What is Idolatry?

In our work with the spirits, we often find ourselves lighting candles in honor of the spirits we're Working with. Biblically, this can be construed as breaking the First Commandment, that one about having no other gods before me. I've seen a lot of debate on whether that commandment means you can't worship any God but Jehovah or whether it means Jehovah has to come first, or even if that just means that in the temple, you'd better not have any other god depicted.

Based on what I've learned from my spiritual experiments over the years, God is the source of the springs that manifest as other gods or angels or spirits. There is only One God at the source, and from that God springs everything that is, the Word, the seven Spheres and their intelligences, the Workman, the physical, Nature, animals, and even Mankind. The spiritual traditions of every culture, Christian, Buddhist, Persian, or Aztec teach the same goal: Remembering and Reclaiming our divine heritage; bringing awareness of that source-ness and at the same time our individual embodiment of it to our daily lives, and eventual death. And beyond.

So to me, the idea that you can even have a God before God is fundamentally off. I think the only reason the Jews received that commandment was because they were CHOSEN by God to be an example to the rest of Mankind. That law (and the rest) is for the Hebrews. He offers plenty of evidence in the rest of the bible that he was (and is) revealing himself to other nations, tribes, cultures, and lands in addition to the Hebrews. Melchizadek, for instance, received Abraham's tithe. He was a Priest of the One true God, right? Hell, later on, Jesus is said to be the High Prest in the order of Melchizadek. Dude was pretty important, but not Hebrew, not the Chosen people, and not bound by the Law. Paul mentions too that God revealed himself to the gentiles in their poetry when he's talking to the Athenians. He quotes "in whom we live and breathe and have our being" from a Pagan poem. He also says the altar to the "Unknown God" is an altar to Jesus.

So, when I'm lighting a candle in honor of Bune as I ask him to get me a windfall of riches, I'm not placing a God before God Jehovah. I'm going to a manifestation of the One True God that manifests to every culture as he sees fit, the specific part that is there to bring men riches and eloquence, and putting in a request. The candle isn't an idolotrous offering, it's a way to "lift up the prayer" into the spiritual realms. Heat rises. As the wax is consumed, the request is raised. As the wax is transformed by the fire, the physically spoken request is transformed into its spiritual components. In revelations, we see angels bringing incense before God, and it says the smoke is the prayers of his people. Smoke, fire, prayer, they're all part and parcel of the same thing.

Sacrifices in general intrigue me. It wasn't the meat that God wanted in the old testament. It was the smell of the burning fat. Says so in the Bible. You know how GOOD burning fat smells? Maybe not if you're a vegetarian, but maybe you get the same out of burning olive oil or something, I dunno. That delicious smell that makes you want to consume, that's the offering that's being given to God. Here God, eat the smell of the burning fat, and forgive my sins while you're at it.

Personally, I wish he'd just take my own fat away, without making me exercise or eat less. In a way though, it makes my exercise holy when I think about it that way. Kind of gross, but sacred too.

I'm getting off topic.

Point is, I don't think lighting a candle is idolatrous if you're doing it with the full knowledge that the being you're Working with is a manfestation of the Monad God the Father that makes everything. If you're just lighting candles to images without thinking about it, thinking it's the image that's going to make shit happen, I thionk you've missed the boat and will have a lot less success in your Work. It's the Spirt represented, and it's the the thing that represents itself as the Spirit that you're really working with. The candle's just sort of there as a physical reminder of what it is you're doing in your Work. It's you rising through the spheres and returning in power, rising to the level of the spirit and bringing back via your prayer the result you seek.

I hope this makes sense.