Part 18 (1/2)

All the same there would be left, in any case, a large residuum of taboos which could only be judged as senseless, and the mere rubbish of the savage mind.

So much for the first origins of the World-religion; and I think enough has been said in the various chapters of this book to show that the same general process has obtained throughout. Man, like the animals, began with this deep, subconscious sense of unity with surrounding Nature.

When this became (in Man) fairly conscious, it led to Magic and Totemism. More conscious, and it branched, on the one hand, into figures of G.o.ds and definite forms of Creeds, on the other into elaborate Scientific Theories--the latter based on a strong INTELLECTUAL belief in Unity, but fervently denying any 'anthropomorphic' or 'animistic'

SENSE of that unity. Finally, it seems that we are now on the edge of a further stage when the theories and the creeds, scientific and religious, are on the verge of collapsing, but in such a way as to leave the sense and the perception of Unity--the real content of the whole process--not only undestroyed, but immensely heightened and illuminated.

Meanwhile the taboos--of which there remain some still, both religious and scientific--have been gradually breaking up and merging themselves into a reasonable and humane order of life and philosophy.

I have said that out of this World-religion Christianity really sprang.

It is evident that the time has arrived when it must either acknowledge its source and frankly endeavor to affiliate itself to the same, or failing that must perish. In the first case it will probably have to change its name; in the second the question of its name 'will interest it no more.'

With regard to the first of these alternatives, I might venture--though with indifference--to make a few suggestions. Why should we not have--instead of a Holy Roman Church--a Holy HUMAN Church, rehabilitating the ancient symbols and rituals, a Christianity (if you still desire to call it so) frankly and gladly acknowledging its own sources? This seems a reasonable and even feasible proposition. If such a church wished to celebrate a Ma.s.s or Communion or Eucharist it would have a great variety of rites and customs of that kind to select from; those that were not appropriate for use in our times or were connected with the wors.h.i.+p of strange G.o.ds need not be rejected or condemned, but could still be commented on and explained as approaches to the same idea--the idea of dedication to the Common Life, and of reinvigoration in the partaking of it. If the Church wished to celebrate the Crucifixion or betrayal of its Founder, a hundred instances of such celebrations would be to hand, and still the thought that has underlain such celebrations since the beginning of the world could easily be disentangled and presented in concrete form anew. In the light of such teaching expressions like ”I know that my Redeemer liveth” would be traced to their origin, and men would understand that notwithstanding the ma.s.s of rubbish, cant and humbug which has collected round them they really do mean something and represent the age-long instinct of Humanity feeling its way towards a more extended revelation, a new order of being, a third stage of consciousness and illumination. In such a Church or religious organization EVERY quality of human nature would have to be represented, every practice and custom allowed for and its place accorded--the magical and astronomical meanings, the rites connected with sun-wors.h.i.+p, or with s.e.x, or with the wors.h.i.+p of animals; the consecration of corn and wine and other products of the ground, initiations, sacrifices, and so forth--all (if indeed it claimed to be a World-religion) would have to be represented and recognized. For they all have their long human origin and descent in and through the pagan creeds, and they all have penetrated into and become embodied to some degree in Christianity. Christianity therefore, as I say, must either now come frankly forward and, acknowledging its parentage from the great Order of the past, seek to rehabilitate THAT and carry mankind one step forward in the path of evolution--or else it must perish. There is no other alternative. (1)

(1) Comte in founding his philosophy of Positivism seems to have had in view some such Holy Human Church, but he succeeded in making it all so profoundly dull that it never flourished, The seed of Life was not in it.

Let me give an instance of how a fragment of ancient ritual which has survived from the far Past and is still celebrated, but with little intelligence or understanding, in the Catholic Church of to-day, might be adopted in such a Church as I have spoken of, interpreted, and made eloquent of meaning to modern humanity. When I was in Ceylon nearly 30 years ago I was fortunate enough to witness a night-festival in a Hindu Temple--the great festival of Taipusam, which takes place every year in January. Of course, it was full moon, and great was the blowing up of trumpets in the huge courtyard of the Temple. The moon shone down above from among the fronds of tall coco-palms, on a dense crowd of native wors.h.i.+pers--men and a few women--the men for the most part clad in little more than a loin-cloth, the women picturesque in their colored saris and jewelled ear and nose rings. The images of Siva and two other G.o.ds were carried in procession round and round the temple--three or four times; nautch girls danced before the images, musicians, blowing horns and huge sh.e.l.ls, or piping on flageolets or beating tom-toms, accompanied them. The crowd carrying torches or high crates with flaming coco-nuts, walked or rather danced along on each side, elated and excited with the sense of the present divinity, yet pleasantly free from any abject awe. The whole thing indeed reminded one of some bas-relief of a Baccha.n.a.lian procession carved on a Greek sarcophagus--and especially so in its hilarity and suggestion of friendly intimacy with the G.o.d. There were singing of hymns and the floating of the chief actors on a raft round a sacred lake. And then came the final Act. Siva, or his image, very weighty and borne on the shoulders of strong men, was carried into the first chamber or hall of the Temple and placed on an altar with a curtain hanging in front. The crowd followed with a rush; and then there was more music, recital of hymns, and reading from sacred books. From where we stood we could see the rite which was performed behind the curtain. Two five-branched candlesticks were lighted; and the manner of their lighting was as follows. Each branch ended in a little cup, and in the cups five pieces of camphor were placed, all approximately equal in size. After offerings had been made, of fruit, flowers and sandalwood, the five camphors in each candlestick were lighted. As the camphor flames burned out the music became more wild and exciting, and then at the moment of their extinction the curtains were drawn aside and the congregation outside suddenly beheld the G.o.d revealed and in a blaze of light. This burning of camphor was, like other things in the service, emblematic. The five lights represent the five senses. Just as camphor consumes itself and leaves no residue behind, so should the five senses, being offered to the G.o.d, consume themselves and disappear. When this is done, that happens in the soul which was now figured in the ritual--the G.o.d is revealed in the inner light. (1)

(1) For a more detailed account of this Temple-festival, see Adam's Peak to Elephanta by E. Carpenter, ch. vii.

We are familiar with this parting or rending of the veil. We hear of it in the Jewish Temple, and in the Greek and Egyptian Mysteries. It had a mystically religious, and also obviously s.e.xual, signification. It occurs here and there in the Roman Catholic ritual. In Spain, some ancient Catholic ceremonials are kept up with a brilliance and splendor hardly found elsewhere in Europe. In the Cathedral, at Seville the service of the Pa.s.sion, carried out on Good Friday with great solemnity and accompanied with fine music, culminates on the Sat.u.r.day morning--i.e. in the interval between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection--in a spectacle similar to that described in Ceylon. A rich velvet-black curtain hangs before the High Altar. At the appropriate moment and as the very emotional strains of voices and instruments reach their climax in the ”Gloria in Excelsis,” the curtain with a sudden burst of sound (thunder and the ringing of all the bells) is rent asunder, and the crucified Jesus is seen hanging there revealed in a halo of glory.

There is also held at Seville Cathedral and before the High Altar every year, the very curious Dance of the Seises (sixes), performed now by 16 instead of (as of old) by 12 boys, quaintly dressed. It seems to be a survival of some very ancient ritual, probably astronomical, in which the two sets of six represent the signs of the Zodiac, and is celebrated during the festivals of Corpus Christi, the Immaculate Conception, and the Carnival.

Numerous instances might of course be adduced of how a Church aspiring to be a real Church of Humanity might adopt and re-create the rituals of the past in the light of a modern inspiration. Indeed the difficulty would be to limit the process, for EVERY ancient ritual, we can now see, has had a meaning and a message, and it would be a real joy to disentangle these and to expose the profound solidarity of humanity and aspiration from the very dawn of civilization down to the present day.

Nor would it be necessary to imagine any Act of Uniformity or dead level of ceremonial in the matter. Different groups might concentrate on different phases of religious thought and practice. The only necessity would be that they should approach the subject with a real love of Humanity in their hearts and a real desire to come into touch with the deep inner life and mystic growing-pains of the souls of men and women in all ages. In this direction M. Loisy has done n.o.ble and excellent work; but the dead weight and selfish blinkerdom of the Catholic organization has hampered him to that degree that he has been unable to get justice done to his liberalizing designs--or, perhaps, even to reveal the full extent of them. And the same difficulty will remain. On the one hand no spiritual movement which does not take up the att.i.tude of a World-religion has now in this age, any chance of success; on the other, all the existing Churches--whether Roman Catholic, or Greek, or Protestant or Secularist--whether Christian or Jewish or Persian or Hindu--will in all probability adopt the same blind and blinkered and selfish att.i.tude as that described above, and so disqualify themselves for the great role of world-wide emanc.i.p.ation, which some religion at some time will certainly have to play. It is the same difficulty which is looming large in modern World-politics, where the local selfishness and vainglorious ”patriotisms” of the Nations are sadly impeding and obstructing the development of that sense of Internationalism and Brotherhood which is the clearly indicated form of the future, and which alone can give each nation deliverance from fear, and a promise of growth, and the confident a.s.surance of power.

I say that Christianity must either frankly adopt this generous att.i.tude and confess itself a branch of the great World-religion, anxious only to do honor to its source--or else it must perish and pa.s.s away. There is no other alternative. The hour of its Exodus has come. It may be, of course, that neither the Christian Church nor any branch of it, nor any other religious organization, will step into the gap. It may be--but I do not think this is likely--that the time of rites and ceremonies and formal creeds is PAST, and churches of any kind will be no more needed in the world: not likely, I say, because of the still far backwardness of the human ma.s.ses, and their considerable dependence yet on laws and forms and rituals. Still, if it should prove that that age of dependence IS really approaching its end, that would surely be a matter for congratulation. It would mean that mankind was moving into a knowledge of the REALITY which has underlain these outer shows--that it was coming into the Third stage of its Consciousness. Having found this there would be no need for it to dwell any longer in the land of superst.i.tions and formulae. It would have come to the place of which these latter are only the outlying indications.

It may, therefore, happen--and this quite independently of the growth of a World-cult such as I have described, though by no means in antagonism to it--that a religious philosophy or Theosophy might develop and spread, similar to the Gnonam of the Hindus or the Gnomsis of the pre-Christian sects, which would become, first among individuals and afterwards among large bodies over the world, the religion of--or perhaps one should say the religious approach to the Third State. Books like the Upanishads of the Vedic seers, and the Bhagavat Gita, though garbled and obscured by priestly interferences and mystifications, do undoubtedly represent and give expression to the highest utterance of religious experience to be found anywhere in the world. They are indeed the manuals of human entrance into the cosmic state. But as I say, and as has happened in the case of other sacred books, a vast deal of rubbish has accreted round their essential teachings, and has to be cleared away. To go into a serious explication of the meaning of these books would be far too large an affair, and would be foreign to the purpose of the present volume; but I have in the Appendix below inserted two papers, (on ”Rest” and ”The Nature of the Self”) containing the substance of lectures given on the above books. These papers or lectures are couched in the very simplest language, free from Sanskrit terms and the usual 'jargon of the Schools,' and may, I hope, even on that account be of use in familiarizing readers who are not specially STUDENTS with the ideas and mental att.i.tudes of the cosmic state. Non-differentiation (Advaita (1)) is the root att.i.tude of the mind inculcated.

(1) The word means ”not-two-ness.” Here we see a great subtlety of definition. It is not to be ”one” with others that is urged, but to be ”not two.”

We have seen that there has been an age of non-differentiation in the Past-non-differentiation from other members of the Tribe, from the Animals, from Nature and the Spirit or Spirits of nature; why should there not arise a similar sense of non-differentiation in the FUTURE--similar but more extended more intelligent? Certainly this WILL arrive, in its own appointed time. There will be a surpa.s.sing of the bounds of separation and division. There will be a surpa.s.sing of all Taboos. We have seen the use and function of Taboos in the early stages of Evolution and how progress and growth have been very much a matter of their gradual extinction and a.s.similation into the general body of rational thought and feeling. Unreasoning and idiotic taboos still linger, but they grow weaker. A new Morality will come which will shake itself free from them. The sense of kins.h.i.+p with the animals (as in the old rituals) (1) will be restored; the sense of kins.h.i.+p with all the races of mankind will grow and become consolidated; the sense of the defilement and impurity of the human body will (with the adoption of a generally clean and wholesome life) pa.s.s away; and the body itself will come to be regarded more as a collection of shrines in which the G.o.ds may be wors.h.i.+ped and less as a mere organ of trivial self-gratifications; (2) there will be no form of Nature, or of human life or of the lesser creatures, which will be barred from the approach of Man or from the intimate and penetrating invasion of his spirit; and as in certain ceremonies and after honorable toils and labors a citizen is sometimes received into the community of his own city, so the emanc.i.p.ated human being on the completion of his long long pilgrimage on Earth will be presented with the Freedom of the Universe.

(1) The record of the Roman Catholic Church has been sadly Callous and inhuman in this matter of the animals.

(2) See The Art of Creation, by E. Carpenter.

XVII. CONCLUSION

In conclusion there does not seem much to say, except to accentuate certain points which may still appear doubtful or capable of being understood.

The fact that the main argument of this volume is along the lines of psychological evolution will no doubt commend it to some, while on the other hand it will discredit the book to others whose eyes, being fixed on purely MATERIAL causes, can see no impetus in History except through these. But it must be remembered that there is not the least reason for SEPARATING the two factors. The fact that psychologically man has evolved from simple consciousness to self-consciousness, and is now in process of evolution towards another and more extended kind of consciousness, does not in the least bar the simultaneous appearance and influence of material evolution. It is clear indeed that the two must largely go together, acting and reacting on each other. Whatever the physical conditions of the animal brain may be which connect themselves with simple (unreflected and unreflecting) consciousness, it is evident that these conditions--in animals and primitive man--lasted for an enormous period, before the distinct consciousness of the individual and separate SELF arose. This second order of consciousness seems to have germinated at or about the same period as the discovery of the use of Tools (tools of stone, copper, bronze, &c.), the adoption of picture-writing and the use of reflective words (like ”I” and ”Thou”); and it led on to the appreciation of gold and of iron with their ornamental and practical values, the acc.u.mulation of Property, the establishment of slavery of various kinds, the subjection of Women, the encouragement of luxury and self-indulgence, the growth of crowded cities and the endless conflicts and wars so resulting. We can see plainly that the incoming of the self-motive exercised a direct stimulus on the pursuit of these material objects and adaptations; and that the material adaptations in their turn did largely accentuate the self-motive; but to insist that the real explanation of the whole process is only to be found along one channel--the material OR the psychical--is clearly quite unnecessary. Those who understand that all matter is conscious in some degree, and that all consciousness has a material form of some kind, will be the first to admit this.

The same remarks apply to the Third Stage. We can see that in modern times the huge and unlimited powers of production by machinery, united with a growing tendency towards intelligent Birth-control, are preparing the way for an age of Communism and communal Plenty which will inevitably be a.s.sociated (partly as cause and partly as effect) with a new general phase of consciousness, involving the mitigation of the struggle for existence, the growth of intuitional and psychical perception, the spread of amity and solidarity, the disappearance of War, and the realization (in degree) of the Cosmic life.