Chapter I: Front Matter

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Transcriber’s Note:

This text is a compilation of the six numbers of the first Volume of LUCIFER, spanning September 1887 through February 1888.

This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. Certain headings were printed in a blackletter font, indicated with a ‘=’ delimiter.

Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are referenced. They have been resequenced for uniqueness across the text.

Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.

LUCIFER
=A Theosophical Magazine,=

DESIGNED TO “BRING TO LIGHT THE HIDDEN THINGS OF DARKNESS.”

EDITED BY

H. P. BLAVATSKY AND MABEL COLLINS.

THE LIGHT-BEARER IS THE MORNING STAR OR LUCIFER, AND “LUCIFER IS NO
PROFANE OR SATANIC TITLE. IT IS THE LATIN LUCIFERUS. THE
LIGHT-BRINGER, THE MORNING STAR, EQUIVALENT TO THE GREEK φωσφορος ...
THE NAME OF THE PURE PALE HERALD OF DAYLIGHT.”—YONGE.

_VOLUME I._

SEPTEMBER 1887-FEBRUARY 1888.

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=London=:

GEORGE REDWAY, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

KELLY & CO., PRINTERS
1 & 3, GATE STREET, LINCOLNS INN FIELDS, LONDON, W.C.
AND MIDDLE MILL, KINGSTON-ON-THAMES.

CONTENTS.

Astrological Notes 158, 512

Auto-Hypnotic Rhapsody, An 472

Birth of Light, The 52

Blood Covenanting 216

Blossom and the Fruit, The. The True 23, 123, 193, 258,
Story of a Magician 347, 443

Brotherhood 212

Buddhism, The Four Noble Truths of 49

Christian Dogma, Esotericism of the 368

Christmas Eve, A Remarkable 274

Correspondence 76, 136, 228, 311,
412, 502

Emerson and Occultism 252

Evil, The Origin of 109

Fear 298

Freedom 185

Ghost’s Revenge, A 63, 102

God Speaks for Law and Order 292

Gospels, The Esoteric Character of the 173, 299, 490

Hand, The “Square” in the 181

Hauntings, A Theory of 486

Healing, The Spirit of 267

Hylo-Idealism and “The Adversary” 507

Infant Genius 296

Interlaced Triangles, The Relation of 481
Colour to the

Invisible World, The 186

Lady of Light, The 81

Lama, The Last of a Good 51

Law of Life, A: Karma 39, 97

Let Every Man Prove His Own Work 161

“Light on the Path,” Comments on 8, 90, 170, 379

Literary Jottings 71, 329

Love with an Object 391

“LUCIFER” To the Archbishop of 340
Canterbury Greeting, 241; To the Readers
of

Luniolatry 440

Morning Star, To the 339

Mystery of all Time, The 46

Mystic Thought, The 192

Paradox, The Great 120

Planet, History of a 15

Quest, The Great 288, 375

Reviews 143, 232, 395, 497

Science of Life, The 203

Signs of the Times, The 83

Soldier’s Daughter, The 432

Some Words on Daily Life 344

Theosophical and Mystic Publications 77, 156, 335

Theosophist, A True (Count Tolstoi) 55

Theosophy, Thoughts on, 134; and 282
Socialism

Three Desires, The 476
Twilight Visions 365, 461

Unpopular Philosopher, From the 80, 160, 238
Note-Book of an

What is Truth? 425

What’s in a Name? Why is the Magazine 1
called “LUCIFER”?

White Monk, The 384, 466

1888 337

LUCIFER

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VOL. I. LONDON, SEPTEMBER 15TH, 1887. NO. 1.

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WHAT’S IN A NAME?
WHY THE MAGAZINE IS CALLED “LUCIFER.”

What’s in a name? Very often there is more in it than the profane is prepared to understand, or the learned mystic to explain. It is an invisible, secret, but very potential influence that every name carries about with it and “leaveth wherever it goeth.” Carlyle thought that “there is much, nay, almost all, in names.” “Could I unfold the influence of names, which are the most important of all clothings, I were a second great Trismegistus,” he writes.

The name or title of a magazine started with a definite object, is, therefore, all important; for it is, indeed, the invisible seedgrain, which will either grow “to be an all-over-shadowing tree” on the fruits of which must depend the nature of the results brought about by the said object, or the tree will wither and die. These considerations show that the name of the present magazine—rather equivocal to orthodox Christian ears—is due to no careless selection, but arose in consequence of much thinking over its fitness, and was adopted as the best symbol to express that object and the results in view.

Now, the first and most important, if not the sole object of the magazine, is expressed in the line from the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, on its title page. It is to bring light to “the hidden things of darkness,” (iv. 5); to show in their true aspect and their original real meaning things and names, men and their doings and customs; it is finally to fight prejudice, hypocrisy and shams in every nation, in every class of Society, as in every department of life. The task is a laborious one but it is neither impracticable nor useless, if even as an experiment.

Thus, for an attempt of such nature, no better title could ever be found than the one chosen. “Lucifer,” is the pale morning-star, the precursor of the full blaze of the noon-day sun—the “Eosphoros” of the Greeks. It shines timidly at dawn to gather forces and dazzle the eye after sunset as its own brother ‘Hesperos’—the radiant evening star, or the planet Venus. No fitter symbol exists for the proposed work—that of throwing a ray of truth on everything hidden by the darkness of prejudice, by social or religious misconceptions; especially by that idiotic routine in life, which, once that a certain action, a thing, a name, has been branded by slanderous inventions, however unjust, makes _respectable_ people, so called, turn away shiveringly, refusing to even look at it from any other aspect than the one sanctioned by public opinion. Such an endeavour then, to force the weak-hearted to look truth straight in the face, is helped most efficaciously by a title belonging to the category of branded names.

Piously inclined readers may argue that “Lucifer” is accepted by all the churches as one of the many names of the Devil. According to Milton’s superb fiction, Lucifer is _Satan_, the “rebellious” angel, the enemy of God and man. If one analyzes his rebellion, however, it will be found of no worse nature than an assertion of free-will and independent thought, as if Lucifer had been born in the XIXth century. This epithet of “rebellious,” is a theological calumny, on a par with that other slander of God by the Predestinarians, one that makes of deity an “Almighty” fiend worse than the “rebellious” Spirit himself; “an omnipotent Devil desiring to be ‘complimented’ as all merciful when he is exerting the most fiendish cruelty,” as put by J. Cotter Morison. Both the foreordaining and predestining fiend-God, and his subordinate agent are of human invention; they are two of the most morally repulsive and horrible theological dogmas that the nightmares of light-hating monks have ever evolved out of their unclean fancies.

They date from the Mediæval age, the period of mental obscuration, during which most of the present prejudices and superstitions have been forcibly inoculated on the human mind, so as to have become nearly ineradicable in some cases, one of which is the present prejudice now under discussion.

So deeply rooted, indeed, is this preconception and aversion to the name of Lucifer—meaning no worse than “light-bringer” (from _lux_, _lucis_, “light,” and _ferre_ “to bring”)[1]—even among the educated classes, that by adopting it for the title of their magazine the editors have the prospect of a long strife with public prejudice before them. So absurd and ridiculous is that prejudice, indeed, that no one has seemed to ever ask himself the question, how came Satan to be called a _light-bringer_, unless the silvery rays of the morning-star can in any way be made suggestive of the glare of the infernal flames. It is simply, as Henderson showed, “one of those gross perversions of sacred writ which so extensively obtain, and which are to be traced to a proneness to seek for more in a given passage than it really contains—a disposition to be influenced by sound rather than sense, and an implicit faith in received interpretation”—which is not quite one of the weaknesses of our present age. Nevertheless, the prejudice is there, to the shame of our century.

-----

Footnote 1:

“It was Gregory the Great who was the first to apply this passage of
Isaiah, “How art thou fallen from Heaven, Lucifer, son of the
morning,” etc., to Satan, and ever since the bold metaphor of the
prophet, which referred, after all, but to an Assyrian king inimical
to the Israelites, has been applied to the Devil.”

-----

This cannot be helped. The two editors would hold themselves as recreants in their own sight, as traitors to the very spirit of the proposed work, were they to yield and cry craven before the danger. If one would fight prejudice, and brush off the ugly cobwebs of superstition and materialism alike from the noblest ideals of our forefathers, one has to prepare for opposition. “The crown of the reformer and the innovator is a crown of thorns” indeed. If one would rescue Truth in all her chaste nudity from the almost bottomless well, into which she has been hurled by cant and hypocritical propriety, one should not hesitate to descend into the dark, gaping pit of that well. No matter how badly the blind bats—the dwellers in darkness, and the haters of light—may treat in their gloomy abode the intruder, unless one is the first to show the spirit and courage he preaches to others, he must be justly held as a hypocrite and a seceder from his own principles.

Hardly had the title been agreed upon, when the first premonitions of what was in store for us, in the matter of the opposition to be encountered owing to the title chosen, appeared on our horizon. One of the editors received and recorded some spicy objections. The scenes that follow are sketches from nature.

I.

_A Well-known Novelist._ Tell me about your new magazine. What class
do you propose to appeal to?

_Editor._ No class in particular: we intend to appeal to the public.

_Novelist._ I am very glad of that. For once I shall be one of the
public, for I don’t understand your subject in the least, and I want
to. But you must remember that if your public is to understand you, it
must necessarily be a very small one. People talk about occultism
nowadays as they talk about many other things, without the least idea
of what it means. We are so ignorant and—so prejudiced.

_Editor._ Exactly. That is what calls the new magazine into existence.
We propose to educate you, and to tear the mask from every prejudice.

_Novelist._ That really is good news to me, for I want to be educated.
What is your magazine to be called?

_Editor._ Lucifer.

_Novelist._ What! Are you going to educate us in vice? We know enough
about that. Fallen angels are plentiful. You may find popularity, for
soiled doves are in fashion just now, while the white-winged angels
are voted a bore, because they are not so amusing. But I doubt your
being able to teach us much.

II.

_A Man of the World_ (_in a careful undertone, for the scene is a
dinner-party_). I hear you are going to start a magazine, all about
occultism. Do you know, I’m very glad. I don’t say anything about such
matters as a rule, but some queer things have happened in my life
which can’t be explained in any ordinary manner. I hope you will go in
for explanations.

_Editor._ We shall try, certainly. My impression is, that when
occultism is in any measure apprehended, its laws are accepted by
everyone as the only intelligible explanation of life.

_A M. W._ Just so, I want to know all about it, for ’pon my honour,
life’s a mystery. There are plenty of other people as curious as
myself. This is an age which is afflicted with the Yankee disease of
‘wanting to know.’ I’ll get you lots of subscribers. What’s the
magazine called?

_Editor._ Lucifer—and (_warned by former experience_) don’t
misunderstand the name. It is typical of the divine spirit which
sacrificed itself for humanity—it was Milton’s doing that it ever
became associated with the devil. We are sworn enemies to popular
prejudices, and it is quite appropriate that we should attack such a
prejudice as this—Lucifer, you know, is the Morning Star—the
Lightbearer,...

_A M. W._ (_interrupting_). Oh, I know all that—at least I don’t know,
but I take it for granted you’ve got some good reason for taking such
a title. But your first object is to have readers; you want the public
to buy your magazine, I suppose. That’s in the programme, isn’t it?

_Editor._ Most decidedly.

_A M. W._ Well, listen to the advice of a man who knows his way about
town. Don’t mark your magazine with the wrong colour at starting. It’s
quite evident, when one stays an instant to think of its derivation
and meaning, that Lucifer is an excellent word. But the public don’t
stay to think of derivations and meanings; and the first impression is
the most important. Nobody will buy the magazine if you call it
Lucifer.

III.

_A Fashionable Lady Interested in Occultism._ I want to hear some more
about the new magazine, for I have interested a great many people in
it, even with the little you have told me. But I find it difficult to
express its actual purpose. What is it?

_Editor._ To try and give a little light to those that want it.

_A F. L._ Well, that’s a simple way of putting it, and will be very
useful to me. What is the magazine to be called?

_Editor._ Lucifer.

_A F. L._ (_After a pause_) You can’t mean it.

_Editor._ Why not?

_A F. L._ The associations are so dreadful! What can be the object of
calling it that? It sounds like some unfortunate sort of joke, made
against it by its enemies.

_Editor._ Oh, but Lucifer, you know, means Light-bearer; it is typical
of the Divine Spirit——

_A F. L._ Never mind all that—I want to do your magazine good and make
it known, and you can’t expect me to enter into explanations of that
sort every time I mention the title? Impossible! Life is too short and
too busy. Besides, it would produce such a bad effect; people would
think me priggish, and then I couldn’t talk at all, for I couldn’t
bear them to think that. Don’t call it Lucifer—please don’t. Nobody
knows what the word is typical of; what it means now is the devil,
nothing more or less.

_Editor._ But then that is quite a mistake, and one of the first
prejudices we propose to do battle with. Lucifer is the pale, pure
herald of dawn——

_Lady_ (_interrupting_). I thought you were going to do something more
interesting and more important than to whitewash mythological
characters. We shall all have to go to school again, or read up Dr.
Smith’s Classical Dictionary. And what is the use of it when it is
done? I thought you were going to tell us things about our own lives
and how to make them better. I suppose Milton wrote about Lucifer,
didn’t he?—but nobody reads Milton now. Do let us have a modern title
with some human meaning in it.

IV.

_A Journalist_ (_thoughtfully, while rolling his cigarette_). Yes, it
is a good idea, this magazine of yours. We shall all laugh at it, as a
matter of course: and we shall cut it up in the papers. But we shall
all read it, because secretly everybody hungers after the mysterious.
What are you going to call it?

_Editor._ Lucifer.

_Journalist_ (_striking a light_). Why not _The Fusee_? Quite as good
a title and not so pretentious.

The “Novelist,” the “Man of the World,” the “Fashionable Lady,” and the “Journalist,” should be the first to receive a little instruction. A glimpse into the real and primitive character of Lucifer can do them no harm and may, perchance, cure them of a bit of ridiculous prejudice. They ought to study their Homer and Hesiod’s Theogony if they would do justice to Lucifer, “_Eosphoros and Hesperos_,” the Morning and the Evening beautiful star. If there are more useful things to do in this life than “to whitewash mythological characters,” to slander and blacken them is, at least, as useless, and shows, moreover, a narrow-mindedness which can do honour to no one.

To object to the title of LUCIFER, only because its “associations are so dreadful,” is pardonable—if it can be pardonable in any case—only in an ignorant American missionary of some dissenting sect, in one whose natural laziness and lack of education led him to prefer ploughing the minds of heathens, as ignorant as he is himself, to the more profitable, but rather more arduous, process of ploughing the fields of his own father’s farm. In the English clergy, however, who receive all a more or less classical education, and are, therefore, supposed to be acquainted with the _ins_ and _outs_ of theological sophistry and casuistry, this kind of opposition is absolutely unpardonable. It not only smacks of hypocrisy and deceit, but places them directly on a lower moral level than him they call the apostate angel. By endeavouring to show the theological Lucifer, fallen through the idea that

“To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell;
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven,”

they are virtually putting into practice the supposed crime they would fain accuse him of. They prefer reigning over the spirit of the masses by means of a pernicious dark LIE, productive of many an evil, than serve heaven by serving TRUTH. Such practices are worthy only of the Jesuits.

But their sacred writ is the first to contradict their interpretations and the association of Lucifer, the Morning Star, with Satan. Chapter XXII. of _Revelation_, verse 16th, says: “I, Jesus ... am the root ... and the bright and _Morning Star_” (ὀρθρινὸς “early rising”): hence Eosphoros, or the Latin Lucifer. The opprobrium attached to this name is of such a very late date, that the Roman Church found itself forced to screen the theological slander behind a two-sided interpretation—as usual. Christ, we are told, is the “Morning Star,” the _divine_ Lucifer; and Satan the _usurpator_ of the _Verbum_, the “infernal Lucifer.”[2] “The great Archangel Michael, the conqueror of Satan, is identical in paganism[3] with Mercury-Mithra, to whom, after defending the Sun (symbolical of God) from the attacks of Venus-Lucifer, was given the possession of this planet, _et datus est ei locus Luciferi_. And since the Archangel Michael is the ‘Angel of the Face,’ and ‘the Vicar of the _Verbum_’ he is now considered in the Roman Church as the regent of that planet Venus which ‘the vanquished fiend had usurped.’” _Angelus faciei Dei sedem superbi humilis obtinuit_, says Cornelius à Lapide (in Vol. VI. p. 229).

-----

Footnote 2:

Mirville’s Memoirs to the Academy of France, Vol. IV., quoting
Cardinal Ventura.

Footnote 3:

Which paganism has passed long milleniums, it would seem, in _copying
beforehand_ Christian dogmas to come.

-----

This gives the reason why one of the early Popes was called Lucifer, as Yonge and ecclesiastical records prove. It thus follows that the title chosen for our magazine is as much associated with divine and pious ideas as with the supposed rebellion of the hero of Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” By choosing it, _we throw the first ray of light and truth_ on a ridiculous prejudice which ought to have no room made for it in this our “age of facts and discovery.” We work for true Religion and Science, in the interest of fact as against fiction and prejudice. It is our duty, as it is that of physical Science—professedly its mission—to throw light on facts in Nature hitherto surrounded by the darkness of ignorance. And since ignorance is justly regarded as the chief promoter of superstition, that work is, therefore, a noble and beneficent work. But natural Sciences are only one aspect of SCIENCE and TRUTH. Psychological and moral Sciences, or theosophy, the knowledge of divine truth, wheresoever found, are still more important in human affairs, and real Science should not be limited simply to the physical aspect of life and nature. Science is an abstract of every fact, a comprehension of every truth within the scope of human research and intelligence. “Shakespeare’s deep and accurate science in mental philosophy” (Coleridge), has proved more beneficent to the true philosopher in the study of the human heart—therefore, in the promotion of truth—than the more accurate, but certainly less deep, science of any Fellow of the Royal Institution.

Those readers, however, who do not find themselves convinced that the Church had no right to throw a slur upon a beautiful star, and that it did so through a mere necessity of accounting for one of its numerous loans from Paganism with all its poetical conceptions of the truths in Nature, are asked to read our article “The History of a Planet.” Perhaps, after its perusal, they will see how far Dupuis was justified in asserting that “all the theologies have their origin in astronomy.” With the modern Orientalists every myth is _solar_. This is one more prejudice, and a preconception in favour of materialism and physical science. It will be one of our duties to combat it with much of the rest.

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Occultism is not magic, though magic is one of its tools.

Occultism is not the acquirement of powers, whether psychic or intellectual, though both are its servants. Neither is occultism the pursuit of happiness, as men understand the word; for the first step is sacrifice, the second, renunciation.

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Life is built up by the sacrifice of the individual to the whole. Each cell in the living body must sacrifice itself to the perfection of the whole; when it is otherwise, disease and death enforce the lesson.

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Occultism is the science of life, the art of living.

COMMENTS ON “LIGHT ON THE PATH.”

BY THE AUTHOR.

“Before the eyes can see they must be incapable of tears.”

It should be very clearly remembered by all readers of this volume that it is a book which may appear to have some little philosophy in it, but very little sense, to those who believe it to be written in ordinary English. To the many, who read in this manner it will be—not caviare so much as olives strong of their salt. Be warned and read but a little in this way.

There is another way of reading, which is, indeed, the only one of any use with many authors. It is reading, not between the lines but within the words. In fact, it is deciphering a profound cipher. All alchemical works are written in the cipher of which I speak; it has been used by the great philosophers and poets of all time. It is used systematically by the adepts in life and knowledge, who, seemingly giving out their deepest wisdom, hide in the very words which frame it its actual mystery. They cannot do more. There is a law of nature which insists that a man shall read these mysteries for himself. By no other method can he obtain them. A man who desires to live must eat his food himself: this is the simple law of nature—which applies also to the higher life. A man who would live and act in it cannot be fed like a babe with a spoon; he must eat for himself.

I propose to put into new and sometimes plainer language parts of “Light on the Path”; but whether this effort of mine will really be any interpretation I cannot say. To a deaf and dumb man, a truth is made no more intelligible if, in order to make it so, some misguided linguist translates the words in which it is couched into every living or dead language, and shouts these different phrases in his ear. But for those who are not deaf and dumb one language is generally easier than the rest; and it is to such as these I address myself.

The very first aphorisms of “Light on the Path,” included under Number I. have, I know well, remained sealed as to their inner meaning to many who have otherwise followed the purpose of the book.

There are four proven and certain truths with regard to the entrance to occultism. The Gates of Gold bar that threshold; yet there are some who pass those gates and discover the sublime and illimitable beyond. In the far spaces of Time all will pass those gates. But I am one who wish that Time, the great deluder, were not so over-masterful. To those who know and love him I have no word to say; but to the others—and there are not so very few as some may fancy—to whom the passage of Time is as the stroke of a sledge-hammer, and the sense of Space like the bars of an iron cage, I will translate and re-translate until they understand fully.

The four truths written on the first page of “Light on the Path,” refer to the trial initiation of the would-be occultist. Until he has passed it, he cannot even reach to the latch of the gate which admits to knowledge. Knowledge is man’s greatest inheritance; why, then, should he not attempt to reach it by every possible road? The laboratory is not the only ground for experiment; _science_, we must remember, is derived from _sciens_, present participle of _scire_, “to know,”—its origin is similar to that of the word “discern,” “to ken.” Science does not therefore deal only with matter, no, not even its subtlest and obscurest forms. Such an idea is born merely of the idle spirit of the age. Science is a word which covers all forms of knowledge. It is exceedingly interesting to hear what chemists discover, and to see them finding their way through the densities of matter to its finer forms; but there are other kinds of knowledge than this, and it is not every one who restricts his (strictly scientific) desire for knowledge to experiments which are capable of being tested by the physical senses.

Everyone who is not a dullard, or a man stupefied by some predominant vice, has guessed, or even perhaps discovered with some certainty, that there are subtle senses lying within the physical senses. There is nothing at all extraordinary in this; if we took the trouble to call Nature into the witness box we should find that everything which is perceptible to the ordinary sight, has something even more important than itself hidden within it; the microscope has opened a world to us, but within those encasements which the microscope reveals, lies a mystery which no machinery can probe.

The whole world is animated and lit, down to its most material shapes, by a world within it. This inner world is called Astral by some people, and it is as good a word as any other, though it merely means starry; but the stars, as Locke pointed out, are luminous bodies which give light of themselves. This quality is characteristic of the life which lies within matter; for those who see it, need no lamp to see it by. The word star, moreover, is derived from the Anglo-Saxon “stir-an,” to steer, to stir, to move, and undeniably it is the inner life which is master of the outer, just as a man’s brain guides the movements of his lips. So that although Astral is no very excellent word in itself, I am content to use it for my present purpose.

The whole of “Light on the Path” is written in an astral cipher and can therefore only be deciphered by one who reads astrally. And its teaching is chiefly directed towards the cultivation and development of the astral life. Until the first step has been taken in this development, the swift knowledge, which is called intuition with certainty, is impossible to man. And this positive and certain intuition is the only form of knowledge which enables a man to work rapidly or reach his true and high estate, within the limit of his conscious effort. To obtain knowledge by experiment is too tedious a method for those who aspire to accomplish real work; he who gets it by certain intuition, lays hands on its various forms with supreme rapidity, by fierce effort of will; as a determined workman grasps his tools, indifferent to their weight or any other difficulty which may stand in his way. He does not stay for each to be tested—he uses such as he sees are fittest.

All the rules contained in “Light on the Path,” are written for all disciples, but only for disciples—those who “take knowledge.” To none else but the student in this school are its laws of any use or interest.

To all who are interested seriously in Occultism, I say first—take knowledge. To him who hath shall be given. It is useless to wait for it. The womb of Time will close before you, and in later days you will remain unborn, without power. I therefore say to those who have any hunger or thirst for knowledge, attend to these rules.

They are none of my handicraft or invention. They are merely the phrasing of laws in super-nature, the putting into words truths as absolute in their own sphere, as those laws which govern the conduct of the earth and its atmosphere.

The senses spoken of in these four statements are the astral, or inner senses.

No man desires to see that light which illumines the spaceless soul until pain and sorrow and despair have driven him away from the life of ordinary humanity. First he wears out pleasure; then he wears out pain—till, at last, his eyes become incapable of tears.

This is a truism, although I know perfectly well that it will meet with a vehement denial from many who are in sympathy with thoughts which spring from the inner life. _To see_ with the astral sense of sight is a form of activity which it is difficult for us to understand immediately. The scientist knows very well what a miracle is achieved by each child that is born into the world, when it first conquers its eye-sight and compels it to obey its brain. An equal miracle is performed with each sense certainly, but this ordering of sight is perhaps the most stupendous effort. Yet the child does it almost unconsciously, by force of the powerful heredity of habit. No one now is aware that he has ever done it at all; just as we cannot recollect the individual movements which enabled us to walk up a hill a year ago. This arises from the fact that we move and live and have our being in matter. Our knowledge of it has become intuitive.

With our astral life it is very much otherwise. For long ages past, man has paid very little attention to it—so little, that he has practically lost the use of his senses. It is true, that in every civilization the star arises, and man confesses, with more or less of folly and confusion, that he knows himself to be. But most often he denies it, and in being a materialist becomes that strange thing, a being which cannot see its own light, a thing of life which will not live, an astral animal which has eyes, and ears, and speech, and power, yet will use none of these gifts. This is the case, and the habit of ignorance has become so confirmed, that now none will see with the inner vision till agony has made the physical eyes not only unseeing, but without tears—the moisture of life. To be incapable of tears is to have faced and conquered the simple human nature, and to have attained an equilibrium which cannot be shaken by personal emotions. It does not imply any hardness of heart, or any indifference. It does not imply the exhaustion of sorrow, when the suffering soul seems powerless to suffer acutely any longer; it does not mean the deadness of old age, when emotion is becoming dull because the strings which vibrate to it are wearing out. None of these conditions are fit for a disciple, and if any one of them exist in him, it must be overcome before the path can be entered upon. Hardness of heart belongs to the selfish man, the egotist, to whom the gate is for ever closed. Indifference belongs to the fool and the false philosopher; those whose lukewarmness makes them mere puppets, not strong enough to face the realities of existence. When pain or sorrow has worn out the keenness of suffering, the result is a lethargy not unlike that which accompanies old age, as it is usually experienced by men and women. Such a condition makes the entrance to the path impossible, because the first step is one of difficulty and needs a strong man, full of psychic and physical vigour, to attempt it.

It is a truth, that, as Edgar Allan Poe said, the eyes are the windows for the soul, the windows of that haunted palace in which it dwells. This is the very nearest interpretation into ordinary language of the meaning of the text. If grief, dismay, disappointment or pleasure, can shake the soul so that it loses its fixed hold on the calm spirit which inspires it, and the moisture of life breaks forth, drowning knowledge in sensation, then all is blurred, the windows are darkened, the light is useless. This is as literal a fact as that if a man, at the edge of a precipice, loses his nerve through some sudden emotion he will certainly fall. The poise of the body, the balance, must be preserved, not only in dangerous places, but even on the level ground, and with all the assistance Nature gives us by the law of gravitation. So it is with the soul, it is the link between the outer body and the starry spirit beyond; the divine spark dwells in the still place where no convulsion of Nature can shake the air; this is so always. But the soul may lose its hold on that, its knowledge of it, even though these two are part of one whole; and it is by emotion, by sensation, that this hold is loosed. To suffer either pleasure or pain, causes a vivid vibration which is, to the consciousness of man, life. Now this sensibility does not lessen when the disciple enters upon his training; it increases. It is the first test of his strength; he must suffer, must enjoy or endure, more keenly than other men, while yet he has taken on him a duty which does not exist for other men, that of not allowing his suffering to shake him from his fixed purpose. He has, in fact, at the first step to take himself steadily in hand and put the bit into his own mouth; no one else can do it for him.

The first four aphorisms of “Light on the Path,” refer entirely to astral development. This development must be accomplished to a certain extent—that is to say it must be fully entered upon—before the remainder of the book is really intelligible except to the intellect; in fact, before it can be read as a practical, not a metaphysical treatise.

In one of the great mystic Brotherhoods, there are four ceremonies, that take place early in the year, which practically illustrate and elucidate these aphorisms. They are ceremonies in which only novices take part, for they are simply services of the threshold. But it will show how serious a thing it is to become a disciple, when it is understood that these are all ceremonies of sacrifice. The first one is this of which I have been speaking. The keenest enjoyment, the bitterest pain, the anguish of loss and despair, are brought to bear on the trembling soul, which has not yet found light in the darkness, which is helpless as a blind man is, and until these shocks can be endured without loss of equilibrium the astral senses must remain sealed. This is the merciful law. The “medium,” or “spiritualist,” who rushes into the psychic world without preparation, is a law-breaker, a breaker of the laws of super-nature. Those who break Nature’s laws lose their physical health; those who break the laws of the inner life, lose their psychic health. “Mediums” become mad, suicides, miserable creatures devoid of moral sense; and often end as unbelievers, doubters even of that which their own eyes have seen. The disciple is compelled to become his own master before he adventures on this perilous path, and attempts to face those beings who live and work in the astral world, and whom we call masters, because of their great knowledge and their ability to control not only themselves but the forces around them.

The condition of the soul when it lives for the life of sensation as distinguished from that of knowledge, is vibratory or oscillating, as distinguished from fixed. That is the nearest literal representation of the fact; but it is only literal to the intellect, not to the intuition. For this part of man’s consciousness a different vocabulary is needed. The idea of “fixed” might perhaps be transposed into that of “at home.” In sensation no permanent home can be found, because change is the law of this vibratory existence. That fact is the first one which must be learned by the disciple. It is useless to pause and weep for a scene in a kaleidoscope which has passed.

It is a very well-known fact, one with which Bulwer Lytton dealt with great power, that an intolerable sadness is the very first experience of the neophyte in Occultism. A sense of blankness falls upon him which makes the world a waste, and life a vain exertion. This follows his first serious contemplation of the abstract. In gazing, or even in attempting to gaze, on the ineffable mystery of his own higher nature, he himself causes the initial trial to fall on him. The oscillation between pleasure and pain ceases for—perhaps an instant of time; but that is enough to have cut him loose from his fast moorings in the world of sensation. He has experienced, however briefly, the greater life; and he goes on with ordinary existence weighted by a sense of unreality, of blank, of horrid negation. This was the nightmare which visited Bulwer Lytton’s neophyte in “Zanoni”; and even Zanoni himself, who had learned great truths, and been entrusted with great powers, had not actually passed the threshold where fear and hope, despair and joy seem at one moment absolute realities, at the next mere forms of fancy.

This initial trial is often brought on us by life itself. For life is after all, the great teacher. We return to study it, after we have acquired power over it, just as the master in chemistry learns more in the laboratory than his pupil does. There are persons so near the door of knowledge that life itself prepares them for it, and no individual hand has to invoke the hideous guardian of the entrance. These must naturally be keen and powerful organizations, capable of the most vivid pleasure; then pain comes and fills its great duty. The most intense forms of suffering fall on such a nature, till at last it arouses from its stupor of consciousness, and by the force of its internal vitality steps over the threshold into a place of peace. Then the vibration of life loses its power of tyranny. The sensitive nature must suffer still; but the soul has freed itself and stands aloof, guiding the life towards its greatness. Those who are the subjects of Time, and go slowly through all his spaces, live on through a long-drawn series of sensations, and suffer a constant mingling of pleasure and of pain. They do not dare to take the snake of self in a steady grasp and conquer it, so becoming divine; but prefer to go on fretting through divers experiences, suffering blows from the opposing forces.

When one of these subjects of Time decides to enter on the path of Occultism, it is this which is his first task. If life has not taught it to him, if he is not strong enough to teach himself, and if he has power enough to demand the help of a master, then this fearful trial, depicted in Zanoni, is put upon him. The oscillation in which he lives, is for an instant stilled; and he has to survive the shock of facing what seems to him at first sight as the abyss of nothingness. Not till he has learned to dwell in this abyss, and has found its peace, is it possible for his eyes to have become incapable of tears.

The difficulty of writing intelligibly on these subjects is so great that I beg of those who have found any interest in this article, and are yet left with perplexities and doubts, to address me in the correspondence column of this magazine. I ask this because thoughtful questions are as great an assistance to the general reader as the answers to them.

Δ

(_To be continued_.)

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Harmony is the law of life, discord its shadow, whence springs suffering, the teacher, the awakener of consciousness.

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Through joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, the soul comes to a knowledge of itself; then begins the task of learning the laws of life, that the discords may be resolved, and the harmony be restored.

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The eyes of wisdom are like the ocean depths; there is neither joy nor sorrow in them; therefore the soul of the occultist must become stronger than joy, and greater than sorrow.

THE HISTORY OF A PLANET.

No star, among the countless myriads that twinkle over the sidereal fields of the night sky, shines so dazzlingly as the planet Venus—not even Sirius-Sothis, the dog-star, beloved by Isis. Venus is the queen among our planets, the crown jewel of our solar system. She is the inspirer of the poet, the guardian and companion of the lonely shepherd, the lovely morning and the evening star. For,

“Stars teach as well as shine.”

although their secrets are still untold and unrevealed to the majority of men, including astronomers. They are “a beauty and a mystery,” verily. But “where there is a mystery, it is generally supposed that there must also be evil,” says Byron. Evil, therefore, was detected by evilly-disposed human fancy, even in those bright luminous eyes peeping at our wicked world through the veil of ether. Thus there came to exist slandered stars and planets as well as slandered men and women. Too often are the reputation and fortune of one man or party sacrificed for the benefit of another man or party. As on earth below, so in the heavens above, and Venus, the sister planet of our Earth,[4] was sacrificed to the ambition of our little globe to show the latter the “chosen” planet of the Lord. She became the scapegoat, the _Azaziel_ of the starry dome, for the sins of the Earth, or rather for those of a certain class in the human family—the clergy—who slandered the bright orb, in order to prove what their ambition suggested to them as the best means to reach power, and exercise it unswervingly over the superstitious and ignorant masses.

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Footnote 4:

“Venus is a second Earth,” says Reynaud, in _Terre et Ciel_ (p. 74),
“so much so that were there any communication possible between the two
planets, their inhabitants might take their respective earths for the
two hemispheres of the same world.... They seem on the sky, _like two
sisters_. Similar in conformation, these two worlds are also similar
in the character assigned to them in the Universe.”

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This took place during the middle ages. And now the sin lies black at the door of Christians and their scientific inspirers, though the error was successfully raised to the lofty position of a religious dogma, as many other fictions and inventions have been.

Indeed, the whole sidereal world, planets and their regents—the ancient gods of poetical paganism—the sun, the moon, the elements, and the entire host of incalculable worlds—those at least which happened to be known to the Church Fathers—shared in the same fate. They have all been slandered, all bedevilled by the insatiable desire of proving one little system of theology—built on and constructed out of old pagan materials—the only right and holy one, and all those which preceded or followed it utterly wrong. Sun and stars, the very air itself, we are asked to believe, became pure and “redeemed” from original sin and the Satanic element of heathenism, only after the year I, A.D. Scholastics and scholiasts, the spirit of whom “spurned laborious investigation and slow induction,” had shown, to the satisfaction of infallible Church, the whole Kosmos in the power of Satan—a poor compliment to God—before the year of the Nativity; and Christians had to believe or be condemned. Never have subtle sophistry and casuistry shown themselves so plainly in their true light, however, as in the questions of the ex-Satanism and later redemption of various heavenly bodies. Poor beautiful Venus got worsted in that war of so-called divine proofs to a greater degree than any of her sidereal colleagues. While the history of the other six planets, and their gradual transformation from Greco-Aryan gods into Semitic devils, and finally into “divine attributes of the _seven eyes_ of the Lord,” is known but to the educated, that of Venus-Lucifer has become a household story among even the most illiterate in Roman Catholic countries.

This story shall now be told for the benefit of those who may have neglected their astral mythology.

Venus, characterised by Pythagoras as the _sol alter_, a second Sun, on account of her magnificent radiance—equalled by none other—was the first to draw the attention of ancient Theogonists. Before it began to be called Venus, it was known in _pre_-Hesiodic theogony as Eosphoros (or Phosphoros) and Hesperos, the children of the dawn and twilight. In Hesiod, moreover, the planet is decomposed into two divine beings, two brothers—Eosphoros (the _Lucifer_ of the Latins) the morning, and Hesperos, the evening star. They are the children of Astrœos and Eos, the starry heaven and the dawn, as also of Kephalos and Eos (_Theog:_ 381, _Hyg: Poet: Astron_: 11, 42). Preller, quoted by Decharme, shows Phaeton identical with Phosphoros or Lucifer (_Griech: Mythol_: 1. 365). And on the authority of Hesiod he also makes Phaeton the son of the latter two divinities—Kephalos and Eos.

Now Phaeton or Phosphoros, the “luminous morning orb,” is carried away in his early youth by Aphrodite (Venus) who makes of him the night guardian of her sanctuary (_Theog:_ 987-991). He is the “beautiful morning star” (_Vide_ St. John’s _Revelation_ XXII. 16) loved for its radiant light by the Goddess of the Dawn, Aurora, who, while gradually eclipsing the light of her beloved, thus seeming to carry off the star, makes it reappear on the evening horizon where it watches the gates of heaven. In early morning, Phosphoros “issuing from the waters of the Ocean, raises in heaven his sacred head to announce the approach of divine light.” (_Iliad_, XXIII. 226; _Odyss:_ XIII. 93; Virg: _Æneid_, VIII. 589; _Mythol: de la Grèce Antique_. 247). He holds a torch in his hand and flies through space as he precedes the car of Aurora. In the evening he becomes Hesperos, “the most splendid of the stars that shine on the celestial vault” (_Iliad_, XXII. 317). He is the father of the Hesperides, the guardians of the golden apples together with the Dragon; the beautiful genius of the flowing golden curls, sung and glorified in all the ancient _epithalami_ (the bridal songs of the early Christians as of the pagan Greeks); he, who at the fall of the night, leads the nuptial _cortège_ and delivers the bride into the arms of the bridegroom. (_Carmen Nuptiale._ See _Mythol: de la Grèce Antique_. Decharme.)

So far, there seems to be no possible _rapprochement_, no analogy to be discovered between this poetical personification of a star, a purely astronomical myth, and the _Satanism_ of Christian theology. True, the close connection between the planet as Hesperos, the evening star, and the Greek Garden of Eden with its Dragon and the golden apples may, with a certain stretch of imagination, suggest some painful comparisons with the third chapter of Genesis. But this is insufficient to justify the building of a theological wall of defence against paganism made up of slander and misrepresentations.

But of all the Greek _euhemerisations_, Lucifer-Eosphoros is, perhaps, the most complicated. The planet has become with the Latins, Venus, or Aphrodite-_Anadyomene_, the foam-born Goddess, the “Divine Mother,” and one with the Phœnician Astarte, or the Jewish Astaroth. They were all called “The Morning Star,” and the Virgins of the Sea, or _Mar_ (whence Mary), the great Deep, titles now given by the Roman Church to their Virgin Mary. They were all connected with the moon and the crescent, with the Dragon and the planet Venus, as the mother of Christ has been made connected with all these attributes. If the Phœnician mariners carried, fixed on the prow of their ships, the image of the goddess Astarte (or Aphrodite, Venus Erycina) and looked upon the evening and the morning star as _their_ guiding star, “the eye of their Goddess mother,” so do the Roman Catholic sailors the same to this day. They fix a Madonna on the prows of their vessels, and the blessed Virgin Mary is called the “Virgin of the Sea.” The accepted patroness of Christian sailors, their star, “_Stella Del Mar_,” etc., she stands on the crescent moon. Like the old pagan Goddesses, she is the “Queen of Heaven,” and the “Morning Star” just as they were.

Whether this can explain anything, is left to the reader’s sagacity. Meanwhile, Lucifer-Venus has nought to do with darkness, and everything with light. When called _Lucifer_, it is the “light bringer,” the first radiant beam which destroys the lethal darkness of night. When named Venus, the planet-star becomes the symbol of dawn, the chaste Aurora. Professor Max Müller rightly conjectures that Aphrodite, born of the sea, is a personification of the Dawn of Day, and the most lovely of all the sights in Nature (“Science of Language”) for, before her naturalisation by the Greeks, Aphrodite was Nature personified, the life and light of the Pagan world, as proven in the beautiful invocation to Venus by Lucretius, quoted by Decharme. She is _divine_ Nature in her entirety, _Aditi-Prakriti_ before she becomes Lakshmi. She is that Nature before whose majestic and fair face, “the winds fly away, the quieted sky pours torrents of light, and the sea-waves smile,” (Lucretius). When referred to as the Syrian goddess Astarte, the Astaroth of Hieropolis, the radiant planet was personified as a majestic woman, holding in one outstretched hand a torch, in the other, a crooked staff in the form of a cross. (_Vide_ Lucian’s _De Dea Syriê_, and Cicero’s _De Nat: Deorum_, 3 c.23). Finally, the planet is represented astronomically, as a globe _poised above the cross_—a symbol no devil would like to associate with—while the planet Earth is a globe with a cross _over it_.

But then, these crosses are not the symbols of Christianity, but the Egyptian _crux ansata_, the attribute of Isis (who is Venus, and Aphrodite, Nature, also) ♀ or ♀ the planet; the fact that the Earth has the _crux ansata_ reversed, ♁ having a great occult significance upon which there is no necessity of entering at present.

Now what says the Church and how does it explain the “dreadful association.” The Church believes in the devil, of course, and could not afford to lose him. “_The Devil is the chief pillar of the Church_” confesses unblushingly an advocate[5] of the _Ecclesia Militans_. “All the Alexandrian Gnostics speak to us of the fall of the Æons and their Pleroma, and all attribute that fall _to the desire to know_,” writes another volunteer in the same army, slandering the Gnostics as usual and identifying _the desire to know_ or occultism, magic, with Satanism.[6] And then, forthwith, he quotes from Schlegel’s _Philosophie de l’Histoire_ to show that the seven rectors (planets) of Pymander, “commissioned by God to contain the phenomenal world in their seven circles, lost in love with their own beauty,[7] came to admire themselves with such intensity that owing to this proud self-adulation they finally _fell_.”

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Footnote 5:

Thus saith Des Mousseaux. “Mœurs et Pratiques des Demons.” p. X.—and
he is corroborated in this by Cardinal de Ventura. The Devil, he says,
“is one of the great personages _whose life is closely allied to that
of the Church_; and without him ... the fall of man could not have
taken place. If it were not for him (the Devil), the Saviour, the
Redeemer, the Crucified would be but the most ridiculous of
supernumeraries and the Cross an insult to good sense.” And if so,
then we should feel thankful to the poor Devil.

Footnote 6:

De Mirville. “No Devil, no Christ,” he exclaims.

Footnote 7:

This is only another version of Narcissus, the Greek victim of his own
fair looks.

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Perversity having thus found its way amongst the angels, the most beautiful creature of God “revolted against its Maker.” That creature is in theological fancy Venus-Lucifer, or rather the informing Spirit or Regent of that planet. This teaching is based on the following speculation. The three principal heroes of the great sidereal catastrophe mentioned in _Revelation_ are, according to the testimony of the Church fathers—“the Verbum, Lucifer his usurper (see editorial) and the grand Archangel who conquered him,” and whose “palaces” (the “houses” astrology calls them) are in the Sun, Venus-Lucifer and Mercury. This is quite evident, since the position of these orbs in the Solar system correspond in their hierarchical order to that of the “heroes” in Chapter xii of _Revelation_ “their names and destinies (?) being closely connected in the theological (exoteric) system with these three great metaphysical names.” (De Mirville’s _Memoir_ to the Academy of France, on the rapping Spirits and the Demons).

The outcome of this was, that theological legend made of Venus-Lucifer the sphere and domain of the fallen Archangel, or Satan before his apostacy. Called upon to reconcile this statement with that other fact, that the metaphor of “the morning star,” is applied to both Jesus, and his Virgin mother, and that the planet Venus-Lucifer is included, moreover, among the “stars” of the seven planetary spirits worshipped by the Roman Catholics[8] under new names, the defenders of the Latin dogmas and beliefs answer as follows:—

“Lucifer, the jealous neighbour of the Sun (Christ) said to himself in his great pride: ‘I will rise as high as he!’ He was thwarted in his design by Mercury, though the brightness of the latter (who is St. Michael) was as much lost in the blazing fires of the great Solar orb as his own was, and though, like Lucifer, Mercury is only the assessor, and the guard of honour to the Sun.”—(_Ibid._)

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Footnote 8:

The famous temple dedicated to the Seven Angels at Rome, and built by
Michael-Angelo in 1561, is still there, now called the “Church of St
Mary of the Angels.” In the old Roman Missals printed in 1563—one or
two of which may still be seen in Palazzo Barberini—one may find the
religious service (_officio_) of the seven angels, and their _old_ and
occult names. That the “angels” are the pagan Rectors, under different
names—the Jewish having replaced the Greek and Latin names—of the
seven planets is proven by what Pope Pius V. said in his Bull to the
Spanish Clergy, permitting and encouraging the worship of the said
seven spirits of the stars. “One cannot exalt too much these _seven
rectors_ of the world, _figured by the seven planets_, as it is
consoling to our century to witness by the grace of God the cult of
these _seven ardent lights_, and of these _seven stars_ reassuming all
its lustre in the Christian republic.” (_Les Sept Esprits et
l’Histoire de leur Culte_; De Mirville’s 2nd memoir addressed to the
Academy. Vol. II. p. 358.)

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Guards of “dishonour” now rather, if the teachings of _theological_ Christianity were true. But here comes in the cloven foot of the Jesuit. The ardent defender of Roman Catholic Demonolatry and of the worship of the seven planetary spirits, at the same time, pretends great wonder at the coincidences between old Pagan and Christian _legends_, between the fable about Mercury and Venus, and the _historical truths_ told of St. Michael—the “angel of the face,”—the terrestrial double, or _ferouer_ of Christ. He points them out saying: “like Mercury, the archangel Michael, is the _friend_ of the Sun, his Mitra, perhaps, for Michael is a _psychopompic_ genius, one who leads the separated souls to their appointed abodes, and like Mitra, he is the _well-known adversary of the demons_.” This is demonstrated by the book of the _Nabatheans_ recently discovered (by Chwolson), in which the Zoroastrian Mitra is called the “_grand enemy of the planet Venus_.”[9] (_ibid_ p. 160.)

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Footnote 9:

Herodotus showing the identity of Mitra and Venus, the sentence in the
_Nabathean Agriculture_ is evidently misunderstood.

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There is something in this. A candid confession, for once, of perfect identity of celestial personages and of _borrowing_ from every pagan source. It _is_ curious, if unblushing. While in the oldest Mazdean allegories, Mitra conquers the planet Venus, in Christian tradition Michael defeats Lucifer, and both receive, as war spoils, the planet of the vanquished deity.

“Mitra,” says Dollinger, “possessed, in days of old, the star of Mercury, placed between the sun and the moon, but he was given the planet of the conquered, and ever since his victory he is identified with Venus.” (_“Judaisme and Paganisme,” Vol. II., p. 109. French transl._)

“In the Christian tradition,” adds the learned Marquis, “St. Michael _is apportioned in Heaven the throne and the palace of the foe he has vanquished_. Moreover, like Mercury, during the palmy days of paganism, which made sacred to this _demon_-god all the promontories of the earth, _the Archangel is the patron of the same in our religion_.” This means, if it does mean anything, that _now_, at any rate, Lucifer-Venus is a _sacred_ planet, and no synonym of Satan, since St. Michael has become his legal heir?

The above remarks conclude with this cool reflection:

“It is evident that paganism has _utilised beforehand_, and most marvellously, all the features and characteristics of the _prince of the face of the Lord_ (Michael) in applying them to that _Mercury_, to the Egyptian _Hermes Anubis_, and the _Hermes Christos_ of the Gnostics. Each of these was represented as the first among the divine councillors, and the god nearest to the sun, _quis ut Deus_.”

Which title, with all its attributes, became that of Michael. The good Fathers, the Master Masons of the temple of _Church_ Christianity, knew indeed how to utilize pagan material for their new dogmas.

The fact is, that it is sufficient to examine certain Egyptian _cartouches_, pointed out by Rossellini (_Egypte_, Vol. I., p. 289), to find Mercury (the double of Sirius in our solar system) as Sothis, preceded by the words “_sole_” and “_solis custode, sostegnon dei dominanti, e forte grande dei vigilanti_,” “watchman of the sun, sustainer of dominions, and the strongest of all the vigilants.” All these titles and attributes are now those of the Archangel Michael, who has inherited them from the _demons_ of paganism.

Moreover, travellers in Rome may testify to the wonderful presence in the statue of Mitra, at the Vatican, of the best known Christian symbols. Mystics boast of it. They find “in his lion’s head, and the eagle’s wings, those of the courageous Seraph, the master of space (Michael); in his caduceus, the spear, in the two serpents coiled round the body, the struggle of the good and bad principles, and especially in the two keys which the said Mitra holds, like St. Peter, the keys with which this Seraph-patron of the latter opens and shuts the gates of Heaven, _astra cludit et recludit_.” (_Mem_: p. 162.)

To sum up, the aforesaid shows that the theological romance of Lucifer was built upon the various myths and allegories of the pagan world, and that it is no _revealed_ dogma, but simply one invented to uphold superstition. Mercury being one of the Sun’s _assessors_, or the _cynocephali_ of the Egyptians and _the watch-dogs of the Sun_, literally, the other was _Eosphoros_, the most brilliant of the planets, “_qui mane oriebaris_,” the early rising, or the Greek ὀρθρινὸς. It was identical with the _Amoon-ra_, the light-bearer of Egypt, and called by all nations “the _second born_ of light” (the first being Mercury), the beginning of his (the Sun’s) ways of wisdom, the Archangel Michael being also referred to as the _principium viarum Domini_.

Thus a purely astronomical personification, built upon an occult meaning which no one has hitherto seemed to unriddle outside the Eastern wisdom, has now become a dogma, part and parcel of Christian revelation. A clumsy transference of characters is unequal to the task of making thinking people accept in one and the same trinitarian group, the “Word” or Jesus, God and Michael (with the Virgin occasionally to complete it) on the one hand, and Mitra, Satan and Apollo-Abbadon on the other: the whole at the whim and pleasure of Roman Catholic Scholiasts. If Mercury and Venus (Lucifer) are (astronomically in their revolution around the Sun) the symbols of God the Father, the Son, and of their Vicar, Michael, the “Dragon-Conqueror,” in Christian legend, why should they when called Apollo-_Abaddon_, the “King of the Abyss,” Lucifer, Satan, or Venus—become forthwith devils and demons? If we are told that the “conqueror,” or “Mercury-Sun,” or again St. Michael of the _Revelation_, was given the spoils of the conquered angel, namely, his planet, why should opprobrium be any longer attached to a constellation so purified? Lucifer is now the “Angel of the Face of the Lord,”[10] because “that face is mirrored in it.” We think rather, because the Sun is reflecting his beams in Mercury seven times more than it does on our Earth, and twice more in Lucifer-Venus: the Christian symbol proving again its astronomical origin. But whether from the astronomical, mystical or symbological aspect, Lucifer is as good as any other planet. To advance as a proof of its demoniacal character, and identity with Satan, the configuration of Venus, which gives to the crescent of this planet the appearance of a cut-off horn is rank nonsense. But to connect this with the horns of “The Mystic Dragon” in _Revelation_—“one of which was broken”[11]—as the two French Demonologists, the Marquis de Mirville and the Chevalier des Mousseaux, the champions of the Church militant, would have their readers believe in the second half of our present century—is simply an insult to the public.

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Footnote 10:

“Both in Biblical and pagan theologies,” says de Mirville, “the Sun
has its god, its defender, and its sacrilegious usurper, in other
words, its Ormuzd, its planet Mercury (Mitra), and its Lucifer, Venus
(or Ahriman), taken away from its ancient master, and now given to its
conqueror.” (p. 164.) Therefore, Lucifer-Venus is quite _holy_ now.

Footnote 11:

In Revelation there is no “horn broken,” but it is simply said in