Posted by Maybe visitor on March 02, 19101 at 09:04:33:
In Reply to: Consanguinity posted by mehrdad on February 25, 19101 at 22:18:38:
Dear Friends
I have been following your exchanges for a while now – it was possible that I would go to Iran to work, and I have been trying to learn about Iran and its culture from your site and others - I have been very impressed with the efforts you make to remain in communication with each other from very opposite perspectives – this would not happen in other cultures. Dr Shariati’s writings have great purity, which is also evident even to me as an outsider. I hope you do not mind me writing occasionally as I am interested in some of the topics, and there are areas where I have some (alternative)(Western) knowledge which might interest you.
In the current instance, there are some comments I would like to make about ancient history, as I feel you may be working from limited sources, and from a restricted viewpoint, although I am sure your conclusions will still be careful and valid. I am already working abroad and I cannot check my books properly (all the books I refer to are difficult to read, I’m afraid) so I am trying to give a sense rather than an accurate quote:-
1. from Madame Blavatsky in “The Secret Doctrine”, it is stated there that there are many legends in all the cultures of the world referring to very ancient history (before 10,000 years ago) that there were kings and priests from some sort of ‘different breed’ who were separate from the normal people as you describe. These were the ‘teachers of the race’, and “solar heroes” such as Hercules, Perseus and later Jesus were later visitors from among these teachers, who continued and developed the teaching, in their cases of the solar hero through a particular pattern of birth, sacrifice and rebirth. Many people still hope that there are such Masters, or that they will return.
2. from Robert Graves “The Greek Myths” (available still from Penguin Books) and in his greatest work “The White Goddess” (a very difficult book, available from Faber). He is very clear that there are more mentions of twins in the old texts than you could predict – they crop up everywhere. This needs to be explained, and in his explanation he states that in ancient history (about 4000 years ago), the social and religious organisation was very different, and was based on worship of the Earth Goddess, who was represented by the High Priestess, who led a system which was matriarchal. In nearly all cultures, she had a Winter King and a Summer King, who alternated from winter to summer, and these twins are found in each culture (with also a sun god and a dark winter god). In some cultures, both twins were sacrificed each year in the correct season, in others every Great Year (where the sun and moon are both back to a certain starting point), and in others, surrogates were used (humans or animals – this was thought a great privilege !). Graves states that nearly all of our ancient histories are describing the conquest of this polytheistic matriarchal society by our patriarchal monotheistic masculine-oriented society. There may be future ‘changes of the ages’. After the battles as the monotheistic system took over came the battles between the twins – which of the twins should be supreme ? I am not in a position to judge, but Graves ideas seem to fit some facts that are ignored by others.
I am sorry this has been a long letter, and I apologise if I have caused offence by using sources which are not approved, or by mis-quoting them. Those ancient days must have been very different from how we imagine them – although all our cultures come from these roots, we will always prefer to ‘project ourselves’ back into the old days, imagining a world like ours only less developed. I think the quotes I have given are genuine attempts to ‘not project’ and to look freshly at the strange evidence we have in the holy books, museums and monuments
With best wishes to you all.