Concerning The Gods

No. XVII

CONCERNING THE GODS ¹

A TRUE Idea is the reflect of a true Substance. It is because religious ideas are true ideas that they are common to all ages and peoples; the differences being of expression merely, and due to the variation of density and character of the magnetic atmosphere through which the image passes. The fact that every nation in every age has conceived, in some shape, of the Gods, constitutes of itself a proof that the Gods really are. For Nothing projects no image upon the magnetic light; and where an image is universally perceived, there is certainly an object which projects it. An Idea, inborn, ineradicable, constant, which sophism, ridicule, or false science has power to break only, but not to dispel: -an image which, however disturbed, invariably returns on itself and re-forms, as does the image of the sky or the stars in a lake, however the reflecting water may be momentarily shaken by a stone or a passing vessel:--such an image as this is necessarily the reflection of a real and true thing, and no illusion begotten of the water itself.

In the same manner the constant idea of the Gods, persistent in all minds in all ages, is a true image; for it is verily, and in no metaphoric sense, the projection upon the human perception of the Eidola of the Divine persons. The Eidolon is the reflection of a true object in the magnetic atmosphere; and the magnetic atmosphere is a transparent medium, through which the soul receives sensations. For sensation is the only means of knowledge, whether for the body or for the reason. The body perceives

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by means of the five avenues of touch. The soul perceives in like manner by the same sense, but of a finer sort, and put into action by subtler agents. The soul can know nothing not perceptible; and nothing not perceptible is real. For that which is not can give no image. Only that which is can be reflected.

Footnotes

47:1 London, December 20, 1880. Spoken in trance. Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. i, p. 412.