The Holy Four of Pythagoras Is Logos in Its Latent State

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Thomas Taylor · Secret Doctrine's First Proposition Series · 19 pages

Nineteen pages, revised in November 2024, with a contents page and abstract. The frontispiece and the illustrations throughout are by Philaletheians GR. *The file has two distinct halves* — Blavatsky on the riddle, then Thomas Taylor's systematic enumeration — and the second is what makes it a reference rather than an essay.

The arithmetic is stated at once: the Pythagorean Square is the sum of the first four numbers, one plus two plus three plus four, that is the number ten, the Tetractys of the Decad — and that number is called a numerical expression of the mysteries of the whole Kosmos, of its microcosmic image man, and of the sum total of human knowledge. A trinity of perfect squares is then said to make up the dodecahedron, a perfect number concealed in a perfect cube. The historical claim follows, that the ancient roots of the Pythagorean system are to be sought in India, with Pythagoras receiving his astronomical erudition, learning the hardships of chelaship and catching a lucid glimpse of universal brotherhood from initiated Brahmans. The second half belongs to Thomas Taylor, the English Platonist, on the eleven faces of the Pythagorean Tetractys. Each is given its own short numbered entry, from Tetractys 1 through to Tetractys 11, followed by the statement that hence they are eleven tetractydes, a quick overview of the eleven faces gathered together, and a closing note that Saturn is the dianoetic tetractys. Because each face is separately headed and paginated, the file can be used to look one of them up. The single-sheet diagram of the Pythagorean World as Root of Illusion, held separately in this section, is reproduced at the end, and the file closes with suggested reading, in-depth reading, and a further list on the perennial legacy of Pythagoras.

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