SACRED BIRDS by Amanda Rooke [numbers spread throughout the text refer to references from books cited at the end of the article] By way of introduction I’d like to stress that all birds are sacred, all life-forms are. However some birds seem to be “more sacred than others”, in human estimation, some birds having oracular and fire-bringing symbology rooted in their natural behaviours. Others have been given infernal connotations, rather than sacred ones. Also some American cars have names of birds! Some of these will occur to you later, I think! One reference said that Christmas turkeys are consumed then because they are a vehicle of the renewed light and knowledge, to followers of Apollo, then of Christ they are a solar bird, who brought fire to Man, and Christmas is the solstice whence the light (and Christ the light) returns to the world. 1 We’ll go into these ideas more, later, firstly from other cultures’ viewpoints, then from Theosophy.
Let us ride the Garuda bird of meditative inspiration, from a subjective point of view, so I’m going to study this marvellous analogy from externally, seeing how these attributes appear in mythology and in The Secret Doctrine. What it all seems to come down to is, in many mythologies, and in Theosophy, birds aided in the creation of the cosmos, and in our spiritualisation, they inspire us to live in the Light and in our higher triad, of which birds are a potent symbol, without going too close to the Sun, as Icarus did. Birds represent the Upper Triad [of Man’s inner constitution], its originator in and of the Hierarch, their part in the re-emergence of the cosmos from its pralayic, post-manvantric darkness, and the transmittance of the fire of the mind and spirit from Him to us. Their wings, often transmogrified onto angels and onto other creatures, carry them to the heights of this spiritual realm. In art they symbolise the soul, the element of air and are an attribute of Juno [queen of the Mediterannean peoples’ gods], when she is personifying this element, the sense of touch – a woman with a bird perched on her raised hand. 2 and they nest in a tree at the angel’s annunciation to Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary. 3 Entrapped birds, symbolise spring.4 St. Francis preached to the birds, calling them to praise God, whence they flew into the air in the formation of a cross. 5 [Maybe this was the natural, bird-shaped formation the adopt, to dodge each others’ slip-stream of disturbed air?] Once I saw a picture of a Mocche South American ceramic design of a warrior whose armour and weapons were flung aside and a man-bird flying from the battlefield – to a 13 year old it graphically illustrated the soul leaving the body upon its demise. The author of the Golden Bough writes that the soul escaping the body is often conceived of as a bird taking flight, attempted to be lured back by gifts of rice. 6 Absent Malay warriors having to be referred to as birds as part of the taboo against saying a person’s own name. We know from Aboriginal TV that they have this taboo too.7 The birds in the sacred trees of the ancient forests and sacred groves were seen as messengers between the tree-spirits and Nature gods; their flight across the vault of sky resembles thoughts across the brain in the skull, God’s thoughts and Odin’s messengers, the crows Hugin and Munin, “thought and memory”. 8 In Egypt the soul of the dead is usually depicted as a human-headed bird fluttering from his mouth at death. In Christianity they issue forth from the mouth in the form of a dove. [see appendix re hawks and other birds as souls.] Much of the symbolism particular to a species derives from that specie’s natural habits, especially in Aesop’s fables. The roles played seem dictated by their physical size and attributes, they are then given human voices and the situations are applied to their parallels in the human condition, e.g. ravens seem to be vain, eagles strong, hunting birds take the advantage, little birds are scared victims, doves are gentle, peacocks proud. There was a goose laid one golden egg per day, but its owner wanted it to lay too, throwing away his source of wealth by greed. 10 One old Theosophist from Melbourne, Olga Buchanan, said this goose was the sacred creator of the universe, which we’ll hear of in a minute. These attributes were summarised in the story of the peacock who wished she could also to sing like the nightingale. The singing bird replied: “God and providence gave each his particular gift, the peacock the greatest splendour and beauty, the eagle strength and courage, the nightingale its song and voice, which foretells things of the future, the dove has pity on the old, the crane’s cry always foretells the weather, etc”. 11
My father (A.N. Rooke) when preparing a talk for this group, said that in the Hindu creation story, the first sound was Om, from which all other wavelengths came, like variations upon a theme, - we all have our own personal wavelength, like some giant cosmic radio network - and the A.U.M. (draw this on the whiteboard) - itself made the picture of a bird, the Kalahansa of which we will hear of more, shortly. Birds figure in the creation legends of many cultures. The Thunderbird of Amerindians was a divine creature said to live above the clouds, and the flapping of its wings was the thunder, the flashes of its eyes, the lightning. 12 One myth, which I can’t find the source of, told of two hunters who climbed a hill above a lake at sunset, looked over their shoulders at the lake, and behold, the thunderbird was rising silently from the face of the waters, and flying away to the heavens. (Perhaps it was the evening mist, or the real spiritual essence of that lake?) In the Zuni myth “Who Brought the Sun?” the world was steeped in darkness, only the owl could see where to go, co-opting the soaring eagle and the clever coyote, the three journeyed to where the sun was hidden by evil spirits in a wooden chest in the sky. 13 The Cherokee say the owl brought fire to the Indians, the Ojibwa/Creek Indians say the duck dived down to the bottom of the flood to bring bit by bit, the earth back from under the waters. 14 This picture of the Manitou or Great Spirit, has a man’s face and a bird’s body, and appears to be flying purposefully across the heavens. In one of the many ancient Egyptian creation myths, the holy spirit took the form of a goose and flew across the waters of the original chaos, calling the dry land into being from the deep, and each day the temple priests re-enacted this event by releasing a goose through a special window in the temple wall, to fly across a lake outside. Thousands of years after this, some British archaeologists re-enacted this re-enactment, through the same temple window, in the late 20th century. Clébert writes that the appearance of geese in Egypt each winter solstice made it consecrated as a solar bird, the sun emerging from the primordial egg. It represented the soul of the Pharaoh and at each royal occasion they released four geese to the four points of the compass.15 As an aside, Mother Goose of childhood memory, originated in a Nordic divinity. 16
One Egyptian creation myth reads thus: “At the beginning the world was a waste of water called Nu, the home of, and synonymous with, the Great Father. He gave life to the sun god, Khepera at dawn, Ra at high noon and Atum at eventide. The god of brightness first appeared as a shining egg that floated on the surface of the water, and the spirits of the deep, who were the Fathers and the Mothers, the companions of Nu. Now Ra was greater than Nu, from whom he arose. He was the divine father and strong ruler of gods, and those whom he first created, according to his wish, were Shu, the wind god, and his consort Tefnut who had the head of a lioness and was called The Spitter because she sent the rain. In afterlife these two deities shone as stars amidst the constellations of heaven and were called The Twins. Then Geb, the earth god, came into being and Nut the goddess of the firmament, who became the parents of Osiris and his consort, Isis, and also of Seth and his consort, Nepthys. Ra spoke at the beginning of Creation, and ordered the earth and heavens to rise out of the water. In the brightness of his majesty they appeared, and Shu, the uplifter, raised Nut on high. She formed the vault, which is arched over Geb, the earth god. Then Ra created all things in the waters and the dry land. 17 Nut is pictured as a naked woman with spread wings, and is also the receiver of the dead.18 This tale is quite like the Christian version, where it has been postulated that the dove has the same meaning. The dove was above all else the symbol of the Holy Spirit, the divine spirit hovering over the primordial waters. As such the dove descended from the sky whilst St. John the Baptist baptised Jesus, the dove being flying down like a stooping hawk, rather than alighting from Him. 19 The Genesis 1, 2, story says: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Thence the Light, and the Firmament, were created, prior to other animate life. Some have said hovered so, in the form of a dove [a Christian symbol of purity], the same dove of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which hovered over Christ when he was baptised in the river Jordan by John the Baptist, who said: “I saw the spirit coming down from heaven like a dove and resting upon him”, and is pictured above Christ at the Pentecost, above St. Paul at his baptism, and above Mary at the Annunciation. 20 Such a dove hovers above other holy persons, also signifying the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that which inspired the four evangelists who wrote the four gospels, the wings of the Eagle of St. John, being given to representations of the other three evangelists, to signify this inspiration for them, as well. 21 This dove also signifies the literary inspiration of a saint noted for his writings, inspiring his words. 22 A dove is represented hovering between the Father and Son, the wing-tips touching the lips of each, to show, per the Nicene Creed: the double procession of the Spirit, “proceeding from the Father to the Son.”23 The Doves of Aphrodite fed ambrosia which gave immortality to the infant Zeus, who was king of the gods, when hidden in a cavern on
Mt.
Ida. 24 Zeus/Jupiter’s symbol was the eagle, the master of thunder and lightening, king of birds and king of kings, its piercing eyesight saw all, it knew all and played an augural role; it is carved on lecterns at church, because the eagle and the lectern deliver a divine message [from reading from the Bible]. 25 The eagle symbolised the Christian neophyte who renewed his life in the baptismal water, and the eagle thus “became” Christ himself, because this bird regrew its feathers periodically. 26 Because birds symbolised the soul or spiritual, opposite of the material; Mary is represented with the dove of the Holy Spirit hovering over her; if seven doves are there, typifying the gifts of the Spirit, she is the Mater Sapientiae, Mother of Wisdom, whilst if she is reading with doves nearby they represent her gentleness and tenderness.27 We remember the exhortation: “Be ye wise as serpents and gentle as doves”. Angels are of course represented in art as winged, and so sometimes are the Apostles. In Ezekial’s vision (Ezek, 1.5), the Jews saw the four winged fiery creatures as the four archangels, but the early Christians saw them as the four Evangelists, or Gospel writers. The four beasts of the Apocalypse, were given the same explanation, and though only one, the Eagle, was winged, they all came at one stage to be represented with wings – they were given the emblem of the eagle of St. John, signifying “lofty flights of inspiration” 28 Ovid told that Venus was drawn through the air by a team of doves. 29 Her attributes because they symbolised love and constancy. 30 The dove has long been accepted as a messenger of the divine will, and signifies the activity of God. The name dove is given to oracles and to prophets. 31 The Christian symbolism draws partly from Greek and Roman myth, and maybe from Hebrew tradition, as M.P. Hall writes that true name of the dove was Ionah or Ionas; it was adopted by the Hebrews, and the mystic Dove was regarded as a symbol from the days of Noah by all those who were of the Church of
God. The prophet sent to Ninevah as God’s messenger was called Jonah or the Dove; the forerunner of The Christ, the Baptist, was called in Greek by the name Ioannes, as was the Apostle John who wrote the fourth Gospel, and the Apocalypse – 32-33 The columbine flower (from Columba, “dove”) resembles seven hovering doves whose beaks meet at the flower’s pollinaries, doves signifying the Holy Ghost, and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit –Sapientia, Intellectus, Consilium, Fortitudo, Scientia, Pietas, Timor. 34 According to Manly P. Hall the dove represented the third person of the Creative Triad, i.e. the Fabricator/ generator of the world/lower worlds, thus being associated with the procreative deities, Astarte, Cybele, Isis, Venus, Juno, Mylitta, and Aphrodite. Because of the dove’s gentleness and devotion to its young it embodied maternal instinct, and also symbolised wisdom, as it represents the power and order by which the lower worlds are maintained. 35 In Masonry the dove symbolises purity and innocence, and in the pagan Mysteries the dove of Venus was crucified upon the four spokes of a great wheel, as Christ later would be. Mohammed drove the doves from the temple at Mecca, but he is sometimes depicted with a dove on his shoulder, symbolising divine inspiration (as in Christianity!). In ancient times sceptres were topped with effigies of doves to signify the carrier of the staff was overshadowed by divine prerogative, and in medieval art the dove is often pictured as an emblem of divine benediction. 36 It symbolises peace because it brought back to the ark, an olive branch (traditionally used as a kind of “white flag” between warring parties). 37 HPBlavatsky wrote about the universe created by a bird, and somewhat earlier than some French philosophers built a robotic duck, “Le Canard” which swam placidly on one of the large ponds in one of the public gardens in Paris; men from the machine age were postulating on a mechanistic universe. HPB in the Secret Doctrine later wrote about a universe in the form of a bird, and of an egg which it laid, the “Kalahansa bird of time”. One of the symbols of the Theosophical Society, on the cover of The Dialogues of GDPurucker, shows the winged orb, illustrated for you, which seems to trace to a “symbol of Horus at Edfu”, but the latter had ureas’s, which look like rearing cobras, on either side of the globe. Edfu was supposed to be the original home of Horus, which symbol also has a ureas on either side of the central solar disk. 38 The following story mirrors and expands upon, the aforementioned stories from other cultures. Here follows the story of the Creation and the Mundane Egg, all verbatim, selectively, according to HPB and the Secret Doctrine: Aristophanes wrote that Eros was born of the original egg, united itself with the winged Chaos, in the darkness and in Tartarus (the underworld) to engender the race of birds in a time when the Immortals did not yet exist. 39 Eros was Cupid, depicted as winged, and the consort of Psyche, personification of Mind. HPB writes about Apollo and Athena transforming themselves into the form of birds, the symbol and glyph of the higher divinities and angels, then Apollo assumes divine creative powers and the personification of Seership, when he sends the astral double of Aeneas to the battle field and has the gift of appearing to his Seers without being visible to other persons present. According to the Popul Vuh, sacred text of the Mayans, the gifts of mind were brought to Man by Quetzalcoatl, “the feathered serpent” “the god of the east”. This Mesoamerican deity conveyed wisdom, and a 9th century namesake who was a patron of learning and art. 40 A dynasty of namesake Tolteca kings followed their founder. He came from the east and his successors returned there. “The great civilizer” teacher of the arts and sciences, was also worshipped as Ehecatl, God of the Wind, Yolcuat the Rattle Snake, Quetzalcoatl or serpent covered with green feathers, corresponding with the Mayan name Kukulcán and the Quiché Gucumatz, Quetzalcoatl also being identified with the got Tohil, both being rain-gods. 41 Back to the Mundane Egg, HPB writes that the egg was revered because the creature within appeared to self-generate, and was figured to be dropped into the original Chaos by an invisible mysterious bird, which egg became the Universe. Brahm was called thus, Kalahansa, the swan in (Space and) Time who became the “Swan of Eternity” laying at the beginning of mahamanvantara a “Golden Egg” the great Circle, O, symbol for the universe and its spherical celestial bodies. 42 In it Ra, the Sun, gestated, the egg of a great hen, the egg of Seb, who issue from it like a hawk”. 43 The Vishnu Puranas call [this egg] the Hiranya or Shining Egg. HPB wrote that the Egg was the symbol of life in immortality and eternity, the glyph of the generative matrix, and the tau (T-shaped Cross) associated with it, only of life and birth in generation. 44
The ancient Greeks told the story of the birth of twin boys and twin girls from two eggs, born of Leda, a mortal woman, and of Zeus, who came to her in the form of a swan. Part of the theme of the tale is an inseparable connection between pure spirit and pure materiality, of the Omega and Alpha and of man being never quite the one nor the other, on his long climb upwards. HPBlavatsky also interprets it where Zeus is the father of the twins, as a cosmic myth of the world born from an egg. Leda herself becomes a white swan, that is her upper triad unites with the divine swan. Six eggs of gold are laid, and a seventh of iron, which are the planets. The mundane egg symbolises the origin and secret of being. The first cause was seen as an ever invisible, mysterious bird that dropped an egg into Chaos, which egg became the universe. So Brahm was called “the swan of eternity”, the Kalahansa, the swan in space and time. It lays a golden egg at the beginning of each Manvantara. The circle thus came to symbolise this earth, and the universe as a whole. HPBlavatsky says Brahma (neuter) means eternal swan or goose, and so is Brahmâ the creator, but really Brahma (neuter) is the Hansa-vahana, He who uses the swan as his vehicle, which vehicle is the Kalahansa, being both Hamsa and A-hamsa?! 45 In the Katha Upanishad, quoted by Blavatsky, it tells of Purusha, the divine spirit, “standing before original matter from which came the soul of the world, Maha Atma Brahm, the spirit of life, the universal soul, the astral light. In the Secret Doctrine, I, 360, it tells that Vishnu Purana, or intellect mahat, the unmanifested gross elements inclusive, formed an egg and the lord of the universe himself abided in it, in the character of Brahma. In that egg, oh Brahma, were the continents, the seas, the mountains, the planets, and divisions of the universes, the gods, the demons, and mankind”. The Egg gives birth to the 4 continents with the fifth, Ether, and is covered with seven covering, which become later on the seven upper and the seven lower worlds. Breaking in two, the shell becomes the heaven and the meat the earth, the white forming the terrestrial waters. Then again, it is Vishnu who emerges from within the egg with a lotus in hand, Vinata, a daughter of Daksha and wife of Kasyapa (”the Self-born sprung from Time,” one of the seven “creators” of our world”, brought forth an egg from which was born Garuda, the vehicle of Vishnu, the latter allegory having a relation to our earth only, as Garuda is the Great Cycle.46 The Mundane egg in the poem of Voluspa (the song of the prophetess), is again discovered in the phantom-germ of the Universe, which is represented as lying in the Ginnungagap – the cup of illusion (Maya) the boundless and void abyss. 47 HPB wrote that the creative duad had sacred to it aquatic plants and birds – the ibis, swan, goose, crocodile and lotus. 48 She said the aforementioned the sentence “God made the heavens and the earth” reads “In and out of his own essence as (the mundane egg) God created the two heavens, but the Christians have chosen the dove as the symbol of their Holy Ghost. 49 As we learned in the Angels talk, creation proceeded downwards from the upper triad of the hierarch, i.e. three triads and one, of the 10 part sephirophal tree/Adam Kadmon; “from the invisible Dew falling from the higher Uni-triad (leaving seven remaining sephiroths), the Head sephira creates primeval waters, i.e. Chaos takes shape and this is the first of many stages of solidification of spirit - “It requires earth and water to make a living soul”, says Moses, it requires the image of an aquatic bird to connect it with water, the female element of procreation with the egg and the bird which fecundates it”. 50
This primordial whirlwind, unfathomable darkness, is also called the “It of the Kalahansa, the Kala-ham-sa” and even the “Kali Hamsa”, Black Swan. 51 Hamsa is equal to a-ham-sa, meaning “I am he”, but divided in another way it reads “So-ham”, “he (is) I”, thus containing the universal mystery of the identity of man’s essence with god-essence, or Kalaham-sa, “I am I’, in the eternity of Time, as in the Biblical/Zoroastrian “I am that I am”. 52 (A-ham-sa, [I am he, so ham being equal to sah “he” and ahamn, “I”, a mystic anagram and permutation] It is also the “four-faced” Brahmâ, the Chatur mukha or perfect cube forming itself within, and from the infinite circle; and again the use of the 1,3,5, and 7/7 = 14, as the esoteric hierarchy of the Dhyan Chohans is explained. – 53 So the swan or goose is the symbol of that male or temporary deity who is the emanation of the primordial Ray who must serve as the vehicle for that divine Ray which otherwise could not manifest in the Universe, itself being an emanation of “Darkness”. 54 This ray paradoxically contains the other seven procreative rays or powers – the logoi or builders, and these in Rosicrucian symbology are the Pelican with its seven youngsters, the Ein Soph or primal cause being called the “Fiery Soul of the Pelican” in the Book of Numbers.55– the seven serpents may also be the seven headed serpent Sesha, mount of Vishnu, Kala is one of the names of Vishnu. 56 It appears every Manvantara as Narâyan or Swayambhuva (the Self-Existent), entering and then emerging from the Mundane Egg after incubation as Brahmâ or Prajâpati, a progenitor of the future universe into which it expands, being Purusha (spirit) but also Prakriti (matter), Prajâpati only becoming the male Brahmâ after separating into two halves, Brahmâ- vâch (the female) and mâ Brahmâ-Virâj (the male). 57 In the Hebrew Zohar, the Ein Soph or first cause, descends into Adam Kadmon (humanity) as its chariot or vehicle, for purposes of manifestation. 58 (HENCE the twins, born of the egg of Zeus and Leda!) It is seen as symbolising Divine Wisdom, Wisdom in darkness beyond the reach of men. The Hindus saying Hansa when given milk mixed with water for its food, separated the two, drinking the milk and leaving the water, thus showing inherent wisdom milk standing for spirit and water for matter. 59 This recalls how Garuda aided in the Creation by churning the waters/ milk to separate the sea from the dry land. Hansa the bird of wisdom has a parallel in Mazdean wisdom, and is called Karshipta, who brought the wisdom of Mazda (the logos), seen as “an incarnation of lightning”, its song often seen as “an utterance of a god and a revelation”; Karshpita is the human mindsoul, and the deity thereof, the soul of man, which no sooner had it entered man than he understood the law of Mazda, or Divine Wisdom; in the branches of the Biblical-like tree of knowledge of good and evil the birds lodge and build their nests, i.e. the souls and the Angels have their place.60 For the Kabalists the bird also symbolised Angel, a Soul, a Spirit, or Deva; and the “Bird’s Nest” was with both Heaven, and is God’s bosom in the Zohar. The perfect Messiah enters Eden “into that place which is called the “Bird’s Nest” 61 “Like a bird that is flying from its nest, and that is the Soul from which the Shekeenah (divine wisdom or grace) does not move away: (Zohar, iii., 278a; Myer’s Qabbalah, 217). “The Nest of the eternal Bird, the flutter of whose wings produces life, is boundless space”, says the Commentary, meaning Hansa, the bird of Wisdom. 62 Many traditions tell of birds bringing fire to Man – i.e. the light of the mind. From the bough of the celestial ash-tree (Yggdrasil) a divine bird nestled in that tree’s boughs stole the fruit from that bough and carried it to earth in its bill – Phoroneus (likened to Prometheus) is the personified bird, that brings the heavenly lightning to the Earth. 63 The “Rioletet (a thrush?) and in general all birds that have a red spot of plumage, are considered fire-bringers, the black woodpecker associated with a red mark made when it hammers on the tree trunk, also has this role. The eagle, bird of Zeus, and also the crow, brought the celestial fire to Man. 64 Garuda can be pictured as a vulture, goose, swan, or eagle, half-man, half-bird, is the mount of Vishnu, is the king of birds, and was born of Kasyapa and Vinat, one of the daughters of Daksha; he is the enemy of serpents, because his mother quarrelled with her co-wife and superior, Kandru, mother of serpents. At his birth Garuda’s lustre was so bright that the gods mistook him for Agni, the fire-god. He is said to have stolen the Amrita from the gods in order to purchase his mother’s freedom from Kandru. Indra battled for the Amrita, but lost and his thunderbolt was smashed. He looks like this figurine – eagle’s head, beak, wings and talons, man’s body and limbs, white face, red wings, golden body. (show the figurine). 65 The Amrita were the “precious things” given in sacrifice, the waters of life, and especially the Soma juice, which the gods needed for renewal of their strength after the battle. Vishnu bade them collect and strew, herbs upon the ocean of milk, which he churned using Mandara the Mountain as the churning-staff, Vasuki the serpent as the rope, Hari (Vishnu avatara’d as a tortoise) as the pivot, and as the churn to produce the drink of immortality. The first thing to be churned out of the maelstrom was a cow, promptly deified, and an eternal wellspring of milk and offerings of butter for mankind, as well as the nectar of the gods which the Suryas drank and won their battle against the demons, who had tried to obtain it for themselves, and who were thence cast into hell. 66
HPBlavatsky wrote that the half-man, half-bird Garuda, the vahan or vehicle on which Vishnu (who is Kâla or “time”) is the Indian Phoenix, emblem of cyclic and periodical time, the “man-lion” Singha. Over the seven rays of the lion’s crown, and corresponding to their points, stand, in many cases, the seven vowels of the Greek alphabet AEHIOY and omega, testifying to the Seven Heavens:. This is the Solar lion and the emblem of the Solar cycle, as Garuda is that of the great cycle, the Maha-Kalpa co-eternal with Vishnu, and also the emblem of the sun and Solar cycle. His birth-story shows this in allegory – At his birth Garuda is mistaken for Agni the god of Fire, due to Garuda’s dazzling splendour, and thereupon called “Lord of the sky”. Because he is represented as Osiris, and by many heads of allegorical monsters on the Abraxas (Gnostic) gems, with the head and beak of an eagle or a hawk (solar birds), denotes Garuda’s solar and cyclic character. His Son is Jâtabu, the cycle of 60,000 years. 67 The Hansa/Hamsa were also the original Hindu caste par excellence, living in a range in the Himalayas north of Mount Meru, called Hamsa, relating to religious mysteries and initiations.68 According to Sankarachârya, fire means a deity which presides over Time (kâla).(link to Garuda’s fiery colour, and seven snakes at beginning of time/world. – 69 In the time of Chaos, the ante-genetic period, the double Swan and the Dark Swan, which becomes white, when Light is created. The aquatic bird – a swan or goose, symbolising the Universal Principal, is a symbol found in every cosmogony and world religion 70 Because Vishnu rides Garuda/Hamsa, Vishnu is the god in space and time. 71 She says cosmogonies start either with a circle, an egg, or a head (of Adam Kadmon), and a darkness which surrounds this symbol, (Hindu, Egyptian, Chaldeo-Hebrew and even Scandinavian systems) – hence black ravens, black doves, black waters and even black flames- the black doves flew from Egypt and settling on the oaks of Dodona, gave their names to the Grecian gods, Noah lets out a black raven after the deluge, which is a symbol for the Cosmic pralaya before creation, Odin’s black ravens fluttered around the Goddess Saga and “whispered to her of the past and of the future”.72 The black birds are all connected with the primordial wisdom, which flows out of the precosmic Source of all, i.e. the head, circle or egg that we just mentioined, and all have the same meaning and relate to the primordial Archetypal man (Adam Kadmon), the creative origin of things which is composed of the Host of Creative Powers, the Creative Dhyan-Chohans, beyond with all is darkness (because un-create).73
The waters are the akasa, primordial ocean of Space. 74 The Hindus spoke of the Asvatta (tree of Life and Being, i.e. the Rod of the caduceus) which grows from and descends at every Beginning, i.e. every new Manvantara, from the two dark wings of the Swan (Hansa) of Life. The two serpents, the everliving and its illusion (spirit and matter) whose two heads grow from the one head between the wings, descend along the trunk, interlaced in close embrace. The two tails join on earth (the manifested Universe) into one, and this is the grat illusion, O Lanoo!” 75 HPBlavatsky moves from the bird as a symbol of cosmogenesis, to that of anthropogenesis, in Vol 2.HPBlavatsky also discusses the T-shaped Cross, called the Tau, in Egyptian and Mexican manuscripts, a central stem with two branches (the arms of the T), each branch bearing a triple bunch, with a bird, the bird of immortality, Atman or the divine Spirit, sitting between these two branches, thus making the seventh, representing the same idea as the Sephirophal Tree. 76 She quotes the Stanzas of Dhyzan, the Third or Sweat-born race being created. “The sweat grew, its drops grew, and the drops became hard and round. The sun warmed it; the moon cooled and shaped it; the wind fed it until its ripeness. The white swan from the starry vault (the Moon), overshadowed the big drop. The egg of the future race, the Man-Swan (Hamsa) or the later third (a) first male-female, then man and woman.77 HPBlavatsky often placed a triangle of dots after her signature, (like a “therefore” sign in mathematics), signifying the above-described divine swan which first called life into manifestation. The Swan by its grace and purity symbolised the spiritual grace and purity of the initiate; it also represented the Mysteries which unfolded these qualities in humanity. This explains the allegories of the gods (the secret wisdom) incarnating in the body of a swan (the initiate)78 Ovid tells Cygnus was changed into a swan as he mourned the death of Phaeton, who inexpertly flew the chariot of the Sun, and crashed to the ground. 79 Classical writers believed the swan loved music and uttered a beautiful song at its death, thus becoming associated with Apollo and thence certain muses, e.g. Erato and Clio, the soul of a poet supposedly entered into a swan; because of their beauty, swans drew the chariot of Venus.80 For the hyperborean peoples, the nightly journey of the sun was in a boat towed by swans. 81 The other bird extremely significant to theosophists, is the PHOENIX or BENU BIRD, as it symbolises the reincarnating ego. You’ll have seen this in Harry Potter. Clement (an pre-Nicæan Church father), wrote The Phoenix is the only one of its kind, lives for 500 [ (or 540 according to Pliny and Solon, 654 according to Suidas, or 1461 years according to Tacitus. 1461 was the period between risings of Syrius]. 82 years and when death is immanent it builds itself a nest of frankincense, and myrrh, and other spices, which it enters and dies and from its decay emerges a worm which nourished by the bird brings forth feathers, upon which it bears the nest and body from Arabia to Heliopolis, the city of the sun, in Egypt, places them on the altar of the sun, and flies back again. And having done this, hastens back to its former abode. Herodotus gave a similar account, Pliny described the capture of one of these birds and its exhibition on the Roman Forum during the reign of the Emperor Claudius, and Herodotus and Pliny noted the similarity in shape between the Phoenix and Eagle. The
Phoenix was the size of an eagle, had glossy purple body plumage and alternate blue and red long tail-feathers. Its head was light in colour, with a circlet or cone of golden plumage about its neck. At the back of its head was a peculiar tuft of feathers.83 Or: twice as long as an eagle, varied coloured wings, purple throat, vermillion claws, its neck covered in saffron coloured down, its head like that of a domestic rooster, pale yellow pupils, within a scarlet cornea, it is gilded by the rays of the sun, its feathers have the ability to stay afloat and not to sink, its song the most harmonious anyone could ever have heard, it seemed like the king of birds because all others flew meekly behind it and bent their head towards it; rapid as a bull in its advance – could be a golden pheasant, a heron? 84 Ovid and others affirm it fed on nothing but the “tears” of incense and the sap of an aromatic plant which the Romans embalmed their dead with, and perfumed their hair with.85 Its rising from the fire symbolises how Christ went to hell and rose again. 86 Harry Potter found out that the
Phoenix’s tears cured the poisonous bite of the basilisk. It was venerated at Heliopolis as the soul of Osiris. 87 Clébert wrote that according to G. Jequier (Considérations sur la religion égyptienne, p. 92 sq), the heron may have been its prototype, because of its stork-like habit of building nests on chimney-tops, and that when a pair of herons returned to Heliopolis to their old nest there, it was considered a good omen, so it was natural to regard the ashy-coloured heron as being given a divine origin, back in prehistoric times, and the renewal of the yearly calendar and the solar cycle, but at the end of the new empire the benu appeared as the ardea cinerea, the great grey heron with two long plumes trailing behind its head, and having its seat (of learning) at Heliopolis. 88 HPBlavatsky quoted Maspero that the Benu (or phoenix, the bird of resurrection in Eternity) in whom night follows the day and day the night – an allusion to the periodical cycles of cosmic resurrection and human reincarnation, was like Osiris, the Law of existence and Being – speaking of the wayfarer who crosses the millions of years, the name of One, and the great green, the primordial water of Chaos, the name of the other, one begetting millions of years in succession, the other engulfing them, to restore them back. He speaks of seven luminous ones who follow their Lord, who confers justice, i.e. Osiris in Amenti, the underworld. 89 HPBlavatsky discussed the Phoenix in relation to “the seven earths”, saying Phoenix is from Hebrew Phenoch, Enoch, symbol of a secret cycle and initiation) and by the Turks Kerkes; it lives 1000 years , then kindles a flame, is self-consumed, then is reborn from itself to live another thousand years, up to seven times seven = 49, the 49 Manus, the seven rounds, and the seven times seven human cycles in each Round on each globe. The Kerkes and the Onech stand for a race cycle, and the mystical tree Ababel – the “Father Tree: in the Koran, shoots out new branches and vegetation at every resurrection of the Kerkes or Phoenix; the “Day of Judgement” meaning a “minor Pralaya” – the Roc is the same as the Simorgh, in age and details 90 It was born cycles and cycles before Adam’s time, and saw the birth and close of 12 cycles of 7000 years, i.e. 840,000 years; Simorgh was born with the last deluge of the pre-Adamites. 91 The phoenix was regarded as sacred to the sun, the length of its life (500-1000 years) was taken as a standard for measuring the motion of the heavenly bodies and also the cycles of time used in the Mysteries to designate the periods of existence. The diet of the bird is unknown, some saying it subsisted upon the atmosphere, others that it ate very rarely but never in the presence of man. It’s described as using sprigs of Acacia to make its nest, something modern Masons should take note of. 92
The Phoenix is the Persian Roc, (said to be able to carry an elephant in its claws - and is the name for the Southern constellation, having therefore both astronomical and astrological significance. It was probably the Swan of the Greeks, the Eagle of the Romans, and the peacock of the Far East. 93 The phoenix could also be the eagle, or the pelican, spoken of by HPB, above. Christian lore says the pelican which tore open her own chest/flank to feed her seven young with her blood, just as Christ’s side was torn and the blood of the Eucharist flowed out, thus the pelican is a Christian emblem of our redemption, through Christ’s sufferings. 94 [William of
Normandy wrote that when the chicks began to grow they hit their parents in the face, an outflow of fish tumbling down, killing them. They wept over them for three days and on the third day the mother, opening her side, lay upon her chicks and bled upon them, thus reviving them]. 95 Caucasus in Arabic means pelican mountain, upon which Prometheus was pecked in the side by an eagle, like the pelican allowing his side to be opened to assure to Man the possession of a celestial divine fire.96 It’s interchangeable with the woodpecker as the bringer of fire, its name in Latin meaning “pic”. Reversing this idea, the stork was believed in Medieval bestiaries to feed its parents when they could no longer care for themselves, thus symbolising filial piety.97 In the Mysteries initiates were referred to as Phoenixes or men who had been born again, for just as physical birth gives man consciousness in the physical world, so the neophyte, after nine degrees in the womb of the Mysteries, was born into a consciousness of the spiritual world – the initiation Christ referred to when saying: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John iii.3). The phoenix is a fitting symbol of this spiritual rebirth. Manly P Hall thinks the eagle on the seal of the United States is actually a phoenix, a key Masonic symbol, because of two preparatory images one shows a phoenix on one side and the great pyramid of Gizeh on the other, and another, a phoenix sitting on its nest of flames. 98 The bird in the 1782 version was slenderer, had a longer neck, shorter wings, less hooked beak, and a tuft of feathers on its head found on an Egyptian Phoenix, depicted with the body of a man, and the wings of a bird, kneeling upon a “neb” hieroglyph, with hands upheld (in prayer?) with a star in front of him; the phoenix was a symbol of regeneration, so the tuft might symbolise the activity of the pineal gland or third eye. 99 This tuft might the fanned-out tail of the peacock, which according to one myth was the solar wheel, the Sufis saying God created the spirit in the form of a peacock and showed it His proper image in the mirror of the divine essence. 100 The eagle holds arrows in one claw and an olive branch in the other, symbolising both war and peace. 101 Early Christians adopted the phoenix to symbolise Christ’s Resurrection, in funerary sculpture, of crucifixion in Medieval art, and also symbolised Chastity. 102 The phoenix is the aspect of the universal spirit described by HPB’s creation stories, as seen from the human aspect of humanity’s own spirituality, the link with the spirit of the Lord that hovered over the deep at the Beginning. To conclude with a repeat of the Beginning, birds aided in the creation of the cosmos, and in our spiritualisation, and inspire us to fly near the light and live in our higher triad, of which birds are a potent symbol.
MONOGRAMS:
THE EAGLE symbolised courage. Jupiter’s eagle was the master of thunder and lightening, king of birds and king of kings, its piercing eyesight saw all, it knew all and played an augural role; it is carved on lecterns at church, because the eagle and the lectern deliver a divine message [from reading from the Bible]. Because it regrew its feathers periodically it symbolised the Christian neophyte who renewed his life in the baptismal water, and the eagle thus “became” Christ himself. 103 Perhaps due to its soaring beyond the field of vision, it is regarded as a solar bird, able to look the sun in the face, without lowering its eyelids or burning its eyes; it could hover above the hub of the world, first having travelled with the course of the sun – as the sun itself, it accumulated the functions of light and fire, it is the emblem of Zeus and often that god himself; it was the carrier of the divine fire before the birth of the master of Olympus (Zeus).104 The Greeks thought Jupiter’s eagle carried the celestial winds between its talons. 105 According to Manly P. Hall, the Eagles of Napoleon and Caesar & the zodiacal eagle of Scorpio are really phoenixes, for the latter bird, not the eagle, is the symbol of spiritual victory and achievement. They also symbolised watchfulness. 106 He figures the single and double headed eagles are phoenixes, and that to all initiates and philosophers the phoenix is the symbol of transmutation and regeneration of the creative energy – commonly called the accomplishment of the Great work. The double headed phoenix is the prototype of an androgynous man, for according to the secret teachings there will come a time when the human body will have two spinal cords, by means. 107
HAWKS: Birds were used to symbolise the vital breath, hawklike birds with human heads, with the symbols of immortality in their claws, are shown hovering as emblems of the liberated soul over the mummified bodies of the dead. To the Egyptians the hawk was the sacred symbol of the sun; and Ra, Osiris, and Horus are often depicted with the heads of hawks. 108 The Icelanders say the bustard can be seen at the foot of the deathbed if the person’s soul has taken flight. 109 Goldfinches are often depicted in the hand of a child, they were favourite childhood pets, when held by the Christ-child it presages His road to Calvary to the Christians symbolised the soul issuing from a dying person’s mouth, Calvary when a goldfinch flew over His head and drew out a thorn from his brow, being splashed on the head with a blood-drop, thus attaining this red plumage. 110 This concept is retained in Christian art, but the soul issues forth in the form of a dove. 111 A dove issuing from a nun’s mouth signifies her rising to heaven, and from the mouth of dying saints, to reach the regions of light and reward. 112 King David in Psalm 124, described the Lord delivering Israel from the teeth of her enemies, like a bird escaping its captor: “Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped. HPB writes that an egg is also pictured hovering over the mummy, the promise of the hope and promise of a second birth for the Osirified dead, when the soul after purification in Amenti (bodiless state, purgatory) will gestate in this egg of immortality, to be reborn from it into a new life on earth. This relates to the hawk, symbol of Osiris-Sun’s dual significance, to both lives, the mortal and the immortal – it naturally relates back to the original winged globe at the beginning of the universe. 113 Falcons: Horus the god-master of the heavens, had one eye which was the sun, one eye which was the moon – was attributed to Ra and symbolised the rising sun; a hooded falcon represents hope and light which sustained those who live in the shadows. 114 Horus: Special protector of kings, one eye was the sun, the other the moon, son of Isis and Osiris he came to be linked with the life-giving sky and the life-giving earth; “Horus the Child” (2nd of two successive gods) was the first of the long chain of pharaohs. 115 Hawks and other hunting animals were exchanged as gifts between Pwyll, lord of Arberth, king of the Otherworld, in the First Branch of the Mabinogi. 116 [Isis, after the incorporation of her husband’s body into a tree which became a temple-pillar, flew about this pillar in the form of a swallow. 117 WR = swallow = greatness in hieroglyphics. HPBlavatsky says to the Egyptians the hawk was the bird of initiation, a scene from the temple of Philoe showing a hawk-headed god (symbolic of the Sun) and an ibis-headed god (Mercury, Thoth, god of Wisdom and secret learning, the assessor of Osiris-Sun), standing over a newly initiated candidate, pouring on his head a double stream of water (both life and new birth), which water is interlaced in the shape of a cross and full of small ansated crosses: 118 She says the Egyptians used the symbol of a serpent with a hawk’s head to allude to the North pole and also the pole of the heavens which produces the seasons according to the angle at which it penetrates the centre of the earth – and to the Kosmos which had this large fiery circle, the serpent with the hawk’s head, lying across its diameter. 119
CHICKENS AND ROOSTERS: The Rooster was a symbol of Cashmala (Cadmillus) in the Samothracian Mysteries, also a phallic symbol sacred to the sun. Symbol of vigilance and resurrection, and hence of the immortality of the soul, it was consecrated to Hermes, Apollo, and Asclepius, as well as to Ares/Mars. 120 The Muslims believe a giant rooster will awake the dead at the Last Judgement, but that the Scandinavians thought a red rooster will announce the end of the world.121 Cranes and geese also symbolised vigilance 122 [This is because in the Historia Animalium of Aristotle (9:10) cranes supposedly slept standing on one leg, the other claw holding a stone which if dropped, re-awakened the bird.]. Mercury’s chariot was drawn by cocks, or by storks. 123 Also because of the thousand precautions she takes to hide her nest or to escape from her enemies. 124 When placed in the centre of a weather vane it signifies the sun in the midst of the four corners of creation. The Greeks sacrificed a rooster to the gods at the time of entering the Eleusinian Mysteries. Sir Francis Bacon is supposed to have died as a result of stuffing a fowl with snow – perhaps a symbol of his initiation into the pagan Mysteries which still existed in his day. They are the attribute of St. Peter who thrice denied Christ ere the cock crowed, and repented, in Mark 14:66-72). The rooster or dove signify lust. 125 Chickens (of the Celtic Iron Age) were Red Jungle Fowl, imported from India or the Far East (& are notable post-Roman occupation, moderate in size but smaller than the Romano period ones), they arrived later in Britain than in Celtic Europe; Caesar saying the Britons shunned the eating of geese and chickens, but they used them increasingly during the occupation- most likely they were greylag geese and mallard ducks which both appear in funerary offerings in Gaul, and were represented in the religious iconography then too. They were newcomers to Europe in the Hallstatt times?!, thought to have been imported from
India. 126 (Miranda Green; Animals in Celtic Life and Myth, London, Routledge, 1992 - 22-24, 142) Romano-Celtic deities are depicted carrying eggs: the healer goddess Sirona at Hochscheid in
Germany carrying a bowl of three eggs, and the Genii Cucallati at Cirencester Gloucester carries eggs as fertility symbols. Caesar commented that neither geese nor chickens were eaten by the Britons, but both appear as food-offerings in Gaulish graves, and in domestic refuse-sites of Iron Age
Britain. 127 Were sacrificed along with a goat, in a
temple of
Mercury, and were associated with the Celtic Mars.
PEACOCKS: Peacock’s “eyes” on its tail-feathers symbolised wisdom; its general appearance made it get confused with the phoenix. Its flesh was supposed not to rot if kept a long time, and linked with this idea it came to symbolise immortality, because the spiritual nature of man is also incorruptible. Though seen to symbolise pride in Aesop’s fables, and the symbol of chief of the Greek and roman goddesses, Juno, whose chariot was drawn by “brightly coloured peacocks… (which) had only recently acquired their bright plumage, at the time of Argus’s death – Argus had been the 100-eyed giant, set by Juno to guard Io, illegal beloved of Jove; Argus was slain by Hermes at Jove’s bequest. 128 Thence it became a symbol of vigilance and contemplation.129 In memory Juno took his eyes and set them in the tail of her peacock. 130 Peacocks to the early Christians were thought to be immortal, their flesh never rotted. Thus they symbolised the change of life to immortality, and of Christ’s resurrection, because in pre-Christian times peacocks represented the apotheosis of an empress (it was the symbol of Juno, chief goddess of the Greeks and Romans). 131 Also: Pride. (Manly P. Hall.). It also represented resurrection because its lovely plumes moulted in autumn like dead leaves, not to regrow until spring. 132
THE IBIS was paid divine honours by the Egyptians, to kill one was a cardinal crime, even if by accident, they thought Ibises could only live in Egypt and if transported elsewhere it’d die of grief; it was declared the preserver of corpses; it drove out the winged serpents of Libya which the wind blew into Egypt; it was sacred to Thoth, and when it tucked its head under its wing the bird closely resembled a human heart (See Montfaucon’s Antiquities). It rid the banks of the Nile of many reptiles, but it was believed basilisks hatched from ibis eggs whose eggs were thus sought out and destroyed – it was a symbol of prosperity and the protector of agriculture. 133 He was the physical form of the god Thoth, patron of the the prophetic word, of warriors, enchanters and magicians, later assimilated with the Greek god Hermes, [because that god assumed this form when escaping from Typhon the evil one – SC I, p.362] has the ibis attribute, symbol of practical intellect and esoteric knowledge, thus becoming the symbol of hermetic knowledge. 134 (The black and white ibis was sacred to the moon; but all forms were revered because they destroyed crocodile eggs and crocodiles were the symbol of Typhon, (Osiris’s adversary). The moon was early identified with the white ibis-god Thout, local divinity of Khmun(u)-Hermopolis, [because the moon turns its light side towards us but its darker side away who thus became the deity of reckoning and writing and in his capacity as secretary of the company of gods acted as the judge of divinities and of men. 135 This is because the moon was the easiest regulator of time for early man. He mended or replaced the eye of the celestial god, - the moon regulates such disturbances as eclipses, and is a weaker heavenly eye than the sun. Some say the ibis’s bill is shaped like the sickle-moon. Sometimes Thouth sails like the sun across the heavenly ocean in a ship, or originally he flew over the sky in the form of a white ibis. 136 HPB wrote that the Ibis was sacred to
Isis, represented as Ibis-headed. and that the white ibis sought saurian eggs in the moonlight, sacred to
Isis. HPB feels that the underlying truth of these stories is that Hermes watched the Egyptians in the form of the ibis, and taught them the hidden arts and sciences.137 NOCTURNAL BIRDS symbolised both sorcery and the secret divine sciences, the former because it can’t function in the light of day and is powerful only when surrounded by ignorance (night), the latter because those processing the arcane are able to see through the darkness of ignorance and materiality. OWLS were thus associated with witchcraft or wisdom – perhaps because of the horn-like feathers on its head. The owl was the attribute of Hecate (queen of hell) [that with horn-like feathers on its head], but also Minerva (goddess of wisdom) [that without horns], had the attribute of the owl. 138 Lady patronesses of the arts were pictured beside an owl perched on a pile of books. 139 The creation of the former is told by Ovid – Proserpine the queen of the underworld had been taken their by force by Hades, her return prevented by a secret informant who told that she had broken her promise not to eat the food of that place – she changed the informer into “a sluggish, screeching owl, a loathsome bird, which heralds impending disaster, a harbinger of woe for mortals”. 140 Attribute of Night, and of Sleep 141 Clébert writes that the owl (Chouette) could see in the moonlight, i.e. the reflected sunlight, from which its proper reflection on the intellectual plan??? = level? – this permitted it to see beneath the mirror of appearances. Athena (goddess of wisdom) could become an owl to protect or punish people. It was a particularly silent bird, capable of astonishingly stillness, and whose stare fascinated – it became the symbol of the old student, of esoteric knowledge, for seekers after the Absolute, Alchemists or occultists. 142
THE CROW symbolised by its blackness the chaos of this chaotic darkness preceding the light of Creation. 143 Ovid told that it informed upon the indiscretions of a nymph Coronis of Larissa, the raven, the “bird of Phoebus” with snow-white feathers, accompanied by the crow, which tried to warn him he’d also be changed into a black bird for his deeds, because the crow had told that a child entrusted to three royal sisters’ care, was left to them by Pallas (Athena) and was accompanied by a snake in a locked chest (the king himself being half man half snake). The crow told this news and was dispelled from his “place as Minerva’s attendant”, and ranked lower than the bird of night”.144 Apollo shot the nymph with an arrow, tore the child from her womb, and gave it to the centaur Chiron to rear, it became the god of medicine, Asclepius 145 Phocis, a nymph pursued by Neptune, was saved by “the maiden goddess” Minerva who turned Phocis into a white crow the and carried her up to heaven to be her attendant of Minerva. 146 Thus it became Apollo’s messenger, and symbolised hope personified. 147 There is a widely told Christian story of a raven brought a loaf of bread to a holy man in the desert. 148 When Noah released first a black raven, then a white dove, this was the dark the shadows which were only dissipated by the rediscovered light. For the Celtic god of light the crow stole the sun and the celestial fire, as the bird of Prometheus 149
ORACULAR BIRDS: HPB wrote that the culmination of the mathematical calculations handed from Orpheus to Suidas, of how to see from the separated white and yolk of the egg, what that bird would have seen during the course of its short life.150 Clébert wrote that birds could reveal the secrets of the future because they are known as the receptacles of the souls of the dead ot as the ephifinies of the gods, to understand their language and imitate their voice was the equivalent to being able to speak to the gods (To understand birds was a condition essential for uncovering the secrets of the gods- to understand birds was a condition essential for uncovering the secrets of the gods; the French name for Bird, Oiseau, is from Ornis in Greek which became a synonym for foreknowledge, and their alertness and intelligence, made them the veritable instruments in service of the divinity. 151 Birds such as the parrot and raven were venerated because they could mimic the human voice and were seen as links between the human and animal kingdoms.152 The Halcyon or kingfisher is a “natural barometer” because myth says Zeus allowed it to nest at the waterside for the seven days prior to and the seven days coming after, the winter solstice, so it indicates the calm weather. The green woodpecker is a thunder-bird. The Plover’s French name is Pluvier, meaning “rainer”, announces the rain. Some birds could decide if a sick person lived or died. The Cormorant could predict bad weather when it gave a cry like an infant. The Ibis was a flood-predictor. The cuckoo announced spring and happiness, it presided over Justice and resuscitated the dead. The kite according to the Greeks, was an oracular bird attached to Apollo due to its piercing eyesight and because it flew to the high celestial spheres. The goose was a solar bird it is also a prophetic and oracular bird, the latter because of it aggressive watchfulness, on account of which the temple geese heard the invading Gauls and warned the Romans, of their approach. The bustard announced the spring, and was a messenger of resurrection. The petrel announces bad weather and storms and like the cormorant and albatross is the incarnation of the souls of sailors lost at sea. 153
THE HERON was a warrior called Turnus who arose from the midst of the ruin and confusion and his city’s red-hot ashes, its wings covered with cinders, lean and pale, uttering mournful cries, all the other characteristics of a captured town. Even the name of the city survived in that of the bird, the Ardea, changed into a heron, beats itself with its own wings, and bemoans its fate. 154
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Blavatsky, H.P., The Secret Doctrine, Pasadena, California, Theosophical University Press, 1952. vols 1 and 2. H. P. Blavatsky, Theosophical Glossary,
Los Angeles, The Theosophy Company, 1971. Clébert, J.P., Bestiare Fabuleux, Paris, Editions Albin Michel, 1971. Clement, Clara Erskine, Legendary and Mythological Art,
London, Bracken Books, 1994. Clow, W. M., The Bible Reader’s Encyclopaedia and Concordance,
London and
New York, Collins’ Clear-Type Press, date? Dowson, John, A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History and Literature, Calcutta, Rupa & Co., 1989. Frazer, J.G., The Golden Bough, A study in Magic and Religion., London, Basingstoke & MacMillan Press Ltd., 1978. Gesses & Grosset, Ancient
Egypt Myth & History. Geddes & Grosset, 1997. Gossen, G.H., (ed.) South American & Meso-American Native Spirituality,
New York, The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1993. Green, Miranda; Animals in Celtic Life and Myth,
London, Routledge, 1992, 22-24) Hall, Manly P., The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopaedic outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy, LA, Cal, The Philosophical Research Society, Inc.,1975, lxxxix – xci) Hulpach, V., American Indian Tales and Legends, London, Paul Hamlyn, 1965. Keller, J.E. and Keating, L.C., (trans.), Aesop’s Fables, with a Life of Aesop, The University Press of Kentucky, 1993. Morley, D.G. and S.G., Popul Vuh, The Sacred Book of the Ancient Quiché Maya, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1950, 1972. Muller, W. Max, Egyptian Mythology, London, Calcutta, Sydney, George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., year? Ovid, Metamamorphoses, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1955.
Purucker, G. de, The Dialogues of G. de Purucker, Covina, California, Theosophical University Press, 1948. The New Chain-Reference Bible, Indianapolis, Indiana, B. B. Kirkbride Bible Co., Inc., 1964 ENDNOTES:
1 Clébert, p. 156.
2 Hall, p.122
3 Hall, p. 48.
4 Hall, p.130
5 Hall, p.132.
6 Frazer,p.239
7 Frazer, p. 325.
8 Manly P. Hall,
9 Muller, p.174.
10 Keating, pp. 193-4 11 Keating, pp.110-111. 12 MP Hall.
13 V. Hulpach, pp. 4-28. 14 V. Hulpach, pp. 4-28. 15 Clébert, p. 268. 16 Clébert, p. 270
17 Geddes & Grosset, pp.34-35 18 Muller, p.41. 19 Clébert, p. 124. 20 Clement, pp. 19-20, & Hall, p.109.
21 Clement, pp. 19-20. 22 Hall, p.109. 23 Clement, p.12. 24 Clébert, p. 26
25 Clébert pp.26-27 26 Clébert pp.26-27 27 Clement, p.16 28 Clement, pp.18-29.
29 Ovid, p.327 30 Hall, p.109 31 MP Hall. 32-33 Bryant, Analysis of Ancient Mythology, in MP Hall.
34 Hall, pp. 72-73 & 243 35 M.P.Hall 36 Manly P. Hall 37 Clébert, p. 124 38 Muller, p.109
39 Clébert, p. 271. 40 Gossen, p.5, Pupul Vuh p.65. 41 Popul Vuh, pp.69,189 42 SD I, p.359. 43 SD I, p.359
44 SD I, p.365 45 SD I, p.20 46 SD I, P.366 47 SD I, P.366 48 SD I, p. 353
49 SD I, p. 354 50 SD I, p. 354 51 SD II, p. 77. 52 SD II, p. 78. 53 SD,p.465 54 SD II, p. 80 55 SD II, p. 80
56 SD I, pp. 407 and 427
57 SD, II, p. 81
58 H. P. Blavatsky, Theosophical Glossary, Los Angeles, The Theosophy Company, 1971, p.134
59 SD II, p. 79
60 SD II, p. 292.
61 Zohar, ii, 8b.
62 SD II, p. 293
63 SD II, p. 521
64 Clébert, pp.272, 25 and 134 65 Dowson, pp.109-110
66 Dowson, pp.12-14
67 SD II, pp. 564-565 68 SD II, p. 79
69 SD I, p. 86 70 SD I, p. 357
71 SDI, p. 422 72 SD I, p.443
73 SD I, p.443 74 SD I, p. 458
75 SD I, p. 549 76 SD II, p. 36
77 SD II, p. 131 78 Manly P. Hall
79 Hall, p. 244 80 Hall, p. 294
81 Clébert, p. 147 82 Clébert p. 300
83 MP Hall
84 Clébert p. 301 85 Clébert, p. 301
86 Clébert, p. 301 87 Clébert, p. 61
88 Clébert, p. 205
89 HPB, SD, Vo. 1, p. 312.
90 SD II, p. 617
91 SD II, p. 397
92 MP Hall
93 Clébert, p.333
94 Clement, p.4
95 Clébert, p. 296
96 Clébert, p. 296 97 Hall, p. 292
98 MPHall
99 Manly P. Hall 100 Clébert, p. 290
101 Clébert, p.290 102 Hall, p. 247
103 Clébert pp.26-27 104 Clébert, p. 25
105 Clébert, p. 272 106 Hall, p. 143
107 M.P. Hall 108 Manly P. Hall
109 Clébert, p. 288 110 Hall, pp. 330-331
111: MP Hall, and Hall, p. 330-331 112: Hall, p.109, Clébert, p.124.
113: SD I, P.365 114 Clébert, pp.186-187
115: Geddes & Grosset, p.379
116: Green, p.56 117: Clébert, p. 210.
118: SD II, p. 538
119: SD II, p. 356-7 120 Clébert, p. 125
121 Clébert, p. 125 122 Hall p.76
123 Hall, pp.72 & 292 124 Clébert, p. 201.
125 Manly P. Hall, & Hall, p. 72 & 240,
126 Hall, p.196.
127 Green, 34, 125-6. 128 Ovid, pp.45-7
129 Clébert, p. 292 130 Hall, p. 182.
131 Clement, p.4, Hall, p. 238. 132 Clébert, p. 292.
133: Clébert, pp. 214-215 134 Clébert, p. 214
135 Manly P. Hall, & SD I, p. 362 136 Muller, pp. 33-34.
137 SD I, P.362. 138 MP Hall.
139 Hall, p.210.
140 Ovid, p.130.
141 Hall, p.224, 231 142 Clébert, pp. 117-118.
143 MP Hall 144 Ovid, pp.64-65.
145 Hall, p.29. 146 Ovid, pp.65-66.
147 Hall, p.221. 148 Hall, p.260.
149 Clébert, p. 132& 134. 150 SD I, P.362-3.
151 Clébert, pp. 272 and 274, 276. 152 Manly P. Hall
153 Clébert, pp.31,303,305,125,136,256,268,288,299
154 Ovid, p.326.