To attempt to wade through all the various systems of mythology, and explain each in its proper order, would be to write a large encyclopedia upon the subject.We have given a few examples as keys, and suggest works for study.We have here given the real key, and the student must fathom particulars for himself.The chief work, and most valuable in its line, is Ovid's "Metamorphoses." The next, also the most valuable in itsline, is "The Mythological Astronomy of the Ancients," with notes (these latter are the gist and constitute the real value), by S.A.Mackey; and last, and, perhaps, in some sense, not the least, is the "Wisdom of the Ancients," by Lord Bacon.This is published in "Bacon's Essays."A careful study of Ovid, with the key which this chapter supplies, will reveal ALL that pertains to ancient gods, demi-gods, and heroes, while a study of Mackey, and a careful comparison with "La Clef" and "La Clef Hermetique" will reveal all that pertains to cosmic cycles and astral chronology, which is the only chronology that is quite trustworthy, as far as ancient history is concerned.
While we are on this subject, we must point out some of the delusions, into which the subtle, magical teachings of the Orient would lead the student.
All the monster sphinx, half human, half animal, etc., which the ancients have preserved, are simply records of the past.They are chronological tables of cosmic time, and relate to eras of the past, of the Sun's motion, and not by any means to living creatures of antediluvian creations, as some wiseacres have imagined.Many of these ancient monuments, monstrous in form, are records of that awful period of floods and devastation known as the Iron Age, when there was a vertical Sun at the poles; or, in other words, when the pole of the Earth was ninety degrees removed from the pole of the ecliptic.To those who can read aright, every lineament tells as plainly as the written word the history of that awful past, marking the march of time, recording the revolutions of the Sun in his orbit of 25,920 years, and relating with wonderful accuracy the climatic changes, in their latitudes, which took place with each revolution of the Sun and corresponding motion of the Earth's pole of less than four degrees.All the greater myths of the dim past were formulated to express cosmic time, solar and polar motion, and the phenomena resulting therefrom.These monuments of antiquity prove that, the ancients knew a great deal more of the movements of heavenly bodies and of our planet than modern astronomers credit them with.
Madame Blavatsky, in her "Secret Doctrine," seriously states that all these monstrous forms are the types of actual, once living physicalembodiments, and, with apparent sincerity, asserts that the Adepts teach such insane superstitions.
Such, however, is not the case, neither is there anything true, or even approaching the truth, in the cosmogony given in the work in question.
And, lastly, we have but one more aspect of the grand old Astro- Mythos to present to your notice.This aspect reveals the whole of the ancient classification of WORK and LABOR, and gives us a clear insight into the original designs, or pictorial representations, of the twelve signs and the twelve months of the year.It also clearly explains many things which are to-day attributed to superstitious paganism.
As each month possesses its own peculiar season, so are, or were, the various labors of the husbandman, and those of pastoral pursuits, altered and diverted.Each month, then, bad a symbol which denoted the physical characteristics of climate and the temporal characteristics of work.As the Sun entered the sign, so the temple rites varied in honor of the labors performed, and the symbol thus became the object of outward veneration and worship.So we see that the twelve signs, and principally the four cardinal ones, became Deities, and the symbols sacred, but in reality, it was the same Sun to which homage was paid.
There is a large sphere of study in this direction, as, of course, each climate varied the symbol to suit its requirements.In Egypt there were three months when the land was overflowed with water; hence, they had only nine working months out of doors, and from this fact sprang the Nine Muses, while the Three Sirens represented the three months of inactivity in work, or three months of pleasure and festivity.
Mackey tells us that the great leviathan mentioned in the Book of job was the river Nile.
In nearly all mythologies, we find that the gods assembled on some high mountain to take counsel.The Olympus of the Greeks and Mount Zion of the Hebrew Bible mean the same, the Pole-Star; and there, on the pictured planisphere, sits Cephus, the mighty Jove, with one foot on the Pole-Star and all the gods gathered below him.The Pole-Star is the symbol of the highest heaven.
With this we close, leaving the endless ramifications of this deeplyinteresting subject to the student's leisure and personal research, trusting the keys we have given in this chapter and their careful study may induce the reader and student of these pages to search out for himself the meaning concealed in all Astro-Mythologies.
