cult of Mithras
cult of Venus
Rome circa 200 CE
Mithra
Someday soon, which is to
say, whenever someone gets around to paying me, I wouldn’t mind
writing an essay on the development of mystery cults in the second
century CE. The research has already been done and there’s strong
parallels with the current era. If needed I could jazz it up with
plenty of sex and violence or I could just hint at it. I’m very
flexible that way.
“Why get carried
away with the truth?” say I. After all no one else does.
Especially no one else that gets paid. See a need? Fill a need. I
do confess however that there is a covert joy in writing for ones own
pleasure. I can call the people in the intellectual elite
supercilious sanctimonious assholes and have no fear of retaliation
some thing that people in the more prestigious journals can’t do.
Of course the
topic that’s big news in the post grad philosophy circles are “What
are we going to believe now that we no longer believe in anything?”
Everything is apparently determined by the effect we seek from
the thought. Everything is a lie. The State is a lie. Love is a
lie. Even, or especial God is a god damned lie. Either that or those
who claim God is a lie are lying but in any case you can’t believe
anything.
Such is the state
of philosophical discourse. As a dream weaver I guess you might say
I am in clover. Big demand no supply – as long as I maintain the
fiction that I and thou are similar and that the delusions you guide
your lives by are the same I I refer to.
It’s nonsense.
“Kingdoms of ants walk across my feet. I’m shaking in my seat in
Mexico” (Donovan) and each ant is a messiah, an Indra if you
will.
In Rome 200 CE the old
pantheon was essentially dead. The notion of deification of the
emperors didn’t help. Christianity was still officially banned and
the spiritual void was filled by mystery religions. The two major
ones were the Cult of Mithra and the cult of Venus.
Both were
practiced in subterranean grottoes the rediscovery of which in the
middle ages gave us the word and meaning “grotesque.”
Mithraworship was largely practiced in the legions and the initiation
involved standing beneath a bull as it was sacrificed. Note; a
lot of these religions that practiced animal sacrifice had the added
attraction of a good meal after the ceremony.
The sanctuary was a
simple affair . basically just an altar, sometimes with the words
Mithras Invictus, or “Mithras the undefeated” carved into it. As
such it was sort of monotheistic. The idea that religions developed
always from polytheistic to monotheistic is not strictly true.
Polytheism is
after all a product of those with good memories such as the Hindus,
who incidentally also make goods mathematicians and medical doctors.
A lot of the pre polytheistic, pre thunder god pantheons were more
focused on sacred places like graveyards , caves or mountains.
The cult of
Venus, which celebrated the goddess of beauty took place in hidden
basements but the central ritual involved a march to a body of
water to be in essence, baptized.
In the
study of the cults of this era we have to bear in mind two things.
One, which is axiomatic in anthropology is we have to be careful not
to see the time period through a modern perspective and the other
is that myths and relgions, while in the messianic form coming in to
being in the founders lifetime, actually take hundreds of years to
develop the social structure that is needed to become an effective
political force.
A good example
of these rules is found in the dead sea scrolls. When the Qumran
Scrolls were first found there was a assumption that these were
primarily gnostic digressions from the central messages of Christ.
The gnostic ideal is sort of like the dialectic in that one can never
really put their finger on a final determinant with using silly terms
like Hegel’s “absolute spirit.”
In the half
century since they were first discovered many more scrolls have been
deciphered and to a noticeable extent a lot of them are about fairly
pedestrian, day to day issues that need to be worked out when one
sought to organize a religious community.
Not being the work
of exceptional minds like Mohammed, or even Joseph Smith the
material covers things like what are the times of prayer, what are
the punishments for breaking curfew and other things too mundane to
presume to be the revealed word of the all powerful creator of the
universe.
The other
aspect to note is that religions and myths take at least hundreds of
years to become part of a society. Especially with religion the
founders message is lost and replaced by more entertaining visions
of heaven and hell. This is certainly the case with Buddhism where
the teachings of the master, which are based on human psychology,
were replaced by multiple heavens and hells all to be crossed over on
the way to nirvana.
Zoroastrianism,
a religion based on a the dualism of good guys and bad guys, had a
major influence on the Gnostics and then soon faded away. The
Cathars were similarly short lived and we may at least suggest that
these were in effect “immature” religions which only got to
basic understandings.
And to conclude
and bring up to date these sentiments bear some resemblance to the
cult of Queen Victoria which was established as a counterbalance to
the nightmare that the industrial revolution had plunged England
into. The basic fact of life was to live on the streets, in public
was not possible because society had degenerated into haves and have
nots held together by draconian laws and the gallows. The comparison
the Rome of the slave state is obvious.
The
German in me is tempted to describe the cowering masses as rats and
vermin, just like a Nazi would, but it is wrong to be so unkind. Yet
I can see the death in life of the new Victorians as repulsive, with
cell phones to keep from interacting with the person next to them,
and the 4o inch TV sets, and their fences and their IRA’s and
their rent a cops and their millions in prison cells
The more I realize
how different I am from then the less I care to make the effort to
know them.
I cannot say I find the irony delicious - although some might. As others have noted the liberal spirit insists on granting free speech even to those who would deny it to them. Hence Nazis demand their rights in order to deny the same rights to others.
Venus
The Cult of Venus is
different from most of these transitory religions in that it has
left us with a “holy scripture”, of great literary value, called
“The Golden Ass” by Apuleius. Unfortunately, but perhaps
necessarily it is elusive and metaphorical rather then a practical
introduction to ritual
It is a
valid conjecture, I believe, to suggest that the mystery cults, born
of unsettled and rapidly changing times, can not be expected to have
the political (and in the case of Islam, military) infrastructure of
major world religions. This is due to the “target market”.
Whereas the major religions seek to target as large an audience as
possible, cults, by nature, are more exclusive in their clientele.
It’s is
interesting to note for instance that the era of the Venus cult
coincided closely with that of the Roman theatre, and in particular
the Comedies of Plautus, etc. One could suggest that this cult was
the favorite pastime of wealthy Roman matrons, much in the same way
“New Age” fads appeal to modern women. One could even go so far,
speaking of comedy, as to suggest that it was a cultural, economic
marker – a way of suggesting one was above the herd of slaves and
business women.
While outsiders
may view membership in dubious societies or cults (such as the
Scientologists) as social and even financial expedients, never the
less there was some philosophical meat on the bones.
The Golden Ass,
simply, tells the story of a man who is transformed into a Jackass,
has various adventures and then is immersed in the ocean where he
regains his human form. For a fuller explanation the reader may turn
other wheres but it should suffice to mention that the Jackass is
incapable of sexual reproduction so in engaging in the Venus rituals
we may say the male is engaging their “inner person.”
Taken together
the two cults, of Mithras and of Venus tell us an odd and poignant
tale. It is almost as if the Roman culture, which had always prided
and differentiated itself on the basis of it’s practicality, having
conquered the world, sought to create a spiritual basis for it’s
existence.
As well, we know
from our study of primitive, tribal societies, and even animal Clans
that it seems as if the sexual taboo against incest can be applied
to leadership as well. Much like in the fairy tales where Jack wins
a princess and a kingdom, religious ideas often come from outside the
societies they dominate.
I’m going to
briefly mention an Ur-Concept, one that is associated with the group
around Pythagoras and which I’m surprised Dan Brown , or some other
enterprising novelist hasn’t picked up on. At the heart of the
alchemical opus there is a secret teaching. I am not being coy with
you, or seeking to sell some mystic mumbo jumbo – it is secret
because it is – is lies beyond words. There is a parallel between
it and the progress of religions.
Religions are
like pearls in that the initial seed of the masters teaching is soon
covered over by beautiful, but ultimately besides the point concepts
and words.
So to the efflorescence of alchemical writings in the
latoe middle ages, the traditional writings of the masters John Dee,
Paracelsus, Robert Maier, or the Emerald Tablets, do not, because
they cannot, revel the core of the story.
But it is
revealed. To the man of such knowledge the three in one Goddess is
not death, but life. Each succeeding century tells us more, but never
more then we can handle. When Plato said the “Pi” was the key to
the universe he was speaking literally. Consider the pyramids.
Consider the chemical soup that burst forth into life. Modern Chaos
theory.
What I have
called "big slinky" theory , from galaxies to whirlpools determine. It’s
difficult to think of these things in terms of laws of science. We
think of and even define a law as that which is immutable, unchanging
but this reality, which one could go so far as to call God, is both
not like that and like that.
I
think of the old Jewish Rabbinical tradition of refusing to bow
before precedent, since YHWH, who’s name is unpronounceable, cannot
be predicted in his actions. The only way to change that would be to
stop time which has never happened . The truism is that science
fiction tells us not about the future but about the present.
There will be
wonders but what we can be sure of is they will not be what we
expect. With that I lower the wand.
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