Seven Keys of Interpretation

(In construction)

As each symbol in esoteric philosophy has seven keys,

very old religion is but a chapter or two of the entire volume of archaic primeval mysteries—Eastern Occultism alone being able to boast that it is in possession of the full secret, with its seven keys.

There are seven keys to this, as to every other allegory whether in the Bible or in pagan religions.

The same remarkable elasticity of interpretation is afforded in the esoteric texts of other nations. Each symbol and glyph having seven keys to it, it follows that one party may be using one key to any subject under dispute, and then accuse another student who is using another key of deliberate misinterpretation.

No one occultist, if he is true to his colours, can give out the meaning of all the “Seven Mysteries of Wisdom”—even if he himself is acquainted with all—which would be a marvel, indeed. For those “Seven Mysteries” in toto are known thoroughly only to the “MASTERS OF WISDOM”

In truth, every one of the seven Keys has to be used in its right place, and never mixed with the others, if we would unveil the entire cycle of mysteries.

Nor is it more difficult to see whither the initiated writer of the Siphrah is leading us, when he says:— “Its head is broken in the waters of the great sea, as it is written: ‘Thou dividest the sea by thy strength, thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters’ ” (lxxiv. 13). It refers to the trials of the Initiates in this physical life, the “sea of sorrow,” if read with one key; it hints at the successive destruction of the seven spheres of a chain of worlds in the great sea of space, when read with another key: for every sidereal globe or sphere, every world, star, or group of stars, is called in symbolism “the Dragon’s head.”

This is the meaning when the allegory and symbol are opened and read by means of the human key, or the key to terrestial anthroposophy. This interpretation of the “ark” symbolism does not in the least interfere with its astronomical, or even theogonic keys; nor with any of the other six meanings. Nor does it seem less scientific than the modern theories about the origin of man. As said, it has seven keys to it, like the rest.

The Jews, however, although they borrowed of the older nations the groundwork on which to build their revelation, never had more than three keys out of the seven in their mind, while composing their national allegories—the astronomical, the numerical (metrology), and above all the purely anthropological, or rather physiological key.

But of the seven keys that open the seven aspects of the Ramayana, as of every other Scripture, this is only one—the metaphysical. (SD2, 496)

To the metrological key to the symbolism of the Hebrews, which reveals numerically the geometrical relations of the Circle (All-Deity) to the Square, Cube, Triangle, and all the integral emanations of the divine area, may be added the . (SD2, 595)

Mme. Blavatsky never listed the seven keys together in a single place. Looking for places where she mentions one or the other of the keys we find the following mentioned:

1- Physiological or anthropological key.

2- Astronomical key.

3- Symbolical key.

4- Theogonic key.

5- Metrological key, which includes the numerical and geometrical. Mme. Blavatsky said the geometrical key "is the fifth key in the series of the Seven Keys to the Universal esoteric language and symbology".

6- Mystical key.

7- Metaphysical key.

She also mentioned a combination (the "cosmo-geological key") and a more "general" key held by science (the "key of matter").