Breaking down the Mystery Religion - Easter, a pagan tradition at its core
Continuing the series breaking down the pagan roots of modern traditions, religion, and culture
Intro
As I’ve outlined in a couple of past articles, I plan to dedicate a series of articles to the pagan influences on modern culture and religion, and in particular Christianity (since I’m a Western guy, after all).
However, these influences have permeated the globe and billions more people that practice various traditions that stem from these much older, pagan traditions. They’re just completely unaware of it.
Let’s breakdown the pagan core of Easter.
Christian Easter and its traditions
Easter is celebrated by Christians to honor the resurrection of Jesus, which happened three days after his crucifixion.
Its symbol is the Easter Bunny and kids hunt for Easter eggs on this special Sunday each year.
Should we take this story at face value, or is part of an older sun-worshiping / pagan tradition founded on astrotheology?
Here are a couple of hints: What day is Easter celebrated on? Sunday. The first Sunday following the full moon after the spring equinox.
The symbol of rebirth
If we see Jesus as a solar figure/deity, which is what he’s fundamentally based on, we see the ‘resurrection’ as a symbol for the sun which resurrects from the underground/hell/death.
This and several subsequent excerpts come from Ancient Origins,
According to some scholars, such as Dr. Tony Nugent, teacher of Theology and Religious Studies at Seattle University, and Presbyterian minister, the Easter story comes from the Sumerian legend of Damuzi ( Tammuz) and his wife Inanna ( Ishtar), an epic myth called “The Descent of Inanna” found inscribed on cuneiform clay tablets dating back to 2100 BC. When Tammuz dies, Ishtar is grief–stricken and follows him to the underworld. In the underworld, she enters through seven gates, and her worldly attire is removed. "Naked and bowed low" she is judged, killed, and then hung on display. In her absence, the earth loses its fertility, crops cease to grow and animals stop reproducing. Unless something is done, all life on earth will end.
After Inanna has been missing for three days her assistant goes to other gods for help. Finally one of them Enki, creates two creatures who carry the plant of life and water of life down to the Underworld, sprinkling them on Inanna and Damuzi, resurrecting them, and giving them the power to return to the earth as the light of the sun for six months. After the six months are up, Tammuz returns to the underworld of the dead, remaining there for another six months, and Ishtar pursues him, prompting the water god to rescue them both. Thus were the cycles of winter death and spring life.
The ancients / pagans would place a cross over the zodiac to show the two solstices and the two equinoxes. Also keep in mind this meaning of the cross, Jesus, and astrotheology.
And as a quick aside to tie together the above image and the article, as it relates to the Mystery Religion, refer to this excerpt from The Secret Teachings of All Ages:
In his article on the Cross and Crucifixion in the Encyclopædia Britannica, Thomas Macall Fallow casts much light on the antiquity of this ideograph. "The use of the cross as a religious symbol in pre-Christian times, and among non-Christian peoples, may probably be regarded as almost universal, and in very many cases it was connected with some form of nature worship."
Not only is the cross itself a familiar object in the art of all nations, but the veneration for it is an essential part of the religious life of the greater part of humanity. It is a common symbol among the American Indians--North, Central, and South. William W. Seymour states: "The Aztec goddess of rain bore a cross in her hand, and the Toltecs claimed that their deity, Quetzalcoatl, taught them the sign and ritual of the cross, hence his staff, or sceptre of power, resembled a crosier, and his mantle was covered with red crosses." (The Cross in Tradition, History and Art.)
The spring equinox precedes Easter and six months later, the autumn equinox whereby the sun is descending – in this context, descending into the underworld as Inanna did.
This is observed by the precession of the equinox. Here’s a 2.5 minute video describing this concept as well as other pagan monuments built (they were also sun worshipers - pay attention!).
The article continues,
Dr. Nugent points out that the story of Inanna and Damuzi is just one of a number of accounts of dying and rising gods that represent the cycle of the seasons and the stars. For example, the resurrection of Egyptian Horus; the story of Mithras, who was worshipped at Springtime; and the tale of Dionysus, resurrected by his grandmother. Among these stories are prevailing themes of fertility, conception, renewal, descent into darkness, and the triumph of light over darkness or good over evil.
As I pointed out in a past article, Tammuz was a predecessor to both the Horus figure and the Jesus figure. They are symbols of the sun – it’s astrotheology. There are dozens of such ‘solar saviors’ preceding Jesus.
But back to the article:
A related perspective is that, rather than being a representation of the story of Ishtar, Easter was originally a celebration of Eostre, goddess of Spring, otherwise known as Ostara, Austra, and Eastre. One of the most revered aspects of Ostara for both ancient and modern observers is a spirit of renewal.
Celebrated at Spring Equinox on March 21, Ostara marks the day when light is equal to darkness, and will continue to grow. As the bringer of light after a long dark winter, the goddess was often depicted with the hare, an animal that represents the arrival of spring as well as the fertility of the season.
...
In 325 AD, Emperor Constantine convened a meeting of Christian leaders to resolve important disputes at the Council of Nicaea. Since the church believed that the resurrection took place on a Sunday, the Council determined that Easter should always fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. Easter has since remained without a fixed date but proximate to the full moon, which coincided with the start of Passover.
Full moon. Sunday. Equinox.
It all comes back to the sun. It always does with these people – remember that.
Easter Bunny and colored eggs
I always loved Easter because it was full of chocolate and other candies that were hidden around the house. My favorite were (and still are) the Reese’s in the shape of a rabbit, but I haven’t seen those outside of the US (I’m still on the hunt…).
I, as many are, was complete unaware of the origins of these traditions. I just like candy and the game of hunting them down.
So, as described above, the hare / rabbit was associated with Springtime.
From Scientific American we get this excerpt – pay attention again to the solar references:
Indeed, some folklorists have suggested that the Easter Bunny derives from an ancient Anglo-Saxon myth, concerning the fertility goddess Ostara. The Encyclopedia Mythica explains that:
Ostara is the personification of the rising sun. In that capacity she is associated with the spring and is considered a fertility goddess. She is the friend of all children and to amuse them she changed her pet bird into a rabbit. This rabbit brought forth brightly coloured eggs, which the Greek goddess gave to children as gifts. From her name and rites the festival of Easter is derived.
…
Indeed, in his 1835 book Deutsche Mythologie, Jacob Grimm states that “the Easter Hare is unintelligible to me, but probably the hare was the sacred animal of Ostara … Ostara, Eástre seems therefore to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing, whose meaning could be easily adapted by the resurrection-day of the Christian’s God.”
Could easily be adapted – you got that right…
Now, for the symbolic meaning of the egg,
The Encyclopedia Britannica clearly explains the pagan traditions associated with the egg: “The egg as a symbol of fertility and of renewed life goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Persians, who had also the custom of colouring and eating eggs during their spring festival.” In ancient Egypt, an egg symbolised the sun, while for the Babylonians, the egg represents the hatching of the Venus Ishtar, who fell from heaven to the Euphrates.
More solar / star references. Remember, it all ties back into astrotheology.
From Scientific American again,
The earliest reference to an egg-toting Easter Bunny can be found in a late 16th-century German text (1572). “Do not worry if the Easter Bunny escapes you; should we miss his eggs, we will cook the nest,” the text reads. A century later, a German text once again mentions the Easter Bunny, describing it as an “old fable”, and suggesting that the story had been around for a while before the book was written.
In the 18th century, German immigrants took the custom of the Easter Bunny with them to the United States and, by the end of the 19th century, sweet shops in the eastern states were selling rabbit-shaped candies, prototypes of the chocolate bunnies we have today.
The egg symbolizes life – or rebirth. It’s the cosmic egg of the universe, in a macro sense.
The virgin (feminine) moon gives birth on the spring equinox to the (masculine) sun which rises in the Northern hemisphere to save humanity. That’s what a lot of this represents, in an esoteric sense.
Conclusion
Easter is basically a pagan fertility ritual. A symbol of the seasons and the sun. A ritual to symbolize rebirth of the solar deity.
It’s all pagan sun/star worship. It’s based on fertility and sex. The masculine and feminine. These concepts all factor in heavily into the world of the occult as well, as I’ve pointed out over and over.
The ‘elite’ of the world practice this pagan religion still based on such occult principles. They’ve co-opted the true spiritual teachings that Christianity can provide, and infused their pagan traditions into it, and in a twisted sense have made countless people pay homage to their pagan gods as a result, who are completely ignorant of their actual meanings.
Easter Sunday is just another representation of such traditions.
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The cross is also the torture device of the Romans. Does that tie into Roman paganism? Like you said, paganism is infused into the Christian religion to obscure and confuse Christians. I mean, the Catholic religion is all about obscuring the truth. I was raised with the Catholic teachings. They are very good at what they do!
All the lies need to be exposed! Thanks for being one that is leading the charge.