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AVESTA VIBRATION-EFFICACY-PURELY ZOROASTRIAN TEACHING. 275
Lastly on pp. 361-362, under the heading "Avestan prayers,
however unintelligible, are declared the most efficacious owing to
their occult significance" the writer of the book ridicules the
vibration-efficacy of prayers, thus -
“We have already seen the arguments advanced by the reformers against
addressing to God prayers in a language unintelligible to the suppliant. We shall
now need only notice the part that the theosophists have taken in the controversy.
The syllables composed in the Avestan texts, they aver, are so mysteriously
adjusted to each other in the prayers, that they produce vibrations on the ethereal
plane, when pronounced. The potency of such rhythmical sound is so great that
like every good thought that flashes out with strong occult force and sends forth a
good 'elemental,' it creates forms in the ethereal world, attracts good 'elementals,'
and repels evil ones. Every single sentence conveys an occult meaning, and the
prayers composed in the celestial tongue of the prophet and other seers have an
unspeakable efficacy conducting to the welfare of the individual concerned, but
their renderings into any modern vernacular would make them totally ineffectual
as prayers.”
This is not an explanation given by the theosophists, but it is as we
have seen in so many text-quotations an idea of the Zoroastrian
teachings themselves. The Staota laws are primarily Zoroastrian,
and the "razeng" of the Gathas or occult hidden texts are also
primarily Zoroastrian. The writer simply laughs out the idea of the
vibration-efficacy of prayer, because he believes that such an idea is
purely theosophic. The modern theosophy is merely an esoteric side of
Buddhism and the religion the Vedas. We do not accept all the
theosophic principles of explanation applied indiscriminately to the
teachings of Zoroaster. The laws of vibration-effect of Mantras may
have been explained in the Buddhist scriptures, and we do not borrow
these laws and engraft them on our Avesta Manthras. What we
emphasize is this that the Staota laws and the vibration efficacy of the
Manthra have been originally propounded in the Zoroastrian teachings,
and an open mind void of prejudices is necessary for a study of them. It
is not a scholarly attitude at all to believe wrongly that the vibration
efficacy of prayers is merely a theosophic teaching, and to ignore the
existence of this pri-