By Pat Regan
XMAS, YULETIDE AND THE WINTER SOLSTICE – WHAT THEY DON’T TELL YOU!
Is the widely-accepted Jesus Myth the real ‘Reason for the Season’ - or just more trite, fundamentalist propaganda?
Let us try and separate fact from, church-oriented, fantasy...
The modern Christian feast day of Christmas originates from the gigantic storehouse of our primordial Pagan past.
The actual date of the alleged Jesus Christ's birthday is unidentified, as most fundamentalists now have to agree. Even the gospels fail to identify the exact time of this mythical figure’s inauguration. In fact the Church only set up the official date of Christ's birth in AD 273.
The early Church, impatient to gather naive converts from the natural old earth-orientated faiths, saw an enormous theocratical advantage to be gained by adopting this native midwinter festival. This perceptive spiritual subterfuge was applied with equal vigour to ALL our native Pagan feast-days.
The whole Christian year is clandestinely grafted onto a much older PAGAN AGRICULTURAL CALENDAR, which links intimately with the solar orb/seasonal cycles.
Thousands of years before the Christian cult was first instigated, our Pagan forefathers were celebrating the happy feast of the Midwinter Solstice. Everywhere people honoured the birth of the 'Sun God' under his copious titles and epithets.
Midwinter marked the period when the sun was at its lowest point in the sky. This truth was accepted and vitalised by the ancients as the time of 'New birth.' From now onward the days would grow lighter as the solar power of the great ‘Life giver’ increased.
Christianity simply took the name 'Sun' and converted it into 'Son' so as to give the new-fangled, intolerant faith from the East a more acceptable countenance for our Pagan ancestors.
This cunning ploy ensured that the indigenous peoples would still retain their old festival dates, whilst jettisoning their original rich spirituality for the new man-made monotheistic doctrine.
The Roman Saturnalia: basis of most Xmas customs
Most Christmas tradition and customs are blatantly based on the old Roman feast of the 'Saturnalia,' which was enjoyed for seven days toward the end of December.
During the celebration of the god Saturn all schools, courts, businesses etc would remain closed. Slaves and masters would reverse roles with masters serving their subordinates at table etc. Incidentally, this custom still remains within our native consciousness even today. The charity characteristic of the Solstice is common to everyone.
Army officers still serve their minions at Xmas dinner; employers worldwide still give large parties for their workers and folk exchange loving presents. A small cap known as a 'Pileus' was the Roman sign of a freeman. During the Saturnalia slaves were allowed to wear this head covering at the banquet. This is a fact worth remembering when people next enter into the party spirit and don silly hats at their Xmas feast.
The word ‘Yule’ stems from the old Viking word 'Iul' meaning Wheel - Yule being the lowest ebb in the sun's travel through the wheel of the year.
The Yule log was traditionally cut from an oak tree. This wood was sacred to the Thunder God Thor, who is also recognised as 'Thunor’. This deity gives his name to Thursday (Thor’s-day). The Yule log, after being scorched by fire, was believed to protect an abode from lightening strike.
Mistletoe was seen as an all-healing plant and sacred to the Norse deity Balder. This plant was used by druidic priests and native healers to promote fertility. It is still used today in a magical sense, i.e. the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe!
Holly is of course a customary part of Yuletide and like the mistletoe it has traditional connections. It is sacred to Saturn, God of the Dying Year and was hung outside houses by the Romans to avert psychic attack, lightening and perceived evils of any kind.
Ivy is an evergreen climbing plant symbolising immortality. It has been perceived as a representation of eternal life in numerous Pagan faith systems including Druidism, the spiritual ethos of the Celtic peoples.
Today's Father Christmas/Santa figure is based upon the Holly-King figure of Odin, the Norse Father - God who rode through the night's sky not on a reindeer but a fast white charger. The aspect of his red and white costume (and flying through the sky) is possibly linked to the use of the brightly coloured hallucinogenic mushroom, Fly Agaric by Norse Shamans and warriors before battle.
Xmas trees originate from ancient rites of the great, Phrygian Mother Goddess Cybele. Her worship was brought to Rome in 204BC.
A Pine tree was felled and placed within her sacred temple then decorated with lavish adornments of beautiful flowers and coloured wools, etc.
I consider that it is quite likely that the tree custom travelled with the legions into Germanic localities and fused with native folklore there at some later date. We should possibly give credit for the tree's modern day usage in celebration to Drusus the Elder who embarked upon a military campaign for Roman domination against the Germanic and Raetian tribes in 15 BC.
ANY SERIOUSLY IMPARTIAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE HISTORICAL SIDE OF CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS CLEARLY REVEALS THAT CHRISTIANITY HAS NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER TO CLAIM AN EXCLUSIVE MONOPOLY OVER THE SUN/RESURRECTION GOD SITUATION.
The Christian re-born Sun God Myth is but the latest in a long line of deity modifications.
So why did the Xtian Church annex original Pagan Midwinter Solstice celebrations and replace them with Xmas? Why the 25th December?
OK folks – so let’s examine a few hard facts, rather than continue to perpetuate the same old fundamentalist misinformation about midwinter celebrations.
Numerous crucified sun gods have their customary birthday on December 25th.
This is because the ancients acknowledged that the sun makes a yearly descent southward in anticipation of December 21st or 22nd , the Winter Solstice, when it stops moving southerly for three days and next starts to move northward again. During this period our wise ancient forbears affirmed that God’s sun had died for three days and was ‘born again’ on December 25th.
The ancients realised that they needed the sun to come back every day and that they would be in enormous difficulty if the sun continued to move southward and did not stop and rescind its direction. Therefore, countless diverse cultures celebrated their ‘Sun of God’s’ anniversary on December 25th.
Fundamentalists within the early Christian Church merely adopted the heathen, earth-orientated midwinter celebrations to equate with their newly fashioned adaptation of the Sun God, Jesus Christ, known as the ‘Son of God’!
SUN GOD MYTHOS – HOW THE CHURCH SKILFULLY MANIPULATED YOUR MINDSET
The Christian Christmas tradition stands as a prime example of clever, theocratical mind control of the masses.
The following are prominent qualities of the ubiquitous Sun God mythos, which can be related to contemporary Christian recycling of much older Pagan mythology.
Consider the following:
· The sun dies for three days on December 22nd, the Winter Solstice; when it stops in travels southward, to be born again (resurrected) on December 25th, when it continues its progress north.
· In various areas, the calendar originally began in the constellation of Virgo and the sun would consequently be perceived as being ‘Born of a virgin.’
· The sun is of course the ‘Light of the World.’
· The sun ‘Cometh on clouds and every eye shall see him.’
· The sun rising in the morning is the ‘Saviour of mankind.’
· The sun wears a corona, crown of thorns or ‘Circle of light’ (halo).
· The sun is seen to ‘Walk on water.’
· The sun's follower’s helpers (disciples) are the 12 months and the 12 signs of the zodiac or constellations, through which the sun has to pass.
· The sun at 12 noon is in the house/temple of the ‘Most High,’ consequently ‘He’ begins ‘his Father's work’ at the age of 12.
· The sun enters each sign of the zodiac at 30°; hence, the ‘Sun of God’ begins his ministry at the age of 30.
· The sun is hung on a cross (crucified) which represents its passing through the equinoxes, the spring/vernal equinox being Easter, at which time it is then reborn.
It does not take a mastermind to distinguish the great similarities with the above when compared to the Jesus myth. The Church fathers simply used previous heathen legend/tradition to fashion their pioneering, patriarchal doctrine.
YES – IT’S ALL BEEN DONE BEFORE, YET MILLIONS HAVE FALLEN FOR THE CHURCH’S MIND-CONTROL RUSE!
The early Church made light work of selling its newly-formed Christ god template to the gullible Pagan masses and quite easily substituted the wholesome solar/agricultural calendar for a new, synthetic one based on its theocratical, monotheistic prospectus.
In view of the above, can ‘you’ see how you have been clandestinely manipulated, by shrewd fundamentalists of old; into believing an exceptionally clever, religiously-based falsehood?
There is of course - nothing new under the sun!
The older god-forms related to Xmas
Attis, Adonis, Sol, Mithras, these gods and numerous others were celebrated during seasonal solar cycles long before the ‘Jesus story’ was ever manufactured by sectarian, monotheistic interest groups with an axe to grind against the social structure of the day!
I wonder ‘Who’ will contest the Sun God title next.
We would do well to recall the old maxim: ‘History repeats itself.’
Yuletide/Midwinter Solstice is an indispensable element of our indigenous, Pagan spiritual heritage. It conjoins us with the wondrous seasonal energies of this planet of which we are all an integral part. We should always celebrate and enjoy it to the full!
AND SO WHAT OF THE TERM ‘XMAS’ – IS IT A SHORTENED ADAPTATION OF THE WORD ‘CHRISTMAS’?
Well in fact the answer is - No!
December, under the earlier Roman calendar, used to be, the 10th month of the year: the 1st month (March) being given to the god Mars.
The Roman numeral for 10 is of course ‘X’, thus Xmas rather than being an abbreviation of a modern Christian festival can be seen as being the Pagan ‘MASS OF THE 10TH MONTH’; A happy time when the Saturnalia was celebrated with great happiness.
The genuine ‘REASON FOR THE SEASON’ has been carefully disguised by devious fundamentalists with hidden religious agendas over the centuries. And billions of individuals seeking spiritual deliverance, through the generations, have fallen for this colossal religious subterfuge without as much as a question.
This most recent recycled Christian dogmatisation of the wholesome Midwinter Solstice celebration is nothing but a man – made ecclesiastical perversion of a much older organic truth that links humanity to the planet, the universe (on a natural level) and beyond.
It is time for humanity to wake up from this church-enforced slumber and smell the coffee!
The fallacies residing behind modern Xmas tradition are designed by an intolerant church to keep us all in the darkness of spiritual ignorance. The real Reason for the Season therefore has nothing whatsoever to do with any fabled creation hatched up by 1st century myth makers.
I wish all readers a very Happy Yuletide, Midwinter joy, and Saturnalian blessings.
Pat Regan © 2011
Founder of NORTH WEST UFO RESEARCH and Author of:
UFO: THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH
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