Monday, May 11, 2009

Zeitgeist – a documentary on global power with some interesting insights on Pagan history and how Paganism created the Christian Church


If you haven’t already watched this extraordinary documentary, then get your ears and eyes around this rollercoaster which challenges and attempts to reveal the frightening pawns of power in place within our global society. It's simple story reads: What does Christianity, 911 and The Federal Reserve all have in common?

See it by clicking HERE.

It is a difficult documentary to take seriously, as every accusation of power struggle seems so extreme yet is so intelligently laid out with one epiphany after another that try to translate themselves as facts that are too hard to ignore. I cannot, myself, conclude that these are facts in their own right because the knowledge and research behind this piece is so extensive; you would need to spend the rest of your life trying to validate it all from scratch. How anyone ever had the energy to add all of these elements together is astounding.

The reason why I bring this to the fore is because the documentary begins with its oldest form of ‘conspiracy’ – that being the Christian church. I cringe writing this, but am fascinated by this documentary’s ‘discoveries’ yet I do not want to dispute the faith of a true, good Christian whose belief in Jesus and God are ingrained into their daily lives with nothing but good will behind them. I always want to be open to the benefits of all religions and want to make it clear that I do not write off Christianity or its people.

The documentary begins with various Pagan rituals and rites based on the astrological calendar. It explains how the movements of the sun and the stars have created similar stories of Jesus throughout world history. They provide a list of other prophets and gods who were born on December the 25th and shared many other similarities, such as the three kings being drawn to the Eastern Star.

The Eastern Star is at its brightest around the birth of Christ and is followed by three bright stars (being the three kings) who form Orion’s belt. Others know of this bright star as the dog that leads Orion which I spent a great deal of my childhood staring at because it was the brightest and easiest constellation to find. The sun (or ‘son’) slowly sinks with every day until the 22nd of December where in the Winter Solstice or Yule (Northern Hemisphere) takes place. This represents the end of the winter cycle or ‘death’ where the sun sits at the same low point on the horizon for three days and is then ‘resurrected’ by turning back and creating longer days for the crops with the beginning of Spring. In the Southern Hemisphere this is Litha – the Summer Solstice from the 20-23rd of December.


From a Wiccan perspective, Yule (Northern Hemisphere) is described as follows:

*The Longest Night. Sunrise marks the birth of the waxing year – from now the days grow longer and it is a time of feasting, celebration and making plans for the coming Spring. In the Myth the Goddess gives birth to the Male Child of Promise and as such the Dark God is reborn as the infant Sun God. A Yule log is burnt and the ashes are kept to be put into ointments and potions for healing as they have life-giving powers. Part of the log is also kept to rekindle the next year’s Yule log.



Here lies the point: our physical world and Pagan worship has been borrowed and put into physical form where the Sun God becomes the Son of God. The feminine and masculine aspects of nature have been anthropomorphised into human beings who in their own right carry through a series of stories in the Old and New Testament that had already been told for thousands of years, but given gravity by using people and miraculous events.

The documentary’s ‘conspiracy’ of Christianity was – as has always been argued – to use the Church to allocate control over civilians and to use Christ as a martyr with beliefs that the people already had ingrained in them from Pagan stories. I’d like to leave this ‘conspiracy theory’ alone, as I believe that in every religion, there are those who use their faith to manipulate others, and those who have good will and genuine kindness in their inner light. I respect their inner light and leave you with the Indian salutation: Namaste, meaning ‘the light in me honours the light in you.’


*Source: Horne, Fiona, 1999, ‘Witch: A Magickal Year,’ Random House Australia, Milsons Point, p.45.

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