Christmas: Difference between revisions
Pablo Sender (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
Pablo Sender (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 13: | Line 13: | ||
== Online Resources == | == Online Resources == | ||
===Articles=== | ===Articles=== | ||
*[http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/forum/f20n12p548_truth-and-symbol-in-the-christmas-story.htm#n1# Truth and Symbol in the Christmas Story] by John Gayner Banks | |||
*[http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/ChristmasThenAndChristmasNow.htm# Christmas Then and Christmas Now] by H. P. Blavatsky | *[http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/ChristmasThenAndChristmasNow.htm# Christmas Then and Christmas Now] by H. P. Blavatsky | ||
*[http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sunrise/49-99-0/4s-aed.htm# Christmas and the Winter Solstice] by Alan E. Donant | |||
*[http://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/1524# The Magi] by Jay Williams | *[http://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/1524# The Magi] by Jay Williams | ||
*[http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/world/christ/xt-kvm.htm# Behind Our Christmas Celebrations] by Kirby Van Mater | |||
*[http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/world/christ/xt-sams.htm# How Christ Got into Christmas] by Peter H. Samson | |||
*[http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/world/christ/xt-rthac.htm# The Christmas Tree] by Regina Z. Thackara | |||
===Audio=== | ===Audio=== | ||
Revision as of 22:52, 23 December 2013
Christmas (Old English: Crīstesmæsse, meaning "Christ's Mass") is an annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ central to the Christian liturgical year, celebrated on December 25. Regarding this date, H. P. Blavatsky wrote:
The earth passes through its definite phases and man with it; and as a day can be coloured so can a year. The astral life of the earth is young and strong between Christmas and Easter. Those who form their wishes now will have added strength to fulfil them consistently.[1]
Christmas comes just at the time of the winter solstice; the days then are shortest, and Darkness is more upon the face of the earth than ever. All the sun-gods were believed to be annually born at that epoch; for from this time its Light dispels more and more darkness with each succeeding day, and the power of the Sun begins to increase.[2]
We are in the Winter Solstice, the period at which the Sun entering the sign of Capricornus has already, since December 21st, ceased to advance in the Southern Hemisphere, and, cancer or crablike, begins to move back. It is at this particular time that, every year, he is born, and December 25th was the day of the birth of the Sun for those who inhabited the Northern Hemisphere. It is also on December the 25th, Christmas, the day with the Christians on which the “Saviour of the World” was born, that were born, ages before him, the Persian Mithra, the Egyptian Osiris, the Greek Bacchus, the Phoenician Adonis, the Phrygian Attis. And, while at Memphis the people were shown the image of the god Day, taken out of his cradle, the Romans marked December 25th in their calendar as the day natalis solis invicti.[3]
Online Resources
Articles
- Truth and Symbol in the Christmas Story by John Gayner Banks
- Christmas Then and Christmas Now by H. P. Blavatsky
- Christmas and the Winter Solstice by Alan E. Donant
- The Magi by Jay Williams
- Behind Our Christmas Celebrations by Kirby Van Mater
- How Christ Got into Christmas by Peter H. Samson
- The Christmas Tree by Regina Z. Thackara
Audio
- Christmas and the Angelic Forces by Dora Kunz
Notes
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. IX (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1974), 5.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. II (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, [1967]), 164.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. X (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 278-279.