The Zodiac and Its Sacred Origins: From Theosophy’s Sacred Teachings in “The Secret Doctrine,” Part 2 of 2

Today, we are pleased to present excerpts from Section 16 of “The Secret Doctrine,” where Madame Blavatsky (vegetarian) explores ancient myths, sacred traditions, and the 25,868-year Sidereal Year to show the deep antiquity and esoteric roots of the Zodiac.

“[…] Diogenes Laërtius carried back the astronomical calculations of the Egyptians to 48,863 years before Alexander the Great.

Martianus Capella corroborates this by telling posterity that the Egyptians had secretly studied Astronomy for over 40,000 years, before they imparted their knowledge to the world. Several valuable quotations are made in Natural Genesis with the view of supporting the author's theories, but they justify the teaching of the Secret Doctrine far more.

For instance, Plutarch is quoted from his Life of Sulla, saying: ‘One day when the sky was serene and clear, there was heard in it the sound of a trumpet, so loud, shrill, and mournful, that it affrighted and astonished the world. The Tuscan sages said that it portended a new race of men, and a renovation of the world; for they affirmed that there were eight several kinds of men, all being different in life and manners; and that Heaven had allotted each its time, which was limited by the circuit of the great year [25,868 years].’

This reminds one strongly of our Seven Races of men, and of the eighth— the ‘animal man’— descended from the later Third Race; as also of the successive submersions and destruction of the continents which finally disposed of almost all that Race. Says Iamblichus: ‘The Assyrians have not only preserved the memorials of seven-and-twenty myriads of years [270,000 years], as Hipparchus says they have, but likewise of the whole apocatastases and periods of the Seven Rulers of the World.’

This is as nearly as possible the calculation of the Esoteric Doctrine. For 1,000,000 years are allowed for our present Root-Race (the Fifth), and about 850,000 years have passed since the submersion of the last large island— part of the continent of Atlantis— the Ruta of the Fourth Race, the Atlanteans; while Daitya, a small island inhabited by a mixed race, was destroyed about 270,000 years ago, during the Glacial Period or thereabouts. But the Seven Rulers, or the seven great Dynasties of the Divine Kings, belong to the traditions of every great people of antiquity. Wherever twelve are mentioned, they are invariably the twelve signs of the Zodiac. So patent is this fact, that the Roman Catholic writers— especially among the French Ultramontanes— have tacitly agreed to connect the twelve Jewish Patriarchs with the Signs of the Zodiac. […]”