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But to descend from universals to particulars, from the ancient theory of planetary evolution to the evolution of plant and animal life, as opposed to the theory of special creation, what does Mr. Proctor call the following language of Hermes but an anticipation of the modern theory of evolution of species? “When God had filled his powerful hands with those things which are in nature, and in that which compasseth nature, then shutting them close again, he said: ‘Receive from me, O holy earth! that art ordained to be the {{Style S-Italic|mother of all,}} lest thou shouldst want anything’; when presently opening such hands as it becomes a God to have, he poured down all that was necessary to the constitution of things.” Here we have primeval matter imbued with “the promise and potency of every future form of life,” and the earth declared to be the predestined mother of everything that should thenceforth spring from her bosom. | But to descend from universals to particulars, from the ancient theory of planetary evolution to the evolution of plant and animal life, as opposed to the theory of special creation, what does Mr. Proctor call the following language of Hermes but an anticipation of the modern theory of evolution of species? “When God had filled his powerful hands with those things which are in nature, and in that which compasseth nature, then shutting them close again, he said: ‘Receive from me, O holy earth! that art ordained to be the {{Style S-Italic|mother of all,}} lest thou shouldst want anything’; when presently opening such hands as it becomes a God to have, he poured down all that was necessary to the constitution of things.” Here we have primeval matter imbued with “the promise and potency of every future form of life,” and the earth declared to be the predestined mother of everything that should thenceforth spring from her bosom. | ||
More definite is the language of Marcus Antoninus in his discourse to himself. “The nature of the universe delights not in anything so much as to alter all things, and present them under another form. This is her conceit to play one game and begin another. Matter is placed before her like a piece of wax and she shapes it to all forms and figures. Now she makes {{Style S-Italic|a bird, then out of the bird a beast—}}now a {{Style S-Italic|flower,}} then a frog, and she is pleased with her own magical performances as men are with their own fancies.” | More definite is the language of Marcus Antoninus in his discourse to himself. “The nature of the universe delights not in anything so much as to alter all things, and present them under another form. This is her conceit to play one game and begin another. Matter is placed before her like a piece of wax and she shapes it to all forms and figures. Now she makes {{Style S-Italic|a bird, then out of the bird a beast—}}now a {{Style S-Italic|flower,}} then a frog, and she is pleased with her own magical performances as men are with their own fancies.”{{Footnote mark|*|fn428}} | ||
Before any of our modern teachers thought of evolution, the ancients taught us, through Hermes, that nothing can be abrupt in nature; that she never proceeds by jumps and starts, that everything in her works is slow harmony, and that there is nothing sudden—not even violent death. | Before any of our modern teachers thought of evolution, the ancients taught us, through Hermes, that nothing can be abrupt in nature; that she never proceeds by jumps and starts, that everything in her works is slow harmony, and that there is nothing sudden—not even violent death. | ||
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The inherent restlessness of matter is embodied in the saying of Hermes: “Action is the life of Phta;” and Orpheus calls nature Πολυμήχὰνος μάτηρ, “the mother that makes many things,” or the ingenious, the contriving, the inventive mother. | The inherent restlessness of matter is embodied in the saying of Hermes: “Action is the life of Phta;” and Orpheus calls nature Πολυμήχὰνος μάτηρ, “the mother that makes many things,” or the ingenious, the contriving, the inventive mother. | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn428}} Eugenius Philalethes: “Magia Adamica.” | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
258 THE VEIL OF ISIS. | {{Page|258|THE VEIL OF ISIS.}} | ||
Mr. Proctor says: “All that {{Style S-Italic|that is upon and within the earth, all vegetable forms and}} all animal forms, our bodies, our brains, are formed of materials which have been drawn in from those depths of space surrounding us on all sides.” The Hermetists and the later Rosicrucians held that all things visible and invisible were produced by the contention of light with darkness, and that every particle of matter contains within itself a spark of the divine essence—or light, {{Style S-Italic|spirit—}}which, through its tendency to free itself from its entanglement and return to the central source, produced motion in the particles, and from motion forms were born. Says Hargrave Jennings, quoting Robertus di Fluctibus: “Thus all minerals in this spark of life have the rudimentary possibility of plants and growing organisms; thus all plants have rudimentary sensations which might (in the ages) enable them to perfect and transmute into locomotive new creatures, lesser or higher in their grade, or nobler or meaner in their functions; thus all plants, and all vegetation might pass off (by side roads) into more distinguished highways as it were, of independent, completer advance, allowing their original spark of light to expand and thrill with higher and more vivid force, and to urge forward with more abounding, informed purpose, all wrought by planetary influence directed by the unseen spirits (or workers) of the great original architect.” | Mr. Proctor says: “All that {{Style S-Italic|that is upon and within the earth, all vegetable forms and}} all animal forms, our bodies, our brains, are formed of materials which have been drawn in from those depths of space surrounding us on all sides.” The Hermetists and the later Rosicrucians held that all things visible and invisible were produced by the contention of light with darkness, and that every particle of matter contains within itself a spark of the divine essence—or light, {{Style S-Italic|spirit—}}which, through its tendency to free itself from its entanglement and return to the central source, produced motion in the particles, and from motion forms were born. Says Hargrave Jennings, quoting Robertus di Fluctibus: “Thus all minerals in this spark of life have the rudimentary possibility of plants and growing organisms; thus all plants have rudimentary sensations which might (in the ages) enable them to perfect and transmute into locomotive new creatures, lesser or higher in their grade, or nobler or meaner in their functions; thus all plants, and all vegetation might pass off (by side roads) into more distinguished highways as it were, of independent, completer advance, allowing their original spark of light to expand and thrill with higher and more vivid force, and to urge forward with more abounding, informed purpose, all wrought by planetary influence directed by the unseen spirits (or workers) of the great original architect.”{{Footnote mark|*|fn429}} | ||
{{Style S-Italic|Light—}}the first mentioned in {{Style S-Italic|Genesis,}} is termed by the kabalists, Sephira, or the Divine {{Style S-Italic|Intelligence,}} the mother of all the Sephiroth, while the {{Style S-Italic|Concealed Wisdom}} is the father. Light is the first begotten, and the first emanation of the Supreme, and Light is Life, says the evangelist. Both are electricity—the life-principle, the {{Style S-Italic|anima mundi,}} pervading the universe, the electric vivifier of all things. Light is the great Protean magician, and under the Divine Will of the architect, its multifarious, omnipotent waves gave birth to every form as well as to every living being. From its swelling, electric bosom, springs {{Style S-Italic|matter}} and {{Style S-Italic|spirit.}} Within its beams lie the beginnings of all physical and chemical action, and of all cosmic and spiritual phenomena; it vitalizes and disorganizes; it gives life and produces death, and from its primordial point gradually emerged into existence the myriads of worlds, visible and invisible celestial bodies. It was at the ray of this {{Style S-Italic|First}} mother, one in three, that God, according to Plato, “lighted a fire, which we now call the sun,” | {{Style S-Italic|Light—}}the first mentioned in {{Style S-Italic|Genesis,}} is termed by the kabalists, Sephira, or the Divine {{Style S-Italic|Intelligence,}} the mother of all the Sephiroth, while the {{Style S-Italic|Concealed Wisdom}} is the father. Light is the first begotten, and the first emanation of the Supreme, and Light is Life, says the evangelist. Both are electricity—the life-principle, the {{Style S-Italic|anima mundi,}} pervading the universe, the electric vivifier of all things. Light is the great Protean magician, and under the Divine Will of the architect, its multifarious, omnipotent waves gave birth to every form as well as to every living being. From its swelling, electric bosom, springs {{Style S-Italic|matter}} and {{Style S-Italic|spirit.}} Within its beams lie the beginnings of all physical and chemical action, and of all cosmic and spiritual phenomena; it vitalizes and disorganizes; it gives life and produces death, and from its primordial point gradually emerged into existence the myriads of worlds, visible and invisible celestial bodies. It was at the ray of this {{Style S-Italic|First}} mother, one in three, that God, according to Plato, “lighted a fire, which we now call the sun,”{{Footnote mark|†|fn430}} and, which is {{Style S-Italic|not}} the cause of either light or heat, but merely the focus, or, as we might say, the lens, by which the rays of the primordial light become materialized, are concentrated upon our solar system, and produce all the correlations of forces. | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn429}} Hargrave Jennings: “The Rosicrucians.” | |||
{{Footnote return|†|fn430}} “Timæus.” | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
259 DO THE STARS RULE OUR DESTINIES? | {{Page|259|DO THE STARS RULE OUR DESTINIES?}} | ||
So much for the first of Mr. Proctor’s two propositions; now for the second. | So much for the first of Mr. Proctor’s two propositions; now for the second. | ||
The work which we have been noticing, comprises a series of twelve essays, of which the last is entitled {{Style S-Italic|Thoughts on Astrology.}} The author treats the subject with so much more consideration than is the custom of men of his class, that it is evident he has given it thoughtful attention. In fact, he goes so far as to say that, “If we consider the matter aright, we must concede . . . that of all the errors into which men have fallen in their desire to penetrate into futurity, astrology is the most respectable, we may even say the most reasonable.” | The work which we have been noticing, comprises a series of twelve essays, of which the last is entitled {{Style S-Italic|Thoughts on Astrology.}} The author treats the subject with so much more consideration than is the custom of men of his class, that it is evident he has given it thoughtful attention. In fact, he goes so far as to say that, “If we consider the matter aright, we must concede . . . that of all the errors into which men have fallen in their desire to penetrate into futurity, astrology is the most respectable, we may even say the most reasonable.”{{Footnote mark|*|fn431}} | ||
He admits that “The heavenly bodies {{Style S-Italic|do}} rule the fates of men and nations in the most unmistakable manner, seeing that without the controlling and beneficent influences of the chief among those orbs—the sun—every living creature on the earth must perish.” | He admits that “The heavenly bodies {{Style S-Italic|do}} rule the fates of men and nations in the most unmistakable manner, seeing that without the controlling and beneficent influences of the chief among those orbs—the sun—every living creature on the earth must perish.”{{Footnote mark|†|fn432}} He admits, also, the influence of the moon, and sees nothing strange in the ancients reasoning by analogy, that if two among these heavenly bodies were thus potent in terrestrial influences, it was “. . . natural that the other moving bodies known to the ancients, should be thought to possess also their special powers.”{{Footnote mark|‡|fn433}} Indeed, the professor sees nothing unreasonable in their supposition that the influences exerted by the slower moving planets “might be even more potent that those of the sun himself.” Mr. Proctor thinks that the system of astrology “was formed gradually and perhaps tentatively.” Some influences may have been inferred from observed events, the fate of this or that king or chief, guiding astrologers in assigning particular influences to such planetary aspects as were presented at the time of his nativity. Others may have been invented, and afterward have found general acceptance, because confirmed by some {{Style S-Italic|curious coincidences.}} | ||
A witty joke may sound very prettily, even in a learned treatise, and the word “coincidence” may be applied to anything we are unwilling to accept. But a sophism is not a truism; still less is it a mathematical demonstration, which alone ought to serve as a beacon—to astronomers, at least. Astrology is a science {{Style S-Italic|as infallible}} as astronomy itself, with the condition, however, that its interpreters must be equally infallible; and it is this condition, {{Style S-Italic|sine qua non,}} so very difficult of realization, that has always proved a stumbling-block to both. Astrology is to exact astronomy what psychology is to exact physiology. In astrology and psychology one has to step beyond the visible world of matter, and enter into the domain of transcendent spirit. It is the old struggle between the Platonic and Aristotelean schools, and it is not in our century of Sadducean | A witty joke may sound very prettily, even in a learned treatise, and the word “coincidence” may be applied to anything we are unwilling to accept. But a sophism is not a truism; still less is it a mathematical demonstration, which alone ought to serve as a beacon—to astronomers, at least. Astrology is a science {{Style S-Italic|as infallible}} as astronomy itself, with the condition, however, that its interpreters must be equally infallible; and it is this condition, {{Style S-Italic|sine qua non,}} so very difficult of realization, that has always proved a stumbling-block to both. Astrology is to exact astronomy what psychology is to exact physiology. In astrology and psychology one has to step beyond the visible world of matter, and enter into the domain of transcendent spirit. It is the old struggle between the Platonic and Aristotelean schools, and it is not in our century of Sadducean | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn431}} “Our Place among Infinities,” p. 313. | |||
{{Footnote return|†|fn432}} Ibid. | |||
{{Footnote return|‡|fn433}} Ibid., p. 314. | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
260 THE VEIL OF ISIS. | {{Page|260|THE VEIL OF ISIS.}} | ||
skepticism that the former will prevail over the latter. Mr. Proctor, in his professional capacity, is like the uncharitable person of the Sermon on the Mount, who is ever ready to attract public attention to the mote in his despised neighbor’s eye, and overlook the beam in his own. Were we to record the failures and ridiculous blunders of astronomers, we are afraid they would outnumber by far those of the astrologers. Present events fully vindicate Nostradamus, who has been so much ridiculed by our skeptics. In an old book of prophecies, published in the fifteenth century (an edition of 1453), we read the following, among other astrological predictions: | {{Style P-No indent|skepticism that the former will prevail over the latter. Mr. Proctor, in his professional capacity, is like the uncharitable person of the Sermon on the Mount, who is ever ready to attract public attention to the mote in his despised neighbor’s eye, and overlook the beam in his own. Were we to record the failures and ridiculous blunders of astronomers, we are afraid they would outnumber by far those of the astrologers. Present events fully vindicate Nostradamus, who has been so much ridiculed by our skeptics. In an old book of prophecies, published in the fifteenth century (an edition of 1453), we read the following, among other astrological predictions:{{Footnote mark|*|fn434}}}} | ||
{{Style P- | {{Style P-Poem|poem=“In twice two hundred years, the Bear | ||
: The Crescent will assail; | |||
But if the Cock and Bull unite, | But if the Cock and Bull unite, | ||
: The Bear will not prevail. | |||
In twice ten years again— | In twice ten years again— | ||
: Let Islam know and fear— | |||
The Cross shall stand, the Crescent wane, | The Cross shall stand, the Crescent wane, | ||
: Dissolve, and disappear.” }} | |||
In just twice two hundred years from the date of that prophecy, we had the Crimean war, during which the alliance of the Gallic Cock and English Bull interfered with the political designs of the Russian Bear. In 1856 the war was ended, and Turkey, or the Crescent, closely escaped destruction. In the present year (1876) the most unexpected events of a political character have just taken place, and {{Style S-Italic|twice ten years}} have elapsed since peace was proclaimed. Everything seems to bid fair for a fulfilment of the old prophecy; the future will tell whether the Moslem Crescent, which seems, indeed, to be {{Style S-Italic|waning,}} will irrevocably “wane, dissolve, and disappear,” as the outcome of the present troubles. | In just twice two hundred years from the date of that prophecy, we had the Crimean war, during which the alliance of the Gallic Cock and English Bull interfered with the political designs of the Russian Bear. In 1856 the war was ended, and Turkey, or the Crescent, closely escaped destruction. In the present year (1876) the most unexpected events of a political character have just taken place, and {{Style S-Italic|twice ten years}} have elapsed since peace was proclaimed. Everything seems to bid fair for a fulfilment of the old prophecy; the future will tell whether the Moslem Crescent, which seems, indeed, to be {{Style S-Italic|waning,}} will irrevocably “wane, dissolve, and disappear,” as the outcome of the present troubles. | ||
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In explaining away the heterodox facts which he appears to have encountered in his pursuit of knowledge, Mr. Proctor is obliged more than once in his work, to fall back upon these “curious coincidences.” One of the most curious of these is stated by him in a foot-note (page 301) as follows: “I do not here dwell on the curious coincidence—if, indeed, Chaldean astrologers had not discovered the ring of Saturn—that they showed the god corresponding within a ring and {{Style S-Italic|triple}}. . . . Very moderate optical knowledge—such, indeed, as we may fairly infer from the | In explaining away the heterodox facts which he appears to have encountered in his pursuit of knowledge, Mr. Proctor is obliged more than once in his work, to fall back upon these “curious coincidences.” One of the most curious of these is stated by him in a foot-note (page 301) as follows: “I do not here dwell on the curious coincidence—if, indeed, Chaldean astrologers had not discovered the ring of Saturn—that they showed the god corresponding within a ring and {{Style S-Italic|triple}}. . . . Very moderate optical knowledge—such, indeed, as we may fairly infer from the | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn434}} The library of a relative of the writer contains a copy of a French edition of this unique work. The prophecies are given in the old French language, and are very difficult for the student of modern French to decipher. We give, therefore, an English version, which is said to be taken from a book in the possession of a gentleman in Somersetshire, England. | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
261 THE STRANGE PROPHECY OF NOSTRADAMUS. | {{Page|261|THE STRANGE PROPHECY OF NOSTRADAMUS.}} | ||
presence of optical instruments among Assyrian remains—might have led to the discovery of Saturnal rings and Jupiter’s moons. . . . Bel, the Assyrian Jupiter,” he adds, “was represented sometimes with four star-tipped wings. | {{Style P-No indent|presence of optical instruments among Assyrian remains—might have led to the discovery of Saturnal rings and Jupiter’s moons. . . . Bel, the Assyrian Jupiter,” he adds, “was represented sometimes with four star-tipped wings. ''But it is possible that these are mere coincidences''.”}} | ||
In short, Mr. Proctor’s theory of coincidence becomes finally more suggestive of miracle than the facts themselves. For coincidences our friends the skeptics appear to have an unappeasable appetite. We have brought sufficient testimony in the preceding chapter to show that the ancients must have used as good optical instruments as we have now. Were the instruments in possession of Nebuchadnezzar of such moderate power, and the knowledge of his astronomers so very contemptible, when, according to Rawlinson’s reading of the tiles, the Birs-Nimrud, or temple of Borsippa, had seven stages, symbolical of the concentric circles of the seven spheres, each built of tiles and metals to correspond with the color of the ruling planet of the sphere typified? Is it a coincidence again, that they should have appropriated to each planet the color which our latest telescopic discoveries show to be the real one? | In short, Mr. Proctor’s theory of coincidence becomes finally more suggestive of miracle than the facts themselves. For coincidences our friends the skeptics appear to have an unappeasable appetite. We have brought sufficient testimony in the preceding chapter to show that the ancients must have used as good optical instruments as we have now. Were the instruments in possession of Nebuchadnezzar of such moderate power, and the knowledge of his astronomers so very contemptible, when, according to Rawlinson’s reading of the tiles, the Birs-Nimrud, or temple of Borsippa, had seven stages, symbolical of the concentric circles of the seven spheres, each built of tiles and metals to correspond with the color of the ruling planet of the sphere typified? Is it a coincidence again, that they should have appropriated to each planet the color which our latest telescopic discoveries show to be the real one?{{Footnote mark|*|fn435}} Or is it again a coincidence, that Plato should have indicated in the {{Style S-Italic|Timæus}} his knowledge of the indestructibility of matter, of conservation of energy, and correlation of forces? “The latest word of modern philosophy,” says Jowett, “is continuity and development, but to Plato ''this is the beginning and foundation of science''.”{{Footnote mark|†|fn436}} | ||
The radical element of the oldest religions was essentially {{Style S-Italic|sabaistic;}} and we maintain that their myths and allegories—if once correctly and thoroughly interpreted, will dovetail with the most exact astronomical notions of our day. We will say more; there is hardly a scientific law—whether pertaining to physical astronomy or physical geography—that could not be easily pointed out in the ingenious combinations of their fables. They allegorized the most important as well as the most trifling causes of the celestial motions; the nature of every phenomenon was personified; and in the mythical biographies of the Olympic gods and goddesses, one well acquainted with the latest principles of physics and chemistry can find their causes, inter-agencies, and mutual relations embodied in the deportment and course of action of the fickle deities. The atmospheric electricity in its neutral and latent states is embodied usually in demi-gods and goddesses, whose scene of action is more limited to earth and who, in their occasional flights to the higher deific regions, display their electric tempers always {{Style S-Italic|in strict proportion with the increase of distance from the earth’s surface:}} the weapons of Hercules and Thor were | The radical element of the oldest religions was essentially {{Style S-Italic|sabaistic;}} and we maintain that their myths and allegories—if once correctly and thoroughly interpreted, will dovetail with the most exact astronomical notions of our day. We will say more; there is hardly a scientific law—whether pertaining to physical astronomy or physical geography—that could not be easily pointed out in the ingenious combinations of their fables. They allegorized the most important as well as the most trifling causes of the celestial motions; the nature of every phenomenon was personified; and in the mythical biographies of the Olympic gods and goddesses, one well acquainted with the latest principles of physics and chemistry can find their causes, inter-agencies, and mutual relations embodied in the deportment and course of action of the fickle deities. The atmospheric electricity in its neutral and latent states is embodied usually in demi-gods and goddesses, whose scene of action is more limited to earth and who, in their occasional flights to the higher deific regions, display their electric tempers always {{Style S-Italic|in strict proportion with the increase of distance from the earth’s surface:}} the weapons of Hercules and Thor were | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn435}} See Rawlinson, vol. xvii., pp. 30-32, Revised edition. | |||
{{Footnote return|†|fn436}} Jowett: Introduction to “Timæus,” “Dial. of Plato,” vol. i., p. 509. | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
262 THE VEIL OF ISIS. | {{Page|262|THE VEIL OF ISIS.}} | ||
never more mortal than when the gods soared into the clouds. We must bear in mind that before the time when the Olympian Jupiter was anthropomorphized by the genius of Pheidias into the Omnipotent God, the {{Style S-Italic|Maximus,}} the God of gods, and thus abandoned to the adoration of the multitudes, in the earliest and abstruse science of symbology he embodied in his person and attributes the whole of the cosmic forces. The Myth was less metaphysical and complicated, but more truly eloquent as an expression of natural philosophy. Zeus, the male element of the creation with Chthonia—Vesta (the earth), and Metis (the water) the first of the Oceanides (the feminine principles)—was viewed according to Porphyry and Proclus as the {{Style S-Italic|zōǒn-ek-zōōn,}} the chief of living beings. In the Orphic theology, the oldest of all, metaphysically speaking, he represented both the {{Style S-Italic|potentia}} and {{Style S-Italic|actus,}} the unrevealed {{Style S-Italic|cause}} and the Demiurge, or the active creator as an emanation from the invisible potency. In the latter demiurgic capacity, in conjunction with his consorts, we find in him all the mightiest agents of cosmic evolution—chemical affinity, atmospheric electricity, attraction, and repulsion. | {{Style P-No indent|never more mortal than when the gods soared into the clouds. We must bear in mind that before the time when the Olympian Jupiter was anthropomorphized by the genius of Pheidias into the Omnipotent God, the {{Style S-Italic|Maximus,}} the God of gods, and thus abandoned to the adoration of the multitudes, in the earliest and abstruse science of symbology he embodied in his person and attributes the whole of the cosmic forces. The Myth was less metaphysical and complicated, but more truly eloquent as an expression of natural philosophy. Zeus, the male element of the creation with Chthonia—Vesta (the earth), and Metis (the water) the first of the Oceanides (the feminine principles)—was viewed according to Porphyry and Proclus as the {{Style S-Italic|zōǒn-ek-zōōn,}} the chief of living beings. In the Orphic theology, the oldest of all, metaphysically speaking, he represented both the {{Style S-Italic|potentia}} and {{Style S-Italic|actus,}} the unrevealed {{Style S-Italic|cause}} and the Demiurge, or the active creator as an emanation from the invisible potency. In the latter demiurgic capacity, in conjunction with his consorts, we find in him all the mightiest agents of cosmic evolution—chemical affinity, atmospheric electricity, attraction, and repulsion.}} | ||
It is in following his representations in this physical qualification that we discover how well acquainted were the ancients with all the doctrines of physical science in their modern development. Later, in the Pythagorean speculations, Zeus became the metaphysical trinity; the monad evolving from its invisible self the {{Style S-Italic|active}} cause, effect, and intelligent will, the whole forming the {{Style S-Italic|Tetractis.}} Still later we find the earlier Neoplatonists leaving the primal monad aside, on the ground of its utter incomprehensibleness to human intellect, speculating merely on the {{Style S-Italic|demiurgic triad}} of this deity as visible and intelligible in its effects; and thus the metaphysical continuation by Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, and other philosophers of this view of Zeus the father, Zeus {{Style S-Italic|Poseidon,}} or {{Style S-Italic|dunamis,}} the son and power, and the spirit or {{Style S-Italic|nous.}} This triad was also accepted as a whole by the Irenæic school of the second century; the more substantial difference between the doctrines of the Neo-platonists and the Christians being merely the forcible amalgamation by the latter of the incomprehensible monad with its actualized creative trinity. | It is in following his representations in this physical qualification that we discover how well acquainted were the ancients with all the doctrines of physical science in their modern development. Later, in the Pythagorean speculations, Zeus became the metaphysical trinity; the monad evolving from its invisible self the {{Style S-Italic|active}} cause, effect, and intelligent will, the whole forming the {{Style S-Italic|Tetractis.}} Still later we find the earlier Neoplatonists leaving the primal monad aside, on the ground of its utter incomprehensibleness to human intellect, speculating merely on the {{Style S-Italic|demiurgic triad}} of this deity as visible and intelligible in its effects; and thus the metaphysical continuation by Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, and other philosophers of this view of Zeus the father, Zeus {{Style S-Italic|Poseidon,}} or {{Style S-Italic|dunamis,}} the son and power, and the spirit or {{Style S-Italic|nous.}} This triad was also accepted as a whole by the Irenæic school of the second century; the more substantial difference between the doctrines of the Neo-platonists and the Christians being merely the forcible amalgamation by the latter of the incomprehensible monad with its actualized creative trinity. | ||
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In his astronomical aspect Zeus-Dionysus has his origin in the zodiac, the ancient solar year. In Libya he assumed the form of a ram, and is identical with the Egyptian Amun, who begat Osiris, the taurian god. Osiris is also a personified emanation of the Father-Sun, and himself the Sun in Taurus. The Parent-Sun being the Sun in Aries. As the latter, Jupiter, is in the guise of a ram, and as Jupiter-Dionysus or Jupiter-Osiris, he is the bull. This animal is, as it is well known, the symbol of the creative power; moreover the Kabala explains, through the medium of one of | In his astronomical aspect Zeus-Dionysus has his origin in the zodiac, the ancient solar year. In Libya he assumed the form of a ram, and is identical with the Egyptian Amun, who begat Osiris, the taurian god. Osiris is also a personified emanation of the Father-Sun, and himself the Sun in Taurus. The Parent-Sun being the Sun in Aries. As the latter, Jupiter, is in the guise of a ram, and as Jupiter-Dionysus or Jupiter-Osiris, he is the bull. This animal is, as it is well known, the symbol of the creative power; moreover the Kabala explains, through the medium of one of | ||
263 KRONOS, BAAL, AND SIVA IDENTICAL. | {{Page|263|KRONOS, BAAL, AND SIVA IDENTICAL.}} | ||
its chief expounders, Simon-Ben-Iochai, | {{Style P-No indent|its chief expounders, Simon-Ben-Iochai,{{Footnote mark|*|fn437}} the origin of this strange worship of the bulls and cows. It is neither Darwin nor Huxley—the founders of the doctrine of evolution and its necessary complement, the transformation of species—that can find anything against the rationality of this symbol, except, perhaps, a natural feeling of uneasiness upon finding that they were preceded by the ancients even in this particular modern discovery. Elsewhere, we will give the doctrine of the kabalists as taught by Simon-Ben-Iochai.}} | ||
It may be easily proved that from time immemorial Saturn or Kronos, whose ring, most positively, {{Style S-Italic|was}} discovered by the Chaldean astrologers, and whose symbolism is no “coincidence,” was considered the father of Zeus, before the latter became himself the father of all the gods, and was the highest deity. He was the Bel or Baal of the Chaldeans, and originally imported among them by the Akkadians. Rawlinson insists that the latter came from Armenia; but if so, how can we account for the fact that Bel is but a Babylonian personification of the Hindu Siva, or Bala, the fire-god, the omnipotent creative, and at the same time, destroying Deity, in many senses higher than Brahma himself? | It may be easily proved that from time immemorial Saturn or Kronos, whose ring, most positively, {{Style S-Italic|was}} discovered by the Chaldean astrologers, and whose symbolism is no “coincidence,” was considered the father of Zeus, before the latter became himself the father of all the gods, and was the highest deity. He was the Bel or Baal of the Chaldeans, and originally imported among them by the Akkadians. Rawlinson insists that the latter came from Armenia; but if so, how can we account for the fact that Bel is but a Babylonian personification of the Hindu Siva, or Bala, the fire-god, the omnipotent creative, and at the same time, destroying Deity, in many senses higher than Brahma himself? | ||
“Zeus,” says an Orphic hymn, “is the first and the last, the head, and the extremities; from him have proceeded all things. He is a man and an immortal nymph (male and female element); the soul of all things; and the principal motor in fire; he is the sun and the moon; the fountain of the ocean; the demiurgus of the universe; one power, one God; the mighty creator and governor of the cosmos. Everything, fire, water, earth, ether, night, the heavens, Metis, the primeval architecturess (the Sophia of the Gnostics, and the Sephira of the Kabalists), the beautiful Eros, Cupid, all is included within the vast dimensions of his glorious body!” | “Zeus,” says an Orphic hymn, “is the first and the last, the head, and the extremities; from him have proceeded all things. He is a man and an immortal nymph (male and female element); the soul of all things; and the principal motor in fire; he is the sun and the moon; the fountain of the ocean; the demiurgus of the universe; one power, one God; the mighty creator and governor of the cosmos. Everything, fire, water, earth, ether, night, the heavens, Metis, the primeval architecturess (the Sophia of the Gnostics, and the Sephira of the Kabalists), the beautiful Eros, Cupid, all is included within the vast dimensions of his glorious body!”{{Footnote mark|†|fn438}} | ||
This short hymn of laudation contains within itself the groundwork of every mythopoeic conception. The imagination of the ancients proved as boundless as the visible manifestations of the Deity itself which afforded them the themes for their allegories. Still the latter, exuberant as they seem, never departed from the two principal ideas which may be ever found running parallel in their sacred imagery; a strict adherence to the physical as well as moral or spiritual aspect of natural law. Their metaphysical researches never clashed with scientific truths, and their religions may be truly termed the psycho-physiological creeds of the priests and scientists, who built them on the traditions of the infant-world, such as the unsophisticated minds of the primitive races received them, and on their own experimental knowledge, hoary with all the wisdom of the intervening ages. | This short hymn of laudation contains within itself the groundwork of every mythopoeic conception. The imagination of the ancients proved as boundless as the visible manifestations of the Deity itself which afforded them the themes for their allegories. Still the latter, exuberant as they seem, never departed from the two principal ideas which may be ever found running parallel in their sacred imagery; a strict adherence to the physical as well as moral or spiritual aspect of natural law. Their metaphysical researches never clashed with scientific truths, and their religions may be truly termed the psycho-physiological creeds of the priests and scientists, who built them on the traditions of the infant-world, such as the unsophisticated minds of the primitive races received them, and on their own experimental knowledge, hoary with all the wisdom of the intervening ages. | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn437}} N. B.—He lived in the first century b.c. | |||
{{Footnote return|†|fn438}} Stobæus: “Eclogues.” | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
264 THE VEIL OF ISIS. | {{Page|264|THE VEIL OF ISIS.}} | ||
As the sun, what better image could be found for Jupiter emitting his golden rays than to personify this emanation in Diana, the all-illuminating virgin Artemis, whose oldest name was Diktynna, literally the emitted {{Style S-Italic|ray}}, from the word {{Style S-Italic|dikein.}} The moon is non-luminous, and it shines only by the reflected light of the sun; hence, the imagery of his daughter, the goddess of the moon, and herself, Luna, Astartè, or Diana. As the Cretan Diktynna, she wears a wreath made of the magic plant {{Style S-Italic|diktamnon,}} or {{Style S-Italic|dictamnus,}} the evergreen shrub whose contact is said, at the same time, to develop somnambulism and cure finally of it; and, as Eilithyia and Juno Pronuba, she is the goddess who presides over births; she is an Æsculapian deity, and the use of the dictamnus-wreath, in association with the moon, shows once more the profound observation of the ancients. This plant is known in botany as possessing strongly sedative properties; it grows on Mount Dicte, a Cretan mountain, in great abundance; on the other hand, the moon, according to the best authorities on animal magnetism, acts upon the juices and ganglionic system, or nerve-cells, the seat from whence proceed all the nerve-fibres which play such a prominent part in mesmerization. During childbirth the Cretan women were covered with this plant, and its roots were administered as best calculated to soothe acute pain, and allay the irritability so dangerous at this period. They were placed, moreover, within the precincts of the temple sacred to the goddess, and, if possible, under the direct rays of the resplendent daughter of Jupiter—the bright and warm Eastern moon. | As the sun, what better image could be found for Jupiter emitting his golden rays than to personify this emanation in Diana, the all-illuminating virgin Artemis, whose oldest name was Diktynna, literally the emitted {{Style S-Italic|ray}}, from the word {{Style S-Italic|dikein.}} The moon is non-luminous, and it shines only by the reflected light of the sun; hence, the imagery of his daughter, the goddess of the moon, and herself, Luna, Astartè, or Diana. As the Cretan Diktynna, she wears a wreath made of the magic plant {{Style S-Italic|diktamnon,}} or {{Style S-Italic|dictamnus,}} the evergreen shrub whose contact is said, at the same time, to develop somnambulism and cure finally of it; and, as Eilithyia and Juno Pronuba, she is the goddess who presides over births; she is an Æsculapian deity, and the use of the dictamnus-wreath, in association with the moon, shows once more the profound observation of the ancients. This plant is known in botany as possessing strongly sedative properties; it grows on Mount Dicte, a Cretan mountain, in great abundance; on the other hand, the moon, according to the best authorities on animal magnetism, acts upon the juices and ganglionic system, or nerve-cells, the seat from whence proceed all the nerve-fibres which play such a prominent part in mesmerization. During childbirth the Cretan women were covered with this plant, and its roots were administered as best calculated to soothe acute pain, and allay the irritability so dangerous at this period. They were placed, moreover, within the precincts of the temple sacred to the goddess, and, if possible, under the direct rays of the resplendent daughter of Jupiter—the bright and warm Eastern moon. | ||
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The marked respect paid by the Buddhists to the sapphire-stone—which was also sacred to Luna, in every other country—may be found based on something more scientifically exact than a mere groundless superstition. They ascribed to it a sacred magical power, which every student of psychological mesmerism will readily understand, for its polished and deep-blue surface produces extraordinary somnambulic phenomena. The varied influence of the prismatic colors on the growth of vegetation, and especially that of the “blue ray,” has been recognized but recently. The Academicians quarrelled over the unequal heating power of the prismatic rays until a series of experimental demonstrations by General Pleasonton, proved that under the blue ray, the most electric of all, animal and vegetable growth was increased to a magical | The marked respect paid by the Buddhists to the sapphire-stone—which was also sacred to Luna, in every other country—may be found based on something more scientifically exact than a mere groundless superstition. They ascribed to it a sacred magical power, which every student of psychological mesmerism will readily understand, for its polished and deep-blue surface produces extraordinary somnambulic phenomena. The varied influence of the prismatic colors on the growth of vegetation, and especially that of the “blue ray,” has been recognized but recently. The Academicians quarrelled over the unequal heating power of the prismatic rays until a series of experimental demonstrations by General Pleasonton, proved that under the blue ray, the most electric of all, animal and vegetable growth was increased to a magical | ||
265 SECRET VIRTUES OF PRECIOUS STONES. | {{Page|265|SECRET VIRTUES OF PRECIOUS STONES.}} | ||
proportion. Thus Amoretti’s investigations of the electric polarity of precious stones show that the diamond, the garnet, the amethyst, are -E., while the sapphire is +E. | {{Style P-No indent|proportion. Thus Amoretti’s investigations of the electric polarity of precious stones show that the diamond, the garnet, the amethyst, are -E., while the sapphire is +E.{{Footnote mark|*|fn439}} Thus, we are enabled to show that the latest experiments of science only corroborate that which was known to the Hindu sages before any of the modern academies were founded. An old Hindu legend says that Brahma-Prajapâti, having fallen in love with his own daughter, {{Style S-Italic|Ushâs}} (Heaven, sometimes the Dawn also), assumed the form of a buck ({{Style S-Italic|ris’ya}}) and Ushas that of a female deer {{Style S-Italic|(rôhit)}} and thus committed the first sin.{{Footnote mark|†|fn440}} Upon seeing such a desecration, the gods felt so terrified, that uniting their most fearful-looking bodies—each god possessing as many bodies as he desires—they produced Bhûtavan (the spirit of evil), who was created by them on purpose to destroy the {{Style S-Italic|incarnation}} of the first sin committed by the Brahma himself. Upon seeing this, Brahma-Hiranyagarbha{{Footnote mark|‡|fn441}} repented bitterly and began repeating the Mantras, or prayers of purification, and, in his grief, dropped on earth a tear, the {{Style S-Italic|hottest}} that ever fell from an eye; and from it was formed the first sapphire.}} | ||
This half-sacred, half-popular legend shows that the Hindus knew which was the most electric of all the prismatic colors; moreover, the particular influence of the sapphire-stone was as well defined as that of all the other minerals. Orpheus teaches how it is possible to affect a whole audience by means of a lodestone; Pythagoras pays a particular attention to the color and nature of precious stones; while Apollonius of Tyana imparts to his disciples the secret virtues of each, and changes his jewelled rings daily, using a particular stone for every day of the month and according to the laws of judicial astrology. The Buddhists assert that the sapphire produces peace of mind, equanimity, and chases all evil thoughts by establishing a healthy circulation in man. So does an electric battery, with its well-directed fluid, say our electricians. “The sapphire,” say the Buddhists, “will open barred doors and dwellings (for the spirit of man); it produces a desire for prayer, and brings with it more peace than any other gem; but he who would wear it must lead a pure and holy life.” | This half-sacred, half-popular legend shows that the Hindus knew which was the most electric of all the prismatic colors; moreover, the particular influence of the sapphire-stone was as well defined as that of all the other minerals. Orpheus teaches how it is possible to affect a whole audience by means of a lodestone; Pythagoras pays a particular attention to the color and nature of precious stones; while Apollonius of Tyana imparts to his disciples the secret virtues of each, and changes his jewelled rings daily, using a particular stone for every day of the month and according to the laws of judicial astrology. The Buddhists assert that the sapphire produces peace of mind, equanimity, and chases all evil thoughts by establishing a healthy circulation in man. So does an electric battery, with its well-directed fluid, say our electricians. “The sapphire,” say the Buddhists, “will open barred doors and dwellings (for the spirit of man); it produces a desire for prayer, and brings with it more peace than any other gem; but he who would wear it must lead a pure and holy life.”{{Footnote mark|§|fn442}} | ||
Diana-Luna is the daughter of Zeus by Proserpina, who represents the Earth in her active labor, and, according to Hesiod, as Diana Eily- | Diana-Luna is the daughter of Zeus by Proserpina, who represents the Earth in her active labor, and, according to Hesiod, as Diana Eily- | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn439}} Kieser: “Archiv.,” vol. iv., p. 62. In fact, many of the old symbols were mere puns on names. | |||
{{Footnote return|†|fn440}} See “Rig-Vedas,” the Aitareya-Brahmanan. | |||
{{Footnote return|‡|fn441}} Brahma is also called by the Hindu Brahmans Hiranyagarbha or the {{Style S-Italic|unit}} soul, while {{Style S-Italic|Amrita}} is the supreme soul, the first cause which emanated from itself the creative Brahma. | |||
{{Footnote return|§|fn442}} Marbod: “Liber lapid. ed Beekmann.” | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
266 THE VEIL OF ISIS. | {{Page|266|THE VEIL OF ISIS.}} | ||
thia-Lucina she is Juno’s daughter. But Juno, devoured by Kronos or Saturn, and restored back to life by the Oceanid Metis, is also known as the Earth. Saturn, as the evolution of Time, swallows the earth in one of the ante-historical cataclysms, and it is only when Metis (the waters) by retreating in her many beds, frees the continent, that Juno is said to be restored to her first shape. The idea is expressed in the 9th and 10th verses of the first chapter of {{Style S-Italic|Genesis.}} In the frequent matrimonial quarrels between Juno and Jupiter, Diana is always represented as turning her back on her mother and smiling upon her father, though she chides him for his numerous frolics. The Thessalian magicians are said to have been obliged, during such eclipses, to draw her attention to the earth by the power of their spells and incantations, and the Babylonian astrologers and magi never desisted in their spells until they brought about a reconciliation between the irritated couple, after which Juno “radiantly smiled on the bright goddess” Diana, who, encircling her brow with her crescent, returned to her hunting-place in the mountains. | {{Style P-No indent|thia-Lucina she is Juno’s daughter. But Juno, devoured by Kronos or Saturn, and restored back to life by the Oceanid Metis, is also known as the Earth. Saturn, as the evolution of Time, swallows the earth in one of the ante-historical cataclysms, and it is only when Metis (the waters) by retreating in her many beds, frees the continent, that Juno is said to be restored to her first shape. The idea is expressed in the 9th and 10th verses of the first chapter of {{Style S-Italic|Genesis.}} In the frequent matrimonial quarrels between Juno and Jupiter, Diana is always represented as turning her back on her mother and smiling upon her father, though she chides him for his numerous frolics. The Thessalian magicians are said to have been obliged, during such eclipses, to draw her attention to the earth by the power of their spells and incantations, and the Babylonian astrologers and magi never desisted in their spells until they brought about a reconciliation between the irritated couple, after which Juno “radiantly smiled on the bright goddess” Diana, who, encircling her brow with her crescent, returned to her hunting-place in the mountains.}} | ||
It seems to us that the fable illustrates the different phases of the moon. We, the inhabitants of the earth, never see but one-half of our bright satellite, who thus turns {{Style S-Italic|her back}} to her mother Juno. The sun, the moon, and the earth are constantly changing positions with relation to each other. With the {{Style S-Italic|new}} moon there is constantly a change of weather; and sometimes the wind and storms may well suggest a quarrel between the sun and earth, especially when the former is concealed by grumbling thunder-clouds. Furthermore, the new moon, when her dark side is turned toward us, is invisible; and it is only after a {{Style S-Italic|reconciliation}} between the sun and the earth, that a bright crescent becomes visible on the side nearest to the sun, though this time Luna is not illuminated by sunlight {{Style S-Italic|directly}} received, but by sunlight reflected from the earth to the moon, and by her reflected back to us. Hence, the Chaldean astrologers and the magicians of Thessaly, who probably watched and determined as accurately as a Babinet the course of the celestial bodies, were said by their enchantments to force the moon to descend on earth, {{Style S-Italic|i.e}}., to show her crescent, which she could do but after receiving the “radiant smile” from her mother-earth, who put it on after the conjugal reconciliation. Diana-Luna, having adorned her head with her crescent, returns back to hunt in {{Style S-Italic|her mountains.}} | It seems to us that the fable illustrates the different phases of the moon. We, the inhabitants of the earth, never see but one-half of our bright satellite, who thus turns {{Style S-Italic|her back}} to her mother Juno. The sun, the moon, and the earth are constantly changing positions with relation to each other. With the {{Style S-Italic|new}} moon there is constantly a change of weather; and sometimes the wind and storms may well suggest a quarrel between the sun and earth, especially when the former is concealed by grumbling thunder-clouds. Furthermore, the new moon, when her dark side is turned toward us, is invisible; and it is only after a {{Style S-Italic|reconciliation}} between the sun and the earth, that a bright crescent becomes visible on the side nearest to the sun, though this time Luna is not illuminated by sunlight {{Style S-Italic|directly}} received, but by sunlight reflected from the earth to the moon, and by her reflected back to us. Hence, the Chaldean astrologers and the magicians of Thessaly, who probably watched and determined as accurately as a Babinet the course of the celestial bodies, were said by their enchantments to force the moon to descend on earth, {{Style S-Italic|i.e}}., to show her crescent, which she could do but after receiving the “radiant smile” from her mother-earth, who put it on after the conjugal reconciliation. Diana-Luna, having adorned her head with her crescent, returns back to hunt in {{Style S-Italic|her mountains.}} | ||
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As to calling in question the intrinsic knowledge of the ancients on the ground of their “{{Style S-Italic|superstitious}} deductions from natural phenomena,” it is as appropriate as it would be if, five hundred years hence, our descendants should regard the pupils of Professor Balfour Stewart as {{Style S-Italic|ancient}} ignoramuses, and himself a shallow philosopher. If modern science, in the person of this gentleman, can condescend to make | As to calling in question the intrinsic knowledge of the ancients on the ground of their “{{Style S-Italic|superstitious}} deductions from natural phenomena,” it is as appropriate as it would be if, five hundred years hence, our descendants should regard the pupils of Professor Balfour Stewart as {{Style S-Italic|ancient}} ignoramuses, and himself a shallow philosopher. If modern science, in the person of this gentleman, can condescend to make | ||
267 CLOUD-ENCOMPASSED BEL. | {{Page|267|CLOUD-ENCOMPASSED BEL.}} | ||
experiments to determine whether the appearance of the spots on the sun’s surface is in any way connected with the potato disease, and finds {{Style S-Italic|it is;}} and that, moreover, “the earth is very seriously affected by what takes place in the sun,” | {{Style P-No indent|experiments to determine whether the appearance of the spots on the sun’s surface is in any way connected with the potato disease, and finds {{Style S-Italic|it is;}} and that, moreover, “the earth is very seriously affected by what takes place in the sun,”{{Footnote mark|*|fn443}} why should the ancient astrologers be held up as either fools or arrant knaves? There is the same relation between natural and judicial or judiciary astrology, as between physiology and psychology, the physical and the moral. If in later centuries these sciences were degraded into charlatanry by some money-making impostors, is it just to extend the accusation to those mighty men of old who, by their persevering studies and holy lives, bestowed an immortal name upon Chaldea and Babylonia? Surely those who are now found to have made correct astronomical observations ranging back to “within 100 years from the flood,” from the top observatory of the “cloud-encompassed Bel,” as Prof. Draper has it, can hardly be considered impostors. If their mode of impressing upon the popular minds the great astronomical truths differed from the “system of education” of our present century and appears ridiculous to some, the question still remains unanswered: which of the two systems was the best? With them science went hand in hand with religion, and the idea of God was inseparable from that of his works. And while in the present century there is not one person out of ten thousand who knows, if he ever knew the fact at all, that the planet Uranus is {{Style S-Italic|next}} to Saturn, and revolves about the sun in eighty-four years; and that Saturn is {{Style S-Italic|next}} to Jupiter, and takes twenty-nine and a half years to make one complete revolution in its orbit; while Jupiter performs his revolution in twelve years; the uneducated masses of Babylon and Greece, having impressed on their minds that Uranus was the father of Saturn, and Saturn that of Jupiter, considering them furthermore deities as well as all their satellites and attendants, we may perhaps infer from it, that while Europeans only discovered Uranus in 1781, a curious coincidence is to be noticed in the above myths.}} | ||
We have but to open the most common book on astrology, and compare the descriptions embraced in the {{Style S-Italic|Fable of the Twelve Houses}} with the most modern discoveries of science as to the nature of the planets and the elements in each star, to see that without any spectroscope the ancients were perfectly well acquainted with the same. Unless the fact is again regarded as “a coincidence,” we can learn, to a certain extent, of the degree of the solar heat, light, and nature of the planets by simply studying their symbolic representations in the Olympic gods, and the twelve signs of the zodiac, to each of which in astrology is attributed a particular quality. If the goddesses of our own planet vary in no partic- | We have but to open the most common book on astrology, and compare the descriptions embraced in the {{Style S-Italic|Fable of the Twelve Houses}} with the most modern discoveries of science as to the nature of the planets and the elements in each star, to see that without any spectroscope the ancients were perfectly well acquainted with the same. Unless the fact is again regarded as “a coincidence,” we can learn, to a certain extent, of the degree of the solar heat, light, and nature of the planets by simply studying their symbolic representations in the Olympic gods, and the twelve signs of the zodiac, to each of which in astrology is attributed a particular quality. If the goddesses of our own planet vary in no partic- | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn443}} “The Sun and the Earth,” Lecture by Prof. Balfour Stewart. | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
268 THE VEIL OF ISIS. | {{Page|268|THE VEIL OF ISIS.}} | ||
ular from other gods and goddesses, but all have a like physical nature, does not this imply that the sentinels who watched from the top of Bel’s tower, by day as well as by night, holding communion with the euhemerized deities, had remarked, before ourselves, the physical unity of the universe and the fact that the planets above are made of precisely the same chemical elements as our own? The sun in Aries, Jupiter, is shown in astrology as a masculine, diurnal, cardinal, equinoctial, easterly sign, hot and dry, and answers perfectly to the character attributed to the fickle “Father of the gods.” When angry Zeus-Akrios snatches from his fiery belt the thunderbolts which he hurls forth from heaven, he rends the clouds and descends as Jupiter {{Style S-Italic|Pluvius}} in torrents of rain. He is the greatest and highest of gods, and his movements are as rapid as lightning itself. The planet Jupiter is known to revolve on its axis so rapidly that the point of its equator turns at the rate of 450 miles a minute. An immense excess of centrifugal force at the equator is believed to have caused the planet to become extremely flattened at the poles; and in Crete the personified god Jupiter was represented without ears. The planet Jupiter’s disk is crossed by dark belts; varying in breadth, they appear to be connected with its rotation on its axis, and are produced by disturbances in its atmosphere. The face of Father Zeus, says Hesiod, became spotted with rage when he beheld the Titans ready to rebel. | {{Style P-No indent|ular from other gods and goddesses, but all have a like physical nature, does not this imply that the sentinels who watched from the top of Bel’s tower, by day as well as by night, holding communion with the euhemerized deities, had remarked, before ourselves, the physical unity of the universe and the fact that the planets above are made of precisely the same chemical elements as our own? The sun in Aries, Jupiter, is shown in astrology as a masculine, diurnal, cardinal, equinoctial, easterly sign, hot and dry, and answers perfectly to the character attributed to the fickle “Father of the gods.” When angry Zeus-Akrios snatches from his fiery belt the thunderbolts which he hurls forth from heaven, he rends the clouds and descends as Jupiter {{Style S-Italic|Pluvius}} in torrents of rain. He is the greatest and highest of gods, and his movements are as rapid as lightning itself. The planet Jupiter is known to revolve on its axis so rapidly that the point of its equator turns at the rate of 450 miles a minute. An immense excess of centrifugal force at the equator is believed to have caused the planet to become extremely flattened at the poles; and in Crete the personified god Jupiter was represented without ears. The planet Jupiter’s disk is crossed by dark belts; varying in breadth, they appear to be connected with its rotation on its axis, and are produced by disturbances in its atmosphere. The face of Father Zeus, says Hesiod, became spotted with rage when he beheld the Titans ready to rebel.}} | ||
In Mr. Proctor’s book, astronomers seem especially doomed by Providence to encounter all kinds of curious “coincidences,” for he gives us many cases out of the “multitude,” and even of the “{{Style S-Italic|thousands}} of facts [sic].” To this list we may add the army of Egyptologists and archæologists who of late have been the chosen pets of the capricious {{Style S-Italic|Dame Chance,}} who, moreover, generally selects “well-to-do Arabs” and other Eastern gentlemen, to play the part of benevolent {{Style S-Italic|genii}} to Oriental scholars in difficulties. Professor Ebers is one of the latest favored ones. It is a well-known fact, that whenever Champollion needed important links, he fell in with them in the most various and unexpected ways. | In Mr. Proctor’s book, astronomers seem especially doomed by Providence to encounter all kinds of curious “coincidences,” for he gives us many cases out of the “multitude,” and even of the “{{Style S-Italic|thousands}} of facts [sic].” To this list we may add the army of Egyptologists and archæologists who of late have been the chosen pets of the capricious {{Style S-Italic|Dame Chance,}} who, moreover, generally selects “well-to-do Arabs” and other Eastern gentlemen, to play the part of benevolent {{Style S-Italic|genii}} to Oriental scholars in difficulties. Professor Ebers is one of the latest favored ones. It is a well-known fact, that whenever Champollion needed important links, he fell in with them in the most various and unexpected ways. | ||
Voltaire, the greatest of “infidels” of the eighteenth century, used to say, that if there were no God, people would have to invent one. Volney, another “materialist,” nowhere throughout his numerous writings denies the existence of God. On the contrary, he plainly asserts several times that the universe is the work of the “All-wise,” and is convinced that there is a Supreme Agent, a universal and identical Artificer, designated by the name of God. | Voltaire, the greatest of “infidels” of the eighteenth century, used to say, that if there were no God, people would have to invent one. Volney, another “materialist,” nowhere throughout his numerous writings denies the existence of God. On the contrary, he plainly asserts several times that the universe is the work of the “All-wise,” and is convinced that there is a Supreme Agent, a universal and identical Artificer, designated by the name of God.{{Footnote mark|*|fn444}} Voltaire becomes, toward the end of his life, Pythagorical, and concludes by saying: “I have consumed forty | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn444}} “La Loi Naturelle,” par Volney. | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
269 CHANCE, A WORD VOID OF SENSE. | {{Page|269|CHANCE, A WORD VOID OF SENSE.}} | ||
years of my pilgrimage . . . seeking the philosopher’s stone called truth. I have consulted all the adepts of antiquity, Epicurus and Augustine, Plato and Malebranche, and I still remain in ignorance. . . . All that I have been able to obtain by comparing and combining the system of Plato, of the tutor of Alexander, Pythagoras, and the Oriental, is this: {{Style S-Italic|Chance is a word void of sense.}} The world is arranged according to mathematical laws.” | {{Style P-No indent|years of my pilgrimage . . . seeking the philosopher’s stone called truth. I have consulted all the adepts of antiquity, Epicurus and Augustine, Plato and Malebranche, and I still remain in ignorance. . . . All that I have been able to obtain by comparing and combining the system of Plato, of the tutor of Alexander, Pythagoras, and the Oriental, is this: {{Style S-Italic|Chance is a word void of sense.}} The world is arranged according to mathematical laws.”{{Footnote mark|*|fn445}}}} | ||
It is pertinent for us to suggest that Mr. Proctor’s stumbling-block is that which trips the feet of all materialistic scientists, whose views he but repeats; he confounds the physical and spiritual operations of nature. His very theory of the probable inductive reasoning of the ancients as to the subtile influences of the more remote planets, by comparison with the familiar and potent effects of the sun and moon upon our earth, shows the drift of his mind. Because science {{Style S-Italic|affirms}} that the sun imparts physical {{Style S-Italic|heat}} and {{Style S-Italic|light}} to us, and the moon affects the tides, he thinks that the ancients must have regarded the other heavenly bodies as exerting the same kind of influence upon us physically, and indirectly upon our fortunes. | It is pertinent for us to suggest that Mr. Proctor’s stumbling-block is that which trips the feet of all materialistic scientists, whose views he but repeats; he confounds the physical and spiritual operations of nature. His very theory of the probable inductive reasoning of the ancients as to the subtile influences of the more remote planets, by comparison with the familiar and potent effects of the sun and moon upon our earth, shows the drift of his mind. Because science {{Style S-Italic|affirms}} that the sun imparts physical {{Style S-Italic|heat}} and {{Style S-Italic|light}} to us, and the moon affects the tides, he thinks that the ancients must have regarded the other heavenly bodies as exerting the same kind of influence upon us physically, and indirectly upon our fortunes.{{Footnote mark|†|fn446}} And here we must permit ourselves a digression. | ||
How the ancients regarded the heavenly bodies is very hard to determine, for one unacquainted with the esoteric explanation of their doctrines. While philology and comparative theology have begun the arduous work of analysis, they have as yet arrived at meagre results. The allegorical form of speech has often led our commentators so far astray, that they have confounded causes with effects, and {{Style S-Italic|vice versa.}} In the baffling phenomenon of force-correlation, even our greatest scientists would find it very hard to explain which of these forces is the cause, and which the effect, since each may be both by turns, and convertible. Thus, if we should inquire of the physicists, “Is it light which generates heat, or the latter which produces light?” we would in all probability be answered that it is certainly light which creates heat. Very well; but how? did the great Artificer first produce light, or did He first construct the sun, which is said to be the sole dispenser of light, and, consequently, heat? These questions may appear at first glance indicative of ignorance; but, perhaps, if we ponder them deeply, they will assume another appearance. In {{Style S-Italic|Genesis,}} the “Lord” first creates {{Style S-Italic|light}}, and three days and three nights are alleged to pass away before He creates the sun, the moon, and the stars. This gross blunder against {{Style S-Italic|exact}} science has created much merriment among materialists. And they certainly would be warranted in laughing, if their doctrine that our light and heat are | How the ancients regarded the heavenly bodies is very hard to determine, for one unacquainted with the esoteric explanation of their doctrines. While philology and comparative theology have begun the arduous work of analysis, they have as yet arrived at meagre results. The allegorical form of speech has often led our commentators so far astray, that they have confounded causes with effects, and {{Style S-Italic|vice versa.}} In the baffling phenomenon of force-correlation, even our greatest scientists would find it very hard to explain which of these forces is the cause, and which the effect, since each may be both by turns, and convertible. Thus, if we should inquire of the physicists, “Is it light which generates heat, or the latter which produces light?” we would in all probability be answered that it is certainly light which creates heat. Very well; but how? did the great Artificer first produce light, or did He first construct the sun, which is said to be the sole dispenser of light, and, consequently, heat? These questions may appear at first glance indicative of ignorance; but, perhaps, if we ponder them deeply, they will assume another appearance. In {{Style S-Italic|Genesis,}} the “Lord” first creates {{Style S-Italic|light}}, and three days and three nights are alleged to pass away before He creates the sun, the moon, and the stars. This gross blunder against {{Style S-Italic|exact}} science has created much merriment among materialists. And they certainly would be warranted in laughing, if their doctrine that our light and heat are | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn445}} “Diction. Philosophique,” Art. “Philosophie.” | |||
{{Footnote return|†|fn446}} “Boston Lecture,” December, 1875. | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
270 THE VEIL OF ISIS. | {{Page|270|THE VEIL OF ISIS.}} | ||
derived from the sun were unassailable. Until recently, nothing has happened to upset this theory, which, for lack of a better one, according to the expression of a preacher, “reigns sovereign in the Empire of Hypothesis.” The ancient sun-worshippers regarded the Great Spirit as a nature-god, identical with nature, and the sun as the deity, “in whom the Lord of life dwells.” Gama is the sun, according to the Hindu theology, and “The sun is the source of the souls and of | {{Style P-No indent|derived from the sun were unassailable. Until recently, nothing has happened to upset this theory, which, for lack of a better one, according to the expression of a preacher, “reigns sovereign in the Empire of Hypothesis.” The ancient sun-worshippers regarded the Great Spirit as a nature-god, identical with nature, and the sun as the deity, “in whom the Lord of life dwells.” Gama is the sun, according to the Hindu theology, and “The sun is the source of the souls and of ''all life''.”{{Footnote mark|*|fn447}} Agni, the “Divine Fire,” the deity of the Hindu, is the sun,{{Footnote mark|†|fn448}} for the fire and sun are the same. Ormazd is light, the Sun-God, or the Life-giver. In the Hindu philosophy, “The souls issue from the soul of the world, and return to it as sparks to the fire.”{{Footnote mark|‡|fn449}} But, in another place, it is said that “{{Style S-Italic|The Sun}} is the soul {{Style S-Italic|of all things;}} all has proceeded out of it, and will return to it,”{{Footnote mark|§|fn450}} which shows that the sun is meant allegorically here, and refers to the {{Style S-Italic|central,}} invisible sun, GOD, whose first manifestation was Sephira, the emanation of En-Soph—Light, in short.}} | ||
“And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it,” says Ezekiel (i., 4, 22, etc.), “. . . and the likeness of a throne . . . and as the appearance of a man above upon it . . . and I saw as it were the appearance {{Style S-Italic|of fire}} and it had brightness round about it.” And Daniel speaks of the “ancient of days,” the kabalistic En-Soph, whose throne was “the fiery flame, his wheels burning fire. . . . A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him.” | “And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it,” says Ezekiel (i., 4, 22, etc.), “. . . and the likeness of a throne . . . and as the appearance of a man above upon it . . . and I saw as it were the appearance {{Style S-Italic|of fire}} and it had brightness round about it.” And Daniel speaks of the “ancient of days,” the kabalistic En-Soph, whose throne was “the fiery flame, his wheels burning fire. . . . A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him.”{{Footnote mark|║|fn451}} Like the Pagan Saturn, who had his castle of flame in the seventh heaven, the Jewish Jehovah had his “castle of fire over the seventh heavens.”{{Footnote mark|¶|fn452}} | ||
If the limited space of the present work would permit we might easily show that none of the ancients, the sun-worshippers included, regarded our visible sun otherwise than as an emblem of their metaphysical invisible central sun-god. Moreover, they did {{Style S-Italic|not}} believe what our modern science teaches us, namely, that light and heat proceed from {{Style S-Italic|our}} sun, and that it is this planet which imparts all life to our visible nature. “His radiance is undecaying,” says the {{Style S-Italic|Rig-Veda,}} “the intensely-shining, all-pervading, unceasing, undecaying rays of Agni desist not, neither night nor day.” This evidently related to the spiritual, central sun, whose rays are all-pervading and unceasing, the eternal and boundless life-giver. He the {{Style S-Italic|Point;}} the centre (which is everywhere) of the circle (which is nowhere), the ethereal, spiritual fire, the soul and spirit of the all-pervading, mysterious ether; the despair and puzzle of the materialist, who will some day find that that which causes the numberless cos- | If the limited space of the present work would permit we might easily show that none of the ancients, the sun-worshippers included, regarded our visible sun otherwise than as an emblem of their metaphysical invisible central sun-god. Moreover, they did {{Style S-Italic|not}} believe what our modern science teaches us, namely, that light and heat proceed from {{Style S-Italic|our}} sun, and that it is this planet which imparts all life to our visible nature. “His radiance is undecaying,” says the {{Style S-Italic|Rig-Veda,}} “the intensely-shining, all-pervading, unceasing, undecaying rays of Agni desist not, neither night nor day.” This evidently related to the spiritual, central sun, whose rays are all-pervading and unceasing, the eternal and boundless life-giver. He the {{Style S-Italic|Point;}} the centre (which is everywhere) of the circle (which is nowhere), the ethereal, spiritual fire, the soul and spirit of the all-pervading, mysterious ether; the despair and puzzle of the materialist, who will some day find that that which causes the numberless cos- | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn447}} Weber: “Ind. Stud.,” i. 290. | |||
{{Footnote return|†|fn448}} Wilson: “Rig-Veda Sanhita,” ii. 143. | |||
{{Footnote return|‡|fn449}} “Duncker,” vol. ii., p. 162. | |||
{{Footnote return|§|fn450}} “Wultke,” ii. 262. | |||
{{Footnote return|║|fn451}} Daniel vii. 9, 10. | |||
{{Footnote return|¶|fn452}} Book of Enoch, xiv. 7, ff. | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
271 THE SUN NOT INCANDESCENT. | {{Page|271|THE SUN NOT INCANDESCENT.}} | ||
mic forces to manifest themselves in eternal correlation is but a divine electricity, or rather {{Style S-Italic|galvanism,}} and that the sun is but one of the myriad {{Style S-Italic|magnets}} disseminated through space—a reflector—as General Pleasonton has it. That the sun has no more heat in it than the moon or the space-crowding host of sparkling stars. That there is no {{Style S-Italic|gravitation}} in the Newtonian sense, | {{Style P-No indent|mic forces to manifest themselves in eternal correlation is but a divine electricity, or rather {{Style S-Italic|galvanism,}} and that the sun is but one of the myriad {{Style S-Italic|magnets}} disseminated through space—a reflector—as General Pleasonton has it. That the sun has no more heat in it than the moon or the space-crowding host of sparkling stars. That there is no {{Style S-Italic|gravitation}} in the Newtonian sense,{{Footnote mark|*|fn453}} but only magnetic attraction and repulsion; and that it is by their magnetism that the planets of the solar system have their motions regulated in their respective orbits by the still more powerful magnetism of the sun, not by their weight or gravitation. This and much more they may learn; but, until then we must be content with being merely laughed at, instead of being burned alive for impiety, or shut up in an insane asylum.}} | ||
The laws of Manu are the doctrines of Plato, Philo, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, and of the Kabala. The esoterism of every religion may be solved by the latter. The kabalistic doctrine of the allegorical Father and Son, or {{Style S-Italic|Pathr}} and {{Style S-Italic|Logo”}} is identical with the groundwork of Buddhism. Moses could not reveal to the multitude the sublime secrets of religious speculation, nor the cosmogony of the universe; the whole resting upon the Hindu {{Style S-Italic|Illusion,}} a clever mask veiling the {{Style S-Italic|Sanctum Sanctorum,}} and which has misled so many theological commentators. | The laws of Manu are the doctrines of Plato, Philo, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, and of the Kabala. The esoterism of every religion may be solved by the latter. The kabalistic doctrine of the allegorical Father and Son, or {{Style S-Italic|Pathr}} and {{Style S-Italic|Logo”}} is identical with the groundwork of Buddhism. Moses could not reveal to the multitude the sublime secrets of religious speculation, nor the cosmogony of the universe; the whole resting upon the Hindu {{Style S-Italic|Illusion,}} a clever mask veiling the {{Style S-Italic|Sanctum Sanctorum,}} and which has misled so many theological commentators.{{Footnote mark|†|fn454}} | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn453}} This proposition, which will be branded as {{Style S-Italic|preposterous,}} but which we are ready to show, on the authority of Plato (see Jowett’s Introd. to “the Timæus;” last page), as a Pythagorean doctrine, together with that other of the sun being but the lens through which the light passes, is strangely corroborated at the present day, by the observations of General Pleasonton of Philadelphia. This experimentalist boldly comes out as a revolutionist of modern science, and calls Newton’s centripetal and centrifugal forces, and the law of gravitation, “fallacies.” He fearlessly maintains his ground against the Tyndalls and Huxleys of the day. We are glad to find such a learned defender of one of the oldest (and hitherto treated as the {{Style S-Italic|most absurd}}) of hermetic {{Style S-Italic|hallucinations}} (?) (See General Pleasonton’s book, “The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight, and of the Blue Color of the Sky, in developing Animal and Vegetable Life,” addressed to the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture.) | |||
{{Footnote return|†|fn454}} In no country were the true esoteric doctrines trusted to writing. The Hindu Brahma Maia, was passed from one generation to another by {{Style S-Italic|oral}} tradition. The Kabala was never written; and Moses intrusted it orally but to his elect. The primitive pure Oriental gnosticism was completely corrupted and degraded by the different subsequent sects. Philo, in the “de Sacrificiis Abeli et Caini,” states that there is a mystery {{Style S-Italic|not to be revealed}} to the uninitiated. Plato is silent on many things, and his disciples refer to this fact constantly. Any one who has studied, even superficially, these philosophers, on reading the institutes of Manu, will clearly perceive that they all drew from the same source. “This universe,” says Manu, “existed only {{Style S-Italic|in the first divine idea, yet unexpanded, as if involved in darkness,}} imperceptible, indefinable, undiscoverable by reason, and undiscovered {{Style S-Italic|by revelation,}} as if it were wholly immersed in sleep; then the sole self-existing Power himself undiscerned, appeared with undiminished glory, {{Style S-Italic|expanding his idea,}} or dispelling {{Style S-Italic|the gloom.”}} Thus speaks the first code of Buddhism. Plato’s idea is the {{Style S-Italic|Will,}} or Logos, the deity which manifests itself. It is the Eternal Light from which proceeds, as an {{Style S-Italic|emanation,}} the visible and {{Style S-Italic|material}} light. | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
272 THE VEIL OF ISIS. | {{Page|272|THE VEIL OF ISIS.}} | ||
The kabalistic heresies receive an unexpected support in the heterodox theories of General Pleasonton. According to his opinions (which he supports on far more unimpeachable facts than orthodox scientists theirs) the space between the sun and the earth must be filled with a material medium, which, so far as we can judge from his description, answers to our kabalistic astral light. The passage of light through this must produce enormous friction. Friction generates electricity, and it is this electricity and its correlative magnetism which forms those tremendous forces of nature that produce in, on, and about our planet the various changes which we everywhere encounter. He proves that terrestrial heat {{Style S-Italic|cannot}} be directly derived from the sun, for heat {{Style S-Italic|ascends.}} The force by which heat is effected is a repellent one, he says, and as it is associated with positive electricity, it is attracted to the upper atmosphere by its negative electricity, always associated with cold, which is opposed to positive electricity. He strengthens his position by showing that the earth, which when covered with snow cannot be affected by the sun’s rays, is warmest where the snow is deepest. This he explains upon the theory that the radiation of heat from the interior of the earth, positively electrified, meeting at the {{Style S-Italic|surface}} of the earth with the snow in contact with it, negatively electrified, produces the heat. | The kabalistic heresies receive an unexpected support in the heterodox theories of General Pleasonton. According to his opinions (which he supports on far more unimpeachable facts than orthodox scientists theirs) the space between the sun and the earth must be filled with a material medium, which, so far as we can judge from his description, answers to our kabalistic astral light. The passage of light through this must produce enormous friction. Friction generates electricity, and it is this electricity and its correlative magnetism which forms those tremendous forces of nature that produce in, on, and about our planet the various changes which we everywhere encounter. He proves that terrestrial heat {{Style S-Italic|cannot}} be directly derived from the sun, for heat {{Style S-Italic|ascends.}} The force by which heat is effected is a repellent one, he says, and as it is associated with positive electricity, it is attracted to the upper atmosphere by its negative electricity, always associated with cold, which is opposed to positive electricity. He strengthens his position by showing that the earth, which when covered with snow cannot be affected by the sun’s rays, is warmest where the snow is deepest. This he explains upon the theory that the radiation of heat from the interior of the earth, positively electrified, meeting at the {{Style S-Italic|surface}} of the earth with the snow in contact with it, negatively electrified, produces the heat. | ||
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If this courageous gentleman should prove his case, future generations will have but little disposition to laugh at Paracelsus and his sidereal or astral light, and at his doctrine of the magnetic influence exercised by | If this courageous gentleman should prove his case, future generations will have but little disposition to laugh at Paracelsus and his sidereal or astral light, and at his doctrine of the magnetic influence exercised by | ||
273 DOES THE MOON INFLUENCE VEGETATION? | {{Page|273|DOES THE MOON INFLUENCE VEGETATION?}} | ||
the stars and planets upon every living creature, plant, or mineral of our globe. Moreover, if the Pleasonton hypothesis is established, the transcendent glory of Professor Tyndall will be rather obscured. According to public opinion, the General makes a terrible onslaught on the learned physicist, for attributing to the sun calorific effects experienced by him in an Alpine ramble, that were simply due to his own vital electricity. | {{Style P-No indent|the stars and planets upon every living creature, plant, or mineral of our globe. Moreover, if the Pleasonton hypothesis is established, the transcendent glory of Professor Tyndall will be rather obscured. According to public opinion, the General makes a terrible onslaught on the learned physicist, for attributing to the sun calorific effects experienced by him in an Alpine ramble, that were simply due to his own vital electricity.{{Footnote mark|*|fn455}}}} | ||
The prevalence of such revolutionary ideas in science, embolden us to ask the representatives of science whether they can explain {{Style S-Italic|why}} the tides follow the moon in her circling motion? The fact is, they cannot demonstrate even so familiar a phenomenon as this, one that has no mystery for even the neophytes in alchemy and magic. We would also like to learn whether they are equally incapable of telling us why the moon’s rays are so poisonous, even fatal, to some organisms; why in some parts of Africa and India a person sleeping in the moonlight is often made insane; why the crises of certain diseases correspond with lunar changes; why somnambulists are more affected at her full; and why gardeners, farmers, and woodmen cling so tenaciously to the idea that vegetation is affected by lunar influences? Several of the mimosæ alternately open and close their petals as the full moon emerges from or is obscured by clouds. And the Hindus of Travancore have a popular but extremely suggestive proverb which says: “Soft words are better than harsh; the sea is attracted by the cool moon and not by the hot sun.” Perhaps the one man or the many men who launched this proverb on the world knew more about the cause of such attraction of the waters by the moon than we do. Thus if science cannot explain the cause of this physical influence, what can she know of the moral and occult influences that may be exercised by the celestial bodies on men and their destiny; and why contradict that which it is impossible for her to prove false? If certain aspects of the moon effect tangible results so familiar in the experience of men throughout all time, what violence are we doing to logic in assuming the possibility that a certain combination of sidereal influences may also be more or less potential? | The prevalence of such revolutionary ideas in science, embolden us to ask the representatives of science whether they can explain {{Style S-Italic|why}} the tides follow the moon in her circling motion? The fact is, they cannot demonstrate even so familiar a phenomenon as this, one that has no mystery for even the neophytes in alchemy and magic. We would also like to learn whether they are equally incapable of telling us why the moon’s rays are so poisonous, even fatal, to some organisms; why in some parts of Africa and India a person sleeping in the moonlight is often made insane; why the crises of certain diseases correspond with lunar changes; why somnambulists are more affected at her full; and why gardeners, farmers, and woodmen cling so tenaciously to the idea that vegetation is affected by lunar influences? Several of the mimosæ alternately open and close their petals as the full moon emerges from or is obscured by clouds. And the Hindus of Travancore have a popular but extremely suggestive proverb which says: “Soft words are better than harsh; the sea is attracted by the cool moon and not by the hot sun.” Perhaps the one man or the many men who launched this proverb on the world knew more about the cause of such attraction of the waters by the moon than we do. Thus if science cannot explain the cause of this physical influence, what can she know of the moral and occult influences that may be exercised by the celestial bodies on men and their destiny; and why contradict that which it is impossible for her to prove false? If certain aspects of the moon effect tangible results so familiar in the experience of men throughout all time, what violence are we doing to logic in assuming the possibility that a certain combination of sidereal influences may also be more or less potential? | ||
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If the reader will recall what is said by the learned authors of the | If the reader will recall what is said by the learned authors of the | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn455}} It appears that in descending from Mont Blanc, Tyndall suffered severely from the heat, though he was knee-deep in the snow at the time. The Professor attributed this to the burning rays of the sun, but Pleasonton maintains that if the rays of the sun had been so intense as described, they would have melted the snow, which they did not; he concludes that the heat from which the Professor suffered came from his own body, and was due to the electrical action of sunlight upon his dark woolen clothes, which had become electrified positively by the heat of his body. The cold, dry ether of planetary space and the upper atmosphere of the earth became negatively electrified, and falling upon his warm body and clothes, positively electrified, evolved an increased heat (see “The Influence of the Blue Ray,” etc., pp. 39, 40, 41, etc.). | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
274 THE VEIL OF ISIS. | {{Page|274|THE VEIL OF ISIS.}} | ||
{{Style S-Italic|Unseen Universe,}} as to the positive effect produced upon the universal ether by so small a cause as the evolution of thought in a single human brain, how reasonable will it not appear that the terrific impulses imparted to this common medium by the sweep of the myriad blazing orbs that are rushing through “the interstellar depths,” should affect us and the earth upon which we live, in a powerful degree? If astronomers cannot explain to us the occult law by which the drifting particles of cosmic matter aggregate into worlds, and then take their places in the majestic procession which is ceaselessly moving around some central point of attraction, how can anyone assume to say what mystic influences may or may not be darting through space and affecting the issues of life upon this and other planets? Almost nothing is known of the laws of magnetism and the other imponderable agents; almost nothing of their effects upon our bodies and minds; even that which is known and moreover perfectly demonstrated, is attributed to chance, and curious {{Style S-Italic|coincidences.}} But we do know, by these coincidences, | {{Style P-No indent|{{Style S-Italic|Unseen Universe,}} as to the positive effect produced upon the universal ether by so small a cause as the evolution of thought in a single human brain, how reasonable will it not appear that the terrific impulses imparted to this common medium by the sweep of the myriad blazing orbs that are rushing through “the interstellar depths,” should affect us and the earth upon which we live, in a powerful degree? If astronomers cannot explain to us the occult law by which the drifting particles of cosmic matter aggregate into worlds, and then take their places in the majestic procession which is ceaselessly moving around some central point of attraction, how can anyone assume to say what mystic influences may or may not be darting through space and affecting the issues of life upon this and other planets? Almost nothing is known of the laws of magnetism and the other imponderable agents; almost nothing of their effects upon our bodies and minds; even that which is known and moreover perfectly demonstrated, is attributed to chance, and curious {{Style S-Italic|coincidences.}} But we do know, by these coincidences,{{Footnote mark|*|fn456}} that “there are periods when certain diseases, propensities, fortunes, and misfortunes of humanity are more rife than at others.” There are times of epidemic in moral and physical affairs. In one epoch “the spirit of religious controversy will arouse the most ferocious passions of which human nature is susceptible, provoking mutual persecution, bloodshed, and wars; at another, an epidemic of resistance to constituted authority will spread over half the world (as in the year 1848), rapid and simultaneous as the most virulent bodily disorder.”}} | ||
Again, the {{Style S-Italic|collective character}} of mental phenomena is illustrated by an anomalous psychological condition invading and dominating over thousands upon thousands, depriving them of everything but automatic action, and giving rise to the popular opinion of demoniacal possession, an opinion in some sense justified by the satanic passions, emotions, and acts which accompany the condition. At one period, the aggregate tendency is to retirement and contemplation; hence, the countless votaries of monachism and anchoretism; at another the mania is directed toward {{Style S-Italic|action,}} having for its proposed end some utopian scheme, equally impracticable and useless; hence, the myriads who have forsaken their kindred, their homes, and their country, to seek a land whose stones were gold, or to wage exterminating war for the possession of worthless cities and trackless deserts. | Again, the {{Style S-Italic|collective character}} of mental phenomena is illustrated by an anomalous psychological condition invading and dominating over thousands upon thousands, depriving them of everything but automatic action, and giving rise to the popular opinion of demoniacal possession, an opinion in some sense justified by the satanic passions, emotions, and acts which accompany the condition. At one period, the aggregate tendency is to retirement and contemplation; hence, the countless votaries of monachism and anchoretism; at another the mania is directed toward {{Style S-Italic|action,}} having for its proposed end some utopian scheme, equally impracticable and useless; hence, the myriads who have forsaken their kindred, their homes, and their country, to seek a land whose stones were gold, or to wage exterminating war for the possession of worthless cities and trackless deserts.{{Footnote mark|†|fn457}} | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn456}} The most curious of all “curious coincidences,” to our mind is, that our men of science should put aside facts, striking enough to cause them to use such an expression when speaking of them, instead of setting to work to give us a philosophical explanation of the same. | |||
{{Footnote return|†|fn457}} See Charles Elam, M. D.: “A Physician’s Problems,” London, 1869, p. 159. | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
275 THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. | {{Page|275|THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES.}} | ||
The author from whom the above is quoted says that “the seeds of vice and crime appear to be sown under the surface of society, and to spring up and bring forth fruit with appalling rapidity and paralyzing succession.” | The author from whom the above is quoted says that “the seeds of vice and crime appear to be sown under the surface of society, and to spring up and bring forth fruit with appalling rapidity and paralyzing succession.” | ||
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“We know,” says Dr. Elam, “that certain pathological conditions have a tendency to become epidemic, {{Style S-Italic|influenced by causes not yet investigated}}. . . . We see how strong is the tendency of opinion once promulgated to run into an epidemic form—no opinion, no delusion, is too absurd to assume this collective character. We observe, also, how remarkably the same ideas reproduce themselves and {{Style S-Italic|reappear in successive ages;}} . . . no crime is too horrible to become popular, homicide, infanticide, suicide, poisoning, or any other diabolical human conception. | “We know,” says Dr. Elam, “that certain pathological conditions have a tendency to become epidemic, {{Style S-Italic|influenced by causes not yet investigated}}. . . . We see how strong is the tendency of opinion once promulgated to run into an epidemic form—no opinion, no delusion, is too absurd to assume this collective character. We observe, also, how remarkably the same ideas reproduce themselves and {{Style S-Italic|reappear in successive ages;}} . . . no crime is too horrible to become popular, homicide, infanticide, suicide, poisoning, or any other diabolical human conception. | ||
276 THE VEIL OF ISIS. | {{Page|276|THE VEIL OF ISIS.}} | ||
. . . In epidemics, the cause of the rapid spread at that particular period {{Style S-Italic|remains a mystery!”}} | {{Style P-No indent|. . . In epidemics, the cause of the rapid spread at that particular period {{Style S-Italic|remains a mystery!”}}}} | ||
These few lines contain an undeniable {{Style S-Italic|psychological}} fact, sketched with a masterly pen, and at the same time a {{Style S-Italic|half}}-confession of utter ignorance—“{{Style S-Italic|Causes not yet investigated.”}} Why not be honest and add at once, “{{Style S-Italic|impossible}} to investigate with present scientific methods”? | These few lines contain an undeniable {{Style S-Italic|psychological}} fact, sketched with a masterly pen, and at the same time a {{Style S-Italic|half}}-confession of utter ignorance—“{{Style S-Italic|Causes not yet investigated.”}} Why not be honest and add at once, “{{Style S-Italic|impossible}} to investigate with present scientific methods”? | ||
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Who but has noticed in the columns of the daily press similar incidents? They meet the eye constantly. In cases of murder, of every description, and of other crimes of a diabolical character, the act is attributed, in nine cases out of ten, by the offenders themselves, to {{Style S-Italic|irresistible obsessions.}} “{{Style S-Italic|Something}} whispered constantly in my ear. . . . {{Style S-Italic|Somebody}} was incessantly pushing and leading me on.” Such are the too-frequent confessions of the criminals. Physicians attribute them to hallucinations of disordered brains, and call the homicidal impulse temporary {{Style S-Italic|lunacy.}} But is lunacy itself well understood by any psychologist? Has its cause ever been brought under a hypothesis capable of withstanding the challenge of an uncompromising investigator? Let the controversial works of our contemporary alienists answer for themselves. | Who but has noticed in the columns of the daily press similar incidents? They meet the eye constantly. In cases of murder, of every description, and of other crimes of a diabolical character, the act is attributed, in nine cases out of ten, by the offenders themselves, to {{Style S-Italic|irresistible obsessions.}} “{{Style S-Italic|Something}} whispered constantly in my ear. . . . {{Style S-Italic|Somebody}} was incessantly pushing and leading me on.” Such are the too-frequent confessions of the criminals. Physicians attribute them to hallucinations of disordered brains, and call the homicidal impulse temporary {{Style S-Italic|lunacy.}} But is lunacy itself well understood by any psychologist? Has its cause ever been brought under a hypothesis capable of withstanding the challenge of an uncompromising investigator? Let the controversial works of our contemporary alienists answer for themselves. | ||
Plato acknowledges man to be the toy of the element of necessity, which he enters upon in appearing in this world of matter; he is influenced by external causes, and these causes are {{Style S-Italic|daimonia,}} like that of Socrates. Happy is the man physically pure, for if his {{Style S-Italic|external}} soul (body) is pure, it will strengthen the second one (astral body), or the soul which is termed by him the {{Style S-Italic|higher mortal soul,}} which though liable to err from its own motives, will always side with reason against the animal proclivities of the body. The lusts of man arise in consequence of his perishable material body, so do other diseases; but though he regards crimes as {{Style S-Italic|involuntary}} sometimes, for they result like bodily disease from external causes, Plato clearly makes a wide distinction between these {{Style S-Italic|causes.}} The fatalism which he concedes to humanity, does not preclude the possibility of avoiding them, for though pain, fear, anger, and other feelings are given to men by {{Style S-Italic|necessity,}} “if they conquered these they would live righteously, and if they were conquered by them, {{Style S-Italic|unrighteously.” | Plato acknowledges man to be the toy of the element of necessity, which he enters upon in appearing in this world of matter; he is influenced by external causes, and these causes are {{Style S-Italic|daimonia,}} like that of Socrates. Happy is the man physically pure, for if his {{Style S-Italic|external}} soul (body) is pure, it will strengthen the second one (astral body), or the soul which is termed by him the {{Style S-Italic|higher mortal soul,}} which though liable to err from its own motives, will always side with reason against the animal proclivities of the body. The lusts of man arise in consequence of his perishable material body, so do other diseases; but though he regards crimes as {{Style S-Italic|involuntary}} sometimes, for they result like bodily disease from external causes, Plato clearly makes a wide distinction between these {{Style S-Italic|causes.}} The fatalism which he concedes to humanity, does not preclude the possibility of avoiding them, for though pain, fear, anger, and other feelings are given to men by {{Style S-Italic|necessity,}} “if they conquered these they would live righteously, and if they were conquered by them, {{Style S-Italic|unrighteously.”{{Footnote mark|*|fn458}}}} The | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn458}} Jowett: “Timæus.” | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
277 “A PHYSICIAN’S PROBLEMS.” | {{Page|277|“A PHYSICIAN’S PROBLEMS.”}} | ||
{{Style S-Italic|dual}} man, {{Style S-Italic|i.e.,}} one from whom the divine {{Style S-Italic|immortal}} spirit has departed, leaving but the animal form and astral body (Plato’s higher {{Style S-Italic|mortal}} soul) {{Style S-Italic|,}} is left merely to his {{Style S-Italic|instincts,}} for he was conquered by all the evils entailed on matter; hence, he becomes a docile tool in the hands of the {{Style S-Italic|invisibles—}}beings of sublimated matter, hovering in our atmosphere, and ever ready to inspire those who are deservedly deserted by their {{Style S-Italic|immortal}} counsellor, the Divine Spirit, called by Plato “genius.” | {{Style P-No indent|{{Style S-Italic|dual}} man, {{Style S-Italic|i.e.,}} one from whom the divine {{Style S-Italic|immortal}} spirit has departed, leaving but the animal form and astral body (Plato’s higher {{Style S-Italic|mortal}} soul) {{Style S-Italic|,}} is left merely to his {{Style S-Italic|instincts,}} for he was conquered by all the evils entailed on matter; hence, he becomes a docile tool in the hands of the {{Style S-Italic|invisibles—}}beings of sublimated matter, hovering in our atmosphere, and ever ready to inspire those who are deservedly deserted by their {{Style S-Italic|immortal}} counsellor, the Divine Spirit, called by Plato “genius.”{{Footnote mark|*|fn459}} According to this great philosopher and initiate, one “who lived well during his appointed time would return to the habitation {{Style S-Italic|of his star,}} and there have a blessed and suitable existence. But if he failed in attaining this in the second generation he would pass {{Style S-Italic|into a woman—}}become helpless and weak as a woman;{{Footnote mark|†|fn460}} and should he not cease from evil in that condition, he would be changed into some brute, which resembled him in his evil ways, and would not cease from his toils and transformations until he followed the original principle of sameness and likeness within him, and overcame, by the help of reason, the latter secretions of turbulent and irrational {{Style S-Italic|elements}} (elementary dæmons) composed of fire and air, and water and earth, and returned to the form of his first and better nature.”{{Footnote mark|‡|fn461}}}} | ||
But Dr. Elam thinks otherwise. On page 194 of his book, {{Style S-Italic|A Physician’s Problems,}} he says that the cause of the rapid spread of certain epidemics of disease which he is noticing “remains a mystery;” but as regards the incendiarism he remarks that “in all this we find nothing mysterious,” though the epidemic is strongly developed. Strange contradiction! De Quincey, in his paper, entitled {{Style S-Italic|Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,}} treats of the epidemic of assassination, between 1588 and 1635, by which seven of the most distinguished characters of | But Dr. Elam thinks otherwise. On page 194 of his book, {{Style S-Italic|A Physician’s Problems,}} he says that the cause of the rapid spread of certain epidemics of disease which he is noticing “remains a mystery;” but as regards the incendiarism he remarks that “in all this we find nothing mysterious,” though the epidemic is strongly developed. Strange contradiction! De Quincey, in his paper, entitled {{Style S-Italic|Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,}} treats of the epidemic of assassination, between 1588 and 1635, by which seven of the most distinguished characters of | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
{{Footnote return|*|fn459}} Ibid. | |||
{{Footnote return|†|fn460}} According to General Pleasonton’s theory of positive and negative electricity underlying every psychological, physiological, and cosmic phenomena, the abuse of alcoholic stimulants transforms a man into a woman and {{Style S-Italic|vice versa,}} by changing their {{Style S-Italic|electricities.}} “When this change in the condition of his electricity has occurred,” says the author, “his attributes (those of a drunkard) become {{Style S-Italic|feminine;}} he is irritable, irrational, excitable . . . becomes violent, and if he meets his wife, whose normal condition of electricity is like his present condition, positive, they repel each other, become mutually abusive, engage in conflict and deadly strife, and the newspapers of the next day announce the verdict of the coroner’s jury on the case. . . . Who would expect to find the discovery of the moving cause of all these terrible crimes in the perspiration of the criminal? and yet science has shown that the metamorphoses of {{Style S-Italic|a man into a woman,}} by changing the negative condition of his electricity into the {{Style S-Italic|positive}} electricity of the woman, with all its attributes, is disclosed by the character of his perspiration, superinduced by the use of alcoholic stimulants” (“The Influence of the Blue Ray,” p. 119). | |||
{{Footnote return|‡|fn461}} Plato: “Timæus.” | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
278 THE VEIL OF ISIS. | {{Page|278|THE VEIL OF ISIS.}} | ||
the time lost their lives at the hands of assassins, and neither he, nor any other commentator has been able to explain the mysterious cause of this homicidal mania. | {{Style P-No indent|the time lost their lives at the hands of assassins, and neither he, nor any other commentator has been able to explain the mysterious cause of this homicidal mania.}} | ||
If we press these gentlemen for an explanation, which as pretended philosophers they are bound to give us, we are answered that it is a great deal more {{Style S-Italic|scientific}} to assign for such epidemics “agitation of the mind,” “. . . a time of political excitement (1830)” “. . . imitation and impulse,” “. . . excitable and idle boys,” and “{{Style S-Italic|hysterical}} girls{{Style S-Italic|,”}} than to be absurdly seeking for the verification of superstitious traditions in a hypothetical astral light. It seems to us that if, by some providential fatality, {{Style S-Italic|hysteria}} were to disappear entirely from the human system, the medical fraternity would be entirely at a loss for explanations of a large class of phenomena now conveniently classified under the head of “normal symptoms of certain pathological conditions of the nervous centres.” Hysteria has been hitherto the sheet-anchor of skeptical pathologists. Does a dirty peasant-girl begin suddenly to speak with fluency different foreign languages hitherto unfamiliar to her, and to write poetry—“hysterics!” Is a medium levitated, in full view of a dozen of witnesses, and carried out of one third-story window and brought back through another—“disturbance of the nervous centres, followed by a {{Style S-Italic|collective}} hysterical delusion.”<sup>[#fn462 462]</sup> A Scotch terrier, caught in the room during a manifestation, is hurled by an invisible hand across the room, breaks to pieces, in his {{Style S-Italic|salto mortali,}} a chandelier, under a ceiling eighteen feet high, to fall down killed<sup>[#fn463 463]</sup>—{{Style S-Italic|“canine hallucination!”}} | If we press these gentlemen for an explanation, which as pretended philosophers they are bound to give us, we are answered that it is a great deal more {{Style S-Italic|scientific}} to assign for such epidemics “agitation of the mind,” “. . . a time of political excitement (1830)” “. . . imitation and impulse,” “. . . excitable and idle boys,” and “{{Style S-Italic|hysterical}} girls{{Style S-Italic|,”}} than to be absurdly seeking for the verification of superstitious traditions in a hypothetical astral light. It seems to us that if, by some providential fatality, {{Style S-Italic|hysteria}} were to disappear entirely from the human system, the medical fraternity would be entirely at a loss for explanations of a large class of phenomena now conveniently classified under the head of “normal symptoms of certain pathological conditions of the nervous centres.” Hysteria has been hitherto the sheet-anchor of skeptical pathologists. Does a dirty peasant-girl begin suddenly to speak with fluency different foreign languages hitherto unfamiliar to her, and to write poetry—“hysterics!” Is a medium levitated, in full view of a dozen of witnesses, and carried out of one third-story window and brought back through another—“disturbance of the nervous centres, followed by a {{Style S-Italic|collective}} hysterical delusion.”<sup>[#fn462 462]</sup> A Scotch terrier, caught in the room during a manifestation, is hurled by an invisible hand across the room, breaks to pieces, in his {{Style S-Italic|salto mortali,}} a chandelier, under a ceiling eighteen feet high, to fall down killed<sup>[#fn463 463]</sup>—{{Style S-Italic|“canine hallucination!”}} | ||