4 oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



came less savage the horrors of the ritual were modified by the 

 substitution of animals. 



Among totem-worshipers the substitute for the life of a mem- 

 ber of the tribe was naturally an animal of the kind which the 

 devotees and god claim as kindred. Among our Indian worship- 

 ers of totems the sacred animal is eaten, body and blood, once a 

 year, in a solemn sacrifice of itself unto itself in a mystical cere- 

 mony. These gross rites are thought to have an atoning efficacy, 

 as they claim that the sacred animal shares the nature of their 

 god, who in this manner dies for his people, while at the same 

 time the life of the sacred beast passes into the lives of the com- 

 municants and unites them to their deity and each other in last- 

 ing bonds. These savages believe, however, that the sacrificed 

 deity is made alive again ; just as in Athens, when the sacred 

 bull was slaughtered, the mystic ritual asserts that " the dead was 

 raised in the same sacrifice." 



We find strict attention to form and ritual among all primi- 

 tive peoples, and the more cruel and mysterious the rites the 

 lower the mental plane of the devotees. 



That the religious forms called mysteries, of Egyptians, Per- 

 sians, Greeks, and other ancient nations, evolved from the crude 

 mysteries of their savage ancestors, is the firm conviction of our 

 most profound scholars. In the celebration of these mysteries, 

 which were enacted all over the ancient world, it is found that 

 " the doctrine of a future life, connected with the legend of some 

 hero or deity, who had died and descended into the under world, 

 and again risen to life, dramatically represented in the personal 

 experience of the initiate, was the heart of every one of the se- 

 cret religious societies of antiquity.* 



The Egyptian mysteries were devoted to the worship of their 

 supreme god Osiris, whose name we find very near the beginning 

 of what is known of the religion of Egypt. The early form of 

 the legend shows its savage origin. In the constant warfare be- 

 tween Osiris and Typhon, the evil overcomes the good, and Osiris 

 is killed, but afterward returns to life in the form of an animal, 

 and urges his son to avenge him. Horus and Typhon fight in 

 animal form, and the evil one's power is destroyed, but Typhon 

 is not annihilated. As the Egyptian religion lasted for at least 

 five thousand years, it was subjected to innumerable influences, 

 which modified somewhat this crude legend. In time the wor- 

 ship of Osiris spread from Abydos, the oldest royal seat, all 

 over Egypt, until all the religious mysteries and the whole doc- 

 trine of life after death attached themselves to the Osirian wor- 

 ship, where every year was enacted with many sad rites the 



* Alger, History and Doctrine of a Future Life. 



