CHAPTER I.

^ Yea, the time comeih, duU whomsoever kiUedi you, will think that he doeth God lervice.*' — Gcs^i according tc John^ xvi a.
'* Let him be Anathrma . . . who shall say that human Sciences ought to be pursued in such a spirit of freedom that one may be allowed to hold as true their assertions even when opposed to revealed doctrines.** — iEcumcHical Ctmncil of 1870.
•• Glouc— The Church ! Where is it ? **—King Henry VL^ Act i., Sc. i.
IN the United States of America, sixty thousand (60,428) men are paid salaries to teach the Science of God and His relations to His crea- tures.
These men contract to impart to us the knowledge which treats of the existence, character, and attributes of our Creator ; His laws and government ; the doctrines we are to believe and the duties we are to practice. Five thousand (5,141) of them,* with the prospect of 1273 theological students to help them in time, teach this science according to a formula prescribed by the Bishop of Rome, to five million people. Fifty-five thousand (55,287) local and travelling ministers, representing fifteen different denominations, \ each contradicting the other upon more or less vital theological questions, instruct, in their respective doctrines, thirty-three million (33,500,000) other persons. Many of these teach ac- cording to the canons of the cis- Atlantic branch of an establishment which acknowledges a daughter of the late Duke of Kent as its spiritual
* These figures are copied from the " Religious Statistics of the United States for th\ year 1871."
f These are : The Baptists, Congregationalists^ Episcopalians^ Northern Method- ists, Southern Methodists, Methodists various^ Northern Presbyterians, Southern Pres- byterians, United Presbyterians, United Brethren^ Brethren in Christ, Reformed Duick^ Reformed German, Reformed Presbyterians^ Cumberland Presbyterians,
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head. There are many hundred thousand Jews; some thousands of Orientals of all kinds ; and a very few who belong to the Greek Church. A man at Salt Lake City, with nineteen wives and more than one hun- dred children and grandchildren, is the supreme spiritual ruler over ninety thousand people, who believe that he is in frequent intercourse with the gods — for the Mormons are Polytheists as well as Polygamists, and their chief god is represented as living in a planet they call Colob.
The God of the Unitarians is a bachelor; the Deity of the Presby- terians, Methodists, Congregation alists, and the other orthodox Protestant sects a spouseless Father with one Son, who is identical with Himself. In the attempt to outvie each other in the erection of their sixty-two thousand and odd churches, prayer-houses, and meeting-halls, in which to teach these conflicting theological doctrines, $354, 485, 581 have been spent. The value of the Protestant parsonages alone, in which are sheltered the disputants and their families, is roughly calculated to approximate $54* 1159297. Sixteen million (16,179,387) dollars, are, morever, contributed every year for current expenses of the Protestant denominations only. One Presbyterian church in New York cost a round million ; a Catholic altar alone, one-fourth as much !
We will not mention the multitude of smaller sects, communities, and extravagantly original little heresies in this country which spring up one year to die out the next, like so many spores of fungi after a rainy day. We will not even stop to consider the alleged millions of Spiritualists ; for the majority lack the courage to break away from their respective re- ligious denominations. These are the back-door Nicodemuses.
And now, with Pilate, let us inquire. What is truth ? Where is it to be searched for amid this multitude of warring sects ? Each claims to be based upon divine revelation, and each to have the keys of the celestial gates. Is either in possession of this rare truth ? Or, must we exclaim with the Buddhist philosopher, " There is but one truth on earth, and it is unchangeable : and this is — that there is no truth on it ! "
Though we have no disposition whatever to trench upon the ground that has been so exhaustively gleaned by those learned scholars who have shown that every Christian dogma has its origin in a heathen rite, still the facts which they have exhumed, since the enfranchisement of science, will lose nothing by repetition. Besides, we propose to examine these facts from a different and perhaps rather novel point of view : that of the old philosophies as esoterically understood. These we have barely glanced at in our first volume. We will use them as the standard by which to compare Christian dogmas and miracles with the doctrines and pheno- mena of ancient magic, and the modem " New Dispensation," as Spirit- ualism is called by its votaries. Since the materialists deny the phenom-
"THE church! where is it?" 3
ena without investigation, and since the theologians in admitting them offer us the poor choice of two palpable absurdities — the Devil and mira- cles— we can lose httle by applying to the theurgists, and they may actu- ally help us to throw a great light upon a very dark subject.
Professor A. Butlerof, of the Imperial University of St. Petersburg, remarks in a recent pamphlet, entitled Mediumistic Manifestations^ as follows : ** Let the facts (of modem spiritualism) belong if you will to the number of those which were more or less known by the ancients ; let them be identical with those which in the dark ages gave importance to the office of Egyptian priest or Roman augur ; let them even furnish the basis of the sorcery of our Siberian Shaman ; ... let them be all these, and, if they are real facts, it is no business of ours. All the facts in nature belong to science^ and every addition to the store of science en- riches instead of impoverishing her. If humanity has once admitted a truth, and then in the blindness of self-conceit denied it, to return to its realization is a step forward and not backward."
Since the day that modem science gave what may be considered the death-blow to dogmatic theology, by assuming the ground that religion was full of mystery, and mystery is unscientific, the mental state of the educated class has presented a curious aspect. Society seems from tiiat time to have been ever balancing itself upon one leg, on an unseen tight-rope stretched from our visible universe into the invisible one ; un- certain whether the end hooked on faith in the latter might not suddenly break, and hurl it into final annihilation.
The great body of nominal Christians may be divided into three unequal portions : materialists, spiritualists, and Christians proper. The materialists and spiritualists make common cause against the hierarchical pretensions of the clergy ; who, in retaliation, denounce both with equal acerbity. The materialists are as little in harmony as the Christian sects themselves — the Comtists, or, as they call themselves, the positivists, being despised and hated to the last degree by the schools of thinkers, one of which Maudsley honorably represents in England. Positivism, be it remembered, is that " religion " of the future about whose founder even Huxley has made himself wrathful in his famous lecture, The Physical Basis of Life ; and Maudsley felt obliged, in behalf of modern science, to express himself thus : " It is no wonder that scientific men should be anxious to disclaim Comte as their law-giver, and to protest against such a king being set up to reign over them. Not conscious of any personal obligation to his writings — conscious how much, in some respects, he has misrepresented the spirit and pretensions of science — they repudiate the allegiance which his enthusiastic disciples would force upon them, and which popular opinion is fast coming to think a natural one. They do
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well in thus making a timely assertion of independence ; for if it be not done soon, it will soon be too late to be done well." * When a mate- rialistic doctrine is repudiated so strongly by two such materialists as Huxley and Maudsley, then we must think indeed that it is absurdity itself.
Among Christians there is nothing but dissension. Their various churches represent every degree of religious belief, from the omnivorous credulity of blind faith to a condescending and high-toned deference to the Deity which thinly masks an evident conviction of their own deific wisdom. All these sects believe more or less in the immortality of the soul. Some admit the intercourse between the two worlds as a fact ; some entertain the opinion as a sentiment ; some positively deny it ; and only a few maintain an attitude of attention and expectancy.
Impatient of restraint, longing for the return of the dark ages, the Romish Church frowns at the diabolical manifestations, and indicates what she would do to their champions had she but the power of old. Were it not for the self-evident fact that she herself is placed by science on trial, and that she is handcuffed, she would be ready at a moment's notice to repeat in the nineteenth century the revolting scenes of former days. As to the Protestant clergy, so furious is their common hatred toward spiritualism, that as a secular paper very truly remarks : ** They seem willing to undermine the public faith in all the spiritual pheno- mena of the past, as recorded in the Bible^ if they can only see the pes- tilent modern heresy stabbed to the heart." f
Summoning back the long-forgotten memories of the Mosaic laws, the Romish Church claims the monopoly of miracles, and of the right to sit in judgment over them, as being the sole heir thereto by di- rect inheritance. The Old Testament^ exiled by Colenso, his prede- cessors and contemporaries, is recalled from its banishment. The proph- ets, whom his Holiness the Pope condescends at last to place, if not on the same level with himself, at least at a less respectful distaftce, J are dusted and cleaned. The memory of all the diabolical abracadabra is evoked anew. The blasphemous horrors perpetrated by Paganism, its
♦ H. Maudsley : ** Body and Mind."
f " Boston Sunday Herald," November 5, 1876.
X See the self-glorification of the present Pope in the work entitled, " Speeches of Pope Pius IX." by Don Pascale de Franciscis ; and the famous pamphlet of that name by the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone. The latter quotes from the work named the fol- lowing sentence pronounced by the Pope: *'My wish is tliat all governments should know that I am speaking in this strain. . . . And I have the right to speak, even mare than Nathan the prophet to David the king, and a great deal more than St, Ambrote had to Theodosius ! i ^^
PAGAN PHALLISM IN CHRISTIAN SYMBOLS. 5
phallic worship, thaumaturgical wonders wrought by Satan, human sacri- fices, incantations, witchcraft, magic, and sorcery are recalled and DEMONiSM is confronted with spiritualism for mutual recognition and identification. Our modern demonologists conveniently overlook a few insignificant details, among which is the undeniable presence of heathen phallism in the Christian symbols. A strong spiritual element of this worship may be easily demonstrated in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mother of God; and a physical element equally proved in the fetish-worship of the holy limbs of Sts. Cosmo and Damiano, at Isernia, near Naples ; a successful traffic in which ex-voto in wax was carried on by the clergy, annually, until barely a half centur)' ago.*
We find it rather unwise on the part of Catholic writers to pour out their vials of wrath in such sentences as these : '' In a multitude of pagodas, the phallic stone, ever and always assuming, like the Grecian batylos, the brutally indecent form of the lingham . . . the Maha Deva." f Before casting slurs on a symbol whose profound metaphysi- cal meaning is too much for the modern champions of that religion of sensualism par excellence^ Roman Catholicism, to grasp, they are in duty bound to destroy their oldest churches, and change the form of the cupolas of their own temples. The Mahody of Elephanta, the Round Tower of Bhangulpore, the minarets of Islam — either rounded or pointed — are the originals of the Campanile column of San Marco, at Venice, of the Roch- ester Cathedral, and of the modern Duomo of Milan. All of these steeples, turrets, domes, and Christian temples, are the reproductions of the primitive idea of the lithoSy the upright phallus. " The western tower of St. Paul's Cathedral, London," says the author of T9u Rosicrucians^ " is one of the double lithoi placed always in front of every temple, Ciiristian as well as heathen." J Moreover, in all Christian Churches, " particularly in Prot- estant churches, where they figure most conspicuously, the two tables of stone of the Mosaic Dispensation are placed over the altar, side by side, as a united stone, the tops of which are rounded. . . . The right stone is mcLSculine^ the left feminine.'' Therefore neither Catholics nor Protest- ants have a right to talk of the "indecent forms " of heathen monuments so long as they ornament their own churches with the symbols of the Lingham and Yoni, and even write the laws of their God upon them.
Another detail not redounding very particularly to the honor of the Christian clergy might be recalled in the word Inquisition. The torrents
• Sec King's ''Gnostics,*' and other works.
t Des Mousseanx : *^ La Magie au XlXme Si^cle/' chap. i.
% Hargrave Jennings: '* The Rosicrucians,*' pp. 22^241.
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of human blood shed by this Christian institution, and the number of its human sacrifices, are unparalleled in the annals of Paganism. Another still more prominent feature in which the clergy surpassed their masters, the "heathen," is sorcery. Certainly in no Pagan temple was black magic, in its real and true sense, more practiced than in the Vatican. While strongly supporting exorcism as an important source of revenue, they neglected magic as little as the ancient heathen. It is easy to prove that the sdrtilegium^ or sorcery, was widely practiced among the clergy and monks so late as the last century, and is practiced occasionally even now.
Anathematizing every manifestation of occult nature outside the pre- cincts of the Church, the clergy — notwithstanding proofs to the contrary — call it " the work of Satan," " the snares of the fallen angels," who " rush in and out from the bottomless pit," mentioned by John in his kabalistic Revelation^ " from whence arises a smoke as the smoke of a great furnace. ** " Intoxicated by its fumes, around this pit are daily gather- ing millions of Spiritualists y to worship at ^^the Abyss of BaalJ* *
More than ever arrogant, stubborn, and despotic, now that she has been nearly upset by modern research, not daring to interfere with the powerful champions of science, the Latin Church revenges herself upon the unpopular phenomena. A despot without a victim, is a word void of sense ; a power which neglects to assert itself through outward, well-calculated effects, risks being doubted in the end. The Church has no intention to fall into the oblivion of the ancient myths, or to suffer her authority to be too closely questioned. Hence she pursues, as well as the times permit, her traditional policy. Lamenting the enforced extinc- . tion of her ally, the Holy Inquisition, she makes a virtue of necessity. The only victims now within reach are the Spiritists of France. Recent events have shown that the meek spouse of Christ never disdains to retaliate on helpless victims.
Having successfully performed her part of Deus-ex-Machina from behind the French Bench, which has not scrupled to disgrace itself for her, the Church of Rome sets to work and shows in the year 1876 what she can do. From the whirling tables and dancing pencils of profane Spiritualism, the Christian world is warned to turn to the divine " mira- cles " of Lourdes. Meanwhile, the ecclesiastical authorities utilize their time in arranging for other more easy triumphs, calculated to scare the superstitious out of their senses. So, acting under orders, the clergy hurl dramatic, if not very impressive anathemas from every Catholic diocese ; threaten right and lefl ; excommunicate and curse. Per-
* Des Moosseaux : " Hauts Ph^omenes de la Magie.*'
EXAMPLES OF PAPAL VITUPERATION. 7
ceiving, finally, that her thunderbolts directed even against crowned heads fall about as harmlessly as the Jupiterean lightnings of Ofifenbach's CalckaSj Rome turns about in powerless fury against the victimized pro- teges of the Emperor of Russia — the unfortunate Bulgarians and Ser- vians. Undisturbed by evidence and sarcasm, unbailed by proof, '* the lamb of the Vatican " impartially divides his wrath between the liberals of Italy, " the impious whose breath has the stench of the sepulchre," * the '* schismatic Russian SarmateSy' and the heretics and spiritualists, *'who worship at the bottomless pit where the great Dragon lies in wait"
Mr. Gladstone went to the trouble of making a catalogue of what he terms the " flowers of speech," disseminated through these Papal dis- courses. Let us cull a few of the chosen terms used by this vicegerent of Him who said that, *' whosoever shall say Thou fool ^ shall be in danger of hell-fire." They are selected from authentic discourses. Those who oppose the Pope are " wolves, Pharisees, thieves, liars, hypocrites, drop- sical children of Satan, sons of perdition, of sin, and corruption, satellites of Satan in human flesh, monsters of hell, demons incarnate, stinking corpses, men issued from the pits of hell, traitors and Judases led by the spirit of hell ; children of the deepest pits of hell," etc., etc ; the whole piously collected and published by Don Pasquale di Franciscis, whom Gladstone has, with perfect propriety, termed, " an accomplished profes- sor diflunkeyitm in things spiritual." f
Since his Holiness the Pope has such a rich vocabulary of invectives at his command, why wonder that the Bishop of Toulouse did not scruplo to utter the most undignified falsehoods about the Protestants and Spirit- ualists of America — people doubly odious to a Catholic — in his address to his diocese : " Nothing," he remarks, " is more common in an era of unbelief than to see a false revelation substitute itself for the true one^ and minds neglect the teachings of the Holy Church, to devote them- selves to the study of divination and the occult sciences." With a fine episcopal contempt for statistics, and strangely confounding in his mem- ory the audiences of the revivalists, Moody and Sankey, and the patrons of darkened seance-rooms, he utters the unwarranted and fallacious as- sertion that " it has been proven that Spiritualism, in the United States, has caused one- sixth of all the cases of suicide and insanity." He says that it is not possible that the spirits ''teach either an exact science, because they are lying demons, or a useful science, because the character
^ Don Pasqnale di Franciscis: " Discorsi del Sommo Pontefice Pio IX.," Part i.,
p. 340.
t ** Spcedics of Pius IX.," p. 14. Am. Edition.
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of the word of Satan, like Satan himself, is sterile." He warns his dear collaborateurs^ that " the writings in favor of Spiritualism are under the ban ; *' and he advises them to let it be known that " to frequent spiritual circles with the intention of accepting the doctrine, is to apostatize from the Holy Church, and assume the risk of excommunication ; " finally, says he, " Publish the fact that the teaching of no spirit should prevail against that of the pulpit of Peter, which is the teaching of the Spirit of God Himself I ! "
Aware of the many false teachings attributed by the Roman Church to the Creator, we prefer disbelieving the latter assertion. The famous Catholic theologian, Tillemont, assures us in his work that ** all the illus- trious Pagans are condemned to the eternal torments of hell, because they lived before the time of Jesus, and, therefore, could not be benefited by the redemption ! I " He also assures us that the Virgin Mary person- ally testified to this truth over her own signature in a letter to a saint. Therefore, this is also a revelation — " the Spirit of God Himself'* teaching such charitable doctrines.
We have also read with great advantage the topographical descrip- tions of Hell and Purgatory in the celebrated treatise under that name by a Jesuit, the Cardinal Bellarmin. A critic found that the author, who gives the description from a divine vision with which he was favored, " appears to possess all the knowledge of a land-measurer " about the secret tracts and formidable divisions of the "bottomless pit." Justin Martyr having actually committed to paper the heretical thought that after all Socrates might not be altogether fixed in hell, his Benedictine editor criticises this too benevolent father very severely. Whoever doubts the Christian charity of the Church of Rome in this direction is invited to peruse the Censure of the Sorbonne, on MarmonteFs Belisa- rius. The odium theologicum blazes in it on the dark sky of orthodox theology like an aurora borealis — the precursor of God's wrath, accord- ing to the teaching of certain mediaeval divines.
We have attempted in the first part of this work to show, by histori- cal examples, how completely men of science have deserved the sting- ing sarcasm of the late Professor de Morgan, who remarked of them that "they wear the priest's cast-off garb, dyed to escape detection." The Christian clergy are, in like manner, attired in the cast-off garb of the heathen priesthood ; acting diametrically in opposition to their God's moral precepts, but nevertheless, sitting in judgment over the whole world.
When dying on the cross, the martyred Man of Sorrows forgave his enemies. His last words were a prayer in their behalf. He taught his disciples to curse not, but to bless, even their foes. But the heirs of
CATHOLIC BLASPHEMY AGAINST HEAVEN. 9
St. Peter, the self-constituted representatives on earth of that same meek Jesus, unhesitatingly curse whoever resists their despotic will. Besides, was not the ** Son " long since crowded by them into the background ? They make their obeisance only to the Dowager Mother, for — according to their teaching — again through " the direct Spirit of God," she alone acts as a mediatrix. The (Ecumenical Council of 1870 embodied the teaching into a dogma, to disbelieve which is to be doomed forever to the * bottomless pit.* The work of Don Pasquale di Franciscis is posi- tive on that point ; for he tells us that, as the Queen of Heaven owes to the present Pope " the finest gem in her coronet," since he has conferred on her the unexpected honor of becoming suddenly immaculate, there is nothing she cannot obtain from her Son for " her Church." *
Some years ago, certain travellers saw in Barri, Italy, a statue of the Madonna, arrayed in a flounced pink skirt over a swelling crinoline / Pious pilgrims who may be anxious to examine the regulation wardrobe of their God's mother may do so by going to Southern Italy, Spain, and Catholic North and South America. The Madonna of Barri must still be there — between two vineyards and a locanda (gin-shop). When last seen, a half-successful attempt had been made to clothe the infant Jesus ; they had covered his legs with a pair of dirty, scollop-edged pantaloons. An English traveller having presented the " Mediatrix " with a green silk parasol, the grateful population of the contadini^ accompanied by the village-priest, went in procession to the spot. They managed to stick the sunshade, opened, between the infant's back and the arm of the Virgin which embraced him. The scene and ceremony were both sol- emn and highly refreshing to our religious feelings. For there stood the image of the goddess in its niche, surrounded with a row of ever-burning lamps, the flames of which, flickering in the breeze, infect God's pure air with an offensive smell of olive oil, The Mother and Son truly repre- sent the two most conspicuous idols of Monotheistic Christianity !
For a companion to the idol of the poor contadini of Barri, go to the rich city of Rio Janeiro. In the Church of the Duomo del Candelaria, in a long hall running along one side of the church, there might be seen, a few years ago, another Madonna. Along the walls of the hall there is a line of saints, each standing on a contribution-box, which thus forms a fit pedestal. In the centre of this line, under a gorgeously rich canopy of blue silk, is exhibited the Virgin Mary leaning on the arm of Christ. " Our Lady ** is arrayed in a very dicollet^ blue satin dress with short
*Vide "Speeches of Pope Pius IX.," by Don Pasq. di Franciscis; Gladstone's pamphlet on this book ; Draper's ** Conflict between Religion and Science," and otheni
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sleeves, showing, to great advantage, a snow-white, exquisitely-moulded neck, shoulders, and arms. The skirt equally of blue satin with an over- skirt of rich lace and gauze puffs, is as short as that of a ballet-dancer ; hardly reaching the knee, it exhibits a pair of finely-shaped legs covered with flesh colored silk tights, and blue satin French boots with very high red heels ! The blonde hair of this " Mother of God " is arranged in the latest fashion, with a voluminous chignon and curls. As she leans on her Son's arm, her face is lovingly turned toward her Only-Begotten, whose dress and attitude are equally worthy of admiration. Christ wears an evening dress-coat, with swallow-tail, black trousers, and low cut white vest ; varnished boots, and white kid gloves, over one of which spar- kles a rich diamond ring, worth many thousands we must suppose — a precious Brazilian jewel. Above this body of a modern Portuguese dan- dy, is a head with the hair parted in the middle ; a sad and solemn face, and eyes whose patient look seems to reflect all the bitterness of this last insult flung at the majesty of the Crucified. *
The Egyptian Isis was also represented as a Virgin Mother by her devotees, and as holding her infant son, Horus, in her arms. In some statues and basso-relievos^ when she appears alone she is either com- pletely nude or veiled from head to foot. But in the Mysteries, in common with nearly every other goddess, she is entirely veiled from head to foot, as a symbol of a mother's chastity. It would not do us any harm were we to borrow from the ancients some of the poetic sentiment in their religions, and the innate veneration they entertained for their symbols.
It is but fair to say at once that the last of the true Christians died with the last of the direct apostles. Max Miiller forcibly asks : " How can a missionary in such circumstances meet the surprise and questions of his pupils, unless he may point to that seed, f and tell them what Christianity was meant to be ? unless he may show that, like all other reli- gions, Christianity too, has had its history ; that the Christianity of the nineteenth century is not the Christianity of the middle ages, and that the Christianity of the middle ages was not that of the early Councils ; that the Christianity of the early Councils was not that of the Apostles, and that what has been said by Christ, that alone was well said ? " J
Thus we may infer that the only characteristic difference between modern Christianity and the old heathen faiths is the belief of the former in a personal devil and in hell. " The Aryan nations had no devil," says Max Miiller. " Pluto, though of a sombre character, was a very
^ The fact is given to us by an eye-witness who has visited the church several times ; m Roman Catholic, who felt perfectly horrified^ as he expressed it. f Referring to the seed planted by Jesus and his Apostles. X " Chips," vol i., p. 26, Preface.
THE HELLS OF VARIOUS NATIONS. II
respectable personage ; and Loki (the Scandinavian), though a mischiev- ous person, was not a fiend. The German Goddess, Hell, too, like Proserpine, had once seen better days. Thus, when the Germans were indoctrinated with the idea of a real devil, the Semitic Seth, Satan or Diabolus, they treated him in the most good-humored way."
The same may be said of hell. Hades was quite a diflferent place from bur region of eternal damnation, and might be termed rather an inter- mediate state of purification. Neither does the Scandinavian Hel or Hela, imply either a state or a place of punishment ; for when Frigga, the grief-stricken mother of Bal-dur, the white god, who died and found himself in the dark abodes of the shadows (Hades) sent Hermod, a son of Thor, in quest of her beloved child, the messenger found him in the inexorable region — alas ! but still comfortably seated on a rock, and reading a book.* The Norse kingdom of the dead is moreover situated in the higher latitudes of the Polar regions ; it is a cold and cheerless abode, and neither the gelid halls of Hela, nor the occupation of Baldur present the least similitude to the blazing hell of eternal fire and the miserable " damned " sinners with which the Church so generously peoples it. No more is it the Egyptian Amenthes, the region of judgment and purification ; nor the Onderdh — the abyss of darkness of the Hindus ; for even the fallen angels hurled into it by Siva, are allowed by Para- brahma to consider it as an intermediate state, in which an opportunity is afforded them to prepare for higher degrees of purification and redemp- tion from their wretched condition. The Gehenna of the New Testa- wunt was a locality outside the walls of Jerusalem ; and in mentioning it, Jesus used but an ordinary metaphor. Whence then came the dreary dogma of hell, that Archimedean lever of Christian theology, with which they have succeeded to hold in subjection the numberFess millions of Christians for nineteen centuries ? Assuredly not from the Jewish Scriptures, and we appeal for corroboration to any well-informed Hebrew scholar.
The only designation of something approaching hell in the Bible is Gehenna or Hinnom, a valley near Jerusalem, where was situated Tophet, a place where a fire was perpetually kept for sanitary purposes. The prophet Jeremiah informs us that the Israelites used to sacrifice their children to Moloch- Hercules on that spot ; and later we find Chris- tians quietly replacing this divinity by their god of mercy, whose wrath will not be appeased, unless the Church sacrifices to him her unbaptized children and sinning sons on the altar of " eternal damnation ! "
Whence then did the divine learn so well the conditions of hell, as
* Mallet : *' Northern Antiquities."
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to actually divide its torments into two kinds, the pana damni and psenae sensiis, the former being the privation of the beatific vision ; the latter the eternal pains in a lake of fire and brimstone ? If they answer us that it is in the Apocalypse (xx. lo), we are prepared to demonstrate whence the theologist John himself derived the idea, " And M^ //^r/7 that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are and shall be tormented for ever and ever," he says. Laying aside the esoteric interpretation that the "devil** or tempting demon meant our own earthly body, which after death will surely dissolve in iYvQ fiery or ethereal elements,* the word "eternal** by which our theologians interpret the words " for ever and ever ** does not exist in the Hebrew language, either as a word or meaning. There is no Hebrew word which properly expresses eternity ; ^^^oulam, according to Le Clerc, only imports a time whose beginning or end is not known. While showing that this word does not mean infinite duration, and that in the Old Testament the word forever only signifies a long time, Arch- bishop Tillotson has completely perverted its sense with respect to the idea of hell-torments. According to his doctrine, when Sodom and Gomorrah are said to be suffering " eternal fire," we must understand it only in the sense of that fire not being extinguished till both cities were entirely consumed. But, as to hell-fire the words must be understood in the strictest sense of infinite duration. Such is the decree of the learned divine. For the duration of the punishment of the wicked must be proportionate to the eternal happiness of the righteous. So he says, "These (speaking of the wicked) "shall go away cts koXoo-iv auuvtov into ^/^r«fl/ punishment ; but the righteous ci9 (on/v cuoivtov into life eternal.'*
The Reverend T. Surnden, \ commenting on the speculations of his predecessors, fitls a whole volume with unanswerable arguments, tending to show that the locality of Hell is in the sun. We suspect that the rev- erend speculator had read the Apocalypse in bed, and had the night- mare in consequence. There are two verses in the Revelation of John reading thus : " And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun, and power was given him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God.** J This is simply Pythagorean and kabalistic allegory. The idea is new neither with the above-mentioned author nor with John. Pythagoras placed the " sphere of purification in the sun," which sun, with its sphere, he moreover
^ Ether is both pure and impure fire. The composition of the latter comprises all its visible forms, such as the " correlation of forces" — heat, flame, electricity, etc. The former is the Spirit of Fire. The difference is purely alchemical.
f See " Inquiry into the Nature and Place of Hell," by Rev. T. Surnden.
% Revelation xvL 8-9.
AUGUSTINE'S GEOCENTRIC HELL. 13
locates in the middle of the universe, * the allegory having a double mean- ing: I. Symbolically, the central, spiritual sun, the Supreme Deity. Arrived at this region every soul becomes purified of its sins, and unites itself forever with its spirit, having previously suffered throughout all the lower spheres. 2. By placing the sphere of visible fire in the middle of the universe, he simply taught the heliocentric system which appertained to the Mysteries, and was imparted only in the higher degree of initiation. John gives to his Word a purely kabalistic significance, which no " Fathers," except those who had belonged to the Neo-platonic school, were able to comprehend. Origen understood it well, having been a pupil of Ammo- nius Saccas ; therefore we see him bravely denying the perpetuity of hell- torments. He maintains that not only men, but even devils (by which term he meant disembodied human sinners), after a certain duration of punishment shall be pardoned and finally restored to heaven, f In con- sequence of this 'and other such heresies Origen was, as a matter of course, exiled.
Many have been the learned and truly-inspired speculations as to the locality of hell. The most popular were those which placed it in the centre of the earth. At a certain time, however, skeptical doubts which disturbed the placidity of faith in this highly-refreshing doctrine arose in consequence of the meddling scientists of those days. As a Mr. Swinden in our own century observes, the theory was inadmissible because of two objections : ist, that a fund of fuel or sulphur sufficient to maintain so furious and constant a fire could not be there supposed ; and, 2d, that it must want the nitrous particles in the air to sustain and keep it alive. "And how," says he, "can a fire be eternal, when, by degrees, the whole substance of the earth must be consumed thereby ? " J *
The skeptical gentleman had evidently forgotten that centuries ago St. Augustine solved the difficulty. Have we not the word of this learned divine that hell, nevertheless, is in the centre of the earth, for " God sup- plies the central fire with air by a miracle J " The argument is unanswerable, and so we will not seek to upset it.
. The Christians were the first to make the existence of Satan a dogma of the Church. And once that she had established it, she had to struggle for over 1,700 years for the repression of a mysterious force which it was her policy to make appear of diabolical origin. Unfortu- nately, in manifesting itself, this force invariably tends to upset such a belief by the ridiculous discrepancy it presents between the alleged cause and the effects. If the clergy have not over-estimated the real power
* Aristotle mentions Pythagoreans who placed the sphere of fire in the sun, and named it Jupiter's Prison, See " De Ccelo,** lib. il
t *•]>€ Civit. Dei," i, xxi., c. 17. % ** Demonologia and Hell," p. 2S9.
14 ISIS UNVEILED.
of the " Arch-Enemy of God," it must be confessed that he takes mightf precautions against being recognized as the " Prince of Darkness " who aims at our souls. If modern " spirits " are devils at all, as preached by the clergy, then they can only be those " poor " or " stupid devils " whom Max Miiller describes as appearing so often in the German and Norwegian tales.
Notwithstanding this, the clergy fear above all to be forced to relin- quish this hold on humanity. They are not willing to let us judge of the tree by its fruits, for that might sometimes force them into dangerous di- lemmas. They refuse, likewise, to admit, with unprejudiced people, that the phenomena of Spiritualism has unquestionably spiritualized and re- claimed from evil courses many an indomitable atheist and skeptic. But, as they confess themselves, what is the use in a Pope, if there is no Devil ?
And so Rome sends her ablest advocates and preachers to the rescue of those perishing in " the bottomless pit." Rome employs her cleverest writers for this purpose — albeit they all indignantly deny the accusation — and in the preface to every book put forth by the prolific des Mousseaux, the French Tertullian of our century, we find undeniable proofs of the fact. Among other certificates of ecclesiastical approval, every volume is ornamented with the text of a certain original letter addressed to the very pious author by the world-known Father Ventura de Raulica, of Rome. Few are those who have not heard this famous name. It is the name of one of the chief pillars of the Latin Church, the ex-General of the Order of the Theatins, Con suitor of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, Examiner of Bishops, and of the Roman Clergy, etc., etc., etc. This strikingly characteristic document will remain to astonish future generations by its spirit of unAphisticated demonolatry and unblushing sincerity. We translate a fragment verbatim, and by thus helping its circulation hope to merit the blessings of Mother Church : *
"Monsieur and excellent Friend:
'* The greatest victory of Satan was gained on that day when he succeeded in mak- ing himself denied.
** To demonstrate the existence of Satan, is to reestablish one of the fundamentat dogmas of the Churchy which serve as a basis for Christianity, and, without which, Satan would be but a name. . . .
" Magic, mesmerism, magnetism, somnambulism, spiritualism, spiritism, hypnotism . . . are only other names for satanism.
** To bring out such a truth and show it in its proper light, is to unmask the enemy ; it is to unveil the immense danger of certain practices, reputed innocent; it is to de- serve well in the eyes of humanity and of religion.
** Father Ventura de Raxtuca."
♦ *' Les Hants Ph6nomenes de la Magie," p. v., Preface.
THE BIOGRAPHERS OF THE DEVIL. IS
A — men!
This is an unexpected honor indeed, for our American " controls " in general, and the innocent " Indian guides " in particular. To be thus introduced in Rome as princes of the Empire of Eblis, is more than they could ever hope for in other lands.
Without in the least suspecting that she was working for the future welfare of her enemies — the spiritualists and spiritists — the Church, some twenty years since, in tolerating des Mousseaux and de Mirville as the biographers of the Devil, and giving her approbation thereto, tacitly con- fessed the literary copartnership.