| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: devils have IMITATED in the mysteries of Mithra, commanding
the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup
of water are placed with certain incantations in the
mystic rites of one who is being initiated you either know
or can learn." Tertullian also says[2] that "the devil by the
mysteries of his idols imitates even the main part of the
divine mysteries." . . . "He baptizes his worshippers in
water and makes them believe that this purifies them from
their crimes." . . . "Mithra sets his mark on the forehead
of his soldiers; he celebrates the oblation of bread;
he offers an image of the resurrection, and presents at once
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: the woods in England, so are the waters we know to all the waters
in the world. And no one has a right to say that no water-babies
exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; which is quite
a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and a thing
which nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do.
"But surely if there were water-babies, somebody would have caught
one at least?"
Well. How do you know that somebody has not?
"But they would have put it into spirits, or into the ILLUSTRATED
NEWS, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing,
and sent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: restatements of religious experience, but uncoercive as reasoned
proof-- What philosophy CAN do for religion by transforming
herself into "science of religions."
LECTURE XIX
OTHER CHARACTERISTICS
Aesthetic elements in religion--Contrast of Catholicism and
Protestantism-- Sacrifice and Confession-- Prayer-- Religion
holds that spiritual work is really effected in prayer-- Three
degrees of opinion as to what is effected-- First degree--
Second degree-- Third degree-- Automatisms, their frequency
among religious leaders-- Jewish cases-- Mohammed-- Joseph
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