第20章

ASTRO-THEOLOGY

There is one species of Divine revelation which has not, and cannot, be tampered with, one great Bible, which forms the starry original of all Bibles.

This sacred Bible is the great Astral Bible of the skies; its chapters are the twelve great signs, its pages are the innumerable glittering constellations of the heavenly vault, and its characters are the personified ideals of the radiant Sun, the silvery moon, and the shining planets, of our solar sphere.

There are three different aspects of this sacred book, and in each aspect the same characters appear, but in different roles, their dress and natural surroundings being suited to the natural play of their symbolical parts.In fact, the whole imagery may be likened unto a play, or, rather, a series of plays, performed by the same company of artists.It may be a comedy, or it may be melodrama, or it may be a tragedy; but the principles behind the scenes are ever the same, and show forth the same Divine Oneness of Nature; demonstrating the eternal axiom.ONE TRUTH, ONE LIFE, ONE PRINCIPLE, AND ONE WORD, and in their fourfold expression, is the four great chapters of the celestial book of the starry heavens.

In this aspect the visible cosmos may be represented as a kaleidoscope.The visible constellations, planets, and other heavenly bodies, are the bits of colored glass; and Deity the invisible force, which keeps the instrument in motion.Each revolution produces a different pictorial figure, which, complete in its harmony of parts, is perfect in its mathematical proportions, and beautiful in its geometrical designs.And yet each creation, each form, and each combination of forms, are produced by the same little pieces of glass; and all of them, in reality, are optical illusions; i.e., natural phenomena, which deceive the physical senses.So it is with Cosmic Nature.

It must not, however, be supposed, because of this perfect andcontinual illusion of Nature's playful phenomena, that all visible creation is purely an illusion of the senses, as some cranky metaphysicians would have it, because this is not so.

Going back again to our kaleidoscope, we can clearly see that without it, and its tinted beads, no such optical illusion is possible.There is, then, a basis of spiritual reality to all visible physical phenomena; but this basis lies concealed, because of the perfect illusion which the reflected image produces upon the material plane of the physical senses.The beads themselves are real.These are the basis, and the different pictures are the result, not of the beads, but of the angle from which they are reflected to our earthly vision.In other words, THE PLANE FROM WHICH WE BEHOLD THE PHENOMENA.

Hence, the nearer we approach the Divine center of our being, the less complicated Nature's original designs become, and the farther we are removed from that central source, the more weird, mysterious, complicated, and incomprehensible, does Mother Nature appear, to the finite human mind.And this is especially so, to man's theological instinct, his religiosity, that constitutes one of the fundamental factors of his being.

Nature is ever one in her original truths and their duplicate reflections; but ever conflicting and contradictory in her multiplied refractions through the minds of men.Therefore, we will present the primary concept of that grand Astro-Theology formulated by man's great progenitors; and view the simple machinery, by which they typified to the primitive mind a general outline of Nature's Divine providence.

All sacred books begin with an account of physical creation, the culmination of which, is the appearance of man and woman, as the parents of the race; and, while they will differ considerably in detail and make-up, the basic ideas embodied are essentially the same in all cosmo-genesis; so that in the Jewish Bible, accessible to all, one can read the primitive story of creation from a Jewish point of view, and, when read, rest satisfied that he has read the revelation vouchsafed to man in every age and in every clime.The only difference is one of mental peculiarity and national custom, along with climatic conditions.Hindoo, Chaldean, Chinese, Persian, Egyptian, Scandinavian, Druidic and ancient Mexican are all thesame--different names and drapery, to suit the people only, but essentially the same in the fundamental ideas conveyed.

THE CREATION OF THE WORLD