Page 70 (part 1)

The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2 [[Vol. 2, Page]] 341 THE MATERIALISM OF THE BIBLE. [[This page continued from previous section ]] C YCLOPEAN R UINS AND C OLOSSAL S TONES AS W ITNESSES TO G IANTS. In his enormous works -- Memoires addressees a l ' Academie des Sciences -- de Mirville, carrying out the task of proving the reality of the devil and showing his abode in every ancient and modern idol, has collected several hundred pages of "historical evidence" that in the days of miracle -- Pagan and Biblical -- the stones walked, spoke, delivered oracles, and even sung. That finally, "Christ-stone," or Christ-Rock, "the spiritual Rock" that followed "Israel" (I Corinth. x. 4) "became a Jupiter lapis, " swallowed by his father Saturn, "under the shape of a stone."* We will not stop to discuss the evident misuse and materialization of Biblical metaphors, simply for the sake of proving the Satanism of idols, though a good deal might be said** on this subject. But without claiming any such peripateticism and innate psychic faculties for our stones, we may collect, in our turn, every available evidence on hand, to show that ( a ) had there been no giants to move about such colossal rocks, there could never have been a Stonehenge, a Carnac (Brittany) and other such Cyclopean structures; and ( b ) were there no such thing as MAGIC, there could never have been so many witnesses to oracular and speaking stones. In the Achaica (p. 81) we find Pausanias confessing that, in beginning his work, he had regarded the Greeks as mighty stupid "for worshipping stones." But, having reached Arcadia, he adds: "I have changed my way of thinking." Therefore, without worshipping stones or stone idols and statues, which is the same -- a crime Roman Catholics are unwise to reproach Pagans with, as they do likewise -- one may be allowed to believe in what so many great philosophers and holy men have believed in, without deserving to be called an "idiot" by modern Pausaniases. The reader is referred to Volume VI . of the Academie des Inscriptions ( Memoires, p. 518, et seq .) if he would study the various properties of flints and pebbles from the standpoint of Magic and psychic powers. In a poem on Stones attributed to Orpheus, those stones are divided into ophites and siderites, "serpent-stones" and "star-stones." "The ' Ophite ' [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Pierres Animees et parlantes., p. 283 . Theologie de la Pierre, 270. ** Saturn is Kronos -- " Time. " His swallowing Jupiter lapis may turn out one day a prophecy. "Peter ( Cephas, lapis ) , is the stone on which the Church of Rome is built" we are assured. But Kronos is as sure "to swallow it" one day, as he has swallowed Jupiter-lapis and still greater characters. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 342 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. is shaggy, hard, heavy, black, and has the gift of speech ; when one prepares to cast it away, it produces a sound similar to the cry of a child. It is by means of this stone that Helanos foretold the ruin of Troy, his fatherland . . " etc. (Falconnet.) Sanchoniathon and Philo Byblius, in referring to these betyles, call them " Animated Stones." Photius repeats what Damascius, Asclepiades, Isidorus and the physician Eusebius had asserted before him. The latter (Eusebius) never parted with his ophites, which he carried in his bosom, and received oracles from them, delivered in a small voice resembling a low whistling.* Arnobius (a holy man who, "from a Pagan had become one of the lights of the Church, " Christians tell their readers) confesses he could never meet on his passage with one of such stones without putting it questions, "which is answered occasionally in a clear and sharp small voice. " Where is the difference between the Christian and the Pagan ophites, we ask? It is also known that the famous stone at Westminster was called liafail -- "the speaking stone," -- which raised its voice only to name the king that had to be chosen. Cambry ( Monuments Celtiques ) says he saw it when it still bore the inscription: --** "Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatum Invenient lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem." Finally, Suidas speaks of a certain Heraclius, who could distinguish at a glance the inanimate stones from those which were endowed with motion; and Pliny mentions stones which "ran away when a hand approached them." (See Dictionnaire des Religions par l ' abbe Bertrand ; art. on words Heraclius and Betyles. ) De Mirville -- who seeks to justify the Bible -- inquires very pertinently, why the monstrous stones of Stonehenge were called in days of old chior-gaur (from Cor , "dance," whence chorea, and gaur, a GIANT), or the dance of giants? And then he sends the reader to receive his reply from the Bishop of St. Gildas. But the authors of the Voyage dans le Comte [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The same, of course, as the "small voice" heard by Elijah after the earthquake at the mouth of the cave. (I Kings xix. 12.) ** The rocking, or Logan, stones bear various names. The Celts had their clacha-brath, the "Destiny or judgment-stone"; the divining -stone, or "stone of the ordeal" and the oracle stone; the moving or animated stone of the Phoenicians; the rumbling stone of the Irish. Brittany has its " pierres branlantes " at Huelgoat. They are found in the Old and the New Worlds: in the British Islands, France, Spain, Italy, Russia, Germany, etc., as in North America. ( See Hodson ' s " Letters from North America, " Vol. II ., p. 440.) Pliny speaks of several in Asia ( Hist. Nat. Lib. I., c. 96), and Apollonius Rhodius expatiates on the rocking stones, and says that they are "stones placed on the apex of a tumulus, and so sensitive as to be movable by the mind " ( Ackerman ' s Arth. Index, p. 34), referring no doubt to the ancient priests who moved such stones by will-power and from a distance. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 343 THE "ROCKING-STONES" IN EUROPE.