Man's Search For Spirituality - E Christopher Reyes (jenna bush book club .TXT) 📗

to express the meaning of the names.” ~Father Lactantius Div. Inst. IV, xxviii; p. 131.
BC 669-627-Ashurbanipal, King of Assyria [from Egypt to Persia] amasses a great collection of writings. At a library in Nineveh are discovered 25,000 tablets, which are alleged to contain symbols of secret magical texts in the language of Shumer [BC 2900]. Ashurbanipal claims to have read and understood the texts learning from them the “Magic of Ancient Knowledge,” known but to a few. “I understand the mysterious words in the stone carvings from the days before the Flood,” he declares.
BC 664-610-Psamtik I, Psammetichos, King of Egypt during the 26th Dynasty, nurtures two of his children without hearing any spoken languages in the hope of them developing a godlike language. It is rumored that when they did speak, they spoke Phrygian, an ancient Asia Minor language.
BC 650(?)-570(?)-‘The Golden Rule,’ Pittacus of Lesbos, “Do not that to thy neighbor that thy wouldst not suffer from him.” ~Research courtesy of Hank Shiver on the Internet
BC 640-558-Solon, Greek lawgiver writes of a great civilization that existed long, long ago which was handed down to him from an Egyptian priest who claims to have Athenian ancestry. Legends of a lost continent and race of people existing centuries ago and the place referred to is generally thought of as The Lost City of Atlantis.
The first documented accounts of Atlantis, which is said to have been swallowed up by the ocean as the result of an earthquake, appear in “Timaeus” and “Critias,” two dialogues by the Greek philosopher Plato. According to his account in “Timaeus,” the lost island is described to the Athenian statesman, Solon, by an Egyptian priest.
The priest asserted that Atlantis was larger than Asia Minor and Libya combined. The priest revealed to Solon that a prosperous civilization had reputedly centered on Atlantis about the 10th millennium BC, and that the country had conquered all the Mediterranean peoples, except the Athenians. In his work “Critias,” Plato records the history of Atlantis and depicts the nation as Utopian [the perfect civilization]. Speculation as to Plato’s descriptive material and history are rampant, but the possibility exists that he may have had access to other documents that did not survive. Ancient Greek mythology, in a poem by Pindar, tells of a King De Calion who is saved from a Great Flood caused by the god Zeus.
When it is discovered, that “Zeus the Savior,” is only a title of Dionysus, the “Sin-Bearing Bacchus,” his character, as “The Savior,” appears in quite a different historical light. Bacchus is the patron of the ‘Heavenly Host,’ and of fire worship, who is canonized by Rome; few realizing that this “Saint Bacchus the Martyr” is the identical ‘Bacchus of the Pagans, ‘The ‘god of drunkenness and debauchery,’ is evident from the time of his festival; for October the 7th follows soon after the end of the vintage.
The old Pagan Romans celebrating what was called the “Rustic Festival” of Bacchus; and about that time, so does the Catholic festival of “Saint Bacchus the Martyr” occur. As the Chaldean god is also admitted into the Roman calendar under the name of Bacchus, so also is he canonized under his other name, that of Dionysus.
The Vicars of Christ in their excess of zeal for saints and saint-worship, actually split ‘Dionysus Eleuthereus’ into two, making two saints out of the double name of the one Pagan Divinity; and the innocent epithet “Rusticum,” which, even among the heathens, had no pretensions to divinity at all, forms a third; and on date of October the 9th, we read this entry in the Roman calendar: “The festival of Saint Dionysius, and of his companions, Saint Eleuther and Saint Rustic.”
In Egypt, the Chaldean god esteemed as the great object of love and adoration, as the god through whom “Goodness and truth were revealed to mankind,” he is regarded as the predestined heir of all things; and, on the day of his birth, it was believed that a voice was heard to proclaim, “The Lord of all the earth is born,” and in this character he is styled “King of kings, and Lord of lords,” it being as a professed representative of this hero-god that the celebrated Sesostris caused this very title to be added to his name on the monuments which he erected to perpetuate the fame of his victories.
Not only is he honored as the great “World King,” he is regarded as ‘Lord of the Invisible World,’ and “Judge of the dead,” and it was taught that, in the world of spirits, all must appear before his dread tribunal, to have their destiny assigned them.
In addition, in the Greek mythologies we have the Cyclops [a one eyed giant] who salubriously devours his victims [cannibalism]. The Greeks believed the sun was a chariot driven across the sky by the sun god Helios. The Oracle at Delphi lived in a temple on the southern slope of Mount Pernassus. It was customary to bring gifts to the Oracle for assistance in foretelling the future. It is rumored that Emperor Nero stole five hundred of the statues donated to the Oracle.
Pagan temples were not meeting houses in which the people merely sat or stood in rows with long faces chanting doggerel or listening to some priest pontificate on some virtue. They were also art museums, built to honor the gods, such as: Zeus and Aphrodite, of Apollo and Athene. In four or five centuries they had “Inspired” a wonderful artwork. Writers of the Gospels are inspired to say that the Apostles said various quotations, which they never did. It was quite common in those days to say so and so says.
In a century or two sculptures, paintings, and architecture had made more progress than the more ancient world had made in 3,000 years, and it was accumulated in the temples for the people to admire and enjoy. From about 390 to 420 most of these went up in smolder fires.
Priests and monks, with the new Catholic powers that the Bishops had inveigled from the emperors, led mobs to attack and destroy that which they did not understand, and all over the Greek world there was such a holocaust of art as never before.
BC 640-546-‘The Golden Rule, Thales of Miletus, “When asked how men might live most virtuously and most justly, he answered, “If we never do ourselves what we blame on others.”
BC 628-551- Buddha rejects many of the significant aspects of the Hindu philosophy, challenging the authority of the priesthood, denying the validity of the Vedic scriptures, and rejecting the sacrificial cults based on these premises. He revealed to his members, of all castes, that denying a person’s spiritual worth is a not a matter of birth.
Buddha refers in his writings to Zoroasterism, believers in one god [monotheism]. This could place this religion to as much as 6,000 years older than previously thought. The Bible of the Zoroastrians is the Gathas. The religion is still practiced in parts of Iran and India today as Parsiism. The Muslims refer to the Zoroasters as Gabars [infidels].
Fire is also seen as a divine or sacred element and the worship of fire has its fullest development in ancient Persia [Iran], where the ceremonial keeping of the flame was the chief attribute of the Zoroastrian religion whereby mankind is believed to be washed of his sins by the purifying fires.
50. Zoroaster, like Jesus, is conceived by a 15-year old virgin.
51. Zoroaster is born in a cave
52. Zoroaster ascends into Heaven.
53. Fire is believed to be the earthly manifestation of the “Divine,” and the “Heavenly light.”
54. The term for “Priest” in the Zoroastrian scriptures is Athravan, “Belonging to the fire.”
55. Zoroaster becomes known as the I”Logos.”
56. The conquest of Persia by the Muslims is denoted by the extinction of the “Holy Flame” in the Persian temples, and when the Zoroastrians fled as religious cast outs from their native land to India, the sacred fire they carried with them was a sign of their nationality and of their faith in their god.
57. Zoroaster, Persian, founded a monotheistic cult, which believed in one and only one God.
58. The Magi who sought the child Jesus are believed to be of Persian origin and followers of Zoroasteism.
59. Penance is an effort not to sin again.
60. Sins may be erased through Confession.
61. The winter solstice [December 25th] is also celebrated as the birthday of the Unconquerable Sun [Sol Invictus, the Saturnalia being celebrated between the 17th and 23rd of December].
62. Zoroaster held that good and evil co-existed but could be avoided and overpowered.
The basic tents of Zoroasterism are simple: Good Thought, Good Word, Good Deed. In AD 224, this religion is declared the official religion of the Sassanid Empire and its members increased during the 3rd to 7th centuries.
Ormazd is the King of Light and Ahriman the Prince of Darkness [Darkness is portrayed as the evil world and lightness as the good]. The spiritual creation would live for three thousand years followed by that of material creation. At forty-two years of age, Zarathustra, converts king Vishtaspa. By 75 BC, this religion is the predominant religion of the Roman legionnaires.
The similarities between this religion and Christianity facilitate the spread of Christendom. The third period is that of the Evil One who would dominate before the coming of the revelation. The last period is the Day of Judgment. Zoroaster has a vision of the Supreme Being, Ahura Mazda, and the “Holy Spirit,” who preaches the gospel of a god who overcomes evil.
The concept of the “Supreme Being” having many aspects, Ahura Mazdah, is later combined into one being, that of “Holy Spirit” and “The Wise Lord.” The Zoroastrian world is divided into the “Followers of Truth” and “Followers of the Lie.” The similarities do not end here, for we also have: All evil will be exterminated on earth by fire and molten metal. Zoroaster [Zarathustra in the Old Iranian] founded a religion that claimed the need for hatred of unworthy things. [Thereby, discovering Evil].
The Gathas [Sacred Scriptures] known as Avesta, which is said to have been written in gold ink on 12,000 ox hides, are alleged to have been destroyed by Alexander the Great in 330, B.C.E. Zoroasterians followers believe in the “Resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, and everlasting life in paradise [Paradise is a Persian word]. At death, each person’s ' is to be judged at the “Bridge of Discrimination.”
Luminous rays emanating from the soul occasionally divinely penetrating the body, which is then of itself raised above the earth, and this is also said of Zoroaster.
“The disciples of Jamblichus asserted that they had often witnessed the same miracle in the case of their master, who, when he prayed was raised to the height of ten cubits from the earth. The greatest miracle which Rome pretends to work, is when, by the repetition of five magic words, she professes to bring down the body, blood, soul, and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ from heaven, to make Him really and corporeally present in the sacrament of the altar. The Chaldean priests pretended, by their magic spells, in like manner, to bring down their divinities into their statues, so that their ‘real presence’ should be visible manifested in them.” ~From the great works, The Two Babylons by the Late Rev. Alexander Hislop
“Followers of the Truth” will cross over to paradise. “Followers of the Lie” will fall into Hell. The Persians believed in a Day of Judgment, when God, their one great god, Ahura Mazda, would destroy the earth, summon before him the souls of all