The Religion of Ancient Rome

[iamthatis]

Upon further reflection about this topic of Ancestor Worship, dark twins, and the human-cosmic connection, something is coming together. I am proceeding mostly on the basis of clues, suggestion, hints, and inference. Often clues are endogenous to the myths or historical accounts themselves - a certain word or phrase. 'Delian divers' comes to mind as a prominent example.

The worship of the dead around the globe on Halloween is, to my eye, most likely a remembrance of the last massive cometary bombardment that ended Atlantis.These events are burned into the collective unconscious. One can just imagine the scale of destruction, the grief, the confusion, and the pang of conscience that arrives with such events. If we consider that there is something like an ancestral memory or inherited trauma, these events cannot be underestimated in their effects, their inertia perhaps, their continued pulse within the human psyche.

Other modes of ancestor worship, like that of the pre-Roman Ancients, may be remnants of a these legonomistic rites. As the years pass, however, the original message of the human-cosmic connection is lost in the drift of time - or intentionally erased by structures of social power. One can witness what Halloween has now become.

True knowledge of cosmic catastrophes is a threat to the elite for two reasons - (1) on the basis of frequency resonance vibration, it gives reason to not pattern our lives on their evil dictates, because to do so is to succumb to hubris and as such send a signal to the Universe that calls Nemesis; (2) it also demonstrates the falsity of their claim to be as gods on earthly soil, whereas in fact they are petty tyrants, so obsessed with their own power that they are incompetent at their self-appointed job - to act as a safeguard for the people.

For the general population, what is left after the general drift of time and elite COINTELPRO has done its work? Ancestor worship in some form, but it is emptied of the crux of the matter - the Knowledge of cosmic catastrophes. We can evoke the skeleton of Stonehenge to get a clear analogue to this process. The bare bones are still there, attempting to communicate something from the deep past, but in general the world's people cannot grasp the truth of the matter.

In CatHoM, we meet the curious cases of Heraclitus and Socrates. Through the book's excellent historical detective work, we come to suspect that these men held secret or dangerous Knowledge - that of cyclical destruction, and its human causes. Both men are shining historical exemplars of Greek thought. And surrounding both men is this word in question - 'daimon'. Socrates is known to have had an 'inner oracle', which he named his daimon. In Fragment 119, Heraclitus writes 'a man's character is his daimon'.

If we are to assume that these men had knowledge of cyclical destruction, what to make of this? It could be that their understanding of Objective Reality was very broad and deep indeed. How did they arrive at this Knowledge? Cultural transmission through mystery schools? Or did it necessarily included a manner of speaking about the reception and transmission of information from higher sources? The 'daimon' may have been their own culturally specific means of expressing this.

We are reminded that connection with 'tutelary' spirits was the original goal of unadultered shamanism. From The Wave:

The central theme of shamanism is the ascent to the sky and the descent to the underworld. In the former, the practitioner experiences ecstasy; in the latter, he battles demons that threaten the well-being of humanity. There are studies that suggest evidence of the earliest practices are to be found in the cave paintings of Western Europe — Lascaux and others — with representations of the bird, the tutelary spirits, and the ecstatic experience (ca. 25,000 bce). Animal skulls and bones found in the sites of the European Paleolithic period (before ca. 50,000—30,000 bce) have been interpreted as evidence of shamanic practice.9

The ecstatic experience is the primary phenomenon of shamanism and it is this ecstasy that can be seen as the act of merging with the celestial beings. Merging results in forced oscillation, which changes frequency. Continued interaction with celestial beings is a form of Frequency Resonance Vibration. Such an individual is one who “walks between two worlds” almost constantly.

Heraclitus went mad, and Socrates was killed for sharing some kind of threatening information. What was the scope of their information? How could Anaxagoras have famously predicted a stone falling from heaven? Was this predication based solely on a physical, material observation? Or did he also have access to the spiritual, to higher realms of information? If he possessed knowledge of how to access these higher realms of information, was he passing on these methods to others? Was he killed because he had opened a conduit, and was training others in the same - to be in contact with 'tutelary spirits'?

We do have some information that discussions were obviously happening about realms of the spirit, tutelary guides, malevolent forces, and the necessity of personal preparation of the vessel in order to receive higher information. In the book From Gabriel to Lucifer: a Cultural History of Angels, we read:

We learned from Porphyry that these spirits or daemons can be good or bad in their activities, but Hermes tells us they can also be mixed. It is the daemons collectively as a body who are given authority over the earth, and over all kinds of turbulence there, both public and individual. ‘For they shape our souls after themselves and arouse them by residing in our sinews, in our marrow, veins and arteries, and even in our brain, penetrating as deep as our very entrails’ (Corpus Hermeticum, XVI, 14). They are set as attendants to each star, and seem to take possession of us at birth, agitating the soul and producing our destiny - yet the rational part of the human soul is not bound by their activities.

Because the soul need not be bound by this intermediary layer of daemons, Iamblichus of Chalcis, writing in the third century on The Mysteries of Egypt, felt that it was possible to reach beyond them, and call upon higher powers, be they gods, angels, archangels or heroes. He recommends both prayer and sacrifice in order to draw upon the wisdom and knowledge of these higher powers, as a kind of empowerment or acquisition of creative force. Divine inspiration may come through dreams or through absorption or possession. The limitations of the human condition can be transcended by seeking out divine light, and, through careful preparation and devoted practice, one can exchange one's limited life for the divine.

...

It was not so much a question of drawing down higher powers into oneself by some kind of unholy force - as critics of such rites implied (and Iamblichus’s teacher Porphyry was a strong critic) - but of allowing one’s invocations to rise and attach themselves to higher beings by a process of assimilation. The emphasis was thus firmly on purification of body and mind, as it had been for Porphyry, but with the added dimension of seeking absorption in ‘the divine fire which shines universally on its own initiative, self-summoned and self-energising’ (On the Mysteries, IV, 3). [shades of Heraclitus here] Such absorption is possible because the individual parts of the universe, although they are distinct, strive towards each other by virtue of the fact that the universe is a single living being (IV. 12). The space between earth and heaven thus becomes bridgeable at every level, in leaps small or large.

What Proclus later elaborated in this view was the mechanism by which the soul can exert its rational powers to transcend bodily attachments and rise through the layers between earth and heaven. Just as all things are ranged under the stars in a series of downward emanations and influences, so too can any created and animate being exercise the power of ‘reversion’, of rising back into its own ‘cause’ - which is whatever stands above it in the process of outward flow. Just as there is an outward flow into creation, so is there also a flow of return. All that exists proceeds from a single first cause, which is the Good.

From SHOTW, we learn that the esoteric Tradition (the reception of higher Knowledge) goes through cycles of illumination and darkness, and that each appearance of revelation arrives in a discrete way, matched to specific cultural and historical circumstances.

Mouravieff writes:

With time, the revealed Word, sometimes handed down from extinct civilizations, is subject to damage due to human forgetfulness: it becomes fragmentary. Then it receives arbitrary additions from purely human sources. With time, those conjectures are generally taken as realities.

Apart from these mutilations, we should not lose sight of a phenomenon of a totally different order. Divine Revelation, the source of all true Tradition, does not crystallize into immobility through the course of millennia. Revelation is given in stages: metered out each time in a necessary and sufficient way in answer to the needs of the epoch and of the Cause.

Fulcanelli, in a subsequent quotation, makes it quite clear that revelation, or perhaps communication from tutelary spirits, is necessary for the realization of Objective reality:

Every prudent mind must first acquire the Science if he can; that is to say, the principles and the means to operate. Otherwise he should stop there, without foolishly using his time and his wealth. And so, Beg those who will read this little book to credit my words. I say to them once more, that THEY WILL NEVER LEARN THIS SUBLIME SCIENCE BY MEANS OF BOOKS, AND THAT IT CAN ONLY BE LEARNED THROUGH DIVINE REVELATION, HENCE IT IS CALLED DIVINE ART, or through the means of a good and faithful master; and since there are very few of them to whom God has granted this grace, there are also very few who teach it.

My contention here is that the dangerous Objective information was not simply a material understanding of cyclical catastrophes. It would be just as important for the elites to stop not just the content of the Knowledge, but also the means by which a person can arrive at such Knowledge - Greek techniques of ecstasy, or contact with tutelary spirits, or divine revelation.

It is in this context that we can suspect a motive behind the Christian drive to turn 'daimons' (tutelary spirits) into demons. Rather than a strict materialism (they don't exist), 'daimons' were recruited into a new monotheistic spirituality that served to cast them, and the all the potential of contact with them, as evil. This is good disinformation at play - contain some element of the truth, but distort it.

As stated above, there are often clues embedded in historical accounts and myths. Sometimes, they are hidden in plain sight. I've noticed that myths and/or historical accounts of dis-aster contain not only tales of battling gods and mass destruction (in a striking example of the way that the material battles indicate energetic or spiritual battles), but also the means by which dis-asters may be averted in the future - through orienting oneself through Service to others, and activating our ancestral DNA potential. This is a discussion of one's character, or virtue - and may be an inroads to understanding hero worship (who were exemplars of character and virtue), and could perhaps explain why heroes were lionized, alongside ancestors, as indicated by Fustel.

I've been wondering about Fustel's lumping together of ancestors, daimons, and heroes as important foci for religious activity. From the Halloween example above, we have a hypothesis that explains why ancestor worship is of cosmic importance. We also have a good guess about daimons as well. But what about heroes?

Was hero worship part and parcel of the same Ancient mnemonic strategy? Mythologized descriptions of calamities of earth and sky were also accompanied by a personal, didactic element to the stories. There is the account of what happened, but also an admonition of how to live one's life. Tales of courage and facing dragons are common. This seems designed to ensure that the shock of the catastrophic events of the does not only register as something material, something that 'happened out there'. The destruction also burns into the collective human memory that there is an inner, spiritual component. This is my way of understanding the manner in which the human-cosmic connection is remembered, and passed down in these tales.

To understand this by way of example, the Scandnavian myth of Ragnarok is illustrative. The Beast (Fenrir) has devoured Love (Freya), resulting in Fimbulwinter, of the Great Winter - the first sign that the end is nigh. Freya (Love) awakens every spring after a winter of hibernation, and it is her light that provides for a bountiful year. Already we see the application for human behaviour - the human-cosmic connection. When our inner Beast (lower emotional centre, greed, lust, etc.) gains precedence over Love, the Ice Age cometh. In the tale, the witches of the fire-giant Surtr transform Freya's heat to forge a flaming sword - a comet. In the final battle, it is Odin (wisdom) who dives into Fenrir's mouth to free Freya. Wisdom faces the Beast in order to rescue Love. So there is a double meaning - a description of material physical events, via plasma dynamics, but also a prescription for Soul development on the human scale. Although this is a story of gods, I think the same can be true of heroic tales - they are a Soul teaching function to the human population. Even if the cosmic reason for living a life of virtue has been forgotten, the stories persist in the human psyche, and be of some benefit.

From all of this, we can see how the key to opening a conduit is to have both Knowledge of the human aspect and the cosmic aspect. A conduit, by definition, is a structure that allows flow - and in this specific case, a conduit for true Knowledge be a linkage between the 'Above' and the 'Below'. One can see how studying astronomical phenomenon does not necessarily lead to good human behaviour. One can also see how studying myth doesn't necessarily lend itself towards understanding cosmic threats. Only by creating a circuit between Above and Below can one open the potential of a full understanding of the sense and significance of human life on earth, as well as our planet's history.

It could be that Heraclitus and Socrates named this conduit, as per their cultural understanding, 'daimon'.

 

[Laura]

Excellent! And you are adding text to your book! Keep going!

 

[Sybil]

Thank you for the book tip. I just downloaded Fustel's Ancient City. Oh, dear! Life is too short to get through all the books I want to read!

 

[Raoulfrkannon]

Upon further reflection about this topic of Ancestor Worship, dark twins, and the human-cosmic connection, something is coming together. I am proceeding mostly on the basis of clues, suggestion, hints, and inference. Often clues are endogenous to the myths or historical accounts themselves - a certain word or phrase. 'Delian divers' comes to mind as a prominent example.

The worship of the dead around the globe on Halloween is, to my eye, most likely a remembrance of the last massive cometary bombardment that ended Atlantis.These events are burned into the collective unconscious. One can just imagine the scale of destruction, the grief, the confusion, and the pang of conscience that arrives with such events. If we consider that there is something like an ancestral memory or inherited trauma, these events cannot be underestimated in their effects, their inertia perhaps, their continued pulse within the human psyche.

Other modes of ancestor worship, like that of the pre-Roman Ancients, may be remnants of a these legonomistic rites. As the years pass, however, the original message of the human-cosmic connection is lost in the drift of time - or intentionally erased by structures of social power. One can witness what Halloween has now become.

True knowledge of cosmic catastrophes is a threat to the elite for two reasons - (1) on the basis of frequency resonance vibration, it gives reason to not pattern our lives on their evil dictates, because to do so is to succumb to hubris and as such send a signal to the Universe that calls Nemesis; (2) it also demonstrates the falsity of their claim to be as gods on earthly soil, whereas in fact they are petty tyrants, so obsessed with their own power that they are incompetent at their self-appointed job - to act as a safeguard for the people.

For the general population, what is left after the general drift of time and elite COINTELPRO has done its work? Ancestor worship in some form, but it is emptied of the crux of the matter - the Knowledge of cosmic catastrophes. We can evoke the skeleton of Stonehenge to get a clear analogue to this process. The bare bones are still there, attempting to communicate something from the deep past, but in general the world's people cannot grasp the truth of the matter.

In CatHoM, we meet the curious cases of Heraclitus and Socrates. Through the book's excellent historical detective work, we come to suspect that these men held secret or dangerous Knowledge - that of cyclical destruction, and its human causes. Both men are shining historical exemplars of Greek thought. And surrounding both men is this word in question - 'daimon'. Socrates is known to have had an 'inner oracle', which he named his daimon. In Fragment 119, Heraclitus writes 'a man's character is his daimon'.

If we are to assume that these men had knowledge of cyclical destruction, what to make of this? It could be that their understanding of Objective Reality was very broad and deep indeed. How did they arrive at this Knowledge? Cultural transmission through mystery schools? Or did it necessarily included a manner of speaking about the reception and transmission of information from higher sources? The 'daimon' may have been their own culturally specific means of expressing this.

We are reminded that connection with 'tutelary' spirits was the original goal of unadultered shamanism. From The Wave:


Heraclitus went mad, and Socrates was killed for sharing some kind of threatening information. What was the scope of their information? How could Anaxagoras have famously predicted a stone falling from heaven? Was this predication based solely on a physical, material observation? Or did he also have access to the spiritual, to higher realms of information? If he possessed knowledge of how to access these higher realms of information, was he passing on these methods to others? Was he killed because he had opened a conduit, and was training others in the same - to be in contact with 'tutelary spirits'?

We do have some information that discussions were obviously happening about realms of the spirit, tutelary guides, malevolent forces, and the necessity of personal preparation of the vessel in order to receive higher information. In the book From Gabriel to Lucifer: a Cultural History of Angels, we read:


From SHOTW, we learn that the esoteric Tradition (the reception of higher Knowledge) goes through cycles of illumination and darkness, and that each appearance of revelation arrives in a discrete way, matched to specific cultural and historical circumstances.



Fulcanelli, in a subsequent quotation, makes it quite clear that revelation, or perhaps communication from tutelary spirits, is necessary for the realization of Objective reality:



My contention here is that the dangerous Objective information was not simply a material understanding of cyclical catastrophes. It would be just as important for the elites to stop not just the content of the Knowledge, but also the means by which a person can arrive at such Knowledge - Greek techniques of ecstasy, or contact with tutelary spirits, or divine revelation.

It is in this context that we can suspect a motive behind the Christian drive to turn 'daimons' (tutelary spirits) into demons. Rather than a strict materialism (they don't exist), 'daimons' were recruited into a new monotheistic spirituality that served to cast them, and the all the potential of contact with them, as evil. This is good disinformation at play - contain some element of the truth, but distort it.

As stated above, there are often clues embedded in historical accounts and myths. Sometimes, they are hidden in plain sight. I've noticed that myths and/or historical accounts of dis-aster contain not only tales of battling gods and mass destruction (in a striking example of the way that the material battles indicate energetic or spiritual battles), but also the means by which dis-asters may be averted in the future - through orienting oneself through Service to others, and activating our ancestral DNA potential. This is a discussion of one's character, or virtue - and may be an inroads to understanding hero worship (who were exemplars of character and virtue), and could perhaps explain why heroes were lionized, alongside ancestors, as indicated by Fustel.

I've been wondering about Fustel's lumping together of ancestors, daimons, and heroes as important foci for religious activity. From the Halloween example above, we have a hypothesis that explains why ancestor worship is of cosmic importance. We also have a good guess about daimons as well. But what about heroes?

Was hero worship part and parcel of the same Ancient mnemonic strategy? Mythologized descriptions of calamities of earth and sky were also accompanied by a personal, didactic element to the stories. There is the account of what happened, but also an admonition of how to live one's life. Tales of courage and facing dragons are common. This seems designed to ensure that the shock of the catastrophic events of the does not only register as something material, something that 'happened out there'. The destruction also burns into the collective human memory that there is an inner, spiritual component. This is my way of understanding the manner in which the human-cosmic connection is remembered, and passed down in these tales.

To understand this by way of example, the Scandnavian myth of Ragnarok is illustrative. The Beast (Fenrir) has devoured Love (Freya), resulting in Fimbulwinter, of the Great Winter - the first sign that the end is nigh. Freya (Love) awakens every spring after a winter of hibernation, and it is her light that provides for a bountiful year. Already we see the application for human behaviour - the human-cosmic connection. When our inner Beast (lower emotional centre, greed, lust, etc.) gains precedence over Love, the Ice Age cometh. In the tale, the witches of the fire-giant Surtr transform Freya's heat to forge a flaming sword - a comet. In the final battle, it is Odin (wisdom) who dives into Fenrir's mouth to free Freya. Wisdom faces the Beast in order to rescue Love. So there is a double meaning - a description of material physical events, via plasma dynamics, but also a prescription for Soul development on the human scale. Although this is a story of gods, I think the same can be true of heroic tales - they are a Soul teaching function to the human population. Even if the cosmic reason for living a life of virtue has been forgotten, the stories persist in the human psyche, and be of some benefit.

From all of this, we can see how the key to opening a conduit is to have both Knowledge of the human aspect and the cosmic aspect. A conduit, by definition, is a structure that allows flow - and in this specific case, a conduit for true Knowledge be a linkage between the 'Above' and the 'Below'. One can see how studying astronomical phenomenon does not necessarily lead to good human behaviour. One can also see how studying myth doesn't necessarily lend itself towards understanding cosmic threats. Only by creating a circuit between Above and Below can one open the potential of a full understanding of the sense and significance of human life on earth, as well as our planet's history.

It could be that Heraclitus and Socrates named this conduit, as per their cultural understanding, 'daimon'.

I'm profusely sorry I'm not providing you with more than this, but if you really are putting all this together, and it seems like you don't mind getting a whole lot more on your plate as long it's good, I have a few suggestions.

It seems that one of the most successfully persistent techno-spiritual hunter-gatherer (non-?)civilisations, also perhaps practicing ancestor worship was on the archipelago of Japan.

It looks like they existed on the island, all the way from the deluge up to as late as 300BC, as a highly heteregenous people now known as the Jomon. That date is named for the “up to” because that was when Chinese methods through Korea caused a transition into intensive agriculture and a settled form of civilisation - the “Yayoi period” [300BC - 250AD] (Yayoi period - Wikipedia). This is then followed by the almost Egyptian style funery culture of the Kofuns (Kofun period - Wikipedia). It’s speculated that the descendants of the original Jomon people were forced North and persisted in tribes like the Emishi (Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke inspiration) and Ainu of the current day.

Mt. Kinpu, for example, seems to have deliberately organised megaliths arranged on its 2600m summit: https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JBPVX_Ld...BuOdowKYk362GhtkdPQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP5404.JPG. And there are various stone circles across the country, one of the most interesting sets being at Kanayama which, taking them both in the mainstream manner as simply calendars, is as advanced as Stonehenge. (The Kanayama Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy in Japan（An Instant Tour） 1). If you look at Ainu clothing it seems to have a lot of spiraling, much like the carvings found across Europe, taking into account changes over the generations of the designs.

Regarding spirits, the Japanese "concept" of kami, usually translated as Gods, but better as Spirits, comes from the original Japanese language, before the influence of Chinese culture (which included the introduction of their highly unsuitable writing system, which served to create an elite out of those who had the position and resources to learn it). It seems to be one of the best examples we have of a spiritual awareness of the nature of reality that has been worked out by Laura and Ark and the folks on this forum, and possibly also includes the ancestor worship you are researching. The meaning of kami involves all kinds of things, like spirits of fire, and of trees and rocks, and of ancestors.

I say one of the best examples we have because it is both highly available for research, and is even still practiced, no matter how deteriorated, today. Most households have a butsudan (Butsudan - Wikipedia) or a kamidana, shinto altar, (Kamidana - Wikipedia) in their home. Not just as decoration, but for daily paying respects to ancestors, along with various occasions throughout the year involving more work, such as Obon (Bon Festival - Wikipedia). As well, as far as I’m aware there’s no large culture currently existing today which could be said to have a greater awareness of cyclical time than this one. The most famous form of Japanese poetry, haiku, technically isn’t just 5-7-5 syllables: you need a word that connects to a season, because all haiku moments of necessity occur in a season and share that seasonal quality, for just one teensy example. For another example, at the turn of the 20th century, Nogi Maresuke, a real man, was "kami-ised" after his suicide with his wife, a shrine was built for him at his residence where they died, which people can visit in Tokyo today to pray to them by (Nogi Maresuke - Wikipedia), (Nogi Shrine (Tokyo) - Wikipedia).

There is even a parahistory of Japan in which the main kami are not actually gods, but simply previous great tribal leaders. In this parahistory, the main mythico-historical texts of Japan (nihonshoki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon_Shoki and kojiki Kojiki - Wikipedia) appear to have played the same role as the Christian bible does in the West, i.e., they are highly manipulated texts, based on corruptions and selections of various stories and popular memories, for the purposes of control.

Hotsuma Tsutae - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

the text discusses the births, lives, and deaths of kami from Japanese folk shrines and history; in this case, the word kami being used to mean something like royalty and not "gods". In the poem, Amaterasu, the sun kami of Shinto, is male, and not female as is written in the official records. Matsumoto theorizes that Amaterasu was feminized in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki to provide a justification for the reign of Empress Suiko who reigned just before those documents were written.

What this parahistory suggests is that the gods of Japanese mythology were simply ancestor spirits of the Jomon, and these major shrines like Ise (Ise Grand Shrine - Wikipedia) where they reside are actually just the same kind of shrines as the one for Nogi I explained above, just built around real people!

In fact, until the Meiji period in the 19th and 20th centuries, with the emergence of the current form of Shinto, ‘State Shinto’, along with the Shrine Consolidation Policy (Shrine Consolidation Policy - Wikipedia) which shut them down, there were tons of little shrines, set up for kami, all over the country, usually deep in forests and based around a particular, tight-knit community. Perhaps these small shrines were continuations of earnest practices left over from Jomon. Instead of this, beginning with the rise of settled civilisations in the Yayoi period, things started to look more like Rome:

It was the Yayoi period of Japanese prehistory which first left traces of material and iconography prefiguring that later included in Shinto.[373] Kami were worshipped at various landscape features during this period; at this point, their worship consisted largely of beseeching and placating them, with little evidence that they were viewed as compassionate entities.

From this quote it seems that in earliest times, religious practices involving kami were mostly nature based, perhaps without even the small shrines I above portrayed as "the real deal." (Perhaps something like what you see in that Mt. Kinpu picture, where there is just a large rock or a tree, or a space, with something like the little gate or a rope which signifies sacredness, and these spaces arise out of for cosmic, geographical reasons like Stonehenge or Kanayama, or for important great people who had died).

So my suggestion, and again I'm sorry for providing more, is to extend your researches to shinto, in particular “koshinto” (old shinto). Perhaps there is a great deal of insight regarding ancestor worship, as well as spirits such as what were called daemons etc. in Greece, to be found there. In this region of the world, they were called kami.

Plus, one further suggestion, while we're in Japan, is to look into the Shingon fire ritual. Shingon is the esoteric Buddhist sect unique to Japan, founded by Kukai in the 8th century after spending time in China. Tantra in Tibet came out of India, and similarly something similar also came directly to China and then Japan (i.e., not from Tibet). Tibetan tantra and Shingon are not the same tradition but different branches from a much earlier source in India.

Shingon Buddhism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

On libgen, you can find a pdf of Richard K. Paynes book on the fire ritual. What's the title? "Feeding the gods."

 

[Raoulfrkannon]

I meant to say "I'm sorry for not providing more" at the end there, but perhaps it was a Freudian slip, and I was feeling bad for dumping all this stuff on you as a suggestion!

 

[iamthatis]

Thank you for the book tip. I just downloaded Fustel's Ancient City. Oh, dear! Life is too short to get through all the books I want to read!

I've found it's one of the best 'reasons to live'. I look at my bookshelf and think, "I want to live!"

 

[iamthatis]

I'm profusely sorry I'm not providing you with more than this, but if you really are putting all this together, and it seems like you don't mind getting a whole lot more on your plate as long it's good, I have a few suggestions.

It seems that one of the most successfully persistent techno-spiritual hunter-gatherer (non-?)civilisations, also perhaps practicing ancestor worship was on the archipelago of Japan.

It looks like they existed on the island, all the way from the deluge up to as late as 300BC, as a highly heteregenous people now known as the Jomon. That date is named for the “up to” because that was when Chinese methods through Korea caused a transition into intensive agriculture and a settled form of civilisation - the “Yayoi period” [300BC - 250AD] (Yayoi period - Wikipedia). This is then followed by the almost Egyptian style funery culture of the Kofuns (Kofun period - Wikipedia). It’s speculated that the descendants of the original Jomon people were forced North and persisted in tribes like the Emishi (Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke inspiration) and Ainu of the current day.

Mt. Kinpu, for example, seems to have deliberately organised megaliths arranged on its 2600m summit: https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JBPVX_Ld...BuOdowKYk362GhtkdPQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP5404.JPG. And there are various stone circles across the country, one of the most interesting sets being at Kanayama which, taking them both in the mainstream manner as simply calendars, is as advanced as Stonehenge. (The Kanayama Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy in Japan（An Instant Tour） 1). If you look at Ainu clothing it seems to have a lot of spiraling, much like the carvings found across Europe, taking into account changes over the generations of the designs.

Regarding spirits, the Japanese "concept" of kami, usually translated as Gods, but better as Spirits, comes from the original Japanese language, before the influence of Chinese culture (which included the introduction of their highly unsuitable writing system, which served to create an elite out of those who had the position and resources to learn it). It seems to be one of the best examples we have of a spiritual awareness of the nature of reality that has been worked out by Laura and Ark and the folks on this forum, and possibly also includes the ancestor worship you are researching. The meaning of kami involves all kinds of things, like spirits of fire, and of trees and rocks, and of ancestors.

I say one of the best examples we have because it is both highly available for research, and is even still practiced, no matter how deteriorated, today. Most households have a butsudan (Butsudan - Wikipedia) or a kamidana, shinto altar, (Kamidana - Wikipedia) in their home. Not just as decoration, but for daily paying respects to ancestors, along with various occasions throughout the year involving more work, such as Obon (Bon Festival - Wikipedia). As well, as far as I’m aware there’s no large culture currently existing today which could be said to have a greater awareness of cyclical time than this one. The most famous form of Japanese poetry, haiku, technically isn’t just 5-7-5 syllables: you need a word that connects to a season, because all haiku moments of necessity occur in a season and share that seasonal quality, for just one teensy example. For another example, at the turn of the 20th century, Nogi Maresuke, a real man, was "kami-ised" after his suicide with his wife, a shrine was built for him at his residence where they died, which people can visit in Tokyo today to pray to them by (Nogi Maresuke - Wikipedia), (Nogi Shrine (Tokyo) - Wikipedia).

There is even a parahistory of Japan in which the main kami are not actually gods, but simply previous great tribal leaders. In this parahistory, the main mythico-historical texts of Japan (nihonshoki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon_Shoki and kojiki Kojiki - Wikipedia) appear to have played the same role as the Christian bible does in the West, i.e., they are highly manipulated texts, based on corruptions and selections of various stories and popular memories, for the purposes of control.



What this parahistory suggests is that the gods of Japanese mythology were simply ancestor spirits of the Jomon, and these major shrines like Ise (Ise Grand Shrine - Wikipedia) where they reside are actually just the same kind of shrines as the one for Nogi I explained above, just built around real people!

In fact, until the Meiji period in the 19th and 20th centuries, with the emergence of the current form of Shinto, ‘State Shinto’, along with the Shrine Consolidation Policy (Shrine Consolidation Policy - Wikipedia) which shut them down, there were tons of little shrines, set up for kami, all over the country, usually deep in forests and based around a particular, tight-knit community. Perhaps these small shrines were continuations of earnest practices left over from Jomon. Instead of this, beginning with the rise of settled civilisations in the Yayoi period, things started to look more like Rome:



From this quote it seems that in earliest times, religious practices involving kami were mostly nature based, perhaps without even the small shrines I above portrayed as "the real deal." (Perhaps something like what you see in that Mt. Kinpu picture, where there is just a large rock or a tree, or a space, with something like the little gate or a rope which signifies sacredness, and these spaces arise out of for cosmic, geographical reasons like Stonehenge or Kanayama, or for important great people who had died).

So my suggestion, and again I'm sorry for providing more, is to extend your researches to shinto, in particular “koshinto” (old shinto). Perhaps there is a great deal of insight regarding ancestor worship, as well as spirits such as what were called daemons etc. in Greece, to be found there. In this region of the world, they were called kami.

Plus, one further suggestion, while we're in Japan, is to look into the Shingon fire ritual. Shingon is the esoteric Buddhist sect unique to Japan, founded by Kukai in the 8th century after spending time in China. Tantra in Tibet came out of India, and similarly something similar also came directly to China and then Japan (i.e., not from Tibet). Tibetan tantra and Shingon are not the same tradition but different branches from a much earlier source in India.

Shingon Buddhism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

On libgen, you can find a pdf of Richard K. Paynes book on the fire ritual. What's the title? "Feeding the gods."

Thank you for the suggestion! At this point in my analysis, with the help of Witzel, I'm working mostly on the Laurasian metastory. Witzel spent a lot of time in Japan, even participating in (I think) the very fire ritual that you mention here. His book 'Origins of the World's Mythologies' carries many examples from his time in Japan that add to his overall analysis, which is, in sum, that the Laurasian story is our oldest story. Like the Japanese, the Greeks and Romans also belong to this mytho-taxonomic family. So I'm going straight for the source as a fount of understanding. Economy is key, I'm learning, in this type of search. If you haven't read it yet, take a peek at the Witzel thread.

I've sent an email to Witzel, and bless the guy's heart, he responded right away and offered his assistance!

So while I do appreciate the suggestion, it would be a significant detour from my main aim, which is to understand the way that the word 'demon' turned from gesturing towards a personal tutelary guide or deity into malignant spirit due to the influence of 'a certain kind of Christianity'. It amounts to the effacement of a true spiritual connection by the heavy hand of organized religion.

What you're suggesting is a case study, which is a good idea. More apropos to my own personal interest is one of the folktales that has become a sort of canonical tale in the contemporary 'ancestral revival' circuit. It's called The Lindworm, and it features the dark twin (a male dragon figure); dynamics of neglect and wrath and devouring rage; and proposes the right relation of the masculine and feminine as proper medicine.

The Lindworm can be found in poet Robert Bly's (RIP) book 'More than True' and Martin Shaw's recent book 'Courting the Wild Twin'. Interestingly enough, this 'canonical' version story is new. It is also truncated from an older version. The irony here is that these ancestral revival dudes go around warning of the psychological dangers of neglect, which gives rise to wrath - and yet in so telling their teaching tale, they are neglecting an entire section of the story.

While the personal psychological aspects are worthwhile, myths can operate on three levels - the personal, the earthly, and the heavenly. Beyond that, I want to explore the geomythological interpretation - ie. if it has a dragon, is it a comet story? In this tale, the dragon/dark twin connection is simply too obvious to ignore.

In all honesty, I've been waylaid in my research, due to 'life happening' as the kids say. It keeps on doing that! C'mon, man! But as I've been listening to Jordan Petersen's 'Maps of Meaning' lectures while at work, I have encountered a section (about the Dragon of Chaos as the sum of all Information!) that's lit a fire under my butt to get going on this project again.

And on a more personal note, I'm heaven-bent on finding a way to do what I love 'if money were no object', and so have resolved to write a little each day in a more directed fashion!

 

[Sybil]

I've found it's one of the best 'reasons to live'. I look at my bookshelf and think, "I want to live!"

I know what you mean. I have a bookshelf next to my bed. Sometimes I stroke my besties secretly in the dark before I go to sleep. ( I know. Its weird)

 

[Raoulfrkannon]

Thank you for the suggestion! At this point in my analysis, with the help of Witzel, I'm working mostly on the Laurasian metastory. Witzel spent a lot of time in Japan, even participating in (I think) the very fire ritual that you mention here. His book 'Origins of the World's Mythologies' carries many examples from his time in Japan that add to his overall analysis, which is, in sum, that the Laurasian story is our oldest story. Like the Japanese, the Greeks and Romans also belong to this mytho-taxonomic family. So I'm going straight for the source as a fount of understanding. Economy is key, I'm learning, in this type of search. If you haven't read it yet, take a peek at the Witzel thread.

I've sent an email to Witzel, and bless the guy's heart, he responded right away and offered his assistance!

So while I do appreciate the suggestion, it would be a significant detour from my main aim, which is to understand the way that the word 'demon' turned from gesturing towards a personal tutelary guide or deity into malignant spirit due to the influence of 'a certain kind of Christianity'. It amounts to the effacement of a true spiritual connection by the heavy hand of organized religion.

What you're suggesting is a case study, which is a good idea. More apropos to my own personal interest is one of the folktales that has become a sort of canonical tale in the contemporary 'ancestral revival' circuit. It's called The Lindworm, and it features the dark twin (a male dragon figure); dynamics of neglect and wrath and devouring rage; and proposes the right relation of the masculine and feminine as proper medicine.

The Lindworm can be found in poet Robert Bly's (RIP) book 'More than True' and Martin Shaw's recent book 'Courting the Wild Twin'. Interestingly enough, this 'canonical' version story is new. It is also truncated from an older version. The irony here is that these ancestral revival dudes go around warning of the psychological dangers of neglect, which gives rise to wrath - and yet in so telling their teaching tale, they are neglecting an entire section of the story.

While the personal psychological aspects are worthwhile, myths can operate on three levels - the personal, the earthly, and the heavenly. Beyond that, I want to explore the geomythological interpretation - ie. if it has a dragon, is it a comet story? In this tale, the dragon/dark twin connection is simply too obvious to ignore.

In all honesty, I've been waylaid in my research, due to 'life happening' as the kids say. It keeps on doing that! C'mon, man! But as I've been listening to Jordan Petersen's 'Maps of Meaning' lectures while at work, I have encountered a section (about the Dragon of Chaos as the sum of all Information!) that's lit a fire under my butt to get going on this project again.

And on a more personal note, I'm heaven-bent on finding a way to do what I love 'if money were no object', and so have resolved to write a little each day in a more directed fashion!

That's great! I really need to check all that out, I hadn't got into that thread yet, but I'll bump it up the list certainly.

Regarding the Lindworm, I remember that conversation in the transcripts when Laura or someone mentioned some material that said the Lizzies say we gave them permission to abduct us, etc. When you think about how the future self may interact with the "current" self, (both by actually coming back into the past to play a certain sheet music, as has been analogised, or through various communications such as channeling), have you considered the following possibility:

Often tales of defeating the dragon, or the snake (even Medusa), can be a tale of defeating the lizard inside us, right? What if this Lindworm is just the equivalent of an STS "higher self". Not only can we interact, "remember" our ancestors, but we can also, as the C's have said, "remember" them (the C's) too. What if the Lindworm is functionally that version of "ourselves in the future" which chose the STS path? At 6th density, the C's say there exist reflections of STS for balance. Maybe the Lindworm is the higher STS influence - it's literally a "higher" self just like the higher selves we normally think of, except the STS side of possibilities.

It has to also exist, to make sure we actually do have a choice between STS/STO and make it. Otherwise, let's say we choose STO, so that our future self is STO, and there's no future STS self, then back when we're making the choice, we don't really make a very big choice now do we, if we only get help from that STO higher self? We need to be "helped" by an STO higher self towards STO AND by an STS higher self towards STS. While in 3rd density, the possibility of STS has to be fully open, which means, from 3rd density, there is literally a fully accomplished future self of the STS path as well as the STO. We can read in the Phaedrus about Socrates going to return to the city, and his daemon telling him not to and to stay instead, and understand it as some higher self directing him; so we could also imagine another daemon (lindworm) whispering in his ear to go! Perhaps this is the classic two little floating guys on the shoulder image.

I shouldn't say more before reading the thread - maybe what I'm saying isn't new - but anyway, if this is the case, it doesn't preclude it also having a cometary meaning, mosaics and all. For example Laura did a great exegesis on how 3-5 code relates to genes, but it also clearly relates to being kept in the 3rd density-5th density cycle for energy generation purposes. These big motifs turn up repeated in various different scales and structures. The comets are sort of a 3rd density perspective on cosmic energies of entropy, i.e. STS. If you can view weather as 4th density interactions, surely cataclysms are similar? When the dragon (the STS mind) wins on a grand scale for a large planetary population, this is seen from 3rd density as cometary bombardment. They're the same thing just viewed physically. We might imagine the cometary bombardment of earth literally being an expression of STS self-love. Apologies for the obscene image, but we might picture the coming cataclysms as a big ol' mess coming from the climax of a 300,000 year mental masturbation session of loving the self, all that creative power used solely to serve the self in a contractile way.

I remember the C's explaining the Osiris myth where his testicles are fed to the crocodiles as signifyng the introduction of aggression into sexuality, or something like that? So it makes sense that the Lindworm would be connected to a "devouring rage." The STS domination of others, and of nature, is connected to aggression and sexuality. This aggression is of course devouring, and destructive ultimately of the self, which eventually black holes itself into non-being. It gives a little bonus meaning to the ouroboros - imagine it as the Lindworm! Peculiar, yes? Perhaps the dragon not having wings symbolises its destiny to descend, instead of ascend. Descend into non-being by eating itself, by eating/feeding on others which in truth are just itself because all is one, so it only eats itself. When STS feeds on others, it feeds on itself, devours itself, ultimately. Is the Lindworm perhaps something like that STS future self reflection?

Regarding your personal note, I know exactly what you mean, and I send all my good wishes that you may be able to accomplish what you want to. If you set your intentions, and take the choices to shift that are presented to you, within some "time" you will certainly find yourself in a position where you can.

 

[iamthatis]

That's great! I really need to check all that out, I hadn't got into that thread yet, but I'll bump it up the list certainly.

Regarding the Lindworm, I remember that conversation in the transcripts when Laura or someone mentioned some material that said the Lizzies say we gave them permission to abduct us, etc. When you think about how the future self may interact with the "current" self, (both by actually coming back into the past to play a certain sheet music, as has been analogised, or through various communications such as channeling), have you considered the following possibility:

Often tales of defeating the dragon, or the snake (even Medusa), can be a tale of defeating the lizard inside us, right? What if this Lindworm is just the equivalent of an STS "higher self". Not only can we interact, "remember" our ancestors, but we can also, as the C's have said, "remember" them (the C's) too. What if the Lindworm is functionally that version of "ourselves in the future" which chose the STS path? At 6th density, the C's say there exist reflections of STS for balance. Maybe the Lindworm is the higher STS influence - it's literally a "higher" self just like the higher selves we normally think of, except the STS side of possibilities.

It has to also exist, to make sure we actually do have a choice between STS/STO and make it. Otherwise, let's say we choose STO, so that our future self is STO, and there's no future STS self, then back when we're making the choice, we don't really make a very big choice now do we, if we only get help from that STO higher self? We need to be "helped" by an STO higher self towards STO AND by an STS higher self towards STS. While in 3rd density, the possibility of STS has to be fully open, which means, from 3rd density, there is literally a fully accomplished future self of the STS path as well as the STO. We can read in the Phaedrus about Socrates going to return to the city, and his daemon telling him not to and to stay instead, and understand it as some higher self directing him; so we could also imagine another daemon (lindworm) whispering in his ear to go! Perhaps this is the classic two little floating guys on the shoulder image.

I shouldn't say more before reading the thread - maybe what I'm saying isn't new - but anyway, if this is the case, it doesn't preclude it also having a cometary meaning, mosaics and all. For example Laura did a great exegesis on how 3-5 code relates to genes, but it also clearly relates to being kept in the 3rd density-5th density cycle for energy generation purposes. These big motifs turn up repeated in various different scales and structures. The comets are sort of a 3rd density perspective on cosmic energies of entropy, i.e. STS. If you can view weather as 4th density interactions, surely cataclysms are similar? When the dragon (the STS mind) wins on a grand scale for a large planetary population, this is seen from 3rd density as cometary bombardment. They're the same thing just viewed physically. We might imagine the cometary bombardment of earth literally being an expression of STS self-love. Apologies for the obscene image, but we might picture the coming cataclysms as a big ol' mess coming from the climax of a 300,000 year mental masturbation session of loving the self, all that creative power used solely to serve the self in a contractile way.

I remember the C's explaining the Osiris myth where his testicles are fed to the crocodiles as signifyng the introduction of aggression into sexuality, or something like that? So it makes sense that the Lindworm would be connected to a "devouring rage." The STS domination of others, and of nature, is connected to aggression and sexuality. This aggression is of course devouring, and destructive ultimately of the self, which eventually black holes itself into non-being. It gives a little bonus meaning to the ouroboros - imagine it as the Lindworm! Peculiar, yes? Perhaps the dragon not having wings symbolises its destiny to descend, instead of ascend. Descend into non-being by eating itself, by eating/feeding on others which in truth are just itself because all is one, so it only eats itself. When STS feeds on others, it feeds on itself, devours itself, ultimately. Is the Lindworm perhaps something like that STS future self reflection?

Regarding your personal note, I know exactly what you mean, and I send all my good wishes that you may be able to accomplish what you want to. If you set your intentions, and take the choices to shift that are presented to you, within some "time" you will certainly find yourself in a position where you can.

In the Lindworm story, there is definitely a multi-scalar teaching moment. The Ancestral Revival dudes make much of the tale's capacity for dealing with the lizard within, as you mention above. They also read it 'culturally', in terms of dealing with the lizard in the culture.

However, what they appear to miss is the geomythological perspective, in which we can see that while the tale as operates on personal and cultural levels, it also speaks the language of cometary bombardment to our subconscious, and operates on the geological or cosmic level. There's also a lizard in the skies! In this sense, while dealing with the lizard within and the lizard in the culture are important, an Objective analysis would not stop there, on the level of our own personal or cultural healing. This can also be a tale about Earth or even 'realm' healing, or balancing, as indicated by the C's. Balancing begins with the personal level, yes - but without Objective Knowledge, we might risk limiting the healing/balancing from 'scaling up' with our own limited thinking.

The story deals with what is cast away - the wild/dark twin, or the ignored daemon/messenger/message - and how we go about making things right. The male energy has gone ravenous - and could indicate our current moment of male dominator god (typified by Yahweh) run amok. The chapter 'Murdering the Feminine' in The Wave is illustrative here. And making things right is no joke - it is a life-or-death initiation to craft the right relation of the masculine and feminine. By virtue of courageous Virgin who listens to a wise old woman in the woods, Love is described not as a feeling, but as a series of sustained actions in the Work, both gentle and unrelenting. And establishing the right relation of male and female on this plane, in this density, can work to open a conduit for the right relation of male and female cosmic energies. In short - a wedding. Who knows what the implications are - the comet as death-bringer, transformed into life-giver? The tale suggests that true Love actually makes this shift possible.

And would it be beneficial to start a different thread? I'm not exactly talking about the Religion of Ancient Rome anymore.

 

[Raoulfrkannon]

In the Lindworm story, there is definitely a multi-scalar teaching moment. The Ancestral Revival dudes make much of the tale's capacity for dealing with the lizard within, as you mention above. They also read it 'culturally', in terms of dealing with the lizard in the culture.

However, what they appear to miss is the geomythological perspective, in which we can see that while the tale as operates on personal and cultural levels, it also speaks the language of cometary bombardment to our subconscious, and operates on the geological or cosmic level. There's also a lizard in the skies! In this sense, while dealing with the lizard within and the lizard in the culture are important, an Objective analysis would not stop there, on the level of our own personal or cultural healing. This can also be a tale about Earth or even 'realm' healing, or balancing, as indicated by the C's. Balancing begins with the personal level, yes - but without Objective Knowledge, we might risk limiting the healing/balancing from 'scaling up' with our own limited thinking.

The story deals with what is cast away - the wild/dark twin, or the ignored daemon/messenger/message - and how we go about making things right. The male energy has gone ravenous - and could indicate our current moment of male dominator god (typified by Yahweh) run amok. The chapter 'Murdering the Feminine' in The Wave is illustrative here. And making things right is no joke - it is a life-or-death initiation to craft the right relation of the masculine and feminine. By virtue of courageous Virgin who listens to a wise old woman in the woods, Love is described not as a feeling, but as a series of sustained actions in the Work, both gentle and unrelenting. And establishing the right relation of male and female on this plane, in this density, can work to open a conduit for the right relation of male and female cosmic energies. In short - a wedding. Who knows what the implications are - the comet as death-bringer, transformed into life-giver? The tale suggests that true Love actually makes this shift possible.

And would it be beneficial to start a different thread? I'm not exactly talking about the Religion of Ancient Rome anymore.

I'm grateful for your stressing of the geomythological side then. I've only just started reading Comets and the Horns of Moses, and I'm realising in my previous post about the Japanese Gods that I was still a step behind in assuming they were real people! Though I still imagine there were real people and a lot of shrines are part of the ancestor/hero 5d side of things, the comet interpretation really opens things up! Reading some of the stories in the Kojiki, even the wikipedia summary (Kojiki - Wikipedia), it's so obviously comets!

And for a synchronicity, one of my students in a lesson last night brought up this, the three-legged crow: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http://yorozuyamiichi.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/yatagarasu03-768x768.jpg&f=1&nofb=1
The great god Amaterasu brought it to the mythical first emperor Jinmu to help him win a battle - cometary portent with 6 tails (legs) anyone?

Just wanted you to know I'm having fun and expanding, and it's due to considering the whole comet side of things, which was due to your post, so thanks . Regarding the connection between personal level healing and objectivity: I hadn't gotten into the comet side of things precisely because I was more concerned with "spiritual truth", but getting into it now, it actually is resulting in some breakthroughs of that sort too, how spectacular!

Regarding the Lindworm and right relation of male/female... If you imagine it like this: nothing doesn't exist, so something does - that's the inevitability of existence, in just a neat little phrase which I'm sure one could pick apart if one were so inclined. But running with, and skipping a few steps, there comes a problem: the moment there is this existence, and there is awareness of it (prior to any particularisation) there is that split between the awareness and what it is aware of, the classic dilemma. I think this is where STS/STO comes in at the most original level: are you going to be that awareness for which the other awareness (which is really the same as you) is an object with you the subject? Or are you going to accept that the other way round is equally true, the other is a subject and you are their object, and you are both equal subjects, equally the original consciousness? I think this subject-object dilemma is reflected in male-female on 3rd density. The truth is, as long as you have consciousness there is that consciousness and what you are conscious of. To achieve oneness you have to do something about that. For now, that means balancing the male-female. We need to realise that each of us is the sole subject for whom everything else must appear as other than that, while also we are part of that otherness for another subject who is also just the sole subject, and that goes for every one, it's not a paradox it's the miracle of reality! From what I gather from what you're saying, my initial interpretation of the Lindworm, as the dark twin, would be that it is this other self which is equally its own subject but which you reject as such and force into the object for one's own subjectivity. The Lindworm might be like the white dot of yang, male, dominating, subjective energy, within the black of the yin, receptive, female energy. That is to say, it is the remergence of our own ego in what our own subjectivity (the main white yang half) forces into otherness (that black yin half wherein the other white dot arises)? Perhaps it is the revenge of our male, dominating, objectifying consciousness, applying all those functions back onto ourselves?

If you were to make a new thread, I don't know how much I could contribute, but I would definitely be following it!

 

[iamthatis]

I'm grateful for your stressing of the geomythological side then. I've only just started reading Comets and the Horns of Moses, and I'm realising in my previous post about the Japanese Gods that I was still a step behind in assuming they were real people! Though I still imagine there were real people and a lot of shrines are part of the ancestor/hero 5d side of things, the comet interpretation really opens things up! Reading some of the stories in the Kojiki, even the wikipedia summary (Kojiki - Wikipedia), it's so obviously comets!

And for a synchronicity, one of my students in a lesson last night brought up this, the three-legged crow: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http://yorozuyamiichi.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/yatagarasu03-768x768.jpg&f=1&nofb=1
The great god Amaterasu brought it to the mythical first emperor Jinmu to help him win a battle - cometary portent with 6 tails (legs) anyone?

Just wanted you to know I'm having fun and expanding, and it's due to considering the whole comet side of things, which was due to your post, so thanks . Regarding the connection between personal level healing and objectivity: I hadn't gotten into the comet side of things precisely because I was more concerned with "spiritual truth", but getting into it now, it actually is resulting in some breakthroughs of that sort too, how spectacular!

I'm glad to share, and also to hear that you're expanding. It's funny how all of this terrifying material is so - uplifting?

I'm still reading through Witzel. Given your knowledge of Japanese mythology, I can't recommend his book enough for you. Especially if you can read it through the geomythological lens of CatHoM.

Basically, he lays out a very compelling case for a clear way to understand major world mythic/religious systems. Once, these different systems were thought to be ethnically, linguistically, nationally-bounded (like Japanese myth vs. Pueblo myth vs. Mayan myth, and germane to this thread, Roman myth/religion) all derive from one original story, which he terms the Laurasian protomyth. There is another, the Gondwanan protomyth. But Japanese and Roman myth (our respective interests, it seems) both derive from the same original Laurasian tale, and that is where my interest currently lies. This is said to be the structure of 'our oldest story' - from p. 64:

1) primordial waters/chaos/’nonbeing’

2) primordial egg / giant

3) primordial hill or island

4) (Father) Heaven/(Mother) Earth and their children (4 or 5 generations / ages)

5) heaven is pushed up (and origin of Milky Way)

6) the hidden sun light revealed

7) current gods defeat or kill their predecessors

8) killing the ‘dragon’ (and use of heavenly drink), fertilization of the earth

9) Sun deity is the father of humans (or just of ‘chieftains’)

10) first humans and first evil deeds (often, still by a demi-god), origin of death / the flood

11) heroes and nymphs

12) bringing of culture : fire / food / culture by a culture hero or shaman; rituals; spread of 
humans / emergence of local nobility / local history begins

14) final destruction of humans, the world (and) the gods (variant of the Four Ages theme)

15 (a new heaven and a new earth) 


And then there are numerous local embellishments, additions, deletions, and so on.

Regarding the Lindworm and right relation of male/female... If you imagine it like this: nothing doesn't exist, so something does - that's the inevitability of existence, in just a neat little phrase which I'm sure one could pick apart if one were so inclined. But running with, and skipping a few steps, there comes a problem: the moment there is this existence, and there is awareness of it (prior to any particularisation) there is that split between the awareness and what it is aware of, the classic dilemma. I think this is where STS/STO comes in at the most original level: are you going to be that awareness for which the other awareness (which is really the same as you) is an object with you the subject? Or are you going to accept that the other way round is equally true, the other is a subject and you are their object, and you are both equal subjects, equally the original consciousness? I think this subject-object dilemma is reflected in male-female on 3rd density. The truth is, as long as you have consciousness there is that consciousness and what you are conscious of. To achieve oneness you have to do something about that. For now, that means balancing the male-female. We need to realise that each of us is the sole subject for whom everything else must appear as other than that, while also we are part of that otherness for another subject who is also just the sole subject, and that goes for every one, it's not a paradox it's the miracle of reality! From what I gather from what you're saying, my initial interpretation of the Lindworm, as the dark twin, would be that it is this other self which is equally its own subject but which you reject as such and force into the object for one's own subjectivity. The Lindworm might be like the white dot of yang, male, dominating, subjective energy, within the black of the yin, receptive, female energy. That is to say, it is the remergence of our own ego in what our own subjectivity (the main white yang half) forces into otherness (that black yin half wherein the other white dot arises)? Perhaps it is the revenge of our male, dominating, objectifying consciousness, applying all those functions back onto ourselves?

A balancing of male and female also has to do with balancing both halves of our brain. The left hemisphere of Reason (male) and the right hemisphere of Faith (female). The 'Maidens at the Wells' chapter in The Wave is an excellent source to grok this.

It can be easy to get lost in the weeds of subject-object philosophy. However, what you are working with can also be understood or accessed in many ways. For instance, as a problem posed by the Observer Effect in quantum physics, which is explored near the end of the 'Earth Changes: The Human-Cosmic Connection' book.

These days I'm finding it much more useful to think in terms of another distinction - that of 'the flesh', and that of 'the Soul', as has come down to us from Paul.

Q: (L) In this recent book I read about Paul, it basically exhibits what Paul was seeing or perceiving in his visions, or his conversations, or his channelings with Jesus I guess you'd call it. It's pretty much what we have received via this communication. Now, this guy interprets righteousness as absolution. I would like to ask about this absolution/righteousness issue. What did Paul actually mean?

A: Something rather like what you and others have experienced as "cleansing" or "opening" of the conscience as Gurdjieff described it.

Q: (L) So in other words, this getting "saved" or "made righteous" or having absolution or whatever is not necessarily an instantaneous thing?

A: Exactly. But it can be in rare instances.

Q: (L) But for most people, it would be more like what Jeanne De Salzmann describes in the First Initiation. First, you have to get to the point where you can really see yourself, see your lies, see how you have identified with your false personality, and grow that spiritual part of yourself which is the "spirit self" as Paul describes it - as opposed to the fleshly self. Paul says that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. What he means is not necessarily that you have to die, but that it is that inner self, that awareness, that conscience, that spirit self that has to be brought to awareness and then grown and solidified, more or less. That is being "saved", so to say.

A: Yes

Q: (L) And that's pretty much what Paul says because he doesn't describe it as an instant process. He says you need to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. So it's something that requires work and time. And yet Christianity as it exists today has distorted this to where they say, "Oh, all you have to do is come down to the altar and say you believe" and that's it. That's just not the way it works.

And for a bit more context:

: (L) So some of these pendulum-type attractors can be good?

A: Essential in fact. One must choose.

Q: (L) Well, choosing makes me think of what the Apostle Paul was saying when he talked about making... I mean, basically what it amounted to was making your choices based on the unseen world or on unseen realities. In a funny sort of way, today I had like a little realization because I was trying to understand why for Paul, the death of his Christ or the crucifixion was THE most important thing. For him it was the death, not the resurrection. It finally occurred to me that the reason it was so important was because - and this is according to Paul - his Christ went to his death with absolute faith even in the face of everything being wrong and against him. The way it's depicted in the Gospel of Mark, not only did the disciples not understand, not only is he abused, tortured, and rejected by literally everybody... I mean, everybody flees from him in the Gospel of Mark, which is the first gospel. Everybody. There are no women at the cross. There are no supporters. There's nobody. He did that willingly - the way it's depicted, and it's an allegory - because his faith in the unseen necessity and the other world and what would happen after the death was so strong he could and would do it. It was a matter of this faith that what was unseen was more real and lasting that the seen reality. Am I right? Seeing the unseen is the key?

A: Yes

Q: (L) So Paul was concerned with restoring humanity to the Edenic state. He uses the symbol as one man, the First Adam, and death came to all. And then by one man life came to all. It struck me that the possibility... Well, what the C's have said is that when the Fall happened, it happened to everyone. It wasn't just like one person. It happened to everyone. So it seems to me that this primal man that is Adam is a representation of all. It's not just one man that caused everybody to go kaflooey. And they've said that it was the female energy consorted with the STS reality. Is that what we're looking at here, only the reversal of the process? In other words, a group of people that have that kind of faith that in the face of everything being literally awful as it is in our world today, that they still have faith in the other reality, they still have faith in doing good, doing right, being loving, that they do not buy into the whole Darwinian materialistic thing, and basically they don’t believe those lies and by those means they are able to, at a certain point in time that Paul called the culmination of the ages, be restored to this Edenic state... in other words a 4D STO reality. Am I interpreting that correctly?

A: Oh that was beautiful!! We are impressed!

Q: (L) Well la-dee-da! So that's basically what the anchoring of the frequency is about. And that's part of the interior state that people have to be in in order to anchor that frequency - to have that kind of faith. It’s not where you are, but who you are and what you see? Even in the face of everything being against your ideas, against what you think, against what you've figured out...

(Joe) Even things inside you being against you. The internal fight. You have faith that doing what it doesn't like that you will kind of achieve something worth having.

(Andromeda) Right.

(Joe) It's internally and externally at the same time.

(L) So it's not faith IN Jesus as Ashworth points out. It's faith OF Jesus that sets the example. And the example was put in a metaphor of the story of this crucifixion or death, but the metaphor represents basically the crucifixion of every person. They're crucified inside and outside because they are faced with this reality that rejects their consciousness, their more or less divine connection, their spiritual connection. They say that everything is just random mutations and random evolution, and that's wrong. That's the Big Lie.

A: Yes. We can retire now!

And so, from these session snippets, it's clear to me why I'm interested in this framing of the questions you pose. A discussion of 'subject and object' can be a dry philosophical labyrinth - and Soul does not necessarily enter into the picture. To me, a discussion of 'flesh and Soul' is much more illuminating - the stakes are higher, the contrast more starkly posed, and the ethics much more clearly laid out. But, to each their own.

 

[seeker2seer]

And so, from these session snippets, it's clear to me why I'm interested in this framing of the questions you pose. A discussion of 'subject and object' can be a dry philosophical labyrinth - and Soul does not necessarily enter into the picture. To me, a discussion of 'flesh and Soul' is much more illuminating - the stakes are higher, the contrast more starkly posed, and the ethics much more clearly laid out. But, to each their own.

I agree with you and think the discussion of "flesh and Soul" is one of the greatest keys to understanding our reality to include what is happening around us today and what lies ahead. An important part of tuning our perspective.

 

[iamthatis]

I stumbled across the following video recently. It's a lively lecture, featuring drumming and storytelling, by renowned mythologist Michael Meade, given at Stanford.

In it, he speaks a length about genius, which is very apropos to this discussion of the Religion of Ancient Rome. Meade's presentation is like lengthy discussion of 'the parable of the talents', wherein finding, developing, and using our talents can be of benefit to all - and more than that, it may also be the only way to avert catastrophic earth changes. However, it is more of a mythic talk that focuses on human psychology, and leaves one wondering about the details of the history of 'genius'. What were those Ancients really thinking?

A bit of a refresher about genius according to Fustel:

These human souls deified by death were what the Greeks called demons, or heroes.25 The Latins gave them the name of Lares, Manes, Genii. “Our ancestors believed,” says Apuleius “that the Manes, when they were malignant, were to be called larvae; they called them Lares when they were benevolent and propitious.”26 Elsewhere we read, “Genius and Lar is the same being; so our ancestors believed.”27 And in Cicero, “Those that the Greeks called demons we call Lares.”28

'Genii' is the Latinate English plural of genius. A refresher on the etymology of genius:

genius (n.)

late 14c., "tutelary or moral spirit" who guides and governs an individual through life, from Latin genius "guardian deity or spirit which watches over each person from birth; spirit, incarnation; wit, talent;" also "prophetic skill; the male spirit of a gens," originally "generative power" (or "inborn nature"), from PIE *gen(e)-yo-, from root *gene- "give birth, beget," with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups.

The sense of "characteristic disposition" of a person is from 1580s. The meaning "person of natural intelligence or talent" and that of "exalted natural mental ability, skill in the synthesis of knowledge derived from perception" are attested by 1640s.

As already discussed previously, our current understanding of genius eradicates any type of vertical connection to higher planes. To us moderns, 'genius' is understood through a materialistic and individualistic worldview. In essence, genius is sort of like equivalent to winning the genetic lottery by random chance.

A note about Fustel. He gathers all the various forms of otherworldly spirits together, 'Lares, Manes, Genii, heroes, daemons'. After he died, a fellow historian, Ramsay MacMullen, had this to say of him (from Fisher, H. A. L. "Fustel de Coulanges," The English Historical Review, Vol. V, 1890.)

“To read all available texts and to report upon them strictly, such was, in the eyes of Fustel de Coulanges, the function of the historian. If every word in the text has been given its due weight, the truth will be disengaged not hypothetically but necessarily. … History is not an art, but the most arduous of sciences, in which subjective elements have no place.”

“The one virtue on which he prided himself, that of an absolute scientific impartiality, is the one virtue which experience does not allow us to assign to those historians who have given burning questions a burning answer. The fact is that Fustel de Coulanges was a logician first and an historian afterwards. He has a wonderful eye for the unity of history, for the common properties of institutions, for the widely distributed consequences of some remote force. But he missed the complexity of events, and was, in the process of simplification, apt to ignore the plurality of causes. Determined to extract a clear answer from the darkest oracles of the past, he often submitted texts to unwilling tortures. In his treatment of institutions he was prone to overlook the political circumstances which contributed to their growth and gave them their distinctive colour, to view them in an unreal and stationary isolation, and to insist too strongly on those features which appeared to harmonise with his own dominating convictions. Always a clear and incisive writer, he excelled especially in the exposition and elucidation of texts. No one has better understood the art of eliciting the maximum of meaning out of the minimum of text, of developing the result into all its logical consequences, and of exhibiting the process in an attractive and exhilarating form. Although every one of this works was in part, if not in entirety, a polemic, and sustained by a background of intesnse personal feeling, he rarely departed from that sobriety which is the true not of genius. He is trenchant without bluster, imperious without insolence.

‘La Cite Antique’ appeared in 1864, three years after Sir Henry Maine’s ‘Ancient Law.’ The subject was suggested by the Latin thesis on the cult of Vesta which Fustel sent up for his doctorat six years before. From that time onward he had devoted himself to the study of the institutions of Greece and Rome, taking them one by one, and submitting each to a rigorous analysis. He was then struck by the fact that all the institutions of the ancient Aryan world bore signs of a common origin in the primitive cult of dead ancestors. The remarkable cohesion of the family group in early times, the primitive inalienability of property, the phenomena of agnation [patrilinearity], adoption, and female disabilities were all explicable on the hypothesis that the social evolution of the race was controlled by a particular order of religious belief and observance. A federal union of patriarchal families, each worshipping a common ancestors, the ancient city passed through the successive stages of monarchy, aristocracy, plutocracy, and democracy, each of which marks a point in the progressive decomposition of the primitive family group. The appearance of the archon and the consul, of the stratagems and the tribune, the Solonian revolution and the twelve tables are parallel steps in the break-up of the familiar system, which yields to the pressure of a growing non-privileged population. It is obvious that in this conception of antiquity, pieced together though it largely is by a medley of fragments of dateless and doubtful application, there is much that is true as well as striking. But its value depends not so much on the amount of ascertained truth which it may contain, as upon the new angle at which it presents every fact and institution of the ancient world. It is a lantern held up from an untried corner, in the light of which familiar shapes assume new relations, one of those fertilizing conceptions which produce on every side a fresh crop of suggestive views – on the lot at Athens, on the Solonion opoi, on the origin of priestly families – and which infuse new sap into the great reconstruction of the past.

So from this we can gather that he was primarily a logician, and a historian second - and perhaps went too far in attempting to force the mess of history into a neatness that simply does not accurately describe it. I think the seeming conflation between the entities named as 'Lares, heroes, daemons, genii, etc.' is a result of this. I reckon that his main purpose was to understand the institutions of Fire & Ancestor worship, and make the case that they are the basis of all of contemporary culture. But due to the scope of his vision, and the force of his hypothesis, and his institutional focus, he didn't pause to clarify the differences of these otherworldly entities. They remain an as-yet unpacked detail. An important one, however, because it was these entities upon which the institutions he studied were based.

So this is all pretty normal - hypotheses are subject to tests. I am uncertain whether or not his argument falls apart if the differences between the abovementioned discarnate entities are more fully fleshed out. But it could be that Fustel knew what we was talking about, and two terms - genius and daemon - are quite closely related.

Anyways, back to Michael Meade. His talk is reminiscent of Jordan Petersen, similar in the plea for (1) recognizing the inherent worth and the potential genius in all; (2) the recognition of our sacred capacity to be transducers between Heaven and Earth (3) the role of education was once to nurture Soul growth, and has now become something much different; (4) a critique of the mass formation (education) of humans that prevents the development of each unique individual's gifts; (5) the stamping out of human Soul growth leads to a situation of 'chaos outside, chaos inside' - nowhere to run, despair, jealousy, nihilism, and horrifying acts of violence, as well as (7) Earth changes - in this case, a great flood. Meade doesn't make the geomythological connection very strongly, but it's there.

Interestingly, all of Meade's presented information is not based on anything Roman, but rather, a Mayan folktale. Summarized as follows:

- a boy is born with two gifts, a green cape and a gourd of water... his name is Poder, the word for Power
- everyone is busy with his birth, and the wise Midwife removes them and takes to the wise people in the hills for safekeeping
- the boy has a burning question as he grows older: 'do I have something to give to life? And does life have something to give to me?'
- he leaves the village on a quest, and finds the hill people, retrieving his gifts, or finding his genius
- he discovers he has the ability to create rain, a significant blessing in a dry land
- another boy who is convinced he has no gifts becomes jealous, and steals these gifts
- he goes up into the heavens and dumps out all the water, creating a great flood
- god is angry, but forgiving, and sets the world aright, but condemns all people to not know the gifts they are born with

So the use of our genius can help balance the world (akin to rain in a dry place), and jealousy and theft by the ones who feel cursed (ungifted) bring imbalance. Meade's point is that ponerized universities are currently in the process of imbalancing the world, though they do have the potential to be an institution that draws forth the genius in every student.

When one's genius goes unused, or is ignored, or when one allows the culture to program and control one's life, according to Meade, is when the daemon arrives, becoming a 'demon' that harasses the person in question for not being who they truly are.

One can also see why the early Church fathers began to label the tutelary daemons as demons (codified earliest in the Vulgate Bible, by my reckoning). They sought to prevent the genius of human beings from being developed and finding expression; to shut down Soul growth; and create automaton believers who lived in fear of eternal damnation, and thus ripe for energetic harvest.

As I've learned from Witzel, the Mayan myths and the Roman myths both derive from the same source - the old Laurasian storyline. I don't know of any Roman folktales that have survived, but it could be that this type of cross-referencing of cultural stories belonging to the same meta-story is a somewhat accurate way for understanding the Ancient mind and motivations in case there are gaps in data.

It could be that the Romans had a similar understanding conveyed in the Mayan folktale above - and perhaps, like Meade and Fustel, they weren't so worried about exact terminology, so long as they got their point across - to teach the wisdom of listening for the inner voice of your Soul, to find out who you truly are, to ask how to be of service to the world, and have the courage to 'leave the village', discover your talents, and take your place amongst the people who are striving to participate in the grand balance of the world.

 

[Sybil]

I stumbled across the following video recently. It's a lively lecture, featuring drumming and storytelling, by renowned mythologist Michael Meade, given at Stanford.

In it, he speaks a length about genius, which is very apropos to this discussion of the Religion of Ancient Rome. Meade's presentation is like lengthy discussion of 'the parable of the talents', wherein finding, developing, and using our talents can be of benefit to all - and more than that, it may also be the only way to avert catastrophic earth changes. However, it is more of a mythic talk that focuses on human psychology, and leaves one wondering about the details of the history of 'genius'. What were those Ancients really thinking?

A bit of a refresher about genius according to Fustel:


'Genii' is the Latinate English plural of genius. A refresher on the etymology of genius:



As already discussed previously, our current understanding of genius eradicates any type of vertical connection to higher planes. To us moderns, 'genius' is understood through a materialistic and individualistic worldview. In essence, genius is sort of like equivalent to winning the genetic lottery by random chance.

A note about Fustel. He gathers all the various forms of otherworldly spirits together, 'Lares, Manes, Genii, heroes, daemons'. After he died, a fellow historian, Ramsay MacMullen, had this to say of him (from Fisher, H. A. L. "Fustel de Coulanges," The English Historical Review, Vol. V, 1890.)



So from this we can gather that he was primarily a logician, and a historian second - and perhaps went too far in attempting to force the mess of history into a neatness that simply does not accurately describe it. I think the seeming conflation between the entities named as 'Lares, heroes, daemons, genii, etc.' is a result of this. I reckon that his main purpose was to understand the institutions of Fire & Ancestor worship, and make the case that they are the basis of all of contemporary culture. But due to the scope of his vision, and the force of his hypothesis, and his institutional focus, he didn't pause to clarify the differences of these otherworldly entities. They remain an as-yet unpacked detail. An important one, however, because it was these entities upon which the institutions he studied were based.

So this is all pretty normal - hypotheses are subject to tests. I am uncertain whether or not his argument falls apart if the differences between the abovementioned discarnate entities are more fully fleshed out. But it could be that Fustel knew what we was talking about, and two terms - genius and daemon - are quite closely related.

Anyways, back to Michael Meade. His talk is reminiscent of Jordan Petersen, similar in the plea for (1) recognizing the inherent worth and the potential genius in all; (2) the recognition of our sacred capacity to be transducers between Heaven and Earth (3) the role of education was once to nurture Soul growth, and has now become something much different; (4) a critique of the mass formation (education) of humans that prevents the development of each unique individual's gifts; (5) the stamping out of human Soul growth leads to a situation of 'chaos outside, chaos inside' - nowhere to run, despair, jealousy, nihilism, and horrifying acts of violence, as well as (7) Earth changes - in this case, a great flood. Meade doesn't make the geomythological connection very strongly, but it's there.

Interestingly, all of Meade's presented information is not based on anything Roman, but rather, a Mayan folktale. Summarized as follows:



So the use of our genius can help balance the world (akin to rain in a dry place), and jealousy and theft by the ones who feel cursed (ungifted) bring imbalance. Meade's point is that ponerized universities are currently in the process of imbalancing the world, though they do have the potential to be an institution that draws forth the genius in every student.

When one's genius goes unused, or is ignored, or when one allows the culture to program and control one's life, according to Meade, is when the daemon arrives, becoming a 'demon' that harasses the person in question for not being who they truly are.

One can also see why the early Church fathers began to label the tutelary daemons as demons (codified earliest in the Vulgate Bible, by my reckoning). They sought to prevent the genius of human beings from being developed and finding expression; to shut down Soul growth; and create automaton believers who lived in fear of eternal damnation, and thus ripe for energetic harvest.

As I've learned from Witzel, the Mayan myths and the Roman myths both derive from the same source - the old Laurasian storyline. I don't know of any Roman folktales that have survived, but it could be that this type of cross-referencing of cultural stories belonging to the same meta-story is a somewhat accurate way for understanding the Ancient mind and motivations in case there are gaps in data.

It could be that the Romans had a similar understanding conveyed in the Mayan folktale above - and perhaps, like Meade and Fustel, they weren't so worried about exact terminology, so long as they got their point across - to teach the wisdom of listening for the inner voice of your Soul, to find out who you truly are, to ask how to be of service to the world, and have the courage to 'leave the village', discover your talents, and take your place amongst the people who are striving to participate in the grand balance of the world.

Thank you for this video. I really enjoyed it.

One can also see why the early Church fathers began to label the tutelary daemons as demons (codified earliest in the Vulgate Bible, by my reckoning). They sought to prevent the genius of human beings from being developed and finding expression; to shut down Soul growth; and create automaton believers who lived in fear of eternal damnation, and thus ripe for energetic harvest.

Precisely. I shall add, that church and government (especially neoliberals) work hand in hand to diminish the human soul. One, as you pointed out, focuses on the eternal damnation generated by the original sin, the other is devoted to teaching people how to sell their dreams for material things. Both plays on fear, the fear of death and the fear of scarcity.
It is highly paradoxical, that children, from a very young age, systematically molded into an 'army of stormtroopers' (clones), while this culture celebrates entrepreneurs.
If people would find their inner genius, this whole pathetic circus we living in would fall apart.