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Urantia Book Paper 85 The Origins Of Worship
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART III: The History of Urantia
: The Origin Of Urantia Life Establishment On Urantia The Marine-life Era On
Urantia Urantia During The Early Land-life Era The Mammalian Era On Urantia The
Dawn Races Of Early Man The First Human Family The Evolutionary Races Of Color
The Overcontrol Of Evolution The Planetary Prince Of Urantia The Planetary
Rebellion The Dawn Of Civilization Primitive Human Institutions The Evolution
Of Human Government Development Of The State Government On A Neighboring Planet
The Garden Of Eden Adam And Eve The Default Of Adam And Eve The Second Garden
The Midway Creatures The Violet Race After The Days Of Adam Andite Expansion In
The Orient Andite Expansion In The Occident Development Of Modern Civilization
The Evolution Of Marriage The Marriage Institution Marriage And Family Life The
Origins Of Worship Early Evolution Of Religion The Ghost Cults Fetishes,
Charms, And Magic Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement Shamanism--medicine Men And
Priests The Evolution Of Prayer The Later Evolution Of Religion Machiventa
Melchizedek The Melchizedek Teachings In The Orient The Melchizedek Teachings
In The Levant Yahweh--god Of The Hebrews Evolution Of The God Concept Among The
Hebrews The Melchizedek Teachings In The Occident The Social Problems Of
Religion Religion In Human Experience The Real Nature Of Religion The
Foundations Of Religious Faith The Reality Of Religious Experience Growth Of
The Trinity Concept Deity And Reality Universe Levels Of Reality Origin And
Nature Of Thought Adjusters Mission And Ministry Of Thought Adjusters Relation
Of Adjusters To Universe Creatures Relation Of Adjusters To Individual Mortals
...
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Paper 85 The Origins Of Worship
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Introduction
PRIMITIVE religion had a biologic origin, a natural evolutionary development,
aside from moral associations and apart from all spiritual influences. The
higher animals have fears but no illusions, hence no religion. Man creates his
primitive religions out of his fears and by means of his illusions.
In the evolution of the human species, worship in its primitive manifestations
appears long before the mind of man is capable of formulating the more complex
concepts of life now and in the hereafter which deserve to be called religion.
Early religion was wholly intellectual in nature and was entirely predicated on
associational circumstances. The objects of worship were altogether suggestive;
they consisted of the things of nature which were close at hand, or which
loomed large in the commonplace experience of the simple-minded primitive
Urantians.
When religion once evolved beyond nature worship, it acquired roots of spirit
origin but was nevertheless always conditioned by the social environment. As
nature worship developed, man's concepts envisioned a division of labor in the
supermortal world; there were nature spirits for lakes, trees, waterfalls,
rain, and hundreds of other ordinary terrestrial phenomena.
At one time or another mortal man has worshiped everything on the face of the
earth, including himself. He has also worshiped about everything imaginable in
the sky and beneath the surface of the earth. Primitive man feared all
manifestations of power; he worshiped every natural phenomenon he could not
comprehend. The observation of powerful natural forces, such as storms, floods,
earthquakes, landslides, volcanoes, fire, heat, and cold, greatly impressed the
expanding mind of man. The inexplicable things of life are still termed "acts
of God" and "mysterious dispensations of Providence."
1. WORSHIP OF STONES AND HILLS
The first object to be worshiped by evolving man was a stone. Today the Kateri
people of southern India still worship a stone, as do numerous tribes in
northern India. Jacob slept on a stone because he venerated it; he even
anointed it. Rachel concealed a number of sacred stones in her tent.
Stones first impressed early man as being out of the ordinary because of the
manner in which they would so suddenly appear on the surface of a cultivated
field or pasture. Men failed to take into account either erosion or the results
of the overturning of soil. Stones also greatly impressed early peoples because
of their frequent resemblance to animals. The attention of civilized man is
arrested by numerous stone formations in the mountains which so much resemble
the faces of animals and even men. But the most profound influence was exerted
by meteoric stones which primitive humans beheld hurtling through the
atmosphere in flaming grandeur. The shooting star was awesome to early man, and
he easily
top of page - 945
believed that such blazing streaks marked the passage of a spirit on its way to
earth. No wonder men were led to worship such phenomena, especially when they
subsequently discovered the meteors. And this led to greater reverence for all
other stones. In Bengal many worship a meteor which fell to earth in A.D. 1880.
All ancient clans and tribes had their sacred stones, and most modern peoples
manifest a degree of veneration for certain types of stones--their jewels. A
group of five stones was reverenced in India; in Greece it was a cluster of
thirty; among the red men it was usually a circle of stones. The Romans always
threw a stone into the air when invoking Jupiter. In India even to this day a
stone can be used as a witness. In some regions a stone may be employed as a
talisman of the law, and by its prestige an offender can be haled into court.
But simple mortals do not always identify Deity with an object of reverent
ceremony. Such fetishes are many times mere symbols of the real object of
worship.
The ancients had a peculiar regard for holes in stones. Such porous rocks were
supposed to be unusually efficacious in curing diseases. Ears were not
perforated to carry stones, but the stones were put in to keep the ear holes
open. Even in modern times superstitious persons make holes in coins. In Africa
the natives make much ado over their fetish stones. In fact, among all backward
tribes and peoples stones are still held in superstitious veneration. Stone
worship is even now widespread over the world. The tombstone is a surviving
symbol of images and idols which were carved in stone in connection with
beliefs in ghosts and the spirits of departed fellow beings.
Hill worship followed stone worship, and the first hills to be venerated were
large stone formations. It presently became the custom to believe that the gods
inhabited the mountains, so that high elevations of land were worshiped for
this additional reason. As time passed, certain mountains were associated with
certain gods and therefore became holy. The ignorant and superstitious
aborigines believed that caves led to the underworld, with its evil spirits and
demons, in contrast with the mountains, which were identified with the later
evolving concepts of good spirits and deities.
2. WORSHIP OF PLANTS AND TREES
Plants were first feared and then worshiped because of the intoxicating liquors
which were derived therefrom. Primitive man believed that intoxication rendered
one divine. There was supposed to be something unusual and sacred about such an
experience. Even in modern times alcohol is known as "spirits."
Early man looked upon sprouting grain with dread and superstitious awe. The
Apostle Paul was not the first to draw profound spiritual lessons from, and
predicate religious beliefs on, the sprouting grain.
The cults of tree worship are among the oldest religious groups. All early
marriages were held under the trees, and when women desired children, they
would sometimes be found out in the forest affectionately embracing a sturdy
oak. Many plants and trees were venerated because of their real or fancied
medicinal powers. The savage believed that all chemical effects were due to the
direct activity of supernatural forces.
Ideas about tree spirits varied greatly among different tribes and races. Some
trees were indwelt by kindly spirits; others harbored the deceptive and cruel.
The Finns believed that most trees were occupied by kind spirits. The Swiss
long mistrusted the trees, believing they contained tricky spirits. The
inhabitants of
top of page - 946
India and eastern Russia regard the tree spirits as being cruel. The
Patagonians still worship trees, as did the early Semites. Long after the
Hebrews ceased tree worship, they continued to venerate their various deities
in the groves. Except in China, there once existed a universal cult of the tree
of life.
The belief that water or precious metals beneath the earth's surface can be
detected by a wooden divining rod is a relic of the ancient tree cults. The
Maypole, the Christmas tree, and the superstitious practice of rapping on wood
perpetuate certain of the ancient customs of tree worship and the later-day
tree cults.
Many of these earliest forms of nature veneration became blended with the later
evolving techniques of worship, but the earliest mind-adjutant-activated types
of worship were functioning long before the newly awakening religious nature of
mankind became fully responsive to the stimulus of spiritual influences.
3. THE WORSHIP OF ANIMALS
Primitive man had a peculiar and fellow feeling for the higher animals. His
ancestors had lived with them and even mated with them. In southern Asia it was
early believed that the souls of men came back to earth in animal form. This
belief was a survival of the still earlier practice of worshiping animals.
Early men revered the animals for their power and their cunning. They thought
the keen scent and the farseeing eyes of certain creatures betokened spirit
guidance. The animals have all been worshiped by one race or another at one
time or another. Among such objects of worship were creatures that were
regarded as half human and half animal, such as centaurs and mermaids.
The Hebrews worshiped serpents down to the days of King Hezekiah, and the
Hindus still maintain friendly relations with their house snakes. The Chinese
worship of the dragon is a survival of the snake cults. The wisdom of the
serpent was a symbol of Greek medicine and is still employed as an emblem by
modern physicians. The art of snake charming has been handed down from the days
of the female shamans of the snake love cult, who, as the result of daily snake
bites, became immune, in fact, became genuine venom addicts and could not get
along without this poison.
The worship of insects and other animals was promoted by a later
misinterpretation of the golden rule--doing to others (every form of life) as
you would be done by. The ancients once believed that all winds were produced
by the wings of birds and therefore both feared and worshiped all winged
creatures. The early Nordics thought that eclipses were caused by a wolf that
devoured a portion of the sun or moon. The Hindus often show Vishnu with a
horse's head. Many times an animal symbol stands for a forgotten god or a
vanished cult. Early in evolutionary religion the lamb became the typical
sacrificial animal and the dove the symbol of peace and love.
In religion, symbolism may be either good or bad just to the extent that the
symbol does or does not displace the original worshipful idea. And symbolism
must not be confused with direct idolatry wherein the material object is
directly and actually worshiped.
4. WORSHIP OF THE ELEMENTS
Mankind has worshiped earth, air, water, and fire. The primitive races
venerated springs and worshiped rivers. Even now in Mongolia there flourishes
an
top of page - 947
influential river cult. Baptism became a religious ceremonial in Babylon, and
the Greeks practiced the annual ritual bath. It was easy for the ancients to
imagine that the spirits dwelt in the bubbling springs, gushing fountains,
flowing rivers, and raging torrents. Moving waters vividly impressed these
simple minds with beliefs of spirit animation and supernatural power. Sometimes
a drowning man would be refused succor for fear of offending some river god.
Many things and numerous events have functioned as religious stimuli to
different peoples in different ages. A rainbow is yet worshiped by many of the
hill tribes of India. In both India and Africa the rainbow is thought to be a
gigantic celestial snake; Hebrews and Christians regard it as "the bow of
promise." Likewise, influences regarded as beneficent in one part of the world
may be looked upon as malignant in other regions. The east wind is a god in
South America, for it brings rain; in India it is a devil because it brings
dust and causes drought. The ancient Bedouins believed that a nature spirit
produced the sand whirls, and even in the times of Moses belief in nature
spirits was strong enough to insure their perpetuation in Hebrew theology as
angels of fire, water, and air.
Clouds, rain, and hail have all been feared and worshiped by numerous primitive
tribes and by many of the early nature cults. Windstorms with thunder and
lightning overawed early man. He was so impressed with these elemental
disturbances that thunder was regarded as the voice of an angry god. The
worship of fire and the fear of lightning were linked together and were
widespread among many early groups.
Fire was mixed up with magic in the minds of primitive fear-ridden mortals. A
devotee of magic will vividly remember one positive chance result in the
practice of his magic formulas, while he nonchalantly forgets a score of
negative results, out-and-out failures. Fire reverence reached its height in
Persia, where it long persisted. Some tribes worshiped fire as a deity itself;
others revered it as the flaming symbol of the purifying and purging spirit of
their venerated deities. Vestal virgins were charged with the duty of watching
sacred fires, and in the twentieth century candles still burn as a part of the
ritual of many religious services.
5. WORSHIP OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES
The worship of rocks, hills, trees, and animals naturally developed up through
fearful veneration of the elements to the deification of the sun, moon, and
stars. In India and elsewhere the stars were regarded as the glorified souls of
great men who had departed from the life in the flesh. The Chaldean star
cultists considered themselves to be the children of the sky father and the
earth mother.
Moon worship preceded sun worship. Veneration of the moon was at its height
during the hunting era, while sun worship became the chief religious ceremony
of the subsequent agricultural ages. Solar worship first took extensive root in
India, and there it persisted the longest. In Persia sun veneration gave rise
to the later Mithraic cult. Among many peoples the sun was regarded as the
ancestor of their kings. The Chaldeans put the sun in the center of "the seven
circles of the universe." Later civilizations honored the sun by giving its
name to the first day of the week.
The sun god was supposed to be the mystic father of the virgin-born sons of
destiny who ever and anon were thought to be bestowed as saviors upon favored
races. These supernatural infants were always put adrift upon some sacred river
top of page - 948
to be rescued in an extraordinary manner, after which they would grow up to
become miraculous personalities and the deliverers of their peoples.
6. WORSHIP OF MAN
Having worshiped everything else on the face of the earth and in the heavens
above, man has not hesitated to honor himself with such adoration. The
simple-minded savage makes no clear distinction between beasts, men, and gods.
Early man regarded all unusual persons as superhuman, and he so feared such
beings as to hold them in reverential awe; to some degree he literally
worshiped them. Even having twins was regarded as being either very lucky or
very unlucky. Lunatics, epileptics, and the feeble-minded were often worshiped
by their normal-minded fellows, who believed that such abnormal beings were
indwelt by the gods. Priests, kings, and prophets were worshiped; the holy men
of old were looked upon as inspired by the deities.
Tribal chiefs died and were deified. Later, distinguished souls passed on and
were sainted. Unaided evolution never originated gods higher than the
glorified, exalted, and evolved spirits of deceased humans. In early evolution
religion creates its own gods. In the course of revelation the Gods formulate
religion. Evolutionary religion creates its gods in the image and likeness of
mortal man; revelatory religion seeks to evolve and transform mortal man into
the image and likeness of God.
The ghost gods, who are of supposed human origin, should be distinguished from
the nature gods, for nature worship did evolve a pantheon--nature spirits
elevated to the position of gods. The nature cults continued to develop along
with the later appearing ghost cults, and each exerted an influence upon the
other. Many religious systems embraced a dual concept of deity, nature gods and
ghost gods; in some theologies these concepts are confusingly intertwined, as
is illustrated by Thor, a ghost hero who was also master of the lightning.
But the worship of man by man reached its height when temporal rulers commanded
such veneration from their subjects and, in substantiation of such demands,
claimed to have descended from deity.
7. THE ADJUTANTS OF WORSHIP AND WISDOM
Nature worship may seem to have arisen naturally and spontaneously in the minds
of primitive men and women, and so it did; but there was operating all this
time in these same primitive minds the sixth adjutant spirit, which had been
bestowed upon these peoples as a directing influence of this phase of human
evolution. And this spirit was constantly stimulating the worship urge of the
human species, no matter how primitive its first manifestations might be. The
spirit of worship gave definite origin to the human impulse to worship,
notwithstanding that animal fear motivated the expression of worshipfulness,
and that its early practice became centered upon objects of nature.
You must remember that feeling, not thinking, was the guiding and controlling
influence in all evolutionary development. To the primitive mind there is
little difference between fearing, shunning, honoring, and worshiping.
When the worship urge is admonished and directed by wisdom--meditative and
experiential thinking--it then begins to develop into the phenomenon of real
religion. When the seventh adjutant spirit, the spirit of wisdom, achieves
effective
top of page - 949
ministration, then in worship man begins to turn away from nature and natural
objects to the God of nature and to the eternal Creator of all things natural.
[Presented by a Brilliant Evening Star of Nebadon.]
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART III: The History of Urantia
: The Origin Of Urantia Life Establishment On Urantia The Marine-life Era On
Urantia Urantia During The Early Land-life Era The Mammalian Era On Urantia The
Dawn Races Of Early Man The First Human Family The Evolutionary Races Of Color
The Overcontrol Of Evolution The Planetary Prince Of Urantia The Planetary
Rebellion The Dawn Of Civilization Primitive Human Institutions The Evolution
Of Human Government Development Of The State Government On A Neighboring Planet
The Garden Of Eden Adam And Eve The Default Of Adam And Eve The Second Garden
The Midway Creatures The Violet Race After The Days Of Adam Andite Expansion In
The Orient Andite Expansion In The Occident Development Of Modern Civilization
The Evolution Of Marriage The Marriage Institution Marriage And Family Life The
Origins Of Worship Early Evolution Of Religion The Ghost Cults Fetishes,
Charms, And Magic Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement Shamanism--medicine Men And
Priests The Evolution Of Prayer The Later Evolution Of Religion Machiventa
Melchizedek The Melchizedek Teachings In The Orient The Melchizedek Teachings
In The Levant Yahweh--god Of The Hebrews Evolution Of The God Concept Among The
Hebrews The Melchizedek Teachings In The Occident The Social Problems Of
Religion Religion In Human Experience The Real Nature Of Religion The
Foundations Of Religious Faith The Reality Of Religious Experience Growth Of
The Trinity Concept Deity And Reality Universe Levels Of Reality Origin And
Nature Of Thought Adjusters Mission And Ministry Of Thought Adjusters Relation
Of Adjusters To Universe Creatures Relation Of Adjusters To Individual Mortals
The Adjuster And The Soul Personality Survival Seraphic Guardians Of Destiny
Seraphic Planetary Government The Supreme Being The Almighty Supreme God The
Supreme Supreme And Ultimate--time And Space The Bestowals Of Christ Michael
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