SPIRITUALISM
IX. EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD
X. HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES
XI. SUPREME GODS NOT NECESSARILY DEVELOPED OUT OF 'SPIRITS'
XII. SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS
XIII. MORE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS
XIV. AHONE. TI-RA-WA. NA-PI. PACHACAMAC. TUI LAGA. TAA-ROA
XV. THE OLD DEGENERATION THEORY
XVI. THEORIES OF JEHOVAH
XVII. CONCLUSION

APPENDICES.

A. OPPOSITIONS OF SCIENCE
B. THE POLTERGEIST AND HIS EXPLAINERS
C. CRYSTAL-GAZING
D. CHIEFS IN AUSTRALIA

INDEX

* * * * *

THE MAKING OF RELIGION

I

_INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER_

The modern Science of the History of Religion has attained conclusions
which already possess an air of being firmly established. These
conclusions may be briefly stated thus: Man derived the conception of
'spirit' or 'soul' from his reflections on the phenomena of sleep, dreams,
death, shadow, and from the experiences of trance and hallucination.
Worshipping first the departed souls of his kindred, man later extended
the doctrine of spiritual beings in many directions. Ghosts, or other
spiritual existences fashioned on the same lines, prospered till they
became gods. Finally, as the result of a variety of processes, one of
these gods became supreme, and, at last, was regarded as the one only God.
Meanwhile man retained his belief in the existence of his own soul,
surviving after the death of the body, and so reached the conception of
immortality. Thus the ideas of God and of the soul are the result of early
fallacious reasonings about misunderstood experiences.

It may seem almost wanton to suggest the desirableness of revising a
system at once so simple, so logical, and apparently so well bottomed on
facts. But there can never be any real harm in studying masses of evidence
from fresh points of view. At worst, the failure of adverse criticism must
help to establish the doctrines assailed. Now, as we shall show, there are
two points of view from which the evidence as to religion in its early
stages has not been steadily contemplated. Therefore we intend to ask,
first, what, if anything, can be ascertained as to the nature of the
'visions' and hallucinations which, according to Mr. Tylor in his
celebrated work 'Primitive Culture,' lent their aid to the formation of
the idea of 'spirit.' Secondly, we shall collect and compare the accounts
which we possess of the High Gods and creative beings worshipped or
believed in, by the most backward races. We shall then ask wheth