Astro theology and shamanism

[Aromagician]

Found this fascinating video about how the mythologies including Egyptian and Christian follow the path of the stars and the zodiac in the sky. This is part 2 of the series[youtube][/youtube]

[Ra-Mont]

Discussions such as this give much to ponder on. I've encountered many of the ideas before, chiefly in a slim volume calle Jesus The Pagan Sun God (now unobtainable) by L M Wright. Like the above video, this work makes many interesting connections between astrology, Chrisitianity and Egyptian religion. I would add as a point of interest that while depictions and narrative linking Moses to rams' horns are associated by some writers with the zodiacal Age of Aries, it was during that precessional period that the Egyptian god Amen reigned supreme and he, too, was endowed with rams' horns in his sacred imagery.

R.J.T.

[Aromagician]

Fascinating isnt it. i had never even noticed that Moses was pictured with horns on his head before.
we all know what horns on the head are associated with now.

interesting about the new age of Aquarius, where the male is shown bearing the water. the video suggests that normally woman carry the water. That perhaps it ushers in a time of a more egalitarian society

see the definition here
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egalitarianism/

Egalitarianism is a trend of thought in political philosophy. An egalitarian favors equality of some sort: People should get the same, or be treated the same, or be treated as equals, in some respect. Egalitarian doctrines tend to express the idea that all human persons are equal in fundamental worth or moral status. So far as the Western European and Anglo-American philosophical tradition is concerned, one significant source of this thought is the Christian notion that God loves all human souls equally. Egalitarianism is a protean doctrine, because there are several different types of equality, or ways in which people might be treated the same, that might be thought desirable. In modern democratic societies, the term "egalitarian" is often used to refer to a position that favors, for any of a wide array of reasons, a greater degree of equality of income and wealth across persons than currently exists.

I am not sure I agree on the interpretation of the Aquarian symbolism, but it does seem that this type of ideal is gaining momentum among many people as the big money, or corporates seek to extend their degree of influence in politics.
As well as the banking debacles, and the overthrows in countries such as egypt.

the question is, will a spiritual leader step forward that meets the criteria of a waterbearer? They sometimes assume that because the mythology meets the 'astrology' therefore such a leader did not exist. However, I tend to think that probably there was a son AS well ( a sun and a son). A physical representation of an astrological event. As above so below.

What does water represent symbolically? consciousness, energy, power (generates electricity), Giver of life- needed to grow crops, is present at birth- waters break and pour out when a baby is born), somwhere for the fish to swim, cleansing, purifying, comes from heavens- as in rain, comes from the highest places- mountain streams, quenches our thirst, a medium for the water dragons to transverse the consciousness of the earth ( in symbolism), On which the boats of the dead must transverse to come out of the underworld.

So who controls the water? At present in NZ, the government wants to sell the power companies, which have rights to the water. the Maori say they need to have rights over it, as spiritual guardians of a resource that provides life.

If As above so below, then vice versa. So spiritually what does it mean if we give control of our water to corporations?
does that imply control of our consciousness? Control of our life giving resources? Is this happening already in a consumer world, where governments are affected by money rather than social policy.

If the water is stopped in this reality then What is the effect in the spiritual realities, where the spirits use those waterways to transverse the underworld?

If one believes in other realities, then they must also realise that as above so below, as below so above also in some cases. Would a drought in the upper world affect the Pharoahs ability to drive his boat through the underworld?

[Aromagician]

Or did the Pharoah transverse the underworld, to ensure that there was no drought in the upperworld?

[Ra-Mont]

Well, we have the ram-headed Amen of Aries prededing the coming of Piscean Christianity. Nowadays it's becoming the vogue for Christians to show their faith by the display of a fish symbol, which is just what they did during the cult's earliest period. The wearing of a cross as a sacred symbol didn't become popular until after the 5th century CE, I believe.

R.J.T.

[Aromagician]

I must admit I have been thinking, what does the symbol of the fish mean?
Fishing, fishermen, swimming in the water, does that mean immersed in consciousness??

Dont know much about Pisces.??
Heres what I found ( have edited it a little)

http://www.2012-spiritual-growth-prophe ... isces.html
So what does the Age of Pisces represent?


The Age of Pisces is - The Age of Monotheism (one God), Spirituality, and the Fish. It is characterized by the rise of many religions such as Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. This represents the "spiritual" nature of Pisces. Throughout most of Pisces though this spiritual side is for the most part seen as the truth hidden behind the five senses. Spirituality was seen in relation to the world, not through an innate knowing of divinity.


The Fall of Rome began at the beginning of this Age
As with all Great Cycle changes the Age of Pisces began with chaos. Rome fell and chaos was rampant as the great change of power began. It was the birthing of the Middle Ages.
The Age of Pisces is considered the Age of Jesus.
Egypt's Isis was dropped and Mary mother of Jesus comes into being replacing her near the close of the Age of Aries. Jesus is said to have been born of the Virgin Mary. Virgo is the polar opposite sign of Pisces. The Age of Pisces represents charity, mercy, sacrifice, compassion and pardon, which are the virtues taught and lived by Jesus.

Water played a prominent role in the teachings of Jesus, and Pisces is a water sign. The fish is the symbol of Pisces. Many of Jesus' gatherings were near lakes and water. Fish were a big part of the diet of Jesus, his disciples and the multitudes. Water was used to baptize the people.

Jesus was sacrificed because he was the "Lamb" of God. This represents the sacrificing of the RAM of Aries, which ended the Age of Aries the astrological age before Pisces.

Pisces marks the merging of east and west to gives birth to the New Age of Aquarius.

In fact that's what has happened. Earlier on in the Age of Pisces, the Europeans, the Vikings, and more integrated with other cultures on mass. In recent history, China, India and much of the East have found their economic might and now the economies of the West are totally reliant on this trade. The East and West have merged as never before making it difficult for wars and other negative activities to continue.

Religious wars have been ramped during Pisces, with people killing others simply because they don't have the same religious beliefs. No specific religions need be singled out, since this phenomena occurred throughout most of the "civilized" world from East to West. The value of organized religion should diminish by the close of Pisces.

On the other hand the Age of Pisces has also been a very spiritual age. Monasteries, ashrams, temples, and pilgrimages, all came into being during this age. Many started "on the path" back to the creator. But few were able to get to it because they were heavily tied to the senses. This searching will come to fruition in the Age of Aquarius and the greater meaning of things will be known.

The Piscean Age is a time of gentleness, materialism and artistry, but also it's impracticality. This is possibly due to the rise in the European empires. To the spiritually undeveloped person Pisces represents "servitude." To the disciple or aspirant, the vision of "service to humanity...world savior" as Jesus, came to the forefront. Good examples are Mother Theresa and the Dali Lama.

[Aromagician]

I do have to ask this question if Moses was shown wearing rams horns, were any of the Kings of Egypt depicted in this way?

[Aromagician]

Duh of course if the god Ammon was the ram headed god, then that would be self evident.

Akhenaton than perhaps was getting early piscean tingles, but is not shown with any fish around is he?

[LivinginLuxor]

And don't forget that prior to the age of the Ram/Amon, there was the age of Taurus/Montu - the earlier god of the Theban area, superceded by Amon.

[Ra-Mont]

I do have to ask this question if Moses was shown wearing rams horns, were any of the Kings of Egypt depicted in this way?

The earliest serious manifestation of rams' horns in connection with Egyptian religion would seem to be with the creator-god Khnum, who was revered around the First Cataract in predynastic times. His cult centre was at Elephantine. In her Gods of Ancient Egypt, Barbara Watterson says he was originally worshipped as a flat-horned ram of a species which became extinct around around 2000 BCE. So, with each zodiacal sign occupying an average of 2160 years and with the Age of Aries supposedly ending at around 200 BCE (according to some estimates) the onset of Khum's worship could be said by advocates of precessional influence to have been triggered by its beginning. The rise of the ram-headed Amen in the New Kingdom looks like a reinforcement of it.

Various crowns of ancient Egypt sported horns of gazelle, cow and other animals, so perhaps these were more to do with a shamanistic echo than astrology. Egyptian kings often had themselves depicted wearing the Atef Crown during religious rituals, though gods were shown wearing it too. As well as a double fringe of feathers, the horizontal rams' horns, apparently inherited from Khnum, were a usual addition to this headdress. Somewhere in my files I've an illustration of Akhenaten wearing a version of the Atef Crown, complete with rams' horns, which I found curious given his supposed aversion to gods other than his Aten, though perhaps he wore it before his split from the mainstream. Anyway, I wondered if it was his wearing of it which led to the tradition of the horned Moses, since I'm convinced that Ahmed Osman is correct in indentifying Akhenaten as the biblical prophet.

Duh of course if the god Ammon was the ram headed god, then that would be self evident.

Akhenaton than perhaps was getting early piscean tingles, but is not shown with any fish around is he?

While there's nothing overtly 'fishy' about Akhenaten's religion, his famous Hymn to the Aten does show an affinity with nature, wherein 'the fish in the river' are given equal consideration alongside the birds, cattle, etc. And during his excavations at Amarna, Flinders Petrie uncovered strikingly beautiful artwork of flora and fauna, some of which had aquatic elements.

[Aromagician]

There is abundance evidence of other Gods being worshipped at Amarna,why they talk of him as monotheistic I dont know.

[Ra-Mont]

There is abundance evidence of other Gods being worshipped at Amarna,why they talk of him as monotheistic I dont know.

After Akhenaten's move to Amarna and away from Thebes he appears to have devoted his own worship solely to Aten. There he made it known again and again in his inscriptions that he was 'living in Maat', that is truth/justice/right. The principles of Maat were normally associated in ancient Egypt with the goddess of that name. At first Akhenaten went along with this by including the seated goddess sign with the word Maat in his inscriptions. Later on, he stopped the use of this ideogram so that the word Maat was written phonetically. From then on, it seems, he was not willing to acknowledge the divinity of any god but his own.

Yes, archaeologists excavating private homes at Amarna have discovered signs that devotion was being given to gods other than Aten, but it's not sure whether Akhenaten had a quiet acceptance of it or whether it was going on behind his back.

Interestingly, Akhenaten named two of his daughters from Aten while others were given over to Ra. He also described himself as, for instance, 'the son of Ra who lives in Maat', and 'the sole one of Ra'. Egyptologists take from this that Akhenaten retained a reverence for the old Egyptian sun god alongside Aten (which they perversely regard as a disc). In fact, Akhenaten was showing no such duotheism; Aten and Ra were one and the same god. It was just Akhenaten's form of worship that had changed.

R.J.T.

[Aromagician]

I did read that they found statues of Hathor in the palace grounds of Amarna also.

It is hard to know whether other gods were worshipped as well, or if he just had his favourite 2. So much is made of his first monotheistic urges, I wonder if perhaps, it was more if an attempt to stop the corruption of the priesthoods such as Amun, where perhaps too much control was given too them.

There is another theory, that due to the presence of all the Statues of Sekhmet at karnak, that perhaps it had been a time of plague and disease.
This could have 1) prompted the move away to a new place, and a clean city.
2) Would have also been a good move to stop people meeting. Could have caused him to decide a change of worship may be necessary??
3) could explain all the first born dying?
I tend to think that perhaps Akhenaton was the pharoah at the time of Moses. Perhaps Moses power convinced him to worship only one God?? WHo knows.

Now I know in a lot of ancient cultures, people werent actually allowed into the temples. Only the priests and priestesses. As it was sacred. In the jewish temples, they had a veil, that only the sacred, chosen one, ( the priest) was allowed to go beyond. Was this the same in the Egyptian temples??

[LivinginLuxor]

You're right - the temples were for the priests, and were closed to the general public. Certain parts of the temple, where the god or goddess were housed, were only open to the high priest and the pharaoh. Occasionally, the common people were allowed into the outer courts of temples - for some celebration, or to be presented with awards by the pharaoh.

Most of the temples have representations of the Rekhet (lapwing) on column bases in their outer courts, and as they also denoted the people, they showed where the people - usually the higher officials and their entourages - were allowed to gather for such ceremonies.

It's well attested that towards the end of his reign, Amenhotep III promoted Aten to a higher status than before, and this according to some was because of the power, riches, lands that the temples of Amun, and especially Karnak had gathered to themselves was a threat to the pharaoh's own power. Akhenaten perhaps carried this to an illogical conclusion by moving the capital to Akhetaten, and destroying the name of Amun wherever he could find it (including from his father's name - which can still be seen on the lintels of the sun court at Luxor temple).

As for the Moses/Akhenaten controversy, it's one of the few 'alternative' theories that I find credible - not that Moses influenced Akhenaten, but that Akhenaten was the basis for the legend of Moses! Freud's book Moses and Akhenaten went a long way to making the story plausible to me, but there are many successors to that view - Ahmed Osman, and Mustapha Gadallah are modern Egyptian researchers who also hold that view.

[Aromagician]

I will have to look up that book by Freud. I remember hearing somewhere that Carl Jung also had a "thing" about Akhenaten, saw it in a movie., will have to investigate further.
Also note that in NZ, after the maori people were almost wiped out ( by white mans diseases) many changed to christianity ( ironically) thinking that their own Gods had abandoned them..
Often tragedy, ( perhaps a plague) can be the catalyst for such a change of view.

[Ra-Mont]

It's well attested that towards the end of his reign, Amenhotep III promoted Aten to a higher status than before, and this according to some was because of the power, riches, lands that the temples of Amun, and especially Karnak had gathered to themselves was a threat to the pharaoh's own power. Akhenaten perhaps carried this to an illogical conclusion by moving the capital to Akhetaten, and destroying the name of Amun wherever he could find it (including from his father's name - which can still be seen on the lintels of the sun court at Luxor temple).

As for the Moses/Akhenaten controversy, it's one of the few 'alternative' theories that I find credible - not that Moses influenced Akhenaten, but that Akhenaten was the basis for the legend of Moses! Freud's book Moses and Akhenaten went a long way to making the story plausible to me, but there are many successors to that view - Ahmed Osman, and Mustapha Gadallah are modern Egyptian researchers who also hold that view.

According to my researches, Amenhotep III didn't promote a new god in the Aten. An old god was simply being written of in a new way. Yuya seems to have been the key. After his arrival scribes, who must have been Asiatic like him, began using the term 'Adon' for 'Lord'. As Ahmed Osman has clearly pointed out, this was transliterated as 'Aton/Aten' in the Egyptian. Yes, Aten was used as 'Lord' by Thutmose III too, but I've seen an Egyptian text which indicates it was in his reign that Yuya entered Egypt as a slave. Egyptologists have Egypt's chronologies and timelines in something of a mess right now. After Yuya's arrival, any Egyptian god (Even Amen, as I've seen) could be referred to as Aten, Lord, but the one most often treated so was Ra, sometimes referred to as Ra-Horakhte. This was the 'Aten' who became sole focus of Akhenaten's worship after he departed Thebes for Amarna, which he ruled as a city-state. Ahmed Osman is absolutely correct in pointing out Akhenaten's Semitic bloodline and identifying him as Moses. When Egyptologists finally become smart enough to see that, they'll get an undistorted view of the New Kingdom, and specifically the Amarna Period. They'll also have to come to terms with there having been not one Aten, but two; one the Lord, and the other something else (the Aten before Thutmose III appears to have been the latter). Akhenaten's religion knew both. The Egyptians were never as simple as Egyptologists would like them to have been.

R.J.T.