space is an illusion.The reality is “Being”. “Become the Path”, he wouldconstantly remind!

Pervin J. MistryMississauga, ON

WINTER 1999 93

Atlantis in the Aegean Sea?

Was there a civilization matching the wealth andtechnical brilliance described by the Egyptian priest?Yes. More than one author has identified the Minoancivilization as being the source of the legend ofAtlantis. The Minoan people had cities on the islandof Crete and the island of Thera which are noted fortheir degree of wealth. Now being unburied, thesecities show us that the Minoan civilization was wellin advance of other Mediterranean civilizations at thetime in terms of its wealth, its ability to build struc-tures, and according to independent observationsmade at the time, their shipmaking ability.

+Their

sailing ability must also have been of the best. Ak-rotiri, the main city on Thera, was destroyed by theeruption of its volcano. All of the cities on Crete weredestroyed by the tsunami created by this same vol-canic explosion.

Further, the destructive geological activity that de-stroyed Atlantis was said to have destroyed theGreeks as well. This raises the question of the natureof a geophysical cataclysm that destroyed an islandin the Atlantic, simultaneously with the Greek pen-insula on the north side of the Mediterranean, with-out harming the Egyptian civilization on the south

side of the Mediterranean. Such a cataclysm ishardly possible. However, if Atlantis was recognizedin its latter days as having existed on an island inthe southern Aegean sea, then it would have been aneighbor to the Greeks and such a mutual destruc-tion would have been possible.

Closing

In closing, I offer the theory that the story of Atlantisas told to Solon by the Egyptian priest was actuallya mixture of two stories; each one of them being truein itself, but when combined, not true. Thus thestory of Atlantis became a fable, because there is noone place on earth, at any time, that was exactly likethe description given by the Egyptian priest, in itsentirety and in every detail. By separating the two,we have a description of the beginning of the civili-zation of Atlantis, even before that time when man-kind did not yet have boats, in the northern Atlanticocean, on the Celtic shelf while the ocean level waslow. And we have the second story, of the brilliantand wealthy civilization on the islands of the Aegeansea (on Crete and other islands). Its location, wealth,shipmaking and sailing, world-wide trading and skillat construction of buildings, all agree closely withthis second story.

�� -*�" !������ "����%��� �& '�� �� %�" +"��"% >��%���" ��< %��% ��� %�" ��%"� � � � ���" ���" %�"�� physical ���!�� �� %�""���( 5���%� ���"�. �The Secret Doctrine ���� ��� �9?�9�

@� -� � � &��' %�" 5���%� ���" ���!��!" � �"�&"�%"� ��� 2��<�"�!" ����"� " � #% %�� ���&�<�( ����% �& %�" 5���%� ����� �� �& %�" 5���%� ���% �� #%���%"�� ���"� ��'���%( �� " %�" �1��� ����% �& %�" '���� 7�����%��� �(��"� � � �. �Ibid ���� ���A �

B� -% � �����! %�" ������"� )��"�" �"���� %��% %�" ���%��"�% %� <���� %�" 5���%� ���" �"���!"� ��� �� <���� �% ���"� ����"�� �"� ��<"� %�" &�� % ('�%�' �& ��2��!� #�� �% <� �� %�" 7���"�" �!" %��% �% <� &�����( �" %��("�/ ��" %�" ��%%�"� ���� '"�%���"� �( ���%�� % � %�" " ����% %��% ���" %� �" ��"�2"� �( %�" ��"�%�&�� ��%��. �Ibid ���� �� 9 B�

$� -C�< ��� 5�&%� ���%����" �� ���"��( �""� �� "1� %"��"/� � ���" sui generis ��� =��%" &�"" &��' �% ���"�% %"'/����%������� ("�� � � �. �Ibid ���� �� $B?� ��� -*�� � %�" �������%��� �& %�" Esoteric Doctrine � �����1�'�%"�( � �% ����"� 5�� ������� �& ("�� ��" ����<"� &�� ��� ��" "�% ���%����" �%�" 5�&%�� ��� ����% A?���� ("�� ���" %�" ��'"� ����& %�" �� % ���!" � ���� ����% �& %�" ���%��"�%� %�" ��%� �& %�" 5���%� ���" �� %�" #%���%"�� , <���" >��%(� � '��� � ����������%"� �( � '�1"� ���" <� �" %��("� ����% @D���� ("�� �!� �����! %�" !������ �"���� �� %�"�"����% �. �Ibid ���� ��� 9?����

?� -+�'������ � � � �"���% � � � �� %�" ��%����%( �& �����(�( %��% E���� %�"�" "�% #�� %�%�" &��' ���(��� � "��" �& � %�����'���� �� "���%��� <���� �"���"� ���2 &�� B���� ("�� �� � %�" 3�%�� %��� ��%��� �� �% &�� � �B ("�� �"&��" %�"%�'" �& #�"1���"� %�" ��"�%�. �"����%"� &��' -*��� ��%��� �& %�" +���"%( �& �������� #����"���!(. �AD$ ��� ����� �"� ��Astronomy and Astrology of the Babylonians �( #� �� +�(�" �� �$9, ��;���6 ���2 �"�& ����� �"�, +�� >�"!� +�C�� �B?���B �$

9� Atlantis: New Hypothesis �( ���%��" ��� E�������% "� � ���"� ����� �"� �� %�" ��%"��"% ��%%�FGG<<<��'����G�%����$H"��%'� ��������" #���� � A�

D� Atlantis: The truth behind the legend �( #��� ����������� ��� )�<��� ����� ���� �7"����� ��'���( ���������� GC"<I��2, � 9 � 3�����( �& ���!�" ��'�"� 3� D��A�DBA�

. . . Atlantis continued from page 81

I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.- The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians 4:11

94 FOHAT

combustibility, power of attacking other metals,hardness. On the contrary, mercury represents glit-ter, fusibility, malleability; the salt is simply themeans of union between the sulphur and mercury, asthe vital spirit between the body and soul. Besidesthese three principles, there were the four elements.But again, under new meaning, water signifies allliquids, earth is the solid state, air a gaseous state,fire a very subtle gaseous state. The theory, then, ofthe alchemist was that all metals were forms of thisfirst matter, or rather different combinations of thesecondary emanations—sulphur and mercury. Na-ture would in time perfect all metals, and bring themto gold, but various accidents may check or interruptthe process. A mine once opened, the metals in thatmine remain in a certain state of progress, andadvance no further. Did an adept then know the firstmatter, or universal solvent, he might imitate theoperations of nature, and complete the work leftunfinished.

The matter used in the great work were gold andsilver united to mercury, and prepared in a specialmanner. Gold was taken as being rich in sulphur,silver as containing a very pure mercury; as forquicksilver, it represented the salt, middle term ofthe union. These three bodies, prepared accordingto certain processes, were enclosed in a glass vessel,called the philosophic egg, and closed with care. Thewhole was heated in a furnace named athanor. Im-mediately the fire was lighted, the great work com-menced. In the course of the operations the mattertook different colours, which were called the coloursof the work. Finally, a red colour announced thecompletion of the work. According to the alchemictheory, it was rational that the matter of the Philoso-pher’s Stone should be composed of sulphur, mer-cury, and salt. These three principles, taken in astate of absolute purity, united and prepared accord-ing to the rules of the art, should compose a newbody, which, without being a metal by itself, mightcommunicate metallic perfection to impure metals.

The alchemists, in speaking of the matter of thestone, regarded it sometimes as one, referring to itsinvariable composition; sometimes as triple, referringto the principles which formed it; sometimes asquadruple, replacing the principles by the elements.The philosophers said enigmatically that the matterof the stone has three angles in its substance (thethree principles), four angles in its virtue (the ele-ments), two angles in its matter (fixed and volatile),six angles in its root (the universal matter). Cabal-istically the number of the matter is 10, for by

translating into figures this paragraph we get 1 + 2+ 3 + 4 = 10.

When the sulphur, mercury, and salt of the philoso-phers were enclosed in the “philosophic egg,” orvessel hermetically sealed, in which the work was tobe carried on, they were exposed to a heat of sixty orseventy degrees centigrade. This was in the variousstages increased, till it reached in the fourth stagethe point of the fusion of lead.

In the course of the great work, the matter changedcolours several times. The principal colours wereblack, white, and red; the secondary colours werethose leading from black to white, namely grey; andfrom white to red, namely, green, blue, the coloursof the spectrum; then yellow, orange, and finally red.

When the red powder was obtained, it was mingledwith gold in certain proportions; again heated, andanother red powder was obtained, which was the truePhilosopher’s Stone, which being projected on im-pure metals, would purify them, and convert theminto gold. This powder, dissolved in alcohol, formedthe elixir vitæ, or universal medicine. A great friendof mine assured me that he once met with what hebelieved to be the elixir, but as a powder. He waswalking in a country place in the south of Englandwhen he met with a rural postman; he got intoconversation with the man, and to his astonishmentfound that he was deeply read in occult studies. Hewent to the man’s cottage, where he was shown a redpowder; the man assured him that by taking thispowder he could go for an indefinite time withoutfood. He gave my friend a few grains of the sub-stance, and my friend declared that with that dosealone he was able to go for three months almostentirely without food. Some months after he wentback to the cottage, and found that the man’s wife,in a fit of passion, had broken the bottle and de-stroyed the powder.

Now, are all these statements and processes to betaken in their material signification? or are theysimply an allegory, in which is set forth the raisingof man’s self to the higher life? I myself believe thatthey are to be taken literally, though the processesand the materials themselves may receive a mysticinterpretation. If such an interpretation can befound, I know of no one so likely to be able to unfoldit to us as our President, and I hope he will examinethe various statements which I have laid before youtonight, and give us his interpretation of them.

. . . Alchemy continued from page 88

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30hat is the Steed, 71wught is the 2?ider

,Jtis the "bridge" by which the ",Jdeas" existing in the "rnivine 71wught" are impressed on Cosmic substance as the "laws of ::Nature." 30hat is thus the dynamic eneroy of Cosmic ,Jdeation; or, regarded from the other side, it is the intelligent medium, the guiding power ofall mani~station. ... 7hus from Spirit, or Cosmic ,Jdeation, comes our consciousness; from Cosmic Substance the several vehicles in which that consciousness is individualized and attains to self - or r4f.ective - consciousness; while 30hat, in its various manifestations, is the mysterious link between ~ind and ~tter, the animating principle electrifying every atom into life. - Secret rnoctrine I, 16

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