Freethought Nation

Kabbalah courses usually have a fair bit in. I did about 9 years with BOTA, based in LA. They have plenty of it in there.





Well, I'm more into Osho these days really. It's more tantric - accept all aspects of yourself. Negativity, positivity, whatever. I prefer a pathway that's more expansive rather than selective.

Nick

_________________
"So the ancients considered the sun as the principle symbol of deity. No ancient person of wisdom or insight ever thought of the sun as that being, but rather the mirror of it." - Manly P. Hall

"Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." - Matthew 15

They're clearly doing a piss-poor job of teaching astrotheology when you still don't understand the affects of the earth revolving around the sun creating the solstices and equinoxes and the seasons. Maybe they don't understand it themselves.

_________________
2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

Though you may not believe this, I don't think anyone disputes the effects of the earth's movements around the sun - not me, not any Kabbalists I'm familiar with. What I dispute is that, because of this, Jesus necessarily is the sun.

This notion is, like I say, 90% fantasy. All that is happening in this thread, imo, is the leaving of some record as to just how far out of touch with reality a group of people can get when their awareness of a subject is drawn only from reading a small, frequently inter-referenced, sample of the literature that is available. And never actually bothering to read the original source material, or actually thinking about it independently for a reasonable period of time.

Nick

_________________
"So the ancients considered the sun as the principle symbol of deity. No ancient person of wisdom or insight ever thought of the sun as that being, but rather the mirror of it." - Manly P. Hall

"Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." - Matthew 15

Nick, what are you suggesting that Jesus IS?

You've admitted that the Jesus symbolism carries solar attributes already, which means that at the very minimum he symbolizes the "Sun" along with mystical teachings about the ego as you've suggested.

If he has both the "Sun" and the "Ego" involved in the symbolism then Jesus is the both the "Sun and the Ego".

How can you then turn around and decide that you prefer the "Ego" symbolism over the "Sun" symbolism and therefore want to just forget about the "Sun" symbolism as if Jesus is only referring to the "Ego" and not the "Sun"?

You're pretty much backed in here. If you so much as agree that the Jesus carries any Solar attributes whatsoever, whether major or minor, then you concede that some aspect of the Jesus symbolism is referring to the Sun.

To simply this issue further, you can't say Jesus is not the Sun while admitting the Solar attributes at the same time. You can say that Jesus is not only the Sun, but not that Jesus isn't the Sun at all.

If there's any solar attributes involved in the Jesus symbolism at all, we can then say that Jesus IS the Sun. Someone else can say that Jesus is representing the "Ego" as well, but one aspect of the Jesus symbolism can not eliminate the other. These Solar and Ego aspects co-exist in the symbolism and it doesn't seem very rational to try to get rid of one of them.

We can say that Jesus is the Sun all day long and you can say that Jesus is the Ego all day long because both aspects are a working part of the mythic symbolism.

What do these two apects of the symbolism have in common?

They both show that the story is symbolic and not so literal.

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

Let's have some fun here Nick, I'll start with the Virgin Birth motif.

The ancient zodiac started off with "Virgo", so the Solar deity incarnations, that represent the Sun, are "Born of a Virgin" in this metaphorical allegory. This is the astrological reading of the Virgin birth symbols in a nut shell.

Now you provide me with the mystical reading as you understand it. We can go through these things one at a time.

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

I was going from your comments from the Randi forum which seems to contradict what you're claiming here. And your 2nd paragraph could easily be applied to yourself as you've admitted you haven't read any of Acharya's work nor do you know anything about astrotheology outside of some shallow teaching you got with your new-age Kabbalah course.

_________________
2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

Jesus is first and foremost a messenger, an envoy. He is sent to relate teachings to the reader, the intent of which is to start to awaken them to a deeper reality. There are aspects of this teacher that are derived from earlier solar deities and he does have solar attributes. But this anyway does not make him "the sun," and these attributes are anyway more background aspects of his make-up.

If you look at the texts that the Nicaea Council allegedly suppressed, for example the Gospel of Thomas or the Secret Gospel of Mark, you will see that they contain virtually no astrotheology. It's all classic mysticism and Jesus is the teacher/messenger thoughout.

It is, I submit, pretty much crystal clear that the aspects of the Christian mythos that were finally suppressed at Nicaea did not relate to Jesus' astrotheological aspects. These aspects would not, after all, have been remotely challenging or different to learned people of the time. It is the "living message" of the Gospel of Thomas and similar pieces that seems to have been held back, allowing the Church to solidify behind a simplistic and literal translation that we now know as the canonical Gospels.

This whole thing with astrotheology and Jesus being the sun is nothing but a smokescreen, which fortunately has so few adherents that it does not prevent the majority of interested people finding out the truth about who or what Jesus was and what he represented.

Nick

_________________
"So the ancients considered the sun as the principle symbol of deity. No ancient person of wisdom or insight ever thought of the sun as that being, but rather the mirror of it." - Manly P. Hall

"Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." - Matthew 15

Saviours are born of virgins because "Virgin birth" is a metaphor for a samadhi state, a direct experience of the primal mindstuff of creation. This state is classically entered - see Patanjali for example - as a first step on route to mystical awareness. The first step of Alchemy, related, is to "seek ye the prima materia."

Note also that the sun does not necessarily enter the constellation Virgo at the time ascribed to it in the Zodiac. The constellation is merely a label for one of 12 symbolic attributes given to, amongst other things...

- parts of the body (virgo is stomach, Beth-lehem is house of bread),
- the 12 tribes of Israel
- the 12 Hebrew single letters
- the 12 edges of the "Cube of Space"

These symbols inter-relate. In Hebrew, the words for the individual Zodiacal house have a numerology which relates to other Biblical words and phrases. This creates and reinforces the actual meaning of the word, which has likely nothing to do with the grouping of stars in the sky called "Virgo."

Can you also explain to me how your version above relates to the constellation in the sky?

Nick

_________________
"So the ancients considered the sun as the principle symbol of deity. No ancient person of wisdom or insight ever thought of the sun as that being, but rather the mirror of it." - Manly P. Hall

"Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." - Matthew 15

We start off with Aries in the modern zodiac, but Virgo was the starting point in ancient times (as was covered in "The Naked Truth" that I provided earlier). So whereas the Sun would be born of Aries at present, the Sun was born of "Virgo" according to the ancient zodiac.

The main point here is that the astrological references existed long before the later mystical material came into existence. You have a reference to Virgo in the Egyptian religion being given more and more mystical meanings as time goes on. All of these mystical meanings that you've provided are placed on top of the old astrological allegory.

So part of the astrological allegory is the mystical meanings that have been layered on top of the astrological symbolism. The combination of astrological and mystical allegory combined together to form the term "astrotheology", or a better term would be "astro-mysticism".

Neith-Isis existed as Virgo and many "Virgin" oriented mystical belief's have been layered on top of the symbolism as time went on. All of this symbolism moved right along and became the Virgin Mary symbolism at some point. Neith-Isis-Mary = "Virgo". The idea of a virgin birth dealt with the Sun first, and then was applied to individual human lives as the ancients mirrored the cosmic order of the heavens here on the Earth. The cosmic order appears around some odd 3,200 BC according to Campbell. John Anthony West puts the observation of the cosmic order back much much further. But conservatively around it seems to be in full swing around 3,000 BC.

The mystical traditions that you speak of appear around what time frame?

When does Gnosticism, Christianity, and Kabbalah appear into the historical record?

Do any of these traditions predate the existence of the Egyptian astrological allegories serving as the foundation out of which the astrological allegory was created, or is it vise versa?

In short, the ancient astrological reference to "Virgo" takes on more and more characterists over time and religious evolution and we see it becoming:

- parts of the body (virgo is stomach, Beth-lehem is house of bread),
- the 12 tribes of Israel
- the 12 Hebrew single letters
- the 12 edges of the "Cube of Space"

As time rolls on these mystical ideas are built on top of the old astrological allegory. They all point back to the astrological allegory. By accepting these mystical traditions one is accepting the astrological allegory that they are fashioned around.

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

Well, the mystics took many of the same symbols, but frequently made entirely different use of them. They were essentially a useful set of pre-existing labels.

The Virgin birth does not relate to physical birth, for example, rather it is the main death-rebirth symbol of the New Testament.



Well, this would depend if you think there are actual symbolic connections between the astrological symbol and its mystical meaning. This may be the case for a few, no doubt. But for many mystical concepts there is no astrological equivalent, and for others the astrological term associated with it is purely being used as a label. There is no other connection.

This whole fantasy with astrotheology is itself largely a myth.

If you don't believe me, then why not simply go through the Gospel of Thomas, which many believe was the main early Christian document suppressed by the Council of Nicaea, and see how much you can pin back to astrology or solar worship? We can have a go at it saying by saying if you want, no problem. I submit that it has virtually nothing to do with astrotheology. That's because the majority of Christian mysticism, and particularly that which appears to have been suppressed, has no relationship to astrology.

Astrotheology is neither dangerous nor challenging. It is merely a harmless old belief system that no one could be bothered to suppress and that bore only a tangential relevance to mystical Christianity anyway.



From the emergence of Christianity around 2000 years ago, though most would dispute this for Kabbalah. Of course, Plato was earlier. And mystical interpretations of the Torah, although emerging historically much later, appear to indicate a large degree of mystical knowledge present at its creation.



Not that I'm aware of.



There is, I would say, a degree of truth in this, but it is imo slight. The majority of mystical concepts present in early Christianity do not relate symbolically to astrotheology, but a few of them do, and a few more make use of astrological symbols purely as labels.

Why not continue going through this list of other astrotheological roots you claim are present?

Nick

_________________
"So the ancients considered the sun as the principle symbol of deity. No ancient person of wisdom or insight ever thought of the sun as that being, but rather the mirror of it." - Manly P. Hall

"Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." - Matthew 15

Once again and I get really tired of repeating myself and I just went through this else where, the Bible, including the Christ myth IS astrotheological.

I doubt you have read Acharya's books, anymore than you have (or will) Spong's, but since you don't want to hear about Acharya's work, here's Spong, with some of Acharya's and alike work mixed into it, and don't worry, you'll get some of your precious John before I'm done:

The gospels were written according to the Hebrew litergical calendar (which is established by the sun, the constellations, and the seasons). When John is screaming about the kingdom being at hand (Mark 1:1-11 and Matt 3:2) the authors are placing the message of Rosh Hashanah on his lips. John symbolizes ram's horn, which is a symbol of aries, Spong even calls John a human shofar (the trumpet of God, a ram's horn, blown at Rosh Hashanah to gather people). Aries is being ushered out in order to make way for the new age Pisces, which Christ is symbolized as a fish. It foretells the next age (aquarius) when John baptizes Jesus.

Spong continues through the Gospels and the Hebrew Litergical calendar in his book <i>A New Christianity for a New World</i> on pages 92-110. He shows the Jewish symbolism, which is astrological as I showed with what he said of the ram's horn- the shofar. Matthew and Luke end with Jesus as the Passover sacrificial lamb (which is also symbolism for the Southern Cross- which the sun "stands still" for three days to the naked eye until it makes it way back again and the Winter solstice is also the longest night of the year). Yes, he picks on the Gospel of John too and literally calls Christianity the Christian Myth. Now this is a retired Episcopal Bishop mind you. The book of Acts is Pentecost/Shavuot.

While John dismisses the virgin birth, he still takes supernaturalism to new levels (paraphrasing Spong on p. 107). In John 1:1-11, Spong states that John says Jesus was the word of God-- the divine logos, who was with God at the dawn of creation. Now right there should tell you something, esp since we have been working with the Hebrew litergical calendar. Spong continues and says, "This Logos was then simply enfleshed and dwelt among us, says John."

This Logos is the sun, even though Spong does not come right out and say it, but he is in effect saying it when he quotes "let there be light" and other light sources right before and just after mentioning the Logos. Spong makes mention that John also adds some Passover language into the gospel and adds some Yom Kipper words too, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world", which are again on John the Baptist's lips (1:29, 36).

So, even though he doesn't come right out and say it in his book, he is inferring that it is astrotheological with the litergical calendar, the shofar, the sacrificial lamb, light references, etc.

_________________
Mriana

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. ~ Gandhi

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~ Thomas A. Edison

Well, I don't know about the Jewish stuff so much but I would agree that Jesus is a saviour for the Piscean era. The rest of the stuff is abstract. It's not the meat of the teaching.



For sure, but this has nothing to do with the sun. The logos is completely evidently not the sun. In fact you are about the only person I have ever encountered who thought that it was. Plato didn't. The Christian mystics didn't. The logos is the divine thought of creation, the guiding force behind manifestation in its most rarified form. It's a cornerstone of Platonic thought. Why would anyone create a new word for the sun? Why not just call it the sun?



Look, just write to Spong and ask him if he means the logos is the sun. He doesn't say it because why would he? Everyone knows it isn't the sun.

Nick

ps - regarding the belief on this list that Jesus saying "I am the light of the world" infers that he's the sun, look at the Gospel of Thomas version of this saying...

Jesus said, "It is I who am the light which is above them
all. It is I who am the All. From Me did the All come forth, and
unto Me did the All extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am
there. Lift up the stone, and you will find Me there." Gospel of Thomas s.77

Does it really sound like he's talking about the sun?

_________________
"So the ancients considered the sun as the principle symbol of deity. No ancient person of wisdom or insight ever thought of the sun as that being, but rather the mirror of it." - Manly P. Hall

"Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." - Matthew 15

I know the Gospel of Thomas very well and have been known to quote it quite often. It is not canan, however, it does speak of "God in Us", which goest right back to Anthony Freeman's book, "God in Us: A Case for Christian Humanism". I see saying 77 as supporting that idea and that we are Christ crucified. We do it to each other every day with our words, yet few realize that what they are doing.

Not only that, the first sentence does refer to the sun because it says, "I am the light, which is <i>above</i> them all." Then it turns around and says it is in everything and in everyone. This is the life that the sun gives everything on earth.

_________________
Mriana

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. ~ Gandhi

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~ Thomas A. Edison

That's not correct & you've already been given sources for that.


a quick google search will turn up...



By a Christian Neoplatonist in the 15th century CE still talking about the sun - http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~alfar2/ficino.htm

http://books.google.com/books?q=philo+s ... arch+Books

Do a google on "solar logos" & you'll find a load of interesting books like "Jesus Christ, Sun of God: Ancient Cosmology and Early Christian Symbolism",

Oh looky here - from a book titled, "The Initiatic Path in the Arcana of Tarot and Kabbalah" - Page 147


You're way off base here 227 - you have wasted all that money you spent for those 8 years of training you claim to have. Here's a thought, just because you're ignorant on the subject doesn't make everybody else wrong. 227, you're just a troll. You have no idea what you're talking about at all. Maybe someone will post that little factoid at your wiki page.

_________________
2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

Christs relationship with the sun is obvious and undeniable, especially in hermetic or golden dawn style kabalah (see here and here). If Nick focuses on the personal growth aspects of the mythos and considers the solar symbolism incedental, good for him. He has his focus.

Personally, I'd prefer the conversation go more towards exploring the nature of astrotheology, how myths and symbols connect to stellar realities, why that connection might be important or useful, the nature of symbolism itself etc. etc., rather than proselytizing our own viewpoints as though they were gospel truth.