was certainly more reprehensible than any “circle dance” during the Mysteries, or even than the modern Râsa Mandala in India,[588] which is the same thing. It was David who introduced Jehovistic worship into Judea, after sojourning so long among the Tyrians and Philistines, where these rites were common.
David knew nothing of Moses; and if he introduced the Jehovah-worship, it was not in its monotheistic character, but simply as that of one of the many (Kabirean) gods of the neighbouring nations, a tutelary deity of his own, יהוה to whom he had given the preference—whom he had chosen among “all other (Kabeiri) gods,”[589]
and who was one of the “associates,” Chabir, of the Sun. The Shakers dance the “circle dance” to this day when turning round for the Holy Ghost to move them. In India it is Nârâ-yana who is “the mover on the waters;” and Nârâyana is Vishnu in his secondary form, and Vishnu has Krishna for an Avatâra, in whose honour the “circle dance” is still enacted by the Nautch-girls of the temples, he being the Sun-God and they the planets as symbolised by the gopis.
Let the reader turn to the works of De Mirville, a Roman Catholic writer, or to Monumental Christianity, by Dr. Lundy, a Protestant [pg 318] divine, if he wants to appreciate to any degree the subtlety and casuistry of their reasonings. No one ignorant of the occult versions can fail to be impressed with the proofs brought forward to show how cleverly and perseveringly “Satan has worked for long millenniums to tempt a humanity” unblessed with an infallible Church, in order to have himself recognised as the “One living God,” and his fiends as holy Angels. The reader must be patient, and study with attention what the author says on behalf of his Church. To compare it the better with the version of the Occultists, a few points may be quoted here verbatim.
St. Peter tells us: “May the divine Lucifer arise in your hearts”[590] [Now the Sun is Christ].... “I will send my Son from the Sun,” said the Eternal through the voice of prophetic traditions; and prophecy having become history the Evangelists repeated in their turn: The Sun rising from on high visited us.[591]
Now God says, through Malachi, that the Sun shall arise for those who fear his name. What Malachi meant by “the Sun of Righteousness” the Kabalists alone can tell; but what the Greek, and even the Protestant, theologians understood by the term is of course Christ, referred to metaphorically. Only, as the sentence, “I will send my Son from the Sun,” is borrowed verbatim from a Sibylline Book, it becomes very hard to understand how it can be attributed to, or classed with any prophecy relating to the Christian Saviour, unless, indeed, the latter is to be identified with Apollo. Virgil, again, says, “Here comes the Virgin's and Apollo's reign,” and Apollo, or Apollyon, is to this day viewed as a form of Satan, and is taken to mean the Antichrist. If the Sibylline promise, “He will send his Son from the Sun” applies to Christ, then either Christ and Apollo are one—and then why call the latter a demon?—or the prophecy had nothing to do with the Christian Saviour, and, in such a case, why appropriate it at all?
But De Mirville goes further. He shows us St. Denys, the Areopagite, affirming that
The Sun is the special signification, and the statue of God[592].... It is by the [pg 319]Eastern door that the glory of the Lord penetrated into the temples [of the Jews and Christians, that divine glory being Sun-light.]... “We build our churches towards the east,” says in his turn St. Ambrose, “for during the Mysteries we begin by renouncing him who is in the west.”
“He who is in the west” is Typhon, the Egyptian god of darkness—the west having been held by them as the “Typhonic Gate of Death.” Thus, having borrowed Osiris from the Egyptians, the Church Fathers thought little of helping themselves to his brother Typhon. Then again:
The prophet Baruch[593] speaks of the stars that rejoice in their vessels and citadels(Chap. iii.); and Ecclesiastes applies the same terms to the sun, which is said to be “the admirable vessel of the most High,” and the “citadel of the Lord” φυλαχη.[594]