Monday, April 19, 2010

The Pagan Roots of Christianity...


If you're interested, here's a brilliant blogger synopsis (with references) describing the pagan roots of Christian rituals http://morpheus9.blogspot.com/.

See the section on the Eucharist for the origin of the 'body and blood of Christ.' It's essentially a ritual taken straight from Dionysus worship, which was practiced by the entire Greco-Roman world at the time Christianity began. Dionysus is a younger form of the older Tammuz harvest-and-resurrection god worshipped by the Babylonians. While Jesus may or may not have been eating a final Jewish passover meal with his "12 disciples" (who are incidentially, representative of the 12 signs of the Zodiac, with Jesus as the Sun (son)), the ritual association of bread and wine with Jesus is lifted straight from the Dionysus cult, in which practitioners ritually tore apart Dionysos, who was also called Zagreus, the Lamb, the Kid, and the Christos (Anointed) son of God (Zeus) and ate of his body (bread) and drank his blood (fruit of the vine) as well as the meat & blood of animals; he who sacrificed himself to save the world..."the sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world"... This was done in a re-enactment of Dionysos' capture, tearing apart and consumption by the Titans, whom Zeus punished by burning. It was from their ashes that mankind was made, and Dionysos' death redeemed mankind for he died so that humans could be made better than the Titans from whose ashes they were produced. The only thing recovered from Dionysos after he was torn apart and eaten, was his heart. This still-beating heart was implanted in a virgin woman, Semele, who became pregnant and gave birth to a new Divine Child, Dionysus resurrected. Semele, like Mary, thus became the immaculate Mother of God. Dionysos' recovered immortal heart has since become the revered 'Sacred Heart' of Jesus seen in so many images like this one : http://artfiles.art.com/5/p/LRG/7/768/S5PZ000Z/sacred-heart-of-jesus.jpg.

Isaac too was meant to be a sacrificial lamb, but God's intervention in Abraham's attempt to offer Isaac up as another re-enactment of the death of the harvest-god illustrates the first Hebrew rejection of these pagan rites of sacrifice. In Abraham's time, thousands of children of the Levant were offered up in the moloch to Jehovah Melkarth (Baal) and his wife-mother-sister, Asherat-Yam (Astarte, Ishtar), Lady of the Sea, in the valley of Gehenna, where the sacrificial fires were never slaked and the screams of children dying in the flames never ended...A vision of hell on earth if ever there was one. No wonder Gehenna (now Hinnom, near Jerusalem) and eternal fire became by-words for hell itself. Similar rites were practiced elsewhere by the Pelasgians (Sea-peoples); including in Ireland, where the folklore recalls the chief god of Ireland, the idol Crom Cruach (the "Bloody One of the Mound") surrounded by 12 stones (the zodiac again!) that was worshipped by the Gael on Magh Slécht, the "Plain of Adoration," in what is now Killycluggin, Co. Cavan. According to the Dinnsenchas ('The Lore of Places'), the Irish offered up one-third of their offspring to Crom in exchange for wheat and milk. Here's a translation from the original old Irish:

"To him without glory, they would kill their wretched offspring,
With much wailing and peril,
To pour their blood around Crom Cruach.
Milk and Corn they would ask from him speedily,
In return for one-third of their healthy children:
So great was the horror and scare of him."

This horrible idol was said to have been thrown down and broken by Patrick (simply meaning Christianity ended the worship of Crom). Even down to the last century, people still shuddered as they passed the plain and the area is said to be cursed. The idol has been recovered from the bog, the pieces put back together and it stands again in County Cavan museum, while a replica stands on the mound. The gold that once covered it had long ago been stripped away.

The Catholic worship of Mary as Mother of God may also be lifted straight from the Egyptian cult of Isis, which had its origin in the barley goddess cults of Crete. Isis, the wife and sister of the sacrificed Osiris (who was also a harvest god ritually torn apart and consumed like Tammuz and Dionysus) is mother of the Divine Child Horus, who is none other than the resurrected Osiris. It is from this mystery cult of Isis that the entire Easter story of Jesus' death and resurrection is taken. Osiris was betrayed and slain by his dark twin brother, Set, in a yearly re-enactment of the succession of winter over summer. Horus (the sun, Osiris resurrected) in turn, slays Set in summer's victory over dark winter.. The Greeks were well-learned in the Isis cult, and Herodotus describes it in his Histories.

Essentially nothing in Christianity is new, except for its claim that it is the one and only faith and that there is but one god in three forms: father, son and holy spirit. The father is Osiris, the son is Horus/Jesus, the Spirit, which is female (psyche in Greek), is Isis, but she has since been written out of the story. Freemasons however, still acknowledge her and call themselves 'Sons of the Widow' in her honour. But this Trinity, though older than Christianity, is still fairly young. The first Aryan trinity was the masculine Mithra, Indra and Varuna, still worshipped in India as Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu (the Trimurti), and these in turn come from the still older Pelasgian goddess-worshipping traditions, in which the great earth goddess was worshipped in three forms: Maiden (virgin springtime), Mother (of the fruitful earth) and death-Crone or Hag (of the winter harvest; with a veiled face, bearing a bloody scythe, surviving as the modern image of black-robed Death -see attached image above); she was also reflected in the cycles of the moon: New Moon (maiden), Full Moon (mother) and Waning Moon (hag); and in the life of a woman (maid, mother, and grandmother). This made her ruler of three dimensions too: Sky (as goddess of the moon), Earth (as goddess of life and the seasons) and Underworld (as goddess of death and harvest). During the Olympian period, these dimensions were given over to her Aryan sons Mitra, Varuna and Indra, who became to the Greeks, Zeus (sky), Poseidon (earth and sea) and Hades (underworld). There were 12 Olympians, just as there were 12 Titans before them- all representing the Zodiac, with the Sun (Cronos, Zeus, later Apollo and Dionysus Christos) at its head and an Earth-mother, Gaia, or Rhea upon which he was initially dependent, but later divorced himself from, to become the One and Only, the head Deity of monotheist traditions. Yet, in all traditions, the Mother still walks in the background- she is the Spirit that 'animates all things' and 'moves over the waters', she is the Muse, Wisdom, Love, Hope, Faith and Charity, the Holy Spirit, the Dove, the Hare, the Rock, the Vine, the Tree, the Barley, Mother Nature, the sacred Ever-Milking Cow, the Great Sow, the Mother of God, she is also seen in the image of all the women of monotheist traditions, including Esther, Rachael, Hagar, Sarai, Fatima Zara, Miriam, the Virgin Mary, the Magdalene, Elizabeth (mother of John), St Anne (mother of Mary) and in the Christian tradition, she is the body of Holy Mother Church, the "Bride of Christ". She is also the Sephirot and Shechinah of the Jewish Cabbalist tradition. In Islam, God appears to be dual- both male and female, for as Mohammed himself said in one of the hadiths: "Paradise at the feet of the Mother." God is also portrayed in feminine form as Al-Rahmin (the Womb), and Mercy; while Fatima plays a huge role in Shia tradition, not unlike that of Mary in the Catholic tradition. In Buddhism, she is the female bodhisattva, Tara (Ārya Tārā) and she is called "the Mother of the Buddhas." Her association with different colours (Green Tara, Red Tara, White Tara etc) give her representation of different aspects of life, death and rebirth, but she is especially known for compassion. India has never lost sight of her, and she is still revered among Hindus as a myriad host of female deities, including Kali-ma, the mother goddess of life and death and Ganga-ma (the Ganges River), the lifeblood of India.

The three goddesses-in-One survive in Christianity as the Three Marys who stood at the base of Jesus' cross at Golgotha: Mary, his mother, Mary Magdalene (his lover), and Mary of Cleopas (his sister or aunt); as well as a host of saints who were formerly goddesses with three forms, like the Irish Saint Brigit, who is claimed to have 2 sisters, also called Brigit.
Ireland itself is the earth aspect of a goddess triad, for the 'Ire' in Ire-land comes from Éire, one of three 'sisters' (goddesses) who ruled this island at the coming of the Irish: Éire, Banbha and Fodhla. The eytmology of Éire is the same as that for Iran and Aryan- from the Indo-European root word 'ara', meaning 'noble.'

The triple goddess usually played the part of mother, sister and lover to a sacrificial solar harvest god and his twin, her dark Son (generally portrayed as a cosmic serpent twined around the world). Therefore in Genesis iconography, Eve is the high, fruitful Mother-of-All, Adam (man) is her brother and lover, Cain and Abel are her twin sons representing Adam re-incarnated and his two polar sides which must forever fight each other for the favours of the impartial goddess. Cain, the dark son, represented by the serpent, Evening Star and night, slays Abel (Adam), represented by the sun and the Morning Star (Lucifer, Son of the Morning).. Genesis states of the man and serpent: "there will be enmity between her offspring- he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." Even Jesus, as Adam reincarnated, has been claimed to have had a twin brother, Yacov/James, one of the apostles (now considered a heresy). Jacob/James/Yacov means 'supplanter,' literally "one who strikes at the heel" and therefore he must be identified with the serpent who strikes at the heel, the dark son, and Adam/Osiris/Jesus's evil but neccessary twin... Leonardo da Vinci painted Jesus and his twin (not John, as claimed) in "The Madonna of the Rocks" http://www.cassiopaea.org/images/madonna%20of%20the%20rocks%20Louvre.jpg.

Saint Patrick may have thrown the 'serpents' out of Ireland (worship of dark gods like Crom Cruach) but he kept the Mother and her twins. She and her light-bringing Divine Child are still worshipped here as Mary and the infant Jesus. God the Father has no place in Irish Catholicism. The Dark Son has become the Devil, the goat-footed god still portrayed as the Orphic serpent, and given all his old names and titles, including Beelzebub, a deliberate corruption of Baal Zebul ('Lord Prince') to Baal Zebub ('Lord of the Flies'). He has also been given some of the titles that should rightly belong to his light-bringing twin, including Lucifer ('Son of the Morning') and Phosphorus ('Bringer of Light'). The poets always identify with the Light-Bearer, but when they want to practice sarcasm and satire (to be serpent-tongued), they identify with the dark son, now portrayed as the 'Evil One,' cast out of the Creation which he had a role in making by his twin and consigned forever to darkness and hellfire. The twins are still represented in the Zodiac and preserved as both the astrological and constellation signs of Gemini.

The December 25th birthday of Jesus and his association with the sun comes from the cult of Mithra, a Persian god worshipped by the Roman legions, including the Emperor Constantine who designed the Christian Church as it exists today.

The popes of Rome and the college of Cardinals are nothing more than a medieval extension of the old pagan Roman emperors and their Senate, which continued long after the downfall of the Empire; and for a time, they became even more powerful than the old emperors ever could dream to be, since they controlled men's souls as well as their bodies. Christianity may have its roots in Judaism, but it has come so far from its Hebraic roots as to be unrecognisable in any way as Jewish. That was, of course, the intention of the popes, who were ashamed of Jesus' Jewish origin.

It's funny how when one no longer attaches any religious or emotional meaning to ancient symbols, one becomes free to explore them impartially and with interest.