Southern Cross Review

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"If we look at the old religions in their social as apart from their individual aspect, we see that the use society made of them was only of their most unspiritual or at any rate of their less spiritual parts. It made use of them to give an august, awful and would-be eternal sanction to its mass of customs and institutions; it made of them a veil of mystery against human questioning and a shield of darkness against the innovator. So far as it saw in religion a means of human salvation and perfection, it laid hands upon it at once to mechanise it, to catch the human soul and bind it on the wheels of a socio-religious machinery, to impose on it in the place of spiritual freedom an imperious yoke and an iron prison. It saddled upon the religious life of man a Church, a priesthood and a mass of ceremonies and set over it a pack of watchdogs under the name of creeds and dogmas, dogmas which one had to accept and obey under pain of condemnation to eternal hell by an eternal judge beyond, just as one had to accept and to obey the laws of society on pain of condemnation to temporal imprisonment or death by a mortal judge below. This false socialisation of religion has been always the chief cause of its failure to regenerate mankind..."

Sri Aurobindo - The Spiritual Evolution of Society

- If you Yanquis want to know whom you should vote for in the coming election, check out the "Editor’s Page".
- A lot of readers wrote in about the last issue. See "Letters".
In "Current Events" we present points of view about the conflict in Georgia which conflict with the American official version - by Mikhail Gorbachev and Michael T. Klare. The jury's still out. Doris Lessing, who saw it coming, gives her insider's view of the Zimbabe mess.
- In “Features” we present an excerpt from Doris Lessing's science fiction under the guise of a book review. Also a long chapter by Sri Aurobindo about spirituality and society. Gaither Stewart then weighs in with a critique of America's social system.
- Keeping you happy with our "Fiction" section are stories by Daniel A. Oliva (bilingual) and Frank Thomas Smith, both with a latino tinge.
- Four items are packed into "Antrhoposophy": Robert McDermott muses on his coast-to-coast experiences with anthroposophy and transpersonalism, Keith Francis compares Francis Bacon and Rudolf Steiner - especially what the latter said about the former, and "Der Doktor" brings up the rear with a lecture on the meaning of Genesis and the continuation of his Anthroposophical Guidelines.
- León Felipe's famous "Credo" is offered in both English and Spanish, along with some FTS unilingual ones.
- George Orwell's "1984", which was serialized in previous editions, is now available as and Ebook. Just click on the Donkey's you-know-what, above.

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