A Hard Day’s Night
Long ago Angelus Silesius, a Christian mystic, admonished Christendom: Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born, but not within thyself, thy soul will be forlorn, The cross on Golgotha thou lookest to in vain, unless within thyself be set up again.
For the first three hundred and fifty years of the Piscean Age Christians celebrated the birth of the Christ on March 25! This custom was changed by encyclical of Pope Julian II, who in the year 345 A.D. ordained December 25. The decree stated that the Christians should follow the custom of the devotees of Mithras and Bacchus, who celebrated the rebirth of the solar god at the winter solstice. Prayers were addressed to “Our Lord the Sun,” confirming that “early” Christians knew of Pagan rituals. The shift of the date of the celebration of the Lord’s birth from March 25 to December 25 clearly shows that the early Christians confused the symbolism of the “quickening” at the winter solstice with the true birth at the vernal equinox – the two equinoxes and the two solstices– can be regarded as a “birth.”
For these first four centuries no one in the Church dared to depict a humiliated Jesus on the cross. The cross itself was the symbol of Christ and adored as a living thing. Christian imagery also placed the lamb on the cross symbolizing the end of the Age of Aries. The Lamb of God had been worshiped previously for 2160 years.
Christian churches have been found before the 4th century with a human figure nailed to the cross but the figure was not Jesus but the Greek God Orpheus of the Orphic religion on which much of early Christianity was based. The Roman God, Mithras was also crucified and rose again on the 25th of March. The myth of the dying crucified God is the foundation in all ancient religions.
Pagans designated the winter solstice as the date of the rebirth of the solar god in the year, and it is evident that by 345 A.D. the consensus of tradition forced Christians to conform to the Pagan calendar of festivals. Neither the spring nor the winter date has the remotest reference to the actual date of Jesus’ human birth. Can Christians face the fact that Christ’s birth and resurrection are astrological and not historical events? The only grounds for debate are over seasonal symbolism.
Easter does not mean a physical resurrection. We find the Book of Ecclesiastes saying: “The body returns to dust, but the soul to God who gave it.” Similarly St. Paul declares (1 Cor. I5:35) that “some man will say, How are the dead raised up; and with what body do they come?” And the apostle then gives the answer to this crucial question, which, had his Church heeded it, would have spared it the agonizing confusion that has plagued it for centuries. “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” And he reminds us that we have a spiritual body. Had Christians continued the science of the soul, of which the ancient Sages were adepts, Church theology would have preserved knowledge of the inner spiritual essence. ”
The Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. decided that salvation can only be achieved by the suffering Jesus on the Cross. A bloodbath between religions would have been avoided if the foremost Christian Gnostics, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and others had been followed. These early Christian mystics knew that the Christos was formless and immortal as it is eternal and within everyone. This indicates that before the Council of Nicea Christian mystics knew that the Christos pervades the universe.
It didn’t occur to early Christian Presbyters that what the Egyptians packed into one night as dramatic ritual becomes debatable when presented as historical fact. The Bible tells us that Jesus is nailed to the cross in company with two thieves who witness his final agony. Here we have the record of facts claimed as historical truth, found only in one book, with four variations by writers who were not there to witness the drama. And, on investigation the whole event as virtual truth crumbles under the pressure of comparative myth and religion.
If we take Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of “The Last Supper” as a close reality it would appear that it would have lasted for several hours and the walk to and from the Mount of Olives probabably ended at midnight. Then the scene changes to the Garden of Gethsemane including Jesus’ long agony and sweat; the incident of the disciples falling asleep; the arrest and Jesus’ temporary victory over his captors. “This is your hour,” Jesus says to his captors and then there are three separate trials in one night. From his conviction we go to the mockery of the soldiers who put a crown of thorns on his head and march him to Golgotha with the cross on his bleeding shoulder.
If Easter is not found in the Bible, then where did it come from? Easter is not unique to Christianity for 2,000 years before Christ Babylonians honored the resurrection of their god, Tammuz, who was brought back from the underworld by his mother/wife, Ishtar, pronounced “Easter.” Ishtar was identified with the planet Venus, which, rises before the Sun. Phrygians honored Attis and Cybele, and Phoenicians worshiped Adonis and Astarte as well as Israelites honor the Canaanite Baal and Ashtoreth. The modern Easter celebration has come to us through the Anglo-Saxon fertility rites of the goddess Eostre or Ostara when all life was being renewed. Lent also came from paganism, not from the Bible! There is neither biblical nor historical record of Christ, the apostles or the early Church participating in the Lent season.
There are numerous crucified saviors who represent the crucified Cosmic Christ whose god spirit is symbolically spread amongst humanity. The Karast Mummy was the Prototype of the Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ. Osiris is the Karast, the anointed Son of the Father, of the Egyptian Mystery Schools which were adopted by Christian Gnostics and the Roman Catholic Church. The Orphic religion is based on the life of Orpheus, the Greek god of love, who suffered a similar death to Osiris who was cut into fourteen pieces.
The Hindu god, Krishna was pierced by arrows and died in the river Ganges. His murderer then nailed him to a cross shaped tree so that, like Prometheus, he would be prey to vultures. Prometheus’ name means forethought and originates in the Sanskrit word Pramantha, the Swastika. Prometheus’ liver being eaten every day and regenerating itself is the Greek version of the Dying and Resurrecting God. The spiritual meaning of the cross and the swastika is buried under two thousand years of religious intolerance. These symbols were originally sacred to all religions as they symbolize the polar axis and its movements through the solar system.
The first chapter of the Egyptian “Book of the Dead” entitled “The Coming Forth by Day” refers to a state of unconsciousness that is transformed by rigorous self-examination and to realize that you are already enlightened. The crucifixion symbolizes the victory of the higher self over the false ego by realizing its true Self at One with the universe. The human body of Christ on the cross symbolized the death and surrender of the ego and the resurrection of the True Self, the Christos. These two concepts are at the core of ancient wisdom going back to the Vedas and the Tarot.
The last night of Jesus is based on the last night of Horus in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The Cross of the Crucifixion has been a burden on our backs for over two thousand years. The early Church Fathers threw caution to the wind when they changed spiritual allegory into historical fact The Church disassociated itself from earlier religions even though St. Paul proclaims that the whole Gospel story is an allegory. The turmoil caused by the cover-up by the Passion Week is even more serious than the rampant pedophilia among the Catholic priesthood today.
Alfred Boyd Kuhn’s Ancient Egypt, the Light of the World makes the connection between Karast and Christ of Christian Gnostics. The word Messiah is traced to the Egyptian mes, to anoint or to be born. Messeh, crocodile oil, was the Egyptian word for “the anointed” initiate in the Mystery rites performed before a burial. The word mummy derives from the Egyptian mum, to “initiate into the mysteries.” When, Osiris is called the Karast-mummy it is the mystery of Christ.
Said Jesus of Mary: “In that she poured this ointment upon my body, she did it to prepare me for my burial” (Matt. 26:12). She was symbolically enacting the Egyptian Mystery rite of the chrism. And the Messiah was then crucified in the flesh. On this point Gerald Massey speaks clearly: “In preparation of Osiris for his burial, the ointment compounded and applied by Neith. It was these that were to preserve the mummy from decay and dissolution.” [Ancient Egypt, the Light of the World, p. 883]
The origins of the symbolical slaying of a god or a zodiacal age are explained in David Ulansey’s book, “The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries.” Mithras was a solar deity whose worshippers called him redeemer; his religion died out in the Roman Empire after the Nicean Council. The phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes is the key to unlocking the secret of the astronomical symbolism of the Mithraic Tauroctony or bull slaying. His killing of the bull symbolizes His supreme power was demonstrated by shifting the cosmic sphere from Taurus the Bull to Aries, the Ram.
Obviously the Church wanted Jesus Christ to be as powerful as Mithras so that He could compete with the plethora of ancient Middle Eastern Gods of the time. The Old Testament has many references to the sacrifice of the Lamb and Ram. The Ram is the Astrological symbol for the sign of Aries. Jesus Christ often used the symbolic reference to the Lamb in his teachings and Parables. In ancient Greece it was associated with the Golden Fleece. The Age of Aries was also the time of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten; who tried to replace polytheism with monotheism. Moses is thought to have ushered in the Age of Aries (Ram or Lamb), which is why Moses condemns his own people for worshipping a “golden calf” (Bull) after coming down from Mount Sinai. It was the end of the Age of Taurus in 2860 B.C. This is confirmed with the accuracy of the ancient Mayan calendar.
Jesus is supposedly born on the cusp of Aries and Pisces and as Christians were aware of the pagan symbolism they correctly placed the Lamb, symbolizing the Age of Aries, on the Cross at the end of the Age of Aries and it was much later that an idealized form of Jesus Christ is placed on the Cross. The birth of Jesus was known by the “three wise men,” – who are the three stars of Orion – because, in reality, they were following the Rising Sign of the Fish, (Pisces) and so began this Age of Pisces.
As we approach the end of the Piscean Age, there is much talk of the “Second Coming.” For years Christian doctrine stated that Jesus himself would come as he had before. But when we look at the teachings on ‘Love’ contained in the Nag Hammadi scrolls discovered in December, 1945, we see that the ‘Second Coming’ of Christ is really the inner Christos awakening in us. The scrolls, which prophesied the crucifixion of the Old Testament God, Jehovah, the enemy of the true spiritual God, ‘Love’ teach us that this spiritual awakening is the true revelation.
On the winter solstice at 11.11 am on December 21st, 2012 the sun will be located at the exact center of the cross that is formed when the Ecliptic and the Galactic Centre meet where a massive black hole called Sagr A sits in the center of the Milky Way. This is the birth canal of the new Age of Aquarius whose water will wash away the religious dogma of the Piscean Age. This conjunction between the sun and the black hole (the black sun) is the moment when the old Platonic (25,920 – year) zodiacal cycle ends and a new Platonic Year begins. The ‘Grail Cup’ of the Aquarian Man holds divine spiritual wisdom (Grace) that integrates the Soul, Self- Consciousness and the Spirit of Love. The Age of Pisces (Two Fishes) ends with the celestial crucifixion of the Old Sun God in the Galactic Equator and the dark rift of the Milky Way. This moment symbolizes the birth of a New Sun God, Aquarius, whose wisdom washes away the ego driven Piscean Age.
The Cross is the best-known religious symbol of Christianity. It is generally seen as a representation of the crucifixion of the Christ, but the Cross represents the Great Celestial Conjunction of the fixed Galactic Cross and Zodiac Cross (equinox solstice axis). It is encoded in Tarot cards X (Wheel of Fortune) and XX (Judgment). When this cross is projected onto the zodiac where the Galactic Cross (four pointed cross) is placed on top of the Earth Cross (four pointed cross), an eight pointed cross is created.
This esoteric knowledge can be traced back to the Rosicrucians, (creators of the Raider Waite Tarot deck) whose Rose Cross is an eight pointed cross (symbol of the Great Celestial Conjunction). However it is said that the real origins of this esoteric knowledge can be traced back to the Knights Templar who encoded it in their cathedrals and the Tarot. The cross is a pagan symbol that was worshiped in Egypt thousands of years before Jesus was born. The Roman Catholic Church adopted the cross symbol at least 600 years after Jesus was crucified.
There is also another layer to the ‘Fish’ symbolism. The earliest gods and goddesses came from the sea in all mythology. Oceanus was the Titan god of the sea. In Sumerian mythology, Capricorn, the fish goat is associated with Ea/Enki, Lord of the watery deep. Enki, created a man of clay to replace the Igigi gods as laborers in his underwater ‘Garden of the Gods.’ His brother Enlil (God of the Wind) who is later called Jehovah wanted to destroy the human race but Enki told Utnapishtim (Noah in the Bible) to build the ark.
Oannes, the earliest Babylonian god was, according to Apollodorus, a hybrid man and fish. Representations of this fish-god have been found among the sculptures of Nineveh. En-ki, and Oannes, the Chaldean Dag also have a connection with the Hindu Matsya (Fish-Avatar) of Vishnu, who preserved the Vedas and the seeds of life from age to age. Vishnu told Vaivasvata to build an ark. With an impressive lineage such as this why wouldn’t Jesus be called son of “dag” which means “fish?’
Of course we can’t have the birth of the Messiah without the Divine Mother figure. Yet, her existence in history and pre-history has been fraught with misunderstanding, misinformation and mystery. The role of the Sacred Woman in the Christian tradition has caused the most consternation to the Church. Going back as far as the rule of Constantine, the shrines and temples of Isis (the Egyptian goddess) were destroyed because by 58 B.C.E. the Cult of Isis had altars on the Capitoline and fifty-three chapels in Rome alone and almost every Greek city and village had its Isis-temple. Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, openly embraced Isis and transformed her into Mary, the mother of Jesus.
When examined closely the highly revered ‘Black Virgins’ in the Notre Dame Cathedrals proved to be statues of Isis! When the earliest teachings of the church first emerged, it was devoid of a mother-goddess. However, since the ancient world was permeated with the cults of Isis, Demeter, and Cybele, it was impossible for Christianity to conquer the hearts and minds of the Roman Empire without filling the void with a Divine Mother Goddess.
So Isis was transformed and her image became that of The Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, and Perfect Mother. Isis was the revered Madonna of the pre-Christian world. For centuries, Catholics mistook these images for Mary and Jesus. Sometimes, Osiris was depicted with his wife and child; and the three became the prototype of the Holy Family. The depiction of Isis suckling the child Horus is reminiscent of the imagery of Mary and Jesus, but preceded Christianity by thousands of years.
Another, more subliminal problem for the Church is the Tarot number XIX, the Sun. As we have seen above, Jesus was to be called the Sun, but not the local Sun in our solar system, which is just one of approximately 200 billion suns (stars), which constitute the Milky Way. The Sun in this Tarot refers to the hyper-cosmic (Spiritual) Sun at the Galactic Center from which all stars in all galaxies are born. This is the spiritual Sun which transmits the highest vibration that we are capable of absorbing. No religion owns the ‘Spiritual Sun,’ but The Church wanted us to believe that Jesus, like Mithras, was the Roman Deus Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun God who personified the spiritual force responsible for the newly discovered cosmic phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes. The date of December 25th which is considered the birth date of Jesus was in fact the date of the culmination of the ancient Roman festival of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, “the birthday of the unconquered sun” – a winter solstice celebration.
The true message of Jesus, the Christ, though was not a message of being an unconquered sun. His message was that each human could become, as He was – a Christed being, fully aware of the soul’s true essence. Jesus had to come in human form to embody the Christ Spirit from the Central Sun of Suns. If he were to do otherwise how could we aspire to, as he exhorted, become even “greater than He?” Yet we have not listened and continue to see life through a “dark glass” as there is still too much darkness in our world. But, as we immerse ourselves in self-examination and integrate the ‘Laws of the Universe’ encoded in the Tarot we begin to see the path to our own enlightenment, our own Christhood as Jesus, the Christ wished for all of us.
The monogram of Christ, IHS and the three crosses of Golgotha placed inside the serpentine ring, the Oroboros, has been presented as his eternal dominion. Above the head of Jesus are the letters I. N. R. J. In Nobis Regent Jesus, within ourselves reigns Jesus. Dr. Franz Hartmann, the German Theosophist, sums up the mystic symbolism of the crucifixion: The cross represents our human body with outstretched arms, the crown of thorns represents the suffering of the soul overpowered by the false realities of the ego, and the humble Jesus riding on the back of the donkey (ego) represents the victory of spirit over the ego. The naked body nailed to the cross represents the surrender of the ego to the ‘Divine Will’. The Self is an instrument of the ‘Divine Will.’
True religion taught that God is love not wrath. God waits patiently while we destroy the layers of illusion that cloud our knowledge of the True Self. God does not judge our behavior and send us to hell. Hell exists in a mind that is unconscious of its divinity. For the ancient Egyptians the human mind was inner arena of consciousness where the lessons of the soul were learnt. The essential truth of the resurrection is of the One life force, the One soul, the One Sustaining Power constantly renewing itself in the human mind.
Easter should be a celebration of the crucifixion of the collective ego that identifies with hate, revenge, jealousy, greed and aggression. Our ego driven minds are battlefields of reaction to each other’s ideals. Both sides, whether right or wrong are ready to die for their beliefs even though they are oblivious to the Truth as conflict disappears when Oneness is understood. If there is a sin at all to atone for it is because we are not aware of our At One Ment with God.
Concepts and ideas change but the eternal Truth of our True Selves doesn’t as everyone has the eternal Christos within them. Those of us who understand that reality are the spiritual warriors willing to do the rigorous self- examination that will cause the demise of the ego. They will observe this ego, which has caused so much grief; sink into an illuminated existence which accepts everything as it is with joy, love, and peace.
Our lives are meaningless if our perspective is reduced to one life that never knew about its eternal existence. We’ve been fed a false reality. Returning here again and again the soul brings its own book of records for the next lessons it needs to learn. If we want victory over our psychological shortcomings we have to do the necessary self- examination and change the thoughts and beliefs that have turned our lives into a living hell. Heaven is a concept of the limited human mind. Use this Easter as the moment to clean up your act before it’s too late. Happy Easter!