| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: [4] Epist. cvii, ad Laetam. See Robertson's Pagan Christs, p.
350.
Nor was force the only method employed. IMITATION is
not only the sincerest flattery, but it is often the most
subtle and effective way of defeating a rival. The priests
of the rising Christian Church were, like the priests of ALL
religions, not wanting in craft; and at this moment
when the question of a World-religion was in the balance, it
was an obvious policy for them to throw into their own scale
as many elements as possible of the popular Pagan cults.
Mithraism had been flourishing for 600 years; and it is, to
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: have ever read. There is not even a fine nightmare among them.
They are commonplace, sordid and tedious. As for the Church, I
cannot conceive anything better for the culture of a country than
the presence in it of a body of men whose duty it is to believe in
the supernatural, to perform daily miracles, and to keep alive that
mythopoeic faculty which is so essential for the imagination. But
in the English Church a man succeeds, not through his capacity for
belief, but through his capacity for disbelief. Ours is the only
Church where the sceptic stands at the altar, and where St. Thomas
is regarded as the ideal apostle. Many a worthy clergyman, who
passes his life in admirable works of kindly charity, lives and
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