Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [113]
Eve is one with Isis-Meri and, therefore, the Virgin Mary and the constellation of Virgo, as well as the moon.1' In the original astrotheological tale, as Virgo rises she is followed or "bitten on the heel by Serpens, who, with Scorpio, rises immediately behind her."12 This astronomical observation is behind the passage at Revelation 12:14: "But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness ... As noted, Scorpio is not only represented by the scorpion but by the eagle as well.
The Serpent
The serpent symbol is found around the world and represents divine wisdom, as is confirmed by Jesus, when he is made to say, "Be ye wise as serpents." The serpent was the "phallic consort" of the Goddess, and serpents were found under her temples, apparently used to induce prophetic and hallucinatory trances by their venom. The Egyptian queen Cleopatra may have died during such a ritual with an asp, if this is not an apocryphal story. These female priestesses were called "pythonesses" and, as receivers of prophecy and divine revelation, were reviled by Ezekiel for gaining knowledge "out of their own heads," as if their manner of revelation were different from his own.
The serpent's shedding of the skin and constant renewal made it a symbol of eternity and immortality, and thus of divinity and many gods. In fact, the title of "serpent" formerly conveyed sacerdotal duties, as opposed to being an aspersion. As Pike relates:
In the Mysteries of the bull-horned Bacchus, the officers held serpents in their hands, raised them above their heads, and cried aloud "Eva!" the generic oriental name of the serpent, and the particular name of the constellation in which the Persians place Eve and the serpent.13
This description reveals the origins of the New Testament exhortation to "take up serpents," and those who participate in such rituals are continuing an ancient tradition that dates back at least 4,000 years.
Although the serpent is portrayed as evil in the JudeoChristian ideology, it was not always considered so by the Hebrews. As Walker relates:
Early Hebrews adopted the serpent-god all their contemporaries revered, and the Jewish priestly clan of Levites were "sons of the Great Serpent," i.e., of Leviathan, "the wriggly one."14
The Hebrew veneration for the serpent-god is clear from Numbers 21:9: "Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass he lived." Of this interesting fetish, which is also the caduceus of Aesclepius, the Greek god of healing, Stone says, "And in Jerusalem itself was the serpent of bronze, said to date back to the time of Moses and treasured as a sacred idol in the temple there until about 700 BC."IS
As noted, Moses's serpent cult fell out of favor during the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah, who "removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had burned incense to it; it was called Nehushtan." (2 Kings 18:4) Moreover, Walker relates:
The biblical Nehushtan was a deliberate masculinization of a similar oracular she-serpent, Nehushtah, Goddess of Kadesh (meaning "Holy"), a shrine like that of the Pythonesses. Israelites apparently violated the sanctuary and raped its priestesses, but "Moses and Yahweh had to placate the angry serpent goddess of Kadesh, now deposed, by erecting her brazen image . . . . Mythologically,