Hare-Worship

The term "hare-worship" is a descriptive English compound. The word "hare" derives from Old English "hara," ultimately from Proto-Germanic "hasô." The concept of veneration, or worship, is rooted in Proto-Indo-European "weyd," meaning "to see" or "to know," evolving into concepts of reverence and adoration.

The hare was sacred in iiuiny lands and especially anions the Egyptians and Jews. Though the latter consider it an unclean, hoofed animal, unfit to eat, yet it was held sacred by some tribes. The reason for this was that in certain species of hare the male suckled the little ones. It was thus considered to be androgynous or hermaphrodite, and so typified an attribtite of the D( miiirr/r, or creative TiOgos. The hare was a symbol of the moon, wherein the face of the prophet Moses is to be .Seen to this day. say the Jews. Moreover the moon is connected with the worship of Jeiiovah, a deity {)re-eminently the god of generation, perhaps also for the same reason that Eros, the god of sexual love, is represented fis oarryinfr a hare. The hare was also sacred to Osiris. Lenormand writes that tlie hare "has to be considered as the symbol of the Logos . . . the Logos ought to be hermaphrodite and we know that the hare is an androgynous type".

The notion of "hare-worship," as presented in Blavatsky's definition, invites a fascinating contemplation of how the natural world becomes a canvas for projecting profound metaphysical concepts. The hare, a creature often observed for its swiftness and prolificacy, was imbued with a sacredness that transcended mere biological observation. Its perceived androgyny, a point of particular emphasis, served as a potent symbol for the generative powers of the cosmos, a divine hermaphroditism that mirrored the creative Logos, the divine word or reason that brings order to existence.

This is not so dissimilar to how Mircea Eliade described the sacred as an eruption of the real into the ordinary, imbuing everyday phenomena with a cosmic significance. The Egyptians and Jews, despite differing dietary laws, both found within the hare a reflection of the divine. For the Egyptians, it was linked to Osiris, a god of fertility and resurrection, suggesting a connection to cyclical renewal. For the Jews, though deemed unclean, its association with the moon and Jehovah, a deity of generation, points to a deeper, perhaps more esoteric, understanding of its symbolic weight. The moon itself, a celestial body governed by cycles of growth and decay, becomes a mirror for these generative forces, and the hare, residing in its symbolic orbit, becomes a terrestrial echo.

The remark about Moses seeing the face of the prophet in the moon, a common folk belief, further entwines the lunar symbolism with spiritual insight. This confluence of the hare, the moon, and divine generation suggests a sophisticated understanding of the universe where seemingly disparate elements are woven into a coherent symbolic language. The hare, in its perceived biological peculiarity, became a conduit for understanding the fundamental nature of creation, a testament to humanity's enduring quest to find the divine immanent in the world. It reminds us that the esoteric is often found not in the abstract, but in the concrete details of the natural world, waiting to be recognized.