Blavatsky H.P. - Star-Angel Worship in the Roman Catholic Church: Difference between revisions

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<center>[Lucifer, Vol. II, No. 11, July, 1888, pp. 355-365]</center>

{{HPB-CW-comment|[Most of this material was originally incorporated by H.P.B. in the first draft of The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, which she sent to Adyar in 1886, in order to secure the editorial and scholastic help of T. Subba Row. For some reason or other, instead of using this material in the final draft of her monumental work, she published it in Lucifer just a few months before the appearance of The Secret Doctrine. A long introductory note, enclosed within square brackets, was added to the original essay.}}

{{HPB-CW-comment|Much of the material used by H.P.B. can be found in Eudes de Mirville’s work entitled Pneumatologie. Des Esprits et de leurs manifestations diverses, mainly in Vol. II, pp. 351-360, although some of it is recast by her and interspersed with various comments and occult explanations.—Compiler.]}}

[The subject matter of the present article has not been chosen from any desire of “finding fault” with the Christian religion, as Lucifer is often accused of doing. No special animosity is felt towards popery any more than against any other existing dogmatic and ritualistic faith. We merely hold that “there is no higher religion than truth.” Hence, incessantly attacked by the Christians—among whom none are so bitter and contemptuous as the Romanists—who call us “idolaters” and “heathens,” and otherwise denounce us, it is necessary that at times something should be said in our defence, and truth reestablished.

The Theosophists are accused of believing in Astrology, and the Devas (Dhyan Chohans) of the Hindus and Northern Buddhists. A too impulsive missionary in the Central Provinces of India has actually called us “Astrolaters,” “Sabians” and “devil-worshippers.” This, as usual, is an unfounded calumny and a misrepresentation. No theosophist, no Occultist in the true sense of the word has ever worshipped Devas, Nats, Angels or even planetary spirits. Recognition of the actual existence of such Beings—which, however exalted, are still gradually evolved creatures and finite—and even reverence for some of them is not worship. The latter is an elastic word, one that has {{Page aside|14}}been made threadbare by the poverty of the English tongue. We address a magistrate as his “worship,” but it can hardly be said that we pay to him divine honours. A mother often worships her children, a husband his wife, and vice versa, but none of these prays to the object of his worship. But in neither case does it apply to the Occultists. An Occultist’s reverence for certain high Spirits may be very great in some cases; aye, perhaps even as great as the reverence felt by some Christians for their Archangels Michael and Gabriel and their (St.) George of Cappadocia—the learned purveyor of Constantine’s armies. But it stops there. For the Theosophists these planetary “angels” occupy no higher place than that which Virgil assigns them:

From seeds of heavenly birth.”<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[These verses are from the Aeneid, Book VI, 730-31, although it is difficult to say what particular poetical translation is used by H.P.B. In the Loeb Classical Series, H. Rashton Fairclough translates the original text as: “ fiery is their vigour and divine the source of those life-seeds. . .”—Compiler.]}}</ref>}}

Not so with the Roman Catholics, our pious detractors. The Papists worship them and have rendered to them divine homage from the beginning of Christianity to this day, and in the full acceptation of the italicised words, as this article will prove. Even for the Protestants, the Angels in general, if not the Seven Angels of the Stars particularly—are “Harbingers of the Most High” and “Ministering Spirits” to whose protection they appeal, and who have their distinct place in the Book of Common Prayer.

The fact that the Star and Planetary Angels are worshipped by the Papists is not generally known. The cult {{Page aside|15}}had many vicissitudes. It was several times abolished, then again permitted. It is the short history of its growth, its last re-establishment and the recurrent efforts to proclaim this worship openly, of which a brief sketch is here attempted. This worship may be regarded for the last few years as obsolete, yet to this day it was never abolished. Therefore it will now be my pleasure to prove that if anyone deserves the name of “idolatrous,” it is not the Theosophists, Occultists, Kabalists and Astrologers, but, indeed, most of the Christians; those Roman Catholics, who, besides the Star-angels, worship a Kyriel of more or less problematical saints and the Virgin Mary, of whom their Church has made a regular goddess.

 

In the middle of the VIIIth century of the Christian era the very notorious Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg, famous as few in the annals of magic, appeared before his judges. He was charged with, and ultimately convicted—by the second Council of Rome presided over by Pope Zacharias<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[Zachary (Zacharias), Saint, birth date uncertain; d. March, 752; came from a Greek family living in Calabria, and succeeded Gregory III in the papal chair, Nov. 29, 741.—Compiler.]}}</ref>—of using during his performances of ceremonial magic the names of the “seven Spirits”—then at the height of their power in the Church—among others, that of URIEL, with the help of whom he had succeeded in producing his greatest phenomena. As can {{Page aside|16}}be easily shown, the church is not against magic proper, but only against those magicians who fail to conform to her methods and rules of evocation. However, as the wonders wrought by the Right Reverend Sorcerer were not of a character that would permit of their classification among “miracles by the grace, and to the glory of God,” they were declared unholy. Moreover, the Archangel URIEL (lux et ignis) having been compromised by such exhibitions, his name had to be discredited. But, as such a disgrace upon one of the “Thrones” and “Messengers of the Most High” would have reduced the number of these Jewish Saptarshis to only six, and thus have thrown into confusion the whole celestial hierarchy, a very clever and crafty subterfuge was resorted to. It was, however, neither new, nor has it proved very convincing or efficacious.

It was declared that Bishop Adalbert’s Uriel, the “fire of God,” was not the Archangel mentioned in the second Book of Esdras; nor was he the glorious personage so often named in the magical books of Moses—especiahy in the 6th and 7th. The sphere or planet of this original Uriel was said, by Michael Glycas the Byzantine, to be the Sun. How then could this exalted being—the friend and companion of Adam and Eve before his fall, and, later, the chum of Seth and Enoch, as all pious Christians know—how could he ever have given a helping hand to sorcery? Never, never! the idea alone was absurd.

Therefore, the Uriel so revered by the Fathers of the Church, remained as unassailable and as immaculate as ever. It was a devil of the same name—an obscure devil, one must think, since he is nowhere mentioned—who had to pay the penalty of Bishop Adalbert’s little transactions in black magic. This “bad” Uriel is, as a certain tonsured advocate has tried hard to insinuate, connected with a certain significant word of occult nature, used by and known only to Masons of a very high degree. Ignorant of the “word” itself, however, the defender has most gloriously failed to prove his version.