Blavatsky H.P. - The Roots of Ritualism in Church and Masonry: Difference between revisions

Now with regard to other invisible Beings, some of whom are still higher, and others far lower on the scale of divine evolution. To the latter we will have nothing to say; the former will have nothing to say to us; for we are as good as non-existent to them. The homogeneous can take no cognizance of the heterogeneous; and unless we learn to shuffle off our mortal coil and commune with them “spirit to spirit,” we can hardly hope to recognize their true nature. Moreover, every true Theosophist holds that the divine {{Page aside|64}}{{Style S-Small capitals|Higher Self}} of every mortal man is of the same essence as the essence of these Gods. Being, moreover, endowed with free will, hence having, more than they, responsibility, we regard the incarnated EGO as far superior to, if not more divine than, any spiritual INTELLIGENCE still awaiting incarnation. Philosophically, the reason for this is obvious, and every metaphysician of the Eastern school will understand it. The incarnated EGO has odds against it which do not exist in the case of a pure divine Essence unconnected with matter; the latter has no personal merit, whereas the former is on his way to final perfection through the trials of existence, of pain and suffering. The shadow of Karma does not fall upon that which is divine and unalloyed, and so different from us that no relation can exist between the two. As to those deities which are regarded in the Hindu esoteric Pantheon as finite and therefore under the sway of Karma, no true philosopher would ever worship them; they are signs and symbols.

Shall we then be regarded as atheists, only because while believing in Spiritual Hosts—those beings who have come to be worshipped in their collectivity as a personal God—we reject them absolutely as representing the ONE Unknown? And because we affirm that the eternal Principle, the ALL in ALL, or the Absoluteness of the Totality, cannot be expressed by limited words, nor be symbolized by anything with conditioned and qualificative attributes? Shall we, moreover, permit to pass without protest the charge against us of idolatry—by the Roman Catholics, of all men? They, whose religion is as pagan as any of the solar and element worshippers; whose creed was framed out for them, cut and dried, ages before the year 1 of the Christian era; and whose dogmas and rites are the same as those of every idolatrous nation—if any such nation still exists in spirit anywhere at this day. Over the whole face of the earth, from the North to the South Pole, from the frozen gulfs of Northland to the torrid plains of Southern India, from Central America to Greece and Chaldea, the Solar Fire, as the symbol of divine Creative Power, of Life and Love, was worshipped. The union of the Sun (male element) with Earth and the Water (matter, the female element) was celebrated {{Page aside|65}}in the temples of the whole Universe. If Pagans had a feast commemorative of this union—which they celebrated nine months ere the Winter Solstice, when Isis was said to have conceived—so have the Roman Catholic Christians. The great and holy day of the Annunciation, the day on which the Virgin Mary “found favour with [her] God” and conceived “the Son of the Highest,” is kept by Christians nine months before Christmas. Hence, the worship of the Fire, lights and lamps in the churches. Why? Because Vulcan, the fire-God, married Venus, the daughter of the Sea; that the Magi watched over the sacred fire in the East, and the Virgin-Vestals in the West. The Sun was the “Father”; Nature, the eternal Virgin-Mother: Osiris and Isis, Spirit-Matter, the latter worshipped under each of its three states by Pagan and Christian. Hence the Virgins—even in Japan—clothed with star-spangled blue, standing on the lunar crescent, as symbolical of female Nature (in her three elements of Air, Water, Earth); Fire or the male Sun, fecundating her yearly with his radiant beams (the “cloven tongues like as of fire” of the Holy Ghost).

In Kalevala the oldest epic Poem of the Finns, of the pre-Christian antiquity of which there remains no doubt in the minds of scholars, we read of the gods of Finland, the gods of air and water, of fire and the forest, of Heaven and the Earth. In the superb translation by J. M. Crawford, in Rune L (Vol. II) the reader will find the whole legend of the Virgin Mary in

{{Style P-Poem|poem=“Mariatta, child of beauty,

Ukko, the great Spirit, whose abode is in Yûmäla, the sky or Heaven, chooses the Virgin Mariatta as his vehicle to incarnate through her in a Man-God. She becomes pregnant by plucking and eating a red berry (marja), when, repudiated by her parents, she gives birth to a “Son immortal,” in the manger of a stable. Then the “Holy Babe” disappears, and Mariatta is in search of him. She asks a {{Page aside|66}}star, “the guiding star of Northland,” where her “holy babe lies hidden,” but the star answers her angrily:—

{{Style P-No indent|It is only the “Silver Sun” who, taking pity upon the Virgin-Mother, tells her:—}}

{{Style P-No indent|She takes the holy baby home, and while the mother calls him “Flower,”}}

{{Style P-Poem|poem=“Others named him Son of Sorrow.”<ref>Page 729.</ref>}}

Is this a post-Christian legend? Not at all; for, as said, it is essentially pagan in origin and recognized as pre-Christian. Hence, with such data in hand in literature, the ever-recurring taunts of idolatry and atheism, of infidelity and paganism, ought to cease. The term idolatry, moreover, is of Christian origin. It was used by the early Nazarenes, during the 2½ centuries of our era, against those nations who used temples and churches, statues and images, because they, the early Christians themselves, had neither temples, statues, nor images, all of which they abhorred. Therefore the term “idolatrous” fits far better our accusers than {{Page aside|67}}ourselves, as this article will show. With Madonnas on every crossroad, their thousands of statues, from Christ and Angels in every shape down to Popes and Saints, it is rather a dangerous thing for a Catholic to taunt any Hindu or Buddhist with idolatry. The assertion has now to be proved.

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