A Tree, a Snake, a Bull, an Ear of Corn.

• +.post rock x 2
• +.haunted
• +.post punk

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I have wandered, in pursuit of Totems and the Eucharist, some way from the astronomical thread of Chapters II and III, and now it would appear that in order to understand religious origins we must wander still farther. The chapters mentioned were largely occupied with Sungods and astronomical phenomena, but now we have to consider an earlier period when there were no definite forms of gods, and when none but the vaguest astronomical knowledge existed. Sometimes in historical matters it is best and safest to move thus backwards in Time, from the things recent and fairly well known to things more ancient and less known. In this way we approach more securely to some understanding of the dim and remote past. It is clear that before any definite speculations on heaven-dwelling gods or divine beings had arisen in the human mind—or any clear theories of how the sun and moon and stars might be connected with the changes of the seasons on the earth—there were still certain obvious things which appealed to everybody, learned or unlearned alike. One of these was the return of Vegetation,Vegetation, bringing with it the fruits or the promise of the fruits of the earth, for human food, and also bringing with it increase of animal life, for food in another form; and the other was the return of Light and Warmth, making life easier in all ways. Food delivering from the fear of starvation; Light and Warmth delivering from the fear of danger and of cold. These were three glorious things which returned together and brought salvation and renewed life to man. The period of their return was 'Spring,' and though Spring and its benefits might fade away in time, still there was always the HOPE of its return—though even so it may have been a long time in human evolution before man discovered that it really did always return, and (with certain allowances) at equal intervals of time. Carpenter, Edward.