CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 ...

CHAPTER 1 67
depths of degradation to which he had sunk he arose with skull of ape; he walked upright on two legs; he
became the prey of beasts instead of hunter. He made for himself habitations in trees and prowled by night
seeking food. Deep, deep was his ignorance. Little more than beast was he indeed, with almost no spark of
divinity left to him."
The abomination was so vast that forms were fusing together into monsters having no purpose but
self-destruction. Men and animals were growing interchangeable of spirit and structure. Man was beastly and
beast was manlike. Spirit knew not itself, whether it were divine or whether it were experiment of Thought
Incarnate. They had so interchanged that they could no longer be accepted by the Host on the Sirian planets as
divine. All physical forms had to be cleansed. "Pure beast must be preserved as beast; pure angel-man must be
preserved as angel-man. Therefore, a vast catastrophe was decided upon. Ice from polar seas was melted and
released upon continents of monsters." The Elder Brother tells us: "No longer could life make physical
vehicles by thought. Forms existing in purity were preserved. Monsters and anomalies were destroyed. No
longer could they propagate. Pure species were saved and pronounced sterile unto all but themselves."
By being pronounced "sterile unto all but themselves" means, of course, that they could only breed their own
species and kind. That is why today man can only mate with other human beings. No longer can the half-man
and half-animal creatures be produced. The only reference to them today is in ancient legends.
The griffin has already been mentioned. It was the Gryps or Gryphus of Greek mythology. A monster with the
head and wings of an eagle, the body of a lion, and sometimes the tail of a serpent. The most familiar and least
complicated of the composite beings known as bird-man creatures are the medieval angels and demons, the
fairies, the Greek Keres (represented as tiny human figures with butterfly wings).
Many representations of Egyptian gods embody combinations of human and bird anatomy, for they say the
gods were first birds and animals and only gradually evolved into men. Perhaps the most complicated and
fearsome of these creatures is the Gorgon, which had serpent hair, the hideous face of a woman, the wings of
a bird, and the body of a lioness with bronze claws. The most frightful of these was Medusa.
The important feature of the Hindu Garuda bird is that it is one of the few combinations with the head of a
bird. Other features vary considerably with locale (it is known in India, Indochina, China, Japan, and many
other places).
The Egyptian soul was sometimes depicted as a bird with a human head, as was also the Greek Harpy, which
befouled everything it touched. The Sirens were similar in form, but had beautiful voices and lured men to
their downfall. The Welsh Washer of the Ford is a spectral female in black with the wings of a bat. The Furies
are another of these combinations.
The Sphinx is a combination of man-bird-beast, that is, the head and chest of a man, wings of a bird, and the
body of an animal. In Egypt sphinxes were always male, and had the body of a lion. The Greek female sphinx
also had a lioness' body. The Babylonian shedu, the Hebrew shedim, and the Sumerian clad were similar to
the Egyptian, and male. They had the bodies of bulls, neatly curled beards, and often wore hats. The female
counter-part of the sedu was called lamina or lamassu and could fly. The Syrian female sphinx had wings and
resembled the Egyptian.
The sacred bull-men of Babylonia are extraordinary beings. They were first seen only on rock drawings, and
small seals, but later they were used for imposing statuary like the winged bull with a human face from
Sargon's palace in Khorsabad.
The so-called "dragon" of Babylon was found on the walls of the Ishtar Gate. It was called the "mighty
snake". It had the head and scales of a snake, but the body of an unidentified monster. This creature had lion's
paws and eagle's claws.