CHAPTER V.

CREATION LEGENDS— HOW ANCIENT IS HUMANITY ON THIS PLANET ?—HINDU CHRONOLOGY.

It seems scarcely necessary at this period to tell any fairly well-informed persons that the first two chapters of Genesis were never regarded as literal history by any students of esoteric doctrine, and we can readily believe the testimony of Swedenborg to the effect that records of very ancient “Churches” prove conclusively that in times of old narratives regarded as specially sacred were all believed to contain an interior meaning with which the uninitiated may have been unfamiliar, but which was the only meaning with which spiritual teachers were concerned.

The iconoclasm of Thomas Paine, Volney, Voltaire, and other famous writers of a revolutionary and reactionary period, did yeoman service in the cause of intellectual liberty, but it was no part of their mission to unfold interior meanings or call attention to the spiritual agreement which can now be traced, thanks to modern critical research, between all the Scriptures venerated by different sections of humanity. It was really not earlier than 1803, in America, and then chiefly by reason of the Parliament of Religions held in Chicago, in connection with the World's Fair, that the masses of the people began to take a really live interest in Comparative Religion, and even then, during the seventeen days of the September of that memorable year in which the Congress assembled, there were many pious people of fossilized convictions who were quite shocked at the idea of “heathen” Orientals being invited to proclaim their “idolatrous” doctrines on the same platforms with Christian ministers. But, to the credit of many distinguished representatives of the largest Christian denominations, be it recorded that they treated the Asiatic delegates extremely well, and though it cannot be truthfully asserted that that memorable gathering resulted in completely breaking down all barriers of prejudice between East and West, it is no exaggeration to aver that since that great historical event there has been far less ignorance and bitterness displayed by opposing religious systems than before that momentous gathering. True it is that some few Americans were so carried away by the picturesqueness of Oriental costumes and the fascinating personality of some of the Oriental Swamis, and other speakers at the Congress, that they were received into the Buddhistic or some other Asiatic religious fold, but, for the most part, no proselyting was either accomplished or attempted. The more intimately acquainted we become with differing religious systems, the less need do we imagine for going over from one to another, seeing that they all manifest defects as well as excellences, and we are not likely to find all our ideals realized in any system.

The chief value of the research we are now attempting is an endeavor to pierce external crusts of mythology and arrive at some reasonable and instructive views of the universe in which we are abiding. The number seven has always been regarded as particularly sacred by all peoples of antiquity, and the reason for this is to be found in Nature, entirely apart from human fancy. The seven hues of the Rainbow, the seven notes in the Musical Scale, and many other equally universal examples may be given of the prominence of seven. The seven “Days,” or, more correctly, Periods, of Creation enumerated in the first chapter of Genesis agree substantially with similar enumerations in other and older Scriptures, and when we turn to Swedenborg’s “Arcana Cœlestia” for exposition, we find that he informs us that they have nothing necessarily to do with external history, and that it makes no difference what facts may be disclosed through geology, the spiritual truth conveyed in the Pentateuch remains unchallenged. This strong position was finely elucidated and upheld by the scholarly Dr. Bayley, for many years minister of the New Jerusalem Church in Kensington, which was largely attended by earnest people who clung to the spiritual meaning of the Bible, while they followed their highly gifted pastor gladly in his many and wide pulpit excursions into scientific fields. “The Divine Word Opened” is the title of Dr. Bayley’s best known book, which is one of the most remarkable and thought-provoking volumes of sermons anywhere procurable. Such works as this deserve much wider reading than they usually receive, for it is certainly lamentable to note the crass ignorance of the Bible still largely prevalent among would-be expositors.

Just as it has been truly said that no one can really understand any single language without some familiarity with several tongues, so is it also true that no one can duly appreciate any Creation Legend without an outline acquaintance with several. The seven Great Ages of the Earth must be seven vast periods, agreeing far more nearly with Oriental than with Occidental chronology; but no chronological element necessarily enters into the earliest parts of Genesis. The first word in the Hebrew Torah, berashith, is commonly rendered in English “in the beginning,” a phrase which has no necessary reference either to time or place, but is equivalent to “at the starting-point.” GOD (Elohim) is said to be the author of all that is produced, and as the author is declared to be entirely good, the results of Divine activity are pronounced likewise good. “And GOD saw that it was good,” is a sentence several times repeated, referring to the goodness, each in its own degree, of the various orders of existence which appeared on earth before the advent of Humanity, and no matter what opinions any one may entertain concerning the second and following chapters of Genesis, the first chapter leaves no doubt in the minds of unprejudiced readers that the original tradition narrated in the Bible concerning human origin declares men and women to be a simultaneous creation. Let any child be given the first account alone, and then questioned as to what it relates, that child is certain to say that men and women were created together. Gnostic or Theosophical commentators may undertake to discourse upon some original creation antedating the complete materialization of human frames, and such disquisitions are always interesting and thought-exciting, though to many minds they appear incapable of demonstration. Pre-existence is taught in all Bibles, and, as the venerable Dr. J. M. Peebles, and other modern Spiritualists of learning and experience have stoutly maintained, there can be no evolution of aught that is not involved. Monkeys cannot beget men, though the Simian race may have existed on this planet long before the human. Esoteric teaching is to the effect that every type which appears on earth comes from a spiritual typal germ, a doctrine far more comprehensible than the foundationless assertions of Materialists, who give us no foundation whatever for their atheistic dogmatism. Many scholars are confessedly agnostic; but agnosticism postulates nothing definitely concerning human origin.

A truly wonderful exposition of Genesis has reached us from the inspired and fertile pen of Erastus Gaffield, a gentleman of high literary attainments and social standing, who has written, under spiritual influence, several very instructive books, among which “The Past Revealed” deserves distinctive pre-eminence. In that remarkable treatise we find it stated that “Before the existence of inhabitable conditions upon the earth, there were, as now, many planets in the universe, where only rudimentary conditions of life prevailed, inhabited by beings in various stages of evolutionary progress, by multitudes who had attained only very circumscribed powers of reason, a limited control over weak and imperfectly developed mental faculties, which but partially reflected the intuitions of spirit, and which could not have been used for the investigation of the laws of cosmic creation, evolution, or other scientific facts, nor for the teaching of ethical precepts.” “From such very primitive conditions, after having acquired an understanding of certain inherent principles of the Law, graduations sometimes occurred. Many aspiring, intuitive ones, having realized certain degrees of spiritual understanding, and having passed out of their physical bodies, entered into celestial states of existence where larger opportunities were afforded for acquiring knowledge of the divine principles of the Law, and for a more perfect realization of spiritual aspirations. Such needed not further experiences upon material planes. Vast multitudes, however, required and sought new experiences in physical states, and without them could have made but little progress in the accomplishment of destiny. Therefore it may be said that the ‘beginning’ referred to in the first verse of Genesis relates to the molding of the plastic elements afore-existent in space, into conditions adapted to the production of such things as physical beings would require when they should appear, who, at first though manifesting only very rudimentary states of intellectual perception, would have certain natural wants, such as air to breathe, water to drink, and food to eat. The text in no way relates to the calling into existence of original elements concerning which no one can conceive a possible explanation.”

The first immigrants to earth came without materialized forms, after having accomplished missions in other planets, while incarnated in bodies adapted to conditions there prevailing. They came gladly hither as to a new Golconda, where they hoped to achieve important victories over the elements and to realize spiritual and material progress when conditions should permit them to again assume material bodies.” This author then goes on to inform us that those districts of the earth were first inhabited which possessed climates similar to those of the planets from which the immigrants from other worlds had come. “The regions of the far north were first inhabited by physical humanity. Here for unnumbered ages lived a race, small in stature, given to the chase, without knowledge of many refinements subsequently realized in latitudes further south, peacefully inclined, the representatives of an order or condition of life like unto that which their predecessors had evolved in other planets. It may be stated that the destruction of life-possibilities upon the moon, and the formation of inhabitable conditions upon the earth, were coeval.” Much teaching regarding the “Lunar Pitris” is to be found in Theosophical literature, and it seems to be the general teaching of those who claim to know something of the immense antiquity of the human race that there was life on the moon before this earth was ready for human inhabitation. Nothing could be easier than to endorse the famous Robert Ingersoll’s alleged “mistakes of Moses” did we believe that the letter of Genesis was intended to be taken altogether literally, but, judging it in the light thrown upon it by comparison with other ancient records, we regard all such iconoclastic ridicule as undeserved and also utterly unscholarly. But as Ingersoll was a popular lecturer, expected to entertain as well as to instruct, and moreover as some kinds of ignorant theology are quite as ridiculous as he made them out to be, the name of Ingersoll endures as that of a champion of the right of free thought and free enquiry, without which no arrival at truth is ever possible.

We will now direct attention to Hindu traditions concerning the age of the world and human origin. These appear highly extravagant to many readers, on account of the immense periods which they designate to a year, and it seems incredible that we can estimate the extent of ages with such complete precision. However, it is not impossible that there may be somewhere carefully preserved records which largely justify even the astounding affirmations of Baba Premanand Bharati in his decidedly beautiful book, “Sree Krishna; the Lord of Love,” in which he undertakes to present to English readers “the history of the Universe from its birth to its dissolution.” The author says that in the course of his treatise he has explained “the science of creation, its making and its mechanism, according to information derived from the recorded facts in the sacred books of the Root-Race of Mankind.” This is declared to be the doctrine of true Hinduism. The enthusiastic writer tells us that if we read this record with an open mind it will grant us illumination and solve many a riddle of life and untie many a tangle of thought. The following quotation from the preface clearly sets forth in highly condensed phrase the entire substance of the Hindu Doctrine:

“The belief that our life begins with the birth of this physical body and ends with its death, is the worst superstition, because it is the worst obstacle in the way of our soul's unfoldment. This life has sprung from Eternity; it draws its breath in Eternity and is finally absorbed by Eternity, which is Absolute Love. To think that we, human beings, were never blessed with greater powers than we possess in this age is the saddest of mistakes. To believe that we were once as great and powerful as Divine beings, and that we can recover that greatness and those powers, is to believe in the actual potentialities of the human mind. This life can be made one long ecstatic song, this life can, if we take the trouble to make it, be made a source of joy to ourselves as well as to all around us forever and ever; it can even attain to the Essence of Godhood, from which it has sprung, by developing uninterruptedly God-consciousness.

“We are all idolators. Some of us worship idols of Divinity, others worship idols of Matter. Some of us worship the Spirit through suggestive signs and symbols; others worship Flesh. Since our mind wants idols for worship, just as our body wants food for sustenance, let us all worship idols of Spirit in Form. Through its concrete Form-Center we can enter into the Abstract Spirit of Love—Love which is our one object and goal in life. This Love is Krishna, and the universe, and we, its parts, are the materialized manifestations of that Love.” Baba Bharati may well tell us that when we peruse his writings we are reading a book of purely Eastern thought clothed in pure Eastern dress, for without this explanation, we should be at a loss to understand the foregoing eulogy of idolatry; but when we know that in the Orient the equivalent of our word idol simply means any manifestation of life which we can symbolize, and therefore in some measure comprehend, as soon as we grasp the Hindu writer's meaning we can readily sympathize with the clear and sharp line of demarkation he has drawn between idols of spirit and idols of flesh. But it is with the ages of the world that we are now particularly concerned. These are styled Gold, Silver, Copper, and Iron. The Golden Age lies far back in antiquity, and is said to have lasted 4,800 Divine years, each of which contains 360 of our years; thus the entire length of the Golden Age must have amounted to 1,728,000 of our years, which may well be imagined as the extent of a geological epoch. This, according to Hindu tradition, was the most spiritual age, and it is claimed that gold literally abounded during that remote period. Let us now remember that in the Book of Genesis we are told of gold as abounding in the whole land of Havilah, which is said to be watered by the river Pison. The word Havilah means to bring forth and to supply strength; thus we may readily see some striking connection between the Oriental traditions now exhibited to our gaze by Asiatic visitors to Europe and America and the references to remote antiquity found in the early Hebrew legends. The Silver Age, following immediately upon the Golden, is said to have lasted for 3,000 Divine years — that is, 1,080,000 human or lunar years. Hindu chronology always calls Divine years Solar, and earthly years Lunar, because we count our months by the movements of the moon and reckon our calendar from a purely geocentric standpoint. During the Silver Age occurred the Fall of humanity mentioned in the Bible. This event is described by Hindu teachers as being due to the attraction of the Unreal. During the Golden Age it is said that humanity knew nothing but Truth, but in the Silver Age they became led astray by deceptive appearances, and fell from original purity by confounding the illusory with the real. Our fall consists in the fact that we become so attached to the unreal that we cannot leave it, though we know it to be unreal. All the ages have their Twilight and their Daylight periods, suggesting very nearly the various Evenings and Mornings mentioned in the Pentateuch. The life of the Silver Age, though not so beautiful as that of the Golden Age, was nevertheless in many respects quite delightful, and it is not till we come to the Copper Age that we read anything in Hindu literature of ferocious beasts or warlike people. The length of the Copper Age is estimated at 2,000 Divine years, equal to 720,000 human years. The Iron Age carries us to the very depths of human ferocity and degradation, and out of this we are now happily emerging to a very much higher condition, as we are now rounding the curve and passing out from a Dark Age into one of much greater brilliancy.