The hierarchy of Creative Powers is divided into seven (or 4 and 3) esoteric, within the twelve great Orders, recorded in the twelve signs of the Zodiac; the seven of the manifesting scale being connected, moreover, with the Seven Planets. All this is subdivided into numberless groups of divine Spiritual, semi-Spiritual, and ethereal Beings.
The Chief Hierarchies among these are hinted at in the great Quaternary, or the "four bodies and the three faculties" of Brahma exoterically, and the Panchasyam, the five Brahmas, or the five Dhyani-Buddhas in the Buddhist system.
The highest group is composed of the divine Flames, so-called, also spoken of as the "Fiery Lions" and the "Lions of Life," whose esotericism is securely hidden in the Zodiacal sign of Leo. It is the nucleole of the superior divine World (see Commentary in first pages of Addendum). They are the formless Fiery Breaths, identical in one aspect with the upper Sephirothal TRIAD, which is placed by the Kabalists in the "Archetypal World."
The same hierarchy, with the same numbers, is found in the Japanese system, in the "Beginnings" as taught by both the Shinto and the Buddhist sects. In this system, Anthropogenesis precedes Cosmogenesis, as the Divine merges into the human, and creates -midway in its descent into matter -- the visible Universe. The legendary personages -- remarks reverentially Omoie -- "having to be understood as the stereotyped embodiment of the higher (secret) doctrine, and its sublime truths." To state it at full length, however, would occupy too much of our space, but a few words on this old system cannot be out of place. The following is a short synopsis of this Anthropo-Cosmogenesis, and it shows how closely the most separated notions echoed one and the same Archaic teaching.
When all was as yet Chaos (Kon-ton) three spiritual Beings appeared on the stage of future creation: (1) Ame no ani naka nushi no Kami, "Divine Monarch of the Central Heaven"; (2) Taka mi onosubi no Kami, "Exalted, imperial Divine offspring of Heaven and the Earth"; and (3) Kamu mi musubi no Kami, "Offspring of the Gods," simply.
These were without form or substance (our arupa triad), as neither the celestial nor the terrestrial substance had yet differentiated, "nor had the essence of things been formed." (Taken from The Secret Doctrine by Madam Blavatsky)
