| In the next extract from Psalms, the mushrooms are described as “grain of heaven,” and “bread of angels,” indicating a possible occultation of mushrooms with grain, again, as we looked at earlier in Eleusis: (23) Yet he gave a command to the skies above and opened the doors of the heavens; (24) he rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them the grain of heaven. (25) Human beings ate the bread of angels; he sent them all the food they could eat. (Psalms 78:23-25) And in Deuteronomy it is described as the “word of the Lord”: (3) He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 8:3) Another instance of manna being referred to, this time as “hidden” is given in Revelation: (17) He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. (Revelation 2:17) This time, the person is given a new name, which nobody else knows. It may have started with Woodstock, but today, this is what happens when young people go to “Rainbow Gatherings.” They come home to their family and desire to be called “Tree,” “Sparrow,” “Rainbow,” “Clover,” “Dizzy,” “Miracle,” “Gatherer,” “Sandwich,” “Hassler,” “Speed Limit,” “Zonker,” “Stark Naked,” “Swashbuckler,” “Mountain Girl,” or even “Captain Trips.” Philo of Alexandria on Manna Philo of Alexandria was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in the Roman province of Alexandria from 20 BC to 50 AD. He came from an aristocratic Jewish family and was well learned in classic literature and philosophy of the 5th and 4th centuries BC, as well as Hellenistic Greek and Roman writings. One important point to make regarding this man, is that not one of his writings ever mentions a man named Jesus, although he lived at the exact time, and in the same area as Jesus would have lived had Jesus been a real person. In his work, On the Cherubim, Philo discusses the Mysteries and the importance of not revealing them to the profane: (42) “But that we may describe the conception and the parturition of virtues, let the superstitious either stop their ears, or else let them depart; for we are about to teach those initiated persons who are worthy of the knowledge of the most sacred mysteries, the whole nature of such divine and secret ordinances. And those who are thus worthy are they who, with all modesty, practice genuine piety, of that sort which scorns to disguise itself under any false colours. But we will not act the part of hierophant or expounder of sacred mysteries to those who are afflicted with the incurable disease of pride of language and quibbling expressions, and juggling tricks of manners, and who measure sanctity and holiness by no other standard.” – |
Basically, don’t cast pearls before swine and don’t spend time on those who are not ready to receive the message. It does not imply to keep secrets from others. Farther on, he claims Moses was the one who initiated him into the Mysteries: (49) “For I myself, having been initiated in the great mysteries by Moses, the friend of God, nevertheless, when subsequently I beheld Jeremiah the prophet, and learnt that he was not only initiated into the sacred mysteries, but was also a competent hierophant or expounder of them, did not hesitate to become his pupil. And he, like a man very much under the influence of inspiration, uttered an oracle in the character of God…” In Every Good Man is Free Philo writes: (11) “But all these things are, as I have said before, the inventions of men whose intellects are obscured, and who are slaves to opinions utterly under the influence of the outward senses, whose judgment is continually corrupted by those who are brought before its tribunal, and as such is unstable. (12) But they ought, if they had really been at all anxious for the truth, not to show themselves, in respect of their minds, inferior to those who have been diseased in their bodies; for such invalids, out of their desire for good health, commit themselves to the physicians. But these other men hesitate to get rid of that disease of the soul, ignorance, by becoming the associates of wise men; from whom they might not only learn to escape ignorance, but they might also acquire that peculiar possession of man, namely, knowledge. (13) And since, as that sweetest of all writers, Plato, says, envy is removed far from the divine company, but wisdom, that most divine and communicative of all things, never closes its school, but is continually open to receive all who thirst for salutary doctrines, to whom she pours forth the inexhaustible stream of unalloyed instruction and wisdom, and persuades them to yield to the intoxication of the soberest of all drunkenness. (14) And her disciples, like persons who have been initiated into the sacred and holy mysteries, when they are at last entirely filled with the knowledge proffered to them, reproach themselves bitterly for their previous neglect, as not having taken proper care of their time, but having lived a life which was hardly deserving to be called life, in which they have been utterly destitute of wisdom.” |