The Origin
Of
Our Belief In God
by Erik Langkjer
Part I: El and Baal, the Shepherd and the Hunter
10. Man to animal
This is the deeper meaning of the cult of the hunter. An inner transformation from man to animal and demon. From prehistoric Egypt[1] comes this procession of strange animals. The first one is the animal of Seth. It has been the object of some debate what zoological species could hide behind this creature and a Danish scholar has carefully sifted the material[2]. I am not able to accept his conclusion that it must be a giraffe. It is obviously some kind of greyhound. The problem is the tail which clearly has a tuft at the end. The explanation is that the tail, as in Mesopotamia where the lion´s tail is often turned into a coiling or ascending snake, is a symbol of raised mystical power: the upright tail has the mystical flower at its end.
The next animal is the griffin, an animal composed by panther and bird, the last animal is the lion-snake, a lion with a long snake-like neck. These composite animals must be seen as demons following Seth, his pompê. Mithras has much later a similar train of followers: the snake, the black raven, the lion, the dog, the scorpion – and we have an important man-into-lion symbolism in the mysteries of Mithras. The train of demonic animals following him is characteristic of the hunter. Resheph is hunting together with lion, dog, scorpion, snake and bird.
Nonnos writes that Actaeon was sitting high in an oak tree when he spied on Artemis and her bathing nymphs. He is changed into a stag and torn to pieces by his own dogs. His mother is seeking him and mourning over him and is in this situation called "bride". Finally she finds his bow. In the Ugarit text about Aqhat being torn to pieces by birds of prey his bow is the reason for Anat wanting him dead. She wants to buy the bow, but he refuses. Also in the myth about Actaeon the bow plays an important role: The ghost of Actaeon prays that his bow may be planted on his grave, but then utters fear that the bow-mad Artemis may take it[3]. The identity between the two seems clear: Actae-on and Aqhat are the same person.
Apollodor[4] writes that the dogs of Actaeon were for a long period straying and seeking their master until they came to the centaur Cheiron, who, to comfort them, made a statue of their master. A newly found papyrus fragment adds that the dogs were cared for by Cheiron until they joined the train of Dionysos[5]. P.Chuvin[6] thinks that there is "a Dionysian conversion-rite" hiding behind the myth. A bloody act marks the consecration of the "dogs" to the god Dionysos. Fragments of ivory found in the oldest layers of Theben show a dog presenting a stag as sacrifice beneath a sacred palm tree.[7]
To shed further light on the cult of Dionysos some scholars have pointed to the ecstatic practice of some North African brotherhoods. The so-called Aissâoûa[8] form seven groups: camels, jackals, cats, wild pigs, dogs, panthers, lions. The panthers still carry bits of panther's skin, the lions only a mat imitating the lion´s hide. With the exception of the pigs and camels, the initiated are called frassâ (Arab: farasa = tear up). At their feasts they tear up and eat quite a considerable number of cattle (mostly goats and sheep), and the tearing up is accompanied by a mad frenzied dance. This passion for being an animal, a demon and experience the kick of violence and of forbidden lust is the key to the cult of the hunter.
In Iraq the myth of Adonis has given some extra colour to the memory of the death of Hussein[9]. In the tradition about this event, the thirst of Hussein is stressed, also his horse suffers from thirst, and his little son has thirsted for three days, but his murderer refuses to give the dying man water to drink. "The burning hot summer causes the spring to vanish from thirst"[10]. Before the last fight, Hussein asks his murderer to show him his face, and it appears that his opponent has a dog´s nose and the rough bristles of a boar.
[1] P.E.Newberry: Beni Hassan II, 1894, pl.4, 13
[2] Ad.S.Jensen, The sacred Animal of the God Set, 1934, Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Biologiske Medd. XI, 5
[3] Nonnos V 525ff
[4] Bibliot. III 4,4
[5] E.Lobel, Oxyrhynchus Papyri 30, 1964 no.2509
[6] Nonnos de Panopolis vol 2, 1976, pp.100-3
[7] S.Symeonoglou in Kadmeia I, 1973, p.52, pl.70-73, cf. M.A.V.Gill, "The Minoan Genius", Ath. Mitt.79, 1964, pp.1-21.
[8] René Brunel, Essai sur la confrérie religieuse des Aissâoûa au Maroc, 1926
[9] B.Meissner, "Babylonische Bestandteile in modernen Sagen und Gebraüchen", ARW 5, 1902, pp.232f.
[10] Meissner
Disclaimer:
Some material presented will contain links, quotes, ideologies, etc., the contents of which should be understood to first, in their whole, reflect the views or opinions of their editors, and second, are used in my personal research as "fair use" sources only, and not espousement one way or the other. Researching for 'truth' leads one all over the place...a piece here, a piece there. As a researcher, I hunt, gather and disassemble resources, trying to put all the pieces into a coherent and logical whole. I encourage you to do the same. And please remember, these pages are only my effort to collect all the pieces I can find and see if they properly fit into the 'reality aggregate'.
Personal Position:
I've come to realize that 'truth' boils down to what we 'believe' the facts we've gathered point to. We only 'know' what we've 'experienced' firsthand. Everything else - what we read, what we watch, what we hear - is what someone else's gathered facts point to and 'they' 'believe' is 'truth', so that 'truth' seems to change in direct proportion to newly gathered facts divided by applied plausibility. Though I believe there is 'truth', until someone representing the celestial realm visibly appears and presents the heavenly records of Facts And Lies In The Order They Happened, I can't know for sure exactly what "the whole truth' on any given subject is, and what applies to me applies to everyone. Until then I'll continue to ask, "what does The Urantia Book say on the subject?"
~Gail Bird Allen
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Urantia Book, 44:0.11 - The Celestial Artisans
Never in your long ascendancy will you lose the power to recognize your associates of former existences. Always, as you ascend inward in the scale of life, will you retain the ability to recognize and fraternize with the fellow beings of your previous and lower levels of experience. Each new translation or resurrection will add one more group of spirit beings to your vision range without in the least depriving you of the ability to recognize your friends and fellows of former estates.
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Princess Bride 1987 Wallace Shawn (Vizzini) and Mandy Patinkin (Inigo Montoya)
Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. -
Urantia Book, 117:4.14 - The Finite God
And here is mystery: The more closely man approaches God through love, the greater the reality -- actuality -- of that man. The more man withdraws from God, the more nearly he approaches nonreality -- cessation of existence. When man consecrates his will to the doing of the Father's will, when man gives God all that he has, then does God make that man more than he is.
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Urantia Book, 167:7.4 - The Talk About Angels
"And do you not remember that I said to you once before that, if you had your spiritual eyes anointed, you would then see the heavens opened and behold the angels of God ascending and descending? It is by the ministry of the angels that one world may be kept in touch with other worlds, for have I not repeatedly told you that I have other sheep not of this fold?"
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Urantia Book, Foreword - 0:12.12 - The Trinities
But we know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience—God-consciousness.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.3 - The Mystery Of God
When you are through down here, when your course has been run in temporary form on earth, when your trial trip in the flesh is finished, when the dust that composes the mortal tabernacle "returns to the earth whence it came"; then, it is revealed, the indwelling "Spirit shall return to God who gave it." There sojourns within each moral being of this planet a fragment of God, a part and parcel of divinity. It is not yet yours by right of possession, but it is designedly intended to be one with you if you survive the mortal existence.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.1 - The Mystery Of God
And the greatest of all the unfathomable mysteries of God is the phenomenon of the divine indwelling of mortal minds. The manner in which the Universal Father sojourns with the creatures of time is the most profound of all universe mysteries; the divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery of mysteries.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.6 - The Mystery Of God
To every spirit being and to every mortal creature in every sphere and on every world of the universe of universes, the Universal Father reveals all of his gracious and divine self that can be discerned or comprehended by such spirit beings and by such mortal creatures. God is no respecter of persons, either spiritual or material. The divine presence which any child of the universe enjoys at any given moment is limited only by the capacity of such a creature to receive and to discern the spirit actualities of the supermaterial world.
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Urantia Book, 11:0.1 - The Eternal Isle Of Paradise
Paradise is the eternal center of the universe of universes and the abiding place of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and their divine co-ordinates and associates. This central Isle is the most gigantic organized body of cosmic reality in all the master universe. Paradise is a material sphere as well as a spiritual abode. All of the intelligent creation of the Universal Father is domiciled on material abodes; hence must the absolute controlling center also be material, literal. And again it should be reiterated that spirit things and spiritual beings are real.
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Urantia Book, 50:6.4 - Planetary Culture
Culture presupposes quality of mind; culture cannot be enhanced unless mind is elevated. Superior intellect will seek a noble culture and find some way to attain such a goal. Inferior minds will spurn the highest culture even when presented to them ready-made.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.6 - True And False Liberty
True liberty is the associate of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration. True liberty is the fruit of self-control; false liberty, the assumption of self-assertion. Self-control leads to altruistic service; self-admiration tends towards the exploitation of others for the selfish aggrandizement of such a mistaken individual as is willing to sacrifice righteous attainment for the sake of possessing unjust power over his fellow beings.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.9 - True And False Liberty
How dare the self-willed creature encroach upon the rights of his fellows in the name of personal liberty when the Supreme Rulers of the universe stand back in merciful respect for these prerogatives of will and potentials of personality! No being, in the exercise of his supposed personal liberty, has a right to deprive any other being of those privileges of existence conferred by the Creators and duly respected by all their loyal associates, subordinates, and subjects.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.8 - True And False Liberty
There is no error greater than that species of self-deception which leads intelligent beings to crave the exercise of power over other beings for the purpose of depriving these persons of their natural liberties. The golden rule of human fairness cries out against all such fraud, unfairness, selfishness, and unrighteousness.