Introduction
Controlling Your Hormones
outlines an ancient science used to attain what was originally
described as liberation, enlightenment, and recently as
self-actualization. This ancient science developed methods of
releasing an inner fluid or substance (now known as hormones) that
was able to transform the body, mind, and personal world.
The early Mithraic
soldiers can be viewed as one of the first known groups to have
turned the search for higher powers into a science. Obviously
desirous to survive on the battlefield, these soldiers were highly
motivated to develop greater strength, speed, anticipation, courage,
and a working oneness with their comrades. Since soldiers travelled
widely and encountered the knowledge of many different peoples, they
assimilated a great deal and naturally tested out their new
knowledge on the battlefield. Their findings provided a foundation
which evolved into the prominent Dionysian movement in ancient
Greece and Rome. Their control of inner powers was described by
their detractors as resulting from secret underground rituals during
which an intoxicating and transformational libation known as
haoma was served from a chalice to the participants.
Little more is known about the Mithraic rituals since positive
descriptions of them as well as the Dionysian rituals were
either not written down or more likely destroyed.
Fortunately,
insights into the Mithraic’s secret knowledge of haoma can be
gleaned from surviving writings and artifacts from other ancient
sources. This is because of the universal sharing of philosophy,
religion, and science between cultures before the Common Era. For
example, the Persian god Mithra is found in India as Mitra
and was certainly known in other cultures as a solar god.
The transformational libation haoma can be equated with
amrita in the Sanskrit writings, and amrita can be
related back to the Greek word ambrosia which also had the
meaning of being a transformational inner elixir.
The Chalice
The concept of a chalice was widely used in ancient times to denote
a container for a metaphysical libation commonly interpreted to have
heavenly powers. However, in order to make sense of many early
writings and artifacts as well as modern endocrinology, the concept
of a chalice must be extended to the body and even to specific
organs of the body.
As an introduction into the concept of the body being a chalice
consider the ancient Egyptian alchemical Athanor. The
Athanor was described as the container in which alchemical
reactions take place to produce gold out of lead. The size was
described as being similar to that of the human body. There is
another well known example in the New Testament story of Jesus
converting water into wine for a small
party, but the water was described as being within rain storage
vessels (hudrion, υδριον), each of the size of the body.
Similarly it was a universal practice to describe metaphysical
powers as residing within an individual’s body as if it were a
chalice.
It is of interest to note that the view or the power of a chalice of
a transformational power is generally of more concern to the public
than its inner content. This is because the actual power of the
transformational elixir is generally highly dependent upon ritual
which includes not only the mode of libation but also the
expectation. It is always a chalice which is raised in a toast or
promise whether the actual container is an ordinary tumbler, a
golden goblet, or a gourd. It is always the dedication associated
with a chalice which contains more power than whatever the contents
or actual container might be. The power of a physician or healer was
related far more to the presentation of medicine than the actual
medicine, and it is almost certain that more “placebo effect” cures
have been obtained with a sugar pill or bitter tasting tonic than
with all of the antibiotics ever routinely prescribed.
Similarly, there
are references to organs within the body as chalices such as the
inner loving heart which becomes the source of transformational
powers. The ancient science was able to describe this process in
detail with the heart making the toast or promise at the central
table of the body.
The Libation
The mystical
chalice used in rituals to impose special powers contained an elixir
which the Greeks characterized as heady, intoxicating, and able to
carry an individual upwards.
The transformational powers were attributed to a spirit, power, or
god that was present in the elixir but which was nonetheless subject
to those sharing the libation. The inner power, for instance, could
open or close minds but its action depended upon those partaking of
the libation.
The Greeks considered that the libation of wine from a properly
dedicated chalice could initiate the opening of doors to the higher
realms of the mind of each participant. Intoxication from the elixir
consisted of the liberation of the mind from social bondage and
restricted thought and was a very positive and necessary step in
evolving. In Sanskrit the word for intoxication was madya or
the “state of being mad” with the same positive meaning.
The allegorical god Dionysus became the liberating and
intoxicating power which allowed an individual to break free of
conditioned responses and thoughts and open the body and mind to
what had been placed in the heart or required to meet a need.
To find the power of Dionysus a
participant had to first be in the radiance of Apollo or in
the state of dedication, openness, and expectation. The power of
Dionysus then managed to diminish or obliterate the conditioned
binding thoughts, judgments, guilt, self-image, and importance. It
was this release from societal control that led the rulers and
authorities attempting to dominate and control society to describe
Dionysus as advocating intoxication, erotic behavior, and
madness.
Perhaps there is
no better spokesperson for the power of libation than Plato. In
Symposium
only a select group of people were invited, definitive rules were
set, and a subject to be explored was agreed upon. The amount of
wine consumed was just that amount that could release the
participants from their limiting self-images and concerns. In
Phaedrus Plato explained that the power of Dionysus could
then open the united group to the Muses who became the source
of the feelings and insights for the chosen subject. The individual
powers of Aphrodite and Eros then interpreted the
input of the Muses into a language acceptable to everyone.
The power of the
libation was to open the mind to inspiration from the heavens and to
find a union with others who shared in the libation and the subject
of search. Needless to say, many people experience this with or
without drinking an intoxicant and often with the sharing of food.
The sharing of food and other physical pleasures became other
methods of bringing forth the power of Dionysus but they all
required the initial dedication along with trust and openness to
each other.
The
Inner Source
As the ancients
evolved their methods for the transformation of the body, mind, and
personal world, no doubt they came to the obvious conclusion that
the source of transformational power was a directly controllable
fluid within the body rather than a spirit in heaven because of the
correlation between their practices and the results on the
battlefield.
They looked for an
inner chalice or source of the mystical fluid, which was found to be
in the center of the perineum so named since in Greek peri
means “center” and neuma means “control”. The inner chalice
symbolized the swelling of the bulbospongiosus muscle, a bulbous,
porous, and expansive muscle in the middle of the center of control.
This inner chalice had the power to respond almost instantaneous
which the other chalices were unable to do.
The swollen bulb in
the perineum was symbolized in Greece as the Liknon carried
in parades by the Dionysians, which not only portrayed the swollen
muscle but also the method of its stimulation. The Liknon
contained a cloth-covered bulb in the middle of a winnowing basket.
The size and shape of the winnowing basket depicts the bottom of the
body and the cloth covering depicts the skin covering the swollen
gland of the perineum. The winnowing basket further indicated the
winnowing motion that takes place in the lower guts during the
swelling and the release of the libation.
Instead of
depicting a masculine perineum, the Indians portrayed the swollen
bulb as rising out of the female pudenda and described its
excitation like either the churning of butter or the winnowing of
grain.
