Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [163]
Eating instead of reading a piece of magical literature was a common Oriental method of absorbing the virtue of magic words even when one is unable to read. In Tibet, Madagascar, China, and Japan it was customary to cure diseases by writing the curative charm on paper and eating the paper, or its ashes.... The same notion was often found in the west. The modern pharmacist's Rx began as a curative symbol of Saturn, written on paper and eaten by the patient.22
It has also been suggested that these scrolls represented hallucinogenic drugs, which were commonly used in mystery schools and secret societies.
The Dragon and the Beast
The frightening dragon and beast of Revelation have intrigued people for centuries and caused much speculation as to what they were or would be. The favorite interpretation of the beast has been the Catholic Church itself, particularly when it was murdering people by the millions. Again, the book of Revelation is not prophetic, so this "beast" is not applicable to any earthly kingdoms, organizations, "Antichrists" or peoples, etc. Graves gives the astrological meaning of the dragon and beast:
St. John (Rev. 12) speaks of the Dragon having power to hurt the five months, and astronomically speaking, he does hurt the vegetable productions of the five principal prolific months of the year, with a vengeance. And St. John's monster, with the seven heads and ten horns, may find a solution in astronomy, or astrotheology, by assuming the seven heads to be the seven Summer months (as some nations divided the year in this way), and duplicating the five Winter months for the horns. And then, the story of the Dragon "pursuing the woman to destroy her male child," finds an easy explanation here. Turn to your almanacs, and you will notice that the Dragon or Scorpion is in pursuit of the woman, Virgin, sure enough, being the next sign in order in the zodiac; or direct your eyes to the heavens on a cloudless night, you will observe that just after the old maid (a virgin with a child in her arms, as the Persians show her) rises above the horizon in the East, up comes the old Scorpion called a serpent among the Persians; a Dragon in Phoenicia; Draco among the Romans, which is the Latin for Dragon.... The great Dragon, according to astronomical diagrams, is actually after the woman (Virgin) and her child, and was for thousands of years B.C., and until modern astronomers caught him, and cast him into a bottomless pit, and substituted the eagle in his place.23
Furthermore, Egyptian images of the Dragon were painted red; hence, "the great red Dragon."
The Mark of the Beast-666
The much ballyhooed number, 666, mentioned in Revelation as the "mark of the Beast," was in fact held sacred in the goddess-worshipping cultures as representative of female genitalia. When the Goddess was vilified by the patriarchy, she became the "Beast" and her sacred number the "mark." The number 666 was not held to be evil or a bad omen in Judaism, as is evidenced by the biblical story of Solomon possessing 666 talents of gold. In fact, it is a sacred number. As Higgins says:
The Hexad or number six is considered by the Pythagoreans a perfect and sacred number; among many other reasons, because it divides the universe into equal parts. It is called Venus or the mother. It is also perfect, because it is the only number under X, ten, which is whole and equal in its parts. In Hebrew Vau is six. Is vau mother Eva or Eve?24
In addition, Anderson points out that "666" also corresponds to the sun rising at 6:00 a.m., reaching its height six hours later, and setting at 6:00 p.m.25
As "history" or "prophecy," the book of Revelation is not only incomprehensible but destructive, not merely boggling the mind but causing people to see "beasts" and "Antichrists" everywhere, thus creating prejudice and bigotry, and serving as a blueprint for Armageddon and "end times." Understood as astrology, or astrotheology, however, Revelation is powerful and informative, as it represents a condensed narration of the universal mythos