WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE CROSS? IS IT SIMPLY AN INSTRUMENT OF TORTURE AS USUALLY TAUGHT IN THE ORTHODOX RELIGION?

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE CROSS? IS IT SIMPLY AN INSTRUMENT OF TORTURE AS USUALLY TAUGHT IN THE ORTHODOX RELIGION?

ANSWER: Like all other symbols, the meanings of the cross are many. Plato gave one of these meanings when he said, "The Worldsoul is crucified," that is to say: We have four kingdoms in the world-- the mineral, the plant, the animal and the man.

The mineral kingdom ensouls all chemical substance of whatever kind, so that the cross, of whatever material it is made, is first a symbol of that kingdom.

The upright lower limb of the cross is a symbol of the plant kingdom because the currents of the group spirits which give life to the plants come from the center of the earth where these group spirits are located and reach out toward the periphery of our planet and into space.

The upper limb of the cross is the symbol of man, because the life currents of the human kingdom pass downward from the sun through the vertical spine. Thus man is the inverted plant, for as the plant takes its food through the root, passing it UPWARD, so does the man take his nourishment by way of the head, passing it DOWNWARD. The plant is chaste, pure and passionless, and stretches its creative organ, the flower, chastely and unashamed TOWARD THE SUN, a thing of beauty and delight. Man turns his passion filled generative organ TOWARD THE EARTH. Man inhales the life giving oxygen and exhales the poisonous carbon dioxide. The plant takes the poison exhaled by man, building its body therefrom, and returning to us the elixir of life, the cleansed oxygen.

Between the plant and the human kingdom stands the animal with the horizontal spine, and in the horizontal spine the life currents of the animal group spirit play as they circle around our globe. Therefore the horizontal limb of the cross is the symbol of the animal kingdom.

In esotericism the cross was never looked upon as an instrument of torture, and it was not until the sixth century that the crucified Christ was shown in pictures. Previous to that time the symbol of the Christ was a cross and a lamb resting at its foot, to convey the idea that at the time when the Christ was born the sun at the vernal equinox crossed the equator in the sign Aries, the Lamb. The symbols of the different religions have always been made in that way. At the time when the sun by precession crossed the vernal equinox in the sign Taurus, the Bull, a religion was founded in Egypt where they worshiped the Bull Apis in the same sense that we worship the Lamb of God. At a much earlier date, we hear of the Norse God Thor driving his twin goats across the sky. That was at the time when the vernal equinox was in the sign Gemini, the Twins. At the time of the birth of Christ, the vernal equinox was in about 7 degrees of Aries, the Lamb, therefore our Savior was called the Lamb of God. There was a dispute in the earlier centuries regarding the propriety of having the lamb as a symbol of our Savior. Some claimed that the vernal equinox at His birth was really in the sign Pisces, the Fishes, and that the symbol of our Savior should have been a fish. It is in memory of that dispute that the bishop's miter still takes the form of the head of a fish