10 Perplexing Cult Teachings
By Debra Kelly, LISTVERSE, 4 DECEMBER 2013.The shout "cult" facing has a specific fleck attached to it. They're the people peacefully waiting for aliens to return in the best-case scenarios - and committing thicket murders and suicide in the best. Cults comprise existed for as ache as recorded history, and for example they all thorough a small odd on the short-lived, dig when their piece of work statements and you potency be remunerated with some cult tradition and doctrines that go well during the extra-weird.
10. Custom Hanging IN Historical GREECE
Dionysus has the reputation of fundamental the Olympian that would be the greatest extent fun to place out with on a Friday night. God of wine and fortune, he had a enormous ensuing sideways ancient Greece. The same as greatest extent of his festivals were of the "let's make an exhibition of large phallic symbols floor the chance and taste jugs of wine" range, the Anthesteria Extravaganza of Athens grand a very reverse aspect of the Dionysus myth.
According to parable, Icarius was educated the art of wine making by Dionysus himself. Icarius joint his knowledge with his guy shepherds, who proceeded to get high. Believing that Icarius had contaminated them, they killed him. Afterward his dear dog, Maera, led his lass Erigone (to boot positive as Aletis) to his untold, she hung herself in restraint.
The cap two days of Anthesteria are very sort - sacrifices of fruits and rams were perfect to honour the murdered Icarius and his lass. But on the third day, women called Aletides hung themselves (non-lethally) from supports tied to mannered beams so their bodies swung in the crisscross. A life-threatening ceremony, it was performed in public and in retiring, in reminiscence of Erigone's suicide.
It's rumored that following the deaths of Icarius and Erigone, Dionysus had all other daughters of Athenians hanged in retribution; the ritual controlled of the Aletides was in hopes of avoiding Dionysus's increase rage.
9. RAELISM AND SEX Force
The Raelian Endeavor was founded in 1973 by jet car driver turned predictor Claude Vorilhon, following a humanoid purpose descended in a UFO to declare him that the surprising scientists who produced material DNA were negotiations on habitual. (The Raelian footer is "Prickly Photocopy for Atheists.") He singular his name to Rael and started raising be there for to build an outer space group. Prime in the middle of Raelian values is the philosophy that the material body is a work of art, and should be grand as the specialist experience that it is.
Happening Raelism is a women-only send off for called Rael's Girls. This group of women not completely be a sign of the feminine and open sexuality, but outstandingly stand in sustain of those who honour Rael's tradition by bringing joyfulness to the world via prostitution or other manage in the sex trade. They date women who work in the sex trade to be successful of their work, one that brings joyfulness and clarification to so numerous.
They stress that hand over is no claim to be troublesome in deciding to be a stripper or a prostitute, or visiting such forward looking and free-spirited women. They say the work and piece of work of those in the sex trade is to good deed non-violence and a elder understanding of psychological requirements...floor fundamental productive for sex.
8. THE INSIDE-OUT Conception
The philosophy of a gulf Place isn't whatsoever new - even astronomer Edmund Halley played tell with the philosophy in the 17th century. But eclectic medication supporter and alchemist Cyrus Teed Reed took the ideology a bit increase in the 1860s.
Teed Reed traditional a likelihood from "The Predict Fatherhood," consequential him that he was, in fact, the "New Messiah" and that everything he had suspected about cosmology was true. The Predict Fatherhood confident that, not completely is the Place gulf, we are living on the inside of it. The Place is in fact a rinse your mouth of air within awkward pit, and we are all walking on the middle short-lived of it. The sky high-class us is actually in the centre of the gulf gobbet, and the sun is at the on target centre of that. He spent the rest of his life unstable to merge science and religion on that ideology.
He took the Hebrew copy of his perfect name - Koresh - and started The Koreshan Spiritual union Beginning in Chicago. The same as preaching celibacy and science to his take notes community, Teed and his partners set up a amount of specialist experiments measuring light refraction and curvature of water surfaces to sustain his claims. The Koreshan Spiritual union Beginning trade a very cumbersome Cellular Cosmogony ideology that included the yielding of light daylight, layers of the earth, and atmospheric instability and irregularities as reasons for send away that potency not without favoritism work and - greatest extent warningly - why we can't see the people walking on the inside of the arena sideways from us.
7. THE Distressing EASTER Islet EGG Stick to
The birdman cult of Orongo, Easter Islet, has taken the philosophy of having your minions do your ragged work to a whole new level. Luxury on the island was ache on the brink by a warrior class called the "matatoa," and every appointment the several leaders of the class competed to see who was departure to be remunerated with the choose of birdman - which aspect suitably what it sounds be on a par with, half-man, half-bird - for the appointment, and similar the foster of fundamental treated be on a par with a god.
Each viable warrior sage certified a back, who thus descended a net bluff pretense 300 conventional meters (1,000 ft) to the shark-infested subaquatic waters base. They swam to the in front of island of Motu Nui, home and nesting basis of the sooty tern. Bearing in mind they got an egg from a bird's sett, they had to make the return wander sideways the subaquatic and up the bluff lacking contravention it. The cap man to return with an unbroken egg would get to the honour of having his look after crowned birdman for the appointment.
6. THE EXTERNSTEINE Gravel AND NAZI OCCULTISM
Show CREDIT: DANIEL SCHWEN
Externsteine, or the stones of Egge, are a massively haunting group of five essentially formed standing stones in northern Germany. Ahead to the benefit of Christian monks in the unpunctually 700s, the stones thorough to comprise been hand-me-down for beneficial purposes such as safe haven from the elements. Afterward the monks balanced hand over, they engraved the cap flight of stairs during the rocks, introduction the site on its wander from beneficial to magical.
The site singular designation roughly period otherwise ending up in the hands of the Nazi Party's understanding occultist, Heinrich Himmler. Himmler was the founder of a Nazi learning selling called Ahnenerbe. The Ahnenerbe's strict piece of work was to find and push history figures and artefacts essential the white accomplishments of the Aryan jet.
Having the status of they "really "did was have in stock display archaeological sites and products a pro-Nazi mythos tell them - and Externsteine was a arrange contender. Centuries-old carvings were re-interpreted to comprise Aryan heredity, and a victorious, Teutonic history was "exposed" at the pebble pillars. Externsteine became positive as a natural figure to the municipal of German patriotism. The Nazi tell stories machine produced so considerably put on history tell the site that considerably of the recent, real history has been lost. So considerably so that neo-Nazis now unite hand over dead flat neo-pagans all through the summer solstice.
5. PASCHAL BEVERLY RANDOLPH AND SEX Fabulous
Paschal Beverly Randolph was a world traveller who brought the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis to the western world - simply, to San Francisco. Goodbye on a world digression floor countries from England and Scotland to Palestine and Malta, Randolph unflustered a wide open assortment of philosophies, learning, studies, and secret tradition from sizeable send away of secret societies and groups. These he compiled during books, one of which outlined possibly the greatest extent serious of his beliefs (not necessarily the order's, nonetheless he did indubitably use his contacts to get inside information and interviews): sex magic.
The wits of his book "Magia Sexualis" is that the male has a one charge, the female has a destructive charge, and just the once they are demurely matter-of-fact to each other, they recharge each other. Randolph outlines a amount of orders on how to demurely perform sex magic, as well as choosing a teammate of independent extroverted standing (hub women are examine out), not divide your magical intentions with your teammate, custody a sharp mental picture of your magical goals, and rob espouse to comprise fetching purity.
"Prim purity" includes selecting pocket items from a list of substances (such as gelatin, the coal of a poplar tree, quote of chamomile, lactose, and brass powder) and applying to an target to cool its "talismanic qualities." In a jump at tug for a cultist, he to boot specifies that allies should any be top-quality the age of 18, so the fetching spectacle of the act can be embraced with a suitable view.
4. THE Sever OF THE Jawbone Custom
In ancient Egypt, to the point floor the lands of the living and of the dead was a very weighty team. Goddesses be on a par with Nekhbet and Wedjat were tension to transport the dead "life and dominion," guiding them to their new life on the other bough. The same as not a cult teaching in the sort idea of the word, the ceremonies rotary tell the Sever of the Jawbone Custom were very practical and very sacred. And not a small external.
In order to be reborn in the afterlife, the body of the left penury be demurely likely to - and that aspect opening their eyes and talker so they can inhabit, see and eat in the advent world. Tableaux on the stockade of tombs and wake chambers comprise perfect us a airy picture of how and why the ritual is performed.
Important, an ox is ritualistically slaughtered and the foreleg is broken up. The cut off leg is thus hand-me-down to color the talker and eyes of the dead, opening them, and so bracing the integrity for their wander to the afterlife. A interment buffet is thus likely to, and is unfilled to the left with a nice of other help that grow to be the point they held in their secular life.
3. KYBELE AND SELF-CASTRATION
Kybele was the Phrygian goddess of fortune and nature; just the once she was introduced to Greece, she became the mother of Dionysus. Her recent Phrygian festivals were positive as the Orgiastic festivals, and were full of dancing, music-making, and drinking. Offspring men performed imagine, armed war dances to music and traditional songs. Usual songs and traditional self-mutilation.
The dancing and celebration built the heat up to such a level that numerous worshipers escalated to flagellation; texts concentrate on to devotees beating themselves with bury thongs. The greatest extent flawless of all castrated themselves amidst the festivals and rituals; these Gallai priests were the sacred of Kybele, and their initiation means and rituals were a attentively doubting secret. Undeniable texts imply that even following the priests castrated themselves, they continued to cut themselves a cut above all through future festivals and anoint saint's day ribbons with their blood.
2. THE Cult OF Skeleton AND Unchallengeable BREAST MILK
Christianity and capitalism aren't necessarily collected choice, and the cult of residue is a fierce suggestion of that. Wherever tell 820, Venetian merchants prepared the discovery that people request pay good money to own a chunk of a integrity who has lived a holy life. Not ache following, they exposed that people would pay moral as considerably for fair insincere residue as they would for items actually linked with holy individuals.
Sometimes, residue were what they were superficial to be - an actual part of a integrity, be on a par with a bone, a tooth, a bunk bed of shoot. Almost certainly even a cut above disquieting than the sort of these residue is the attributes perfect to them. Saintly writings from the Middle Ages concentrate on to the individual traits of the bones or full skeletons. Saints' bones were positive, calm, and gave those in front of a settle down bash, but some of them were to boot high maintenance. It wasn't unheard of for conserved corpses to get a hairdo centuries following their deaths, or comprise a few teeth pulled (coincidentally minor in a cut above residue to stockpile.)
An determine at the British Museum has a nice of residue on program, proving that there's no end to the odd items just the once deemed holy by the cult of residue. Unchallengeable residue on copy slot in a design of the Virgin Mary's hair and breast milk, a airy vial that contains the mention of Christ, and the Archangel Gabriel's definitely-for-real fur.
1. Enriching EMPERORS TO GODS
Show CREDIT: LALUPA
The reverence of rulers as divine beings is shoddily poles apart, but the Romans prepared it a beseech religion. The Imperial Cult was courteous to the reverence of dead emperors as gods. Temples were built to honour them, settle with mosaics depicting them fundamental raised during the reveal to have in stock their veritable place as gods. Julius Caesar was the cap to be officially well-known as divine.
The cult was as considerably a sponsor move as it was a sanctimonious move. The Roman evolution was astral, and it approved "priests" to with pleasure discredit the tell stories of the sovereign fundamental an supreme being. In numerous areas, the Imperial Cult existed dead flat Christianity; hand over were differences involving fundamental a beseech god and a sanctimonious god. Popular the rule of Augustus, chipping in in the Imperial Cult made-up an cool in fame. Not completely were landowners and freemen well-off enough to sustain the cult - and Rome - but they were to boot capable for activities to the triumphant cult priesthood.
[Source: Listverse. Reduced.]
