Lucifer: A Theosophical Magazine. Volume I. September 1887-February 1888.Various
Religion
Lucifer: A Theosophical Magazine. Volume I. September 1887-February 1888.
Various
Theosophy -- Periodicals
Next they saw that the child was fleshed by the mother, and formed
from her blood, the flow of which was arrested to be solidified, and
take form in their own persons. Thus the red amulet which was worn
by the Egyptian dead, was representative of the blood of Isis, who
came from herself, and made her own child without the fatherhood,
when men could only derive their blood and descent from the mother.
This amulet was put on by her, says Plutarch, when she found herself
_enceinte_ with Horus, her child, who was derived from the mother
alone, or was traced solely to the blood of Isis. Primitive men
could perceive that the children of one mother were of the same
blood. This, the first form of a blood-brotherhood, was the first to
be recognised as the natural fact. Uterine brothers were
blood-brothers. The next stage of the brotherhood was Totemic; and
the mode of extending the brotherhood to the children of several
mothers implies, as it necessitated, some form of symbolic rite
which represented them as brothers, or as typically becoming of the
one blood. Here we can track the very first step in sociology which
was made when the typical blood-brotherhood of the Totem was formed
in imitation of the natural brotherhood of the mother-blood. The
modes and forms of the Covenant can be identified by the Totemic
mysteries, some of which yet survive in the crudest condition. The
brotherhood was entered at the time of puberty; that is, at the time
of re-birth, when the boy was re-born as a man, and the child of the
mother attained the soul of the fatherhood, and was permitted to
join the ranks of the begetters. The mystery is one with that of
Horus, child of the mother alone, who comes to receive the soul of
the father in _Tattu_, the region of establishing the son as the
father, which is still extant in the mysteries, and the symbolism of
_Tattoo_.
This re-birth was enacted in various ways by typically re-entering
the womb. One of these was by burial in the earth, the tomb or place
of re-birth being the image of the maternal birth-place all the
world over. Thus when the Norsemen or other races prepared a hole
under the turf, and buried their cut and bleeding arms to let the
blood flow, and commingle in one as the token of a covenant, they
were returning typically to the condition of uterine twins, and the
act of burial for the purpose of a re-birth was a symbolical mode of
establishing the social brotherhood upon the original grounds of the
natural brotherhood of blood. Thus the blood-covenant did not
originate in the set transfusion or inter-fusion of blood. In the
Totemic mysteries the pubescent lad was admitted by the shedding of
his blood, with or without any interchange. The blood itself was the
symbol of brotherhood, and the shedding of it was the seal of a
covenant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account