This is diametrically opposite to our Eastern teaching, and even to the Kabalistic notion, so far as we understand it, and to the _Bible_ itself. This looks like Corporealism and Substantialism colouring Positive Philosophy, though it is rather difficult to feel quite sure of the author’s meaning. A _fall_, however, “from the natural into the supernatural and the animal”—supernatural meaning the purely spiritual in this case—implies what we suggest.
The _New Testament_ speaks of one of these “Wars,” as follows:
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon; and the Dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in Heaven. And the great Dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.(301)
The Kabalistic version of the same story is given in the _Codex Nazaræus_, the scripture of the Nazarenes, the real mystic Christians of John the Baptist, and the Initiates of Christos. Bahak Zivo, the “Father of the Genii,” is ordered to construct creatures—to “create.” But, as he is “ignorant of Orcus,” he fails to do so, and calls in Fetahil, a still purer spirit, to his aid, who fails still worse. This is a repetition of the failure of the “Fathers,” the Lords of Light, who fail one after the other.(302)
We will now quote from our earlier volumes:(303)
Then steps on the stage of creation the Spirit(304) (of the Earth so‐called, or the Soul, Psyche, which St. James calls “devilish”), the lower portion of the Anima Mundi or Astral Light. [See the close of this Shloka.] With the Nazarenes and the Gnostics this Spirit was _feminine_. Thus the Spirit of the Earth, perceiving that for Fetahil,(305) the newest man (the latest), the splendour was “changed,” and that for splendour existed “decrease and damage,” she awakes Karabtanos,(306) “who was frantic and _without sense and judgment_,” and says to him: “Arise, see, the Splendour (Light) of the _Newest_ Man (Fetahil) has failed (to produce or create men), the decrease of this Splendour is visible. Rise up, come with thy Mother (the Spiritus) and free thee from limits by which thou art held, and those more ample than the whole world.” After which, follows the union of the frantic and blind matter, guided by the insinuations of the Spirit (not the _Divine_ Breath but the _Astral_ Spirit, which by its double essence is already tainted with matter); and the offer of the Mother being accepted, the Spiritus conceives “Seven Figures,” and the Seven Stellars (Planets), which represent also the _seven capital sins_, the progeny of an Astral Soul, separated from its divine source (spirit), and _matter_, the blind demon of concupiscence. Seeing this, Fetahil extends his hand towards the abyss of matter, and says: “Let the earth exist, just as the abode of the Powers has existed.” Dipping his hand in the chaos, which he condenses, he creates our planet.