(146) Secondly, it is also therefore counted for a human day, because, doubtless, the earth instantly began its revolution and did turn round about once in such a period of time, while God was separating, and so till he had separated, the light from the darkness; and thus it [the earth] performed and finished its course the first time.

(6) The ancient papyri do not contain this chapter. The translation is made from the Turin Todtenbuch , supplemented and corrected from hieratic papyri in Paris. Its real meaning is difficult to understand. It seems that under symbolical expressions it refers to an astronomical phenomenon, the renewal of the sun after the winter solstice. According to the principle which I have adopted, to maintain my predecessor’s interpretations, I translated “the Eye is full” ( cf. Notes on ch. 125, p. 214 ). But as it seems evident that here the two eyes of the sun are the two periods of his apparent course, the decrease and the growth, I should translate “the period is accomplished,” this period being that of the decrease after which the sun enters its ascending course, or according to Egyptian ideas begins again to grow. It is natural that the completing of the period should be hailed with joy by Rā, since it is the final victory over his enemies, which sets him free and allows him to rise again as at the beginning. The sign of his triumph is that he puts the on his head, as we see in the vignette

(8) The era of the Second Race terminated, as usual, with a cataclysm which destroyed the majority of the race, and which scattered its survivors among far distant lands. Then dawned the period of the Third Race, the seat of its greatest activity being laid in the continent of Lemuria, which was situated on that portion of the globe which now lies at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and parts of the Indian Ocean. The continent of Lemuria also included Australia, Australasia, and other Pacific Islands—these surviving portions being really the highest points of the continent of Lemuria, the lower portions of which were sunk beneath the waves ages ago.

(18) Then the wrath of the archons burned. They were ashamed of their dissolution. And they fumed and were angry at the life. The cities were ; the mountains dissolve. The archon came, with the archons of the western regions, to the East, i.e., that place where the Logos appeared at first. Then the earth trembled, and the cities were troubled. Moreover, the birds ate and were filled with their dead. The earth mourned together with the inhabited world; they became desolate.

(66) This opinion or supposition is not right, but the earth rolleth itself about; and runneth with the other planets, as in a wheel, round about the sun. The earth does not remain staying in one place, but in a year runneth round once about the sun, as the other planets next the sun, but Saturn and Jupiter, as also Mars, by reason of their great orb, circumference, and great height, cannot do it [in a year], because they stand so high above, and far distant from the SUN. Now it may be asked, What is the SUN, and what are the other PLANETS? Or how are they come to be?

(19) The Satellites of Rā make their round, in the train of the exaltation of Maāt, who followeth her Lord. And glory is given to the Inviolate one

(1) Thy Father Tmu hath prepared for thee this beautiful Crown of Triumph, the living diadem which the gods love, that thou mayest live for ever. Osiris, Prince of Amenta, maketh thee to triumph over thine adversaries. Thy Father Seb hath decreed that thou should be his heir, and be heralded as Triumphant, Horus son of Isis and son of Osiris, upon the throne of thy Father Rā, through the defeat of thine adversaries. He hath decreed for thee the Two Earths, absolutely and without condition. And so hath Atmu decreed, and the Cycle of the gods hath repeated the glorious act of the triumph of Horus the son of Isis and the son of Osiris for ever and ever

(1) These things, therefore, having been accurately discussed, the solution of the doubts which you have met with in certain books will be manifest. For the books which are circulated under the name of Hermes contain Hermaic opinions, though they frequently employ the language of the philosophers: for they were translated from the Egyptian tongue by men who were not unskilled in philosophy. But Chæremon, and any others who have at all discussed the first causes of mundane natures, have unfolded the last rulers of these. And such as have written concerning the planets, the zodiac, the decans, horoscopes, and what are called powerful and leading planets, these have unfolded the partible distributions of the rulers. The particulars, also, contained in the Calendars comprehend a certain very small part of the Hermaic arrangements. And the causes of such things as pertain to the phases or occultations of the stars, or to the increments and decrements of the moon, are assigned by the Egyptians the last of all.

(22) Critias: And this is the cause thereof: There have been and there will be many and divers destructions of mankind, of which the greatest are by fire and water, and lesser ones by countless other means. For in truth the story that is told in your country as well as ours, how once upon a time Phaethon, son of Helios, yoked his father's chariot, and, because he was unable to drive it along the course taken by his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth and himself perished by a thunderbolt,—that story, as it is told, has the fashion of a legend, but the truth of it lies in

(6) Then the whole nature of this world became springing, boiling and moving in the earth, as well as above the earth, and everywhere, and began to generate itself again in all things.

(3) I know the inner gate of the garden of Aarru, out of which cometh Rā, in the East of the sky; the South of it is by the lake of Cha-ru, and the North of it by the stream of Reu; thence Rā saileth with favouring gales

(6) The period during which each great root race of the human race flourishes on earth is sharply marked off from that of the one succeeding it by great convulsions of Nature which destroy practically all traces of the preceding civilization, and which leave but few survivors thereof. A writer has said of this point of the occult teaching: "The periods of the great root races are divided from each other by great convulsions of Nature and by great geological changes. Europe was not in existence as a continent at the time the fourth race flourished. The continent on which the fourth race lived was not in existence at the time the third race flourished, and neither of the continents which were the great vortices of the civilizations of those two races are in existence now. Seven great continental cataclysms occur during the occupation of the earth by the human life-wave for one round period. Each race is cut off in this way at its appointed time, some survivors remaining in parts of the world, not the proper home of their race; but these, invariably in such cases, exhibiting a tendency to decay, and relapsing into barbarism with more or less rapidity." The individuals of the First Race of the present (fourth) round of the human race on earth ranged from a gross type scarcely above the brutes up to a very barbarous type. These higher types reincarnated later as the higher individuals of the Second Race, the lower types of the First Race constituting the lower subdivisions of the Second Race; the rule being that the less advanced souls of any race incarnate as the lowest types of the next and higher race.

(2) Rā maketh his appearance at the Mount of Glory, with the Cycle of gods about him: the Strong one issueth from his hidden abode

(5) Rā is living, the tortoise is dead. His wrappings have been opened; they reveal his figure. [The South wind of Rā

(79) Now the astrologers write, that the planet Mars stands aloft about 15,750 miles off from the sun; which I contradict not, because I meddle not with the measuring of circles. And so far the swift fire-crack went forth [travelled] from its own place till the light also laid hold on it, and then it also was captivated by the light, and stayed and took possession of that place. [Ed. Note: Mars is 141,600,000 miles from the sun.]

(4) [Thus] there begins their living and their growing wise, according to the fate appointed by the revolution of the Cyclic Gods, and their deceasing for this end. And there shall be memorials mighty of their handiworks upon the earth, leaving dim trace behind when cycles are renewed. For every birth of flesh ensouled, and of the fruit of seed, and every handiwork, though it decay, shall of necessity renew itself, both by the renovation of the Gods and by the turning-round of Nature's rhythmic wheel. For that whereas the Godhead is Nature's ever-making-new-again the cosmic mixture, Nature herself is also co-established in that Godhead.

(4) The solar system was organized by forces operating inward from the great ring of the Saturnian sphere; and since the beginnings of all things were under the control of Saturn, the most reasonable inference is that the first forms of worship were dedicated to him and his peculiar symbol--the stone. Thus the intrinsic nature of Saturn is synonymous with that spiritual rock which is the enduring foundation of the Solar Temple, and has its antitypc or lower octave in that terrestrial rock--the planet Earth--which sustains upon its jagged surface the diversified genera of mundane life.

(1) "It came to pass then, when I came into their region, that they mutinied and fought against the light. And I took the third of their power, in order that they should not be able to accomplish their evil deeds. And the Fate and the sphere, over which they rule, I have changed, and set them facing the left six months and accomplishing their influences, and I have set them turned another six months to the right and accomplishing their influences."

(85) When the power of the heart of God pressed forth out of the eternal inexhaustible fountain of the water of life, through the heaven of the partition, and kindled the water in the place of the sun, then the flash, understand the fire-flash, did shoot forth or went forth out of the water, which was very terrible and bitter, and out of which Mars came to be.

(23) In such a Manner as this the Sun rose up in the Fiat, and out of the Sun (in its first Kindling) [rose] the other Planets, viz. upwards, out of the raging Bitterness, Mars [rose,] which pTo. the Splendor of the Sun stayed [or upheld] when it discovered it: And out of the Virtue of the Sun, which raised itself higher, [rose] Jupiter imprisoned in the Center of the Fiat: And out of the Chamber of Anguish [rose] Saturnus: And downwards Venus [rose] from the soft Mildness, when the Harshness was overcome, and was soft, sweet, and sinking down like Water. And when the Light kindled, then out of the sour harsh Wrath came Love and Humility to be, running downwards: And out of the overcome Virtue in the sour Harshness [rose Mercurius,] wherein stands the Knowledge of what was in the Original before the Light: But when the Light made the Virtue in the Place of the Sun material, as it were in an earthly Manner [rose] the Moon.