Archive for the ‘Ancient History’ Category

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Yule, a festival of light with twelve days of feasting and public celebrations, begins at the Winter Solstice, Thursday, December 22nd at 12:30am. Symbolic rituals are observed including the lighting of candles and a Yule log is kept burning throughout the twelve days to symbolize the returning of the light and the Sun after the darkest day of the year on Winter Solstice. In more recent times, the tasty addition to the festivities has been added in the form of a Chocolate Yule log cake.

The origin of this holiday comes from over 2000 years ago, originating in Northern Europe. The holiday began as a pagan tradition known as Yule, which was celebrated for 12 days.  During this time, Scandinavian people celebrated the Norse God Odin, a bearded god who flew through the air on a horse and handed out gifts. The Pagan Romans held a seven-day festival of Saturnalia beginning on December 17th, which included the celebration of the God Mithras, who was born on December 25th. They exchanged gifts, enjoyed feasts and once this festival culminated, the New Year festivities began. Modern day examples of how we celebrate these pagan traditions today include candles in the windows of our home and what we now call Christmas lights, which we hang on a Christmas tree (our modern adaptation of the yule log and evergreen branches that the ancient Europeans brought into their homes).

In the 4th century, Rome changed from a pagan society to a Christian society and the church began to replace and absorb pagan traditions. Since there was already a holiday in place to celebrate the birth of the God Mithras, the decision was made to switch this birthday and dedicate the day as a symbolic birth date for Jesus. The Roman Catholic Church holds a ritualistic midnight mass for this event, which became Christ’s Mass, i.e. Christmas.

Like many pagan traditions under siege in the attempt to be absorbed and overwritten by the church, the campaign was met with mixed success. The European people continued their own traditional pagan celebrations and simply added the new religious connotations into the mix.  Over the centuries, the festivals, feasts, gift giving and celebrations continued including the adoption of medieval carolers who went door to door singing while enjoying a cup of alcoholic punch at each stop.  Over the decades, Yule became the celebration of Christmas.

The festivals continued in this manner until around the 17th century when Protestant reformers decided that Christmas should be banned. Their reasoning was based on the premise that the holidays was built upon pagan traditions, which were then further embellished by the Catholic church with the adopted birthday celebration on December 25th. Both traditions, the pagan revelry and the Catholic traditions, were customs that they wanted no part of and they were able to ban Christmas in England. This only lasted for a few years, but many people who held this protestant belief moved during the 17th century to America, the New World and brought their religious beliefs with them. They were the Puritan settlers who formed the colony of Massachusetts. In 1659, they banned Christmas as a holiday in Massachusetts.  As new settlers including Catholics, Pagans, the Irish, Scottish, Dutch and others with moderate religious beliefs migrated to America establishing colonies in New York, Virginia and other Atlantic states, they brought their Christmas traditions and festivities with them and the celebration of Christmas was restored in the U.S.

How do we celebrate Christmas today? According to the History Channel’s documentary, The Real Story of Christmas, the preservation and evolution is credited to two influential Americans. The first is Clement Moore, who in 1822 wrote Twas the Night Before Christmas, which gave inspiration to new customs for the holiday, based on old world traditions. Moore combined the white bearded Norse God Odin who flew through the air handing out gifts with St. Nicholas, a 4th century Catholic Bishop who was known for gift giving in stockings and the two were then melded with Sinter Klaas, the Dutch version of St. Nicholas. Odin was known as the God of Thunder and was said to have flown on a horse with eight legs. Moore substituted Odin’s eight-legged horse into eight reindeer, which he gave individual names including Donner, which means thunder, and Blitzen, which means lightning.  He also combined old European stories of elves, making Santa Claus a wizard like magical elf.

The second influential figure was Thomas Nast, a famous illustrator who created the images of the donkey and the elephant for the Republican and Democratic parties and created the image of Uncle Sam.  In 1862, Nast took Moore’s poetic descriptions of Santa and drew the illustration of Santa Claus. He changed the image of Santa Claus from a smaller elf into a full size elf man with a white beard. He also created the concept of St. Nick’s naughty or nice list. (A lesser-known fact about St. Nicholas was that the original story of St. Nicholas said that when he visited houses, he was followed by a demon named Krampus who punished bad children). Nast glossed over this story by creating a gentler naughty or nice list. Nast also captivated his audience by capturing the growing sentiment of this time where children were becoming the focus of the family and thus Santa Claus was very attentive to children, bringing them gifts.

From the light filled traditions and festivals of the ancient Europeans, to the migration of Odin into Santa Claus and the bringing in of the evergreens from Northern Europe morphing into the Christmas tree, Christmas as a holiday has continued to evolve. The Industrial Revolution provided the opportunity for a variety of good and products to become mass produced and accessible to consumers and soon after, gift giving for the holiday began in earnest and became the American staple of the holiday that is widely celebrated today.

The holiday season continues to mix old and new, with a rise of neo-paganism bringing a resurgence of old traditions and returning back to the ancient customs and celebrations of Yule. This along with a growing distaste of Black Friday shopping complete with people fighting and trampling others over bargain gifts and thousands of Americans going into debt each year with over the top gift giving, may stimulate an entire new series of traditions and festivities in the 21st century.

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Odyssey of the Gods by Erich von Daniken

Erich von Daniken, best selling author of over thirty one books including Chariots of the Gods, changed the way generations have looked at mythology, ancient history, and the possibility of advanced beings from other worlds visiting Earth. Now he tackles the history of Greece and again challenges current beliefs about how our civilization arose. His new book is causing waves of discourse and discussion across archeological and historic fields. Titled Odyssey of the Gods: The History of Extraterrestrial Contact in Ancient Greece, von Daniken suggests that Greek myths are real accounts and that the Greek gods were aliens, extraterrestrial beings who arrived on Earth thousands of years ago.

Von Daniken’s research includes the writings of Plato and Aristotle and includes:

• Interpretations of the sites and legends of ancient Greece
• Accounts of the conflicts between these alien gods and humans
• The origins of Centaurs, Cyclops and other mythical creatues
• New explanations on the theory of Atlantis

While many may initially scoff at these reports, the reader only has to remember that up until recently, these same historians believed the story of Troy and Helen to be a mythological legend only to recently discover that it had been factual all along. For myself, as a wisdom teacher from the ancient mystery schools of Egypt and Greece, I found his information to be riveting and one of the best accounts of this incredible age in history.

Along with being a best selling author and researcher, Von Daniken is the chairman of the Archaeology, Astronautics and SETI Research Association. His works have been translated into 28 languages and have sold more than 63 million copies. Several have also been made into films. Erich’s ideas have been the inspiration for a wide range of TV series, including the History Channel’s hit Ancient Aliens. If you enjoy this book, you may also enjoy his book, History is Wrong.

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Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval have recently written a new book, The Master Game: Unmasking the Secret Rulers of the World which is published by The Disinformation Company. Graham Hancock is a bestselling author of non-fiction in the alternative history genre, perhaps best known for Fingerprints of the Gods. His two major British TV series (Quest for the Lost Civilisation, 1998, and Flooded Kingdoms of the Ice Age, 2002) put his ideas in front of audiences of millions and his books have been translated into 27 languages and have sold more than five million copies worldwide.

Rogue Egyptologist Robert Bauval was born in Egypt in 1948. A construction engineer, his interest in Egyptology is long standing, having lived in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East for much of his life. In the 1980s he developed a line of study linking the pyramids and the so-called Pyramid Texts with astronomy and famously published the bestselling The Orion Mystery.

Their publicist (Warwick Associates) has released part of Chapter 19 of the The Master Game book and given permission for me to share this here with you in order to find out more about the book and why Hancock and Bauval felt it was important to share this information.  The following is a partial excerpt from the book:

THE CORNERSTONE

If a monument or a building – or even, as we now can see, a whole city – can become like a living heart, a talisman charged with powerful ideologies and meaning, then the ‘pacemaker’ of such a talisman must be its cornerstone.

In ancient times, and in many different cultures, the dedication ceremony for a new temple or stately monument often called for elaborate rituals performed by the ruler. During such ceremonies the objective was to call upon a god or goddess to cast his or her benevolent and protective powers on the building – or even to beseech the deity to descend from the heavenly world and reside within the temple. A crucial element was the placing of a permanent marker to commemorate the ceremony, generally in the form of the ‘first stone’ or ‘cornerstone’.

In medieval Europe, in direct continuation of such ancient ideas, the laying of the cornerstone for a church or cathedral was understood to symbolise the ‘raising of the building into the light of day, into consciousness or towards the heavens.’ In this respect it was vital that the most propitious moment be selected when participants could be assured that the influences of the stellar and planetary deities were at their very best. To that end a ‘horoscope’ was cast.

The ‘Raising’ of Washington

On 18 September 1793, a little more than a month after the ‘Isis’ ceremony was held at the Place de la Bastille in Paris, another ceremony laden heavily with specific symbolic referents took place on a high point known as Jenkins Hill on the other side of the Atlantic. At the climax of this ceremony, America’s first president, George Washington, wearing a Masonic apron which had been presented to him by the Marquis de Lafayette, laid the cornerstone of the US Capitol in the presence of a congregation of high-ranking Freemasons.

George Washington became a Freemason in 1752 in Fredericksburg, and was ‘raised’ as a Master Mason the following year. In 1777, when the Freemasons in the American colonies sought to form a ‘United’ Grand Lodge independent from England, they offered the position of Grand Master to Washington, but he modestly declined, saying that he was not qualified for this high office. In 1788, however, he did become Master of the Alexandria lodge, today known as the Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22, situated on the south side of the Potomac River near the city of Washington, DC. Since 1932 this famous lodge has been engulfed within a huge Masonic monument built around it. The monument is modeled on the ancient Lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt, the Pharos, and bears the official name of the George Washington Masonic National Monument. According to Harvey Wiley Corbett of the New York firm Helmle & Corbett who designed this monument:

… the Pharos was erected to guide the ancient mariners safely to shore; what would be more appropriate than a facsimile of that Lighthouse in Alexandria, Virginia on top of the highest hill and overlooking the Potomac River?

Isis of New York, a Talisman to ‘Liberty’

The idea of a similar monument to commemorate the friendship between France and the United States for the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence was first discussed by Bartholdi and others at the home, near Paris, of Édouard René de Laboulaye, an authority on North American culture. It seems that Bartholdi simply ‘converted’ his original project for Egypt and proposed it instead as a ‘Statue of Liberty enlightening the world’ for New York. To this end the so-called Union Franco-Américaine (Franco-American Union) was established in 1875 to raise the necessary funds.

Here’s what the Reader’s Companion to American History has to say about the inspiration behind the Statue of Liberty:

Sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi combined elements of the Egyptian pyramids he admired with his mother’s face to serve as a model for the statue, which he finished early in 1884.

There has been much dispute about whether the face of the Statue of Liberty was modelled on that of Bartholdi’s own mother, and the matter, though trivial, has not been settled. What is more certain is that the statue was linked to the ‘cult of Liberty’ or the ‘Cult of Reason’ of the French Revolution, both of which, in the minds of Republicans, were intimately connected to Masonic ideals. It is certain, too, as we saw in Chapter One, that figures representing ‘Liberty’ and ‘Reason’ were often modelled on the Egyptian goddess Isis or her Greek and Roman counterparts.

Interestingly, according to French Egyptologist Bernard Mathieu, Bartholdi used to refer to the Statue of Liberty as the ‘Pharos’ before it was raised in New York, and he even designed a base for the statue just like the one believed to have been used for the ancient Pharos of Alexandria. Bartholdi, who had spent much time in Egypt and had studied the origins of this ancient ‘wonder of the world’, would certainly have known the association of the Pharos with the goddess Isis – and, by extension, her star, Sirius – that we explored in Chapter Ten. In this respect, it seems highly likely that his giant statue of ‘a robed woman holding aloft a torch’ to serve as a sort of lighthouse for the

Suez Canal and, later, for New York Harbor, may well have been imagined by him as Isis-Pharia and the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

Excerpts taken from The Master Game by Robert Bauval & Graham Hancock, The Disinformation Company, LTD, ISBN No. 978-1-934708-75-0. Copyright 2011

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Brad Steiger has been my guest on Explore Your Spirit Radio many times over the past five years and it’s always a pleasure to discuss his work with him.  I think the last book of his that we discussed (he’s written over 170 books by the way), was Real Vampires, Night Stalkers and Creatures from the Darkside. The Real Vampires book is a chilling chronicle by Steiger who shares that vampires are not immortal, do not have fangs or sleep in coffins, and have no fear of sunlight or crucifixes, the examination dispels many myths but also confirms the truth behind several traits of real vampires, such as the insatiable thirst for blood and the dream of an eternal soul.

His latest book is Real Aliens, Space Beings and Creatures from the Other Worlds (Visible Ink Press) 2011.  Picking up the book, I found I couldn’t put it down! I had a million things to do the day that the book arrived at my home, and I kept telling myself, ‘Ok, finish this page and then put the book down, you have things to do!’  But I couldn’t do it, each story pulled me in deeper and I wanted to read more, more, more!  Brad is an incredible story teller and author and just like having him on the show, I want to take in every detail that he had to share.

In Real Aliens, Brad Steiger reports on visits by aliens and about the ones who are living amongst us.  He discusses abductions, the history of alien sightings and spacecraft and investigates the ongoing cooperation between aliens and earthlings.

The book goes in-depth with Brad’s research presenting testimonials, news articles, historical accounts and photographs and chronicles over three hundred examples of alien interactions.

A few enticing and intriguing examples from the book include:

• Three Russian scientists who were monitoring the Apollo Moon Landing on July 20, 1969, who claim that astronauts Armstong and Aldrin were being closely observed by UFO’s
• Thousands of women around the world who claim to have been abducted for the purpose of bearing Hybrid Children
• Physical evidence and photographs of a family in Colorado who share their story of being visited repeatedly by an alien race.

If you are interested in the history of alien visitations to our planet and want to know more about who might be coming to visit next, Real Aliens, Space Beings and Creatures from Other Worlds is your Go-To Guide.  I rate this book Five out of Five Stars.

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While studying Amazonian shamans who use ayahuasca and Peruvian coastal healers who use mescaline cactus to treat psychological illness, Marlene Dobkin de Rios learned about the naipes cards—fortune-telling cards similar to the tarot used as part of the healers’ method of diagnosis. Immersing herself in their culture, she began telling fortunes with the naipes cards and was surprised by the intimacy it induced in the native people she was trying to study as well as the profoundly accurate results she encountered. Finding herself pulled further and further into Peruvian culture, in 1977 Dobkin de Rios was initiated into the sacred mystical order of Septrionismo, which emphasizes specific techniques—such as meditation, ritual, and reflection—to manage one’s future rather than depending solely on fate and fortune.

Explaining how to use the naipes cards as well as examining the practices of the Septrionic Order, Dobkin de Rios explores her experiences with both traditions through the lens of her anthropological and psychological training, describing how these diverse encounters opened her mind to the powers of divination as well as taught her the means of directing her own destiny.

MARLENE DOBKIN DE RIOS, Ph.D., is a medical anthropologist, associate clinical professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California, Irvine, and professor emerita of anthropology at California State University, Fullerton, where she taught from 1969–2000. A former Fulbright scholar and the author of several hundred professional articles and eight books, including The Psychedelic Journey of Marlene Dobkin de Rios, she lives in Placentia, California.

Marlene’s publisher, Inner Traditions, was kind enough to share an excerpt of a chapter from her book -

Fate, Fortune, and Mysticism in the Peruvian Amazon: The Septrionic Order and the Naipes Card

as seen here. Enjoy and check out the book here on Amazon.

Book Excerpt

Chapter 1
The History and the Structure of the Naipes

The naipes are used often by folk healers who cure with herbs or psychedelic plants in a society in which witchcraft beliefs exist and people often expect that illness is caused by the evil will of others. The cards become a psychological adjunct to a healer’s therapy, a sort of intake procedure to learn more about their clients so that the healer can appear to be omnipotent and replete with knowledge and power. We cannot talk about the naipes as a divination technique without understanding the context in which these cards are used, particularly among the urban poor of Belen, who live in abject poverty in their shantytown. Healers are able to manipulate situations of misfortune that dog the steps of the urban poor as the healers diagnose illness and misfortune, appearing all-powerful and worthy of their fees.

I first ran into the naipes in Peru when, as a graduate student, I was sent by the Institute of Social Psychiatry at San Marcos University on the north coast of Peru to a special village, Salas, an hour and a half outside of Chiclayo. It was said that there more than a hundred folk healers used, in healing rituals, the San Pedro cactus laden with mescaline. Attending a healing ceremony one night in Salas, I heard a folk healer tell his wife to bring the naipes down to the area where the patients were seated. Having a long-term interest in fortune-telling, I asked the healer to tell me more about the naipes. He brushed me off, but this sparked my interest, which had been dormant for a number of years. When I arrived in Peru, I was game for divination techniques. In the marketplace in the nearby city of Chiclayo I purchased a pamphlet said to be written by Napoleon’s spiritual adviser, Madame LeNormand.

Madame LeNormand was born in a small village in France in 1773 and arrived in Paris when she was twenty-one years old. She opened a salon and read the fortunes of a number of highly placed individuals who were politically active in the French Revolution, including Robespierre. Apparently, Josephine de Beauharnais, later married to Napoleon Bonaparte, was one of her clients, and Madame Marie was reputed to have regularly read the naipes for Napoleon.

Most of the booklets based on her system agree on basic principles. Certain days of the week are most propitious for a reading–Friday, Saturday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, for example. The client must cut the cards only with the left hand, which is nearest to the heart, or else the fortune obtained is thought not to be accurate. The person who takes it upon himself to read the cards must be sincere and strong and not frivolous. This card reader should also be observant and wash his hands and face before using the cards. Dropping a card while reading a fortune is said to bring bad luck. If we can get to the heart of the divining cards by using a rational mathematical probability statistic and examine the technique in light of what I have called an “ethno-projective device,” we can learn a good deal about traditional folk psychotherapy.

The naipes help healers to tap in to the causality of illness while, at the same time, allowing them to present themselves as all-powerful. This cannot help but dispel fear, anxiety, and self-doubts in their patients and provide a high expectation of cure. This personal influence of healers increases their manipulation of the patient’s anxieties and provides a path toward eventual cure.

The naipes are not simple amusement for the clients, but rather are used by them and healers as a diagnostic technique, especially when most clients believe that illness is caused by evil willing or witchcraft machinations on the part of “others.” The healers manipulate a category that I call misfortune cards to plumb the depths of interpersonal conflicts, material loss, and sickness or death of loved ones to make their diagnosis.

Reading the Naipes

To read the naipes, the cards are laid out on a flat surface in the form of a cross, called St. Andres. A picture card representing the client–called the interested party–is placed in the center of the cross, and a frame is made of cards, which encloses the picture card representing the interested party. The frame consists of three additional cards, which are placed on the left side of the client’s picture card, three below this picture card, three on the right side, and three above the client’s central picture card. Beneath the card representing the interested party is an extra card, which the client doesn’t see until the very end of the reading. This card is deemed to shed light on some aspect of the reading.

The total number of cards read is eighteen. Effectively, this type of reading permits a large number of possibilities for each reading and four major story lines for each part of the reading.

A probability statistical analysis of the naipes indicates that in an average reading of eighteen cards, the probability that at least one misfortune card occurs is 99.76 chances out of l00. Two misfortune cards will occur at a probability of 97.40 chances in l00. For three misfortune cards to appear, the statistic drops to 87.3 chances in 100. By the time we reach four misfortune cards, we are close to a 50 percent probability. Because each misfortune card is modified by preceding and sequential cards, an interpreter is in a position to construct a story line quite possibly focusing on interpersonal conflict, material loss, or illness. Thus, the deck is loaded not in the direction of good fortune, but rather to highlight stress and conflict that may be present in the sociocultural milieu. I have called this fortune’s malice, from a line in the poem “De Gustibus” by Robert Browning.

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More about Kala Ambrose: Kala Ambrose is an award winning author, intuitive and host of the Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show. Her thought-provoking interviews entice listeners to tune in around the globe! Described by her guests and listeners as discerning, empowering and inspiring, she speaks with world renowned authors, artists, teachers and researchers delving into metaphysical, holistic and paranormal topics. Kala lectures on Wisdom Teachings, Developing Business Intuition, Working with Auras, Chakras and Energy Fields, and Wise Woman Wisdom (also known as the Divine Feminine). Her new book, The Awakened Aura: Experiencing the Evolution of Your Energy Body will be available in November 2011.

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Lucky Four Leaf Clover

I’m looking over a four-leaf clover, as the old song says. Can my luck get any better than the fact that this week my Irish husband came to greet me in our home by bringing me a Four Leaf Clover? I was delighted by this gift and he replied that as he was walking up the path, it immediately caught his eye. If you’ve ever searched for a four leaf clover, you’ll find that they are fairly rare to find and are considered to be an omen of good luck.

The four leaf clover is a sign of good luck that extends beyond Ireland. Some legends state that Eve brought a four leaf clover with her when she was asked to leave the Garden of Eden.  I’m not sure how that was lucky for Eve, but I’m sure she had her reasons.

According to the ancient beliefs, clovers are Celtic and Druidic charms and four leaf clovers are believed to protect against evil spirits. Each of the four leaves have a significant meaning which are Faith, Hope, Love and Luck!

I’m thinking that odds are this Spring that something very lucky is coming my way, as the luck of the Irish was delivered to my front door through one of their own.

Happy wearing of the green and enjoy Spring!

*~Kala~*

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This week on Explore Your Spirit with Kala Radio, I speak with Donna Read about her film, The Burning Times. My interview with Donna can be heard here on Explore Your Spirit.

You can watch The Burning Times documentary here as presented by the National Film Board of Canada. This documentary takes an in-depth look at the witch hunts that swept Europe just a few hundred years ago. False accusations and trials led to massive torture and burnings at the stake and ultimately to the destruction of an organic way of life. The film questions whether the widespread violence against women and the neglect of our environment today can be traced back to those times.

This documentary is part two of a series of three films on women and spirituality, which include Goddess Remembered and Full Circle.

You can also watch the documentary on You Tube. Here is Part One and you can follow in order from part one via You Tube.

More About Donna Read:
Donna Read is a producer, director and film editor. She was a member of the National Film Board of Canada’s renowned women’s studio, Studio D, for many years where she directed the Goddess trilogy and many other films before forming Belili productions. More information – http://www.belili.org/donnabio.html

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