THE THIRD BOOK OF MACEDON commonly called
MAKEDONICUS
The Dionysius Creed (Dreamtime‌) The people gathered at Tzotze’s Holy Rock - there was a melody coming from within the caverns. The vine trees had already been harvested - their fruits made into wine1 - from the body of Dyalus people squeezed the blood and drank it mixed with honey and the juice of the pine
1
The original rite of Dionysus, as introduced into Greece, is almost universally held to have been associated with a "wine cult" (perhaps not too dissimilar to the entheogenic cults of ancient Central America in some ways), concerned with the cultivation of the grapevine, and a practical understanding of its life cycle - which was probably believed to have embodied the living god - as well as the production and fermentation of wine from its dismembered body - apparently associated with the essence of the dead god in the underworld. Most importantly however the intoxicating and disinhibiting effects of the drink itself were once regarded as due to possession by the god's spirit and later as a facilitator of this possession. Some wine was also given as libation to the earth and growing vine, completing the circle. The cult would not only have been solely concerned with the lore of the vine itself, but almost as much with other components of wine. Wine originally commonly included many other ingredients, herbal, floral and resinous, adding to its quality, flavor and medicinal properties, and was far more diverse than the simple drink we know today. Some scholars have suggested that given the very low alcohol content of early wine its apparent effects were perhaps due to an entheogenic ingredient in its sacred form. Honey and bees wax were also often added to wine, bringing with them the associations of the even older drink mead.
added to preserve its lore2. It was the season of celebration and revelation, it was the time to release all restrains imposed by earthly limitations and raise the spirits from the underworld. The mead gave rise to the two serpents3 from within their own bodies and the dance started in ecstasy. The elders started chanting the ancient prayers4 and the young women and men gathered under the basin to wait for the ritualistic bathe to begin. It was a rite as ancient as time, and upon hearing the words of the High Priest: “Appear, appear, what so thy shape or name, O Mountain Bull, Snake of the Hundred Heads, Lion of the Burning Flame! O God, Beast, Mystery, come…”5, the young people took off their animal robes and lifted their hands to the Heavens, chanting: O God, Beast, Mystery, come… They were crowned with wreaths of ivy and oak leaves, and started dancing to each other’s nudity6, praising the Lord, his death and his resurrection. Near the Holy Rock the Maenads, unarmed “swooped down upon the herds of cattle grazing there on the green of the meadow. And then you could have seen a single woman with bare hands tear a fat calf, still bellowing with fright, in two, while others clawed the heifers to pieces. There were ribs and cloven hooves scattered everywhere, and scraps smeared with blood hung from the fir trees. And bulls, their raging fury gathered in their horns, lowered their heads
2
Other plants believed to be viniculturally significant were also included in the retinue of wine lore. Thus were added ivy, once thought to negate the effects of drunkenness, and thus opposite of the grapevine - a symbolic relation also due to its blooming in winter rather than summer; the fig, thought to be a purgative of toxins; and the pine, a wine preservative. Similarly the bull - from whose hollowed horns wine was once drunk - and the goat whose flesh provided wineskins, as well as acting as a natural 'pruner of the vine', were also included as wine cult animals and according to this theory eventually seen as manifestations of Dionysus. It is likely that some of these associations had long been linked with fertility deities like Dionysus and to a certain extent became reinterpreted in his new role. But an understanding of this vinicultural lore and its symbolic interpretation is crucial to an understanding of the cult that emerged from it, and would take on significance quite apart from wine making that would encompass life, death and rebirth and acquire a deep awareness of human psychology. 3
The archeological excavations in Prilep, Veles and Sv. Nikole reveal a rear group of reliefs excavated in Paeonian territory, which represent a local phenomenon. These are four stones representing two snakes each, rising from the bottom, coiling around a vessel set on an altar, which contains a pinecone. Dionysus is usually shown as incarnation of the serpent deity, which is related to its chthonic nature, but also points at the nurturing power of the deity. These reliefs could therefore be linked to the Paeonian Dyalus. 4
Károly Kerenyi in fact postulates that this wine lore superseded and partly absorbed a much earlier Neolithic mead lore, involving the very bee swarms that the Greeks associated with the presence of Dionysus. Mead as well as beer, and its cereal base, were certainly incorporated into the domain of Dionysus at some stage, perhaps via his identification with the wild Thracian corn deity Sabazius.
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Euripides, The Bacchae
"From the time when the rites were held promiscuously, with men and women mixed together, and when the license offered by darkness had been added, no sort of crime, no kind of immortality, was left unattempted. There were more obscenities practiced between men than between men and women. Anyone refusing to submit to outrage or reluctant to commit crimes was slaughtered as a sacrificial victim. To regard nothing as forbidden was among these people the summit of religious achievement. Men, apparently out of their wits, would utter prophesies with frenzied bodily convulsions: matrons, attired as Bacchantes, with their hair disheveled and carrying blazing torches, would run down to the Tiber, plunge their torches into the water and bring them out still alight - because they contained a mixture of live sulfur and calcium. Men were said to have been carried off by the gods - because they had been attached to a machine and whisked way out of sight to hidden caves; or to submit to violation.” - Titus Livy, History of Rome, Book 39.13
to charge, then fell, stumbling to the earth, pulled down by hordes of women and stripped of flesh and skin more quickly, sire, than you could blink your royal eyes.�7 Then all of a sudden there appeared the image of Krst8 on the sky, and everyone stopped to gaze at its splendor. As the people were gazing the mysterious sign in the Heavens, the High Priest appeared from atop of the Holy Rock, wearing the mask of the Thunder God - whom the people from the land of the Phoenix9 called Kadmos - the grandfather of Dyalus, and pointed at the signs inscribed on the rocks.
These were the ancient signs10 that descended from the Heavens above, when the Great Mother changed into the world tree. They were kept in silence by the children of the Great Mother, and 7
Euripides, The Bacchae
8
Son of God - Horus was born as the son of Osiris the creator god. Born on December 25th, his birth was foretold by Thoth, the god of wisdom, who knew all things. Horus was called Iusa, and Krst (The "annointed one"). Baptized by Anubis, he had 12 disciples (who were the 12 signs of the zodiac [see: astrology]), and he performed miracles. It was Horus who raised Osiris from the dead (In Egyptian, he was "Azar", in Greek he was called "Azaris" [compare: Christ's raising of Lazarus]). After suffering death, Horus was buried in a tomb where he was resurrected and ascended into "Amen-ti", the Egyptian heaven [See: Heaven]. 9
The Iliad is full of references to Danaans and Kadmeians, whose eponyms - Danaos and Kadmos - would have been instantly recognized by at least later Greeks as having come from Egypt or Phoenicia. Homer and Hesiod both referred to Europa, who was always seen as a sister or some other close relative to Kadmos, as the 'daughter of Phoenix'. Reluctant to admit that this could have any connection with Phoenicia, Karl Otfried Muller and other source critics have pointed out, correctly, that phoenix has many other meanings and need not be directly connected with the Levant. However, given Homer's frequent use of Phoenix in the sense of 'Phoenician', and the later universal identification of Europa and Kadmos with Phoenicia, this argument seems rather far-fetched, especially when we know that Hesiod described Phoenix as the father of Adonis, whose Phoenician parentage is as beyond doubt as the origin of his name from the Canaanite 'adon (lord).Indeed, since Gomme wrote his article, a fragment of Hesiod's Catalogue of Women has been published in which Europa is described as the daughter of the 'noble Phoenician' and her abductor, Zeus, carries her over the 'salt water'. This confirms that the Europa story, which the scholiast on Iliad XII.292 attributed to both Hesiod and the 5th-century poet Bakchylides, existed in the time of the former. (Black Athena, Martin Bernal) 10
Diodoros referred to Kadmos' having taught the Pelasgians the use of Phoenician letters. (Black Athena, Martin Bernal)
uttered only when the resurrection of Dyalus was at hand. The High Priest pointed at the signs and all the children saw the truth from beyond. As they were chanting solemn hymns the High Priest cried out loud three times: “Come, O Dityrambos, enter this my male womb…”11 All of a sudden the wind hurled from behind the clouds and merged into the forest. The people watched in amazement as the forest roared the name of the born again God: “Dyalus12 has resurrected – Truly he has…” The women gathered in a circle around the Holy Rock and sang with awe: “I see nothing with my eyes, my ears hum, sweat pours from me, a trembling seizes me all over, I am greener than grass, and it seems to me that I am little short of dying...” (Sappho) The High Priest then took off his mask13 as he approached a group of twelve young men and touched their forehead with his rod - on top of which there was the sacred pinecone14 - as they
11
From: Euripides, The Bacchae. "This cry of Zeus, the Thunder-hurler, to the child, his son, Dionysos, sounds the leitmotif of the Greek mysteries of the initiatory second birth...The word 'Dithyrambos' itself, as an epithet of the killed and resurrected Dionysos, was understood by the Greeks to signify 'him of the double door', him who had survived the awesome miracle of the second birth." - Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces 12
Dionysus’ mother was Semele, a mortal woman, and his father Zeus, was king of the gods. Semele was unsure that the man that she was in love with was actually Zeus, and she demanded that he reveal himself in all his glory as proof of his godhood. Though Zeus begged her not to ask this, she persisted and he agreed. Mortals, however, cannot look upon a god without dying, and she perished. Zeus rescued the fetal Dionysus, by sewing him into his thigh. A few months later, Dionysus was born. 13
The origin of ancient theatre seems to have been in the Dionysic dithyramb, an improvised song honoring Dionysus and sung by a chorus of maenads under the leadership of a man "wit-stricken” by wine (although no direct evidence of this exists). Thespis separated the first actor from the chorus sometime around 534 BC. Aeschylus is said to be the creator of tragedy. According to the ancient traveler Pausanias, Aeschylus came to write tragedies because of a dream. Aeschylus said that when he was a boy he was asleep in the country looking after a vineyard, and Dionysus met him and told him to write tragedies. When day broke he wanted not to disobey, so he tried, and composed with the greatest ease. Whatever its origin, tragedy suddenly appears early in the 5th century as a fully-formed discipline. Aeschylus also added a second actor and Sophocles a third. In particular tragedies portray suffering, as one might expect since Dionysus is the suffering god. But perhaps the most important change in the creation of tragedy was the wearing of masks. Masks were a manifestation of Dionysus because of his dual nature. Part of him is always hidden. Dionysus is the mask, and it is not empty but filled with spirits. Donning the mask brings us into contact with the creativeness and destructiveness hidden deep within our own natures. Dionysus marks the crossing of opposites into one another, but also holds opposites in suspension, the double image, and dissolves boundaries. The mask allows the actor to abandon his own persona, enter a mythological reality and embody a character. The mask is the representation of the mythological and sacred reality presented in tragedy. But we must take the concept behind the mask one step further. In ancient iconography the mask was presented confrontationally face-on, as was Dionysus, while the profile is used for representations of other gods as well as men and women. Thus the mask is the instigator of confrontation with the person watching the action on stage. (http://greek-myth.com/Mythology/kadmos_dionysus.htm)
entered the womb of the Holy Rock. They were to eat the body of God and drink of his blood, thus celebrating the resurrection of his spirit in them. The Great Mystery15 was thus revealed to the anointed ones‌ When the ritual was over, the people gathered in the forest and celebrated over a feast, and told stories of ancient lore about the time when the Great Mother gave birth to the Thunder God, and how he created the Holy Rock where he placed the signs from the stars, which no one could pronounce but the High Priest upon which they were bestowed to summon the resurrection of the living God. The High Priest then told the gathered children that the secret of the Resurrection 14
“The touch of the rod of power (thyrsus) on the head, which formed part of the ancient ceremony, in the hand of the initiating hierophant, always had the same effect - the attainment of spiritual illumination.� - Geoffrey Hodson, The Still-functioning Greater and Lesser Mysteries
15
The Dionysian Mysteries probably began as an ancient initiation society or family of similar societies, centered on a primeval nature god (and his consort), apparently associated with horned animals, serpents and solitary predators (primarily big cats), later known to the Greeks in the eclectic figure of Dionysus. It seems to have first taken organized form in Minoan Crete or Greece between 3000 BCE and 1000 BCE. When absorbed into Greek culture, it gradually evolved into a complex mystery religion that utilized intoxicants and other trance inducing techniques, such as dance and music, to remove inhibitions and artificial societal constraints, liberating the individual to return to a more natural and primal state. It also afforded a degree of liberation for the marginals of Greek society, women, slaves and foreigners. In their final phase the Mysteries apparently shifted from a chthonic, primeval orientation to a transcendental, mystical one, with Dionysus altering his nature accordingly (much in the same way as happened in the cult of Shiva, Dionysos' eastern counterpart, according to some). Other scholars see these Mysteries, with their resurrected god and secret knowledge about the afterlife, as the precursor of the Eleusinian Mysteries, Orphic Mysteries, Gnosticism and Early Christianity. Manifestations of all its phases are said to have existed in a diverse range of Dionysos cults on the shores of the Mediterranean up until late Roman times. The sophisticated Dionysian Mysteries of mainland Greece and the Roman Empire are generally thought to have evolved from a more primitive initiatory cult of unknown origin, that had spread throughout the Mediterranean region by the start of the Classical Greek period. Its spread possibly associated with the dissemination of wine, a sacrament or entheogen with which it appears always to have been closely associated (though mead may have been the original sacrament). Beginning as a simple primitive rite it appears to have quickly evolved within Greek culture into a popular Mystery Religion, which absorbed a variety of similar ancient cults, and their parallel gods, in a typically Greek eclectic synthesis across its colonial territories. In one of its late forms it mutated into what some would call the Orphic Mysteries (not to be confused with the more general trend called Orphism). But all stages of this developmental spectrum appear to have continued in parallel in various locales on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean until quite late in pagan history. The ecstatic cult of Dionysus was originally thought to have been a late arrival in Greece from Thrace or Asia Minor, due to the popularity of the cult there and the non integration of Dionysus into the original Olympian Pantheon. But following the identification of the deity's name on Mycenean Linear B tablets this theory has now been abandoned and the cult is accepted as effectively indigenous and predating Greek civilization. The absence of an early Olympian Dionysus is today explained in terms of patterns of social exclusion and the marginality of the cult rather than chronology. The question of whether the cult originated on Minoan Crete, as an aspect of an ancient Zagreus, or in Thrace or Asia as a proto-Sabazius (or even Africa) is still unanswerable given the available evidence. Some believe it was an adopted cult that was not native to any of these places, and may have even been an eclectic cult in its earliest history, though it almost certainly obtained many of its most familiar features from Minoan culture. (from Wikipedia)
Mystery was known to the children of Ammon-Ra too, who had lost it to the invading desert princes. These were the children of the Phoenix who had taken the signs from the rocks and had used them to record their victories. Later they came with Kadmos to teach their new way to the natives of Argos. The night had already covered the Heavens and the darkness crept through the forest. The High Priest prophesized a long and turbulent night - there was a storm gathering behind the hills. The children were falling asleep‌ (Awakening‌) This short presentation is intended to summarize various perspectives on the origins of the Dionysus Creed, a mystery initiation which was evidently venerated in Paeonia, and among the indigenous population of the Balkans, very much before the Phoenicians introduced it to Greece. The evidence is contained in the very site of Tzotze’s Rock, where this rite can be detected by merely taking a look at the various compartments, which were clearly used for the veneration of Dyalus. If we add here the Paeonian relief stones, depicting the serpents and the pinecone, as well as the one showing Dyalus entangled with a vine tree, on top of which two snakes appear that hold an egg-shaped object, most probably a pinecone, again excavated in Paeonian territory, which resisted Hellenization until its integration within the Macedonian Kingdom, then we might assume that the Dionysus mysteries were a very archaic religious form of initiation into the mysteries of a creed possibly associated to a primeval nature deity. However, if we consider the accounts that Martin Bernal provides in Black Athena, where he states that it was Danaos and Kadmos who brought the Dionysus cult into Greece, then the question that rises is where did the Phoenicians, or for that matter the Egyptian Semitic Danaos, acquired the mystery cult of resurrection. We know that the Phoenicians brought the alphabet from Asia Minor into Greece, and taught the Pelasgians to use it for administrative purpose, as it seems. Then, could it be that the Phoenicians, being skilled merchants, who were seen as unpolished seamen with no art, literature, or culture of their own, had received the knowledge of the signs from the Phrygians, who had settled in Asia Minor from the Balkans after the Trojan War, and who were most probably related to the Paeonians? Could it be that the Phrygians and the Paeonians, who had carved these symbols on rocks, much earlier than their appearance in Phoenicia, had used them for this sort of mystery initiations dedicated to a cult much older than what the Greek authors of the Classical era suggest? If we consider the affinity for Hellenization of foreign cults among the ancient Greeks, and if we assume that Kadmos arrived to Peloponnesus from Phoenicia, where he was cast from Egypt after the Hyksos period, when the Egyptians regained control over their land, than we might assume that what Kadmos taught the ancient Greeks, which introduced the Archaic period, was actually a much earlier cult that had been taken from the Egyptians, in regards to the Osiris mystery initiation, and the resurrection of Horus. Martin Bernal suggest that: Although there are references to Egyptian and Phoenician settlers in other plays of the period, I shall focus here on the drama in which settlement on the Greek Mainland is a central theme: Aischylos' The Suppliants. The Suppliants is generally considered to be the
first play and sole survivor of a trilogy or tetralogy. The titles of the missing pieces are believed to have been The Egyptians, The Danaids, and a satirical play, Amymone, and from The Suppliants and later writings on myth and legend, the overall theme of the dramas is clear. Io, the daughter of King Inachos of Argos, was loved by Zeus. Hera, in one of her many fits of jealousy, turned Io into a cow and tormented her with gadflies. Io fled to many places and finally settled in Egypt, where she gave birth to Zeus' child, Epaphos. Epaphos' descendants and their spouses included Libya, Poseidon, Belos, King Agenor of Tyre - the father of Kadmos and Europa - and the twin brothers Danaos and Aigyptos. Danaos had fifty daughters and Aigyptos fifty sons. The brothers quarreled but later there was a mass wedding on the night of which, with one exception, Danaos' daughters killed Aigyptos' sons. In some way Danaos then acquired the throne of Argos. The various versions of the story differ greatly, particularly over which of these actions took place in Egypt and which in Argos. The Suppliants describes one episode of this story, the arrival in Argos of Danaos' daughters as suppliants fleeing from Egypt and the evil intentions of the sons of Aigyptos. There they are given the sanctuary of Zeus Hikesios 'the Suppliant' by the native king, Pelasgos. A herald arrives from Aigyptos and his sons and arrogantly commands that Danaos' daughters be handed back. Pelasgos, with stout Hellenic patriotism, refuses and the play ends with plans for the settlement of Danaos and his daughters with Pelasgos and his people in Argos. However, what the Danaos had brought to Argos as a culture, which was later recorded by the Dorian Greeks, cannot have influenced the indigenous population inhabiting the northern regions of the Balkans. Nevertheless, the Dionysus cult seems to have flourished among the Paeonians in a much more archaic form than that to the south. It seems that the indigenous population of Paeonia had known the secret of resurrection prior to it being introduced by the Semitic invaders. To add to this, there are the funerary rituals that I mentioned in the previous chapter, which can be related to the indigenous culture of Crete and Mycenae that survived in the northern regions of the Balkans, also populated with natives, or Pelasgians as referred to by the Greek authors, who were resistant to influences from the south, long after the invasions took place. It was not the newcomers that introduced the script, nor the funerary rituals, nor the Dionysus creed, as it seems, but they rather took all these from the native population, in the fashion of the Hyksos imitation of the Egyptian culture, adopting them to their own mentality which promoted crude pragmatism as opposed to the profound spiritualism attached to these cultural elements. This caused major distortions in the core beliefs of the mystery cults venerated in the ancient cultures of Macedon, Egypt or even Central America. The Dionysus Creed was a widespread mystery initiation that had astronomical applications, as well as symbolic. In Egypt it was the Mystery schools of Horus which developed along the River Nile, with the Great Pyramid as its main temple. The story of Horus - being born from a virgin mother16 - who had twelve disciples and was killed only to be resurrected after three days in the 16
The mother of the gods was called Mut, meaning "mother". Other names for her include Nut and Neith. Mut, the virgin mother of the gods was called "beloved", which in Egyptian was "Meri", so that the "beloved mother" of the
underworld, is a metaphor for light's triumph over darkness, and is therefore comparable to other similar sun-myths. The mother element in Egypt can be closely associated to the Great Mother goddess cult in Macedonia: "I am she that is the natural mother of all things, the Mistress and Governess of all the Elements, the initial Progenitrix of all things, the Chief of powers divine, Queen of Heaven, the First of the Gods celestial, the light of the Goddesses. At my will, the planets of the air, the wholesome winds of the Seas, and the silences of hell are disposed; my name, my divinity is adored throughout all the world in various manners, in various customs and in many names, for the Phrygians call me the Mother of the Gods ..." -
Isis, from "Apuleius, The Golden Ass" - 1st Century CE
In Egypt the Pharaohs were believed to be the incarnation of Osiris. Their wives were the incarnations of Mut Meri, and their sons were incarnations of Horus. Therefore, when a son who was to become pharaoh was born, he would be identified as Horus, the son of the virgin mother (impregnated by the Holy Spirit (Kneph) of the God Osiris. There is an interesting coincidence with certain astronomical phenomenon that occurs on the 25th December, and during the winter solstice, which has to do with the constellations visible on the northern hemisphere. Apparently, during this period the three stars from the Orion belt are vertically pointed to the horizon where the sun rises. Right bellow the three stars there is the brightest star in the sky, that of Sirius17, which rises from the east. The next to show on the gods was called "Meri Mut" or "Mother Mary" (see: Mother of God). She later came to be called Isis. It was in her incarnation as Isis, that she was the mother of Horus (see: Horus, sun of God). (Egyptian Religion by E.A.Wallis Budge) 17
The brightest of all the fixed stars is Sirius. Known to astronomers as Alpha Canis Major, it is the principal star of the constellation Canis Major (the Big Dog). The ancient Egyptians called it Septit, the Hebrews knew it as Sihor, to the Greeks as Sothis and also as the "the Dog Star" that followed Orion the Hunter. Sirius has a magnitude of -1.42, which makes it nine times more brilliant than a standard first magnitude star. It can even been seen in daylight with a telescope. Sirius is 23 times as bright as our sun and has almost twice its diameter. Being only 8.7 light-years away, Sirius is the fifth nearest star to our solar system, and the nearest after Alpha Centauri among the naked eye stars. Throughout recorded history, and probably long before, Sirius was the subject of much veneration and myth making throughout the world. Even as late as the 1970s it became the subject of a very controversial theory linked to extra-terrestrials and the Dogon tribe of Mali published by the scholar and author Robert Temple. There is much speculation on the origin of its modern name which is generally thought to be derived from the Greek word "Sirio" meaning "scorching" or "sparkling", apparently because it rose in the height of the summer heat. Some etymologists, however, have suggested a connection with the ancient Egyptian god Osiris. But of all the various names and epithets that this star was given, none can match the notoriety of its role in history as the "Star of Isis". Since earliest times the ancient Egyptian paid particular attention to Sirius, which they identified to the 'soul' of the Goddess Isis. There was a time, very long ago, that Sirius could not be seen in the sky from Egypt. This was because of a phenomenon known as the Precession of the Equinoxes. The Precession is a very slow wobble of our planet taking the polar axis of the Earth in a circular swing of 47 degrees every 26,000 years. The general effect is that the stellar landscape appears to swing up and down like a pendulum. Before the 12th millennium BC Sirius was below the horizon line as seen from the region of Cairo/Giza. It made its first appearance in the skies at that place in c.10,500 BC. Then it had a declination of about 58 degrees 43', which meant it would have just been visible in the south about 1.5 degree above the horizon line. For early man to witness the 'birth' of such a bright star must have been a very impressive sight rich with meaning and messages from the gods. (Bet Emet Ministries)
horizon is the constellation of Virgo, which can be seen only for a short while, since the Sun rises immediately after its full exposure. This was called a heliacal rising of Sirius. In ancient Egypt, the helical rising of Sirius coincided with the annual rising of the Nile at Memphis. All of this matches perfectly the story of the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, which makes us reconsider certain elements of the Christian faith, in terms of its origins. The three kings who follow the brightest star to find the Child-God born from a Virgin must have meant a lot more to the Egyptians, rather than what we have inherited under the veil of Christianity. Dionysus Iacchus, on the other hand, was the Horned God, the Kid, the god of the vine, and the god of joy and terror. He was born crowned with serpents. His childhood consisted of hiding from Hera, since she was outraged at his birth as the son of Zeus and Semele (who is the Moon according to Robert Graves). Because he was born once of his mother and a second-time of Zeus' thigh, he was called “twice born” and “the god of the double-door”. He was hidden by Ino in her women's quarters, dressed as a woman. Thus he grew up effeminate. According to Robert Graves, Dionysus' associations with or transformation into serpents, a tiger18, and a bull are the emblems of the “tripartite year”. The weapon of Dionysus' army was the thyrsus which was a staff, twined with ivy and tipped with a pinecone - a very large bulbous pinecone according to many engravings and drawings. According to Robert Graves, the thyrsus was a relic of Dionysus' earlier dominion over another intoxicant: “spruce-beer, laced with ivy, and sweetened with mead”. His Spring celebrations were notable for their orgasmic focus.19 Moreover, there is a striking similarity between the image of Dionysus and that of Quetzalcoatl20: 1. Quetzal, the inhume Prolocutor, copies Dionysus' effeminate upbringing in that he wears make-up (he says) "like a woman" to pass as human. Quetzal does not make his appearance in the Long Sun story until after Scylla gives the position to Incus (a woman augur passing as a man). Thus, the first time we meet Quetzal in the Prolocutor's palace (Caldé of the Long Sun, chapter 1), he is living in a "woman's quarters". 2. Quetzal s serpentine form represents Dionysus' Serpent epiphany. 3. Quetzal carries a baculus: a staff that symbolizes authority. It is also a nasty wooden mace; a club with a large knot on the end. Because it was cheaply made or bought, it was
18
The Tetovo Maenad (6th century BC) is depicted wearing a panther or leopard skin over her heaps.
19
The Greek Myths, chap. 27 by Robert Graves
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Quetzalcoatl is an Aztec sky and creator god. The name is a combination of quetzalli, a brightly colored Mesoamerican bird, and coatl, meaning serpent. The name was also taken on by various ancient leaders. Due to their cyclical view of time and the tendency of leaders to revise histories to support their rule, many events and attributes attributed to Quetzalcoatl are exceedingly difficult to separate from the political leaders that took this name on themselves.[1] Quetzalcoatl is often referred to as The Feathered Serpent and was connected to the planet Venus. He was also the patron god of the Aztec priesthood, of learning and knowledge.[2] Today Quetzalcoatl is arguably the best known Aztec deity, and is often thought to have been the principal Aztec god. However, Quetzalcoatl was one of several important gods in the Aztec pantheon along with the gods Tlaloc, Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli. (from Wikipedia)
used by medieval conscripted soldiers and was capable of taking out even armored adversaries. Basically, it is a carved version of a thyrsus. A bacillus is a small bone in the penises of certain large mammals, referencing the Dionysus orgasmic celebrations. Finally, the word baculus is similar to Bacchus (the Roman name for Dionysus). This all points at the fact that there was a parallel between the cultures of Central America, Egypt and Macedonia, which relate to an earlier culture associated with events that preceded those of the recorded history. All these deities were associated with an astrological event that was symbolically represented with the story of the virgin birth. They all had twelve disciples; they were all miracle makers, turning water into wine, resurrecting the dead, healing the sick, providing miraculous meals, being unjustly accused of heresy and bringing a new religion; they all lived for thirty-three years, and died on a cross, only to be resurrected as new-born Gods. The symbolism we can all clearly recognize as Christian. Now, if this was the mystery cult venerated in Macedonia, to be more specific in Paeonia, prior to the intrusion of the Phoenician Dionysus in Greece, then we might assume that the Christian religion is a continuation of yet an earlier cult that has been a legacy of earlier epochs, as that of the Great Mother goddess in Macedon. This implies that Alexander the Great, had already had an example to follow, in order to proclaim his new religion to the world, that of the reborn Sun-God of Macedon. As Martin Bernal suggests in the first volume of Black Athena: Alexander the Great clearly considered himself to be a son of Ammon. After his conquest of Egypt he set out into the desert to consult the god's great oracle at the Libyan oasis of Siwa. The oracle told Alexander that he was the god's son, which explains why from then on Alexander's coins portrayed him as a horned Amnion. Modern historians describe as slanders many reports that in the last year of his life Alexander dressed himself and demanded worship in the guise of a number of gods and goddesses and that 'Alexander even desired people to bow to the earth before him, from the idea that Ammon was his father rather than Philip.' Who, then, was the son of Ammon? According to early Egyptian tradition, Osiris was the son of Ra. With the rise of the cult of Amon in the 12th Dynasty the two came together as Ammon-Ra. By the late New Kingdom there was seen to be a mystic union between Ra and Osiris. Thus the thorough confusion between Ammon and Dionysos found in Diodoros Sikeliotes or his source from the 2nd century BC, the Alexandrian Dionysios Skytobrachion, would seem to have precedents in Egyptian theology. In any event Alexander appears to have seen himself as this syncretic divinity, both Ammon and his son. There is no doubt that the actual conquests of Alexander increased the importance of the myths of the vast eastern civilizing expedition of Dionysos or - as Diodoros named him of Osiris, traces of which can be found in Egyptian tradition from the 18th Dynasty or even the Middle Kingdom. Even in Greece, as James Frazer pointed out, the scheme had been outlined by Euripides before Alexander was born. Alexander's relationship with Dionysos was strained and he felt some competition with him, at least after his conquests.
When he reached Nysa in the mountains of North-West India and was told by the inhabitants of its association with the god, it is reported that he was very ready to believe the tale about the journeys of Dionysos; he was also ready to credit that Nysa was founded by Dionysos, in which case he had already reached the point which Dionysos had reached, and would go even further than Dionysos. There are also unreliable reports of his travelling through India 'in mimicry of the Bacchic revelry of Dionysos'. There is no doubt about the political and cultic attention he attached to his many long drinking bouts, and the civilizing mission of Osiris/Dionysos provides a crucial background for Alexander's own activities along these lines. Thus his identification as the son of Amnion, parallel to and rival of Dionysos, was central to his life project. Aryanist historians have preferred to dwell on his reading of Xenophon and his identification and rivalry' with Achilles, and there is no doubt that these were significant factors in his decision to invade Asia. But they were less important than his essentially Egyptian religious mission. The fact that his body was buried in Egypt rather than in Greece or Persia cannot simply be attributed to the ruthlessness of his general Ptolemy, who succeeded him as ruler of Egypt. It shows the centrality of that country to Alexander's life and self-image. Ptolemy and his successors, right up to the Cleopatra of Caesar and Antony, made great use of Egyptian religion both to gain the respect and affection of their Egyptian subjects and to give them cultural power when dealing with the other states that arose from the fragments of Alexander's empire. Nevertheless, this is not enough to explain the huge expansion of Egyptian religion during this period, in what has been called 'the conquest of the Occident by Oriental Religion'.
Alexander clearly saw himself as the Horned God, even a competitor to Dionysus, he was welcomed as the son of Ammon-Ra in Egypt, and was respected as a Pharaoh who restored the Sun kingdom in Egypt, as opposed to the Persian rule of Isfet, in the eyes of the native population of the Egyptian Ma’at. His dream had surpassed all the previous spiritual rudiments that he inherited from the Sun culture of his homeland, since he dared to do something that would further shape the world developments to a great extent, in attempt to affirm his own heroic lineage to a mythical age that had shaped his visions within the culture that he considered divine. He must have believed that it was the right time for him to proclaim the word of the resurrection
of the Horned God to the world infected by the shadow of the Isfet. He must have considered it a holy duty or a mission bestowed by the Sun-god to reach the Far East and attain his divinity by proclaiming the resurrection of the new Sun. However, he evidently missed a very important element in his quest, that of the pinecone. The pinecone was the crown of the Dionysus rod, his strongest weapon and it had specific spiritual application in relation to the pineal gland21, which was associated to the third eye22, or the wholly sight by many mystery schools as that of Horus23 in Egypt. This tool which according to science is a dormant organ, must have been actively used in the epochs prior to the Flood, when this dramatic event had caused its disconnection from the unity with spirit, and initiated a state of oblivion that has caused all the suffering among the wandering nations. Alexander must have known about this since he wanted to attain this level of spiritual clarity, which took him as far as India, or maybe even Tibet in search of a relic that has incited him to finalize his goal. He might as well have done it. However, we will probably never know the truth, even though new theories are still coming out. We do know that on the 7th of June, 323 BC, the Macedonians were allowed to file past their leader for the last time and finally, three days later, he succumbed to the illness. Thus, on June 10, 323 BC, Alexander the Great died at the age of 33, just as Jesus, Osiris and Dionysus had. An intriguing fact regarding the seat of the Christian Catholic faith is that the Egyptian symbols represent a significant element of Vatican’s exterior. Not only that the Papal tiara resembles that of the Egyptian priests to a great extent, but his rod also contains the pinecone at the base of the holy cross. Along with the Courtyard of the Pine Cone, which is located at the entrance to the Vatican museums; this all gives a hint that the Vatican knows exactly where it takes its roots 21
According to Max Heindel's Rosicrucian writings, called Western Wisdom Teachings, there are in the brain two small organs called the pituitary body and the pineal gland. This last gland is also called by medical science as "the atrophied third eye"; however, these teachings describe that none of them are atrophying: the pituitary body and the pineal gland at the present time are neither evolving nor degenerating, but are dormant. It is said that in the far past, when man was in touch with the inner worlds, these organs were his means of ingress thereto, and they will again serve that purpose at a later stage. According to this view, they were connected with the involuntary or sympathetic nervous system and to regain contact with the inner worlds (to reawaken the pituitary body and the pineal gland) it is necessary to establish the connection of the pineal gland and the pituitary body with the cerebrospinal nervous system. It is said that when that is accomplished, man will again possess the faculty of perception in the higher worlds (i.e. clairvoyance), but on a grander scale than it was in the distant past, because it will be in connection with the voluntary nervous system and therefore under the control of his will. 22
The third eye (also known as the inner eye) is a metaphysical and esoteric concept referring in part to the ajna (brow) chakra in certain Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. It is also spoken of as the gate that leads within to inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness. In New Age spirituality, the third eye may alternately symbolize a state of enlightenment or the evocation of mental images having deeply-personal spiritual or psychological significance. The third eye is often associated with visions, clairvoyance, precognition, and out-of-body experiences, and people who have allegedly developed the capacity to use their third eyes are sometimes known as seers. 23
The Great Mystery of Egypt schools talk about the right (feminine) and the left (masculine) hand paths to enlightenment. The teachings of the Third Eye of Horus Mystery School unify the right and left eye mystery wisdom. The Left Eye of Horus teachings were centered on the development of mental acuity and clarity. The Right Eye of Horus teachings were focused on the clearing of emotional distortion, allowing the student to fully utilize their passionate, emotional, creative power to its full potential. The blended teachings, as reflected through the Third Eye teachings, result in the achievement of Unity Consciousness and living a life of balance, clarity, joy, love and compassion. (Ken Page)
from. The Dionysus Creed that has shaped the world ever since Alexander’s Holy Quest has been the core of the Christian faith ever since its beginnings, regardless how much the institutionalized Christianity had done to conceal this truth‌