Re: virus: Birth of Sun/Son

David Leeper (dleeper@gte.net)
Mon, 27 Aug 1956 23:58:24 +0000

Eva-Lise Carlstrom wrote:
>
> On Wed, 28 Aug 1996, David Leeper wrote:
>
> > Ken Pantheists,
> >
> > > > D.Leeper:
> > > > Then we got smart and realized
> > > > it took the sun 365 days to circle the earth. To explain this
> > > > discrepancy,
> > > > priests made the 359'th day the birthday of the Sun God. Through the
> > > > power
> > > > of his birth we got an extra five days.
> > > > -------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > I have never heard this.
> > >
> > > What culture are you speaking of? What years? Who are "we"? And I still
> > > don't get the connection to Lucifer.
> > >
> > > Do you have a source?
> >
> > Frazer's "The Golden Bough". Somebody said I was wrong about this being
> > Lucifer. It's been five or so years since I read the book, so maybe I
> > am wrong about "Lucifer".
> >
> > The Christians took over the holiday, so I would guess it's pre-christian.
>
> The Roman Saturnalia was only one of many pagan festivals around the
> winter solstice. Though Saturn isn't a sun god, some of the others were.
>
> I'm sorry I don't have any religious references handy other than magick
> books and my notes from Frazer's _Golden Bough_.
>
> Frazer cites multiple examples of winter celebrations involving a period
> of anarchy or role-reversal lasting from 3 to twelve days and apparently
> derived from the 'intercalary days' inserted between years to even out the
> lunar year (28 * 12 = 348 days) with the solar year. There are also
> examples of similar holidays at other times, where the local calendar is
> or was begun at a different time of year (for instance, the old Roman year
> began in March).
> He also describes midwinter fire celebrations in honor of the birth of the
> sun, or in order to encourage the return of the sun. Here's what I quote
> him as writing in my notes about the date of Xmas:
> "For the ecclesiastical authorities saw fit, about the end of the thrid or
> the beginning of the fourth century, arbitrarily to transfer the nativity
> of Christ from the sixth of January to the twenty-fifth of December, for
> the purpose of diverting to their Lord the worship which the heathern had
> hitherto paid on that day to the sun." You are of course free to
> doubt Frazer and/or his own sources.
>
> Modern Witches celebrate the winter solstice ('Yule' in Old English) as the
> time when the Horned God is reborn with the early returning light [_Spiral
> Dance_, or virtually any book on modern paganism].
>
> Eva

This Eva chick is smart.

-- 
David Leeper         dleeper@gte.net
Homo Deus            http://home1.gte.net/dleeper/index.htm
1 + 1 != 2           http://home1.gte.net/dleeper/CMath.html