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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES:
231
place in the Bible of Islam. The product of necessity, the Qur'an could not, and as a matter of fact did not, teach the offering of the other cheek if smitten on one. Jehad became the outward symbol, though the crescent moon still remains the inward mark, of Islam. It is to be doubted whether any living Mabomedan knows whence the crescent Moon was taken. Probably a great many of them connect it in their minds with the miracle of the splitting of the moon; but the esoteric significance of that is very different. As explained in the Key of Knowledge, that miracle only signified the acquisition of a kind of second sight, what the theosopbist would probably call the opening out of the individual's conscionsness on the 'Astral plane. It is supposed that the first of the series of veils that obstruct clairvoyance is made of a kind of subtle material, the "astral matter,' wbich is supposed to have a marked affinity for the moon, and it was the penetration of this, the first veil of matter, which was intended by the miracle. As for the proper significance of the crescent moon, I had better refer you to the ancient symbol of Jainism which consists of the crescent moon placed above a szvástika or cross, with one cipher digit on the top and three such digits below the crescent thus :
OOO
The explanation of this symbol is this : the four Jimbs of the swastika, or cross, indicate the four types
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