Page 353 - The_secret_teachings_of_all_ages_Neat

[paragraph continues] Of this fuller nature the mortal man has little comprehension. Just as spirit
contains matter within itself and is both the source and ultimate of the state denominated
matter, so Eve represents the lower, or mortal, portion that is taken out of, or has
temporal existence in the greater and fuller spiritual creation. Being representative of the
inferior part of the individual, Eve is the temptress who, conspiring with the serpent of
mortal knowledge, caused Adam to sink into a trancelike condition in which he was
unconscious of his own higher Self. When Adam seemingly awoke, he actually sank into
sleep, for he no longer was in the spirit but in the body; division having taken place
within him, the true Adam rested in Paradise while his lesser part incarnated in a material
organism (Eve) and wandered in the darkness of mortal existence.

The followers of Mohammed apparently sensed more accurately than the uninitiated of
other sects the true mystic import of Paradise, for they realized that prior to his fall the
dwelling place of man was not in a physical garden in any particular part of the earth but
rather in a higher sphere (the angelic world) watered by four mystical streams of life.
After his banishment from Paradise, Adam alighted on the Island of Ceylon, and this spot
is sacred to certain Hindu sects who recognize the old Island of Lanka--once presumably
connected with the mainland by a bridge--as the actual site of the Garden of Eden from
which the human race migrated. According to the Arabian Nights (Sir Richard Burton's
translation), Adam's footprint may still be seen on the top of a Ceylonese mountain. In
the Islamic legends, Adam was later reunited with his wife and after his death his body
was brought to Jerusalem subsequent to the Flood for burial by Melchizedek. (See the
Koran.)

The word ADM signifies a species or race and only for lack of proper understanding has
Adam been considered as an individual. As the Macrocosm, Adam is the gigantic
Androgyne, even the Demiurgus; as the Microcosm, he is the chief production of the
Demiurgus and within the nature of the Microcosm the Demiurgus established all the
qualities and powers which He Himself possessed. The Demiurgus, however, did not
possess immortality and, therefore, could not bestow it upon Adam. According to legend,
the Demiurgus strove to keep man from learning the incompleteness of his Maker. The
Adamic man consequently partook of the qualities and characteristics of the angels who
were the ministers of the Demiurgus. It was affirmed by the Gnostic Christians that the
redemption of humanity was assured through the descent of Nous (Universal Mind), who
was a great spiritual being superior to the Demiurgus and who, entering into the
constitution of man, conferred conscious immortality upon the Demiurgic fabrications.

That phallic symbolism occupies an important place in early Jewish mysticism is
indisputable. Hargrave Jennings sees in the figure of Adam a type of the lingam of Shiva,
which was a stone representative of the creative power of the World Generator. "In
Gregorie's works * * *," writes Jennings, "is a passage to the effect that 'Noah daily
prayed in the Ark before the Body of Adam,' i.e., before the Phallus--Adam being the
primitive Phallus, great procreator of the human race. 'It may possibly seem strange,' he
says, 'that this orison should be daily said before the body of Adam,' but 'it is a most
confessed tradition among the eastern men that Adam was commanded by God that his
dead body should be kept above ground till a fullness of time should come to commit it