Words for Board: Cybele and Attis, Sarapis, Isis, Mithras, Magi

Christianity is one of the mystery religions. But if you'd like something new and different, you might try one of the following.

Cybele and Attis were from the east. Cybele was the earth mother goddess of Asia Minor and symbol of fertility. Attis was the dying/rising god. Romans had a festival in the spring for a week to celebrate Attis' dying/rising. For 6 days they mourned. On the 6th day, the priests whipped themselves, cut themselves and drank their own blood (yum). On the 7th day, they celebrated the rising. The symbol of Attis was a pine (evergreen = immortality) tree that had been cut down. (O Tannenbaum.) Dying/rising gods are very popular with mystery religions because there was the belief that a god must die and rise for a human to have an afterlife. The god has to give his life for man to get heaven. Cybele and Attis had a baptismal ceremony. You were put into a hole, with a grate placed over your head. Then a bull was positioned on the grate over you and it was killed. As the baptizee, it was your duty to wash in the blood of the bull and get it into your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, etc. to wash out all the baddie stuff. (Yukkk.)

Sarapis was great. It was a god that was artificially created by the government and sold to the people, especially of Egypt. The Ptolemy people in Egypt were trying to get the Greek upper class mixed with the Egyptian lower class. So they were trying to give them a god in common. The god was big in cures, especially blindness.

There was also a revival in the worship of Isis. She was from Egypt and appealed to the women in the ancient world especially. There were lots of candles, incense, special clothing and hymns. It was very ritualistic and appealed more to women then. (It's not necessarily true nowadays -- ever been to a Catholic mass, especially the old style in Latin?)

There was a religion for men too. They could believe in the god Mithras. He was from the ancient Persian religion. In the beginning, they believed there were 2 gods in the universe -- good and bad. The good was for light and life, the bad for darkness/death/evil. There is some evidence that the Jews didn't have a devil until they ran into the Persians. The gods were evenly balanced. The good god had a son to help him fight against wickedness. The son was Mithras. Supposedly, Mithras got a divine bull and killed it and the blood fell on the earth thereby creating people to help in the fight against evil in the world. Followers of Mithras were also baptized in the blood of a bull. There were holy men of Mithras that were similar to astrologers/wise man called the Magi. In the New Testament, the Magi supposedly pointed out where the baby Jesus was. But that may have not been true. The story of the Magi wandering around was originally told 1000 years before Christianity. Plus if they were looking for a star in the East, then the people would have had to be in the Mediterranean Sea, to be west of the star. Especially if Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Mithras' birthday was December 25th. And early Christians started worshiping on Sunday. Sunday is the day of the sun and very big in Mithras religion. Notice any cultural borrowing??

These were real religions and had ways to purify yourself and to get you to heaven. But there were lost of fakes and frauds, too. Lots of miracles could (with a little help from special tubes and equipment) be duplicated -- especially the water into wine job. There were lots of gimmicks that were rigged. There was the religion of Alexander and his snake. In the 2nd-3rd century, Alexander wanted to re-found one of the shrines of Asclepius and conned the city council into the money. They put up a huge statue in the temple that was especially built with a hollow leg with a tube that ran into the other room. The end of the tube was near the god's mouth. So if you whispered into the one end, it sounded like the god was talking. They had stooges that worked for the temple in the surrounding towns. So if you were coming to the shrine you might stop for a beer on the way. One of the stooges would come up and start talking to you about the weather, etc. and ask where you were going. You'd tell him you were on your way to the shrine and ask for god's help for your cripple daughter. The stooge would leave before you and hightail it to the temple before you got there. You'd get in there and start your prayers, and the god would say: "You've come for help for your daughter." You would leave, another true believer!!