III.

PRIMITIVE MAN, AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE SUPERNATURAL-GHOSTS, SPIRITS, Gods, Worship, Sacrifice, CANNIBALISM, MYSTERIES, INSPIRATION AND POSSESSION BY SPIRITS, SORCERY, WITCHCRAFT, AND HERESY— BAPTISM AND BAPTISTS.

FROM the earliest ages man has believed in the supernatural. In his primitive savage condition he regarded everything as such that he could not understand, being filled with fear at whatever was strange in appearance and behaviour, attributing what in these days are regarded as natural phenomena, and which can be easily explained by science-such as the gathering and vanishing of clouds; the thunder, lightning, and darkness during storms; the ripple of the water in a breeze; earthquakes; volcanic eruptions; the rising and setting of the sun; the appearance of the moon, planets, shooting stars; and all those changes which the heavens and the earth are hourly exhibiting-to the actions of the ghostly inhabitants of an invisible world. He believed that his body was occupied by a spirit, ghost, or second self, which was capable of leaving the body at will, and returning to it again. When he moved abroad by the light of the moon his shadow, or second self, accompanied him; when he heard the echo of his voice in the distant cliff his second self was answering him; when, in the darkness of night, a breeze arose, and rustled the leaves of the neighbouring trees, the ghosts of the dead were prowling about; when he slept, or swooned, or fainted from blows or loss of blood, his spirit had left him for a time, and, in his dreams, was meeting the spirits and souls of both the living and the dead, and engaged in his ordinary avocations of hunting and dancing, returning again as he awoke or recovered. From such ideas as these his primitive reasoning led him to

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believe that death was not final, and that he would live again in the spirit world. Being thus accustomed to the idea that the second self, or spirit, left the body on certain occasions, death was not looked upon as final; the spirit might return at any time.

In expectation of this reanimation, it became customary to supply the dead man with food and drink, not only for use in the other world, but to be in readiness for a return to this. At death his wives, slaves, cattle, dogs, horses, etc., were necessary for his use in the next world. His slaves, therefore, were executed at once, in order to prepare the house for their master; his wives either immolated themselves or were killed; and his cattle destroyed, for his use, and buried with him, together with his money. If a wife or child died, the articles they had been accustomed to use during life--the wife her domestic appliances, and the child its toys-were buried with them. The place of burial-either in the open ground of the adjacent hill, forming a mound (the future "tumulus" or "cairn "), or in the "sacred" grove, cave, or hut-became a sacred spot, and the old home was haunted by the ghost of the dead, who lingered near, wandering about in the adjacent bush. The ghosts of the dead enemies were malevolent spirits, and the originals of "demons" and "devils"; while those of friends were benevolent, and the originals of "angels" and "saints." The former were the cause of all their troubles and misfortunes. Both had to be propitiated the former by flattery and praise, in order to coax them to refrain from malevolent designs and wreaking their vengeance upon the living, from which arose demon-worship (demonology); the latter as good ghosts, in order that they might exercise an influence over the bad or evil ghosts. The evil spirits were to be seen in the dark, evil-looking clouds, which assume so many different shapes -horrible, grotesque, or ludicrous, according to fancy; they were called by our Aryan forefathers "Rachshasas," and are still so called by the Hindus.

A complicated theory of angels grew up among the Persian magicians, forming a large portion of their mystic science. They had their angels of light and darkness, one for each month in the year, corresponding with the twelve signs of the zodiac, and from which, later, were evolved the

Christian Twelve Apostles, and one for each day of the month; and, as the later Christians invoked the saint of the day in the Mass, so did these disciples of Zoroaster call upon the angel of the day in their daily prayers; but the Christian theory of angels is not nearly such a complete one as the Persian from which it was taken, through the Babylonians and Hebrews.

Voluntary acts of propitiation developed into worship and sacrifice as religious obligations; the periodical journeying to the grave, into "pilgrimages to the shrine"; the custom of eulogizing the dead at the grave with praises for their good deeds and flattery-repeated for a time, afterwards at periodical intervals-developed into praise and prayer; and prayer, at first to ghosts, developed into prayer to gods. In Egypt the virtues and good deeds of the departed were read out by the priest at the tomb, and the crowd joined in praising him, following in the manner of responses. Thus were evolved the tomb, the altar, the shrine, and the temple, by gradual stages, from simple grave or tumulus out in the open, to one within the hut, or one specially roofed over; from the ghosts of ancestors were evolved, by the same gradual stages, angels, devils, and gods; and from the performance of good deeds to dead relatives at the grave were evolved simple acts of propitiation, which have assumed such enormous proportions, and have developed such a network of dogmas as is witnessed in the religious systems of modern days.

In supplying food for the dead, privation and hunger were frequently suffered, and this condition conduced to dreams and religious excitement. In dream-land all sorts of events took place, such as ghosts visiting ghosts and performing acts of valour; dreamers thus becoming heroes in ghostly legends. From this was evolved the idea of "revelations" and " visions," such as are to be found in the Apocalypse, consisting of wars in heaven between good and evil spirits, in which serpents, horned and other animals (obtained from the Zodiac) made their appearance. It is very probable that most of the messiahs that have appeared, and pretended to have received "revelations,” having had the idea first put into their heads by their ignorant and wonder-seeking following, conceived a great deal of the details of their revelations in dreams. From these ideas arose the custom of intentional dreaming by abstaining from

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food in order to dream, and so visit ghost-land; from which again was evolved, later, fasting as a pious custom. Privation, again, produced mental and religious excitement and hysteria. The enormous increase of muscular strength in maniacs, and excessive muscular contraction and rigidity in epilepsy, tended to produce the ideas of superhuman strength, from which was evolved the idea of "omnipotence." And, as the inhabitants of the invisible world were believed to have the power of making themselves at one time visible, and at another invisible, they must, it was thought, be omnipotent. Hysteria, lunacy, epilepsy, and accidental acts of heroism—which gave rise to the idea of superhuman intelligence, all tended to evolve inspiration"; the ghost, or spirit, that had taken possession of the body was acting, and not the individual.

From dreams, then, we see the groundwork of the "visions" of madonnas, declared to be seen by hysterical, devoutly inclined, and weak-minded girls among Catholics. These visions, it will be observed, nearly always occur in lonely country places, away from the prying crowd, the loneliness of which lends itself to the imagination. The Hebrew Prophets called their predictions "visions." The miraculous birth of a son was announced to Joseph in his sleep; and the Apocalypse, or "Revelation" (copied chiefly from preexisting Pagan writings), is the narrative of scenes which John's soul, or second self, witnessed when it mounted up to heaven in his dream.

With the evolution of ghosts and spirits, and their taking possession of the human body-at first of deceased relatives, afterwards of departed heroes-came, almost of necessity, the evolution of gods. Living heroes were born of gods, like the earlier kings of Egypt; and many of the heroes of the O. T. were considered gods-Moses (Exodus viii. 1), Samuel (1 Sam. xxviii. 13), and the Judges (Psalm lxxxii. 6). Gods descended from heaven and became incarnate in men, were also intimate with the women of the earth, by whom they had giants; and men ascended to heaven and took their seats among the gods. Enoch was taken up by the god "Jehovah" (more correctly Yahuh). Gods (not "angels," as the word aleim, or elohim, is rendered in the A. V. of the Bible) appeared at Lot's house in Sodom. When Saul went to the Witch of Endor, and asked

her “to bring up Samuel,” that enchantress said she saw gods (aleim) ascending out of the earth; the ghost of Samuel is then said to have appeared, to whom Saul offered adoration, and with whom he afterwards held a consultation.

Not only were living heroes regarded as gods and sons of gods, but saints (who were supposed to have answered prayer, given rain, or worked other miracles) and sorcerers (who made a lucky hit by predicting victory, performing cures, casting out demons by the administration of a powerful purgative) were acclaimed as gods. The gods, too, were not always ghosts or spirits, for with the writers of the Vedic Hymns the gods were living beings; and, down to civilized times, the Greeks thought of their gods as material persons.

The idea of sacrifice, we have seen, was evolved from "propitiation." Human sacrifice was ordered by the Hebrew god "Jehovah" (Yahuh); Abram was ordered to offer up his son Isaac, when, by order of an angel, a ram was substituted (Gen. xxii. 7). This barbarous and vindictive idea of substitution of the innocent for the guilty has survived to our own day, and is carried out in the Christian idea of redemption by the death of a man represented by Christians as being innocent. The Ram and the Ram's head and horns were sacred emblems with the Egyptians. The god Amen, or Ammon, was represented as having the body of a man and the head of a ram. The above story is a very old Pagan legend; the Hindu version is that a king, who had no son, promised the goddess Varuna that, if he were granted the favour of a son, he would offer him up as a sacrifice. The child (Kohita) was duly born, and when the father told him of the vow he had made, and bade him prepare for sacrifice, the boy ran away, and wandered in the forest, where he met a starving Brahmin, whom he persuaded to sell one of his sons for 100 cows. This boy was brought to the king, and was about to be sacrificed as a substitute, when, on praying to the gods, he was released. The Greeks had two versions of a similar fable. One, that Agamemnon had a daughter whom he dearly loved, and whom he was ordered by the deity to offer up as a sacrifice. When preparations were being made, the goddess carried the girl away, and substituted a stag. The other, that one of their kings, who had offended Diana, was ordered to sacrifice his daughter,