Mare Nostrum(?)

 

It seems "Unidentified Submerged Obejcts" or USOs aren´t as fringe as I assumed. Yes, it´s Richard Nolan again.

Who´s really in control of our oceans, anyway? 

Actions have consequences

 

Donald Trump is angry at various European nations for not supporting the ongoing military strikes against the Iranian regime. Or not supporting them hard enough. Or something. Or something else.

That the Spanish left-wing government refuses to support Trump is perhaps unsurprising, but even the UK (which is usually subservient to the US even under Labour governments) has tried to wiggle themselves out of the situation. 

OK, let´s see...

It´s virtually an official policy of the Trump admin to split the European Union. Trump threatened military action against Denmark (a NATO member-nation) over Greenland. He has imposed tariffs on the EU and its member-nations. He is also trying to appease Russia in Ukraine. 

So why exactly should the EU (or the pro-EU government of the UK) support him now? Maybe European alliances also has "interests", rather than "friends", you know. Oh, and as I pointed out in some previous blog post, it´s not as if the European panhandle is unimportant to the "nationalist" United States. Trump apparently needs military bases in Spain and on Cyprus to bomb targets in Iran. Wow, who knew. It´s almost as if a de facto global power needs allies globally or something...

Europe (perhaps minus France?) would probably have supported the strikes against the Iranian regime if the United States had a Democrat or Neo-Con president. Maybe they will, eventually. But as of now, it looks as if Trump may actually be more adventurist than George W Bush!     

En profetisk dröm

 

Hade en väldigt märklig dröm. Den gick ut på att det avslöjades att Grekland vid upprepade tillfällen riggat Eurovision Song Contest. Jag satt på ett tåg när nyheten kom, och ett antal överförfriskade svenska fotbollsfans som satt i kupén bredvid blev oerhört glada när de fick höra den, och bestämde sig för att "informera" resten av tåget i sitt överförfriskade tillstånd. 

Fick intrycket att det hela var en slags "profetia" om framtiden. Grekland har ju inte vunnit sedan 2005. Så om "profetian" stämmer kommer grekerna att vinna ESC vid upprepade tillfällen inom en nära framtid...och sedan visar det sig att de alltså fuskade hela tiden!

:D

Har ingen aning om varför jag drömde detta just nu, men det undermedvetna är ju konstigt. Drömmen kanske syftar på att Grekland och Cypern ständigt kompisröstar på varandra. Vilket jag ibland skämtsamt påpekar i diverse sammanhang. Fast det vore ju kul om "profetian" visar sig stämma...

Den kanske kommer från en trojansk gud? 

Pan aint dead

 

Credit: Stato Magna Grecia - Due Sicilie

It seems Pan and Zeus aren´t dead, after all. A group of Hellenic Neo-Pagans have built their own temple in Arcadia, Greece. The Greek Orthodox Church and the government authorities aren´t amused. Which is...kind of absurd. But I suppose nobody becomes a prophet in his homeland, right? Maybe Schwärmerei for all things Hellenic (as in pre-Christian Greek) is mostly a non-Greek phenomenon... 

First Hellenic polytheist temple in 1,700 years is open

A Christmas epiphany

 

- Yuletide, bro? What on earth is yuletide?!

Some slightly unedited reflections on the pagan nature of Christmas…

On one level, the question is academic, since virtually all “really existing” Christmas traditions in the modern Western world seem to be Christian or secularized, and many regardless of nominal provenance were invented by enterprising retailers or wholesalers. Some during my lifetime! That being said, it´s hard not to believe that there is a connection between the Christian idea that Jesus was born on December 25 (not found in the Bible) and earlier pagan conceptions.

December 25 was the original date of the winter solstice in the Julian calendar, adopted in Rome on January 1, 45 BC by order of Julius Caesar himself. In other words, before Christianity even existed. Later, the winter solstice became associated with the imperial solar deity Sol Invictus, probably first worshipped by Emperor Aurelian during the 3^rd century AD. Constantine the Great originally promoted both Christianity and the cult of Sol Invictus, presumably for reasons of politic, but dropped the solar cult after the Council of Nicaea. The supposedly super-Christian emperor Theodosius the Great used pagan imagery (Hercules) to justify his rule, and modeled himself on Trajan showing that Christian-pagan “syncretism” was a thing. It´s interesting to note that Macrobius claimed that Sol Invictus was depicted as a small child at the winter solstice (compare baby Jesus). While Macrobius is a late source (5^th century AD), Plutarch (1^st century AD and hence not influenced by Christianity) said that Harpocrates was born on the winter solstice. This is the Hellenistic form of the Egyptian god Horus, son of Isis and Osiris. Note the iconographic similarity between Mary holding baby Jesus and Isis holding Horus.  

Oh, and then there´s the similarities between the Saturnalia and later Christmas traditions, including the Feast of Fools and the Lord of Misrule. Indeed, Christmas was long associated with folkish revelry rather than Christian solemnity (except, I suppose, in church). It´s not a co-incidence that that the 17^th century Puritans in both England and New England tried to ban many customs associated with Christmas!

So why is it far fetched to think that the Christian Church consciously “captured” December 25 as the birthday of Jesus in order to compete with the pagans? The alternative “calculation hypothesis” says that the Christians arrived at the date of December 25 by simply calculating nine months from March 25 (the Roman date of the spring equinox) since Jesus was believed to have been conceived by the Holy Ghost on that day. An alternative calculation from April 6 gave January 6 as the date of Christ´s birth instead, long celebrated in the eastern half of the Roman Empire (today, January 6 is the Christian holiday of Epiphany). However, it turns out that this seemingly random date is *also* associated with paganism, making it highly unlikely that the Christians chose it by chance.

Let´s begin with Epiphanius, the somewhat notorious 4^th century AD Christian bishop and heresy-hunter extraordinaire. In his “Panarion”, Epiphanius claims that Jesus was born on January 6 and that the pagans therefore celebrate their mystery rites on that date to deceive the faithful. Christian apologists rather naively assume that Epiphanius is of course telling the truth, and that the pagans were indeed mimicking the Christian traditions. But we will see later that this is highly unlikely. First, a short summary of what the Cypriot bishop writes. At January 6, the pagans in Alexandria celebrate the virgin birth of Aion from Kore (which, of course, means “The Virgin” or “The Maiden”). On the same date, the pagans in Petra celebrate of the virgin birth of one Dusares from Kore. Also, there is a similar celebration in Elusa (presumably the town in Palestine), but it´s not described by the bishop.

According to pre-Christian Greek sources, Persephone is the mother of Dionysus Zagreus, who is dismembered by the Titans and then brought to life. Persephone and Kore is the same goddess, but in this particular myth, Dionysus isn´t born of a virgin. Rather, Persephone is impregnated by Zeus. The Greeks and Romans often identified Dionysus with Osiris, another god who was dismembered and brought back to life. Aion – the miraculous son of Kore in Epiphanius´ account – was a syncretic deity identified with Dionysus and Osiris! Dusares was sometimes also associated with Dionysus. Thus, everything points to Dionysus. Could January 6 somehow have been associated with the god of wine? Indeed, this seems to be the case.

Pliny the Elder (1^st century AD) and Pausanias (2^nd century AD) – both men highly unlikely to have been influenced by Christianity – mention a Dionysiac festival on January 6, known as Theodosia, during which the water at a holy spring at the island of Andros was turned into wine. The ability of Dionysus to turn water into wine is of course well attested from other sources, too. Seneca (1^st century AD) associates Dionysus with a wedding feast. Finally, Dionysus was worshipped in Scythopolis in Palestine, indeed, the local pagans claimed this was the god´s birthplace. And in the Gospel of John, Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding at Cana, which is close to Scythopolis…

It seems difficult to deny that the author of the gospel modelled this somewhat peculiar miracle of Jesus on Dionysiac traditions. Epiphanius gives the whole game away when he states that Jesus performed the miracle of turning water into wine on the same date as his birth – that is, January 6 *which is also the birthday of Dionysus according to the same author*. Epiphanius also writes that on January 6, the water in many streams and rivers turn into wine as evidence of Christ´s miracle at Cana. He mentions the Nile, Cibyre in Caria and Gerasa in Arabia. *But this is exactly what Pliny and Pausanias claims happened on January 6 on Andros at the Dionysiac festival of Theodosia*.

It´s therefore obvious what´s going on here. Both December 25 and January 6 were days honoring pagan gods, and both were claimed by the Christian Church after Christianity had become the state religion of the Roman Empire. At some point, December 25 was fixed as the birthday of Jesus, while January 6 became Epiphany, still in a sense associated with the Christ´s birth. In the Western Church, Epiphany celebrates the Magi and their adoration of the infant Jesus, while in the Eastern Church, it celebrates the baptism of Jesus (a symbolic “birth”).  

So it seems Christmas is “pagan”, after all. At least after a fashion!

DELTACRON

 

Credit: Eden, Janine and Jim 

The ride never ends...

Simply Turkish

I just finished reading "Turkiets historia" (The History of Turkey) by Ingmar Karlsson. Although the author is a former Swedish diplomat, the book is mostly a popularized account of Ottoman and modern Turkish history, rather than a sensational tell-it-all about Mideast conspiracies. The book was published in 2015, and therefore doesn´t mention the 2016 coup attempt against Erdogan. If the book has a political tendency, it´s "pro-European" and argues that "Turkey is part of Europe". This is ironic, since anyone reading it would surely draw the opposite conclusion: that Ottoman, Turkic or Turkish civilization, whatever else it might be, is very definitely *not* European, but another planet entirely. Karlsson tries to blame France and Germany (and perhaps Cyprus) for the failure of EU to integrate a very willing and pro-EU Turkey, but its obvious from his account that most Turks always opposed secular Kemalism and prefer conservative Islam combined with Turkish nationalism. While Kemal Atatürk, the father of modern Turkey, was indeed very positive towards the latter, he actively opposed the former. The entire history of modern Turkey is really the history of the religious elites and "the silent majority" to break away from all or most of Kemalism´s six founding principles. Erdogan and the AKP are simply the latest example, and the most succesful. Yes, Erdogan used to be pro-EU, but in hindsight, his hybrid of Islamism, Turkish nationalism and "Neo-Ottoman" foreign policy ambitions sound much more politically logical than a Turkey modernized around Northwest European lines (let alone "woke" ones). 

Karlsson´s book starts out with several chapters on Ottoman history, unfortunately rather distracted ones, as he jumps back and forth in the chronology, never mentions the Bektashi order, says very little about the slave trade, and at one point writes "Russian" when he really means "Ottoman". He also resurrects Bayezid after his captivity and death at the hands of Timur Lenk! Still, the chapters *are* interesting, especially if you think "Islam" and "Christianity" are necessarily in conflict with each other. Realpolitik (and, shall we say, Real-commerce) frequently trumps both the jihad and the crusading spirit. Both Venetians and the Genoese frequently aided various Ottoman factions in their power struggles. France had an outright military alliance with the Ottoman Empire against the Habsburgs. One of the reasons why the Protestant Reformation succeeded may have been Ottoman pressure on the Habsburg domains in Central Europe, which forced the Catholic emperors to compromise with the Protestant princes. For a long time, Orthodox Christians (outside Russia) preferred the Muslim crescent to the Catholic crusaders. So did the Jews! And yes, our very own warrior-king extraordinaire, Karl XII, tried to ally Sweden with the Porte against Russia. 

It´s interesting to note that the conflict between modernizers and traditionalists existed already during Ottoman times, in earnest from the 19th century, but to some extent already during the 15th century. The famous portrait of Mehmed Fatih, the conqueror of Constantinople, was made by an Italian and sold by Mehmed´s successor Bayezid II, who regarded portrait painting as anti-Muslim. That´s how the portrait eventually ended up in the United Kingdom! Another thing that seems to be "same old, same old" is the idea of an imperialist "humanitarian intervention". This wasn´t something invented during the 1990´s (which many leftists seem to think). As early as 1827, the great powers intervened (with the best of intentions, obviously) to aid the Greeks against the Ottomans. Next in line was an intervention to aid the Bulgarians. Karlsson points out that nobody cared much about the Turks ethnically cleansed from the Balkans due to these great power interventions. (Of course, an alternative interpretation - equally unpalatable to modern wokesters - is that *Russia* was the great liberator of the Balkan peoples from the sick man at the Bosphorus.) 

While Karlsson (of course) opposes the Armenian Genocide, he also makes a valiant (and perhaps slightly controversial) attempt to place it in context. Armenians were a minority in "Ottoman Armenia", and actively supported the Russians during World War I, while the Ottoman Empire fought on the German side. Karlsson also notes that the Kurds actively supported the Turks in the attacks on the Armenians. Later, the Kurds themselves would be oppressed by the new Turkish regime. Thanks to Kemal Atatürk´s military campaigns, Turkey was the only losing power in World War I that succesfully challenged the diktats of the victorious Entente, which in the Turkish case would have meant near-dismemberment. I can´t help thinking that Karlsson might have *some* kind of pro-Turkish sympathies! His description of the Cyprus conflict is also very "objective".

As for modern Turkey, I have already commented on the Kemalist-Islamist conflicts. It´s interesting to note that Erdogan and other Islamist politicians in Turkey tend to be economically neo-liberal, not left-of-center, while in practice combining neo-liberalism with a kind of crony capitalism. Either way, the Islamists seem to be based on a seemingly unnatural alliance of a neo-liberal bourgeoisie and a vast plebs of religiously conservative peasants or underemployed ex-peasants in the large cities. I´m not entirely sure how this alliance can hold together - Karlsson seems to suggest that the Sufi orders play an important role here as clientelistic networks aiding but also incorporating the poor in the Islamist project (Westerners with an over-romantic view of Sufis may take note here). Erdogan seems to be the Bonaparte or great leader of said project. 

The role of the Gülen movement is unclear to me. They claim to stand for a kind of Muslim modernization and democratization of Turkey, and rather obviously seek Western support (Gülen lives in the United States), but how do we really know this? Gülen´s supporters were long allied with Erdogan and strongly oppose Kemalism. Are their modernizing stances just a form of taqyyia? Interestingly, they are strong Turkish nationalists and hence opposed to Kurdish independence. 

Personally, I strongly favor secularism and Western modernization (thank you!), but Turkey seems to be another example of the fact that Occidental modernity really isn´t the teleological or otherwise inevitable end point of human political evolution, or even of capitalism. Islam grows stronger, the more capitalist and/or democratic Turkey becomes, not always as a counter-reaction but *in alliance* with the modern forces. Yet, this is not a "modernist Islam", but a conservative form married to a bourgeoisie and even elements of globalization! (In a different way, China is another example of "two, three, many modernities".) While Turkey isn´t "Europe", it is a bridge between East and West, but not in a way easily recognizable by people with a Western mindset. What should be done about this, if anything, is perhaps an interesting question. Above all, Turkey is simply Turkish...

Esoteric Christianity or Theosophical tall tales?

“The Magus of Strovolos”, first published in 1985, is the first in a series of three books about Stylianos Atteshlis, a Greek Cypriot healer, mystic and esotericist. Often known simply as Daskalos (Teacher), he is relatively unknown outside Cyprus. In the books, he is referred to as Spyros Sathi, perhaps in keeping with the anthropological custom of referring to native informants by pseudonym. However, it's pretty obvious that the author, Cyprus-born American professor Kyriacos Markides, isn't an ordinary anthropologist, but rather a spiritual seeker who returned to his native land searching for “esoteric Christianity”. His books are sometimes compared to those of Carlos Castaneda. Markides' works were recommended to me by a friendly esotericist on the web, who said that he is more fun to read than Vladimir Lossky!

Daskalos passed away (or passed on) in 1995, and it seems that his supporters split after the the Teacher's death. A faction around Daskalos' daughter Panayiota calls itself “Researchers of Truth”, while a group around Daskalos' disciple Kostas calls itself “Erevna”. (According to other sources, there were two groups - but with considerable overlap in membership - already during Daskalos' lifetime.) The website of the Researchers of Truth claims that Daskalos broke with Markides before his death and repudiated the American professor's writings, but it's not clear when this happened, or why. Of course, Markides' books can be read with profit even if taken as esoteric fiction.

So far, I've read about two-thirds of the first book. I must say that Daskalos' esoteric Christianity is virtually identical to Theosophy. The main difference is that Daskalos places more emphasis on Jesus Christ, which he sees as the Logos incarnate, and not simply as a divinized man. Daskalos and most of his supporters are members of the Greek Orthodox Church. Their message supposedly comes from Yohannan (John the Evangelist) through channeling. Daskalos also believes that it's possible, under certain conditions, for one man to bear the karma of another and hence “forgive” him, and this was apparently what Jesus did on a cosmic scale. Otherwise, the similarities to Theosophy are so striking that a direct influence cannot be ruled out. Indeed, Daskalos claims that his earthly guru was an Indian stationed on Cyprus (then a British colony) during World War II. Perhaps this mysterious personage was a member of the Adyar society?

Ascended Masters, the White Brotherhood, monads descending into matter and then ascending to godhood, grand cycles of cosmic evolution, reincarnation, karma, chakras, channeling, creation of thought forms, even belief in the Space Brothers…it's all in there. Daskalos has a “perennialist” outlook. He accepts Muslim disciples, carries out magical rituals using Jewish symbolism, and speaks respectfully of Plato and ancient Egypt. He doesn't believe in Nirvana, though, and doesn't call for complete unity with the Divine – the monads should remain separate (perhaps they must remain so). Masters should return to the material world to alleviate suffering and spread the spiritual message (the Bodhisattva ideal). The main activity of Daskalos and his supporters is healing through the creation of “elementals” (their term for thought forms). Apparently, Daskalos was known in Cyprus mostly for his these miraculous healing abilities. Astral travel (“exomatosis”) is another important technique used by this group. Are we to believe Markides, the Orthodox Church have attempted to excommunicate Daskalos, while many superstitious Cypriots view him as possessed by the Devil!

“The Magus of Strovolos” is filled with fanciful stories, which often sound like tall tales. Daskalos comes across as a friendly, talkative, funny and mostly harmless village crank, with a somewhat lively imagination. He was of course personally present every time something dramatic happened in Cypriot history: the guerilla struggle against Britain, the Greek-Turkish communal violence, etc. He claims to have been on a first name basis with Makarios, the Orthodox Archbishop of Cyprus who later became the island nation's president. Indeed, Daskalos claims that it was Makarios who stopped the excommunication procedures against him. Of course, he also knew the British governor-general and the main Turkish official on the island. At one point, Daskalos implies that Bertrand Russell recognized him as a spiritual master! Naturally, the old man remembers all his previous incarnations, and those of his disciples, in some detail...

I admit that I didn't buy all of this (admittedly entertaining) stuff, and it would be interesting to know whether Stylianos Atteshlis really said all those things, or whether the author embellished them. That being said, “The Magus of Strovolos” is actually a pretty good introduction to the Theosophical worldview. If it tells us something about the mystical inner core of Eastern Christianity is, perhaps, another question entirely. But yes, it *is* a more fun read than Vladimir Lossky…

Poison cabinet

This is the first part of Epiphanius' notorious work Panarion (“Medicine Chest”), covering sects 1 to 46. Epiphanius was bishop of Salamis on Cyprus. Panarion is his sustained attack on various Christian “sects” the official Church considered heretical. The work was originally published around AD 380. It's of considerable interest to scholars, since Epiphanius often quotes or references documents otherwise long lost. He also describes the rituals of the “heretics” he attacks. The full heresiology covers 80 sects.

To a causal reader, by contrast, Panarion looks confusing and not a little dismaying. I admit that I only read or skimmed a few chapters of this poison cabinet! The old bishop of Salamis represents everything that is wrong with a certain kind of intolerant, dogmatic and “orthodox” Christianity. His opponents aren't simply wrong or misguided, they are invariably described as venomous beasts in liaison with the Devil, and usually attacked for various sexual deviancies, too. The followers of the various heretical sects are portrayed as silly, gullibly and (often) women.

Here is a typical tirade: “A certain Marcus, the founder of the so-called Marcosians, came from the Gnostics and dared to vomit evils into the world that were different from theirs. For he succeeded Secundus, Epiphanes, Ptolemy and Valentinus, but was inspired to gather a further crowd of tramps. For the wretch attracted female and male dupes of his own, and was supposed to be a corrector of the cheats we have mentioned since he was the most adept in magical trickery. But because he deceived all these men and women into regarding him as the most gnostic of all and possessed of the greatest power from the unseen, ineffable realms, he has truly been shown to be the forerunner of the Antichrist.”

And yes, one of the later volumes of this work mentions the inevitable Messalians…

True, some of the “heretics” described by Epiphanius seems to have been a pretty weird bunch. Thus, we get to meet the Cainites, who claimed that Judas was the good guy and betrayed Jesus as part of the divine plan. They also revered Cain and the Sodomites! The Sethians, by contrast, considered Cain evil. They worshipped a female god, claimed descent from Adam's righteous son Seth, and regarded Christ as his reincarnation. The Ophites, trumping them all, worshipped the snake in Eden and used a real snake at their communion table… Apart from this Gnostic undergrowth, however, Epiphanius also condemns groups that seem much more serious, such as the Valentinians, various Judeo-Christians and (surprise) the Jews themselves.

Of course, if another pretender to the imperial purple would have carried the day, the “Trinitarians” with their “abominable and wicked rites of cannibalism” and their “unnatural vices at confession” which “trick foolish women” would have been condemned instead, with the Panarion presumably consigned to the flames. And if Julian the Apostate had succeeded in restoring freedom of worship, we presumably would have been spared all this crap en toto…

There are plenty of divergences even in the New Testament, if you care to look for them. Even if we assume that the appearance of Jesus was a supernatural event of some sort, his followers clearly related to it in very different ways. Perhaps that's inevitable. Perhaps the appearance of a myriad sects is also inevitable. Eventually one of them will declare itself the Only True One, and go on a heresy-hunt. What isn't inevitable, surely, is that a string of emperors decide to promote the Only True One, creating a mind-set still 1,700 years later that there is only one true political ideology, only one true economic system, only one true science, only one true technology and only one true path of progress. God might be one, but this is ridiculous!

Somehow, I think this mindset began about the time Epiphanius looked into his medicine chest and found...the spirit of Theodosius the Great.