AP:

Thanks for the reply.

My first ‘mystery stories kick to the back of my intellectual pants’ came from a Jewish friend who was really into the Kabbalah.

Said that Jesus (Iēsous) was Greek for Yeshua, which was English for Joshua. Said that Yeshua was/is a popular Hebrew name which more or less means ‘God Emerges’ or ‘God helps’.

Then he told me that the first words in the Torah ‘Elohim Bereishee(s) or berushi’, roughly translated into English as ‘in the beginning(s) God created...’

But he said that when the Hebrew breaks down to its root meanings, it’s: ‘pure+fire+heads+beginnings’. Said Elohim was plural, as in Gods. (This interpretation is of course contested by some Hebrew and Christian scholars).

So that delivered a nice challenge to this Anglican server boy’s upbringing, inculcations which were already teetering when I tried to ‘turn the other cheek’ when a bully’s fist came hurtling my way.

Therefore, when offered a chance in University to investigate the Essenes, the Hebrew mystery school/sect that hid the Dead Sea Scrolls, I took the bait as they were supposedly contemporaries of Jesus.

What I didn’t expect was this connection to the Gnostics, whom Carl Jung said were our first psychotherapists.

In particular was this ‘rebirthing ceremony’…and I only found one reference, and damn if I can find it again but here goes:

1. Esoteric knowledge is only given to those ‘who are called’
2. Initiate is prepared for a 72 hour long ritual
3. Ritual involves being wrapped in a linen burial shroud, not unlike Egyptian mummy, a chrysalis if ever there was one
4. He is placed in symbolic ‘tomb/cave/womb’ on a Shabbat of the new moon. He is given a ‘divine brew’ (along the lines of the Eleusinian Mysteries’ psychotropic ‘kykeon’) and a rock is rolled over the cave mouth to keep him in darkness until the morning of the third day.
5. On the morning of the third day the rock is rolled away and he is called forward by his new name: Yeshua. Oh yes, who does the calling you many ask?
6. Waiting outside the symbolic womb are three people. One is a Priest always named Aaron (‘teacher’ or ‘mountain of strength’ in Hebrew). Beside him are two Priestesses, one older and one younger, both called the ‘Daughters of Aaron.’ In Hebrew, that’d be Miriam…meaning drop of the sea, bitter, or beloved". In Latin that’d be Maria, from Mare, the sea.
7. ‘Since Yeshua has allowed the ’God within’ to emerge, you gotta think that 72 hours wrapped tightly in the darkness would sure get rid of most of one’s demons, or allow them free reign, one of the Daughters of Aaron’ engages with him in an act of sacred sex, the union of which if fruitful is thought to produce a child of the God within.

All this information sure made my religion’s take on Easter, if not Christmas, appear to be shrouded in enough smoke and mirrors to make me want to have a ‘conversation’ with any Evangelical, after of course my own 72 hours in the darkness…where I am sure my Irish mother’s words of remonstrations regarding me acting like a little demon would ring true:

“Mother, but you just said I was a little angel. “

“Aye son, the only angel born with horns!”

Tom Harpur delves into much of this. Has some very ‘easy-on-the-eyes’ box graph comparisons between Horus and Jesus. Jesus and Dionysus…I think even Odin’s in there.

Couldn’t find an audio book version but found this youtube interview:

And this kindle book.

The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light

by Tom Harpur

4.2 out of 5 stars 118

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