Slaying Mithra: Self-help, Human Potential and the Luciferian Perversion of the West (Part II)
By David Gosselin
The serpent sheds its skin
to be born again, as the moon
its shadow to be born again.
They are equivalent symbols.
Sometimes the serpent is represented
as a circle eating its own tail. That’s
an image of life. Life sheds one
generation after another,
to be born again.
— Excerpt from Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth
Read Part I of this essay
A fellow enthusiast of the ancient mystery revivals being spearheaded by California’s Esalen Institute was the archetype guru himself, Carl Jung. Jung spoke of “ancient alchemy” as the key to unravelling the question of how modern man supposedly lost his way in the world. Jung began to make sense of the true nature of the unconscious, so he says, by discovering the link between the Gnostic and ancient alchemical traditions.
In Memories, Dreams, Reflections he writes:
“As far as I could see, the tradition that might have connected Gnosis with the present seemed to have been severed, and for a long time it proved impossible to find any bridge that led from Gnosticism—or neo-Platonism—to the contemporary world. But when I began to understand alchemy I realized that it represented the historical link with Gnosticism, and that a continuity therefore existed between past and present. Grounded in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, alchemy formed the bridge on the one hand to the past, to Gnosticism, and on the other into the future, to the modern psychology of the unconscious.
“This had been inaugurated by Freud, who had introduced along with it the classical Gnostic motifs of sexuality and the wicked paternal authority. The motif of the Gnostic Yahweh and Creator-God reappeared in the Freudian myth of the primal father and the gloomy superego deriving from that father. In Freud’s myth he became a daemon who created a world of disappointment, illusions and suffering. But the materialistic trend which had already come to light in the alchemists’ preoccupation with the secrets of matter had the effect of obscuring for Freud that other essential aspect of Gnosticism: the primordial image of the spirit as another, higher god who gave to mankind the krater (mixing vessel), the vessel of spiritual transformation.” (Jung., 201)
The connection to the intuitive “archaic man,” identified by the SRI “Changing Images of Man” authors as the Gnostic and Babylonian tradition, were found in the ancient alchemical tradition i.e., “magic.”
Expressing his fondness for the magic of ancient times, which the spiritual eyes of man had been supposedly cut off from by modern Christianity and Classical Greece, Jung reminisced about the glory of Eleusinian rites:
“That particular ceremonial at Eleusis was performed with the purpose of establishing such a connection; it was in order to partake of the serpent’s magic power, its mana. So eating the snake in dreams, as well as in fantasy and visions and ceremonial, means assimilation. It is the same idea as eating the body of the Lord in communion, in order to participate in its strength. That was also the original meaning of cannibalism, which was by no means instinctive, it was a magical ritual, and that is still the case wherever it prevails. Those who eat human flesh and drink human blood acquire additional human strength.” (Jung., 276)
Whether drinking the magical elixir of Eleusis or some kind of ritual sacrifice, “magical” rites were devised which conferred upon the initiate a sacred “Gnosis.” This magical gnosis allowed for the shedding of one’s old identity, leading to rebirth as a newly deified self, so we are told.
Interestingly, the Eleusinian mysteries of old have recently made a remarkable comeback under the aegis of psychedelic “self-help,” with LSD and psylocibin serving as the latest incarnations of the ancient magical elixir imbibed at Eleusis. From the Joe Rogan Podcast to the Jordan Peterson Podcast and Lex Friedman Podcast, discussion of the Eleusinian rites and their transformative mysteries have been quickly popularized among the general population over recent years, essentially mainlining a much longer and once-secretive project known as “MK-Ultra,” as we’ll see shortly.
As recognized by the SRI authors and summarized at the outset in the first part of this series, with the official sweeping away of archaic mystery and magic cults—all of them controlled by the reigning Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman priesthood or “magicians”—these old ideas would historically take cover under the guise “Gnosticism.”
As described in the first instalment of this report, a historical assessment of this radical departure from more ancient forms of cult control was outlined in the pivotal “Changing Images of Man” document. There, the authors use key sections of their document to contrast the older systems of belief and their related “images of man” with the dominant epistemological and spiritual paradigm established with Classical Greek civilization and the Christianized West—the latter being identified as the explicit adversary of the Roman Empire’s own particular brand of nature worship, Mithraism.
As journalist Mathew Ehret writes on the complimentary nature of the Roman Empire’s Earth Mother cult of Cybele-Attis and Mithraism:
“While there are outward differences in the rites of the two cults (Cybele and Mithra), there were also many similarities. Both featured exoteric (outward) teachings for the lower degrees and uninitiated and esoteric (secret) teachings for the higher degrees of initiated. Both pagan cults featured sacrifices, self-denying stoicism mixed with hedonistic release, following Apollonian-Dionysian models of behavior, and something called the Taurobolium.
“The Taurobolium were gruesome ceremonies involving the sacrifice of bulls, which bled onto the priests overseeing the mystery rites, which featured prominently in the rituals of both cults.
Ehret further observes:
“The early Christian polemicist Prudentius, 348- 410 CE described the rites of Cybele in the following terms:
“There are rites in which you mutilate yourself and maim your bodies to make an offering of the pain. A worshipper possessed thrusts the knife into his arms and cuts them to propitiate the Mother goddess. Frenzy and wild whirling are thought to be the rule of her mysteries. The hand that spares the cutting is held to be undutiful, and it is the barbarity of the wound that earns heaven. Another makes the sacrifice of his genitals; appeasing the goddess by mutilating his loins, he unmans himself and offers her a shameful gift; the source of the man’s seed is torn away to give her food and increase through the flow of blood. Both sexes are displeasing to her holiness, so she keeps a middle gender between the two, ceasing to be a man without becoming a woman.” (Prudentius, Perist. 1059-1073)
“Additionally, both sects (Mithra and Cybele) featured death and rebirth rituals, involving the shedding of old identities of initiates in favor of new constructs groomed by a higher priesthood.”
Of course, in each case an exoteric and an esoteric version existed, with a popular brand of mysteries available by way of controlled images and symbols, though the real “mysteries” were ultimately only available to those who ascended in the ranks, the true “Knowers” or Gnostics i.e. the Elect, so we are told.
X-Men, Gnosis and Deification
Substance-induced changes in consciousness dramatically reveal that our mental life has physical foundations. Psychoactive drugs challenge the Christian assumption of the inviolability and special ontological status of the soul. Similarly, they challenge the modern idea of the ego and its inviolability and control structures.
—Terrence McKenna, Food of the Gods
