Inidora—Civilization and its expressions are not always along straight or even lines. Thus, a people, in certain directions, may have evolved to a lofty plane, while, through the retarding influences of special environments, they, in other directions, may have progressed so slowly as to have for a time remained practically inert. This condition applies to the Entoans, who, though spiritually and intellectually, highly evolved, have been for a time, and yet are, through the retarding influences of special mental environments, in a state of spiritual inertia.
Through ancient records and yet more ancient Ento spirits we have learned that centuries previous to the establishment of our national religion, the arts and sciences had attained a high degree of excellence, and that among the different races were various phases of religious beliefs, with universal tolerance of the same. That among the learned ones were some who asserted that Ento was but one of many worlds, and that through means of certain instruments these persons attempted to prove their sacrilegious theories. But at the time of the establishment of the national religion all these wild and reprehensible fancies were set aside as unholy and as tending to invalidate the statements of the Sacred Writings.
From what our friend Bruno and some ancient spirits of your spirit spheres have related to me it appears that on your planet in a very remote period civilization was in a very advanced state and that a people known as the Chaldeans were learned in astronomy, chemistry and other sciences and also were wonderful seers. That one Aromanes calculated the procession of the equinoxes and the occurrences of eclipses. Sosthene, another Chaldean, with whom I am personally acquainted, calculated very accurately the distances of the planets of our solar system from the Sun and their revolutions about it. Yet many centuries later, through religious intolerance, our dear friend Bruno was burned to death for like assertions. Thus you perceive that the Entoans are not exceptional in not having evolved equally in all directions. Even after the establishment of our national religion, from time to time, daring and irreverent seekers after knowledge attempted to teach the people strange doctrines, subversive of established beliefs. One declared that the shining points in space were worlds like Ento and that Andûmana̤ having created them he perhaps also had peopled them as he had peopled Ento. And, heresy of heresies, one Sivonadas more than hinted that the children of Ento had evolved from lower life forms. Such pernicious teachings could not be tolerated, and effective means were used to efface them. An instance illustrative of attempts to break up the shackles of ecclesiasticism I will at another time relate to you.
To you the religious beliefs of the Entoans appear extremely superstitious, as indeed they largely are, yet, if I may draw a conclusion from what I have learned relating to the many faiths of Earth's peoples, I do not perceive that they have, as a whole, come into a truer conception of the Infinite One who is the sum total of all spirituality than have the peoples of this and many other planets.
Religious creeds and observances, albeit the expressions of states of civilization, to an extent retroact as restraints, if not actual barriers to progress, and rarely are the spiritual impulses of a people forceful enough to divert into new channels the extreme conservatism of established religions. Thus, though during later centuries the spiritual impulses of the Entoans have been greatly intensified, they tenaciously have clung to their hopeless beliefs as being the only known channel through which their spiritual energy might find expression. Like children learning to walk alone, they have not dared to let go of one support while no other has been within reach.
Believing absolutely that Ento and all pertaining to it are special creations of Andûmana̤, the Supreme One, whose glorious abode is in Diafon ēvoiha (the Sun), whose beams are effulgent and life giving because they are reflections of His majesty and power, and that beyond the screen of the fleecy clouds is Astranola̤, where dwell His messengers, who note and bear to Him a record of the thoughts and deeds of His children. Believing that Phra (death) the dread God, surely will destroy those who may be sacrilegious enough to question the statements of the Sacred Writings, or who may attempt to peer into the dwelling place of the Gods, or to search into forbidding mysteries. Believing that life, the jewel beyond price, is prolonged through strict obedience to the commands of Andûmana̤, which, through His messengers have from time to time been revealed to the priesthood, who are the chosen custodians of all truth; believing all this, and more, the Entoans are not likely to forsake old beliefs until they are shown the way to a truer, happier faith. That spiritually, they are prepared to accept a happier, more rational faith, is beyond question, and that the time and means are at hand for this glorious consummation we do not for a moment doubt.
De L'Ester—From what Inidora̤ has said you may infer that he does not regard civilization as a result of religious concepts. Neither do we, for, through observation and experience, we have learned that it is despite religious concepts, which invariably are more or less erroneous, that the spirituality innate in the spiritualized human, impels the forward progress of civilization, which means clearer recognition of truth, hence a clearer, higher conception of the all pervading Infinite Spirit.
Spirit, recognized or unrecognized, is the positive, potential, intelligent force of the universe, whose energies ceaselessly, unerringly turn the wheels of evolution. So called decadence of civilizations is but the recouping of spiritual forces adjusting themselves to changing conditions. All man inhabited planets necessarily pass through similar experiences. Like the alternate flowing and ebbing of ocean's tides are the advancements and retrogressions of civilizations, both being a fulfilling of natural law, whose infinite, intelligent, forceful activities are known by many names. From very advanced ancient spirits of Ento and Earth we have learned of civilizations of both planets adorned by arts, sciences and social conditions of a high order, but of an antiquity so remote that, compared with them, the civilization of their time was more than crude, and the revelations of their Yohoida̤s and Tsûfa̤len (teachers of the divine mysteries) of Ento and those of the alchemists, astrologers and astronomers of Earth were as echoes of a dead past. Yes, it is a truth that there is nothing new under the sun. That which becomes perceptible to human consciousness is new only in the sense that it is a special presentation and recognition of that which always has existed. It is quite as true that all life forms of all inhabited planets invariably evolve from involved conditions, that is they evolve from the unseen into the perceptible, which is the symbol of the real, and all ever are evolving into higher expression.
Certainly no thought or act (which is thought expressed) is ever lost, and though peoples of remotest times have left no written history or other record of their day, the impressions of their thoughts and deeds unquestionably are an active force in the present.