| Honey and Bull-Born Bees There was an ancient myth mentioned by Antigonos of Karystos, around 250 BC, who told a story about the bull-born bees: “In Egypt if you bury the Ox in certain places, so that only his horns project above the ground and then saw them off, they say that bees fly out; for the Ox putrifies and is resolved into bees.” – The most appropriate time for this method of reproducing bees was said to be when the sun entered the sign of the bull (Taurus) (274) This may be where the concept of bees being holy to the goddess came from originally. As well, the bull-born bees sound like mushrooms, growing up out of the ground. The bee was sacred to Artemis of Ephesus. According to Gimbutas, her entire sanctuary in ancient times was the symbolic analogy of a beehive, “with swarms of priestesses called Bees, Melissai, and numerous eunuch priests called ‘drones,’ Essenes.” (275) Plato was born on May 7, 427 BC. He is quoted discussing the resurrection of a man, from a funeral pyre twelve days after his death, approximately 400 years prior to the time of Jesus: “Well, I said, I will tell you a tale; not one of the tales which Odysseus tells to the hero Alcinous, yet this too is a tale of a hero, Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth. He was slain in battle, and ten days afterwards, when the bodies of the dead were taken up already in a state of corruption, his body was found unaffected by decay, and carried away home to be buried. And on the twelfth day, as he was lying on the funeral pile, he returned to life and told them what he had seen in the other world.” (276) It is a known fact that Plato was born at this time. Do we call Plato a prophet because he “predicted” that a man would die and ten days later be raised from the grave to tell about the afterlife? Is it not more plausible to assume that this was a discussion concerning entheogenic substances and “ego-death?” Plato was one of the first authors to expound on the place called “hell”, in relation to victims of sins that have not been atoned for. This would eventually lead to a position within the Catholic Church centuries later, where this location took on the form of a real place and not some vague concept. In this next paragraph, Plato expounds of the traveling Christian apothecary: “And mendicant prophets go to rich men's doors and persuade them that they have a power committed to them by the gods of making an atonement for a man's own or his ancestor's sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoicings and feasts; and they promise to harm an enemy, whether just or unjust, at a small cost; with magic arts and incantations binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. And the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal…, And they produce a host of books written by Musaeus and Orpheus, who were children of the Moon and the Muses --that is what they say --according to which they perform their ritual, and persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the service of the living and the dead; the latter sort they call mysteries, and they redeem us from the pains of hell, but if we neglect them no one knows what awaits us.” |
Love is the power that drives the universe. In Plato’s Symposium, Diotimus is explaining the god “Love” and says: “He is a great spirit (daimon), and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal.” Then, when asked, “what is his power?” he replies: “between gods and men, conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all, prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not with man; but through Love. All the intercourse, and converse of god with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which understands this is spiritual; all other wisdom, such as that of arts and handicrafts, is mean and vulgar.” The Phoenix Bird, Immortal and Risen from its own Ashes The Phoenix (Cneph) appears to be a creation of the Late Egyptian or even Greek period and almost every scholar links it to the sun due in part to its bright orange-reddish color. It was said to be as large as an eagle with feathers of scarlet and gold and it was said to make a melodious sound. The phoenix was known as a symbol of “resurrection” as it was born from its own ashes each time it would die, making it an Egyptian symbol of “immortality.” The phoenix has all the qualities of a genuine mushroom occultation. (277) Authors and scholars many times attempt to link this bird to either an extinct bird from ancient times or to concepts that are esoteric and make little sense. (278) (274) Goddesses and Gods, p. 181 (275) Goddesses and Gods, p. 183 (276) Plato Republic Book X, 614-621 (277) https://www.britannica.com/topic/phoenix-mythological-bird (278) Apples of Apollo, p. 137 |