zaterdag 8 april 2017
donderdag 13 augustus 2015
A100.Inglish BCEnc. Blauwe Kaas Encyclopedie, Duaal Hermeneuties Kollegium.
A100.Inglish BCEnc. Blauwe Kaas Encyclopedie, Duaal Hermeneuties Kollegium.
Inglish Site.100.
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TO THE THRISE HO-
NOVRABLE AND EVER LY-
VING VERTVES OF SYR PHILLIP
SYDNEY KNIGHT, SYR JAMES JESUS SINGLETON, SYR CANARIS, SYR LAVRENTI BERIA ; AND TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE AND OTHERS WHAT-
SOEVER, WHO LIVING LOVED THEM,
AND BEING DEAD GIVE THEM
THEIRE DVE.
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In the beginning there is darkness. The screen erupts in blue, then a cascade of thick, white hexadecimal numbers and cracked language, ?UnusedStk? and ?AllocMem.? Black screen cedes to blue to white and a pair of scales appear, crossed by a sword, both images drawn in the jagged, bitmapped graphics of Windows 1.0-era clip-art?light grey and yellow on a background of light cyan. Blue text proclaims, ?God on tap!?
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Introduction.
Yes i am getting a little Mobi-Literate(ML) by experimenting literary on my Mobile Phone. Peoplecall it Typographical Laziness(TL).
The first accidental entries for the this part of this encyclopedia.
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This is TempleOS V2.17, the welcome screen explains, a ?Public Domain Operating System? produced by Trivial Solutions of Las Vegas, Nevada. It greets the user with a riot of 16-color, scrolling, blinking text; depending on your frame of reference, it might recall ?DESQview, the ?Commodore 64, or a host of early DOS-based graphical user interfaces. In style if not in specifics, it evokes a particular era, a time when the then-new concept of ?personal computing? necessarily meant programming and tinkering and breaking things.
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Index.
258.Tezcatlipoca (/?t?z?kætli?po?k?/; Classical Nahuatl: Tezcatlip?ca/teskat?i?po?ka/).
259.Quetzalcoatl (Spanish [k?ts?lkoatl] ) (Classical Nahuatl: Quetzalcohu?tl /ketsa??ko.a?t?/) "feathered serpent".
260.Plane.
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258.Tezcatlipoca (/?t?z?kætli?po?k?/; Classical Nahuatl: Tezcatlip?ca/teskat?i?po?ka/).
Tezcatlipoca (/?t?z?kætli?po?k?/; Classical Nahuatl: Tezcatlip?ca pronounced /teskat?i?po?ka/) was a central deity in Aztec religion, and his main festival was the Toxcatl ceremony celebrated in the month of May. One of the four sons of Ometeotl, he is associated with a wide range of concepts, including the night sky, the night winds, hurricanes, the north, the earth, obsidian, enmity, discord, rulership, divination, temptation, jaguars, sorcery, beauty, war and strife. His name in the Nahuatl language is often translated as "Smoking Mirror" and alludes to his connection to obsidian, the material from which mirrors were made in Mesoamerica which were used for shamanic rituals and prophecy. Another talisman related to Tezcatlipoca was a disc worn as a chest pectoral. This talisman was carved out of abalone shell and depicted on the chest of both Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca in codex illustrations.
He had many epithets which alluded to different aspects of his deity: Titlacauan[pronunciation?] ("We are his Slaves"), Ipalnemoani[pronunciation?] ("He by whom we live"), Necoc Yaotl[pronunciation?]("Enemy of Both Sides"), Tloque Nahuaque[pronunciation?] ("Lord of the Near and the Nigh") and Yohualli Èhecatl[pronunciation?] ("Night, Wind"), Ome Acatl[pronunciation?] ("Two Reed"), Ilhuicahua Tlalticpaque[pronunciation?] ("Possessor of the Sky and Earth").
When depicted he was usually drawn with a black and a yellow stripe painted across his face. He is often shown with his right foot replaced with an obsidian mirror or a bone?an allusion to the creation myth in which he loses his foot battling with the Earth Monster. Sometimes the mirror was shown on his chest, and sometimes smoke would emanate from the mirror. Tezcatlipoca's nagual, his animal counterpart, was the jaguar and his jaguar aspect was the deity Tepeyollotl ("Mountainheart"). In the Aztec ritual calendar the Tonalpohualli Tezcatlipoca ruled the trecena 1 Ocelotl ("1 Jaguar")?he was also patron of the days with the name Acatl ("reed").
The Tezcatlipoca figure goes back to earlier Mesoamerican deities worshipped by the Olmec and Maya. Similarities exist with the patron deity of the K'iche' Maya as described in the Popol Vuh. A central figure of the Popol Vuh was the god Tohil whose name means "obsidian" and who was associated with sacrifice. Also the Classic Maya god of rulership and thunder known to modern Mayanists as "God K", or the "Manikin Scepter" and to the classic Maya as K'awil was depicted with a smoking obsidian knife in his forehead and one leg replaced with a snake.
Representations of Tezcatlipoca.
There are few surviving representations of Tezcatlipoca into the present day. Due to the lack of surviving images, some have chosen to describe Tezcatlipoca as the 'invisible god'. However, the fact that many images are difficult to identify as one god or another does not mean that no generalizations can be made about Tezcatlipoca's appearance. The color black is strongly associated with Tezcatlipoca and he is often portrayed as having horizontal bands across his face especially in black and yellow, but the many different codices vary on which two colors from site to site. There are also portrayals of his body also being black in certain places. Depending on the site half of his leg, the full length of his arms, the majority of his legs, or any combination there of can be depicted. Most commonly he is shown with horizontal face bands, wearing a heron feather headdress, a loincloth, and knotted sandals with an armband, and tinker bells either around his neck or ankles. Tezcatlipoca is often shown carrying a shield with balls of either feathers or cotton and holding arrows or a spear in his right hand with a fan of feathers surrounding a mirror.
Temples to Tezcatlipoca.
Many of the temples now associated with Tezcatlipoca are built facing East-West, as Olivier quotes Felipe Solis: "the sacred building of the war god [Tezcatlipoca] was in direct relation with the movement of the sun, in the same manner of the Great Temple was, their façades being towards the West". There are also several reference to momoztli. Although the exact definition of the momoztli is unknown, with definitions varying from "mound", "stone seat" and "temple", there is an overall consensus that it is a general holy place to worship the gods, specifically mentioned as "his [Tezcatlipoca's] viewing place".
Priests of Tezcatlipoca.
The priests of Tezcatlipoca often wore the ornaments of the god and wore specific garments for different rituals. Common ornaments were white turkey feather headdresses, a paper loincloth, and a tzanatl stick with similar feathers and paper decorations. Another common practice was to cover themselves in black soot or ground charcoal while they were involved in priestly activities at the temple or during rituals. They would also cover the sick and newly appointed king in a similar manner with a black ointment to encourage an association with the god. When the ritual called for it, priests would also dress up as Tezcatlipoca himself and accompany other similarly outfitted gods or goddesses. More on the exact rituals, such as the Feast of Toxcatl will be mentioned later.
Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl.
Tezcatlipoca depicted in the codex Rios in the aspect of a Jaguar?in this form he was called Tepeyollotl.
Tezcatlipoca was often described as a rival of another important god of the Aztecs, the culture hero, Quetzalcoatl. In one version of the Aztec creation account the myth of the Five Suns, the first creation, "The Sun of the Earth" was ruled by Tezcatlipoca but destroyed by Quetzalcoatl when he struck down Tezcatlipoca who then transformed into a jaguar. Quetzalcoatl became the ruler of the subsequent creation "Sun of Water", and Tezcatlipoca destroyed the third creation "The Sun of Wind" by striking down Quetzalcoatl.
In later myths, the four gods who created the world, Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli and Xipe Totec were referred to respectively as the Black, the White, the Blue and the Red Tezcatlipoca. The four Tezcatlipocas were the sons of Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, lady and lord of the duality, and were the creators of all the other gods, as well as the world and all humanity.
The rivalry between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca is also recounted in the legends of Tollan where Tezcatlipoca deceives Quetzalcoatl who was the ruler of the legendary city and forces him into exile. But it is interesting to note that Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca both collaborated in the creation of the different creations and that both of them were seen as instrumental in the creation of life. Karl Taube and Mary Miller, specialists in Mesoamerican Studies, write that, "More than anything Tezcatlipoca appears to be the embodiment of change through conflict." Tezcatlipoca appears on the first page of the Codex Borgia carrying the 20 day signs of the calendar; in the Codex Cospi he is shown as a spirit of darkness, as well as in the Codex Laud and the Dresden Codex. His cult was associated with royalty, and was the subject of the most lengthy and reverent prayers in the rites of kingship, as well as being mentioned frequently in coronation speeches. The temple of Tezcatlipoca was in the Great Precinct of Tenochtitlan.
Aztec religion.
The Main temple of Tezcatlipoca in Tenochtitlan was located south of the Great Temple. According to Fray Diego Durán it was "lofty and magnificently built. Eighty steps led to a landing twelve or fourteen feet wide. Beyond it stood a wide, long chamber the size of a great hall...". There were several smaller temples dedicated to Tezcatlipoca in the city, among them the ones called "Tlacochcalco" and "Huitznahuatl". Tezcatlipoca was also worshipped in many other Nahua cities such as Texcoco, Tlaxcala and Chalco. Each temple had a statue of the god for which copal incense was burned four times a day. There were several priests dedicated to the service of Tezcatlipoca, one of them was probably the one Sahagún calls "huitznahuac teohua omacatl", others were the calmeca teteuctin who were allowed to eat the ritual food offered to Tezcatlipoca, others accompanied the Ixiptlatli impersonator of Tezcatlipoca in the year prior to his execution. Honoring Tezcatlipoca was fundamental to both the priesthood and the nobility. "On his installation," the new king fasted and meditated, "which included prayers in honor of Tezcatlipoca, the patron deity of the royal house". Tezcatlipocas priests were offered into his service by their parents as children, often because they were sick. These children would then have their skin painted black and be adorned with quail feathers in the image of the god.
Tezcatlipoca?s main feast was during Toxcatl, the fifth month of the Aztec calendar. The preparations began a year earlier, when a young man was chosen by the priests, to be the likeness of Tezcatlipoca. For the next year he lived like a god, wearing expensive jewellery and having eight attendants. "For one year he lived a life of honor," the hansome young man "worshipped literally as the embodiment of the deity" He would marry four young women, and spent his last week singing, feasting and dancing. During the feast where he was worshipped as the deity he personified he climbed the stairs to the top of the temple on his own where the priests seized him, a time in which he proceeded to symbolically crush "one by one the clay flutes on which he had played in his brief moment of glory," and then was sacrificed, his body being eaten later. Immediately after he died a new victim for the next year?s ceremony was chosen. Tezcatlipoca was also honoured during the ceremony of the 9th month, when the Miccailhuitontli "Little Feast of the Dead" was celebrated to honour the dead, as well as during the Panquetzaliztli "Raising of Banners" ceremony in the 15th month.
Turquoise mask representing the god Tezcatlipoca, from the British Museum.
Mythical stories.
In one of the Aztec accounts of creation, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca joined forces to create the world. Before their act there was only the sea and the crocodilian earthmonster called Cipactli. To attract her, Tezcatlipoca used his foot as bait, and Cipactli ate it. The two gods then captured her, and distorted her to make the land from her body. After that, they created the people, and people had to offer sacrifices to comfort Cipactli for her sufferings. Because of this, Tezcatlipoca is depicted with a missing foot.
Another story of creation goes that Tezcatlipoca turned himself into the sun, but Quetzalcoatl was furious possibly because they are enemies,..................
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259.Quetzalcoatl (Spanish [k?ts?lkoatl] ) (Classical Nahuatl: Quetzalcohu?tl /ketsa??ko.a?t?/) "feathered serpent".
Quetzalcoatl (Spanish [k?ts?lkoatl] ) (Classical Nahuatl: Quetzalcohu?tl /ketsa??ko.a?t?/) is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and means "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent is first known documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BC or first century AD. That period lies within the Late Preclassic to Early Classic period (400 BC ? 600 AD) of Mesoamerican chronology, and veneration of the figure appears to have spread throughout Mesoamerica by the Late Classic (600?900 AD).
In the Postclassic period (900?1519 AD), the worship of the feathered serpent deity was based in the primary Mexican religious center of Cholula. It is in this period that the deity is known to have been named "Quetzalcoatl" by his Nahua followers. In the Maya area he was approximately equivalent to Kukulcan and Gukumatz, names that also roughly translate as "feathered serpent" in different Mayan languages.
A prominent symbol of the priests of Quetzalcoatl was a symbol known in Nahuatl as a "ehecacozcatl" which translates in to English as a "wind jewel." This talisman was a conch shell cut at the cross-section and was likely worn as a necklace by religious rulers as they have been discovered in burials in archaeological sites throughout Mesoamerica and potentially symbolized patterns witnessed in hurricanes, dust devils, seashells, and whirlpools which were elemental forces that had meaning in the Aztec religious mythology. In codex illustrations depicting Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl they are both depicted wearing an ehecaicozcatl around each of their necks. There has also been at least one major cache of offerings with knives and idols adorned with the symbols of multiple gods, some of which were adorned with wind jewels.
In the era following the 16th-century Spanish Conquest, a number of sources were written that conflate Quetzalcoatl with Ce Acatl Topiltzin, a ruler of the mythico-historic city of Tollan.
C? ?catl Topiltzin [s?? ??kat? to?pilt?sin] (Our Prince One-Reed Feathered Serpent) is a mythologised figure appearing in 16th-century accounts of Nahua historical traditions, where he is identified as a ruler in the 10th century of the Toltecs? by Aztec tradition their predecessors who had political control of the Valley of Mexico and surrounding region several centuries before the Aztecs themselves arrived on the scene.
In later generations, he was a figure of legend often confused or conflated with the important Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl. According to legend in El Salvador, the city of Cuzcatlán (the capital city of the Pipil/Cuzcatlecs) was founded by the exiled Toltec Ce Acatl Topiltzin.
History.
Topiltzin C? ?catl Quetzalc?atl was the Lord of the Toltecs and their major city T?llan.
He was born in the 10th century, during the year and day-sign "1 Acatl," correlated to date may 13th of the year 895, allegedly in what is now the town of Tepoztlán. According to various sources, he had four different possible fathers, the most popular of which is Mixc?atl ("Cloud Serpent"), the god of war, fire, and the hunt, and presumably also an earlier Toltec king?Mesoamerican leaders and high-priests sometimes took the names of the deity who was their patron. His mother is at times unnamed, but Chimalman is the most accepted.
There exist few accounts of Ce Acatl's early childhood. However, all information agrees that he proved his worth first as a warrior and then as a priest to the people of Tollan.
He assumed lordship over the Toltecs and migrated his people to Tollan. Reigning in peace and prosperity he contributed much to the lifestyle of the Toltecs with basic ideas such as civilization. He was generally considered a god upon earth by his followers with similar powers to those of his namesake. According to legend, the most accepted fate of the man-god was that during the year "1 Acatl" or 947, and at the age of 53 he migrated to golf coast Tlapallan where he took a canoe and burned himself.
He dispelled the traditions of the past and ended all human sacrifice during his reign. The translations claim that he loved his people so much he insisted that they only meet the ancient standards of the gods; he had the Toltec offer them snakes, birds and other animals, but not humans, as sacrifices. To prove his penance, to atone for the earlier sins of his people, and to appease the debt owed to the gods (created by lack of tribute of human blood) he also created the cult of the serpent. This cult insisted that the practitioners bleed themselves to satiate the needs of the netherworld. It also demanded that all priests remain celibate and did not allow intoxication of any kind (representing the two major sins to which the original 400 Mixcohua succumbed). These edicts and his personal purity of spirit caused Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl to be beloved by his vassals and revered for generations. The representation of the priestly ruler became so important that subsequent rulers would claim direct descent from Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl in order to legitimize their monarchies.
Once he left Tollan, the name was used by other elite figures to keep a line of succession and was also used by the Mexica to more easily rule over the Toltecs.
According to the Florentine Codex, which was written under the direction of the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún, the Aztecs had a legend that Quetzalcoatl would one day return, and Emperor Moctezuma II mistook Hernán Cortés for Quetzalcoatl. Other parties have also propagated the idea that the Native Americans believed the conquerors to be gods: most notably the historians of the Franciscan order such as Fray Geronimo Mendieta (Martínez 1980). Some Franciscans at this time held millennarian beliefs (Phelan 1956), and the natives taking the Spanish conquerors for gods was an idea that went well with this theology.
Some scholars still hold the view that the fall of the Aztec empire can in part be attributed to Moctezuma's belief in Cortés as the returning Quetzalcoatl, but most modern scholars see the "Quetzalcoatl/Cortés myth" as one of many myths about the Spanish conquest which have risen in the early post-conquest period.
Topiltzin's legacy.
The tales end with Topiltzin traveling across Mesoamerica founding small communities and giving all the features their respective names. The Aztecs believed that Topiltzin's search for his holy resting place eventually led him across the sea to the east, from whence he vowed to return one day and reclaim Cholula (Chimalpahin, Motolinia, Ixtlilxochitl, Codice Rios). Other sources insist that Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl would not return but that he would send representatives to warn or possibly pass judgment on those inhabiting the land (Las Casas, Mendieta, Veytia). Aztec rulers used the myth of the great founder of Tollan to help legitimize their claims to seats of power. They claimed that, as the direct descendants of the Priest-King, they had the right and duty to hold his place until the day Topiltzin would return. The myths would prove to have a lasting effect on the Aztec empire. They rationalized the mass sacrifices that were already destabilizing the empire when the first Spaniards arrived. The stories of Topiltzin further expedited the collapse of the Aztec nation by sheer coincidence; they bore incredible likeness to the arrival of the first Spaniards. The Aztec may have truly believed that they were seeing the return of the famous priest when the white-haired Hernán Cortés landed on their shores in 1519. He came from across the sea to the east, wearing brilliant armor (as the deity Quetzalcoatl is oft depicted) accompanied by four men (possibly believed to be the other four progenitors of the Mesoamerican people that survived the massacre before coming to earth or Topiltzin?s messengers). The Spanish arrival terrified the ruling class. They feared they would be exposed as frauds and, at the very least, lose their ruling status to Topiltzin. Conversely the oppressed Aztec people, taxed and forced to wage war for sacrifices, hoped that these arrivals would bring a new era of peace and enlightenment (Carrasco 2000:145-152). Ultimately the Aztecs' rulers still lost their status and the Aztec people were not freed from oppression.
As the Spanish conquered Mesoamerica they destroyed countless works concerning and pre-dating the Aztecs. The story of Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl was almost destroyed as the conquistadors forced the few remaining traces into hiding. Only relatively recently have accurate translations of much of the information about Topiltzin been made available. Unfortunately, even the comparatively complete accounts are but a portion of the story. Much of the information varies from region to region and has changed through the course of time (as myths are apt to do).
Regalia.
Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl is usually seen with a plumed headpiece, a curved baton (the chicoacolli) and a feather rimmed shield with the ehecacozcatl (wind jewel) emblem on it.
It is a matter of much debate among historians to which degree, or whether at all, these narratives about this legendary Toltec ruler describe historical events. Furthermore, early Spanish sources written by clerics tend to identify the god-ruler Quetzalcoatl of these narratives with either Hernán Cortés or St. Thomas?an identification which is also a source of diversity of opinions about the nature of Quetzalcoatl.
Among the Aztecs, whose beliefs are the best-documented in the historical sources, Quetzalcoatl was related to gods of the wind, of the planet Venus, of the dawn, of merchants and of arts, crafts and knowledge. He was also the patron god of the Aztec priesthood, of learning and knowledge. Quetzalcoatl was one of several important gods in the Aztec pantheon, along with the gods Tlaloc, Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli. Two other gods represented by the planet Venus are Quetzalcoatl's ally Tlaloc who is the god of rain, and Quetzalcoatl's twin and psychopomp who is named Xolotl.
Animals thought to represent Quetzalcoatl include resplendent quetzals, rattlesnakes (coatl meaning serpent in Nahuatl), crows, and macaws. In his form as Ehecatl he is the wind, and is represented by spider monkeys, ducks, and the wind itself. In his form as the morning star, Venus, he is also depicted as a harpy eagle. In Mazatec legends, the astrologer deity Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, who is also represented by Venus, bears a close relationship with Quetzalcoatl.
Feathered serpent deity in Mesoamerica
Main article: Feathered Serpent (deity)
The Feathered Serpent was a prominent supernatural entity or deity, found in many Mesoamerican religions. It was called Quetzalcoatl among the Aztecs, Kukulkan among the Yucatec Maya, and Q'uq'umatz and Tohil among the K'iche' Maya. The double symbolism used in its name is considered allegoric to the dual nature of the deity, where being feathered represents its divine nature or ability to fly to reach the skies and being a serpent represents its human nature or ability to creep on the ground among other animals of the Earth, a dualism very common in Mesoamerican deities.
The earliest representations of feathered serpents appear in the Olmec culture (circa 1400-400 BCE). Most surviving representations in Olmec art, such as Monument 19 at La Venta and a painting in the Juxtlahuaca cave (see below), show it as a crested rattlesnake, sometimes with feathers covering the body, and often in close proximity to humans. It is believed that Olmec supernatural entities such as the feathered serpent were the forerunners of many later Mesoamerican deities, although experts disagree on the feathered serpent's importance to the Olmec.
The pantheon of the people of Teotihuacan (200 BCE ? 700 CE) also featured a feathered serpent, shown most prominently on the Temple of the Feathered Serpent (dated 150?200 CE). Several feathered serpent representations appear on the building, including full-body profiles and feathered serpent heads.
Buildings in Tula, the capital of the later Toltecs (950?1150 CE), also featured profiles of feathered serpents.
The Aztec feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl is known from several Aztec codices such as the Florentine codex, as well as from the records of the Spanish conquistadors. Quetzalcoatl was a bringer of knowledge, the inventor of books, and associated with the planet Venus.
The corresponding Mayan god Kukulkan was rare in the Classic era Maya civilization. However, in the Popol Vuh, the K'iche' feathered serpent god Tepeu Q'uq'umatz is the creator of the cosmos.
Along with the feathered serpent deity several other serpent gods existed in the pantheon of Mesoamerican gods with similar traits.
A feathered serpent deity has been worshiped by many different ethno-political groups in Mesoamerican history. The existence of such worship can be seen through studies of iconography of different Mesoamerican cultures, in which serpent motifs are frequent. On the basis of the different symbolic systems used in portrayals of the feathered serpent deity in different cultures and periods, scholars have interpreted the religious and symbolic meaning of the feathered serpent deity in Mesoamerican cultures.
Iconographic depictions.
Feathered Serpent head at the Ciudadela complex in Teotihuacan
The earliest iconographic depiction of the deity is believed to be found on Stela 19 at the Olmec site of La Venta, depicting a serpent rising up behind a person probably engaged in a shamanic ritual. This depiction is believed to have been made around 900 BC. Although probably not exactly a depiction of the same feathered serpent deity worshipped in classic and post-classic periods, it shows the continuity of symbolism of feathered snakes in Mesoamerica from the formative period and on, for example in comparison to the Mayan Vision Serpent shown below.
Vision Serpent depicted on lintel 15 from Yaxchilan.
The first culture to use the symbol of a feathered serpent as an important religious and political symbol was Teotihuacan. At temples such as the aptly named "Quetzalcoatl temple" in the Ciudadela complex, feathered serpents figure prominently and alternate with a different kind of serpent head. The earliest depictions of the feathered serpent deity were fully zoomorphic, depicting the serpent as an actual snake, but already among the Classic Maya the deity began acquiring human features.
In the iconography of the classic period Maya serpent imagery is also prevalent: a snake is often seen as the embodiment of the sky itself, and a vision serpent is a shamanic helper presenting Maya kings with visions of the underworld.
The archaeological record shows that after the fall of Teotihuacan that marked the beginning of the epi-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology around 600 AD, the cult of the feathered serpent spread to the new religious and political centers in central Mexico, centers such as Xochicalco, Cacaxtla and Cholula. Feathered serpent iconography is prominent at all of these sites. Cholula is known to have remained the most important center of worship to Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec/Nahua version of the feathered serpent deity, in the post-classic period.
During the epi-classic period, a dramatic spread of feathered serpent iconography is evidenced throughout Mesoamerica, and during this period begins to figure prominently at cites such as Chichén Itzá, El Tajín, and throughout the Maya area. Colonial documentary sources from the Maya area frequently speak of the arrival of foreigners from the central Mexican plateau, often led by a man whose name translates as "Feathered Serpent"; it has been suggested that these stories recall the spread of the feathered serpent cult in the epi-classic and early post-classic periods.
In the post-classic Nahua civilization of central Mexico (Aztec), the worship of Quetzalcoatl was ubiquitous. The most important center was Cholula where the world's largest pyramid was dedicated to his worship. In Aztec culture, depictions of Quetzalcoatl were fully anthropomorphic. Quetzalcoatl was associated with the windgod Ehecatl and is often depicted with his insignia: a beak-like mask.
Interpretations.
Temple of the Feathered Serpent at Xochicalco, adorned with a fully zoomorphic feathered Serpent.
On the basis of the Teotihuacan iconographical depictions of the feathered serpent, archaeologist Karl Taube has argued that the feathered serpent was a symbol of fertility and internal political structures contrasting with the War Serpent symbolizing the outwards military expansion of the Teotihuacan empire. Historian Enrique Florescano also analysing Teotihuacan iconography shows that the Feathered Serpent was part of a triad of agricultural deities: the Goddess of the Cave symbolizing motherhood, reproduction and life, Tlaloc, god of rain, lightning and thunder and the feathered serpent, god of vegetational renewal. The feathered serpent was furthermore connected to the planet Venus because of this planet's importance as a sign of the beginning of the rainy season. To both Teotihuacan and Mayan cultures, Venus was in turn also symbolically connected with warfare.
While not usually feathered, classic Maya serpent iconography seems related to the belief in a sky-, Venus-, creator-, war- and fertility-related serpent deity. In the example from Yaxchilan, the Vision Serpent has the human face of the young maize god, further suggesting a connection to fertility and vegetational renewal; the Mayan Young Maize god was also connected to Venus.
In Xochicalco, depictions of the feathered serpent are accompanied by the image of a seated, armed ruler and the hieroglyph for the day sign 9 Wind. The date 9 Wind is known to be associated with fertility, Venus and war among the Maya and frequently occurs in relation to Quetzalcoatl in other Mesoamerican cultures.
On the basis of the iconography of the feathered serpent deity at sites such as Teotihuacan, Xochicalco, Chichén Itzá, Tula and Tenochtitlan combined with certain ethnohistorical sources, historian David Carrasco has argued that the preeminent function of the feathered serpent deity throughout Mesoamerican history was as the patron deity of the Urban center, a god of culture and civilization.
In Aztec culture.
Quetzalcoatl as depicted in the Codex Borbonicus.
To the Aztecs, Quetzalcoatl was, as his name indicates, a feathered serpent, a flying reptile (much like a dragon), who was a boundary-maker (and transgressor) between earth and sky. He was a creator deity having contributed essentially to the creation of Mankind. He also had anthropomorphic forms, for example in his aspects as Ehecatl the wind god. Among the Aztecs, the name Quetzalcoatl was also a priestly title, as the two most important priests of the Aztec Templo Mayor were called "Quetzalcoatl Tlamacazqui". In the Aztec ritual calendar, different deities were associated with the cycle-of-year names: Quetzalcoatl was tied to the year Ce Acatl (One Reed), which correlates to the year 1519.
Myths/Attributes.
Quetzalcoatl as depicted in the Codex Magliabechiano.
The exact significance and attributes of Quetzalcoatl varied somewhat between civilizations and through history. There are several stories about the birth of Quetzalcoatl. In a version of the myth, Quetzalcoatl was born by a virgin named Chimalman, to whom the god Onteol appeared in a dream. In another story, the virgin Chimalman conceived Quetzalcoatl swallowing an emerald. A third story narrates that Chimalman was hit in the womb by an arrow shot by Mixcoatl and nine months later she gave birth to a child which was called Quetzalcoatl. A fourth story narrates that Quetzalcoatl was born from Coatlicue, who already had four hundred children who formed the stars of the Milky Way.
According to another version of the myth, Quetzalcoatl is one of the four sons of Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, the four Tezcatlipocas, each of whom presides over one of the four cardinal directions. Over the West presides the White Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, the god of light, justice, mercy and wind. Over the South presides the Blue Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilopochtli, the god of war. Over the East presides the Red Tezcatlipoca, Xipe Totec, the god of gold, farming and Spring time. And over the North presides the Black Tezcatlipoca, known by no other name than Tezcatlipoca, the god of judgment, night, deceit, sorcery and the Earth. Quetzalcoatl was often considered the god of the morning star, and his twin brother Xolotl was the evening star (Venus). As the morning star, he was known by the title Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, meaning "lord of the star of the dawn." He was known as the inventor of books and the calendar, the giver of maize (corn) to mankind, and sometimes as a symbol of death and resurrection. Quetzalcoatl was also the patron of the priests and the title of the twin Aztec high priests. Some legends describe him as opposed to human sacrifice while others describe him practicing it.
Most Mesoamerican beliefs included cycles of suns. Usually our current time was considered the fifth sun,[citation needed] the previous four having been destroyed by flood, fire and the like. Quetzalcoatl went to Mictlan, the underworld, and created fifth-world mankind from the bones of the previous races (with the help of Cihuacoatl), using his own blood, from a wound he inflicted on his earlobes, calves, tongue, and penis, to imbue the bones with new life.
It is also suggested that he was a son of Xochiquetzal and Mixcoatl.
One Aztec story claims that Quetzalcoatl was tricked by Tezcatlipoca into becoming drunk and sleeping with a celibate priestess (in some accounts, his sister Quetzalpetlatl) and then burned himself to death out of remorse. His heart became the morning star (see Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli).
Belief in Cortés as Quetzalcoatl.
Quetzalcoatl in human form, using the symbols of Ehecatl, from the Codex Borgia.
Since the sixteenth century, it has been widely held that the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II initially believed the landing of Hernán Cortés in 1519 to be Quetzalcoatl's return. This view has been questioned by ethno-historians who argue that the Quetzalcoatl-Cortés connection is not found in any document that was created independently of post-Conquest Spanish influence, and that there is little proof of a pre-Hispanic belief in Quetzalcoatl's return. Most documents expounding this theory are of entirely Spanish origin, such as Cortés's letters to Charles V of Spain, in which Cortés goes to great pains to present the naive gullibility of the Aztecs in general as a great aid in his conquest of Mexico.
Much of the idea of Cortés' being seen as a deity can be traced back to the Florentine Codex written down some 50 years after the conquest. In the Codex's description of the first meeting between Moctezuma and Cortés, the Aztec ruler is described as giving a prepared speech in classical oratorial Nahuatl, a speech which, as described in the codex written by the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún and his Tlatelolcan informants, included such prostrate declarations of divine or near-divine admiration as:
You have graciously come on earth, you have graciously approached your water, your high place of Mexico, you have come down to your mat, your throne, which I have briefly kept for you, I who used to keep it for you.
and:
You have graciously arrived, you have known pain, you have known weariness, now come on earth, take your rest, enter into your palace, rest your limbs; may our lords come on earth.
Subtleties in, and an imperfect scholarly understanding of, high Nahuatl rhetorical style make the exact intent of these comments tricky to ascertain, but Restall argues that Moctezuma's politely offering his throne to Cortés (if indeed he did ever give the speech as reported) may well have been meant as the exact opposite of what it was taken to mean: politeness in Aztec culture was a way to assert dominance and show superiority. This speech, which has been widely referred to, has been a factor in the widespread belief that Moctezuma was addressing Cortés as the returning god Quetzalcoatl.
Other parties have also promulgated the idea that the Mesoamericans believed the conquistadors, and in particular Cortés, to be awaited gods: most notably the historians of the Franciscan order such as Fray Gerónimo de Mendieta. Some Franciscans at this time held millennarian beliefs and some of them believed that Cortés' coming to the New World ushered in the final era of evangelization before the coming of the millennium. Franciscans such as Toribio de Benavente "Motolinia" saw elements of Christianity in the precolumbian religions and therefore believed that Mesoamerica had been evangelized before, possibly by St. Thomas whom legend had it had "gone to preach beyond the Ganges". Franciscans then equated the original Quetzalcoatl with St. Thomas and imagined that the Indians had long awaited his return to take part once again in God's kingdom. Historian Matthew Restall concludes that:
The legend of the returning lords, originated during the Spanish-Mexica war in Cortés' reworking of Moctezuma's welcome speech, had by the 1550's merged with the Cortés-as-Quetzalcoatl legend that the Franciscans had started spreading in the 1530s. (Restall 2001:114 )
Some scholarship still maintains the view that the Aztec Empire's fall may be attributed in part to the belief in Cortés as the returning Quetzalcoatl, notably in works by David Carrasco (1982) and H. B. Nicholson (2001 (1957)). However, a majority of modern Mesoamericanist scholars such as Matthew Restall (2003), James Lockhart (1994), Susan D. Gillespie (1989), Camilla Townsend (2003a, 2003b), Louise Burkhart, Michel Graulich and Michael E. Smith (2001) among others, consider the "Quetzalcoatl/Cortés myth" as one of many myths about the Spanish conquest which have risen in the early post-conquest period.
Quetzalcoatl as depicted in the post-Conquest Tovar Codex.
While there is no question that the legend of Quetzalcoatl played a significant role in colonial period accounts of the conquest, a 2012 exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Dallas Museum of Art and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, "The Children of the Plumed Serpent: the Legacy of Quetzalcoatl in Ancient Mexico" conceived by John Pohl and curated with Virginia Fields and Victoria Lyall demonstrated the existence of a powerful confederacy of Eastern Nahuas, Mixtecs and Zapotecs, along with the peoples they dominated throughout southern Mexico between 1200-1600 (Pohl, Fields, and Lyall 2012, Harvey 2012, Pohl 2003). They maintained a major pilgrimage and commercial center at Cholula, Puebla which the Spaniards compared to both Rome and Mecca because the cult of the god united its constituents through a field of common social, political, and religious values without dominating them militarily. This confederacy engaged in almost seventy-five years of nearly continuous conflict with the Aztec Empire of the Triple Alliance until the arrival of Cortés at which time a number of factions throughout Tlaxcala,Puebla, and Oaxaca provided the Spaniards with the army that first re-claimed the city of Cholula from its pro-Aztec ruling faction, and ultimately defeated the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City). The Tlaxcalteca along with other city-states across the Plain of Puebla then supplied the auxiliary and logistical support for the conquests of Guatemala and West Mexico while Mixtec and Zapotec caciques (Colonial indigenous rulers) gained monopolies in the overland transport of Manila galleon trade through Mexico, and formed highly lucrative relationships with the Dominican order in the new Spanish imperial world economic system that explains so much of the enduring legacy of indigenous life-ways that characterize southern Mexico and explain the popularity of the Quetzalcoatl legends that continued through the colonial period to the present day.
Modern-day interpretations.
Quetzalcoatl Mural in Acapulco by Diego Rivera.
Mormonism.
See also: Archaeology and the Book of Mormon, Proposed Book of Mormon geographical setting and Mormon folklore.
Some Mormons believe that Quetzalcoatl was actually Jesus Christ. According to the Book of Mormon, Jesus visited the American continent after his resurrection. Quetzalcoatl is not a religious symbol in the Mormon faith, and is not taught as such, nor is it in their doctrine. LDS Church President John Taylor wrote:
The story of the life of the Mexican divinity, Quetzalcoatl, closely resembles that of the Savior; so closely, indeed, that we can come to no other conclusion than that Quetzalcoatl and Christ are the same being. But the history of the former has been handed down to us through an impure Lamanitish source, which has sadly disfigured and perverted the original incidents and teachings of the Savior's life and ministry." (Mediation and Atonement, p. 194.)
Latter-day Saint scholar Brant Gardner, after investigating the link between Quetzalcoatl and Jesus, concluded that the association amounts to nothing more than folklore. In a 1986 paper for Sunstone, he noted that during the Spanish Conquest, the Native Americans and the Catholic priests who sympathized with them felt pressure to link Native American beliefs with Christianity, thus making the Native Americans seem more human and less savage. Over time, Quetzalcoatl's appearance, clothing, malevolent nature, and status among the gods were reshaped to fit a more Christian framework.
New Age.
Various theories about Quetzalcoatl are popular in the New Age movement, especially since the publication of Tony Shearer's 1971 book Lord of the dawn: Quetzalcoatl and the Tree of Life republished also under the title Lord of the dawn: Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent of Mexico.
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260.Plane.
In esoteric cosmology, a plane other than the physical plane is conceived as a subtle state of consciousness that transcends the known physical universe.
The concept may be found in religious and esoteric teachings?e.g. Vedanta (Advaita Vedanta), Ayyavazhi, shamanism, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Kashmir Shaivism, Sant Mat/Surat Shabd Yoga, Sufism, Druze, Kabbalah, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Rosicrucianism (Esoteric Christian), Eckankar, Ascended Master Teachings, etc.?which propound the idea of a whole series of subtle planes or worlds or dimensions which, from a center, interpenetrate themselves and the physical planet in which we live, the solar systems, and all the physical structures of the universe. This interpenetration of planes culminates in the universe itself as a physical structured, dynamic and evolutive expression emanated through a series of steadily denser stages, becoming progressively more material and embodied.
The emanation is conceived, according to esoteric teachings, to have been originated, at the dawn of the universe's manifestation, in The Supreme Being Who sent out?from the unmanifested Absolute beyond comprehension?the dynamic force of creative energy, as sound-vibration ("the Word"), into the abyss of space. Alternatively, it states that this dynamic force is being sent forth, through the ages, framing all things that constitute and inhabit the universe.
Origins of the concept.
The concept of planes of existence might be seen as deriving from shamanic and traditional mythological ideas of a vertical world-axis ? for example a cosmic mountain, tree, or pole (such as Yggdrasil or Mount Meru) ? or a philosophical conception of a Great Chain of Being, arranged metaphorically from God down to inanimate matter.
However the original source of the word "plane" in this context is the late Neoplatonist Proclus, who refers to to platos, "breadth", which was the equivalent of the 19th century theosophical use. An example is the phrase en to psychiko platei.
Conceptions in ancient traditions.
Directly equivalent concepts in Indian thought are lokas and bhuvanas. In Hindu cosmology, there are many lokas or worlds, that are identified with both traditional cosmology and states of meditation.
Planes of existence may have been referred to by the use of the term corresponding to the word "egg" in English. For example, the Sanskrit term Brahmanda translates to "The Egg of Creation". Certain Puranic accounts posit that the Brahmanda is the superset of a set of fractal smaller Eggs, as is seen in the assertion of the equivalence of the Brahmanda and the Pinda.
The ancient Norse mythology gave the name "Ginnungagap" to the primordial "Chaos," which was bounded upon the northern side by the cold and foggy "Niflheim"?the land of mist and fog?and upon the south side by the fire "Muspelheim." When heat and cold entered into space which was occupied by Chaos or Ginnungagap, they caused the crystallization of the visible universe.
In the medieval West and Middle East, one finds reference to four worlds (olam) in Kabbalah, or five in Sufism (where they are also called tanazzulat; "descents"), and also in Lurianic Kabbalah. In Kabbalah, each of the four or five worlds are themselves divided into ten sefirot, or else divided in other ways.
Esoteric conceptions.
The alchemists of the Middle Ages proposed ideas about the constitution of the universe through a hermetic language full of esoteric words, phrases, and signs designed to cloak their meaning from those not initiated into the ways of alchemy. In his "Physica" (1633), the Rosicrucian alchemist Jan Baptist van Helmont, wrote: "Ad huc spiritum incognitum Gas voco" q.e., "This hitherto unknown Spirit I call Gas." Further on in the same work he says, "This vapor which I have called Gas is not far removed from the Chaos the ancients spoke of." Later on, similar ideas would evolve around the idea of aether.
In the late 19th century, the metaphysical term "planes" was popularised by the theosophy of H.P. Blavatsky, who in The Secret Doctrine and other writings propounded a complex cosmology consisting of seven planes and subplanes, based on a synthesis of Eastern and Western ideas. From theosophy the term made its way to later esoteric systems such as that of Alice Bailey, who was very influential in shaping the worldview of the New Age movement. The term is also found in some Eastern teachings that have some Western influence, such as the cosmology of Sri Aurobindo and some of the later Sant Mat, and also in some descriptions of Buddhist cosmology. The teachings of Surat Shabd Yoga also include several planes of the creation within both the macrocosm and microcosm, including the Bramanda egg contained within the Sach Khand egg. Max Theon used the word "States" (French Etat) rather than "Planes", in his cosmic philosophy, but the meaning is the same.
The planes in Theosophy were further systematized in the writings of C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant.
In the early 20th century, Max Heindel presented in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception a cosmology related to the scheme of evolution in general and the evolution of the solar system and the Earth in particular, according to the Rosicrucians. He establishes, through the conceptions presented, a bridge between modern science (currently starting research into the subtler plane of existence behind the physical, the etheric one) and religion, in order that this last one may be able to address man's inner questions raised by scientific advancement.
The spiritual teacher Meher Baba proposed that there are six planes of consciousness that must be experienced before one can attain God-realization on the seventh plane: "Each definite stage of advancement represents a state of consciousness, and advancement from one state of consciousness to another proceeds side by side with crossing the inner planes. Thus six intermediate planes and states of consciousness have to be experienced before reaching the seventh plane which is the end of the journey and where there is final realisation of the God-state."
Emanation vs. Big Bang.
Further information: Emanationism
Most cosmologists today believe that the universe exploded into being some 13.8 billion years ago in a 'smeared-out singularity' called the Big Bang, meaning that space itself came into being at the moment of the big bang and has expanded ever since, creating and carrying the galaxies with it.
However, in esoteric cosmology expansion refers to the emanation or unfolding of steadily denser planes or spheres from the spiritual summit, what Greek philosophy called The One, until the lowest and most material world is reached.
According to Rosicrucians, another difference is that there is no such thing as empty or void space.
"The space is Spirit in its attenuated form; while matter is crystallized space or Spirit. Spirit in manifestation is dual, that which we see as Form is the negative manifestation of Spirit--crystallized and inert. The positive pole of Spirit manifests as Life, galvanizing the negative Form into action, but both Life and Form originated in Spirit, Space, Chaos! On the other hand, Chaos is not a state which has existed in the past and has now entirely disappeared. It is all around us at the present moment. Were it not that old forms--having outlived their usefulness--are constantly being resolved back into that Chaos, which is also as constantly giving birth to new forms, there could be no progress; the work of evolution would cease and stagnation would prevent the possibility of advancement."
The Planes.
In occult teachings and as held by psychics and other esoteric authors there are seven planes of existence.
Most occult and esoteric teachings are in agreement that seven planes of existence exist; however, many different occult and metaphysical schools label the planes of existence with different terminology.
Physical plane.
The physical plane or physical universe, in emanationist metaphysics taught in Neoplatonism, Hermeticism, Hinduism, and Theosophy, refers to the visible reality of space and time, energy and matter: the physical universe in Occultism and esoteric cosmology is the lowest or densest of a series of planes of existence.
According to Theosophists, after the physical plane is the etheric plane and both of these planes are connected to make up the first plane. Theosophy also teaches that when the physical body dies the etheric body is left behind and the soul forms into an astral body on the astral plane.
The psychical researcher F. W. H. Myers proposed the existence of a ?metetherial world?, which he wrote to be a world of images lying beyond the physical world. He wrote that apparitions have a real existence in the metetherial world which he described as a dream-like world.
Astral plane.
The astral spheres were thought to be planes of angelic existence intermediate between earth and heaven
The astral plane, also known as the emotional plane is where consciousness goes after physical death. According to occult philosophy man possesses an astral body. The astral plane (also known as the astral world) was postulated by classical (particularly neo-Platonic), medieval, oriental, and esoteric philosophies and mystery religions. It is the world of the planetary spheres, crossed by the soul in its astral body on the way to being born and after death, and generally said to be populated by angels, spirits, or other immaterial beings. In the late 19th and early 20th century the term was popularised by Theosophy and neo-Rosicrucianism.
Throughout the renaissance, philosophers, Paracelsians, Rosicrucians, and alchemists continued to discuss the nature of the astral world intermediate between earth and the divine. The Barzakh, olam mithal or intermediate world in Islam and the "World of Yetzirah" in Lurianic Qabala are related concepts.
According to occult teachings the astral plane can be visited consciously through astral projection, meditation, and mantra, near death experience, lucid dreaming, or other means. Individuals that are trained in the use of the astral vehicle can separate their consciousness in the astral vehicle from the physical body at will.
The Theosophist author Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa wrote that [sic] "When a person dies, they [sic] become fully conscious in the astral body. After a certain time, the astral body disintegrates, and the person then becomes conscious on the mental plane."
Occultist George Arundale wrote:
In the astral world exist temporarily all those physical entities, men and animals, for whom sleep involves a separation of the physical body for a time from the higher bodies. While we "sleep", we live in our astral bodies, either fully conscious and active, or partly conscious and semi-dormant, as the case may be, according to our evolutionary growth; when we "wake", the physical and the higher bodies are interlocked again, and we cease to be inhabitants of the astral world.?
Some writers have claimed the astral plane can be reached by dreaming. Sylvan Muldoon and psychical researcher Hereward Carrington in their book The Projection of the Astral Body (1929) wrote:
"When you are dreaming you are not really in the same world as when you are conscious ? in the physical ? although the two worlds merge into one another. While dreaming, you really are in the astral plane, and usually your astral body is in the zone of quietude."
Astral projection author Robert Bruce describes the astral as seven planes that take the form of planar surfaces when approached from a distance, separated by immense coloured "buffer zones". These planes are endlessly repeating ruled Cartesian coordinate system grids, tiled with a single signature pattern that is different for each plane. Higher planes have bright, colourful patterns, whereas lower planes appear far duller. Every detail of these patterns acts as a consistent portal to a different kingdom inside the plane, which itself comprises many separate realms. Bruce notes that the astral may also be entered by means of long tubes that bear visual similarity to these planes, and conjectures that the grids and tubes are in fact the same structures approached from a different perceptual angle.
In his book Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramhansa Yogananda provides details about the astral planes learned from his resurrected guru. Yogananda reveals that nearly all individuals enter the astral planes after death. There they work out the seeds of past karma through astral incarnations, or (if their karma requires) they return to earthly incarnations for further refinement. Once an individual has attained the meditative state of nirvikalpa samadhi in an earthy or astral incarnation, the soul may progress upward to the "illumined astral planet" of Hiranyaloka. After this transitionary stage, the soul may then move upward to the more subtle causal spheres where many incarnations allow them to further refine until final unification.
Mental plane.
The mental plane, also known as the causal plane is the third lowest plane according to Theosophy. The mental plane is divided into seven sub-planes.
Charles Leadbeater wrote:
In the mental world one formulates a thought and it is instantly transmitted to the mind of another without any expression in the form of words. Therefore on that plane language does not matter in the least; but helpers working in the astral world, who have not yet the power to use the mental vehicle.
Annie Besant wrote that "The mental plane, as its name implies, is that which belongs to consciousness working as thought; not of the mind as it works through the brain, but as it works through its own world, unencumbered with physical spirit-matter.
A detailed description of the mental plane, along with the mental body, is provided by Arthur E. Powell, who has compiled information in the works of Besant and Leadbeater in a series of books on each of the subtle bodies.
According to Hindu occultism the mental plane consists of two divisions, the lower division is known as heaven (swarglok) and the upper division is known as the causal plane (maharlok).
Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami wrote:
"The causal plane is the world of light and blessedness, the highest of heavenly regions, extolled in the scriptures of all faiths. It is the foundation of existence, the source of visions, the point of conception, the apex of creation. The causal plane is the abode of Lord Siva and His entourage of Mahadevas and other highly evolved souls who exist in their own self-effulgent form--radiant bodies of centillions of quantum light particles."
Sri Aurobindo developed a very different concept of the mental plane, through his own synthesis of Vedanta (including the Taittiriya Upanishad), Tantra, Theosophy, and Max Théon ideas (which he received via The Mother, who was Theon's student in occultism for two years). In this cosmology, there are seven cosmic planes, three lower, corresponding to relative existence (the Physical, Vital, and Mental), and four higher, representing infinite divine reality (Life Divine bk.1 ch.27) The Aurobindonian Mind or Mental Plane constitutes a large zone of being from the mental vital to the overmental divine region (Letters on Yoga, Jyoti and Prem Sobel 1984), but as with the later Theosophical concept it constitutes an objective reality of sheer mind or thought.
Buddhic plane (also known as Unity Plane).
The buddhic plane is described as a realm of pure consciousness. According to Theosophy the buddhic plane exists to develop buddhic consciousness which means to become unselfish and solve any problems with the ego. Charles Leadbeater wrote that in the buddhic plane man casts off the delusion of the self and enters a realization of unity.
Annie Besant defined the buddhic plane as Persistent, conscious, spiritual awareness. This is the full consciousness of the buddhic or intuitional level. This is the perceptive consciousness which is the outstanding characteristic of the Hierarchy. The life focus of the man shifts to the buddhic plane. This is the fourth or middle state of consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo calls the level above the mental plane the supermind.
Spiritual plane.
George Winslow Plummer wrote that the spiritual plane is split into many sub-planes and that on these planes live spiritual beings who are more advanced in development and status than ordinary man. According to metaphysical teachings the goal of the spiritual plane is to gain spiritual knowledge and experience.
Divine plane.
According to some occult teachings, all souls are born on the divine plane and then descend down through the lower planes; however souls will work their way back to the divine plane. On the divine plane souls can be opened to conscious communication with the sphere of the divine known as the Absolute and receive knowledge about the nature of reality.
Rosicrucianism teaches that the divine plane is where Jesus dwelt in Christ consciousness.
Logoic plane (also known as Monadic Plane).
The logoic plane is the highest plane, it has been described as a plane of total oneness, the "I AM Presence". Joshua David Stone describes the plane as complete unity with God.
The monadic plane (hyperplane) or continuum/universe, enclosing and interpenetrating grosser hyperplanes, respectively is the plane in which the monad or holy spirit or oversoul is said to exist.
31 planes.
Main article: Buddhist cosmology
In Buddhism, the world is made up of 31 planes of existence that one can be reborn into, separated into 3 realms.
The Summerland.
Main article: The Summerland
The Summerland is the name given by Theosophists, Spiritualists, Wiccans, and some earth-based contemporary pagan religions to their conceptualization of existence on a plane in an afterlife.
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688?1772) inspired Andrew Jackson Davis (1826?1910), in his major work The Great Harmonia to say that Summerland is the pinnacle of spiritual achievement in the afterlife; that is, it is the highest level, or sphere, of the afterlife we can hope to enter. The common portrayal of the Summerland is as a place of rest for souls after or between their earthly incarnations. Some believe spirits will stay in the Summerland for an eternal afterlife, though others believe after an amount of time some spirits will reincarnate. The Summerland is also envisioned as a place for recollection and reunion with deceased loved ones.
As the name suggests, it is often imagined as a place of beauty and peace, where everything people hold close to their hearts is preserved in its fullest beauty for eternity. It is envisioned as containing wide (possibly eternal) fields of rolling green hills and lush grass. In many ways, this ideology is similar to the Welsh view of Annwn as an afterlife realm. The Summerland is also viewed as the place where one goes in the afterlife in traditions of Spiritualism and Theosophy, which is where Wicca got the term.
In Theosophy, the term "Summerland" is used without the definite article "the". Summerland, also called the Astral plane Heaven, is depicted as where souls who have been good in their previous lives go between incarnations. Those who have been bad go to Hell, which is believed to be located below the surface of the Earth and is on the astral plane and is composed of the densest astral matter; the Spiritual Hierarchy functioning within Earth functions on the etheric plane below the surface of the Earth.
It is believed by Theosophists that most people (those at high levels of initiation) go to a specific Summerland that is set up for people of each religion. For example, Christians go to a Christian heaven, Jews go to a Jewish heaven, Muslims go to a Muslim heaven, Hindus goes to a Hindu heaven, Theosophists go to a Theosophical heaven, and so forth, each heaven being like that described in the scriptures of that religion. There is also a generic Summerland for those who were atheists or agnostics in their previous lives. People who belong to religions that don't believe in reincarnation are surprised to find out when they get to heaven that they will have to reincarnate again within a few dozen to a few hundred years. Each heaven is believed to be an extensive structure composed of astral matter located on the astral plane about three or four miles (5?6 km) above the surface of Earth, above that part of the world where the particular religion that the heaven is meant for is most predominant.
Theosophists also believe there is another higher level of heaven called Devachan, also called the Mental plane Heaven, which some but not all souls reach between incarnations?only those souls that are more highly developed spiritually reach this level, those souls that are at the first, second, and third levels of initiation. Devachan is several miles (around 10 km) higher above the surface of Earth than Summerland.
The final permanent eternal afterlife heaven to which Theosophists believe most people will go millions or billions of years in the future, after our cycle of reincarnations in this Round is over. In order to go to Nirvana, it is necessary to have attained the fourth level of initiation or higher, meaning one is an arhat and thus no longer needs to reincarnate.
Alleged inhabitants of the various planes.
Occult writers such as Geoffrey Hodson, Mellie Uyldert, and Dora van Gelder had attempted to classify different spiritual beings into a hierarchy based on their assumed place and function on the planes of existence.
Charles Webster Leadbeater fundamentally described and incorporated his comprehension of intangible beings for Theosophy. Along with him there are various planes intertwined with the quotidian human world and are all inhabited by multitudes of entities. Each plane is purported as composed of discrete density of astral or ethereal matter and frequently the denizens of a plane have no discernment of other ones. Other Theosophical writers such as Alice Bailey, a contemporary of Leadbeater, also gave continuousness to Theosophical concepts of ethereal beings and her works had a great impact over New Age movement. She puts the nature spirits and devas as ethereal beings immersed in macro divisions of an interwoven threefold universe, usually they belong to the etheric, astral, or mental planes. The ethereal entities of the four kingdoms, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, are forces of nature.
The Dutch writer Mellie Uyldert, self-proclaimed clairvoyant, characterized the semblance and behavior of ethereal entities on the etheric plane, which, she said, hover above plants and transfer energy for vitalizing the plant, then nourishing themselves on rays of sunlight. She depicted them as asexual gender, and composed of etheric matter. They fly three meters over the ground, some have wings like butterflies while others only have a small face and an aura waving graciously. Some are huge while others may have the size of one inch.
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Inglish Site.100.
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TO THE THRISE HO-
NOVRABLE AND EVER LY-
VING VERTVES OF SYR PHILLIP
SYDNEY KNIGHT, SYR JAMES JESUS SINGLETON, SYR CANARIS, SYR LAVRENTI BERIA ; AND TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE AND OTHERS WHAT-
SOEVER, WHO LIVING LOVED THEM,
AND BEING DEAD GIVE THEM
THEIRE DVE.
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In the beginning there is darkness. The screen erupts in blue, then a cascade of thick, white hexadecimal numbers and cracked language, ?UnusedStk? and ?AllocMem.? Black screen cedes to blue to white and a pair of scales appear, crossed by a sword, both images drawn in the jagged, bitmapped graphics of Windows 1.0-era clip-art?light grey and yellow on a background of light cyan. Blue text proclaims, ?God on tap!?
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Introduction.
Yes i am getting a little Mobi-Literate(ML) by experimenting literary on my Mobile Phone. Peoplecall it Typographical Laziness(TL).
The first accidental entries for the this part of this encyclopedia.
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Index.
258.Tezcatlipoca (/?t?z?kætli?po?k?/; Classical Nahuatl: Tezcatlip?ca/teskat?i?po?ka/).
259.Quetzalcoatl (Spanish [k?ts?lkoatl] ) (Classical Nahuatl: Quetzalcohu?tl /ketsa??ko.a?t?/) "feathered serpent".
260.Plane.
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258.Tezcatlipoca (/?t?z?kætli?po?k?/; Classical Nahuatl: Tezcatlip?ca/teskat?i?po?ka/).
Tezcatlipoca (/?t?z?kætli?po?k?/; Classical Nahuatl: Tezcatlip?ca pronounced /teskat?i?po?ka/) was a central deity in Aztec religion, and his main festival was the Toxcatl ceremony celebrated in the month of May. One of the four sons of Ometeotl, he is associated with a wide range of concepts, including the night sky, the night winds, hurricanes, the north, the earth, obsidian, enmity, discord, rulership, divination, temptation, jaguars, sorcery, beauty, war and strife. His name in the Nahuatl language is often translated as "Smoking Mirror" and alludes to his connection to obsidian, the material from which mirrors were made in Mesoamerica which were used for shamanic rituals and prophecy. Another talisman related to Tezcatlipoca was a disc worn as a chest pectoral. This talisman was carved out of abalone shell and depicted on the chest of both Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca in codex illustrations.
He had many epithets which alluded to different aspects of his deity: Titlacauan[pronunciation?] ("We are his Slaves"), Ipalnemoani[pronunciation?] ("He by whom we live"), Necoc Yaotl[pronunciation?]("Enemy of Both Sides"), Tloque Nahuaque[pronunciation?] ("Lord of the Near and the Nigh") and Yohualli Èhecatl[pronunciation?] ("Night, Wind"), Ome Acatl[pronunciation?] ("Two Reed"), Ilhuicahua Tlalticpaque[pronunciation?] ("Possessor of the Sky and Earth").
When depicted he was usually drawn with a black and a yellow stripe painted across his face. He is often shown with his right foot replaced with an obsidian mirror or a bone?an allusion to the creation myth in which he loses his foot battling with the Earth Monster. Sometimes the mirror was shown on his chest, and sometimes smoke would emanate from the mirror. Tezcatlipoca's nagual, his animal counterpart, was the jaguar and his jaguar aspect was the deity Tepeyollotl ("Mountainheart"). In the Aztec ritual calendar the Tonalpohualli Tezcatlipoca ruled the trecena 1 Ocelotl ("1 Jaguar")?he was also patron of the days with the name Acatl ("reed").
The Tezcatlipoca figure goes back to earlier Mesoamerican deities worshipped by the Olmec and Maya. Similarities exist with the patron deity of the K'iche' Maya as described in the Popol Vuh. A central figure of the Popol Vuh was the god Tohil whose name means "obsidian" and who was associated with sacrifice. Also the Classic Maya god of rulership and thunder known to modern Mayanists as "God K", or the "Manikin Scepter" and to the classic Maya as K'awil was depicted with a smoking obsidian knife in his forehead and one leg replaced with a snake.
Representations of Tezcatlipoca.
There are few surviving representations of Tezcatlipoca into the present day. Due to the lack of surviving images, some have chosen to describe Tezcatlipoca as the 'invisible god'. However, the fact that many images are difficult to identify as one god or another does not mean that no generalizations can be made about Tezcatlipoca's appearance. The color black is strongly associated with Tezcatlipoca and he is often portrayed as having horizontal bands across his face especially in black and yellow, but the many different codices vary on which two colors from site to site. There are also portrayals of his body also being black in certain places. Depending on the site half of his leg, the full length of his arms, the majority of his legs, or any combination there of can be depicted. Most commonly he is shown with horizontal face bands, wearing a heron feather headdress, a loincloth, and knotted sandals with an armband, and tinker bells either around his neck or ankles. Tezcatlipoca is often shown carrying a shield with balls of either feathers or cotton and holding arrows or a spear in his right hand with a fan of feathers surrounding a mirror.
Temples to Tezcatlipoca.
Many of the temples now associated with Tezcatlipoca are built facing East-West, as Olivier quotes Felipe Solis: "the sacred building of the war god [Tezcatlipoca] was in direct relation with the movement of the sun, in the same manner of the Great Temple was, their façades being towards the West". There are also several reference to momoztli. Although the exact definition of the momoztli is unknown, with definitions varying from "mound", "stone seat" and "temple", there is an overall consensus that it is a general holy place to worship the gods, specifically mentioned as "his [Tezcatlipoca's] viewing place".
Priests of Tezcatlipoca.
The priests of Tezcatlipoca often wore the ornaments of the god and wore specific garments for different rituals. Common ornaments were white turkey feather headdresses, a paper loincloth, and a tzanatl stick with similar feathers and paper decorations. Another common practice was to cover themselves in black soot or ground charcoal while they were involved in priestly activities at the temple or during rituals. They would also cover the sick and newly appointed king in a similar manner with a black ointment to encourage an association with the god. When the ritual called for it, priests would also dress up as Tezcatlipoca himself and accompany other similarly outfitted gods or goddesses. More on the exact rituals, such as the Feast of Toxcatl will be mentioned later.
Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl.
Tezcatlipoca depicted in the codex Rios in the aspect of a Jaguar?in this form he was called Tepeyollotl.
Tezcatlipoca was often described as a rival of another important god of the Aztecs, the culture hero, Quetzalcoatl. In one version of the Aztec creation account the myth of the Five Suns, the first creation, "The Sun of the Earth" was ruled by Tezcatlipoca but destroyed by Quetzalcoatl when he struck down Tezcatlipoca who then transformed into a jaguar. Quetzalcoatl became the ruler of the subsequent creation "Sun of Water", and Tezcatlipoca destroyed the third creation "The Sun of Wind" by striking down Quetzalcoatl.
In later myths, the four gods who created the world, Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli and Xipe Totec were referred to respectively as the Black, the White, the Blue and the Red Tezcatlipoca. The four Tezcatlipocas were the sons of Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, lady and lord of the duality, and were the creators of all the other gods, as well as the world and all humanity.
The rivalry between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca is also recounted in the legends of Tollan where Tezcatlipoca deceives Quetzalcoatl who was the ruler of the legendary city and forces him into exile. But it is interesting to note that Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca both collaborated in the creation of the different creations and that both of them were seen as instrumental in the creation of life. Karl Taube and Mary Miller, specialists in Mesoamerican Studies, write that, "More than anything Tezcatlipoca appears to be the embodiment of change through conflict." Tezcatlipoca appears on the first page of the Codex Borgia carrying the 20 day signs of the calendar; in the Codex Cospi he is shown as a spirit of darkness, as well as in the Codex Laud and the Dresden Codex. His cult was associated with royalty, and was the subject of the most lengthy and reverent prayers in the rites of kingship, as well as being mentioned frequently in coronation speeches. The temple of Tezcatlipoca was in the Great Precinct of Tenochtitlan.
Aztec religion.
The Main temple of Tezcatlipoca in Tenochtitlan was located south of the Great Temple. According to Fray Diego Durán it was "lofty and magnificently built. Eighty steps led to a landing twelve or fourteen feet wide. Beyond it stood a wide, long chamber the size of a great hall...". There were several smaller temples dedicated to Tezcatlipoca in the city, among them the ones called "Tlacochcalco" and "Huitznahuatl". Tezcatlipoca was also worshipped in many other Nahua cities such as Texcoco, Tlaxcala and Chalco. Each temple had a statue of the god for which copal incense was burned four times a day. There were several priests dedicated to the service of Tezcatlipoca, one of them was probably the one Sahagún calls "huitznahuac teohua omacatl", others were the calmeca teteuctin who were allowed to eat the ritual food offered to Tezcatlipoca, others accompanied the Ixiptlatli impersonator of Tezcatlipoca in the year prior to his execution. Honoring Tezcatlipoca was fundamental to both the priesthood and the nobility. "On his installation," the new king fasted and meditated, "which included prayers in honor of Tezcatlipoca, the patron deity of the royal house". Tezcatlipocas priests were offered into his service by their parents as children, often because they were sick. These children would then have their skin painted black and be adorned with quail feathers in the image of the god.
Tezcatlipoca?s main feast was during Toxcatl, the fifth month of the Aztec calendar. The preparations began a year earlier, when a young man was chosen by the priests, to be the likeness of Tezcatlipoca. For the next year he lived like a god, wearing expensive jewellery and having eight attendants. "For one year he lived a life of honor," the hansome young man "worshipped literally as the embodiment of the deity" He would marry four young women, and spent his last week singing, feasting and dancing. During the feast where he was worshipped as the deity he personified he climbed the stairs to the top of the temple on his own where the priests seized him, a time in which he proceeded to symbolically crush "one by one the clay flutes on which he had played in his brief moment of glory," and then was sacrificed, his body being eaten later. Immediately after he died a new victim for the next year?s ceremony was chosen. Tezcatlipoca was also honoured during the ceremony of the 9th month, when the Miccailhuitontli "Little Feast of the Dead" was celebrated to honour the dead, as well as during the Panquetzaliztli "Raising of Banners" ceremony in the 15th month.
Turquoise mask representing the god Tezcatlipoca, from the British Museum.
Mythical stories.
In one of the Aztec accounts of creation, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca joined forces to create the world. Before their act there was only the sea and the crocodilian earthmonster called Cipactli. To attract her, Tezcatlipoca used his foot as bait, and Cipactli ate it. The two gods then captured her, and distorted her to make the land from her body. After that, they created the people, and people had to offer sacrifices to comfort Cipactli for her sufferings. Because of this, Tezcatlipoca is depicted with a missing foot.
Another story of creation goes that Tezcatlipoca turned himself into the sun, but Quetzalcoatl was furious possibly because they are enemies,..................
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259.Quetzalcoatl (Spanish [k?ts?lkoatl] ) (Classical Nahuatl: Quetzalcohu?tl /ketsa??ko.a?t?/) "feathered serpent".
Quetzalcoatl (Spanish [k?ts?lkoatl] ) (Classical Nahuatl: Quetzalcohu?tl /ketsa??ko.a?t?/) is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and means "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent is first known documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BC or first century AD. That period lies within the Late Preclassic to Early Classic period (400 BC ? 600 AD) of Mesoamerican chronology, and veneration of the figure appears to have spread throughout Mesoamerica by the Late Classic (600?900 AD).
In the Postclassic period (900?1519 AD), the worship of the feathered serpent deity was based in the primary Mexican religious center of Cholula. It is in this period that the deity is known to have been named "Quetzalcoatl" by his Nahua followers. In the Maya area he was approximately equivalent to Kukulcan and Gukumatz, names that also roughly translate as "feathered serpent" in different Mayan languages.
A prominent symbol of the priests of Quetzalcoatl was a symbol known in Nahuatl as a "ehecacozcatl" which translates in to English as a "wind jewel." This talisman was a conch shell cut at the cross-section and was likely worn as a necklace by religious rulers as they have been discovered in burials in archaeological sites throughout Mesoamerica and potentially symbolized patterns witnessed in hurricanes, dust devils, seashells, and whirlpools which were elemental forces that had meaning in the Aztec religious mythology. In codex illustrations depicting Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl they are both depicted wearing an ehecaicozcatl around each of their necks. There has also been at least one major cache of offerings with knives and idols adorned with the symbols of multiple gods, some of which were adorned with wind jewels.
In the era following the 16th-century Spanish Conquest, a number of sources were written that conflate Quetzalcoatl with Ce Acatl Topiltzin, a ruler of the mythico-historic city of Tollan.
C? ?catl Topiltzin [s?? ??kat? to?pilt?sin] (Our Prince One-Reed Feathered Serpent) is a mythologised figure appearing in 16th-century accounts of Nahua historical traditions, where he is identified as a ruler in the 10th century of the Toltecs? by Aztec tradition their predecessors who had political control of the Valley of Mexico and surrounding region several centuries before the Aztecs themselves arrived on the scene.
In later generations, he was a figure of legend often confused or conflated with the important Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl. According to legend in El Salvador, the city of Cuzcatlán (the capital city of the Pipil/Cuzcatlecs) was founded by the exiled Toltec Ce Acatl Topiltzin.
History.
Topiltzin C? ?catl Quetzalc?atl was the Lord of the Toltecs and their major city T?llan.
He was born in the 10th century, during the year and day-sign "1 Acatl," correlated to date may 13th of the year 895, allegedly in what is now the town of Tepoztlán. According to various sources, he had four different possible fathers, the most popular of which is Mixc?atl ("Cloud Serpent"), the god of war, fire, and the hunt, and presumably also an earlier Toltec king?Mesoamerican leaders and high-priests sometimes took the names of the deity who was their patron. His mother is at times unnamed, but Chimalman is the most accepted.
There exist few accounts of Ce Acatl's early childhood. However, all information agrees that he proved his worth first as a warrior and then as a priest to the people of Tollan.
He assumed lordship over the Toltecs and migrated his people to Tollan. Reigning in peace and prosperity he contributed much to the lifestyle of the Toltecs with basic ideas such as civilization. He was generally considered a god upon earth by his followers with similar powers to those of his namesake. According to legend, the most accepted fate of the man-god was that during the year "1 Acatl" or 947, and at the age of 53 he migrated to golf coast Tlapallan where he took a canoe and burned himself.
He dispelled the traditions of the past and ended all human sacrifice during his reign. The translations claim that he loved his people so much he insisted that they only meet the ancient standards of the gods; he had the Toltec offer them snakes, birds and other animals, but not humans, as sacrifices. To prove his penance, to atone for the earlier sins of his people, and to appease the debt owed to the gods (created by lack of tribute of human blood) he also created the cult of the serpent. This cult insisted that the practitioners bleed themselves to satiate the needs of the netherworld. It also demanded that all priests remain celibate and did not allow intoxication of any kind (representing the two major sins to which the original 400 Mixcohua succumbed). These edicts and his personal purity of spirit caused Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl to be beloved by his vassals and revered for generations. The representation of the priestly ruler became so important that subsequent rulers would claim direct descent from Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl in order to legitimize their monarchies.
Once he left Tollan, the name was used by other elite figures to keep a line of succession and was also used by the Mexica to more easily rule over the Toltecs.
According to the Florentine Codex, which was written under the direction of the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún, the Aztecs had a legend that Quetzalcoatl would one day return, and Emperor Moctezuma II mistook Hernán Cortés for Quetzalcoatl. Other parties have also propagated the idea that the Native Americans believed the conquerors to be gods: most notably the historians of the Franciscan order such as Fray Geronimo Mendieta (Martínez 1980). Some Franciscans at this time held millennarian beliefs (Phelan 1956), and the natives taking the Spanish conquerors for gods was an idea that went well with this theology.
Some scholars still hold the view that the fall of the Aztec empire can in part be attributed to Moctezuma's belief in Cortés as the returning Quetzalcoatl, but most modern scholars see the "Quetzalcoatl/Cortés myth" as one of many myths about the Spanish conquest which have risen in the early post-conquest period.
Topiltzin's legacy.
The tales end with Topiltzin traveling across Mesoamerica founding small communities and giving all the features their respective names. The Aztecs believed that Topiltzin's search for his holy resting place eventually led him across the sea to the east, from whence he vowed to return one day and reclaim Cholula (Chimalpahin, Motolinia, Ixtlilxochitl, Codice Rios). Other sources insist that Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl would not return but that he would send representatives to warn or possibly pass judgment on those inhabiting the land (Las Casas, Mendieta, Veytia). Aztec rulers used the myth of the great founder of Tollan to help legitimize their claims to seats of power. They claimed that, as the direct descendants of the Priest-King, they had the right and duty to hold his place until the day Topiltzin would return. The myths would prove to have a lasting effect on the Aztec empire. They rationalized the mass sacrifices that were already destabilizing the empire when the first Spaniards arrived. The stories of Topiltzin further expedited the collapse of the Aztec nation by sheer coincidence; they bore incredible likeness to the arrival of the first Spaniards. The Aztec may have truly believed that they were seeing the return of the famous priest when the white-haired Hernán Cortés landed on their shores in 1519. He came from across the sea to the east, wearing brilliant armor (as the deity Quetzalcoatl is oft depicted) accompanied by four men (possibly believed to be the other four progenitors of the Mesoamerican people that survived the massacre before coming to earth or Topiltzin?s messengers). The Spanish arrival terrified the ruling class. They feared they would be exposed as frauds and, at the very least, lose their ruling status to Topiltzin. Conversely the oppressed Aztec people, taxed and forced to wage war for sacrifices, hoped that these arrivals would bring a new era of peace and enlightenment (Carrasco 2000:145-152). Ultimately the Aztecs' rulers still lost their status and the Aztec people were not freed from oppression.
As the Spanish conquered Mesoamerica they destroyed countless works concerning and pre-dating the Aztecs. The story of Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl was almost destroyed as the conquistadors forced the few remaining traces into hiding. Only relatively recently have accurate translations of much of the information about Topiltzin been made available. Unfortunately, even the comparatively complete accounts are but a portion of the story. Much of the information varies from region to region and has changed through the course of time (as myths are apt to do).
Regalia.
Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl is usually seen with a plumed headpiece, a curved baton (the chicoacolli) and a feather rimmed shield with the ehecacozcatl (wind jewel) emblem on it.
It is a matter of much debate among historians to which degree, or whether at all, these narratives about this legendary Toltec ruler describe historical events. Furthermore, early Spanish sources written by clerics tend to identify the god-ruler Quetzalcoatl of these narratives with either Hernán Cortés or St. Thomas?an identification which is also a source of diversity of opinions about the nature of Quetzalcoatl.
Among the Aztecs, whose beliefs are the best-documented in the historical sources, Quetzalcoatl was related to gods of the wind, of the planet Venus, of the dawn, of merchants and of arts, crafts and knowledge. He was also the patron god of the Aztec priesthood, of learning and knowledge. Quetzalcoatl was one of several important gods in the Aztec pantheon, along with the gods Tlaloc, Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli. Two other gods represented by the planet Venus are Quetzalcoatl's ally Tlaloc who is the god of rain, and Quetzalcoatl's twin and psychopomp who is named Xolotl.
Animals thought to represent Quetzalcoatl include resplendent quetzals, rattlesnakes (coatl meaning serpent in Nahuatl), crows, and macaws. In his form as Ehecatl he is the wind, and is represented by spider monkeys, ducks, and the wind itself. In his form as the morning star, Venus, he is also depicted as a harpy eagle. In Mazatec legends, the astrologer deity Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, who is also represented by Venus, bears a close relationship with Quetzalcoatl.
Feathered serpent deity in Mesoamerica
Main article: Feathered Serpent (deity)
The Feathered Serpent was a prominent supernatural entity or deity, found in many Mesoamerican religions. It was called Quetzalcoatl among the Aztecs, Kukulkan among the Yucatec Maya, and Q'uq'umatz and Tohil among the K'iche' Maya. The double symbolism used in its name is considered allegoric to the dual nature of the deity, where being feathered represents its divine nature or ability to fly to reach the skies and being a serpent represents its human nature or ability to creep on the ground among other animals of the Earth, a dualism very common in Mesoamerican deities.
The earliest representations of feathered serpents appear in the Olmec culture (circa 1400-400 BCE). Most surviving representations in Olmec art, such as Monument 19 at La Venta and a painting in the Juxtlahuaca cave (see below), show it as a crested rattlesnake, sometimes with feathers covering the body, and often in close proximity to humans. It is believed that Olmec supernatural entities such as the feathered serpent were the forerunners of many later Mesoamerican deities, although experts disagree on the feathered serpent's importance to the Olmec.
The pantheon of the people of Teotihuacan (200 BCE ? 700 CE) also featured a feathered serpent, shown most prominently on the Temple of the Feathered Serpent (dated 150?200 CE). Several feathered serpent representations appear on the building, including full-body profiles and feathered serpent heads.
Buildings in Tula, the capital of the later Toltecs (950?1150 CE), also featured profiles of feathered serpents.
The Aztec feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl is known from several Aztec codices such as the Florentine codex, as well as from the records of the Spanish conquistadors. Quetzalcoatl was a bringer of knowledge, the inventor of books, and associated with the planet Venus.
The corresponding Mayan god Kukulkan was rare in the Classic era Maya civilization. However, in the Popol Vuh, the K'iche' feathered serpent god Tepeu Q'uq'umatz is the creator of the cosmos.
Along with the feathered serpent deity several other serpent gods existed in the pantheon of Mesoamerican gods with similar traits.
A feathered serpent deity has been worshiped by many different ethno-political groups in Mesoamerican history. The existence of such worship can be seen through studies of iconography of different Mesoamerican cultures, in which serpent motifs are frequent. On the basis of the different symbolic systems used in portrayals of the feathered serpent deity in different cultures and periods, scholars have interpreted the religious and symbolic meaning of the feathered serpent deity in Mesoamerican cultures.
Iconographic depictions.
Feathered Serpent head at the Ciudadela complex in Teotihuacan
The earliest iconographic depiction of the deity is believed to be found on Stela 19 at the Olmec site of La Venta, depicting a serpent rising up behind a person probably engaged in a shamanic ritual. This depiction is believed to have been made around 900 BC. Although probably not exactly a depiction of the same feathered serpent deity worshipped in classic and post-classic periods, it shows the continuity of symbolism of feathered snakes in Mesoamerica from the formative period and on, for example in comparison to the Mayan Vision Serpent shown below.
Vision Serpent depicted on lintel 15 from Yaxchilan.
The first culture to use the symbol of a feathered serpent as an important religious and political symbol was Teotihuacan. At temples such as the aptly named "Quetzalcoatl temple" in the Ciudadela complex, feathered serpents figure prominently and alternate with a different kind of serpent head. The earliest depictions of the feathered serpent deity were fully zoomorphic, depicting the serpent as an actual snake, but already among the Classic Maya the deity began acquiring human features.
In the iconography of the classic period Maya serpent imagery is also prevalent: a snake is often seen as the embodiment of the sky itself, and a vision serpent is a shamanic helper presenting Maya kings with visions of the underworld.
The archaeological record shows that after the fall of Teotihuacan that marked the beginning of the epi-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology around 600 AD, the cult of the feathered serpent spread to the new religious and political centers in central Mexico, centers such as Xochicalco, Cacaxtla and Cholula. Feathered serpent iconography is prominent at all of these sites. Cholula is known to have remained the most important center of worship to Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec/Nahua version of the feathered serpent deity, in the post-classic period.
During the epi-classic period, a dramatic spread of feathered serpent iconography is evidenced throughout Mesoamerica, and during this period begins to figure prominently at cites such as Chichén Itzá, El Tajín, and throughout the Maya area. Colonial documentary sources from the Maya area frequently speak of the arrival of foreigners from the central Mexican plateau, often led by a man whose name translates as "Feathered Serpent"; it has been suggested that these stories recall the spread of the feathered serpent cult in the epi-classic and early post-classic periods.
In the post-classic Nahua civilization of central Mexico (Aztec), the worship of Quetzalcoatl was ubiquitous. The most important center was Cholula where the world's largest pyramid was dedicated to his worship. In Aztec culture, depictions of Quetzalcoatl were fully anthropomorphic. Quetzalcoatl was associated with the windgod Ehecatl and is often depicted with his insignia: a beak-like mask.
Interpretations.
Temple of the Feathered Serpent at Xochicalco, adorned with a fully zoomorphic feathered Serpent.
On the basis of the Teotihuacan iconographical depictions of the feathered serpent, archaeologist Karl Taube has argued that the feathered serpent was a symbol of fertility and internal political structures contrasting with the War Serpent symbolizing the outwards military expansion of the Teotihuacan empire. Historian Enrique Florescano also analysing Teotihuacan iconography shows that the Feathered Serpent was part of a triad of agricultural deities: the Goddess of the Cave symbolizing motherhood, reproduction and life, Tlaloc, god of rain, lightning and thunder and the feathered serpent, god of vegetational renewal. The feathered serpent was furthermore connected to the planet Venus because of this planet's importance as a sign of the beginning of the rainy season. To both Teotihuacan and Mayan cultures, Venus was in turn also symbolically connected with warfare.
While not usually feathered, classic Maya serpent iconography seems related to the belief in a sky-, Venus-, creator-, war- and fertility-related serpent deity. In the example from Yaxchilan, the Vision Serpent has the human face of the young maize god, further suggesting a connection to fertility and vegetational renewal; the Mayan Young Maize god was also connected to Venus.
In Xochicalco, depictions of the feathered serpent are accompanied by the image of a seated, armed ruler and the hieroglyph for the day sign 9 Wind. The date 9 Wind is known to be associated with fertility, Venus and war among the Maya and frequently occurs in relation to Quetzalcoatl in other Mesoamerican cultures.
On the basis of the iconography of the feathered serpent deity at sites such as Teotihuacan, Xochicalco, Chichén Itzá, Tula and Tenochtitlan combined with certain ethnohistorical sources, historian David Carrasco has argued that the preeminent function of the feathered serpent deity throughout Mesoamerican history was as the patron deity of the Urban center, a god of culture and civilization.
In Aztec culture.
Quetzalcoatl as depicted in the Codex Borbonicus.
To the Aztecs, Quetzalcoatl was, as his name indicates, a feathered serpent, a flying reptile (much like a dragon), who was a boundary-maker (and transgressor) between earth and sky. He was a creator deity having contributed essentially to the creation of Mankind. He also had anthropomorphic forms, for example in his aspects as Ehecatl the wind god. Among the Aztecs, the name Quetzalcoatl was also a priestly title, as the two most important priests of the Aztec Templo Mayor were called "Quetzalcoatl Tlamacazqui". In the Aztec ritual calendar, different deities were associated with the cycle-of-year names: Quetzalcoatl was tied to the year Ce Acatl (One Reed), which correlates to the year 1519.
Myths/Attributes.
Quetzalcoatl as depicted in the Codex Magliabechiano.
The exact significance and attributes of Quetzalcoatl varied somewhat between civilizations and through history. There are several stories about the birth of Quetzalcoatl. In a version of the myth, Quetzalcoatl was born by a virgin named Chimalman, to whom the god Onteol appeared in a dream. In another story, the virgin Chimalman conceived Quetzalcoatl swallowing an emerald. A third story narrates that Chimalman was hit in the womb by an arrow shot by Mixcoatl and nine months later she gave birth to a child which was called Quetzalcoatl. A fourth story narrates that Quetzalcoatl was born from Coatlicue, who already had four hundred children who formed the stars of the Milky Way.
According to another version of the myth, Quetzalcoatl is one of the four sons of Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, the four Tezcatlipocas, each of whom presides over one of the four cardinal directions. Over the West presides the White Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, the god of light, justice, mercy and wind. Over the South presides the Blue Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilopochtli, the god of war. Over the East presides the Red Tezcatlipoca, Xipe Totec, the god of gold, farming and Spring time. And over the North presides the Black Tezcatlipoca, known by no other name than Tezcatlipoca, the god of judgment, night, deceit, sorcery and the Earth. Quetzalcoatl was often considered the god of the morning star, and his twin brother Xolotl was the evening star (Venus). As the morning star, he was known by the title Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, meaning "lord of the star of the dawn." He was known as the inventor of books and the calendar, the giver of maize (corn) to mankind, and sometimes as a symbol of death and resurrection. Quetzalcoatl was also the patron of the priests and the title of the twin Aztec high priests. Some legends describe him as opposed to human sacrifice while others describe him practicing it.
Most Mesoamerican beliefs included cycles of suns. Usually our current time was considered the fifth sun,[citation needed] the previous four having been destroyed by flood, fire and the like. Quetzalcoatl went to Mictlan, the underworld, and created fifth-world mankind from the bones of the previous races (with the help of Cihuacoatl), using his own blood, from a wound he inflicted on his earlobes, calves, tongue, and penis, to imbue the bones with new life.
It is also suggested that he was a son of Xochiquetzal and Mixcoatl.
One Aztec story claims that Quetzalcoatl was tricked by Tezcatlipoca into becoming drunk and sleeping with a celibate priestess (in some accounts, his sister Quetzalpetlatl) and then burned himself to death out of remorse. His heart became the morning star (see Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli).
Belief in Cortés as Quetzalcoatl.
Quetzalcoatl in human form, using the symbols of Ehecatl, from the Codex Borgia.
Since the sixteenth century, it has been widely held that the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II initially believed the landing of Hernán Cortés in 1519 to be Quetzalcoatl's return. This view has been questioned by ethno-historians who argue that the Quetzalcoatl-Cortés connection is not found in any document that was created independently of post-Conquest Spanish influence, and that there is little proof of a pre-Hispanic belief in Quetzalcoatl's return. Most documents expounding this theory are of entirely Spanish origin, such as Cortés's letters to Charles V of Spain, in which Cortés goes to great pains to present the naive gullibility of the Aztecs in general as a great aid in his conquest of Mexico.
Much of the idea of Cortés' being seen as a deity can be traced back to the Florentine Codex written down some 50 years after the conquest. In the Codex's description of the first meeting between Moctezuma and Cortés, the Aztec ruler is described as giving a prepared speech in classical oratorial Nahuatl, a speech which, as described in the codex written by the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún and his Tlatelolcan informants, included such prostrate declarations of divine or near-divine admiration as:
You have graciously come on earth, you have graciously approached your water, your high place of Mexico, you have come down to your mat, your throne, which I have briefly kept for you, I who used to keep it for you.
and:
You have graciously arrived, you have known pain, you have known weariness, now come on earth, take your rest, enter into your palace, rest your limbs; may our lords come on earth.
Subtleties in, and an imperfect scholarly understanding of, high Nahuatl rhetorical style make the exact intent of these comments tricky to ascertain, but Restall argues that Moctezuma's politely offering his throne to Cortés (if indeed he did ever give the speech as reported) may well have been meant as the exact opposite of what it was taken to mean: politeness in Aztec culture was a way to assert dominance and show superiority. This speech, which has been widely referred to, has been a factor in the widespread belief that Moctezuma was addressing Cortés as the returning god Quetzalcoatl.
Other parties have also promulgated the idea that the Mesoamericans believed the conquistadors, and in particular Cortés, to be awaited gods: most notably the historians of the Franciscan order such as Fray Gerónimo de Mendieta. Some Franciscans at this time held millennarian beliefs and some of them believed that Cortés' coming to the New World ushered in the final era of evangelization before the coming of the millennium. Franciscans such as Toribio de Benavente "Motolinia" saw elements of Christianity in the precolumbian religions and therefore believed that Mesoamerica had been evangelized before, possibly by St. Thomas whom legend had it had "gone to preach beyond the Ganges". Franciscans then equated the original Quetzalcoatl with St. Thomas and imagined that the Indians had long awaited his return to take part once again in God's kingdom. Historian Matthew Restall concludes that:
The legend of the returning lords, originated during the Spanish-Mexica war in Cortés' reworking of Moctezuma's welcome speech, had by the 1550's merged with the Cortés-as-Quetzalcoatl legend that the Franciscans had started spreading in the 1530s. (Restall 2001:114 )
Some scholarship still maintains the view that the Aztec Empire's fall may be attributed in part to the belief in Cortés as the returning Quetzalcoatl, notably in works by David Carrasco (1982) and H. B. Nicholson (2001 (1957)). However, a majority of modern Mesoamericanist scholars such as Matthew Restall (2003), James Lockhart (1994), Susan D. Gillespie (1989), Camilla Townsend (2003a, 2003b), Louise Burkhart, Michel Graulich and Michael E. Smith (2001) among others, consider the "Quetzalcoatl/Cortés myth" as one of many myths about the Spanish conquest which have risen in the early post-conquest period.
Quetzalcoatl as depicted in the post-Conquest Tovar Codex.
While there is no question that the legend of Quetzalcoatl played a significant role in colonial period accounts of the conquest, a 2012 exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Dallas Museum of Art and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, "The Children of the Plumed Serpent: the Legacy of Quetzalcoatl in Ancient Mexico" conceived by John Pohl and curated with Virginia Fields and Victoria Lyall demonstrated the existence of a powerful confederacy of Eastern Nahuas, Mixtecs and Zapotecs, along with the peoples they dominated throughout southern Mexico between 1200-1600 (Pohl, Fields, and Lyall 2012, Harvey 2012, Pohl 2003). They maintained a major pilgrimage and commercial center at Cholula, Puebla which the Spaniards compared to both Rome and Mecca because the cult of the god united its constituents through a field of common social, political, and religious values without dominating them militarily. This confederacy engaged in almost seventy-five years of nearly continuous conflict with the Aztec Empire of the Triple Alliance until the arrival of Cortés at which time a number of factions throughout Tlaxcala,Puebla, and Oaxaca provided the Spaniards with the army that first re-claimed the city of Cholula from its pro-Aztec ruling faction, and ultimately defeated the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City). The Tlaxcalteca along with other city-states across the Plain of Puebla then supplied the auxiliary and logistical support for the conquests of Guatemala and West Mexico while Mixtec and Zapotec caciques (Colonial indigenous rulers) gained monopolies in the overland transport of Manila galleon trade through Mexico, and formed highly lucrative relationships with the Dominican order in the new Spanish imperial world economic system that explains so much of the enduring legacy of indigenous life-ways that characterize southern Mexico and explain the popularity of the Quetzalcoatl legends that continued through the colonial period to the present day.
Modern-day interpretations.
Quetzalcoatl Mural in Acapulco by Diego Rivera.
Mormonism.
See also: Archaeology and the Book of Mormon, Proposed Book of Mormon geographical setting and Mormon folklore.
Some Mormons believe that Quetzalcoatl was actually Jesus Christ. According to the Book of Mormon, Jesus visited the American continent after his resurrection. Quetzalcoatl is not a religious symbol in the Mormon faith, and is not taught as such, nor is it in their doctrine. LDS Church President John Taylor wrote:
The story of the life of the Mexican divinity, Quetzalcoatl, closely resembles that of the Savior; so closely, indeed, that we can come to no other conclusion than that Quetzalcoatl and Christ are the same being. But the history of the former has been handed down to us through an impure Lamanitish source, which has sadly disfigured and perverted the original incidents and teachings of the Savior's life and ministry." (Mediation and Atonement, p. 194.)
Latter-day Saint scholar Brant Gardner, after investigating the link between Quetzalcoatl and Jesus, concluded that the association amounts to nothing more than folklore. In a 1986 paper for Sunstone, he noted that during the Spanish Conquest, the Native Americans and the Catholic priests who sympathized with them felt pressure to link Native American beliefs with Christianity, thus making the Native Americans seem more human and less savage. Over time, Quetzalcoatl's appearance, clothing, malevolent nature, and status among the gods were reshaped to fit a more Christian framework.
New Age.
Various theories about Quetzalcoatl are popular in the New Age movement, especially since the publication of Tony Shearer's 1971 book Lord of the dawn: Quetzalcoatl and the Tree of Life republished also under the title Lord of the dawn: Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent of Mexico.
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260.Plane.
In esoteric cosmology, a plane other than the physical plane is conceived as a subtle state of consciousness that transcends the known physical universe.
The concept may be found in religious and esoteric teachings?e.g. Vedanta (Advaita Vedanta), Ayyavazhi, shamanism, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Kashmir Shaivism, Sant Mat/Surat Shabd Yoga, Sufism, Druze, Kabbalah, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Rosicrucianism (Esoteric Christian), Eckankar, Ascended Master Teachings, etc.?which propound the idea of a whole series of subtle planes or worlds or dimensions which, from a center, interpenetrate themselves and the physical planet in which we live, the solar systems, and all the physical structures of the universe. This interpenetration of planes culminates in the universe itself as a physical structured, dynamic and evolutive expression emanated through a series of steadily denser stages, becoming progressively more material and embodied.
The emanation is conceived, according to esoteric teachings, to have been originated, at the dawn of the universe's manifestation, in The Supreme Being Who sent out?from the unmanifested Absolute beyond comprehension?the dynamic force of creative energy, as sound-vibration ("the Word"), into the abyss of space. Alternatively, it states that this dynamic force is being sent forth, through the ages, framing all things that constitute and inhabit the universe.
Origins of the concept.
The concept of planes of existence might be seen as deriving from shamanic and traditional mythological ideas of a vertical world-axis ? for example a cosmic mountain, tree, or pole (such as Yggdrasil or Mount Meru) ? or a philosophical conception of a Great Chain of Being, arranged metaphorically from God down to inanimate matter.
However the original source of the word "plane" in this context is the late Neoplatonist Proclus, who refers to to platos, "breadth", which was the equivalent of the 19th century theosophical use. An example is the phrase en to psychiko platei.
Conceptions in ancient traditions.
Directly equivalent concepts in Indian thought are lokas and bhuvanas. In Hindu cosmology, there are many lokas or worlds, that are identified with both traditional cosmology and states of meditation.
Planes of existence may have been referred to by the use of the term corresponding to the word "egg" in English. For example, the Sanskrit term Brahmanda translates to "The Egg of Creation". Certain Puranic accounts posit that the Brahmanda is the superset of a set of fractal smaller Eggs, as is seen in the assertion of the equivalence of the Brahmanda and the Pinda.
The ancient Norse mythology gave the name "Ginnungagap" to the primordial "Chaos," which was bounded upon the northern side by the cold and foggy "Niflheim"?the land of mist and fog?and upon the south side by the fire "Muspelheim." When heat and cold entered into space which was occupied by Chaos or Ginnungagap, they caused the crystallization of the visible universe.
In the medieval West and Middle East, one finds reference to four worlds (olam) in Kabbalah, or five in Sufism (where they are also called tanazzulat; "descents"), and also in Lurianic Kabbalah. In Kabbalah, each of the four or five worlds are themselves divided into ten sefirot, or else divided in other ways.
Esoteric conceptions.
The alchemists of the Middle Ages proposed ideas about the constitution of the universe through a hermetic language full of esoteric words, phrases, and signs designed to cloak their meaning from those not initiated into the ways of alchemy. In his "Physica" (1633), the Rosicrucian alchemist Jan Baptist van Helmont, wrote: "Ad huc spiritum incognitum Gas voco" q.e., "This hitherto unknown Spirit I call Gas." Further on in the same work he says, "This vapor which I have called Gas is not far removed from the Chaos the ancients spoke of." Later on, similar ideas would evolve around the idea of aether.
In the late 19th century, the metaphysical term "planes" was popularised by the theosophy of H.P. Blavatsky, who in The Secret Doctrine and other writings propounded a complex cosmology consisting of seven planes and subplanes, based on a synthesis of Eastern and Western ideas. From theosophy the term made its way to later esoteric systems such as that of Alice Bailey, who was very influential in shaping the worldview of the New Age movement. The term is also found in some Eastern teachings that have some Western influence, such as the cosmology of Sri Aurobindo and some of the later Sant Mat, and also in some descriptions of Buddhist cosmology. The teachings of Surat Shabd Yoga also include several planes of the creation within both the macrocosm and microcosm, including the Bramanda egg contained within the Sach Khand egg. Max Theon used the word "States" (French Etat) rather than "Planes", in his cosmic philosophy, but the meaning is the same.
The planes in Theosophy were further systematized in the writings of C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant.
In the early 20th century, Max Heindel presented in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception a cosmology related to the scheme of evolution in general and the evolution of the solar system and the Earth in particular, according to the Rosicrucians. He establishes, through the conceptions presented, a bridge between modern science (currently starting research into the subtler plane of existence behind the physical, the etheric one) and religion, in order that this last one may be able to address man's inner questions raised by scientific advancement.
The spiritual teacher Meher Baba proposed that there are six planes of consciousness that must be experienced before one can attain God-realization on the seventh plane: "Each definite stage of advancement represents a state of consciousness, and advancement from one state of consciousness to another proceeds side by side with crossing the inner planes. Thus six intermediate planes and states of consciousness have to be experienced before reaching the seventh plane which is the end of the journey and where there is final realisation of the God-state."
Emanation vs. Big Bang.
Further information: Emanationism
Most cosmologists today believe that the universe exploded into being some 13.8 billion years ago in a 'smeared-out singularity' called the Big Bang, meaning that space itself came into being at the moment of the big bang and has expanded ever since, creating and carrying the galaxies with it.
However, in esoteric cosmology expansion refers to the emanation or unfolding of steadily denser planes or spheres from the spiritual summit, what Greek philosophy called The One, until the lowest and most material world is reached.
According to Rosicrucians, another difference is that there is no such thing as empty or void space.
"The space is Spirit in its attenuated form; while matter is crystallized space or Spirit. Spirit in manifestation is dual, that which we see as Form is the negative manifestation of Spirit--crystallized and inert. The positive pole of Spirit manifests as Life, galvanizing the negative Form into action, but both Life and Form originated in Spirit, Space, Chaos! On the other hand, Chaos is not a state which has existed in the past and has now entirely disappeared. It is all around us at the present moment. Were it not that old forms--having outlived their usefulness--are constantly being resolved back into that Chaos, which is also as constantly giving birth to new forms, there could be no progress; the work of evolution would cease and stagnation would prevent the possibility of advancement."
The Planes.
In occult teachings and as held by psychics and other esoteric authors there are seven planes of existence.
Most occult and esoteric teachings are in agreement that seven planes of existence exist; however, many different occult and metaphysical schools label the planes of existence with different terminology.
Physical plane.
The physical plane or physical universe, in emanationist metaphysics taught in Neoplatonism, Hermeticism, Hinduism, and Theosophy, refers to the visible reality of space and time, energy and matter: the physical universe in Occultism and esoteric cosmology is the lowest or densest of a series of planes of existence.
According to Theosophists, after the physical plane is the etheric plane and both of these planes are connected to make up the first plane. Theosophy also teaches that when the physical body dies the etheric body is left behind and the soul forms into an astral body on the astral plane.
The psychical researcher F. W. H. Myers proposed the existence of a ?metetherial world?, which he wrote to be a world of images lying beyond the physical world. He wrote that apparitions have a real existence in the metetherial world which he described as a dream-like world.
Astral plane.
The astral spheres were thought to be planes of angelic existence intermediate between earth and heaven
The astral plane, also known as the emotional plane is where consciousness goes after physical death. According to occult philosophy man possesses an astral body. The astral plane (also known as the astral world) was postulated by classical (particularly neo-Platonic), medieval, oriental, and esoteric philosophies and mystery religions. It is the world of the planetary spheres, crossed by the soul in its astral body on the way to being born and after death, and generally said to be populated by angels, spirits, or other immaterial beings. In the late 19th and early 20th century the term was popularised by Theosophy and neo-Rosicrucianism.
Throughout the renaissance, philosophers, Paracelsians, Rosicrucians, and alchemists continued to discuss the nature of the astral world intermediate between earth and the divine. The Barzakh, olam mithal or intermediate world in Islam and the "World of Yetzirah" in Lurianic Qabala are related concepts.
According to occult teachings the astral plane can be visited consciously through astral projection, meditation, and mantra, near death experience, lucid dreaming, or other means. Individuals that are trained in the use of the astral vehicle can separate their consciousness in the astral vehicle from the physical body at will.
The Theosophist author Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa wrote that [sic] "When a person dies, they [sic] become fully conscious in the astral body. After a certain time, the astral body disintegrates, and the person then becomes conscious on the mental plane."
Occultist George Arundale wrote:
In the astral world exist temporarily all those physical entities, men and animals, for whom sleep involves a separation of the physical body for a time from the higher bodies. While we "sleep", we live in our astral bodies, either fully conscious and active, or partly conscious and semi-dormant, as the case may be, according to our evolutionary growth; when we "wake", the physical and the higher bodies are interlocked again, and we cease to be inhabitants of the astral world.?
Some writers have claimed the astral plane can be reached by dreaming. Sylvan Muldoon and psychical researcher Hereward Carrington in their book The Projection of the Astral Body (1929) wrote:
"When you are dreaming you are not really in the same world as when you are conscious ? in the physical ? although the two worlds merge into one another. While dreaming, you really are in the astral plane, and usually your astral body is in the zone of quietude."
Astral projection author Robert Bruce describes the astral as seven planes that take the form of planar surfaces when approached from a distance, separated by immense coloured "buffer zones". These planes are endlessly repeating ruled Cartesian coordinate system grids, tiled with a single signature pattern that is different for each plane. Higher planes have bright, colourful patterns, whereas lower planes appear far duller. Every detail of these patterns acts as a consistent portal to a different kingdom inside the plane, which itself comprises many separate realms. Bruce notes that the astral may also be entered by means of long tubes that bear visual similarity to these planes, and conjectures that the grids and tubes are in fact the same structures approached from a different perceptual angle.
In his book Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramhansa Yogananda provides details about the astral planes learned from his resurrected guru. Yogananda reveals that nearly all individuals enter the astral planes after death. There they work out the seeds of past karma through astral incarnations, or (if their karma requires) they return to earthly incarnations for further refinement. Once an individual has attained the meditative state of nirvikalpa samadhi in an earthy or astral incarnation, the soul may progress upward to the "illumined astral planet" of Hiranyaloka. After this transitionary stage, the soul may then move upward to the more subtle causal spheres where many incarnations allow them to further refine until final unification.
Mental plane.
The mental plane, also known as the causal plane is the third lowest plane according to Theosophy. The mental plane is divided into seven sub-planes.
Charles Leadbeater wrote:
In the mental world one formulates a thought and it is instantly transmitted to the mind of another without any expression in the form of words. Therefore on that plane language does not matter in the least; but helpers working in the astral world, who have not yet the power to use the mental vehicle.
Annie Besant wrote that "The mental plane, as its name implies, is that which belongs to consciousness working as thought; not of the mind as it works through the brain, but as it works through its own world, unencumbered with physical spirit-matter.
A detailed description of the mental plane, along with the mental body, is provided by Arthur E. Powell, who has compiled information in the works of Besant and Leadbeater in a series of books on each of the subtle bodies.
According to Hindu occultism the mental plane consists of two divisions, the lower division is known as heaven (swarglok) and the upper division is known as the causal plane (maharlok).
Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami wrote:
"The causal plane is the world of light and blessedness, the highest of heavenly regions, extolled in the scriptures of all faiths. It is the foundation of existence, the source of visions, the point of conception, the apex of creation. The causal plane is the abode of Lord Siva and His entourage of Mahadevas and other highly evolved souls who exist in their own self-effulgent form--radiant bodies of centillions of quantum light particles."
Sri Aurobindo developed a very different concept of the mental plane, through his own synthesis of Vedanta (including the Taittiriya Upanishad), Tantra, Theosophy, and Max Théon ideas (which he received via The Mother, who was Theon's student in occultism for two years). In this cosmology, there are seven cosmic planes, three lower, corresponding to relative existence (the Physical, Vital, and Mental), and four higher, representing infinite divine reality (Life Divine bk.1 ch.27) The Aurobindonian Mind or Mental Plane constitutes a large zone of being from the mental vital to the overmental divine region (Letters on Yoga, Jyoti and Prem Sobel 1984), but as with the later Theosophical concept it constitutes an objective reality of sheer mind or thought.
Buddhic plane (also known as Unity Plane).
The buddhic plane is described as a realm of pure consciousness. According to Theosophy the buddhic plane exists to develop buddhic consciousness which means to become unselfish and solve any problems with the ego. Charles Leadbeater wrote that in the buddhic plane man casts off the delusion of the self and enters a realization of unity.
Annie Besant defined the buddhic plane as Persistent, conscious, spiritual awareness. This is the full consciousness of the buddhic or intuitional level. This is the perceptive consciousness which is the outstanding characteristic of the Hierarchy. The life focus of the man shifts to the buddhic plane. This is the fourth or middle state of consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo calls the level above the mental plane the supermind.
Spiritual plane.
George Winslow Plummer wrote that the spiritual plane is split into many sub-planes and that on these planes live spiritual beings who are more advanced in development and status than ordinary man. According to metaphysical teachings the goal of the spiritual plane is to gain spiritual knowledge and experience.
Divine plane.
According to some occult teachings, all souls are born on the divine plane and then descend down through the lower planes; however souls will work their way back to the divine plane. On the divine plane souls can be opened to conscious communication with the sphere of the divine known as the Absolute and receive knowledge about the nature of reality.
Rosicrucianism teaches that the divine plane is where Jesus dwelt in Christ consciousness.
Logoic plane (also known as Monadic Plane).
The logoic plane is the highest plane, it has been described as a plane of total oneness, the "I AM Presence". Joshua David Stone describes the plane as complete unity with God.
The monadic plane (hyperplane) or continuum/universe, enclosing and interpenetrating grosser hyperplanes, respectively is the plane in which the monad or holy spirit or oversoul is said to exist.
31 planes.
Main article: Buddhist cosmology
In Buddhism, the world is made up of 31 planes of existence that one can be reborn into, separated into 3 realms.
The Summerland.
Main article: The Summerland
The Summerland is the name given by Theosophists, Spiritualists, Wiccans, and some earth-based contemporary pagan religions to their conceptualization of existence on a plane in an afterlife.
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688?1772) inspired Andrew Jackson Davis (1826?1910), in his major work The Great Harmonia to say that Summerland is the pinnacle of spiritual achievement in the afterlife; that is, it is the highest level, or sphere, of the afterlife we can hope to enter. The common portrayal of the Summerland is as a place of rest for souls after or between their earthly incarnations. Some believe spirits will stay in the Summerland for an eternal afterlife, though others believe after an amount of time some spirits will reincarnate. The Summerland is also envisioned as a place for recollection and reunion with deceased loved ones.
As the name suggests, it is often imagined as a place of beauty and peace, where everything people hold close to their hearts is preserved in its fullest beauty for eternity. It is envisioned as containing wide (possibly eternal) fields of rolling green hills and lush grass. In many ways, this ideology is similar to the Welsh view of Annwn as an afterlife realm. The Summerland is also viewed as the place where one goes in the afterlife in traditions of Spiritualism and Theosophy, which is where Wicca got the term.
In Theosophy, the term "Summerland" is used without the definite article "the". Summerland, also called the Astral plane Heaven, is depicted as where souls who have been good in their previous lives go between incarnations. Those who have been bad go to Hell, which is believed to be located below the surface of the Earth and is on the astral plane and is composed of the densest astral matter; the Spiritual Hierarchy functioning within Earth functions on the etheric plane below the surface of the Earth.
It is believed by Theosophists that most people (those at high levels of initiation) go to a specific Summerland that is set up for people of each religion. For example, Christians go to a Christian heaven, Jews go to a Jewish heaven, Muslims go to a Muslim heaven, Hindus goes to a Hindu heaven, Theosophists go to a Theosophical heaven, and so forth, each heaven being like that described in the scriptures of that religion. There is also a generic Summerland for those who were atheists or agnostics in their previous lives. People who belong to religions that don't believe in reincarnation are surprised to find out when they get to heaven that they will have to reincarnate again within a few dozen to a few hundred years. Each heaven is believed to be an extensive structure composed of astral matter located on the astral plane about three or four miles (5?6 km) above the surface of Earth, above that part of the world where the particular religion that the heaven is meant for is most predominant.
Theosophists also believe there is another higher level of heaven called Devachan, also called the Mental plane Heaven, which some but not all souls reach between incarnations?only those souls that are more highly developed spiritually reach this level, those souls that are at the first, second, and third levels of initiation. Devachan is several miles (around 10 km) higher above the surface of Earth than Summerland.
The final permanent eternal afterlife heaven to which Theosophists believe most people will go millions or billions of years in the future, after our cycle of reincarnations in this Round is over. In order to go to Nirvana, it is necessary to have attained the fourth level of initiation or higher, meaning one is an arhat and thus no longer needs to reincarnate.
Alleged inhabitants of the various planes.
Occult writers such as Geoffrey Hodson, Mellie Uyldert, and Dora van Gelder had attempted to classify different spiritual beings into a hierarchy based on their assumed place and function on the planes of existence.
Charles Webster Leadbeater fundamentally described and incorporated his comprehension of intangible beings for Theosophy. Along with him there are various planes intertwined with the quotidian human world and are all inhabited by multitudes of entities. Each plane is purported as composed of discrete density of astral or ethereal matter and frequently the denizens of a plane have no discernment of other ones. Other Theosophical writers such as Alice Bailey, a contemporary of Leadbeater, also gave continuousness to Theosophical concepts of ethereal beings and her works had a great impact over New Age movement. She puts the nature spirits and devas as ethereal beings immersed in macro divisions of an interwoven threefold universe, usually they belong to the etheric, astral, or mental planes. The ethereal entities of the four kingdoms, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, are forces of nature.
The Dutch writer Mellie Uyldert, self-proclaimed clairvoyant, characterized the semblance and behavior of ethereal entities on the etheric plane, which, she said, hover above plants and transfer energy for vitalizing the plant, then nourishing themselves on rays of sunlight. She depicted them as asexual gender, and composed of etheric matter. They fly three meters over the ground, some have wings like butterflies while others only have a small face and an aura waving graciously. Some are huge while others may have the size of one inch.
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A99.Inglish BCEnc. Blauwe Kaas Encyclopedie, Duaal Hermeneuties Kollegium.
A99.Inglish BCEnc. Blauwe Kaas Encyclopedie, Duaal Hermeneuties Kollegium.
Inglish Site.99.
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TO THE THRISE HO-
NOVRABLE AND EVER LY-
VING VERTVES OF SYR PHILLIP
SYDNEY KNIGHT, SYR JAMES JESUS SINGLETON, SYR CANARIS, SYR LAVRENTI BERIA ; AND TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE AND OTHERS WHAT-
SOEVER, WHO LIVING LOVED THEM,
AND BEING DEAD GIVE THEM
THEIRE DVE.
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In the beginning there is darkness. The screen erupts in blue, then a cascade of thick, white hexadecimal numbers and cracked language, ?UnusedStk? and ?AllocMem.? Black screen cedes to blue to white and a pair of scales appear, crossed by a sword, both images drawn in the jagged, bitmapped graphics of Windows 1.0-era clip-art?light grey and yellow on a background of light cyan. Blue text proclaims, ?God on tap!?
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Introduction.
Yes i am getting a little Mobi-Literate(ML) by experimenting literary on my Mobile Phone. Peoplecall it Typographical Laziness(TL).
The first accidental entries for the this part of this encyclopedia.
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This is TempleOS V2.17, the welcome screen explains, a ?Public Domain Operating System? produced by Trivial Solutions of Las Vegas, Nevada. It greets the user with a riot of 16-color, scrolling, blinking text; depending on your frame of reference, it might recall ?DESQview, the ?Commodore 64, or a host of early DOS-based graphical user interfaces. In style if not in specifics, it evokes a particular era, a time when the then-new concept of ?personal computing? necessarily meant programming and tinkering and breaking things.
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Index.
256.The Jacobite Risings.
257.Psychopomps (from the Greek word ?????????? - psuchopompos, literally meaning the "guide of souls").
255.Zurvanism.
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256.The Jacobite Risings.
The Jacobite risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in Great Britain and Ireland occurring between 1688 and 1746. The uprisings had the aim of returning James VII of Scotland and II of England, and later his descendants of the House of Stuart, to the throne of Great Britain after they had been deposed by Parliament during the Glorious Revolution. The series of conflicts takes its name from Jacobitism, from Jacobus, the Latin form of James.
The major Jacobite risings were called the Jacobite rebellions by the ruling governments. The "first Jacobite rebellion" and "second Jacobite rebellion" were known respectively as "the Fifteen" and "the Forty-five", after the years in which they occurred (1715 and 1745).
Although each Jacobite rising had unique features, they were part of a larger series of military campaigns by Jacobites attempting to restore the Stuart kings to the thrones of Scotland and England (and after 1707, Great Britain). James was deposed in 1688 and the thrones were claimed by his daughter Mary II jointly with her husband, the Dutch-born William of Orange (who was also James II's nephew).
After the House of Hanover succeeded to the British throne in 1714, the risings continued, and intensified. They continued until the last Jacobite rebellion ("the Forty-five"), led by Charles Edward Stuart (the Young Pretender), who was soundly defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. This ended any realistic hope of a Stuart restoration.
Glorious Revolution.
During the 17th century, the kingdoms in Great Britain and Ireland suffered political and religious turmoil in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The Commonwealth ended with the Restoration of Charles II, re-establishment of the Church of England and imposition of Episcopalian church government.
In 1685 Charles II was succeeded by his Roman Catholic brother, James II and VII. James was not naturally sympathetic to Covenanters. He understandably saw them as troublemakers and initially tried to end their influence in Scotland. The new king also tried to impose religious tolerance of Roman Catholics and to a lesser extent Protestant Dissenters, but antagonized many of the Anglican establishment by this action as they were suspicious of Catholic power. James' half-hearted attempts to woo the Presbyterians seemingly did not win him much popularity among that section of society either. They remembered his earlier suppression of them and did not believe him to be sincere in his recognition of Presbyterianism. Although these actions were widely unpopular, at first the majority of his subjects tolerated these acts because James was in his 50s and both of his daughters were committed Protestants. It seemed that James' reign would be short and the throne would soon return to Protestant hands. In 1688 however James's young second wife Mary of Modena gave birth to a boy, Prince James who was promptly baptized a Roman Catholic. Due to English and Scottish succession laws, Prince James immediately supplanted his older half sisters as heir to the throne. Now the prospect of a Catholic dynasty on the English, Scottish and Irish thrones seemed all but certain.
The "Immortal Seven" invited James's daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange to depose James and jointly rule in his place. On 4 November 1688 William arrived at Torbay, England. After he landed, James fled London, returned and finally left for France on 23 December. In February 1689 the Glorious Revolution formally changed England's monarch, but many Catholics, Episcopalians and Tory royalists still supported James as the constitutionally legitimate monarch.
Scotland was slow to accept William, who summoned a Convention of the Estates which met on 14 March 1689 in Edinburgh. It reviewed a conciliatory letter from William and a haughty one from James. On James's side, a modest force of a troop of fifty horsemen gathered by John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee was in town. Graham attended the convention at the start but withdrew four days later when its support for William became evident. The convention set out its terms, and William and Mary were proclaimed at Edinburgh on 11 April 1689, then had their coronation in London in May. Crucially perhaps, William and Mary definitively accepted the Church of Scotland as a Presbyterian institution after decades of intermittent efforts by various monarchs, including James VI, Charles I, Charles II and James VII to mould the Church of Scotland into an Episcopalian institution more pliable to Royal control and possibly more acceptable to those monarchs who happened to be Catholic. Therefore, the already doubtfull potential popularity of Jacobitism among those of the Presbyterian persuasion in Scotland was quite possibly lessened by this act, but on the other hand, for those Scots of an Episcopalian or Catholic persuasion the appeal of Jacobitism could only have been enhanced by this acknowledgement of Presbyterianism in Scotland by William and Mary.
The rising of 1689?92.
On 16 April 1689 John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, raised James' standard on the Dundee Law. Presbyterian historians later labelled him "Bluidy Clavers" for his presence as an officer in the service of government forces loyal to the King at several altercations between government forces and Covenanters during the reign of the Catholic James VII who was later deposed. One example is the Battle of Drumclog, while another is the Battle of Bothwell Brig. In letters written by the Viscount Dundee's own hand he was however an advocate of lenient treatment of the Covenanters. James VII also happens to be the origin of the epithet "Jacobite". After James was exiled his followers were named after the Latin for James, "Jacobus", and the name Jacobite was later used for those who sought to restore his dynasty even after his death, citing his descendants as the rightful monarchs. Thus, the appropriateness of the title "Bluidy Clavers" being used to describe John Graham of Claverhouse aside, the Jacobite hero has clearly not always been viewed in a positive light by those sympathetic to the Covenanters or Cameronians. With respect to the Viscount Dundee Sir Walter Scott coined the more romantic nickname "Bonnie Dundee". This was from a poem Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1830 which later became a well known song. James VII had already arrived in Ireland and a letter was on the way promising Irish troops to assist the rising in Scotland.
At first Viscount Dundee had difficulty in raising many supporters. The ineffectiveness of the Williamite commander Major-General Hugh Mackay of Scourie encouraged support. Three hundred Irish troops successfully landed at Kintyre to add to Dundee's forces. Dundee also received support in the western Scottish Highlands from both Roman Catholic and Church of Scotland clans. He also had some Lowland support, which is often overlooked by historians[citation needed]. This included several peers of the realm, including James Seton, 4th Earl of Dunfermline, who was a member of the privy council and who was Dundee's cavalry commander for most of the rising. Other Lowland peers and gentry who rode with Dundee included James Galloway, Lord Dunkeld; James Haliburton of Pitcur; Sir George Barclay; Lord William Murray (son of the Marquis of Atholl), Alexander Fraser, elder brother of Simon Fraser, later 11th Lord Lovat and Gilbert Ramsay, a prominent Edinburgh lawyer. Peers and members of noble families who joined the Jacobites after Dundee's death include Kenneth Mackenzie, 4th Earl of Seaforth; Thomas Fraser, 10th Lord Lovat; and Lord James Murray (another of Atholl's sons).
By July the Jacobites had eight battalions and two companies, almost all Highlanders. Dundee gained the confidence of the clans by cultivating the allegiance of each Highlander and respecting the precedence of the clans. He realised that to them, the cause of Jacobitism was secondary. At a time when infantry were trained to fight in formation, the Highlanders' method was more informal. They set aside their plaids and other encumbrances before the battle, and dropped to the ground to avoid enemy volleys. After quickly returning fire, they pursued their foes, screaming in the Highland charge. They used heavy broadswords and targe (shield), or whatever weapons they had, including pitchforks or Lochaber axes (a combined axe and spear on a long pole). Such a charge was devastating to troops struggling to reform their lines, or fix the recently introduced 'plug' bayonets.
The Highland charge routed a much larger Williamite force at the Battle of Killiecrankie on 27 July 1689. About two thousand Willamite troops were killed. Approximately six hundred Highlanders were killed, plus a number of Jacobite Lowlanders, including Dundee himself, Pitcur of Haliburton, and Gilbert Ramsay. At the street fighting of the Battle of Dunkeld on 21 August, the Jacobite Highlanders were decisively defeated by the Cameronians who were led by George Munro, 1st of Auchinbowie. Much of the North remained hostile to the Williamite government. Expeditions to subdue the highlands were met with a series of skirmishes.
Jacobite forces suffered a heavy defeat at the Haughs of Cromdale on 1 May 1690. Later that month Mackay constructed Fort William on the site of an old fort built by Cromwell. News in July of William's victory over James at the Battle of the Boyne caused Jacobite hopes to fall. On 17 August 1691 William offered all Highland clans a pardon for their part in the Jacobite uprising, provided that they took an oath of allegiance before 1 January 1692 in front of a magistrate. The Highland chiefs sent word to James, now in exile in France, asking for his permission to take this oath. James eventually authorised the chiefs to take the oath, but it was mid-December before his message arrived. Despite difficult winter conditions, a few took the oath in time. The brutality of the Massacre of Glencoe sped acceptance by the clans. By the spring of 1692 the Jacobite chiefs had all sworn allegiance to King William.
The Jacobite war in Ireland.
Main article: Williamite War in Ireland
The Williamite war in Ireland was the opening conflict in James's attempts to regain the throne. It influenced the Jacobite rising in Scotland which "Bonnie Dundee" started at about the same time. By its end in October 1691, the Irish Jacobite army left Ireland for France, becoming the Irish Brigade. This later provided forces assisting "the Forty-five" (second Jacobite rebellion of 1745) in Scotland.
The Old Pretender.
After the death of James II in 1701, the Jacobite claim to the thrones of Scotland and England was taken up by his only surviving legitimate son, James Francis Edward Stuart (1688?1766). His supporters proclaimed him James III of England and Ireland, and James VIII of Scotland. The French king Louis XIV and Pope Clement XI formally recognised the Catholic monarch as King James III & VIII. Later, James was called "the Old Pretender", to distinguish him from his son, Charles Edward Stuart (1720?1788), who became known as "the Young Pretender".
Planned invasion of 1708.
After a brief peace, the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701 renewed French support for the Jacobites. In 1708 James Stuart, the Old Pretender, sailed from Dunkirk with 6000 French troops in nearly 30 ships of the French navy. His intended landing in the Firth of Forth was thwarted by the Royal Navy, under Admiral Byng. Over the tearful protests of James himself, the French admiral chose not to risk a landing and opted to retreat instead of fight. The British pursued the French fleet round the north of Scotland, losing ships and most of their men in shipwrecks on the way back to Dunkirk.
The rising of 1715 ("The Fifteen").
Historic image depicting the Jacobite Uprising of 1715.
Following the arrival from Hanover of George I in 1714, Tory Jacobites in England conspired to organise armed rebellions against the new Hanoverian government. They were indecisive and frightened by government arrests of their leaders. In Scotland 1715 is sometimes misleadingly called the first Jacobite rebellion (or rising), which overlooks the fact that there had already been a major Jacobite rising in 1689 [see above].
The Treaty of Utrecht ended hostilities between France and Britain. From France, as part of widespread Jacobite plotting, James Stuart, the Old Pretender, had been corresponding with the Earl of Mar. In the summer of 1715 James called on Mar to raise the Clans. Mar, nicknamed Bobbin' John, rushed from London to Braemar. He summoned clan leaders to "a grand hunting-match" on 27 August 1715. On 6 September he proclaimed James as "their lawful sovereign" and raised the old Scottish standard. Mar's proclamation brought in an alliance of clans and northern Lowlanders, and they quickly overran many parts of the Highlands.
Mar's Jacobites captured Perth on 14 September without opposition. His army grew to around 8,000 men. A force of fewer than 2,000 men under the Duke of Argyll held the Stirling plain for the government and Mar indecisively kept his forces in Perth. He waited for the Earl of Seaforth to arrive with a body of northern clans. Seaforth was delayed by attacks from other clans loyal to the government. Planned risings in Wales, Devon and Cornwall were forestalled by the government arresting the local Jacobites.
See separate article on the Jacobite uprising in Cornwall of 1715
Starting around 6 October, a rising in the north of England grew to about 300 horsemen under Thomas Forster, a Northumberland squire and MP. This English contingent contained some prominent people, including two peers of the realm, James Ratcliffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, and Lord Widdrington, and a future peer, Charles Ratcliffe, later fifth Earl of Derwentwater. (Another future English peer, Edward Howard, later 9th Duke of Norfolk, joined the rising in Lancashire). They joined forces with a rising in the south of Scotland under Viscount Kenmure. Mar sent a Jacobite force under Brigadier William Mackintosh of Borlum to join them. They left Perth on 10 October and were ferried across the Firth of Forth from Burntisland to East Lothian. Here they were diverted into an attack on an undefended Edinburgh, but having seized Leith citadel they were chased away by the arrival of Argyll's forces. Mackintosh's force of about 2,000 then made their way south and met their allies at Kelso in the Scottish Borders on 22 October, and spent a few days arguing over their options. The Scots wanted to fight government forces in the vicinity or attack Dumfries and Glasgow, but the English were determined to march towards Liverpool and led them to expect 20,000 recruits in Lancashire.
The Highlanders resisted marching into England and there were some mutinies and defections, but they pressed on. Instead of the expected welcome the Jacobites were met by hostile militia armed with pitchforks and very few recruits. They were unopposed in Lancaster and found about 1,500 recruits as they reached Preston on 9 November, bringing their force to around 4,000. Then Hanoverian forces (including the Cameronians) arrived to besiege them at the Battle of Preston. The Jacobites actually won the first day of the battle, killing large numbers of Government forces. However, Government reinforcements arrived, and the Jacobites surrendered on 14 November.
In Scotland, at the Battle of Sheriffmuir on 13 November, Mar's forces were unable to defeat a smaller force led by the Duke of Argyll and Mar retreated to Perth while the government army built up. On 22 December 1715 a ship from France finally brought the Old Pretender to Peterhead in person. But an ailing James proved far too timid and melancholy to inspire his followers. He briefly set up court at Scone, Perthshire, visited his troops in Perth and ordered the burning of villages to hinder the advance of the Duke of Argyll through deep snow. The highlanders were cheered by the prospect of battle, but James's counsellors decided to abandon the endeavour and ordered a retreat to the coast, giving the pretext of seeking a stronger position. James boarded a ship at Montrose and escaped to France on 4 February 1716, leaving a message assigning his Highland adherents to shift for themselves.
Aftermath of "the Fifteen".
In the aftermath of the 'Fifteen', the Disarming Act and the Clan Act made some attempts to subdue the Scottish Highlands. Government garrisons were built or extended in the Great Glen at Fort William, Kiliwhimin (later renamed Fort Augustus) and Fort George, Inverness, as well as barracks at Ruthven, Bernera (Glenelg) and Inversnaid, linked to the south by the Wade roads constructed for Major-General George Wade.
On the whole, the government adopted a gentle approach and attempted to 'win hearts and minds' by allowing the bulk of the defeated rebels to slip away back to their homes and committing the first £20,000 of revenue from forfeited estates to the establishment of Presbyterian-run, Scots-speaking schools in the highlands (the latest in a series of measures intended to promote Scots at the expense of Scottish Gaelic).
The rising of 1719 ("The Nineteen").
Cardinal Giulio Alberoni.
With France at peace with Britain and enjoying a rapprochement due to the Anglo-French Alliance, the Jacobites found a new ally in Spain's Minister to the King, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni. An invasion force set sail in 1719 with two frigates to land in Scotland to raise the clans. Twenty-seven ships carried 5,000 soldiers to England, but the latter were dispersed by storms before they could land. When the two Spanish frigates successfully landed a party of Jacobites led by Lord Tullibardine and Earl Marischal with 300 Spanish soldiers at Loch Duich, they held Eilean Donan Castle but this was soon captured and destroyed by a Royal Naval reconnaissance force. They met only lukewarm support from a few clans. At the Battle of Glen Shiel, the Spanish soldiers were forced to surrender to government forces.
Further action by Wade.
In 1725 Wade raised the independent companies of the Black Watch as a militia to keep peace in the unruly Highlands, but in 1743 they were moved to fight the French in Flanders. Their commander at the Battle of Fontenoy in May 1745 was the Duke of Cumberland, soon to command at Culloden.
The Young Pretender.
Planned invasion of 1744.
Main article: Planned French invasion of Britain (1744)
In 1743 the War of the Austrian Succession drew Britain and France into open, though unofficial, hostilities against each other. Leading English Jacobites made a formal request to France for armed intervention and the French king's Master of Horse toured southern England meeting Tories and discussing their proposals. In November 1743 Louis XV of France authorised a large-scale invasion of southern England in February 1744 which was to be a surprise attack. Troops were to march from their winter quarters to hidden invasion barges which were to take them and Charles Edward Stuart, with the guidance of English Jacobite pilots to Maldon in Essex where they were to be joined by local Tories in an immediate march on London. Charles, (later known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or the Young Pretender) was in exile in Rome with his father (James Stuart, the Old Pretender), and rushed to France.
As late as 13 February the British were still unaware of these intentions, and while they then arrested many suspected Jacobites the French plans really went astray on 24 February when one of the worst storms of the century scattered the French fleets which were about to battle for control of the English Channel, sinking one ship and putting five out of action.
The barges had begun embarking some 10,000 troops and the storm wrecked the troop and equipment transports, sinking some with the loss of all hands. Charles was officially informed on 28 February that the invasion had been cancelled. The British lodged strong diplomatic objections to the presence of Charles, and France declared war but gave Charles no more support.
The rising of 1745 ("the Forty-five").
Such is the connection between 1745 and the rising in the Gaelic mindset, that the '45 is known as Bliadhna Theàrlaich (Charles' Year) in Scottish Gaelic.
Charles continued to believe that he could reclaim the kingdom and recalled that early in 1744 a few Scottish Highland clan chieftains had sent a message that they would rise if he arrived with as few as 3,000 French troops. Living at French expense, he continued to petition ministers for commitment to another invasion, to their increasing irritation. In secrecy he also developed a plan with a consortium of Nantes privateers, funded by exiled Scots bankers and pawning of his mother's jewelry. They fitted out a small frigate Du Teillay and a ship of the line the Elisabeth and set out from Nantes for Scotland in July 1745 on the pretence that this was a normal privateering cruise, leaving a personal letter from Charles to Louis XV of France announcing the departure and asking for help with the rising. The Elisabeth, carrying weapons, supplies and 700 volunteers from the Irish Brigade, encountered the British Navy ship HMS Lion and with both ships badly damaged in the ensuing battle the Elisabeth was forced back, but the Du Teillay successfully landed Charles with his seven men of Moidart on the island of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides on 2 August 1745.
The Scottish clans and their chieftains initially showed little enthusiasm about his arrival without troops or munitions (with Alexander MacDonald of Sleat and Norman MacLeod of MacLeod refusing even to meet with him), but Charles went on to Moidart and on 19 August 1745 raised the standard at Glenfinnan to lead the second Jacobite rising in his father's name. This attracted about 1,200 men, mostly of Clan MacDonald of Clan Ranald, Clan MacDonell of Glengarry, Clan MacDonald of Keppoch, and Clan Cameron. The Jacobite force marched south from Glenfinnan, increasing to almost 3,000 men, though two chieftains insisted on pledges of compensation before joining.
David Morier's painting Culloden shows the highlanders still wearing the plaids which they normally set aside before battle, where they would fire a volley then run full tilt at the enemy with broadsword and targe in the "Highland charge" wearing only their shirts.
Britain was still in the midst of the War of the Austrian Succession and most of the British army was in Flanders and Germany, leaving an inexperienced army of about 4,000 in Scotland under Sir John Cope. His force marched north into the Highlands but, believing the rebel force to be stronger than it really was, avoided an engagement with the Jacobites at the Pass of Corryairack and withdrew northwards to Inverness. The Jacobites captured Perth and at Coatbridge on the way to Edinburgh routed two regiments of the government's Dragoons. In Edinburgh there was panic with a melting away of the City Guard and Volunteers and when the city gate at the Netherbow Port was opened at night, to let a coach through, a party of Camerons rushed the sentries and seized control of the city. The next day King James VIII was proclaimed at the Mercat Cross and a triumphant Charles entered Holyrood palace.
Cope's army got supplies from Inverness then sailed from Aberdeen down to Dunbar to meet the Jacobite forces near Prestonpans to the east of Edinburgh. On 21 September 1745 at the Battle of Prestonpans a surprise attack planned by Lord George Murray routed the government forces, as celebrated in the Jacobite song Hey, Johnnie Cope, Are Ye Waking Yet?. Charles immediately wrote again to France pleading for a prompt invasion of England. There was alarm in England, and in London a patriotic song which included a prayer for Marshal Wade's success in crushing the rebels was performed, later to become the National Anthem.
The Jacobites held the city of Edinburgh, though not the castle. Charles held court at Holyrood palace for five weeks amidst great admiration and enthusiasm, but failed to raise a regiment locally. Many of the highlanders went home with booty from the battle and recruiting resumed, though Whig clans opposing the Jacobites were also getting organised. The French now sent some weapons and funds, and assurances that they would carry out their invasion of England by the end of the year. Charles's Council of war led by Murray was against leaving Scotland, but he told them that he had received English Tory assurances of a rising if he appeared in England in arms, and the Council agreed to march south by a margin of one vote.
Success at Prestonpans had not, as is often claimed, left the rebels in control of Scotland, for the great bulk of the population remained bitterly hostile to the absolutist Stuarts who, prior to their expulsion in a popular revolution, had presided over the notorious persecutions known as Scotland's 'Killing Times'. Many Scottish burghs offered burgess status to any man who would volunteer to fight against the Jacobites and, when the rebels passed near the town of Ecclefechan in Dumfriesshire, local loyalists mounted a raid on their baggage train.
The Jacobite army of under six thousand men had set out and an army under General George Wade assembled at Newcastle. Charles wanted to confront them, but on the advice of Lord George Murray and the Council they made for Carlisle and successfully bypassed Wade. At Manchester about 250 Episcopalians formed a regiment, and a number of other Englishmen had joined the Prince, mainly from rural Lancashire. One Englishman, John Daniel, from the upper echelons of the yeoman class, brought in 39 recruits by himself. A Scotsman who was in the Jacobite army and therefore an eyewitness, wrote home that 60 English recruits had joined in just one day at Preston. The myth that no Englishmen joined the Prince is just that, a myth. At the end of November French ships arrived in Scotland with 800 men from the Écossais Royeaux (Royal Scots) and Irish Regiments of the French army.
The Jacobite army, now reduced by desertions to under 5,000 men, was manoeuvred by Murray round to the east of a second government army under the Duke of Cumberland and marched on Derby.
They entered Derby on 4 December, only 125 miles (200 km) from London, with a resentful Charles by then barely on speaking terms with Murray. Charles was advised of progress on the French invasion fleet which was then assembling at Dunkirk, but at his Council of War he was forced to admit to his previous lies about assurances. While Charles was determined to press on in the deluded belief that their success was due to soldiers of the regulars never daring to fight against their true prince, his Council and Lord George Murray pointed out their position. The promised English support had not materialised, both Wade and Cumberland were approaching, London was heavily defended and there was a fictitious report from a government double agent of a third army closing on them.
March of the Guards to Finchley (1750), William Hogarth's satirical depiction of troops mustered to defend London from the 1745 Jacobite rebellion.
They insisted that their army should return to join the growing force in Scotland. This time only Charles voted to continue the advance, and he assented while throwing a tantrum and vowing never to consult the Council again. On 6 December, the Jacobites sullenly began their retreat, with a petulant Charles refusing to take any part in running the campaign which was fortunate given the excellent leadership of Murray, whose brilliant feints and careful planning extracted the army virtually intact. The French got news of the retreat and cancelled their invasion which was now ready, while English Tories who had just sent a message pledging support if Charles reached London went to ground again.
There was a rearguard action to the north of Penrith. The Manchester Regiment was left behind to defend Carlisle and after a siege by Cumberland had to surrender, to face hanging or transportation. Many died in Carlisle Castle, where they were imprisoned in brutal conditions along with Scots prisoners whom Morier allegedly painted to depict the kilted clansmen in battle. Many of the cells there still show hollows licked into the stone walls, as prisoners had only the damp and moss on these stones to sustain themselves.
The Young Pretender had his headquarters at the County Hotel during a 3-day sojourn in Dumfries towards the end of 1745. £2,000 was demanded by the Prince, together with 1,000 pairs of brogues for his kilted Jacobite rebel army, which was camping in a field not one hundred yards distant. A rumour, however, that the Duke of Cumberland was approaching, made Bonnie Prince Charlie decide to leave with his army, with only £1,000 and 255 pairs of shoes having been handed over.
By Christmas the Jacobites came to Glasgow and forced the city to re-provision their army, then on 3 January left to seize the town of Stirling and begin an ineffectual siege of Stirling Castle. Jacobite reinforcements joined them from the north and on 17 January about 8,000 of Charles's 9,000 men took the offensive to the approaching General Henry Hawley at the Battle of Falkirk and routed his forces.
Colours of Barrell's Regiment, carried at Culloden.
The Jacobite army then turned north, losing men and failing to take Stirling Castle or Fort William but taking Fort Augustus and Fort George in Inverness by early April. Charles now took charge again, insisting on fighting an orthodox defensive action, and on 16 April 1746 they were finally defeated near Inverness at the Battle of Culloden by government forces made up of English and Scottish troops and Campbell militia, under the command of the Duke of Cumberland. The seemingly suicidal Highland sword charge against cannon and muskets had succeeded when launched against unprepared or disordered troops in earlier battles but failed now that it was pitted against regulars who had time to form their ranks properly. Charles promptly abandoned his army, blaming everything on the treachery of his officers, even though after the defeat the stragglers and unengaged units rallied at the agreed rendezvous and only dispersed when ordered to leave.
Charles fled to France making a dramatic if humiliating escape disguised as a "lady's maid" to Flora MacDonald. Cumberland's forces crushed the uprising and effectively ended Jacobitism as a serious political force in Britain. The decline of Jacobitism left Charles making futile attempts to enlist assistance, and another abortive plot to raise support in England.
Planned invasion of 1759.
During the Seven Years' War, the French drew up a plan to invade the British Isles and met with Charles Stuart to discuss the possibility of his landing in either Ireland or Scotland to raise a rebellion. Charles refused, saying he would only cross the channel if it was to lead a rebellion in England. The French were not convinced that Charles could deliver on his promises of raising large support in Britain, and cut him out of the plan. Nonetheless, they hoped that Jacobites would support their forces once they landed. The planned invasion was eventually abandoned following British victory at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in November 1759 which dramatically weakened the French navy.
Many of the Highland clans which had previously taken up arms for the Jacobite cause were now fighting with British forces around the world, where they played an important part in the many British victories during the war.
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257.Psychopomps (from the Greek word ?????????? - psuchopompos, literally meaning the "guide of souls").
Psychopomps (from the Greek word ?????????? - psuchopompos, literally meaning the "guide of souls") are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply to provide safe passage. Frequently depicted on funerary art, psychopomps have been associated at different times and in different cultures with horses, whip-poor-wills, ravens, dogs, crows, owls, sparrows, cuckoos, and harts.
Classical examples of a psychopomp in Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology are Charon, Hermes, Mercury and Anubis.
In Jungian psychology, the psychopomp is a mediator between the unconscious and conscious realms. It is symbolically personified in dreams as a wise man or woman, or sometimes as a helpful animal. In many cultures, the shaman also fulfills the role of the psychopomp. This may include not only accompanying the soul of the dead, but also vice versa: to help at birth, to introduce the newborn child's soul to the world. (p36) This also accounts for the contemporary title of "midwife to the dying", or "End of Life Doula" which is another form of psychopomp work.
The spirits of ancestors and other dead loved ones function as psychopomps in Filipino culture. When the moribund call out the names of dead relations, the spirits of those named are said to be visible to the dying person. These spirits are believed to be waiting at the foot of the deathbed, ready to fetch (Tagalog: sundô) the soul of the newly deceased and escort them into the afterlife.
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255.Zurvanism.
Zurvanism is a now-extinct branch of Zoroastrianism in which the divinity Zurvan is a First Principle (primordial creator deity) who engendered equal-but-opposite twins, Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu. Zurvanism is also known as "Zurvanite Zoroastrianism", and may be contrasted with Mazdaism, which is the surviving form of Zoroastrianism and in which Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu are either themselves primordial (the traditional view), or the 19th/20th developments in which Ahura Mazda is no longer the Creator of only the good, but also perceived as the origin of Angra Mainyu.
In Zurvanism, Zurvan was perceived as the god of infinite time and space and was aka ("one", "alone"). Zurvan was portrayed as a transcendental and neutral god, without passion, and one for whom there was no distinction between good or evil. The name 'Zurvan' is a normalized rendition of the word, which in Middle Persian appears as either Zurv?n, Zruv?n or Zarv?n. The Middle Persian name derives from Avestan zruvan-, "time", and which is grammatically without gender.
Origins and background.
Although the details of the origin and development of Zurvanism remain murky (for a summary of the three opposing opinions, see Ascent and acceptance below), it is generally accepted that Zurvanism was a branch of greater Zoroastrianism (Boyce 1957:157-304); that the doctrine of Zurvan was a sacerdotal response to resolve a perceived inconsistency in the sacred texts (Zaehner, 1955, intro; See development of the "twin brother" doctrine below); and that this doctrine was probably introduced during the second half of the Achaemenid era (Henning, 1951; loc. Cit. Boyce 1957:157-304).
Zurvanism enjoyed royal sanction during the Sassanid era (226-651 CE) but no traces of it remain beyond the 10th century. Although Sassanid era Zurvanism was certainly influenced by Hellenic philosophy, the relationship between it and the Greek divinity of Time (Chronos) has not been conclusively established.
Non-Zoroastrian accounts of typically Zurvanite beliefs were the first traces of Zoroastrianism to reach the west, leading European scholars to conclude that Zoroastrianism was a monist religion, an issue of much controversy among both scholars and contemporary practitioners of the faith.
The Avestan word zruvan is etymologically related to the late (post-Vedic) Sanskrit word sarva, meaning "all, entire", and which carries a similar semantic field in signifying a monist quality.
Evidence of the cult.
The earliest evidence of the cult of Zurvan is found in the History of Theology, attributed to Eudemus of Rhodes (c. 370-300 BCE). As cited in Damascius's Difficulties and Solutions of First Principles (6th century CE), Eudemus describes a sect of the Persians that considered Space/Time to be the primordial "father" of the rivals Oromasdes "of light" and Arimanius "of darkness" (Dhalla, 1932:331-332).
The principal evidence for Zurvanite doctrine in the polemical Christian tracts of Armenian and Syriac writers of the Sassanid period (224-651 CE). Indigenous sources of information from the same period are the 3rd-century Kartir inscription at Ka'ba-i Zartosht and the early-4th century edict of Mihr-Narse (head-priest under Yazdagird I), the latter being the only native evidence from the Sassanid period that is frankly Zurvanite. The post-Sassanid Zoroastrian Middle Persian commentaries are primarily Mazdean and with only one exception (10th century Denkard 9.30) do not mention Zurvan at all. Of the remaining so-called Pahlavi texts only two, the M?n?g-i Khrad and the "Selections of Zatspram" (both 9th century) reveal a Zurvanite tendency. The latter, in which the priest Zatspram chastises his brother's un-Mazdaean ideas, is the last text in Middle Persian that provides any evidence of the cult of Zurvan. The 13th-century Zoroastrian (Response to) Doctors of Islam (Ulema-i Islam), a New Persian apologetic text, is unambiguously Zurvanite and is also the last direct evidence of Zurvan as a First Principle.
There is no hint of any worship of Zurvan in any of the texts of the Avesta, even though the texts (as they exist today) are the result of a Sassanid era redaction. Zaehner proposes that this is because the individual Sassanid monarchs were not always Zurvanite and that Mazdean Zoroastrianism just happened to have the upper hand during the crucial period that the canon was finally written down (Zaehner, 1955:48; Duchesne-Guillemin, 1956:108). In the texts composed prior to the Sassanid period, Zurvan appears twice, as both an abstract concept and as a minor divinity, but there is no evidence of a cult. In Yasna 72.10 Zurvan is invoked in the company of Space and Air (Vata-Vayu) and in Yasht 13.56, the plants grow in the manner Time has ordained according to the will of Ahura Mazda and the Amesha Spentas. Two other references to Zurvan are also present in the Vendidad, but although these are late additions to the canon, they again do not establish any evidence of a cult. Zurvan does not appear in any listing of the Yazatas (Dhalla, 1932).
History and development.
Ascent and acceptance.
The origins of the cult of Zurvan remain debated. One view (Zaehner, 1939; Duchesne-Guillemin, 1956; Zaehner 1955, intro) considers Zurvanism to have developed out of Zoroastrianism as a reaction to the liberalization of the late Achaemenid era form of the faith. Another view ("Swedish-school" theory, e.g. Nyberg, 1931; reiterated in Zaehner 1955, conclusion) proposes that Zurvan existed as a pre-Zoroastrian divinity that was incorporated into Zoroastrianism. The third view (Cumont and Schaeder; reiterated by Henning, 1951; Boyce 1957) is that Zurvanism is the product of the contact between Zoroastrianism and Babylonian/Akkadian religions (for a summary of opposing views see Boyce, 1957:304).
Certain however is that by the Sassanid era (226?651 CE), the divinity "Infinite Time" was well established, and?as inferred from a Manichaean text presented to Shapur I, in which the name 'Zurvan' was adopted for Manichaeism's primordial "Father of Greatness"?enjoyed royal patronage. It was during the reign of Sassanid Emperor Shapur I (241-272) that Zurvanism appears to have developed as a cult and it was presumably in this period that Greek and Indic concepts were introduced to Zurvanite Zoroastrianism.
It is however not known whether Sassanid era Zurvanism and Mazdaism were separate sects, each with their own organization and priesthood, or simply two tendencies within the same body. That Mazdaism and Zurvanism competed for attention can been inferred from the works of Christian and Manichaean polemicists, but the doctrinal incompatibilities were not so extreme "that they could not be reconciled under the broad aegis of an imperial church" (Boyce, 1957:308).
Decline and disappearance.
The Sassanid Empire at its greatest extent. (c. 610 CE)
Following the fall of the Sassanid Empire in the 7th century, Zoroastrianism was gradually supplanted by Islam. The former continued to exist but in an increasingly reduced state and by the 10th century the remaining Zoroastrians appear to have more closely followed the orthodoxy as found in the Pahlavi books (see also legacy, below).
Why the cult of Zurvan vanished while Mazdaism did not remains an issue of scholarly debate. Arthur Christensen, one of the first proponents of the theory that Zurvanism was the state religion of the Sassanids, suggested that the rejection of Zurvanism in the post-conquest epoch was a response and reaction to the new authority of Islamic monotheism that brought about a deliberate reform of Zoroastrianism that aimed to establish a stronger orthodoxy (Boyce, 1957:305). Zaehner is of the opinion that the Zurvanite priesthood had a "strict orthodoxy which few could tolerate. Moreover, they interpreted the Prophet's message so dualistically that their God was made to appear very much less than all-powerful and all-wise. Reasonable as so absolute a dualism might appear from a purely intellectual point of view, it had neither the appeal of a real monotheism nor had it any mystical element with which to nourish its inner life." (Zaehner, 1961)
Another possible explanation postulated by Boyce (1957:308-309) is that Mazdaism and Zurvanism were divided regionally, that is, with Mazdaism being the predominant tendency in the regions to the north and east (Bactria, Margiana, and other satrapies closest to Zoroaster's homeland), while Zurvanism was prominent in regions to the south and west (closer to Babylonian and Greek influence). This is supported by Manichaean evidence that indicates that 3rd-century Mazdean Zoroastrianism had its stronghold in Parthia, to the northeast. Following the fall of the Persian Empire, the south and west were relatively quickly assimilated under the banner of Islam, while the north and east remained independent for some time before these regions too were absorbed. (Boyce, 1957:308-309). This could also explain why Armenian/Syriac observations reveal a distinctly Zurvanite Zoroastrianism, and inversely, could explain the strong Greek and Babylonian influence on Zurvanism (see types of Zurvanism, below).
The "twin brother" doctrine.
"Classical Zurvanism" is the term coined by Zaehner (1955, intro) to denote the movement to explain the inconsistency of Zoroaster's description of the 'twin spirits' as they appear in Yasna 30.3-5 of the Avesta. According to Zaehner, this "Zurvanism proper" was "genuinely Iranian and Zoroastrian in that it sought to clarify the enigma of the twin spirits that Zoroaster left unsolved." (Zaehner, 1961)
As the priesthood sought to explain it, if the Malevolent Spirit (lit: Angra Mainyu) and the Benevolent Spirit (Spenta Mainyu, identified with Ahura Mazda) were twins, then they must have had a "father", who must have existed before them. The priesthood settled on Zurvan - the hypostasis of (Infinite) Time - as being "the only possible 'Absolute' from whom the twins could proceed" and which was the source of good in the one and the source of evil in the other (Zaehner, 1961).
The Zurvanite "twin brother" doctrine is also evident in Zurvanism's cosmogonical creation myth, that in its "classic" form, does not contradict the Mazdean model of the origin and evolution of the universe, which begins where the Zurvanite model ends. It may well be (as proposed by Cumont and Schaeder) that the Zurvanite cosmogony was an adaptation of an antecedent Hellenic Chronos cosmogony that portrayed Infinite Time as the "Father of Time" (not to be confused with Cronus, a Titan and father of Zeus) whom the Greeks equated with Oromasdes, i.e. Ohrmuzd/Ahura Mazda.
The "classic" Zurvanite model of creation, preserved only by non-Zoroastrian sources, proceeds as follows: In the beginning, the great God Zurvan existed alone. Desiring offspring that would create 'heaven and hell and everything in between,' Zurvan sacrificed for a thousand years. Towards the end of this period, androgyne Zurvan began to doubt the efficacy of sacrifice and in the moment of this doubt Ohrmuzd and Ahriman were conceived: Ohrmuzd for the sacrifice and Ahriman for the doubt. Upon realizing that twins were to be born, Zurvan resolved to grant the first-born sovereignty over creation. Ohrmuzd perceived Zurvan's decision, which He then communicated to His brother. Ahriman then preempted Ohrmuzd by ripping open the womb to emerge first. Reminded of the resolution to grant Ahriman sovereignty, Zurvan conceded, but limited kingship to a period of 9000 years, after which Ohrmuzd would rule for all eternity (Zaehner, 1955:419-428).
Christian and Manichaean missionaries considered this doctrine to be exemplary of the Zoroastrian faith and it was these and similar texts that first reached the west. Corroborated by Anquetil-Duperron's "erroneous rendering" of Vendidad 19.9, these led to the late 18th century conclusion that Infinite Time was the first Principle of Zoroastrianism and Ohrmuzd was therefore only "the derivative and secondary character." Ironically, the fact that no Zoroastrian texts contained any hint of the born-of-Zurvan doctrine was considered to be evidence of a latter-day corruption of the original principles. The opinion that Zoroastrianism was so severely dualistic that it was, in fact, ditheistic or even tritheistic would be widely held until the late 19th century (Dhalla, 1932:490-492; cf. Boyce, 2002:687).
Types of Zurvanism.
According to Zaehner, the doctrine of the cult of Zurvan appears to have three schools of thought, each to a different degree influenced by alien philosophies: "materialist" Zurvanism, "aesthetic" Zurvanism and "fatalistic" Zurvanism. All three have "classical" Zurvanism as their foundation.
Aesthetic Zurvanism.
Aesthetic Zurvanism, which was apparently not as popular as the materialistic kind, viewed Zurvan as undifferentiated Time, which, under the influence of desire, divided into reason (a male principle) and concupiscence (a female principle).
According to Duchesne-Guillemin, this division is "redolent of Gnosticism or ? still better ? of Indian cosmology." The parallels between Zurvan and Prajapati of Rig Veda 10.129 had been taken by Widengren to be evidence of a proto-Indo-Iranian Zurvan, but these arguments have since been dismissed (Duchesne-Guillemin, 1956). Nonetheless, there is a semblance of Zurvanite elements in Vedic texts, and as Zaehner puts it "Time, for the Indians, is the raw material, the material prima of all contingent being."
Materialist Zurvanism.
Materialist Zurvanism was influenced by the Aristotelian and Empedoclean view of "matter", and took "some very queer forms" (Zaehner, 1961).
While Zoroaster's Ormuzd created the universe with his thought, materialist Zurvanism challenged the concept that anything could be made out of nothing. This was a patently alien idea, discarding core Zoroastrian tenets in favor of the position that the spiritual world (including heaven and hell, reward and punishment) did not exist.
While the fundamental division of the material and spiritual was not altogether foreign to the Avesta (Geti and Mainyu, middle Persian: menog, are terms in Mazdaist tradition, where Ahura Mazda is said to have created all first in its spiritual, then later in its material form), the material Zurvanites redefined menog to suit Aristotelian principles to mean that which did not (yet) have matter, or alternatively, that which was still the unformed primal matter. Even this is not necessarily a violation of orthodox Zoroastrian tradition since the divinity Vayu is present in the middle space between Ormuzd and Ahriman, the void separating the kingdoms of light and darkness.
Fatalistic Zurvanism.
The doctrine of limited time (as allotted to Ahriman by Zurvan) implied that nothing could change this preordained course of the material universe, and the path of the astral bodies of the 'heavenly sphere' was representative of this preordained course. It followed that human destiny must then be decided by the constellations, stars and planets, who were divided between the good (the signs of the Zodiac) and the evil (the planets). "Ohrmazd allotted happiness to man, but if man did not receive it, it was owing to the extortion of these planets" (Menog-i Khirad 38.4-5). Fatalistic Zurvanism was evidently influenced by Chaldean astrology and perhaps also by Aristotle's theory of chance and fortune. The fact that Armenian and Syriac commentators translated "Zurvan" as "Fate" is highly suggestive.
Mistaken identity.
In his first manuscript of his book 'Zurvan', R C Zaehner incorrectly identified the Lion-headed leontocephaline of the Roman Mithraic Mysteries (aka "Mithraism") with the representation of Zurvan. This mis-identification, later acknowledged as a "positive mistake" by Zaehner (1972), is owned to Franz Cumont's late-19th century notion that the Roman cult was "Roman Mazdaism" transmitted to the west by Iranian priests. This so-called continuity theory is no longer followed today, but this has not stopped the fallacy, which Zaehner also attributes to Franz Cumont, from proliferating on various websites.
The legacy of Zurvanism.
No evidence of distinctly Zurvanite rituals or practices have been discovered, so followers of the cult are widely believed to have had the same rituals and practices as Mazdean Zoroastrians did. This is understandable, inasmuch as the Zurvanite doctrine of a monist First Principle did not preclude the worship of Ohrmuzd as the Creator (of the good creation). Similarly, no explicitly Zurvanite elements appear to have survived in modern Zoroastrianism, though Western influences have encouraged monotheistic theologies among some modern Zoroastrian reformists that replace the omniscient (but not omnipotent) Mazda with a new doctrine of an omnipotent Mazda that is more like the omnipotent, more strictly monotheistic deities of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam:
[Maneckji] Dhalla explicitly accepted a modern Western version of the old Zurvanite heresy, according to which Ahura Mazda himself was the hypothetical 'father' of the twin Spirits of Y 30.3 ... Yet though Dhalla thus, under foreign influences, abandoned the fundamental doctrine of the absolute separation of good and evil, his book still breathes the sturdy, unflinching spirit of orthodox Zoroastrian dualism. [Boyce, Zoroastrians, Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, 1979, pg. 213]
The sacrilege of Zurvanism begins with a heterodox interpretation of Zarathushtra's Gathas:
Yes, there are two fundamental spirits, twins which are renowned to be in conflict. In thought and in word, in action they are two: the good and the bad. ? Y 30.3 [trans. Insler]
Then shall I speak of the two primal Spirits of existence, of whom the Very Holy thus spoke to the Evil One: "Neither our thoughts nor teachings nor wills, neither or words nor choices nor acts, not our inner selves nor our souls agree." Y 45.2 [trans. Boyce, Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism.]
A literal, anthropomorphic "twin brother" interpretation of these passages gave rise to a need to postulate a father for the postulated literal "brothers". Hence Zurvanism postulated a preceding parent deity that existed above the good and evil of his sons. This was an obvious usurpation of Zoroastrian dualism, a sacrilege against the moral preeminence of Ahura Mazda.
The pessimism evident in Zurvanite fatalism existed in stark contradiction to the positive moral force of Mazdaism, and was a direct violation of one of Zoroaster's great contributions to religious philosophy: his uncompromising doctrine of free will. In Yasna 30.2 and 45.9, Ahura Mazda "has left to men's wills" to choose between doing good and doing evil. By leaving destiny in the hands of fate (an omnipotent deity), the cult of Zurvan distanced itself from the most sacred of Zoroastrian tenets: that of the efficacy of good thoughts, good words and good deeds.
That the Zurvanite view of creation was an apostasy even for medieval Zoroastrians is apparent from the 10th century Denkard, which in a commentary on Yasna 30.3-5 turns what the Zurvanites considered the words of the prophet into Zoroaster recalling "a proclamation of the Demon of Envy to mankind that Ohrmuzd and Ahriman were two in one womb." (Denkard 9.30.4).
The fundamental goal of "classical Zurvanism" to bring the doctrine of the "twin spirits" in accord with what was otherwise understood of Zoroaster's teaching may have been excessive, but (according to Zaehner) it was not altogether misguided. In noting the emergence of an overtly dualistic doctrine during the Sassanid period, Zaehner (1961) asserted that
[there must] have been a party within the Zoroastrian community which regarded the strict dualism between Truth and the Lie, the Holy Spirit and the Destructive Spirit, as being the essence of the Prophet's message. Otherwise the re-emergence of this strictly dualist form of Zoroastrianism some six centuries after the collapse of the Achaemenian Empire could not be readily explained. There must have been a zealous minority that busied itself with defining what they considered the Prophet's true message to be; there must have been an 'orthodox' party within the 'Church'. This minority, concerned now with theology no less than with ritual, would be found among the Magi, and it is, in fact, to the Magi that Aristotle and other early Greek writers attribute the fully dualist doctrine of two independent principles - Oromasdes and Areimanios. Further, the founder of the Magian order was now said to be Zoroaster himself. The fall of the Achaemenian Empire, however, must have been disastrous for the Zoroastrian religion, and the fact that the Magi were able to retain as much as they did and restore it in a form that was not too strikingly different from the Prophet's original message after the lapse of some 600 years proves their devotion to his memory. It is, indeed, true to say that the Zoroastrian orthodoxy of the Sassanian period is nearer to the spirit of Zoroaster than is the thinly disguised polytheism of the Yashts.
Thus, - according to Zaehner - while the direction that the Sassanids took was not altogether at odds with the spirit of the Gathas, the extreme dualism that accompanied a divinity that was remote and inaccessible made the faith less than attractive. Zurvanism was then truly heretical only in the sense that it weakened the appeal of Zoroastrianism.
Nonetheless, that Zurvanism was the predominant brand of Zoroastrianism during the cataclysmic years just prior to the fall of the empire, is, according to Duchesne-Guillemin, evident in the degree of influence that Zurvanism (but not Mazdaism) would have on the Iranian brand of Shi'a Islam. Writing in the historical present, he notes that "under Chosrau II (r. 590-628) and his successors, all kinds of superstitions tend to overwhelm the Mazdean religion, which gradually disintegrates, thus preparing the triumph of Islam." Thus, "what will survive in popular conscience under the Muslim varnish is not Mazdeism: it is Zervanite fatalism, well attested in Persian literature" (Duchesne-Guillemin, 1956:109). This is also a thought expressed by Zaehner, who observes that Ferdowsi, in his Shahnameh, "expounds views which seem to be an epitome of popular Zervanite doctrine" (Zaehner, 1955:241). Thus, according to Zaehner and Duchesne-Guillemin, Zurvanism's pessimistic fatalism was a formative influence on the Iranian psyche, paving the way (as it were) for the rapid adoption of Shi'a philosophy during the Safavid era.
According to Zaehner and Shaki, in Middle Persian texts of the 9th century, Dahri (from Ar.-Persian dahr, time, eternity) is the appellative term for adherents of the Zurvanite doctrine that the universe derived from Infinite Time. In later Persian and Arabic literature, the term would come to be a derogatory term for 'atheist' or 'materialist'. The term also appears - in conjunction with other terms for skeptics ? in Denkard 3.225 and in the Skand-gumanig wizar where "one who says god is not, who are called dahari, and consider themselves to be delivered from religious discipline and the toil of performing meritorious deeds" (Shaki, 2002:587-588).
Inglish Site.99.
*
TO THE THRISE HO-
NOVRABLE AND EVER LY-
VING VERTVES OF SYR PHILLIP
SYDNEY KNIGHT, SYR JAMES JESUS SINGLETON, SYR CANARIS, SYR LAVRENTI BERIA ; AND TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE AND OTHERS WHAT-
SOEVER, WHO LIVING LOVED THEM,
AND BEING DEAD GIVE THEM
THEIRE DVE.
***
In the beginning there is darkness. The screen erupts in blue, then a cascade of thick, white hexadecimal numbers and cracked language, ?UnusedStk? and ?AllocMem.? Black screen cedes to blue to white and a pair of scales appear, crossed by a sword, both images drawn in the jagged, bitmapped graphics of Windows 1.0-era clip-art?light grey and yellow on a background of light cyan. Blue text proclaims, ?God on tap!?
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Introduction.
Yes i am getting a little Mobi-Literate(ML) by experimenting literary on my Mobile Phone. Peoplecall it Typographical Laziness(TL).
The first accidental entries for the this part of this encyclopedia.
*
This is TempleOS V2.17, the welcome screen explains, a ?Public Domain Operating System? produced by Trivial Solutions of Las Vegas, Nevada. It greets the user with a riot of 16-color, scrolling, blinking text; depending on your frame of reference, it might recall ?DESQview, the ?Commodore 64, or a host of early DOS-based graphical user interfaces. In style if not in specifics, it evokes a particular era, a time when the then-new concept of ?personal computing? necessarily meant programming and tinkering and breaking things.
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Index.
256.The Jacobite Risings.
257.Psychopomps (from the Greek word ?????????? - psuchopompos, literally meaning the "guide of souls").
255.Zurvanism.
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256.The Jacobite Risings.
The Jacobite risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in Great Britain and Ireland occurring between 1688 and 1746. The uprisings had the aim of returning James VII of Scotland and II of England, and later his descendants of the House of Stuart, to the throne of Great Britain after they had been deposed by Parliament during the Glorious Revolution. The series of conflicts takes its name from Jacobitism, from Jacobus, the Latin form of James.
The major Jacobite risings were called the Jacobite rebellions by the ruling governments. The "first Jacobite rebellion" and "second Jacobite rebellion" were known respectively as "the Fifteen" and "the Forty-five", after the years in which they occurred (1715 and 1745).
Although each Jacobite rising had unique features, they were part of a larger series of military campaigns by Jacobites attempting to restore the Stuart kings to the thrones of Scotland and England (and after 1707, Great Britain). James was deposed in 1688 and the thrones were claimed by his daughter Mary II jointly with her husband, the Dutch-born William of Orange (who was also James II's nephew).
After the House of Hanover succeeded to the British throne in 1714, the risings continued, and intensified. They continued until the last Jacobite rebellion ("the Forty-five"), led by Charles Edward Stuart (the Young Pretender), who was soundly defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. This ended any realistic hope of a Stuart restoration.
Glorious Revolution.
During the 17th century, the kingdoms in Great Britain and Ireland suffered political and religious turmoil in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The Commonwealth ended with the Restoration of Charles II, re-establishment of the Church of England and imposition of Episcopalian church government.
In 1685 Charles II was succeeded by his Roman Catholic brother, James II and VII. James was not naturally sympathetic to Covenanters. He understandably saw them as troublemakers and initially tried to end their influence in Scotland. The new king also tried to impose religious tolerance of Roman Catholics and to a lesser extent Protestant Dissenters, but antagonized many of the Anglican establishment by this action as they were suspicious of Catholic power. James' half-hearted attempts to woo the Presbyterians seemingly did not win him much popularity among that section of society either. They remembered his earlier suppression of them and did not believe him to be sincere in his recognition of Presbyterianism. Although these actions were widely unpopular, at first the majority of his subjects tolerated these acts because James was in his 50s and both of his daughters were committed Protestants. It seemed that James' reign would be short and the throne would soon return to Protestant hands. In 1688 however James's young second wife Mary of Modena gave birth to a boy, Prince James who was promptly baptized a Roman Catholic. Due to English and Scottish succession laws, Prince James immediately supplanted his older half sisters as heir to the throne. Now the prospect of a Catholic dynasty on the English, Scottish and Irish thrones seemed all but certain.
The "Immortal Seven" invited James's daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange to depose James and jointly rule in his place. On 4 November 1688 William arrived at Torbay, England. After he landed, James fled London, returned and finally left for France on 23 December. In February 1689 the Glorious Revolution formally changed England's monarch, but many Catholics, Episcopalians and Tory royalists still supported James as the constitutionally legitimate monarch.
Scotland was slow to accept William, who summoned a Convention of the Estates which met on 14 March 1689 in Edinburgh. It reviewed a conciliatory letter from William and a haughty one from James. On James's side, a modest force of a troop of fifty horsemen gathered by John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee was in town. Graham attended the convention at the start but withdrew four days later when its support for William became evident. The convention set out its terms, and William and Mary were proclaimed at Edinburgh on 11 April 1689, then had their coronation in London in May. Crucially perhaps, William and Mary definitively accepted the Church of Scotland as a Presbyterian institution after decades of intermittent efforts by various monarchs, including James VI, Charles I, Charles II and James VII to mould the Church of Scotland into an Episcopalian institution more pliable to Royal control and possibly more acceptable to those monarchs who happened to be Catholic. Therefore, the already doubtfull potential popularity of Jacobitism among those of the Presbyterian persuasion in Scotland was quite possibly lessened by this act, but on the other hand, for those Scots of an Episcopalian or Catholic persuasion the appeal of Jacobitism could only have been enhanced by this acknowledgement of Presbyterianism in Scotland by William and Mary.
The rising of 1689?92.
On 16 April 1689 John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, raised James' standard on the Dundee Law. Presbyterian historians later labelled him "Bluidy Clavers" for his presence as an officer in the service of government forces loyal to the King at several altercations between government forces and Covenanters during the reign of the Catholic James VII who was later deposed. One example is the Battle of Drumclog, while another is the Battle of Bothwell Brig. In letters written by the Viscount Dundee's own hand he was however an advocate of lenient treatment of the Covenanters. James VII also happens to be the origin of the epithet "Jacobite". After James was exiled his followers were named after the Latin for James, "Jacobus", and the name Jacobite was later used for those who sought to restore his dynasty even after his death, citing his descendants as the rightful monarchs. Thus, the appropriateness of the title "Bluidy Clavers" being used to describe John Graham of Claverhouse aside, the Jacobite hero has clearly not always been viewed in a positive light by those sympathetic to the Covenanters or Cameronians. With respect to the Viscount Dundee Sir Walter Scott coined the more romantic nickname "Bonnie Dundee". This was from a poem Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1830 which later became a well known song. James VII had already arrived in Ireland and a letter was on the way promising Irish troops to assist the rising in Scotland.
At first Viscount Dundee had difficulty in raising many supporters. The ineffectiveness of the Williamite commander Major-General Hugh Mackay of Scourie encouraged support. Three hundred Irish troops successfully landed at Kintyre to add to Dundee's forces. Dundee also received support in the western Scottish Highlands from both Roman Catholic and Church of Scotland clans. He also had some Lowland support, which is often overlooked by historians[citation needed]. This included several peers of the realm, including James Seton, 4th Earl of Dunfermline, who was a member of the privy council and who was Dundee's cavalry commander for most of the rising. Other Lowland peers and gentry who rode with Dundee included James Galloway, Lord Dunkeld; James Haliburton of Pitcur; Sir George Barclay; Lord William Murray (son of the Marquis of Atholl), Alexander Fraser, elder brother of Simon Fraser, later 11th Lord Lovat and Gilbert Ramsay, a prominent Edinburgh lawyer. Peers and members of noble families who joined the Jacobites after Dundee's death include Kenneth Mackenzie, 4th Earl of Seaforth; Thomas Fraser, 10th Lord Lovat; and Lord James Murray (another of Atholl's sons).
By July the Jacobites had eight battalions and two companies, almost all Highlanders. Dundee gained the confidence of the clans by cultivating the allegiance of each Highlander and respecting the precedence of the clans. He realised that to them, the cause of Jacobitism was secondary. At a time when infantry were trained to fight in formation, the Highlanders' method was more informal. They set aside their plaids and other encumbrances before the battle, and dropped to the ground to avoid enemy volleys. After quickly returning fire, they pursued their foes, screaming in the Highland charge. They used heavy broadswords and targe (shield), or whatever weapons they had, including pitchforks or Lochaber axes (a combined axe and spear on a long pole). Such a charge was devastating to troops struggling to reform their lines, or fix the recently introduced 'plug' bayonets.
The Highland charge routed a much larger Williamite force at the Battle of Killiecrankie on 27 July 1689. About two thousand Willamite troops were killed. Approximately six hundred Highlanders were killed, plus a number of Jacobite Lowlanders, including Dundee himself, Pitcur of Haliburton, and Gilbert Ramsay. At the street fighting of the Battle of Dunkeld on 21 August, the Jacobite Highlanders were decisively defeated by the Cameronians who were led by George Munro, 1st of Auchinbowie. Much of the North remained hostile to the Williamite government. Expeditions to subdue the highlands were met with a series of skirmishes.
Jacobite forces suffered a heavy defeat at the Haughs of Cromdale on 1 May 1690. Later that month Mackay constructed Fort William on the site of an old fort built by Cromwell. News in July of William's victory over James at the Battle of the Boyne caused Jacobite hopes to fall. On 17 August 1691 William offered all Highland clans a pardon for their part in the Jacobite uprising, provided that they took an oath of allegiance before 1 January 1692 in front of a magistrate. The Highland chiefs sent word to James, now in exile in France, asking for his permission to take this oath. James eventually authorised the chiefs to take the oath, but it was mid-December before his message arrived. Despite difficult winter conditions, a few took the oath in time. The brutality of the Massacre of Glencoe sped acceptance by the clans. By the spring of 1692 the Jacobite chiefs had all sworn allegiance to King William.
The Jacobite war in Ireland.
Main article: Williamite War in Ireland
The Williamite war in Ireland was the opening conflict in James's attempts to regain the throne. It influenced the Jacobite rising in Scotland which "Bonnie Dundee" started at about the same time. By its end in October 1691, the Irish Jacobite army left Ireland for France, becoming the Irish Brigade. This later provided forces assisting "the Forty-five" (second Jacobite rebellion of 1745) in Scotland.
The Old Pretender.
After the death of James II in 1701, the Jacobite claim to the thrones of Scotland and England was taken up by his only surviving legitimate son, James Francis Edward Stuart (1688?1766). His supporters proclaimed him James III of England and Ireland, and James VIII of Scotland. The French king Louis XIV and Pope Clement XI formally recognised the Catholic monarch as King James III & VIII. Later, James was called "the Old Pretender", to distinguish him from his son, Charles Edward Stuart (1720?1788), who became known as "the Young Pretender".
Planned invasion of 1708.
After a brief peace, the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701 renewed French support for the Jacobites. In 1708 James Stuart, the Old Pretender, sailed from Dunkirk with 6000 French troops in nearly 30 ships of the French navy. His intended landing in the Firth of Forth was thwarted by the Royal Navy, under Admiral Byng. Over the tearful protests of James himself, the French admiral chose not to risk a landing and opted to retreat instead of fight. The British pursued the French fleet round the north of Scotland, losing ships and most of their men in shipwrecks on the way back to Dunkirk.
The rising of 1715 ("The Fifteen").
Historic image depicting the Jacobite Uprising of 1715.
Following the arrival from Hanover of George I in 1714, Tory Jacobites in England conspired to organise armed rebellions against the new Hanoverian government. They were indecisive and frightened by government arrests of their leaders. In Scotland 1715 is sometimes misleadingly called the first Jacobite rebellion (or rising), which overlooks the fact that there had already been a major Jacobite rising in 1689 [see above].
The Treaty of Utrecht ended hostilities between France and Britain. From France, as part of widespread Jacobite plotting, James Stuart, the Old Pretender, had been corresponding with the Earl of Mar. In the summer of 1715 James called on Mar to raise the Clans. Mar, nicknamed Bobbin' John, rushed from London to Braemar. He summoned clan leaders to "a grand hunting-match" on 27 August 1715. On 6 September he proclaimed James as "their lawful sovereign" and raised the old Scottish standard. Mar's proclamation brought in an alliance of clans and northern Lowlanders, and they quickly overran many parts of the Highlands.
Mar's Jacobites captured Perth on 14 September without opposition. His army grew to around 8,000 men. A force of fewer than 2,000 men under the Duke of Argyll held the Stirling plain for the government and Mar indecisively kept his forces in Perth. He waited for the Earl of Seaforth to arrive with a body of northern clans. Seaforth was delayed by attacks from other clans loyal to the government. Planned risings in Wales, Devon and Cornwall were forestalled by the government arresting the local Jacobites.
See separate article on the Jacobite uprising in Cornwall of 1715
Starting around 6 October, a rising in the north of England grew to about 300 horsemen under Thomas Forster, a Northumberland squire and MP. This English contingent contained some prominent people, including two peers of the realm, James Ratcliffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, and Lord Widdrington, and a future peer, Charles Ratcliffe, later fifth Earl of Derwentwater. (Another future English peer, Edward Howard, later 9th Duke of Norfolk, joined the rising in Lancashire). They joined forces with a rising in the south of Scotland under Viscount Kenmure. Mar sent a Jacobite force under Brigadier William Mackintosh of Borlum to join them. They left Perth on 10 October and were ferried across the Firth of Forth from Burntisland to East Lothian. Here they were diverted into an attack on an undefended Edinburgh, but having seized Leith citadel they were chased away by the arrival of Argyll's forces. Mackintosh's force of about 2,000 then made their way south and met their allies at Kelso in the Scottish Borders on 22 October, and spent a few days arguing over their options. The Scots wanted to fight government forces in the vicinity or attack Dumfries and Glasgow, but the English were determined to march towards Liverpool and led them to expect 20,000 recruits in Lancashire.
The Highlanders resisted marching into England and there were some mutinies and defections, but they pressed on. Instead of the expected welcome the Jacobites were met by hostile militia armed with pitchforks and very few recruits. They were unopposed in Lancaster and found about 1,500 recruits as they reached Preston on 9 November, bringing their force to around 4,000. Then Hanoverian forces (including the Cameronians) arrived to besiege them at the Battle of Preston. The Jacobites actually won the first day of the battle, killing large numbers of Government forces. However, Government reinforcements arrived, and the Jacobites surrendered on 14 November.
In Scotland, at the Battle of Sheriffmuir on 13 November, Mar's forces were unable to defeat a smaller force led by the Duke of Argyll and Mar retreated to Perth while the government army built up. On 22 December 1715 a ship from France finally brought the Old Pretender to Peterhead in person. But an ailing James proved far too timid and melancholy to inspire his followers. He briefly set up court at Scone, Perthshire, visited his troops in Perth and ordered the burning of villages to hinder the advance of the Duke of Argyll through deep snow. The highlanders were cheered by the prospect of battle, but James's counsellors decided to abandon the endeavour and ordered a retreat to the coast, giving the pretext of seeking a stronger position. James boarded a ship at Montrose and escaped to France on 4 February 1716, leaving a message assigning his Highland adherents to shift for themselves.
Aftermath of "the Fifteen".
In the aftermath of the 'Fifteen', the Disarming Act and the Clan Act made some attempts to subdue the Scottish Highlands. Government garrisons were built or extended in the Great Glen at Fort William, Kiliwhimin (later renamed Fort Augustus) and Fort George, Inverness, as well as barracks at Ruthven, Bernera (Glenelg) and Inversnaid, linked to the south by the Wade roads constructed for Major-General George Wade.
On the whole, the government adopted a gentle approach and attempted to 'win hearts and minds' by allowing the bulk of the defeated rebels to slip away back to their homes and committing the first £20,000 of revenue from forfeited estates to the establishment of Presbyterian-run, Scots-speaking schools in the highlands (the latest in a series of measures intended to promote Scots at the expense of Scottish Gaelic).
The rising of 1719 ("The Nineteen").
Cardinal Giulio Alberoni.
With France at peace with Britain and enjoying a rapprochement due to the Anglo-French Alliance, the Jacobites found a new ally in Spain's Minister to the King, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni. An invasion force set sail in 1719 with two frigates to land in Scotland to raise the clans. Twenty-seven ships carried 5,000 soldiers to England, but the latter were dispersed by storms before they could land. When the two Spanish frigates successfully landed a party of Jacobites led by Lord Tullibardine and Earl Marischal with 300 Spanish soldiers at Loch Duich, they held Eilean Donan Castle but this was soon captured and destroyed by a Royal Naval reconnaissance force. They met only lukewarm support from a few clans. At the Battle of Glen Shiel, the Spanish soldiers were forced to surrender to government forces.
Further action by Wade.
In 1725 Wade raised the independent companies of the Black Watch as a militia to keep peace in the unruly Highlands, but in 1743 they were moved to fight the French in Flanders. Their commander at the Battle of Fontenoy in May 1745 was the Duke of Cumberland, soon to command at Culloden.
The Young Pretender.
Planned invasion of 1744.
Main article: Planned French invasion of Britain (1744)
In 1743 the War of the Austrian Succession drew Britain and France into open, though unofficial, hostilities against each other. Leading English Jacobites made a formal request to France for armed intervention and the French king's Master of Horse toured southern England meeting Tories and discussing their proposals. In November 1743 Louis XV of France authorised a large-scale invasion of southern England in February 1744 which was to be a surprise attack. Troops were to march from their winter quarters to hidden invasion barges which were to take them and Charles Edward Stuart, with the guidance of English Jacobite pilots to Maldon in Essex where they were to be joined by local Tories in an immediate march on London. Charles, (later known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or the Young Pretender) was in exile in Rome with his father (James Stuart, the Old Pretender), and rushed to France.
As late as 13 February the British were still unaware of these intentions, and while they then arrested many suspected Jacobites the French plans really went astray on 24 February when one of the worst storms of the century scattered the French fleets which were about to battle for control of the English Channel, sinking one ship and putting five out of action.
The barges had begun embarking some 10,000 troops and the storm wrecked the troop and equipment transports, sinking some with the loss of all hands. Charles was officially informed on 28 February that the invasion had been cancelled. The British lodged strong diplomatic objections to the presence of Charles, and France declared war but gave Charles no more support.
The rising of 1745 ("the Forty-five").
Such is the connection between 1745 and the rising in the Gaelic mindset, that the '45 is known as Bliadhna Theàrlaich (Charles' Year) in Scottish Gaelic.
Charles continued to believe that he could reclaim the kingdom and recalled that early in 1744 a few Scottish Highland clan chieftains had sent a message that they would rise if he arrived with as few as 3,000 French troops. Living at French expense, he continued to petition ministers for commitment to another invasion, to their increasing irritation. In secrecy he also developed a plan with a consortium of Nantes privateers, funded by exiled Scots bankers and pawning of his mother's jewelry. They fitted out a small frigate Du Teillay and a ship of the line the Elisabeth and set out from Nantes for Scotland in July 1745 on the pretence that this was a normal privateering cruise, leaving a personal letter from Charles to Louis XV of France announcing the departure and asking for help with the rising. The Elisabeth, carrying weapons, supplies and 700 volunteers from the Irish Brigade, encountered the British Navy ship HMS Lion and with both ships badly damaged in the ensuing battle the Elisabeth was forced back, but the Du Teillay successfully landed Charles with his seven men of Moidart on the island of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides on 2 August 1745.
The Scottish clans and their chieftains initially showed little enthusiasm about his arrival without troops or munitions (with Alexander MacDonald of Sleat and Norman MacLeod of MacLeod refusing even to meet with him), but Charles went on to Moidart and on 19 August 1745 raised the standard at Glenfinnan to lead the second Jacobite rising in his father's name. This attracted about 1,200 men, mostly of Clan MacDonald of Clan Ranald, Clan MacDonell of Glengarry, Clan MacDonald of Keppoch, and Clan Cameron. The Jacobite force marched south from Glenfinnan, increasing to almost 3,000 men, though two chieftains insisted on pledges of compensation before joining.
David Morier's painting Culloden shows the highlanders still wearing the plaids which they normally set aside before battle, where they would fire a volley then run full tilt at the enemy with broadsword and targe in the "Highland charge" wearing only their shirts.
Britain was still in the midst of the War of the Austrian Succession and most of the British army was in Flanders and Germany, leaving an inexperienced army of about 4,000 in Scotland under Sir John Cope. His force marched north into the Highlands but, believing the rebel force to be stronger than it really was, avoided an engagement with the Jacobites at the Pass of Corryairack and withdrew northwards to Inverness. The Jacobites captured Perth and at Coatbridge on the way to Edinburgh routed two regiments of the government's Dragoons. In Edinburgh there was panic with a melting away of the City Guard and Volunteers and when the city gate at the Netherbow Port was opened at night, to let a coach through, a party of Camerons rushed the sentries and seized control of the city. The next day King James VIII was proclaimed at the Mercat Cross and a triumphant Charles entered Holyrood palace.
Cope's army got supplies from Inverness then sailed from Aberdeen down to Dunbar to meet the Jacobite forces near Prestonpans to the east of Edinburgh. On 21 September 1745 at the Battle of Prestonpans a surprise attack planned by Lord George Murray routed the government forces, as celebrated in the Jacobite song Hey, Johnnie Cope, Are Ye Waking Yet?. Charles immediately wrote again to France pleading for a prompt invasion of England. There was alarm in England, and in London a patriotic song which included a prayer for Marshal Wade's success in crushing the rebels was performed, later to become the National Anthem.
The Jacobites held the city of Edinburgh, though not the castle. Charles held court at Holyrood palace for five weeks amidst great admiration and enthusiasm, but failed to raise a regiment locally. Many of the highlanders went home with booty from the battle and recruiting resumed, though Whig clans opposing the Jacobites were also getting organised. The French now sent some weapons and funds, and assurances that they would carry out their invasion of England by the end of the year. Charles's Council of war led by Murray was against leaving Scotland, but he told them that he had received English Tory assurances of a rising if he appeared in England in arms, and the Council agreed to march south by a margin of one vote.
Success at Prestonpans had not, as is often claimed, left the rebels in control of Scotland, for the great bulk of the population remained bitterly hostile to the absolutist Stuarts who, prior to their expulsion in a popular revolution, had presided over the notorious persecutions known as Scotland's 'Killing Times'. Many Scottish burghs offered burgess status to any man who would volunteer to fight against the Jacobites and, when the rebels passed near the town of Ecclefechan in Dumfriesshire, local loyalists mounted a raid on their baggage train.
The Jacobite army of under six thousand men had set out and an army under General George Wade assembled at Newcastle. Charles wanted to confront them, but on the advice of Lord George Murray and the Council they made for Carlisle and successfully bypassed Wade. At Manchester about 250 Episcopalians formed a regiment, and a number of other Englishmen had joined the Prince, mainly from rural Lancashire. One Englishman, John Daniel, from the upper echelons of the yeoman class, brought in 39 recruits by himself. A Scotsman who was in the Jacobite army and therefore an eyewitness, wrote home that 60 English recruits had joined in just one day at Preston. The myth that no Englishmen joined the Prince is just that, a myth. At the end of November French ships arrived in Scotland with 800 men from the Écossais Royeaux (Royal Scots) and Irish Regiments of the French army.
The Jacobite army, now reduced by desertions to under 5,000 men, was manoeuvred by Murray round to the east of a second government army under the Duke of Cumberland and marched on Derby.
They entered Derby on 4 December, only 125 miles (200 km) from London, with a resentful Charles by then barely on speaking terms with Murray. Charles was advised of progress on the French invasion fleet which was then assembling at Dunkirk, but at his Council of War he was forced to admit to his previous lies about assurances. While Charles was determined to press on in the deluded belief that their success was due to soldiers of the regulars never daring to fight against their true prince, his Council and Lord George Murray pointed out their position. The promised English support had not materialised, both Wade and Cumberland were approaching, London was heavily defended and there was a fictitious report from a government double agent of a third army closing on them.
March of the Guards to Finchley (1750), William Hogarth's satirical depiction of troops mustered to defend London from the 1745 Jacobite rebellion.
They insisted that their army should return to join the growing force in Scotland. This time only Charles voted to continue the advance, and he assented while throwing a tantrum and vowing never to consult the Council again. On 6 December, the Jacobites sullenly began their retreat, with a petulant Charles refusing to take any part in running the campaign which was fortunate given the excellent leadership of Murray, whose brilliant feints and careful planning extracted the army virtually intact. The French got news of the retreat and cancelled their invasion which was now ready, while English Tories who had just sent a message pledging support if Charles reached London went to ground again.
There was a rearguard action to the north of Penrith. The Manchester Regiment was left behind to defend Carlisle and after a siege by Cumberland had to surrender, to face hanging or transportation. Many died in Carlisle Castle, where they were imprisoned in brutal conditions along with Scots prisoners whom Morier allegedly painted to depict the kilted clansmen in battle. Many of the cells there still show hollows licked into the stone walls, as prisoners had only the damp and moss on these stones to sustain themselves.
The Young Pretender had his headquarters at the County Hotel during a 3-day sojourn in Dumfries towards the end of 1745. £2,000 was demanded by the Prince, together with 1,000 pairs of brogues for his kilted Jacobite rebel army, which was camping in a field not one hundred yards distant. A rumour, however, that the Duke of Cumberland was approaching, made Bonnie Prince Charlie decide to leave with his army, with only £1,000 and 255 pairs of shoes having been handed over.
By Christmas the Jacobites came to Glasgow and forced the city to re-provision their army, then on 3 January left to seize the town of Stirling and begin an ineffectual siege of Stirling Castle. Jacobite reinforcements joined them from the north and on 17 January about 8,000 of Charles's 9,000 men took the offensive to the approaching General Henry Hawley at the Battle of Falkirk and routed his forces.
Colours of Barrell's Regiment, carried at Culloden.
The Jacobite army then turned north, losing men and failing to take Stirling Castle or Fort William but taking Fort Augustus and Fort George in Inverness by early April. Charles now took charge again, insisting on fighting an orthodox defensive action, and on 16 April 1746 they were finally defeated near Inverness at the Battle of Culloden by government forces made up of English and Scottish troops and Campbell militia, under the command of the Duke of Cumberland. The seemingly suicidal Highland sword charge against cannon and muskets had succeeded when launched against unprepared or disordered troops in earlier battles but failed now that it was pitted against regulars who had time to form their ranks properly. Charles promptly abandoned his army, blaming everything on the treachery of his officers, even though after the defeat the stragglers and unengaged units rallied at the agreed rendezvous and only dispersed when ordered to leave.
Charles fled to France making a dramatic if humiliating escape disguised as a "lady's maid" to Flora MacDonald. Cumberland's forces crushed the uprising and effectively ended Jacobitism as a serious political force in Britain. The decline of Jacobitism left Charles making futile attempts to enlist assistance, and another abortive plot to raise support in England.
Planned invasion of 1759.
During the Seven Years' War, the French drew up a plan to invade the British Isles and met with Charles Stuart to discuss the possibility of his landing in either Ireland or Scotland to raise a rebellion. Charles refused, saying he would only cross the channel if it was to lead a rebellion in England. The French were not convinced that Charles could deliver on his promises of raising large support in Britain, and cut him out of the plan. Nonetheless, they hoped that Jacobites would support their forces once they landed. The planned invasion was eventually abandoned following British victory at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in November 1759 which dramatically weakened the French navy.
Many of the Highland clans which had previously taken up arms for the Jacobite cause were now fighting with British forces around the world, where they played an important part in the many British victories during the war.
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257.Psychopomps (from the Greek word ?????????? - psuchopompos, literally meaning the "guide of souls").
Psychopomps (from the Greek word ?????????? - psuchopompos, literally meaning the "guide of souls") are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply to provide safe passage. Frequently depicted on funerary art, psychopomps have been associated at different times and in different cultures with horses, whip-poor-wills, ravens, dogs, crows, owls, sparrows, cuckoos, and harts.
Classical examples of a psychopomp in Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology are Charon, Hermes, Mercury and Anubis.
In Jungian psychology, the psychopomp is a mediator between the unconscious and conscious realms. It is symbolically personified in dreams as a wise man or woman, or sometimes as a helpful animal. In many cultures, the shaman also fulfills the role of the psychopomp. This may include not only accompanying the soul of the dead, but also vice versa: to help at birth, to introduce the newborn child's soul to the world. (p36) This also accounts for the contemporary title of "midwife to the dying", or "End of Life Doula" which is another form of psychopomp work.
The spirits of ancestors and other dead loved ones function as psychopomps in Filipino culture. When the moribund call out the names of dead relations, the spirits of those named are said to be visible to the dying person. These spirits are believed to be waiting at the foot of the deathbed, ready to fetch (Tagalog: sundô) the soul of the newly deceased and escort them into the afterlife.
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255.Zurvanism.
Zurvanism is a now-extinct branch of Zoroastrianism in which the divinity Zurvan is a First Principle (primordial creator deity) who engendered equal-but-opposite twins, Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu. Zurvanism is also known as "Zurvanite Zoroastrianism", and may be contrasted with Mazdaism, which is the surviving form of Zoroastrianism and in which Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu are either themselves primordial (the traditional view), or the 19th/20th developments in which Ahura Mazda is no longer the Creator of only the good, but also perceived as the origin of Angra Mainyu.
In Zurvanism, Zurvan was perceived as the god of infinite time and space and was aka ("one", "alone"). Zurvan was portrayed as a transcendental and neutral god, without passion, and one for whom there was no distinction between good or evil. The name 'Zurvan' is a normalized rendition of the word, which in Middle Persian appears as either Zurv?n, Zruv?n or Zarv?n. The Middle Persian name derives from Avestan zruvan-, "time", and which is grammatically without gender.
Origins and background.
Although the details of the origin and development of Zurvanism remain murky (for a summary of the three opposing opinions, see Ascent and acceptance below), it is generally accepted that Zurvanism was a branch of greater Zoroastrianism (Boyce 1957:157-304); that the doctrine of Zurvan was a sacerdotal response to resolve a perceived inconsistency in the sacred texts (Zaehner, 1955, intro; See development of the "twin brother" doctrine below); and that this doctrine was probably introduced during the second half of the Achaemenid era (Henning, 1951; loc. Cit. Boyce 1957:157-304).
Zurvanism enjoyed royal sanction during the Sassanid era (226-651 CE) but no traces of it remain beyond the 10th century. Although Sassanid era Zurvanism was certainly influenced by Hellenic philosophy, the relationship between it and the Greek divinity of Time (Chronos) has not been conclusively established.
Non-Zoroastrian accounts of typically Zurvanite beliefs were the first traces of Zoroastrianism to reach the west, leading European scholars to conclude that Zoroastrianism was a monist religion, an issue of much controversy among both scholars and contemporary practitioners of the faith.
The Avestan word zruvan is etymologically related to the late (post-Vedic) Sanskrit word sarva, meaning "all, entire", and which carries a similar semantic field in signifying a monist quality.
Evidence of the cult.
The earliest evidence of the cult of Zurvan is found in the History of Theology, attributed to Eudemus of Rhodes (c. 370-300 BCE). As cited in Damascius's Difficulties and Solutions of First Principles (6th century CE), Eudemus describes a sect of the Persians that considered Space/Time to be the primordial "father" of the rivals Oromasdes "of light" and Arimanius "of darkness" (Dhalla, 1932:331-332).
The principal evidence for Zurvanite doctrine in the polemical Christian tracts of Armenian and Syriac writers of the Sassanid period (224-651 CE). Indigenous sources of information from the same period are the 3rd-century Kartir inscription at Ka'ba-i Zartosht and the early-4th century edict of Mihr-Narse (head-priest under Yazdagird I), the latter being the only native evidence from the Sassanid period that is frankly Zurvanite. The post-Sassanid Zoroastrian Middle Persian commentaries are primarily Mazdean and with only one exception (10th century Denkard 9.30) do not mention Zurvan at all. Of the remaining so-called Pahlavi texts only two, the M?n?g-i Khrad and the "Selections of Zatspram" (both 9th century) reveal a Zurvanite tendency. The latter, in which the priest Zatspram chastises his brother's un-Mazdaean ideas, is the last text in Middle Persian that provides any evidence of the cult of Zurvan. The 13th-century Zoroastrian (Response to) Doctors of Islam (Ulema-i Islam), a New Persian apologetic text, is unambiguously Zurvanite and is also the last direct evidence of Zurvan as a First Principle.
There is no hint of any worship of Zurvan in any of the texts of the Avesta, even though the texts (as they exist today) are the result of a Sassanid era redaction. Zaehner proposes that this is because the individual Sassanid monarchs were not always Zurvanite and that Mazdean Zoroastrianism just happened to have the upper hand during the crucial period that the canon was finally written down (Zaehner, 1955:48; Duchesne-Guillemin, 1956:108). In the texts composed prior to the Sassanid period, Zurvan appears twice, as both an abstract concept and as a minor divinity, but there is no evidence of a cult. In Yasna 72.10 Zurvan is invoked in the company of Space and Air (Vata-Vayu) and in Yasht 13.56, the plants grow in the manner Time has ordained according to the will of Ahura Mazda and the Amesha Spentas. Two other references to Zurvan are also present in the Vendidad, but although these are late additions to the canon, they again do not establish any evidence of a cult. Zurvan does not appear in any listing of the Yazatas (Dhalla, 1932).
History and development.
Ascent and acceptance.
The origins of the cult of Zurvan remain debated. One view (Zaehner, 1939; Duchesne-Guillemin, 1956; Zaehner 1955, intro) considers Zurvanism to have developed out of Zoroastrianism as a reaction to the liberalization of the late Achaemenid era form of the faith. Another view ("Swedish-school" theory, e.g. Nyberg, 1931; reiterated in Zaehner 1955, conclusion) proposes that Zurvan existed as a pre-Zoroastrian divinity that was incorporated into Zoroastrianism. The third view (Cumont and Schaeder; reiterated by Henning, 1951; Boyce 1957) is that Zurvanism is the product of the contact between Zoroastrianism and Babylonian/Akkadian religions (for a summary of opposing views see Boyce, 1957:304).
Certain however is that by the Sassanid era (226?651 CE), the divinity "Infinite Time" was well established, and?as inferred from a Manichaean text presented to Shapur I, in which the name 'Zurvan' was adopted for Manichaeism's primordial "Father of Greatness"?enjoyed royal patronage. It was during the reign of Sassanid Emperor Shapur I (241-272) that Zurvanism appears to have developed as a cult and it was presumably in this period that Greek and Indic concepts were introduced to Zurvanite Zoroastrianism.
It is however not known whether Sassanid era Zurvanism and Mazdaism were separate sects, each with their own organization and priesthood, or simply two tendencies within the same body. That Mazdaism and Zurvanism competed for attention can been inferred from the works of Christian and Manichaean polemicists, but the doctrinal incompatibilities were not so extreme "that they could not be reconciled under the broad aegis of an imperial church" (Boyce, 1957:308).
Decline and disappearance.
The Sassanid Empire at its greatest extent. (c. 610 CE)
Following the fall of the Sassanid Empire in the 7th century, Zoroastrianism was gradually supplanted by Islam. The former continued to exist but in an increasingly reduced state and by the 10th century the remaining Zoroastrians appear to have more closely followed the orthodoxy as found in the Pahlavi books (see also legacy, below).
Why the cult of Zurvan vanished while Mazdaism did not remains an issue of scholarly debate. Arthur Christensen, one of the first proponents of the theory that Zurvanism was the state religion of the Sassanids, suggested that the rejection of Zurvanism in the post-conquest epoch was a response and reaction to the new authority of Islamic monotheism that brought about a deliberate reform of Zoroastrianism that aimed to establish a stronger orthodoxy (Boyce, 1957:305). Zaehner is of the opinion that the Zurvanite priesthood had a "strict orthodoxy which few could tolerate. Moreover, they interpreted the Prophet's message so dualistically that their God was made to appear very much less than all-powerful and all-wise. Reasonable as so absolute a dualism might appear from a purely intellectual point of view, it had neither the appeal of a real monotheism nor had it any mystical element with which to nourish its inner life." (Zaehner, 1961)
Another possible explanation postulated by Boyce (1957:308-309) is that Mazdaism and Zurvanism were divided regionally, that is, with Mazdaism being the predominant tendency in the regions to the north and east (Bactria, Margiana, and other satrapies closest to Zoroaster's homeland), while Zurvanism was prominent in regions to the south and west (closer to Babylonian and Greek influence). This is supported by Manichaean evidence that indicates that 3rd-century Mazdean Zoroastrianism had its stronghold in Parthia, to the northeast. Following the fall of the Persian Empire, the south and west were relatively quickly assimilated under the banner of Islam, while the north and east remained independent for some time before these regions too were absorbed. (Boyce, 1957:308-309). This could also explain why Armenian/Syriac observations reveal a distinctly Zurvanite Zoroastrianism, and inversely, could explain the strong Greek and Babylonian influence on Zurvanism (see types of Zurvanism, below).
The "twin brother" doctrine.
"Classical Zurvanism" is the term coined by Zaehner (1955, intro) to denote the movement to explain the inconsistency of Zoroaster's description of the 'twin spirits' as they appear in Yasna 30.3-5 of the Avesta. According to Zaehner, this "Zurvanism proper" was "genuinely Iranian and Zoroastrian in that it sought to clarify the enigma of the twin spirits that Zoroaster left unsolved." (Zaehner, 1961)
As the priesthood sought to explain it, if the Malevolent Spirit (lit: Angra Mainyu) and the Benevolent Spirit (Spenta Mainyu, identified with Ahura Mazda) were twins, then they must have had a "father", who must have existed before them. The priesthood settled on Zurvan - the hypostasis of (Infinite) Time - as being "the only possible 'Absolute' from whom the twins could proceed" and which was the source of good in the one and the source of evil in the other (Zaehner, 1961).
The Zurvanite "twin brother" doctrine is also evident in Zurvanism's cosmogonical creation myth, that in its "classic" form, does not contradict the Mazdean model of the origin and evolution of the universe, which begins where the Zurvanite model ends. It may well be (as proposed by Cumont and Schaeder) that the Zurvanite cosmogony was an adaptation of an antecedent Hellenic Chronos cosmogony that portrayed Infinite Time as the "Father of Time" (not to be confused with Cronus, a Titan and father of Zeus) whom the Greeks equated with Oromasdes, i.e. Ohrmuzd/Ahura Mazda.
The "classic" Zurvanite model of creation, preserved only by non-Zoroastrian sources, proceeds as follows: In the beginning, the great God Zurvan existed alone. Desiring offspring that would create 'heaven and hell and everything in between,' Zurvan sacrificed for a thousand years. Towards the end of this period, androgyne Zurvan began to doubt the efficacy of sacrifice and in the moment of this doubt Ohrmuzd and Ahriman were conceived: Ohrmuzd for the sacrifice and Ahriman for the doubt. Upon realizing that twins were to be born, Zurvan resolved to grant the first-born sovereignty over creation. Ohrmuzd perceived Zurvan's decision, which He then communicated to His brother. Ahriman then preempted Ohrmuzd by ripping open the womb to emerge first. Reminded of the resolution to grant Ahriman sovereignty, Zurvan conceded, but limited kingship to a period of 9000 years, after which Ohrmuzd would rule for all eternity (Zaehner, 1955:419-428).
Christian and Manichaean missionaries considered this doctrine to be exemplary of the Zoroastrian faith and it was these and similar texts that first reached the west. Corroborated by Anquetil-Duperron's "erroneous rendering" of Vendidad 19.9, these led to the late 18th century conclusion that Infinite Time was the first Principle of Zoroastrianism and Ohrmuzd was therefore only "the derivative and secondary character." Ironically, the fact that no Zoroastrian texts contained any hint of the born-of-Zurvan doctrine was considered to be evidence of a latter-day corruption of the original principles. The opinion that Zoroastrianism was so severely dualistic that it was, in fact, ditheistic or even tritheistic would be widely held until the late 19th century (Dhalla, 1932:490-492; cf. Boyce, 2002:687).
Types of Zurvanism.
According to Zaehner, the doctrine of the cult of Zurvan appears to have three schools of thought, each to a different degree influenced by alien philosophies: "materialist" Zurvanism, "aesthetic" Zurvanism and "fatalistic" Zurvanism. All three have "classical" Zurvanism as their foundation.
Aesthetic Zurvanism.
Aesthetic Zurvanism, which was apparently not as popular as the materialistic kind, viewed Zurvan as undifferentiated Time, which, under the influence of desire, divided into reason (a male principle) and concupiscence (a female principle).
According to Duchesne-Guillemin, this division is "redolent of Gnosticism or ? still better ? of Indian cosmology." The parallels between Zurvan and Prajapati of Rig Veda 10.129 had been taken by Widengren to be evidence of a proto-Indo-Iranian Zurvan, but these arguments have since been dismissed (Duchesne-Guillemin, 1956). Nonetheless, there is a semblance of Zurvanite elements in Vedic texts, and as Zaehner puts it "Time, for the Indians, is the raw material, the material prima of all contingent being."
Materialist Zurvanism.
Materialist Zurvanism was influenced by the Aristotelian and Empedoclean view of "matter", and took "some very queer forms" (Zaehner, 1961).
While Zoroaster's Ormuzd created the universe with his thought, materialist Zurvanism challenged the concept that anything could be made out of nothing. This was a patently alien idea, discarding core Zoroastrian tenets in favor of the position that the spiritual world (including heaven and hell, reward and punishment) did not exist.
While the fundamental division of the material and spiritual was not altogether foreign to the Avesta (Geti and Mainyu, middle Persian: menog, are terms in Mazdaist tradition, where Ahura Mazda is said to have created all first in its spiritual, then later in its material form), the material Zurvanites redefined menog to suit Aristotelian principles to mean that which did not (yet) have matter, or alternatively, that which was still the unformed primal matter. Even this is not necessarily a violation of orthodox Zoroastrian tradition since the divinity Vayu is present in the middle space between Ormuzd and Ahriman, the void separating the kingdoms of light and darkness.
Fatalistic Zurvanism.
The doctrine of limited time (as allotted to Ahriman by Zurvan) implied that nothing could change this preordained course of the material universe, and the path of the astral bodies of the 'heavenly sphere' was representative of this preordained course. It followed that human destiny must then be decided by the constellations, stars and planets, who were divided between the good (the signs of the Zodiac) and the evil (the planets). "Ohrmazd allotted happiness to man, but if man did not receive it, it was owing to the extortion of these planets" (Menog-i Khirad 38.4-5). Fatalistic Zurvanism was evidently influenced by Chaldean astrology and perhaps also by Aristotle's theory of chance and fortune. The fact that Armenian and Syriac commentators translated "Zurvan" as "Fate" is highly suggestive.
Mistaken identity.
In his first manuscript of his book 'Zurvan', R C Zaehner incorrectly identified the Lion-headed leontocephaline of the Roman Mithraic Mysteries (aka "Mithraism") with the representation of Zurvan. This mis-identification, later acknowledged as a "positive mistake" by Zaehner (1972), is owned to Franz Cumont's late-19th century notion that the Roman cult was "Roman Mazdaism" transmitted to the west by Iranian priests. This so-called continuity theory is no longer followed today, but this has not stopped the fallacy, which Zaehner also attributes to Franz Cumont, from proliferating on various websites.
The legacy of Zurvanism.
No evidence of distinctly Zurvanite rituals or practices have been discovered, so followers of the cult are widely believed to have had the same rituals and practices as Mazdean Zoroastrians did. This is understandable, inasmuch as the Zurvanite doctrine of a monist First Principle did not preclude the worship of Ohrmuzd as the Creator (of the good creation). Similarly, no explicitly Zurvanite elements appear to have survived in modern Zoroastrianism, though Western influences have encouraged monotheistic theologies among some modern Zoroastrian reformists that replace the omniscient (but not omnipotent) Mazda with a new doctrine of an omnipotent Mazda that is more like the omnipotent, more strictly monotheistic deities of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam:
[Maneckji] Dhalla explicitly accepted a modern Western version of the old Zurvanite heresy, according to which Ahura Mazda himself was the hypothetical 'father' of the twin Spirits of Y 30.3 ... Yet though Dhalla thus, under foreign influences, abandoned the fundamental doctrine of the absolute separation of good and evil, his book still breathes the sturdy, unflinching spirit of orthodox Zoroastrian dualism. [Boyce, Zoroastrians, Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, 1979, pg. 213]
The sacrilege of Zurvanism begins with a heterodox interpretation of Zarathushtra's Gathas:
Yes, there are two fundamental spirits, twins which are renowned to be in conflict. In thought and in word, in action they are two: the good and the bad. ? Y 30.3 [trans. Insler]
Then shall I speak of the two primal Spirits of existence, of whom the Very Holy thus spoke to the Evil One: "Neither our thoughts nor teachings nor wills, neither or words nor choices nor acts, not our inner selves nor our souls agree." Y 45.2 [trans. Boyce, Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism.]
A literal, anthropomorphic "twin brother" interpretation of these passages gave rise to a need to postulate a father for the postulated literal "brothers". Hence Zurvanism postulated a preceding parent deity that existed above the good and evil of his sons. This was an obvious usurpation of Zoroastrian dualism, a sacrilege against the moral preeminence of Ahura Mazda.
The pessimism evident in Zurvanite fatalism existed in stark contradiction to the positive moral force of Mazdaism, and was a direct violation of one of Zoroaster's great contributions to religious philosophy: his uncompromising doctrine of free will. In Yasna 30.2 and 45.9, Ahura Mazda "has left to men's wills" to choose between doing good and doing evil. By leaving destiny in the hands of fate (an omnipotent deity), the cult of Zurvan distanced itself from the most sacred of Zoroastrian tenets: that of the efficacy of good thoughts, good words and good deeds.
That the Zurvanite view of creation was an apostasy even for medieval Zoroastrians is apparent from the 10th century Denkard, which in a commentary on Yasna 30.3-5 turns what the Zurvanites considered the words of the prophet into Zoroaster recalling "a proclamation of the Demon of Envy to mankind that Ohrmuzd and Ahriman were two in one womb." (Denkard 9.30.4).
The fundamental goal of "classical Zurvanism" to bring the doctrine of the "twin spirits" in accord with what was otherwise understood of Zoroaster's teaching may have been excessive, but (according to Zaehner) it was not altogether misguided. In noting the emergence of an overtly dualistic doctrine during the Sassanid period, Zaehner (1961) asserted that
[there must] have been a party within the Zoroastrian community which regarded the strict dualism between Truth and the Lie, the Holy Spirit and the Destructive Spirit, as being the essence of the Prophet's message. Otherwise the re-emergence of this strictly dualist form of Zoroastrianism some six centuries after the collapse of the Achaemenian Empire could not be readily explained. There must have been a zealous minority that busied itself with defining what they considered the Prophet's true message to be; there must have been an 'orthodox' party within the 'Church'. This minority, concerned now with theology no less than with ritual, would be found among the Magi, and it is, in fact, to the Magi that Aristotle and other early Greek writers attribute the fully dualist doctrine of two independent principles - Oromasdes and Areimanios. Further, the founder of the Magian order was now said to be Zoroaster himself. The fall of the Achaemenian Empire, however, must have been disastrous for the Zoroastrian religion, and the fact that the Magi were able to retain as much as they did and restore it in a form that was not too strikingly different from the Prophet's original message after the lapse of some 600 years proves their devotion to his memory. It is, indeed, true to say that the Zoroastrian orthodoxy of the Sassanian period is nearer to the spirit of Zoroaster than is the thinly disguised polytheism of the Yashts.
Thus, - according to Zaehner - while the direction that the Sassanids took was not altogether at odds with the spirit of the Gathas, the extreme dualism that accompanied a divinity that was remote and inaccessible made the faith less than attractive. Zurvanism was then truly heretical only in the sense that it weakened the appeal of Zoroastrianism.
Nonetheless, that Zurvanism was the predominant brand of Zoroastrianism during the cataclysmic years just prior to the fall of the empire, is, according to Duchesne-Guillemin, evident in the degree of influence that Zurvanism (but not Mazdaism) would have on the Iranian brand of Shi'a Islam. Writing in the historical present, he notes that "under Chosrau II (r. 590-628) and his successors, all kinds of superstitions tend to overwhelm the Mazdean religion, which gradually disintegrates, thus preparing the triumph of Islam." Thus, "what will survive in popular conscience under the Muslim varnish is not Mazdeism: it is Zervanite fatalism, well attested in Persian literature" (Duchesne-Guillemin, 1956:109). This is also a thought expressed by Zaehner, who observes that Ferdowsi, in his Shahnameh, "expounds views which seem to be an epitome of popular Zervanite doctrine" (Zaehner, 1955:241). Thus, according to Zaehner and Duchesne-Guillemin, Zurvanism's pessimistic fatalism was a formative influence on the Iranian psyche, paving the way (as it were) for the rapid adoption of Shi'a philosophy during the Safavid era.
According to Zaehner and Shaki, in Middle Persian texts of the 9th century, Dahri (from Ar.-Persian dahr, time, eternity) is the appellative term for adherents of the Zurvanite doctrine that the universe derived from Infinite Time. In later Persian and Arabic literature, the term would come to be a derogatory term for 'atheist' or 'materialist'. The term also appears - in conjunction with other terms for skeptics ? in Denkard 3.225 and in the Skand-gumanig wizar where "one who says god is not, who are called dahari, and consider themselves to be delivered from religious discipline and the toil of performing meritorious deeds" (Shaki, 2002:587-588).
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