Logos

Logos (λόγος) is a Greek word that means "word," "speech," "reason." It became a technical term in philosophy beginning with Heraclitus (ca. 535–475 BC), who used the term for a principle of order and knowledge.

H. P. Blavatsky talks about three Logoi: "the unmanifested 'Father,' the semi-manifested 'Mother' and the Universe, which is the third Logos of our philosophy or Brahmâ." These three Logoi can be seen as "the personified symbols of the three spiritual stages of Evolution." Yet all the three Logoi are one.

There is no differentiation with the First Logos; differentiation only begins in latent World-Thought, with the Second Logos, and receives its full expression, i. e., becomes the "Word" made flesh--with the Third.

First Logos

The First Logos is unmanifested, and it is the first stage in the process of reawakening of the cosmos from the rest in pralaya. This Logos is frequently depicted as a white "potential" point in a black circle.

When the first Logos radiates through primordial and undifferentiated matter there is as yet no action in Chaos. “The last vibration of the Seventh Eternity” is the first which announces the Dawn, and is a synonym for the First or unmanifested Logos. There is no Time at this stage. There is neither Space nor Time when beginning is made; but it is all in Space and Time, once that differentiation sets in.

Associated to the unmanifested Logos is the idea of a "ray" that flashes out from it, and that begins the differentiation in matter:

The solitary ray dropping into the mother deep may be taken as meaning Divine Thought or Intelligence, impregnating chaos.

The Ray [is] periodical. Having flashed out from this central point and thrilled through the Germ, the Ray is withdrawn again within this point and the Germ develops into the Second Logos, the triangle within the Mundane Egg.

Second Logos

The ray that comes from the First Logos begins the process of differentiation and produces the Second Logos, the first point (after the potential one):

The first stage is the appearance of the potential point in the circle—the unmanifested Logos. The second stage is the shooting forth of the Ray from the potential white point, producing the first point, which is called, in the Zohar, Kether or Sephira. The third stage is the production from Kether of Chochmah, and Binah, thus constituting the first triangle, which is the Third or manifested Logos.

The point in the Circle is the Unmanifested Logos, corresponding to Absolute Life and Absolute Sound. The first geometrical figure after the Circle or the Spheroid is the Triangle. It corresponds to Motion, Color and Sound. Thus the Point in the Triangle represents the Second Logos, “Father-Mother,” or the White Ray which is no color, since it contains potentially all colors. It is shown radiating from the Unmanifested Logos, or the Unspoken Word. Around the first Triangle is formed on the plane of Primordial Substance in this order (reversed as to our plane)

The Second Logos partaking of both the essences or natures of the first and the last.

At the time of the primordial radiation, or when the Second Logos emanates, it is Father-Mother potentially, but when the Third or manifested Logos appears, it becomes the Virgin-Mother.

Female Logos

Kwan-Yin, [is] the “Divine Voice” literally. This “Voice” is a synonym of the Verbum or the Word: “Speech,” as the expression of thought. Thus may be traced the connection with, and even the origin of the Hebrew Bath-Kol, the “daughter of the Divine Voice,” or Verbum, or the male and female Logos, the “Heavenly Man” or Adam Kadmon, who is at the same time Sephira. The latter was surely anticipated by the Hindu Vâch, the goddess of Speech, or of the Word. For Vâch—the daughter and the female portion, as is stated, of Brahmâ, one “generated by the gods”—is, in company with Kwan-Yin, with Isis (also the daughter, wife and sister of Osiris) and other goddesses, the female Logos, so to speak, the goddess of the active forces in Nature, the Word, Voice or Sound, and Speech. If Kwan-Yin is the “melodious Voice,” so is Vâch; “the melodious cow who milked forth sustenance and water” (the female principle)—“who yields us nourishment and sustenance,” as Mother-Nature. She is associated in the work of creation with the Prajâpati. She is male and female ad libitum, as Eve is with Adam. And she is a form of Aditi—the principle higher than Ether—in Akâsa, the synthesis of all the forces in Nature; thus Vâch and Kwan-Yin are both the magic potency of Occult sound in Nature and Ether—which “Voice” calls forth Sien-Tchan, the illusive form of the Universe out of Chaos and the Seven Elements.

They are all the symbols and personifications of Chaos, the “Great Deep” or the Primordial Waters of Space, the impenetrable veil between the incognisable and the Logos of Creation. “Connecting himself through his mind with Vach, Brahma (the Logos) created the primordial waters.” In the Kathaka Upanishad it is stated still more clearly: “Prajapati was this Universe. Vach was a second to him. He associated with her . . . she produced these creatures and again re-entered Prajapati.”* (* This connects Vâch and Sephira with the goddess Kwan-Yin, the “merciful mother, “ the divine VOICE of the soul even in Exoteric Buddhism; and with the female aspect of Kwan-Shai-yin, the Logos, the verbum of Creation, and at the same time with the voice that speaks audibly to the Initiate, according to Esoteric Buddhism. Bath Kol, the filia Vocis, the daughter of the divine voice of the Hebrews, responding from the mercy seat within the veil of the temple is—a result.)

But there are two distinct aspects in universal Esotericism, Eastern and Western, in all those personations of the female Power in nature, or nature — the noumenal and the phenomenal. One is its purely metaphysical aspect, as described by the learned lecturer in his “Notes on the Bhagavat-Gita;” the other terrestrial and physical, and at the same time divine from the stand-point of practical human conception and Occultism.

Divine Thought

According to Mme. Blavatsky the Divine Thought is "the Logos, or the male aspect of the Anima Mundi, Alaya".ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 58.</ref> In it "lies concealed the plan of every future Cosmogony and Theogony."

The Cosmos is fashioned by the Builders, following the plan traced out for them in the Divine Thought. This thought impregnates matter, and can be perceived "by the numberless manifestations of Cosmic Substance in which the former is sensed spiritually by those who can do so."

It is important to keep in mind that the phrase "Divine Thought" neither implies the idea of a Divine thinker nor of a process of thinking:

It is hardly necessary to remind the reader once more that the term “Divine Thought,” like that of “Universal Mind,” must not be regarded as even vaguely shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to that exhibited by man.

The Army of the Voice

In Stanza IV.4 there is a mention to "the Army of the Voice". Mme. Blavatsky wrote:

This Sloka gives again a brief analysis of the Hierarchies of the Dhyan Chohans, called Devas (gods) in India, or the conscious intelligent powers in Nature. To this Hierarchy correspond the actual types into which humanity may be divided; for humanity, as a whole, is in reality a materialized though as yet imperfect expression thereof. The “army of the Voice” is a term closely connected with the mystery of Sound and Speech, as an effect and corollary of the cause—Divine Thought.

The “Army of the Voice”, is the prototype of the “Host of the Logos,” or the “WORD” of the Sepher Jezirah, called in the Secret Doctrine “the One Number issued from No-Number”—the One Eternal Principle. The esoteric theogony begins with the One, manifested, therefore not eternal in its presence and being, if eternal in its essence; the number of the numbers and numbered—the latter proceeding from the Voice, the feminine Vâch, Satarupa “of the hundred forms,” or Nature. It is from this number 10, or creative nature, the Mother (the occult cypher, or “nought,” ever procreating and multiplying in union with the Unit “1,” one, or the Spirit of Life), that the whole Universe proceeded.

Further reading

• Logos at Theosopedia