Nobody really cares about Mormonism - of course - but you might come to wonder if rather than finding magical tablets that angels deciphered, Joseph Smith simply spoke to the native people and learned of their older, better, more intact original hero stories and then immediately appropriated them. Kukulkan and Quetzalcoatl seem to be the most intact remnants of whatever ultimate feathered serpent legend used to have a major importance all over the world. After that story, the feathered serpent motif became very important in what looks like all Mesoamerican cultures and always heralded the return of real knowledge, education, and magick. He was tricked by the gods, had his teeth removed and replaced with corn, and lost his vision and his beauty. I find these mechanisms to be so interesting because in the ancient Americas one of the earliest stories is about how the dazzling original human, Seven Macaw, was a bird-man who could see both near and far and knew the mysteries of the universe. Adam and Eve are clearly Mars and Venus, man and woman, or andros and gynos, and also Androgyne is the concept of their unification. If you take that serpent association from the "garden" and simply give it back to Hermes you find that Hermaphroditus certainly describes the unification of genders and indeed is Hermes + Aphrodite. Xtians claim the snake had legs but the story doesn't say that, and parallel stories from that time and before often had a special place for serpents with wings. You may notice the "garden" story was literally about humankind being divided from itself with female being pulled out of male (which naturally is backwards cause women give birth to men) as well as the parallel story in which the (probably) winged serpent who flies into the garden is made to crawl out after being cursed. Mercury easily associates to the rod of Asclepius and the Caduceus, and therefore probably directly to Moses, Aaron, and the priests they battled by turning their staffs into snakes in Egypt*. Go down the Jesus route with that one if you want. and it's associated to the sign of Virgo, which originally was the virgin with wings. Even the planetary glyph for Mercury shows the stick figure wearing his feathered cap. Not everyone makes the broader connections between Hermes and the serpent with wings or staff, shoes, or cap. Mexico's flag still depicts the eagle holding the dead snake in its mouth while perched atop a cactus to commemorate the Aztec legend that caused them to build their great city right where Mexico City is now. The flying serpent is the most intriguing version of the serpent: Dragons, Nagas, Caduceus, Kukulkan, Quetzalcoatl, Seven Macaw, Hermes, you name it, that theme had made the intercontinental rounds before our history is supposed to have even begun. You really do see that one motif circulating all of the oldest stories from all over the world.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |