Spring Equinox and some History Behind Easter

Pat Regan

9 years ago

The Spring Equinox, Easter …

& Some Very Old Horse Races

Pat Regan

The chilly month of March gets its name from the Roman god of growing energies and war, Mars. This month was vital to the ancient peoples, as it was once held to be the first month of the new season.

January and February were formerly believed to be rather motionless months with little importance being assigned to them.

On the 14th day of the month a great event called the Equiria was held.

This festival was sacred to Mars and great horse races were undertaken in the Campus-Martius. The March Equiria was in fact the second festival of this name, the first having been held on February 27^th. The legendary Romulus, (brother of Remus, son of Mars), first instituted these two events. During the Equiria all manner of articles relating to the cavalry units were lustrated and spiritually cleansed.

The Horse was one of the animals held sacred to Mars, the others being the Wolf, Vulture, Magpie and the Dog. The Horse is associated with this deity not only because of its connection with combat, but also from its earlier origins as a beast of burden in agricultural circles.

It would be quite interesting today to note how many punters, preparing to ‘make or break’ on the famous Grand National race, ever pondered on the ancient spiritual link to their sport.

On the 19^th day of the month, the ‘Sacred Shield,’ (Ancile or Ancyle) received great attention and devotion. The Ancile fell from the heavens during the reign of King Numa. He informed the Romans that the very safety/fate of their Empire depended on the shield. Numa had eleven copies of the shield made to thwart any attempts of insurrection by enemies or criminals. Special warrior priests called ‘Salii’ were instituted in the ‘Temple of Vesta’ to guard the Ancile.

These elite priests of Mars all came from noble families and their feasts were considerably lavish affairs. They adorned themselves in bright red tunics fastened with a purple belt and carried a rod and a shield.

The Salii were twelve in number (one for each shield,) which incidentally seems to be a figure later adopted by eager bible compilers for the Apostles. This would indicate that ‘12’ is a sacred number of protections, long since passed down from one antediluvian culture to the next.

There is a vast plethora of Pagan wisdom such as this small psychic truth, just awaiting rediscovery by today’s liberated freethinker. Early Christianity, like every other monotheistic religion, has customarily suppressed then commandeered traditions, festivals and rites from much older native Pagan faiths. This is not conjecture but historically proven fact!

Scarlet/Red is the colour of the ‘Warrior God’, and as such belongs to the realm of death and destruction. Mars was never a deity to “turn the other cheek!” Such simpering platitudes ‘supposedly’ held by later all-conquering monotheistic faith systems have proved for centuries to be the philosophy of the charlatan and weakling.

Is it wise to “turn the other cheek” to a murderer, rapist or tactless thief that wishes to destroy, without hesitation, our loved ones? Surely if such a ludicrous philosophy were ever to have been ‘seriously’ taken on board by the masses then humankind would have ceased to exist centuries ago. Common sense decrees to every living creature that self-preservation is the highest cosmic law. To fly against such natural wisdom belongs to the kingdom of the self-righteous fool!

Red is also the colour of lifeblood, which gives us strength and new vigour. It’s the colour of the rose of Venus and the wholesomeness marked by the growing sun. With life there is also death and vice versa, we cannot have one without the other. Our ancient predecessors knew these simple truths well. The classical grandeur of the colourful leaping, dancing Salii displayed this psychic, earth – orientated wisdom admirably.

Contemporary Pagans continue to spiritually synchronise with the same unending, universal growing energies that perpetually surround us.

These natural green forces impinge on our very being in the promising month of new growth – the sacred time period that links us to the great divinity of essential creative/destructive life force, Mars.

Easter, the bits they don’t tell you

So what about Easter, Good Friday etc and the history behind the foundation of Easter as a principal festival within the Christian Church?

Christians celebrating the Easter/resurrection feast at this time of year are simply recreating the primordial Pagan festivities associated with beloved earlier gods of ‘natural’ regeneration such as Attis, Adonis, etc.

These greatly cherished deities were lamented and adored by millions of adherents throughout numerous countries, long before the Christ myth was first thought up by the expanding ecclesiastical machine intent on theocratic world domination, via crafty evangelical, missionary means.

The Christians fathers hijacked Easter from the Pagans and built their new myth around it in order to firstly conjoin with Pagan festivities and then, when they had seized power from the Pagan priests, sanction and outcast them.

Direct mythological comparisons remain with deities such as Dionysius being nailed to a post and blooded; so his vital fluid would soak the ground to bring forth new life for all.

The Judeo-Christian Passover became merged with heathen fertility veneration to generate a new festival celebrating the resurrection of Christ. This of course was also a hammer to convert the native Pagan populace away from their indigenous spring fertility festivities.

This was observed at a different time from the Passover. Known as the Quartodeciman controversy, the dispute over when this celebration concerning Christ should be observed reverberated across the Empire through the second, third and fourth centuries. Eventually it was established by the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325 and reinforced at the Synod of Antioch in A.D. 341.

With its iron-fist theological stranglehold on the masses the Synod called for the excommunication of anyone who dared to resist the new-fangled, man-made Easter observance. Those who opposed it were forced to move outside the reach of the Empire. Emperor Constantine was a driving force behind this action.

This man, amongst numerous other atrocities, murdered his son and wife; the Bishops in their pious wisdom happily accepted Constantine as an authority on ‘godly’ Christian matters and he reputedly said:

“And truly, in the first place, it seems to everyone a most unworthy thing that we should follow the customs of the Jews in the celebration of this most holy solemnity, who, polluted wretches! having stained their hands with a nefarious crime, are justly blinded in their minds. It is fit, therefore, that rejecting the practice of this people, we should perpetuate to all future ages the celebration of this rite, in a more legitimate order, which we have kept from the first day of our “Lord’s” passion even to the present times. Let us then have nothing in common with the most hostile rabble of the Jews.” (Council of Nicea, pg. 52.)

Thus the Christian celebration of Easter (which is incidentally named after a Saxon goddess of spring, Ostara or Eostre) obviously stems from incredibly intolerant origins. It is nothing but a clandestine gala of theocratic lies, deceit, subversion and suppression of other smaller faiths.

Of course such historically-based Christian intolerance to Jews was to finally result in mass murder throughout the 1940s, via Nazi means.

Hitler’s Holocaust was chiefly a product of rampant Christian fundamentalism, gone mad.

The Fuehrer’s upbringing ensured that he was quick to utilise old, well- indoctrinated hatreds in the masses about Jews killing ‘his’ Savoir.

Millions that fought and died for their Reich masters were not Pagans, not occultists, not witches but faithful Christians believing themselves to be doing God’s work.

On their military belt buckles was the inscription ‘Gott mit uns’ (meaning God with us). Hitler openly appealed to Christianity on a regular basis and this was largely why he was so well-liked. He often proclaimed his own Christianity, how much he cherished Christianity, how significant Christianity was to his life, and even how much he was personally inspired by Jesus – his ‘Lord and Savoir.’ Hitler made numerous speeches declaring his zealous Christian faith.

Christian Antisemitism in brief

Hitler was educated in the sternest of Catholic institutions, a Bavarian Benedictine monastery. He had also been in the church choir. Powerful Christian fundamentalist influences undoubtedly remained imperative in Hitler’s young, formative life. He was also a big fan of Martin Luther (1483–1546) the old German Reformation leader.

In fact we may perceive Luther as a role model in bias and hate for Hitler. Luther had particular guidance to offer regarding those who had failed to follow Christ, like he advocated, the Jews.

Luther continually advised Christian action against the Jewish race. This bigotry included concentrating them in certain areas, drowning Jews and even indiscriminate slaughter. Luther proposed, “What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews”:

· “First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools … This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians …”

· “Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed.”

· “Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.”

· “Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb …”

· “Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside …”

· “Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them …”

· “Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow … But if we are afraid that they might harm us or our wives, children, servants, cattle, etc., … then let us emulate the common sense of other nations such as France, Spain, Bohemia, etc., … then eject them forever from the country …”

Nazi Germany was then an invention of Christian Europe.

Easter stands as a burning example of Christian fundamentalist absolutism in action.

The real implication of this old festival may however be discovered in lonely places such as the bleak mountainside, forest glen and stream; far away from the mind-numbing influence of self-righteous clergy and their so-called holy writ.