"
He moved the pointer down until he touched the fourth object on the
tree--the dove under the cross, and went on:
"In the mind of the Christian believer this represents the white dove
of the New Testament which descended on the Son of Man when the
heavens were opened. So in Parsifal the white dove descends,
overshadowing the Grail. But ages before Christ the prolific white
dove of Syria was worshipped throughout the Orient as the symbol of
reproductive Nature: and to this day the Almighty is there believed to
manifest himself under this form. In ancient Mesopotamia the divine
mother of nature is often represented with this dove as having
actually alighted on her shoulder or in her open hand. And here again
forest worship early became associated with the worship of the dove;
for, sixteen hundred years before Christ, we find the dove nurtured in
the oak grove at Dodona where its presence was an augury and its wings
an omen."
On he went, touching one thing after another, tracing the story of
each backward till it was lost in antiquity and showing how each was
entwined with forest worship.
He touched the musical instruments; the bell, the drum. The bell, he
said, was used in Greece by the Priests of Bacchus in the worship of
the vine.
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