Christmas

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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.

Theosophical significance

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]

Additional resources

Articles

Books

  • Barborka, Geoffrey A. The Christmas Story. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1966.
  • Gullo, Jean. Christmas and Solstice: Traditional and Mystical Celebrations. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Order of Service, 1987.
  • Hall, Manly P. The Story of Christmas. Los Angeles: Philosophical Research Society, 1956. Pamphlet.
  • Kunz, Dora. Christmas of the Angels. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980. Pamphlet. Available at Henry S. Olcott Memorial Library and Krotona Library.
  • Matthews, John. The Winter Solstice: the Sacred Traditions of Christmas. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1998. With contributions from Caitlin Matthews.
  • Steiner, Rudolf. The festivals and Their Meaning: Christmas, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost, Michaelmas. London, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996.

Audio

Notes

  1. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. IX (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1974), 5.
  2. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. II (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, [1967]), 164.
  3. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. X (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 278-279.