In your reply to Miss Bull Dyke, you say that the Hebraic traditions "invented polytheism"; yet you also say

"polytheism" in the Hebraic sense of the term has only rarely existed and that in spiritually degenerate societies such as those of the Classical era in Europe. Were the Hebraic traditions wrong to attack polytheism? No, because they were confronted with societies in which the multiplicity of the Divine had been over-literalized to the extent that the sense of the Absolute was almost lost.

So who did invent polytheism - the Jews, or the Graeco-romans? I am not trying to criticize, I just want to learn. Thank you. We were putting this matter in rather "shorthand" terms in our last reply. Let us explain more fully: As the natural decline of the World Cycle proceeds, times arise in which adaptations and simplifications of tradition are needed in order to serve the needs of a lower and simpler humanity. Sometimes there are great waves of simplification that affect much of the world at once - like the one in the 6th millennium BC described in The Feminine Universe. Even at these times some peoples will be left behind and will continue the older traditions. However, such older traditions will be too difficult for the newer humanity, who will therefore increasingly misunderstand and corrupt them. The case in point here is Indo-European patriarchal angelotheism (if we may coin a phrase) which sees God through Her many powers without losing site of Her ultimate Oneness. The main branches of this tradition were the Indian, the Teutonic and the Graeco-Roman (leaving aside the Persian, which had already been reformed by Mazdaeism). The Indian branch was reformed quietly from within, owing to the influence of Buddhism and the work of Vedantins such as Sri Shankaracharya. The Teutonic and "Classical" branches went unreformed and slipped into an increasing literalism. Among the more spiritually educated it never became a true "polytheism" (ie., an idolatrous atheism), but it moved sufficiently in that direction that the Hebraic hyperbole which represented it as such was not too far wrong. In spiritual terms, patriarchal Europe was desperately in need of reform, and that reform came, for better or worse, from the Hebraic camp. Similar movements were undoubtedly present in earlier survivals of pre-Abrahamic traditions among the Jews, but here there comes a complicating factor - that the Jewish hierarchy had an interest in representing any continuance of the Mother Tradition as an idolatrous (ie polytheistic, Absolute-denying) cultus whether that were true or not. We cannot know whether the Hebrew Queen of Heaven cultus had adapted itself to the spiritual needs of the new era. In sum, the concept of "polytheism" is a polemical one, invented by the Hebraists. Even among degenerate cults, few people would actually have applied the term to themselves. Think of it as like "fascism" in current political usage. More of a label used to brand others than a truly descriptive term.