Lucifer - Official Theosophy Magazine.

reply to post by liveandlearn


I found that book to be far too Steiner-centric. It was like reading all of Steiner's theories in a condensed format.

Also, I think that the author has a vegetable fetish.

reply to post by DaisyAnne


Ha! Yes, the whole vegetable thing was hard to 'swallow'. I am always careful not to mention that. It did help me to understand some of the myths though. And he does say he used Steiner a lot.

If your saying Lucifer is Latin for Morining Star then how do you explain this????


Revelation 22:16 I Jesus have sent mine angle to testify unto these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David and the bright morning star.

It might not say Jesus is the Morining Star but it says he's a offspring of the Star and to me it sounds like he's referring to the star of David.

Slow down...

Remember: BALANCE.

If you delve into Theosophy, you will find the philosophy of BALANCE. (among others)

What does BALANCE come from? Opposing forces.

Positive/Negative
Occult used GOOD/ Occult used BAD (Good/Bad)
Man/Woman
Jesus/Lucifer
Yin/Yang
Magnetism(the force resulting from balance)

You cannot achieve BALANCE when you only acknowledge one side of the force, or one side of the story.

How about we go straight to the source:
Theosophy.Org

In Theosophy's defense I quote from an article To the Readers of 'Lucifer':

Unfortunately, these are not the ways of the public and readers. Since our journal is entirely unsectarian, since it is neither theistic nor atheistic, Pagan nor Christian, orthodox nor heterodox, therefore, its editors discover eternal verities in the most opposite religious systems and modes of thought. Thus Lucifer fails to give full satisfaction to either infidel or Christian. In sight of the former whether he be an Agnostic, a Secularist, or an Idealist-to find divine or occult lore underlying "the rubbish" in the Jewish Bible and Christian Gospels is sickening; in the opinion of the latter, to recognise the same truth as in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures in the Hindu, Parsi, Buddhist, or Egyptian religious literature, is vexation of spirit and blasphemy. Hence, fierce criticism from both sides, sneers and abuse. Each party would have us on its own sectarian side, recognising as truth, only that which its particular ism does.

But this cannot nor shall it be. Our motto was from the first, and ever shall be: "THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN – TRUTH." Truth we -search for, and, once found, we bring it forward before the world, whencesoever it comes. A large majority of our readers is fully satisfied with this our policy, and that is plainly sufficient for our purposes.

It is evident that when toleration is not the outcome of indifference it must arise from wide-spreading charity and large-minded sympathy. Intolerance is pre-eminently the consequence of ignorance and jealousy. He who fondly believes that he has got the great ocean in his family water-jug is naturally intolerant of his neighbour, who also is pleased to imagine that he has poured the broad expanse of the sea of truth into his own particular pitcher. But anyone who, like the Theosophist, knows how infinite is that ocean of eternal wisdom, to be fathomed by no one man, class, or party, and realizes how little the largest vessel made by man contains in comparison to what lies dormant and still unperceived in its dark, bottomless depths, cannot help but be tolerant. For he sees that others have filled their little water-jugs at the same great reservoir in which he has dipped his own, and if the water in the various pitchers seems different to the eye, it can only be because it is discoloured by impurities that were in the vessel before the pure crystalline element – a portion of the one eternal and immutable truth – entered into it.

There is, and can be, but one absolute truth in Kosmos. And little as we, with our present limitations, can understand it in its essence, we still know that if it is absolute it must also be omnipresent and universal; and that in such case, it must be underlying every world-religion – the product of the thought and knowledge of numberless generations of thinking men. Therefore, that a portion of truth, great or small, is found in every religious and philosophical system, and that if we would find it, we have to search for it at the origin and source of every such system, at its roots and first growth, not in its later overgrowth of sects and dogmatism. Our object is not to destroy any religion but rather to help to filter each, thus ridding them of their respective impurities. In this we are opposed by all those who maintain, against evidence, that their particular pitcher alone contains the whole ocean. How is our great work to be done if we are to be impeded and harassed on every side by partisans and zealots? It would be already half accomplished were the intelligent men, at least, of every sect and system, to feel and to confess that the little wee bit of truth they themselves own must necessarily be mingled with error, and that their neighbours' mistakes are, Eke their own, mixed with truth.

Justice demands that when the reader comes across an article in this magazine which does not immediately approve itself to his mind by chiming in with his own peculiar ideas, he should regard it as a problem to solve rather than as a mere subject of criticism. Let him endeavour to learn the lesson which only opinions differing from his own can teach him. Let him be tolerant, if not actually charitable, and postpone his judgment till he extracts from the article the truth it must contain, adding this new acquisition to his store. One ever learns more from one's enemies than from one's friends; and it is only when the reader has credited this hidden truth to Lucifer, that he can fairly presume to put what he believes to be the efforts of the article he does not like to the debit account.

Lucifer, January, 1888
H. P. Blavatsky

H.P. Blavatsky - To the Readers of 'Lucifer'

And I leave you with Blavatsky's three objects of Theosophy:

1.To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color.

2.To encourage the comparative study of religion, philosophy, and science.

3.To investigate unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in humanity.

Theosophical.Org

reply to post by beebs


You sound like Yoda with the balance thing, just kidding, i do think there's wisdom to be learned from every religion.

As far as the Morning Star gos, i think it's something like this, over time the Bible evolves like for instance at first it was "A eye for a eye" then later it became "Turn the other cheek", so because Revelations is after Isaiah the true meaning of the Morining star is in Revelations 22:16.

reply to post by liveandlearn


One thing from that book that really stuck with me was the idea that just because an event or a story is symbolic, doesn't mean that it didn't also actually happen.

Originally posted by King Seesar
reply to post by beebs

 

You sound like Yoda with the balance thing, just kidding, i do think there's wisdom to be learned from every religion.

Actually, the Star Wars-philosophy has a lot in common with the so-called Theosophic world view (not a good term). Probably even more to do with the New Age, which is a term first used by Alice Bailey. Maybe it was loosely based on it?

To me, Bailey and Blavatsky form the nucleus of these teachings, I never cared much for Leadbeater or Krishnamurti. Osho commented somewhere, that "The Secret Doctrine inculdes a lot of BS but also a lot of gems". Well, I agree with that. Also, "The Voice Of Silence" is really based on esoteric Buddhism, and it's a goal that anyone can achieve with meditation. It's total stillness of the mind, complete inner peace.

While I'm definitely not a "theosophist" (ugh), I find these writings really magical and interesting. Somehow familiar too.

[edit on 10-7-2009 by Tryptych]

reply to post by DaisyAnne


Yes, I agree. I used the term 'myths' because that is the way they have come down to us. The ancients knew exactly what they were talking about and we are trying to understand. With so many opinions and interpretations it is likely we will never truly get it. Ah, but I expect we will both keep trying.

reply to post by King Seesar


I think we would need the original word used for both to try to understand why morning star was translated the way it was in different places.

Wasn't the old testament originally Hebrew and the new testament Greek?

I found this at Wikipedia

Hesperus (Greek Hesperos) is the personification of the "evening star", the planet Venus in the evening. His name is sometimes conflated with the names for his brother the personification of the planet as the "morning star" Eosphorus (Greek Ἐωσφόρος, "bearer of dawn") or Phosphorus (Ancient Greek: Φωσφόρος, "bearer of light", often translated as "Lucifer" in Latin), since they are all personifications of the same planet Venus. "Heosphoros" in the Greek LXX Septuagint and "Lucifer" in Jerome's Latin Vulgate were used to translate the Hebrew "Helel" (Venus as the brilliant, bright or shining one), "son of Shahar (Dawn)" in the Hebrew version of Isaiah 14:12.

When named thus by the early Greeks, it was thought that Eosphorus (Venus in the morning) and Hesperos (Venus in the evening) were two different celestial objects. The Greeks later accepted the Babylonian view that the two were the same, and the Babylonian identification of the planets with the Great Gods, and dedicated the "wandering star" (planet) to Aphrodite (Roman Venus), as the equivalent of Ishtar.

While looking for morning star in Greek I found the following

phospho-, phosph-, phosphoro-, phosphor- +

(Greek: light, light bringer, shine; morning star; a nonmetallic chemical element that ignites when exposed to air)

wordinfo.info

It looks to me as though it is just a matter of the word chosen in translation. As always, I could certainly be wrong. The definitions do shed a little 'light' on the subject I think.