The Trial of the Sun-Initiates

Editor’s Note: This text forms the fifth subsection of Section V of the surviving “Würzburg Manuscript,” occupying pp. 201–223 of the original manuscript pagination (pp. 111–121 in the 2014 Eastern School Press edition). It was subsequently revised into Section XXIX of the posthumous third volume of The Secret Doctrine (1897), under the slightly altered title “The Trial of the Sun Initiate,” pp. 270–276. The later version preserves the manuscript’s principal sequence—from the Vedic conception of the Self and its solar symbolism, through Vishvakarman and Vikarttana, the trials of the candidate, the descent into Pātāla, and the Hiram–Osiris parallels—while abridging some of its more extended material.

The most important textual difference occurs at p. 272 of the 1897 volume, where Annie Besant expressly supplied a bracketed passage to fill a gap in the manuscript then available to her. The Würzburg manuscript preserves the missing sequence in detail: the cutting of the candidate’s seven locks, the replacement of his solar crown by a wreath of spines, the stages of Sakṛdāgāmin and Anāgāmin, the descent into Pātāla, the temptations, and the seven-day initiatory trial. A closely related later form of this same material was published posthumously under the heading “Initiations” in Lucifer in August 1896, which was drawn from a manuscript page that had apparently been separated from its place, and which supplies the missing page encountered by Besant. Elsewhere the 1897 recension adds several clarifications, including an explicit distinction between symbolic initiatory “death” and actual killing, while omitting a lengthy contemporary digression on the Jesuits and the manuscript’s concluding comparison between Rome and the “Seven Hills” and the Eastern Hierophant. In the Würzburg manuscript this subsection follows “The Mystery ‘Sun of Initiation’”; in the 1897 volume the order of the two sections is reversed.

5. The Trial of the Sun-Initiates.

We will begin with the oldest mysteries of all—those of the primitive Ayrians [Aryans], whose mental and intellectual state Prof. Max Müller has described with such a masterly hand, yet left so incomplete withal. “We have it (in the Rig Veda),[”] he says, [“]a period of the intellectual life of man to which there is no parallel in any other part of the world. In the hymns of the ‘Veda’ we see man left to himself to solve the riddle of the world. He invokes the gods around him, he praises, he worships them. But still with all these gods . . . beneath him, and above him, the early poet seems ill at rest with himself. There, too, in his own breast, he has discovered a power that is never mute, when he prays, never absent when he fears and trembles. It seems to inspire his prayers, and yet to listen to them; it seems to live in him and yet to support him and all around him. The only name he finds for the mysterious power is ‘Brahman’; for brahman meant originally force, will, wish and the propulsive power of creation. But this impersonal brahman, too, as soon as it is named, grows into something strange and divine. It ends by being one of many gods, one of the great triad, worshipped to the present day. And still the thought within him has no real name; that power which is nothing but itself, which supports the Gods, the heavens and every living being, floats before his mind, conceived but not expressed. At last he calls it ‘Âtman’ for Âtman, originally breath or Spirit, comes to mean Self, and self alone, Self, whether divine or human; Self whether creating or suffering, Self—whether one or all; but self always, independent and free. ‘Who has seen the first-born’ says the poet, ‘When he who had no bones (form) bore him that had bones? Where was the life, the blood, the Self of the world? Who went to ask this from any one who knew it?’ (Rig Veda 1.164.4). This idea of a divine self over [once] expressed every thing else must acknowledge its supremacy: Self is the Lord of all things; it is the King of all things; and as all the spokes of the Wheel are contained in the nave and circumference all things are contained in the self; all selves are contained in this SELF.[”] (Ibid, p. 478, [“]Khandogya Upanishad” VIII. 3.3.4.)

This SELF the highest, the One and the Universal was symbolized by the Sun, its life giving effulgence being in its turn the emblem of the Soul—killing terrestrial passions which have ever been an impediment to the reunion of the unit Self (the Spirit) with the ALL-SELF. Hence the Allegorical mystery, the broad features of which may only be given here. It was enacted by the Sons of the “Fire-Mist” and of “Light.” The second Sun (the second Hypostasis of Rabbi Drach) appeared on his trial, “Visva-Karma” (the Hierophant) cutting off seven of his beams, and replacing them with a crown of brambles, when the “Sun” became VIKKARTANA (shorn of his beams or rays). After that, the Sun (enacted by a neophyte ready to be initiated) was made to descend into “Patal” (the nether regions) on a trial of Tantalus[. C]oming out of it triumphant, he emerged from this region of lust and iniquity, to rebecome KARMA SAKSHI (witness of the Karma of men) and arose once more triumphant in all the glory of his regeneration, as the GRAHA RAJAH “King of the Constellation,” and was addressed as GABHASTIMAN “repossessed of his rays.”

Now, the “fable” in the popular pantheon of India, founded upon, and born out of the poetical mysticism of Rig-Veda whose sayings mostly of all were dramatized during the religious Mysteries—grew in the course of exoteric evolution into the following allegory. It may be found now in several of the Puranas and other Scriptures. In the Rig-Veda and in its Hymns, Visva-Karma, a Mystery-God is the Logos, the Demiurge, one of the greatest Gods and in two of the hymns the highest. He is the “Omnificent” (Visva-Karma), called the great Architect of the Universe “the all-seeing God . . . the father, the Generator, the disposer, who gives the Gods their names and is beyond the comprehension of Mortals” as every mystery-god. Esoterically he is the personification of the Creative manifested Power, and mystically the seventh principle in man, in its collectivity. For he is the Son of BHUVANA—the Self-created luminous Essence and of the chaste and virtuous, “the lovely YOGA SIDDHA[”]; the virgin Goddess, whose name speaks for itself since it personified Yoga power, “the chaste Mother” that creates the Adepts.

In the Rig-Vedic Hymns, Visvakarma performs the “Great Sacrifice” i.e. sacrifices himself for the World; or as the Nirukta is made to say translated by the Orientalists: [“]Visvakarma first of all offers up all worlds in a sacrifice and then ends by sacrificing himself.” (See Hindu Classical Dic.) In the Purana his story varies, and he is shown [words illegible: with his daughter?] Sanjna (consciousness, spiritual perception) who marries the Sun. And he is “the Carpenter of the Gods” their artificer, a kind of Vulcan in the timber line. Perceiving his daughter greatly disturbed by the Sun, her husband, whose effulgence and ardent embraces she can endure no longer, Visvakarma places the culprit upon his lathe and cuts off (seven) of his hottest beams. In the mystical representations of his character, Visvakarma is often called Wittoba and pictured as the “Victim” the “man-god” or avatar crucified in space (see Moor’s Pantheon). But of this further on. We will say a few words of the programme of the “Mystery” enacted upon this theme.

In the secret work upon the Mysteries and rites of Initiation, in which very rough but correct prints are given of the sacramental postures and trials to which the postulant was subjected—together with the test, the following details are found. (1) The neophyte representing the Sun as “Sahasrakirana” [“]he of the thousand rays”—is shown kneeling before the [“]Hierophant.” The latter is in the act of cutting off seven locks of the Neophyte’s long hair,¹ and in the following (2)—illustration, the postulant’s bright crown of golden beams is thrown off, and replaced by a wreath of sharp ligneous spines, symbolizing the loss.² This was enacted in India. In trans-Himalayan regions it was the same.

In order to become a “Perfect one” the Sakridāgāmin (“he who will receive new birth” lit.) had, among other trials to descend into Patal, the “nether world,” after which process only, he could hope to become an “Anāgāmin”—[“]one who will be reborn no more.” The full Initiate had the option of either entering this (second) Path by appearing at will in the world of men under a human form, or he could choose to first rest in the World of Gods (the Devachan of the Initiates), and then only be reborn in this our earth. Thus, the next stage shows the Postulant preparing for this journey.—(3) Every kind of temptation—(we have no right to enumerate these or speak of them) were being placed in his way. If he came out victorious of these, then further Initiation was proceeded with; if he fell—it was delayed and often entirely lost for him. These rules [rites] lasted seven days. During the first three, as said he was tried and examined as to his proficiency in Occult learning. On the fourth day—(4)—he was tied, extended, full length and with his arms stretched out on a wooden lathe, symbolical, of purification, his impurities having to be smoothed off, like a piece of rough, unfashioned wood. After this he was left alone, in a subterranean crypt, in utter darkness, for two days and two nights. In Egypt, the neophyte was placed in an empty sarcophagus, in the Pyramids where the initiatory rites took place. In India and Central Asia he was left tied on his lathe; and when his body had become like that of one dead (entranced) he was carried into the crypt. Then, the Hierophant kept watch over him, “Guiding the apparitional soul (astral body) from this world of Samsāra, (or delusion) to the nether kingdoms, from which, if successful he had the right of releasing seven suffering souls” (Elementaries). Clothed with his Sambhogakāya body of bliss—the Sakridagamin remained there where we have no right to follow him, and upon returning received the WORD, with, or without the heart’s blood of the latter.³ Only in India, the Hierophant was never killed; the murder being simply feigned—unless the Initiator had chosen the Initiate for his successor and had decided to pass to him the last and Supreme WORD, after which he had to die; no more than one man in a nation having the right to know the Word. Many are those grand Initiates who have thus passed out of the world’s sight, disappearing as mysteriously as Moses has, from the top of Mount Pisgah (Nebo, oracular Wisdom) after he had laid his hand upon Joshua who thus became “full of the Spirit of Wisdom.”

This initiatory mystery, spoken of in Isis Unv. (Vol. II. p. 42) we find corroborated by Ballanche: “Destruction is the great God of this world.” (which would justify the philosophical Mythos of the Hindu Siva). [“]According to this immutable and sacred law, the initiate was compelled to kill the Initiator; otherwise, initiation remained [in]complete. (Cruel emblem!) It is Death that generates Life!” (Orpheus, Book iii.)

All these Hierophants and Initiates were types of the Sun and the creative Principle (Spiritual potency) as VisvaKarma and VikKartana were, from the origin of the mysteries. Ragon, the famous Mason, gives curious details and explanations with regard to the Sun rites. He shows the biblical Hiram, the great hero of Masonry (the “widow’s sun”) a type taken from Osiris—the sun-god, the inventor of arts, and the “architect” meaning the elevated as high as the Sun.

Every Occultist knows how closely related are the narratives in Kings concerning Solomon, his Temple and its construction with Osiris and the Pyramid. Also the whole of the Masonic rite of Initiation is based upon the Biblical Allegory of the construction of that Temple, Masons conveniently forgetting, or ignoring perhaps that the latter narrative is remodeled from Egyptian and still earlier symbolism. Ragon explains it by showing the three companions of Hiram, the “three murderers,” as the typifying [as typifying] the three last months of the year; and Hiram the Sun—from its summer solstice downwards, when it begins decreasing—the whole rite being an astronomical Allegory. During the summer solstice, all nature rejoices and sings; hence Hiram can give to whomsoever has the right to it—the WORD. When the Sun is in the inferior signs all nature becomes mute—and Hiram can give no longer the Word to his companions, the three inert months of the year. Then, the first companion strikes Hiram with a rule 24 inches long—symbol of the 24 hours. It is the first slight blow, to the existence of the luminary. The second companion strikes him with an iron square [—] symbol of the last season figured in the intercessions of two right lines, which would divide into four equal parts the Zodiacal circle, whose centre symbolizes Hiram’s heart, where touches the point of the four squares representing the four seasons:—second distribution of time, which, in that period, strikes a heavier blow to the Sun.

The third companion deals him now a mortal blow with his mallet, whose cylindrical form symbolises the year, the ring, or circle: third distribution of the time of the year, the accomplishment of which deals the last blow to the existence of the expiring Sun.

“From the interpretation, it was inferred that Hiram a founder of metals, became the hero of the new legend with the title of Architect, is Osiris (the Sun) of modern initiation; that Isis his widow, is the Lodge the emblem of the Earth (loka in Sanskrit, the WORLD) and that Horus, son of Osiris (or of light and the “Widow’s Son”) is the free-Mason, i.e., the Initiate who inhabits the terrestrial lodge (the child of the Widow (Isis) and of Light, the Sun): Free Masonry, or Modern Initiation. And here again our friends the Jesuits have to be mentioned, for the above rite is of their making. To give one instance of their success in throwing dust into the eyes of ordinary individuals and prevent their seeing the truths of Occultism, we will point out what they did in what is now called Freemasonry.

This Brotherhood does possess a considerable portion of the Symbolism, formula and Ritual of Occultism handed down from time immemorial, of the Primeval Initiations. To render the Brotherhood a mere harmless negation to themselves, the Jesuits themselves sent some of their most able emissaries into the Order who first made the simple brethren believe that the true secret was lost with Hiram Abiff; and then induced them to put this belief into their formularies. They invented specious but spurious higher degrees, pretending to give further light upon this lost secret, to lead the candidate on and amuse him, the forms borrowed from the real thing, but containing no substance, and all artfully contrived to lead the aspiring Neophyte to nowhere. (See Ragon’s Orthodoxie Maçonnique.) And yet men of good sense and abilities in other respects, will meet at intervals, and with solemn face, zeal and earnestness go through all the Mockery of revealing “substituted Secrets” in stead of the real thing, whilst the Jesuits laugh in their sleeve, at the facile credulity of human nature.

If the reader turns to a very remarkable and still more useful work called “The Royal Masonic Cyclopedia,” art. Rosicrucianism, he will find its author, a high and learned Mason showing what the Jesuits have done to destroy.

Speaking of the period when the existence of this mysterious Brotherhood, of which many pretend to know “something” if not a good deal and know in fact nothing—was first made known, he says, [“]There was a dread among the great masses of Society in byegone days of the unseen—a dread, as recent events and phenomena show very clearly, not yet overcome into its entirety. Hence students of nature and mind were forced into obscurity. The Kabalistic reveries of a Johann Reuchlin led to the fiery action of a Luther, and the patient labours of Trittenheim produced the modern system of diplomatic cipher writing . . . . . It is worthy of remark, that one particular century, and that in which the Rosicrucians first showed themselves is distinguished in history as the era in which most of these efforts at throwing off the trammels of the past, (Popery and Ecclesiasticism) occurred. Hence, the opposition of the losing party, and their virulence against anything mysterious or unknown. They freely organised frauds, Rosicrucians and Masonic Societies in return; and these Societies were instructed to irregularly entrap the weaker brethren of the TRUE and INVISIBLE Order, and then triumphantly betray anything they might be so inconsiderate as to communicate to the superiors of the transitory and unmeaning associations. Every wile was adopted by the authorities fighting in self-defense against the progress of truth, to engage, by persuasion, interest, or terror, such as might be cajoled into receiving the Pope as Master—when gained, as many converts to that faith knew, but dare not own, they are treated with neglect, and left to fight the battle of life as best they may, not ever being admitted to the knowledge of such miserable aporrheta as the Romish faith considers itself entitled to withhold. . . .”

It would be well perhaps, if the Jesuits contented themselves with making dupes of Freemasons, and converting that order into a mere convivial Benefit Club, which allures members by the prospect of refined Banquets in the Societies of Princes, statesmen and eloquent orators in speech and song. Their lethal plottings, however, have a much wider scope, and embrace a minuteness of detail and care of which the world in general has no idea. Everything must be done by them to bring the mass of mankind again to the state of passive ignorance and superstition. Which, they well know is the only one which can help them to the consummation of their purpose of universal Despotism. Little the Protestant Missionaries know that they have been made more than once to serve their hereditary enemy the Roman Catholic Padris as the “cat’s paw” to draw the chestnuts for them out of the fire, especially in India and China. The proofs of it are at hand and they are carefully preserved to be made public, when the day of squaring the accounts between the Occultists and their Roman Catholic and Protestant detractors, their mortal enemies—arrives at last.

The greatest statesman in Europe, the illustrious Prince Bismark knows accurately all their secret plottings, and that it has ever been the aim of the Jesuit priestcraft to stir up disaffection and rebellion in all countries with the view to the advancement of its own interest. That greatest and most far-seeing of men in addressing the German Parliament on the 5th Dec. 1874, stated that in a conversation which passed between the Wurtemberg Envoy and the Nuncio, the latter insolently and arrogantly said, “The Roman Church had to look to revolutions as the sole means of securing her rightful position.” (Times, Dec. 7th 1874.) Several historians of the so called “Indian Mutiny” have accused the Protestant missionaries of having been the direct and indirect means of breeding discontent and leading to the outburst of national feeling. We do not write political history. Therefore, it will suffice to say that in this case as in many others the reformed church and its members had been made a stepping stone and a convenient because unconscious agent. There never was an Occult Society, however opened [open] and sincere that has not felt the hand of the Jesuit trying to pull it down by every secret means. If the reader interested in the question takes the trouble of recapitulating such Societies, in England alone, and thinks of their fate he will recognize the truth of the assertion. Protestantism is losing ground among the richest and the most illustrious of the land. A few years more, and the greatest of Protestant nations will stand face to face with WHITE and BLACK MAGIC. Which will the English choose?

But all efforts and the greatest craft are doomed to failure on the day they are discovered. If Masonry was spoiled by the Jesuits they are unable to crush the real, invisible Rosicrucians and the Eastern Initiate. The symbolism of VisvaKarma and Surya Vikkartana has survived, where Hiram Abiff was indeed murdered, and we will now return to it. It is not simply an astronomical, but the most solemn rite, an inheritance from the Archaic mysteries that has crossed the ages and is used to this day. It typifies a whole drama of the CYCLE of LIFE of progressive incarnations and psychic as well as of physiological secrets of which neither the Church or Science know anything, though it is this rite, that has led the former to the great test of its Christian mysteries. The newest Initiate, the proud Rome of the Catacombs, has given the death-blow to her HIEROPHANT-INITIATOR, indeed—but only in Europe. Only, she has done it so too hastily; the Hierophant died, before he had been given the time to pass his would-be Successor the WORD. The sacrifice has thus proved useless and the initiation but too “incomplete.” The Hierophant of the Sapta Sindhava (seven rivers) and of the SAPTARSHI (the seven great Rishis) is not killed and may have something to say to the modern Initiate of the “Seven Hills.” It is only a question of time and patience, more details will be found in Section V.

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