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Bacchus
(Gr.)
Exoterically and superficially the god of wine and the vintage, and of licentiousness and joy; but the esoteric meaning of this personification is more abstruse and philosophical. He is the Osiris of Egypt, and his life and significance belong to the same group as the other solar deities, all “sin‐bearing,” killed and resurrected; e.g., as Dionysos or Atys of Phrygia (Adonis, or the Syrian Tammuz), as Ausonius, Baldur (q.v.), &c., &c. All these were put to death, mourned for, and restored to life. The rejoicings for Atys took place at the Hilaria on the “pagan” Easter, March 15. Ausonius, a form of Bacchus, was slain “at the vernal equinox, March 21st, and rose in three days”. Tammuz, the double of Adonis and Atys, was mourned by the women at the “grove” of his name “over Bethlehem, where the infant Jesus cried”, says St. Jerome. Bacchus is murdered and his mother collects the fragments of his lacerated body as Isis does those of Osiris, and so on. Dionysos Iacchus, torn to shreds by the Titans, Osiris, Krishna, all descended into Hades and returned again. Astronomically, they all represent the Sun ; psychically they are all emblems of the ever‐resurrecting “ Soul” (the Ego in its re‐incarnation) ; spiritually, all the innocent scape‐goats, atoning for the sins of mortals, their own earthly envelopes, and in truth, the poeticized image of DIVINE MAN, the form of clay informed by its God (TG).
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Shortly: Exoterically and superficially the god of wine and the vintage, and of licentiousness and joy; but t...