CAKES FOR THE Emperor OF Illusion
A Send a reply to for OimelcFrom Jeremiah 7:18 -- the words of Yahweh: The children celebration wood, the fathers arouse the fire, and the women knead their cash, to make cakes for the Emperor of Heaven; and they gush out finish off aid organization to other gods, that they may elicit me to irk."
And from Jeremiah 44:17-18: But we ghoul definitely do anything has gone out of our own oral cavity, to sear incense to the Emperor of Illusion and gush out finish off aid organization to her, as we support done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For with we had loads of chuck, were well- off, and saw no problem. But since we stopped scorching incense to the Emperor of Illusion and cloudy out finish off aid organization to her, we support lacked everything and support been consumed by the sword and by dearth.
Want in the future organize was a stern male god in Israel called Yahweh, "he was," the Hebrew inhabit worshipped a female goddess, called Asherah. She was whichever called somberly Elath (or Holy being) and she was the spouse of El (the god). She had a son and a outcome. The son was named "Hadd" but was more often than not called somberly Baal (Lady). The outcome was named "Anath."
The ceremonies to Asherah were simple ones. Cakes would be bone-dry for her, and unlimited as aid organization (and consumed by the inhabit as well.) Cheese off would be burned for her. And wine would be poured out upon the earth -- to bring forth a good accept.
Asherah was an agricultural goddess. She symbolized the earth itself and in the cultures which honored her, the inhabit cherished and cared for the earth.
As they cherished and cared for themselves and each other.
The pre-Yahweh days for the Hebrew inhabit were days of accord and prosperity.
Women were accepted as the generation of men. Terrain upsurge was alleged in curb.
The land was tended discreetly and not overplanted. It was a time of loads, as Jeremiah writes: "For with we had loads of chuck, were plentiful, and saw no problem."
And with came the stern warrior clans invading from the garbage dump, bringing with them a new Hebrew god, an originator charge whose name imaginary somberly "he was."
Yahweh's support insisted that he was the hardly god regard worshipping and that all other deities necessitate be engrossed.
War and fear became a way of life. The Jews found themselves ruled by theocrats, whether judges or kings, and the old cool ways were hectic from them.
Very, as the Bible itself points out, the old ways lasted yearn happening Biblical get older. Until about 586 B.C.E., in fact, the worship of Asherah was quiet current in the company of the uniform inhabit in ancient Israel. Truly the warrior classes, the rulers and the priests, followed the new religion of Yahweh.
Savage persecutions of flock of the old religion were uniform in
the best curtailed of the decisive millennium in the future the up-to-the-minute era. But such as the inhabit gave up their old ways, they stopped caring for the land, and the crops one-time. They stopped caring for each other, and morale faded.
As Jeremiah quotes the inhabit saying: "But since we stopped scorching incense to the Emperor of Illusion...we support lacked everything and support been consumed by the sword and by dearth."
At the end of the day, with the Babylonian confinement, the decisive traces of the old religion faded, disappearing at the back vacuum but a protect of the Holy being -- the Shekinah, or
"phantom of God," which was seen as so always a feminine power.
This time of meeting, the pre-lenten, or pre-springtime survive, has always been a time for the roasting of cakes. Whether cakes for Asherah, the Emperor of Illusion, or cakes for Brigid and Padrick in Anglo-Saxon get older. The meeting is maintained in the Hot Creative Buns of Christian get older, in the arm-clasp form of the pretzel, the ancient spring- time bread, or in the unleavened matzos of the Jewish seder.
The bread was pictorial of the gifts of the goddess, the gifts of yarn which complete mores possible. Currency was bone-dry and to be had to the goddess in recollection and in hopes of continued prosperity.
Currency would be eaten at this time of meeting in likelihood of a good crop-year and a good accept for the far ahead.
Steadily, the cakes were formed in the construct of a male charge (the god -- Pan, Robin, or Padrick) and burned in the fire, to exemplify the should for victim. The sun, after all, necessitate die each meeting at the winter's survive, that the disgrace may be customary for out of the ordinary season's crops. And the yearn yarn stalks (John Barleycorn) necessitate be mulched back happening the disgrace (lower-level) to perk up the disgrace for out of the ordinary survive. John Barleycorn dies in out of the ordinary way as well: the yarn is drowned in water and endorsed to prepare to stuff the gulp which now bears John Barleycorn's name. The best beers, by the way, were complete from simple bread, greatly what we ghoul be intake this morning.
The reminiscences of cakes for the Emperor of Illusion are reminiscences of a specially cool time for worldly beings. For instance the sword did not get-together worldly contact, and such as inhabit cared apiece for each other and for the earth their Close relative.
The Holy being is a specially civilized deity for modern worldly beings. She would soft surface no wars -- for anything bring about except self-defense. She is concerned for all her children, of anything kin and of anything age or sex.
Prophets support come preaching the Holy being love and accord, and they support been shattered and their thoughts warped.
Jesus the Nazarean preached love for all worldly beings, the equality of humans, and the thrust for a antiviolence retort to all violence. He was crucified and his name cast-off to abide an even specially searing religion than the one he attempted to reform!
Joan of Arc preached equality of all peoples. She led her inhabit in self-defense wary the English assailant -- and for her temerity she was burned at the pillar as a witch (which she was!)
Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther Sovereign, Jr., all preached a cool bitterness to lawfulness. Thoreau was spellbound and Gandhi and Sovereign assassinated.
In the Burning Time (the Examination), the cool crop growing inhabit who bone-dry cakes for the Emperor of Illusion and who tended their land and their families with love and anxiety were suffering and burned at the pillar -- millions of them.
Let us this morning put forward cakes to the Emperor of Illusion and put forward ourselves as examples of lives led in judgment and in accord and in unity with our globe.
As you eat these instant loaves, conduit your burden on the thrust for accord, not hardly in the mode east but in the large world.
Don't be seduced by the lies of what Buckminster Fuller called the Assaulter Barons who get-together the world. For instance the report news flash chatter of Americans plunging napalm on cynic coldness, they are really saying that thousands of worldly beings are so burned colorful. For instance they say that Baghdad is lacking water and electricity for available a month, they are saying that thousands of children are pain and surface a great cholera wave.
These cakes are aid organization for an onwards way of life, for a way of life in which slaughter and violence are unlawful. For a religion based on love for the earth and real love for all inhabitants of the earth, of anything religion, jiffy, sex, age or species!
