The Sad Plight of Santa Claus

The Mispent Youth of Santa Claus

 

The Sad Plight of Santa Claus

Dec. 23, 2017

Unfortunately for the children the hero of the season, an elderly gentleman who commonly is known as “Santa Claus,” is having no end of trouble with the notorious ICE police. For one thing, although his original documents seem to have gotten lost during one of Earth’s chronic wars, the evidence seems to indicate that he was born somewhere in Iran.

       Another cause for friction with the authorities has to do with his former position, before he assumed his present name. Santa Claus is, as most people know, a foreshortened form of Saint Nicholas. However in his youth and indeed, until he was quite well along in years, he went by the name of Mithra, or Mithras in the Greco-Roman world. He worked for a couple of centuries as the God of the Roman Empire, until the Christians conquered. After Jesus became the Pantocrator there were no openings for any other Gods, so Mithras found himself compelled to take up a trade.

       Back in his younger and more energetic days, he also gained quite a reputation as a bullfighter. Statues of him may be found all through Southern Europe and Anatolia, wearing a cape and his trademark santa-claus hat, and often very little else. He has a sword in his hand and the bull which he has just killed is usually seen lying at his feet.

       The story that he had to bring gifts to the children each year to make up for the children he killed when he was a God is probably religious propaganda. There is really no evidence to indicate that living human children were ever sacrificed to Mithras. Nevertheless, his devotees did put up a long and brutal struggle against the rising influence of the new God whom the Greco-Romans called Jesus.

Meanwhile, Back in Iran

On the other hand, the Magi who brought gifts that enabled the hejira of the Holy Family were probably in their own way devotees of Mithra. The reason I say “in their own way” is that these Three Magi were learned adherents of the faith of Zarathustra.

       Archaeologists have never found a statue of Mithra killing the bull in Persia, and most likely never will. All of the carvings, mosaics, or other impressions of Mithra’s Tauroctony have been found in connection with works that were constructed by the Romans.

       It is something of a mystery, how Mithras became the God of the Empire. The Persian Zoroastrians had venerated Mithra as the embodiment of their sacred covenant; the presence of Mitra as the God of Light in the Vedas demonstrates that this figure was around long before the advent of Zardosht. But the Greeks and Romans were always at war with the Persians.

       According to late Zoroastrian sources, Alexander and his armies attempted to exterminate the religion. Since Alexander did not rule Persia long enough to have attempted such a task if he had desired to, it is likely that his name covers for the total effect of a successive line of Selucid rulers who all did their best to repress the Native religion.

      Despite the best efforts of rulers like Antiochus IV and his military thugs, the faith of Zardosht not only survived but became the foundation of the Parthian kingdom which drove out the former Greek overlords. Beyond that, even in Anatolia, where the Greeks continued to rule, kings demonstrated their fascination with the Persophile cult by adopting the name ‘Mithradates.’ Nevertheless, modern scholars question whether the Roman worship of Mithras had anything in common with the Mithra of the Persians, aside from the name.

New Age when the New Age Was Pisces

The most likely explanation for Roman Mithraism is that it was the New Age religion of its time. Foiled in their effort to eradicate the Ethical Religion of Zarathustra, the Greek Kings and their Roman successors did everything they could to appropriate its power. Their opinion that Mithra was the primary culture-hero of the Persians may well have derived from the role of Mithra as the Lord of Covenants and Contracts. Once the Greeks found it necessary to negotiate once again with an ethnically Persian power, they would observe how Mithra was invoked whenever the Persians signed a peace treaty.

       As a personification of the Zoroastrian covenant, Mithra bound the followers of Zarathustra together in a relationship of holy love. This aspect of the Persian deity seems to have been lost on the imperialistic Romans, who seem to have preferred to develop a personal relationship with a God who could take them to high places. It is indeed curious how this need for an unconquerable Divine Ego emerged from a culture which, in its Republican phase, had served Gods who had exerted themselves to preserve and defend the Roman community.

       This shift from community values to a faith in an Unconquered Ego which symbolized itself as Sol Invictus, is probably the key to appreciating the difference between Mithra in his original Zoroastrian context, and the “New Age” cult of Mithra which became the State Religion of The Empire at a critical stage in its history.

       It could be that this shift was the harbinger of a trend towards self-reliance, individualism, and capitalistic social organization that would be the hallmark of the Western societies 1500 years later. But reliance on an ethic of the ego, however adapted to the mentality of the military, was a weakness which kept Mithraeism from being able to either compete or co-exist with the new faith in the Infant whom the gifts of the Three Zoroastrians had saved from Herod’s bloody dynastic purge.

Magi on a Civilizing Mission

       This triumph of ego over community values may very likely have been the result of the reliance, by the wealthy men who controlled public affairs, on slaves – not only for menial labor but also for the fulfilment of their more intimate desires. There is nevertheless, reason to believe that in the earlier Hellenistic phases of co-optation, Mithraesm had not been entirely disconnected from the influence of its parent religion.

       The Three Magi whose gifts enabled the hejira of the holy family were very likely on a civilizing mission similar to that of Vivakenanda and the other East Indian teachers who introduced the perennial philosophy to the conquering British.

       Nevertheless in the long run, the fact that the priests of Mithras depended on a class of egotistic and ambitious Romans for their economic base determined that the cult of Mithras in the Empire would take a different course than in Persia, where the Zoroastrian priests found themselves responsible for maintaining sufficient cohesion and goodwill among the believers that a kingdom of Zoroastrian Pathans (Parthians) could not only liberate Iran from the Greeks, but could continue to sustain itself in the face of repeated assaults by ambitious Romans like Crassus.

image of Mithra & Associated Godlings: from Wikipedia, Louvre Museum [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)]

The Reason for Lent

March 6, 2016

      It used to be said that the Sun never sets on the British Empire. Today, that Empire has been humbled and transformed into a Commonwealth. While that Commonwealth has been struggling to acknowledge its debt to non-European sources, the great ideal of a world that would be governed by Fair Play has been replaced by a Chaosium in which strange things fall from the clouds and winged mechanical drones home in from the skies to kill people who are celebrating their weddings.

      The day is sunny and on the lower elevations, wildflowers are beginning to blossom. Nevertheless, at these higher altitudes, patches and even expanses of snow remain on the ground.

      Thieu and I are driving out to place flowers on the memorial to Henry Demonford which has been erected over his grave.

      All about the cemetery, it is snowy. It is only the naked stones that rise up to proclaim that here lie creatures who once used to be called human beings. These stones, indeed, proclaim the destined end of all our mortal striving.

      The chill and melancholy wind reminds us that there was nevertheless a profound rationale driving the aspirations of those of us who came to maturity during those fateful years of the 20^th Century. The chill that hangs in the atmosphere today reminds us that if we committed ourselves to act in foolish ways, there was nevertheless a purity of motive which is today becoming increasingly obscured under the residues of post-traumatic compulsions.

      There was a time, only a few decades ago, when most of us had great hopes. We saw, quite briefly, a vision of the sun – but then the world became tormented by the spectre of a cruel shadow which is eager to impose compulsions, and which is intent on the extermination of any cultural influence which questions the all too superficial dogmas of its self-appointed leaders.

      We, who had wanted to believe that the women among us were sweet angels, whose breasts swelled only with the milk of human kindness, were to learn that this is not true either. Weary of suffering for our causes, these women began to make little deals with the Other Side. As we discovered, the Cruel God whom we had allowed to claim Heaven had left a cruel shadow here on earth.

      That cruel shadow took the form of an economic incentive which pitted men and women against each other on the stage of a Theater of Cruelty. Nevertheless, I did not have the sense to save my life, and found myself falling in love with these women.

The Ground About the Tomb

Henry’s tomb is marked by an angel who is pouring out an amphora. At the angel’s feet, a plaque is inscribed:

It’s not the power of guns and bombs
But the grace which can heal the wounded heart Which shall finally conquer all

    Thieu and I leave flowers on the grave, and say a little prayer for the departed. And I find myself wondering why it is only we, the old soldiers who have managed to keep none of the commandments, who can see through the web of deception the social neurosis has woven.

      Can it be that our whole society is highballing down the main line to Satanhood, and that one can only recognize this after one has made a personal decision to leap from the train that is carrying everyone down to destruction?

      I now begin to understand, just why the sickness of the world is so distressing. The choice between heaven and hell belongs to those of us who have died and returned to the earth. When first we grasped this truth, we strove with might and mein to move the world. We pledged ourselves eternally to some social ideal, even though we remained in denial concerning the hubris and the power-lust which hide beneath the cross of the Crusader.

        In the world of Eternal Recurrence, Lancelot falls once again from his horse. He grasps then what it was he loved and then betrayed. He's looked up into heaven, seen Valkyries descending. In polite society, he'll speak of them as angels. He begs them for mercy, forgiveness and healing; they remain in heaven, teasing him all the way as he hobbles along into town. From the depths of his heart he cries out. If it he could renounce everything, would angels please release him from this world?

      And the Valkyries laugh. "You ask us why your world is chiseled from the essence of pain? You ask us why your love has been unwise? Look then to find a lady writhing on a stake. And the man who has judged she should burn -- he thought he had self-mastery, but why this fatal flaw? Return to the world in our service -- redeem her from this jealousy which turns every prophecy false."

      He rides then into town, beholds the lady burning as a witch. It's then he knows the cause of foolish love. We love, because the pain of love sustains the soul against all baser fires. And the soul rapine has shattered may only survive by throwing itself to the flame.

Life in a Crude Oil Lagoon

Jan 1, 2013

      Flames were leaping from the parapets, as the the old Crusaders’ Castle burned. The citizens of Aleppo might have been amused, except for one little thing.

      The economic heart of the city operates out of the many shops and bazaars which have grown up in the lower levels of this castle, and in what used to be the castle courtyard. As a result, the bazarris, the leaders of the city’s middle class, have lost their livelihoods.

      It is a disturbing portent. It must be admitted that the approach of the end of a Mayan Cycle which seems to be the equivalent of the Hindu Kali Yuga had filled us with some very fine hopes. But just as so often before, we are beginning to fear that all of these fine hopes shall only pave the way for a profound disillusionment.

The Fall of the Old World Order

     As they watched the old citadel burning, the middle-class citizens became increasingly disillusioned with their government. It might be true, as government spokesmen insisted, that the Crusaders were at it again. In fact a very good argument could be made, that the suicide bombers who had ignited this conflagration had been duped by the CIA. But it was also a fact that until very recently these suicide bombers had been good Syrian citizens. They had been loyal defenders of the marketplace. That is why, when they finally allowed the gnawing feeling that they had been paying their taxes to Satan goad them into action, they were able to strike so effectively.

      We have become accustomed to believing that the world is under some evil spell, and that if only we can kill the right dictator or evil magician, life will become rational again. But this is a way of evading the reality, that our own passions for vengeance are of the of same substance that gives strength to the sinews of that evil spell.

     There is an evil spell – you may call it Taghoot, but that is just another word for Sanctimonious Denial. We have indeed ventured so far into this realm of Great Denial, that we have convinced ourselves that it will take the intervention of some external power – perhaps the Turks, perhaps the Great Satan, perhaps even aliens from outer space, to restore the rule of justice and make things turn out allright.

These Very Pious Hopes

A very pious hope – but are we not ignoring the intervention from which we have been benefitting all along? Of course we are willing to die for our Prophets, to prove ourselves worthy of being in the company of the historical Imams who were their most faithful followers. But can we really blame this war on the Prophets – do we dare ascribe these outbursts of hatred to the Prophets? Can it be the lust of the Prophet which reduces a civilization to minefields and gravel? Or can it be that human leaders have dared to marry their own passions to the Prophet’s name?

Perhaps the nightmare shall go on until we confess that we now have experienced the meaning of the warnings of the Prophet concerning a place where we would have only boiling water for our drink and only pus and gore for our food. Eventually, we shall need to listen to the women who try to tell us through their tears, that Hell is what you get when you try to mix compulsion with religion.

Too Much Crude Oil

There is too much Crude Oil in Arabia, and petrodollars have done nothing to enhance the purity of Islam. What the Crude Oil Brothers have done, is to cover the social diseases of their puppets in the all too familiar white sheets. Just as in Birmingham, Alabama, sadism shall masquerade as orthodoxy. Nevertheless, we must not forget that religious biggots do have souls. The reason they are using religion as a crutch, is because their souls have been withered by the cleft moon of historical trauma.

These fanatics shall end up crying for the women and the children, until at last they shall come to realize that they should have listened. Oh yes, that Crude Oil Currency tasted like honey in the mouth – but what a stomach ache it gives you, when you see the things that currency has bought.

Can it be a coincidence that petrodollars have persuaded the Islamacists to become fanatics who persecute their more reasonable brethren? Maybe these Islamacists should ask Pancho Villa how Bonapartists frack a religion by raising up pious hypocrites who are both infallible and rigid.

The tears of the women shall prevail, when at last, men’s visions of The Compassionate One urge them to peace and reconcilliation. Which is, of course, exactly the thing that the Crude Oil Brothers most fear.

These Crude Oil Brothers are the present incarnations of Aryan Gods who are far more effective than the Iranians in silencing their women. Or at least they were until the Domestic Violence Ladies began to remind the Christian Church that adultery is not a sex act but rather the betrayal of a partnership.

Perhaps it is their shame which prevents the Shiekhs in white sheets from confessing their sins to the congregation, so that a true Islamic Liberation, a Liberation which shall not be founded on religious compulsion, can finally begin. Perhaps the day shall come, when these Islamicists realize that they have been caught in a snare by the Fox, and that they are being manipulated like high school punks by the real out and out gangsters.

Addictive Orthodoxy

Art degraded, imagination denied

War ruled the nations

(Wm. Blake-Laocoon)

Perhaps there shall come a time when these Islamicists shall put away their guns and come to America so that they can witness to the great and powerful just what it is like to live in a place where hatred has unleashed so much brutality that everyone is drinking scalding water. Perhaps they shall someday be able to teach us of an Allah who prefers that we should serve life by helping our brothers and sisters survive. When people choose to fight by committing suicide – there always is a question of just how universal they want that suicide to be.

“Art degraded, imagination denied, War ruled the nations.” Two hundred years ago, William Blake foresaw what we now deny at our peril.

Damascus saw the flowering of the Peacock Screen, and thought the Alchemy was coming to a climax. But when the beautiful vision began to ferment, it turned into a poison which one dare not breathe.

It is a cruel alchemy. Perhaps at one time there were fine hopes which rose like the Peacock’s Tail – but right now the city is burning.

photo By Zyzzzzzy [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons