Harmony & Music of the Spheres
The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky --
[[Vol. 2, Page 601]] THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES.
Pythagoreans the Key-Keeper of Nature; but in union with the 3, which made it seven, it became the most perfect and harmonious number -- nature herself. The four was "the Masculine of Feminine Form," when forming the Cross; and Seven is "the Master of the Moon," for this planet is forced to alter her appearance every seven days. It is on number seven that Pythagoras composed his doctrine on the Harmony and Music of the Spheres, calling "a tone" the distance of the Moon from the Earth; from the Moon to Mercury half a tone, from thence to Venus the same; from Venus to the Sun l 1/2 tones; from the Sun to Mars a tone; from thence to Jupiter 1/2 a tone; from Jupiter to Saturn 1/2 a tone; and thence to the Zodiac a tone; thus making seven tones -- the diapason harmony. All the melody of nature is in those seven tones, and therefore is called "the Voice of Nature."
Plutarch explains (de Plac. Phil., p. 878) that the Achaean Greeks regarded the tetrad as the root and principle of all things, since it was the number of the elements which gave birth to all visible and invisible created things. With the brothers of the Rosy Cross, the figure of the Cross, or Cube unfolded, formed the subject of a disquisition in one of the theosophic degrees of Peuret, and was treated according to the fundamental principles of light and darkness, or good and evil.
"The intelligible world proceeds out of the divine mind (or unit) after this manner. The Tetraktis reflecting upon its own essence, the first unit, productrix of all things, and on its own beginning, saith thus: Once one, twice two, immediately ariseth a tetrad, having on its top the highest unit, and becomes a Pyramis, whose base is a plain tetrad, answerable to a superficies, upon which the radiant light of the divine unity produceth the form of incorporeal fire, by reason of the descent of Juno (matter) to inferior things. Hence ariseth essential light, not burning but illuminating. This is the creation of the middle world, which the Hebrews call the Supreme, the world of the (their) deity. It is termed Olympus, entirely light, and replete with separate forms, where is the seat of the immortal gods, 'deum domus alta,' whose top is UNITY, its wall trinity, and its superficies quaternity." (Reuchlin, Cabala, p. 689).
The "superficies" has thus to remain a meaningless surface, if left by itself. UNITY only "illuminating" quaternity; the famous lower four has to build for itself also a wall from trinity, if it would be manifested. Moreover, the tetragrammaton, or Microprosopus, is "Jehovah" arrogating to himself very improperly the "Was, Is, Will be," now translated into the "I am that I am," and interpreted as referring to the highest abstract Deity, while esoterically and in plain truth, it means only periodically chaotic, turbulent, and eternal MATTER with all its potentialities. For the Tetragrammaton is one with Nature or Isis, and is the exoteric series of androgyne gods such as Osiris-Isis, Jove-Juno, Brahma-Vach, or the Kabalistic Jah-hovah; all male-females. Every anthropomorphic god, in old nations, as Marcelinus Vicinus well observed,
[[Vol. 2, Page 602]] THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
has his name written with four letters. Thus with the Egyptians, he was Teut; the Arabs, Alla; the Persians, Sire; the Magi, Orsi; the Mohammedans, Abdi; the Greeks, Theos; the ancient Turks, Esar; the Latins, Deus; to which J. Lorenzo Anania adds the German Gott; the Sarmatian, Bouh, etc., etc.
The Monad being one, and an odd number, the ancients therefore called the odd, the only perfect numbers; and -- selfishly, perhaps, yet as a fact -- considered them all as masculine and perfect, being applicable to the celestial gods, while even numbers, such as two, four, six, and especially eight, as being female, were regarded as imperfect, and given only to the terrestrial and infernal deities. In his eighth eclogue, Virgil records the fact by saying, "Numero deus impare gaudet," "Unequal numbers please the gods."
But number seven, or the heptagon, the Pythagoreans considered to be a religious and perfect number. It was called "Telesphoros," because by it all in the Universe and mankind is led to its end, i.e., its culmination (Philo. de Mund. opif.). Being under the rule of seven sacred planets,* the doctrine of the Spheres shows, from Lemuria to Pythagoras, the seven powers of terrestrial and sublunary nature, as well as the seven great Forces of the Universe, proceeding and evolving in seven tones, which are the seven notes of the musical scale. The heptad (our Septenary) was regarded "as the number of a virgin, because it is unborn" (like the Logos or the "Aja" of the Vedantins); "without a father or a mother, but proceeding directly from the Monad, which is the origin and crown of all things." (Pythag. Triangle, p. 174.) And if the heptad is made to proceed from the Monad directly, then it is, as taught in the Secret Doctrine of the oldest schools, the perfect and sacred number of this Maha-Manvantara of ours.
The septenary, or heptad, was sacred indeed to several gods and goddesses; to Mars, with his seven attendants, to Osiris, whose body was divided into seven and twice seven parts; to Apollo (the Sun), between his seven planets, and playing the hymn to the seven-rayed on his seven-stringed harp; to Minerva, the fatherless and the motherless, and others.
Cis-Himalayan Occultism with its sevening, and because of such sevening, must be regarded as the most ancient, the original of all. It is opposed by some fragments left by Neo-Platonists; and the admirers of the latter, who hardly understand what they defend, say to us: "See, your forerunners believed only in triple man, composed of
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* The seven planets are not limited to this number because the ancients knew of no others, but simply because they were the primitive or primordial houses of the seven Logoi. There may be nine and ninety-nine other planets discovered -- this does not alter the fact of these seven alone being sacred.
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