Search -
An Abridgement by Katharine Hillard of The Secret Doctrine (1907)
An Abridgement by Katharine Hillard of The Secret Doctrine - 1907 Author:Helena Petrovna Blavatsky Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BOOK II. PART I The Evolution Of Symbolism In Its Approximate Order Explanatory Sections " A symbol is ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer ... more »or clearer revelation of the Godlike.'' —Carlyle. Section I Symbolism And Ideographs The study of the hidden meaning in every religious and profane legend, of whatsoever nation (and pre-eminently the traditions of the East) has occupied the greater portion of the present writer's life. She is one of these who feel convinced that no mythological story, no traditional event in the folklore of a people, has ever been at any time pure fiction, but that every one of such narratives has an actual, historical lining to it. In this the writer disagrees with those symbologists who believe that all mythologies sprang from, and are built upon, solar myths. Such superficial thinkers were admirably disposed of by Mr. Gerald Massey, in a lecture ou " Luniolatry, Ancient and Modern." He says there that " Mythology was a primitive mode of thinking the early thought. It was founded on natural facts, and is still verifiable in phenomena. . . . For example, when the Egyptians portrayed the moon as a cat, they were not ignorant enough to suppose the moon was a cat, nor was a cat-myth any mere expansion of verbal metaphor. They had observed the simple fact that the cat saw in the dark, and that her eyes became full-orbed and most luminous by night. The name of the cat in Egyptian is man, which denotes the seer, from mau, to see. The moon was the seer by night in heaven, and the cat was its equivalent on earth. The moon as cat was the eyeof the sun, because it reflected the solar light, and because the eye gives back the image in its mirror. In the form of the goddess Pasht (or Bubastes) the cat keeps watch for the sun, with her paw hold...« less