AE in the Irish TheosophistRussell, George William
Religion
AE in the Irish Theosophist
Russell, George William
Theosophy
In putting forward a hypothesis more in accord with the doctrine
of the spiritual origin of man, and in harmony with those occult
ideas concerning speech already quoted, I stand in a rather unusual
position, as I have to confess my ignorance of any of these primitive
languages. I am rather inclined however, to regard this on the
whole as an advantage for the following reasons. I think primitive
man (the early Aryan) chose his words by a certain intuition which
recognised an innate correspondence between the thought and the symbol.
Para passu with the growing complexity of civilization language lost
it spiritual character, "it fell into matter," to use H.P. Blavatsky's
expression; as the conventional words necessary to define artificial
products grew in number, in the memory of these words the spontaneity
of speech was lost, and that faculty became atrophied which enable
man to arrange with psychic rapidity ever new combinations of sounds
to express emotion and thought. Believing then that speech was
originally intuitive, and that it only need introspection and a
careful analysis of the sounds of the human voice, to recover the
faculty and correspondences between these sounds and forces, colours,
forms, etc., it will be seen why I do not regard my ignorance of
these languages as altogether a drawback. The correspondences
necessarily had to be evolved out of my inner consciousness, and
in doing this no aid could be derived from the Aryan roots as they
now stand. In the meaning attached to each letter is to be found
the key to the meaning and origin of roots; but the value of each
sound separately could never be discovered by an examination of
them in their combinations, though their value and purpose in
combination to form words might be evident enough once the
significance of the letters is shewn. Any lack of knowledge then
is only a disadvantage in this, that it limits the area from which
to choose illustrations. I have felt it necessary to preface what
I have to say with this confession, to show exactly the position
in which I stand. The correspondences between sounds and forces
were first evolved, and an examination of the Aryan roots proved
the key capable of application.
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Note:--In an article which appeared in the Theosophist, Dec. 1887,
I had attempted, with the assistance of my friend Mr. Chas. Johnston,
to put forward some of the ideas which form the subject matter of
this paper. Owing to the numerous misprints which rendered it
unintelligible I have felt it necessary to altogether re-write it.
---G.W.R.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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