THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

Evening Star, Issue 11068, 21 October 1899, Page 2 (Supplement)

THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

At a pnblio meeting held by the Theosophical Society in their rooms, Liverpool Btreet, on Wednesday evening, Mr A. W. Mauraia gave an address on ' Idol Worship.' The speaker said that symbology was necesBary to mankind, who were unable to arrive at an abstract idea of Deity, and he contended that the Eastern cults used their images merely as symbols; that definite ideas were conveyed by the distorted forms of the idols, and these ideas helped them to spiritual progress; thus the fourarmed and four-faced icons expressed the idea that God saw in every direction and oould reach a man though he flad to the uttermost limits of space. The more abstruse ideas connected with costive evolution, conveyed by these same symbols, were imparted to men who were evolved enough to appreciate them. All men were idolaters in this sense, •aid the lecturer, for the man who njec'ci a graven image used a mental image in it a plaoe, and this was often more distorted and less philosophical than the ideas conveyed by the heathen idols—so-called. The degradation of the E*»t, in fact, arose from the neglect of the Eastern religions, and Max Mullcr was quoted to prove this proposition. Statistics read b? the speaker went to show that the men of E tstern cults bore fasarable comparison with Christianised Natives and resident Europeans in respect to average' oriminality. Mr G. Richardson occupied the chair, and questions were asked by the audiouce at Uk obse of the lecture.