THE adoration of the sun was one of the earliest and most natural forms of religious expression. Complex modern theologies are merely involvements and amplifications of this simple aboriginal belief. The primitive mind, recognizing the beneficent power of the solar orb, adored it as the proxy of the Supreme Deity. Concerning the origin of sun worship, Albert Pike makes the following concise statement in his Morals and Dogma: "To them [aboriginal peoples] he [the sun] was the innate fire of bodies, the fire of Nature. Author of Life, heat, and ignition, he was to them the efficient cause of all generation, for without him there was no movement, no existence, no form. He was to them immense, indivisible, imperishable, and everywhere present. It was their need of light, and of his creative energy, that was felt by all men; and nothing was more fearful to them than his absence. His beneficent influences caused his identification with the Principle of Good; and the BRAHMA of the Hindus, and MITHRAS of the Persians, and ATHOM, AMUN, PHTHA, and OSIRIS, of the Egyptians, the BEL of the Chaldeans, the ADONAI of the Phœnicians, the ADONIS and APOLLO of the Greeks, became but personifications of the Sun, the regenerating Principle, image of that fecundity which perpetuates and rejuvenates the world's existence."

Indeed they honoured, prayed to, or worshipped the sun and stars for gods, but knew not how these were created or came to be, nor out of what they...

He said: 'The sun (âditya). For all these beings praise the sun when it stands on high. This is the deity belonging to the udgîtha. If, without...

The highest Ground of the SUN, and of ALL the PLANETS.

And as the Deity shines in the Darkness in the first Principle, so the Sun shines in the Darkness in the third Principle. And as the Deity is the eter...

Since, however, every part of the heavens, every sign of the zodiac, all the motion of the heavens, every period of time according to which the world...

The FUMIGATION from FRANKINCENSE and MANNA. HEAR golden Titan, whose eternal eye With broad survey, illumines all the sky. Self-born, unwearied in...

For it [the Sun] is an Essence like the Light of God, which kindles and enlightens the dark Mind of the Father, from whence, by the Light, there arise...