World History
Sacred Cosmology: Precolumbian Mesoamerican Symbolism - Online book about the ancient peoples of Mexico and their belief system, including timekeeping, symbols, and the Popol Vuh.
From the site:
The society to which we belong, our contemporary society, has conceived the notion that God?the original unity?is man's invention, although some of its members think rather that the deity is a human discovery produced at a certain stage of history. In both cases, it is man who creates God, in absolute contradiction of the unanimous assertion of all traditions and civilizations on record, which declare and establish the correct hierarchical relation between creator and creature.
This flagrant inversion is a logical consequence of our current ignorance where the sacred is concerned, an ignorance that obliges us unconsciously to "humanize" the concept of God, to anthropomorphize it?which is tantamount to reducing the deity to the categories of human thought and conception. We are obliged to minimize the concept of God to the scale of today's men and the narrowness of their vision. Hence the latter find nothing better to do than to put the gods to death, to "believe" no longer in them but rather in the "human"?which, alas, is taken for progress?as if it were possible for the cosmic and harmonic energies whose principles the deities express to cease to be or exist by virtue of the simple expedient of denying them.
We are accustomed to regard the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Chaldean, or Mayan pantheons?or even those of the Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists?as if their gods were the private property of those peoples and religions, and furthermore, as if these gods were altogether different from one another, having perfectly particular identities in a classified imaginary system. Thus, the reality of the sacred is reduced to mans' "speculative" capacity?or to a memo in a file cabinet. Yet it passes unobserved that these same men have acknowledged the deity by way of "numbers," or harmonic measures as patterns or modules of universal thought and the expression of the archetypal ideas. These archetypal ideas are always present?as constitutive parts of the cosmos, as these peoples' calendars reflect?and the symbols represent them. Their energy-force has never ceased to manifest itself, nor ever will, as long as time and space exist.
- Aztecs (mexica)
Aztecs (Mexica) Because the Aztec elite continually retold their own history to accord with contemporaneous political and religious concerns, the origins of the Aztec Empire are shrouded in myth and legend. The consensus view among scholars is that the...
- Human Sacrifice And The Aztecs
Human Sacrifice and the Aztecs Although some maintain that the notion that the Aztecs (Mexica) practiced human sacrifice is a myth that originated with the Spanish conquistadores to justify and legitimate their conquests, in fact, abundant evidence demonstrates...
- Popul Vuh
Popul VuhIn 1908, Lewis Spence, one of the foremost scholars of myth and religion of his day, said of the Popul Vuh, “There is no document of greater importance to the study of the pre-Columbian mythology of America than the Popol Vuh. It is the...
- Virgin Of Guadalupe
Virgin of Guadalupe A fascinating synthesis of Roman Catholicism and pre-Columbian indigenous religious beliefs, the Virgin of Guadalupe (or queen of Mexico) represents a religious icon, a national myth, and Mexico’s most important, popular, and...
- Before The Dawn : Recovering The Lost History Of Our Ancestors
I just finished this excellent book which was written by Nicholas Wade. The author is a science reporter for the New York Times. The book covers a lot but the essence of the book is how the study of the human genome is allowing scientists and historians...
World History
Sacred Cosmology: Precolumbian Mesoamerican Symbolism
Sacred Cosmology: Precolumbian Mesoamerican Symbolism - Online book about the ancient peoples of Mexico and their belief system, including timekeeping, symbols, and the Popol Vuh.
From the site:
The society to which we belong, our contemporary society, has conceived the notion that God?the original unity?is man's invention, although some of its members think rather that the deity is a human discovery produced at a certain stage of history. In both cases, it is man who creates God, in absolute contradiction of the unanimous assertion of all traditions and civilizations on record, which declare and establish the correct hierarchical relation between creator and creature.
This flagrant inversion is a logical consequence of our current ignorance where the sacred is concerned, an ignorance that obliges us unconsciously to "humanize" the concept of God, to anthropomorphize it?which is tantamount to reducing the deity to the categories of human thought and conception. We are obliged to minimize the concept of God to the scale of today's men and the narrowness of their vision. Hence the latter find nothing better to do than to put the gods to death, to "believe" no longer in them but rather in the "human"?which, alas, is taken for progress?as if it were possible for the cosmic and harmonic energies whose principles the deities express to cease to be or exist by virtue of the simple expedient of denying them.
We are accustomed to regard the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Chaldean, or Mayan pantheons?or even those of the Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists?as if their gods were the private property of those peoples and religions, and furthermore, as if these gods were altogether different from one another, having perfectly particular identities in a classified imaginary system. Thus, the reality of the sacred is reduced to mans' "speculative" capacity?or to a memo in a file cabinet. Yet it passes unobserved that these same men have acknowledged the deity by way of "numbers," or harmonic measures as patterns or modules of universal thought and the expression of the archetypal ideas. These archetypal ideas are always present?as constitutive parts of the cosmos, as these peoples' calendars reflect?and the symbols represent them. Their energy-force has never ceased to manifest itself, nor ever will, as long as time and space exist.
- Aztecs (mexica)
Aztecs (Mexica) Because the Aztec elite continually retold their own history to accord with contemporaneous political and religious concerns, the origins of the Aztec Empire are shrouded in myth and legend. The consensus view among scholars is that the...
- Human Sacrifice And The Aztecs
Human Sacrifice and the Aztecs Although some maintain that the notion that the Aztecs (Mexica) practiced human sacrifice is a myth that originated with the Spanish conquistadores to justify and legitimate their conquests, in fact, abundant evidence demonstrates...
- Popul Vuh
Popul VuhIn 1908, Lewis Spence, one of the foremost scholars of myth and religion of his day, said of the Popul Vuh, “There is no document of greater importance to the study of the pre-Columbian mythology of America than the Popol Vuh. It is the...
- Virgin Of Guadalupe
Virgin of Guadalupe A fascinating synthesis of Roman Catholicism and pre-Columbian indigenous religious beliefs, the Virgin of Guadalupe (or queen of Mexico) represents a religious icon, a national myth, and Mexico’s most important, popular, and...
- Before The Dawn : Recovering The Lost History Of Our Ancestors
I just finished this excellent book which was written by Nicholas Wade. The author is a science reporter for the New York Times. The book covers a lot but the essence of the book is how the study of the human genome is allowing scientists and historians...