Philo's guide to decoding the Hebrew Bible

[Minimalist]

You can tell this fellow at Infidels that Dionysus/Bacchus was attested to by Herodotus in 500 BCE.

He'll just deny that it ever happened.

[seeker]

I'm probably thinking of a different guy then. The fellow I'm thinking of claimed to be a College professor but the only thing I think he really knew about was pedantry

[Ishtar]

... Anyway the root of khvarnah is khvar which means sun in old Persian, the word Darius uses to indicate that he has recieved this gift from Mithra is chica which is presumed to mean radience. Thus Darius assumes kingship by receiving the radiance of the sun from Mithra, the sun God. Does any of this sound familiar?

Yep!

Obviously with sun being the primal deity, no-one can rule without getting the authorisation of the sun.

But where the sun appears in the mythological stories of the scribes of the Middle East, I believe there's more to it than meets the eye.

Obviously there is the astrotheitical theme – we only have to look at the twelve labours of Hercules, the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve disciples to see this. But the sun, in my opinion, represents in these stories more than just the celestial body that travels through all 12 houses.

These people were very good at putting metaphors within the metaphors (as Jesus’s parables very often were). They didn’t just tell one story – the myths are like layer cakes with each layer having a different meaning. They would use words that often had several different meanings so that they could tell three or four teaching stories at the same time.

These stories acted as mnemonics, but also provided a way to hide teachings to be revealed to the initiate at the right time. In this way, the myths are like compact time capsules – or maybe seeds would be a better analogy. A seed germinates and sprouts and gradually unfolds itself over time into a plant or flower, or it can grow into something as huge as an oak tree. That’s what myths are - as opposed to mere fiction, which is just light entertainment, aptly named because, unlike myth, it is light and fleeting in its impact over time.

So the sun, while pivotal to the astrotheitical allegory, could also be pointing to the final fire/light initiation of which the only remaining evidence in the Bible is John the Baptist saying:

“I baptise you with water for repentance, but after me will come One who is more powerful than I, Whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

However, luckily we don’t just have to rely on Biblical texts to learn more about this second initiation. We can look at the Greek Mysteries, where both of these initiations were also practised, for instance ... and also to Egypt and India.... and in these we can see the relevance of the sun.

More later ....

[Ishtar]

You can tell this fellow at Infidels that Dionysus/Bacchus was attested to by Herodotus in 500 BCE.

He'll just deny that it ever happened.

Here's an answer for your friend, Min. Just show him this map.

Dying and resurrecting godmen around the Mediterranean



First of all, it's interesting to note that the country which we are expected to believe hosted the real life dying and resurrecting godman is literally surrounded by countries who also had had this same type of godman going back centuries before, but had understood him as myth.

But secondly, the coloured countries are those that fell under the Holy Roman Empire of Constantine. Take a look at Akkad/Sumer - this is the only country outside Constantine's reach, which is probably why we do have textual evidence from there in the form of clay tablets about the life-death-rebirth deity Tammuz/Dumuzi.

But there is next to no textual evidence for the other countries - only fragments - because the Blessed Holy Roman foot soldiers would have seen to that. We know they did so in Eleusia in Greece (under the edict of one of Constantine's successors) where the Mystery initiations had been held since 1700 BC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries

The Roman emperor Theodosius I closed the sanctuaries by decree in 392 AD as part of his effort to suppress Hellenist resistance to the imposition of Christianity as a state religion. The last remnants of the Mysteries were wiped out in 396 AD, when Alaric, King of the Goths, invaded accompanied by Christians "in their dark garments", bringing Arian Christianity and desecrating the old sacred sites.[16] The closing of the Eleusinian Mysteries in the 4th century is reported by Eunapios, a historian and biographer of the Greek philosophers. Eunapios had been initiated by the last legitimate Hierophant, who had been commissioned by the emperor Julian to restore the Mysteries, which had by then fallen into decay.

So for our evidence, we are reduced to writings about writings that are often in themselves in a very bad way.

[seeker]

I think we agree on that for the most part the NT (and the OT) are written as mystical literature, with layers of meaning embedded in various stories. That is why it is so hard to pin down the origins of these tales, especially for those people who believe them.

I made up the Darius story (its historical, just slanted) in the same way, as allegory to the savior concept but also as allusion to Zoroastrianism and a plausible history. It's not hard to craft such stories, that's the real point, a lot of it depends on the reader's willingness to read meaning into them.

[seeker]

Min, just make it easy on yourself. Point out that Gnosticism's root is Zoroasatrianism and let him try to deny that Zoroastrianism didn't permeate the Achmenead Empire

[Minimalist]

So for our evidence, we are reduced to writings about writings that are often in themselves in a very bad way.

Part of the problem with the club mentality (and religion is the worst of all possible Clubs!) is that they see no contradiction in demanding exactly what kind of evidence is acceptable for new ideas while their own positions are built on foundations of sand. He's not stupid. Just blind.

[Ishtar]

As mentioned in my previous post, the Eleusinian Mysteries were shut down by Theodosius, a post-Constantine emperor of Rome, because he didn’t want these rites infecting Christianity.

I would suggest that it had already infected Christianity to the point of inventing it – and that it was more likely that Theodosius didn’t want anyone finding that out and starting to ask him awkward questions about a second initiation that purported to give a real face-to-face experience of God.

He was probably already annoyed enough that that one line had been left in Matthew where J the B mentions it ... but it was too late now because it had gone to press.

So his only remedy was to try to cover it up by ordering the destruction of the sacred Mystery groves of Eleusis, as he had done the year before with the Library of Alexandria.

So what were the Eleusinian Mysteries?

The Eleusinian Mystery schools began around 1700 BC as a way of initiating a small, select group of initiates into deeper spiritual, mystic practices by which they could have a direct experience of God/gods.

In other words, this is where they moved from having faith in God/gods to having a practical experience of said same.

Personally, I think it was only a couple of steps removed from shamanism, when people could actually commune with the gods/spirits as equals, and not have to fall flat on their faces in the dirt to worship them.

As time went on, the popularity of these Mysteries grew and grew until they were initiating huge numbers of people into, at least, the Lesser Mysteries – the first (water or baptism) initiation which was held every year on the Spring Equinox.

Some of these, but probably only a few in comparison, were then invited to go on to the Greater Mysteries – the second (fire/light) initiation, which was held yearly on the Autumn Equinox. The proceedings lasted for nine days and culminated in a climatical experience of spiritual ecstasy, possibly (although we don’t know for sure) somewhat induced by a barley drink that may or may not have been fermented.

Now, in my experience in these debates, we usually have to go off on a tangent about now, as we try to reconcile two genetically irreconcilable points of view. Either you see these ritual ceremonies involving psychotropic aids (like soma or peyote) as a means to help open the doors of perception to other realities. Or you see them as just a pathetic excuse used by all sorts of socially undesirable types to get completely off their faces and imagine all sorts of strange things.

I would just like to point out the Beatles used the term Magical Mystery Tour, so maybe they knew something we didn't.

However, I would prefer not to get into that whole debate here as it will detract from the main issue - which is whether the Mystery religions are at the root of Christianity.

So I would like to start examining now the common features of what we know about these second, fire initiations, which is piss-poor thin, admittedly. We are constrained not only because the Holy Roman Empire destroyed whatever it could get its grubby little hands on about it. But also because the initiates themselves were on pain of death to not reveal a thing.

However, we do have some snippets that made it through all that, which I will post next.

[Ishtar]

One way great writers, poets and artists have used to convey the teachings of Mysteries is by coding it into their work – Leonardo da Vinci being a case in point, Shakespeare/Francis Bacon being another. Mozart would hide cryptic allusions to Freemasonry in his works, notably The Magic Flute ... and the list goes on and on...

So in this tradition, a second century Roman writer called Lucius Apuleius wrote a novel called the The Metamorphosis (or The Golden Ass) where he has his hero undergo one of these initiations.

He is thought to have derived the story from a Greek, Lucius of Patrae. The Greek text has been lost but, according to Wiki, there is a similar tale of unknown authorship that is possibly an abridgement or epitome of Lucius of Patrae's text, wrongly attributed in ancient times to Lucian of Samosata, a contemporary of Apuleius.

Anyway,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass
`

...Lucius calls for divine aid, and is answered by the goddess Isis. Eager to be initiated into the mystery cult of Isis, Lucius abstains from forbidden foods, bathes and purifies himself [first water initiation - Ish]. Then the secrets of the cult's books are explained to him and further secrets revealed, before going through the process of initiation which involves a trial by the elements in a journey to the underworld.

Here is his description of the climax of the initiation:

“I approached to the confines of death [the Underworld], and having trod on the threshold of Prosperpine [Persephone], I returned from it, being carried through all the elements. At midnight, I saw the sun shining with a splendid light; and I manifestly drew near to the gods beneath and to the gods above, and proximately adored them.”

So just hold that thought about the sun shining with a splendid light at midnight and now, I’m sorry, but I need to jump to India. That’s because these words of Lucius are not a million miles from Arjuna’s after he is granted a vision of the ‘true form’ of his god, Krishna, on the battlefield in the Bhagavad Gita, and I’m pretty sure that this is also an allegorical description of the second fire initiation:

If the light of a thousand suns
should suddenly burst forth in the sky
it would be like the light
of that exalted one.
The whole world there united,
And divided many-fold,
the son of Pandu then
beheld in the God of Gods' body
A mass of radiance, glowing on all sides,
I see Thee, hard to look at, on every side
With the glory of flaming fire and sun, immeasurable.
Without beginning, middle or end, of infinite power,
of infinite arms, whose eyes are the moon and sun,
I see thee, whose face is flaming fire,
Burning this whole universe with Thy radiance.

[seeker]

I agree with you that the discussion of whether psychedelic drugs open mystical\spiritual channels is probably a distraction from the main point. The same could be said of the discussion over whether there even is a spiritual world. For now let us agree to disagree on this (or discuss it in a more appropriate forum) and stay with the main topic

[Ishtar]

Yes, it's more about what they thought was true than what we think is true!

Do you have any examples from Zoroastrianism about a light initiation?

[seeker]

Yes, it's more about what they thought was true than what we think is true!

Do you have any examples from Zoroastrianism about a light initiation?

The honest answer is that Zoroastrianism is very hard to pin down in the Greek period. Darius I is the Persian King who did the most to promote Mithra, as we can tell from inscriptions and it was under Darius that fire temples were built throughout the Achaemenid Empire (actually some credit this to Darius II). Fire was considered a symbol of Mithra, the guardian if arta (truth) and as such fire were usually kept burning at his temples. They thought of fire as burning out evil, lighting the fire at the temple was supposed to literally clease the temple by consuming anything evil that was in the temple.

Being the Sun God Mithra was considered 'the light of the world' and was often referred to that way. Zoroastrian religious beliefs included ritual use of water for purification in the form of baptism. They also, early on, used fire as a test of truth. They would create two parallel trails of fire that the accused would have to walk between, if he lived he was telling the truth, of not the presumably he was lying. Other stories tell of how they would pour molten metal on people's chests or make them drink burning sulfur as tests of truth. It was a real good idea not to lie in those days.

For a Zoroastrian the phrase 'baptism of fire' would have great meaning. Mithra was the judge of a person's sins and the determiner of who got into Persian heaven or hell. A baptism of fire would literally be a cleansing of sin, it would be burned out

[Ishtar]

I think you were closer to it with the Magi. Zoroaster had problems with the Magi imo because they were closer to the spiritual power and thus a threat to him.

I know you don't believe in this sort of thing, but humour me for a minute.

It's my view that what defines the path from shamanism to religion is loss of power. The root of the word magi, mage, means power and it's where the word 'magic' comes from. According to shamans, most illness or any imbalance in the world or in the hearts or minds of anyone is caused by power loss. The shaman (or the magi, in this case) gives the person their power back. But religion (in the form of Zoroaster, in the case) aims to make you give you power away to some almighty godhead that you are not fit to even wipe the boots of. And that's just one example of why shamanism is the opposite of religion.

The term 'shaman' by the way is just the Siberian name for this type of person. They were known by many different names in different countries. I believe the magi were the shamans in Persia.

I once read, and I can't remember where, that Zoroaster had to do a deal with the Magi to get his religion accepted. The Magi said to Z that, as part of the deal, he had to accept Mithra - which so far, Z had no room for in his new pantheon. So Zoroaster had to put Mithra in, against his will really. But that's why in the early days of Zoroastriansim, Mithra seems to hang in such an indeterminate position between heaven and earth, because he was stuck in as an afterthought.

In my view, the real keeper of the flame of the second initiation would have been the original devotess of Vedic sun god, Mithra - the Magi, the holders of the power.

And how that feeds into Christian Gnosticism is through Simon Magus. He was considered so beyond the pale by the Christian Literalists that they named a sin after him!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Magus

[seeker]

Funny you bring that up, Ish. I was just reading an article by E. E. Herzfeld and H. S. Nyberg, called Zoroaster, Politician or Witch-doctor?, Oxford, 1951. in which he suggests that Zoroaster pretty much had to, because of the politics of the Achaemenid Empire, turn his religion over to the priests of the newly conquered Medes, they were the magi. The magi, at that time (he supposes this to be around 611BCE were somewhat more Vedic and more polytheistic.

His theory is that early on there was a dichotomy between the monotheistic Zoroaster and polytheistic magi that resulted in a more strict monotheistic view, which Darius later changed by promoting Mithra (and of course later would come the Zurvan heresy)

[Minimalist]

It's my view that what defines the path from shamanism to religion is loss of power.

Perhaps they just discovered a different type of power, Ish?