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 Story of a Magician | [23], [123], [193], [258], [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 Colour to the | [481] |
| 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 Canterbury Greeting, [241]; To the Readers of | [340] |
| 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 Socialism | [282] |
| Three Desires, The [476] | |
| Twilight Visions | [365], [461] |
| Unpopular Philosopher, From the Note-Book of an | [80], [160], [238] |
| What is Truth? | [425] |
| What’s in a Name? Why is the Magazine called “Lucifer”? | [1] |
| White Monk, The | [384], [466] |
| 1888 | [337] |
LUCIFER
Vol. I. LONDON, SEPTEMBER 15TH, 1887. No. 1.
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.