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The Immersion Technique
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I indeed have baptized you with water:
but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.
- Mark 1:8
King James Bible
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The gnarled crone led Louis out of the cave, and down one of the numerous paths that radiated from its mouth. She chose one that led neither down the mountain, nor up the mountain, but sideways to the right. Louis noticed the rocks they passed were covered in mural scenes, and/or pictoglyphs, in the same manner as his cave. Louis slowed his pace to better appreciate the artworks. The gnome elder tugged at his hand, pulling him along, gently and insistently repeating one word.
“Awa. Awa.”
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Now the details of the initiatory rite [of the Mysteries]
are guarded among the matters not to be divulged
and are communicated to the initiates alone;
but the fame has travelled wide of how
these gods [the Kabeiroi] appear to mankind
and bring unexpected aid to those initiates of their
who call upon them in the midst of perils.
The claim is also made that men
who have taken part in the mysteries
become both more pious and more just
and better in every respect than they were before.
And this is the reason,
we are
- www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Kabeiroi.html
the fire and the flood
- Vance Joy
Fire and the Flood
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A half-mile to the south of Louis (and a day and a half in the past), diminutive men in tall, conical caps bustled about clearing the human refuse from the sacred garden. The men chanted ancient word-sound as they restrung the yam vines on the geometrically arranged cycad trees. Once the cleansing ritual had been completed, the gnomes slipped by way of paths unseen into the thick jungle foliage beyond.
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Whereas the Murinbata designated youths as wild dogs
during their initiation, the Tiwi associated them
with a species of fiery, unpalatable yam.
It seems not unreasonable to suggest that,
while the food-technology component of the Kulama ritual
tamed wild yams for human consumption,
the initiatory component 'tamed' the wildness in youths
and made them ready for incorporation into the body politic.
In many parts of northern Australia
toxic yams are describes in English as 'cheeky';
in keeping with this idiom we could say that
when they are detoxified by immersion in water
the 'cheekiness' is leached out of them.
By simultaneously immersing youths,
Tiwi elders were probably seeking a similar outcome.
Cleansing the lads of unruliness made them ready
to receive the positive essence of the kulama yam.
Its hairiness, in conjuction perhaps with its gonadic shape,
apparently constituted for native medical thinkers
presumptive evidence of a property
capable of promoting desirable sexual characteristics
and, more generally, good physical condition.
- Lester Richard Hiatt
Arguments about Aborigines:
Australia and the Evolution of Social Anthropology
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The waterfall was almost unbelievably idyllic. Louis couldn't have dreamed someplace this beautiful even existed. Yet, here he was. He was the proverbial man who, having lived his whole life in a box, steps outside the box into a world beyond anything he had ever imagined. Louis closed his eyes, and the very real world beyond this sanctuary was gone – except for in his mind. Louis closed his eyes tighter, but the tears still escaped and mingled with the stream cascading over him. Louis gave in to his feelings; he cried. He cried until the worst of it was out of his system. He cried until he no longer felt toxic from all the negativity. He still hurt, but he would survive, at least for now. The fact remained he was weary. There had been so many days, since the beginning, and still he had not found whatever it was that he was looking for. He hadn’t even quite figured out what it was that he was looking for. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he was looking for anything anymore. Even here, on this paradisiacal island, he felt something was missing, somewhere, deep inside him. Why? Is it because of her? Louis decided to stay immersed in the waterfall a while longer, ruminating.
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The Lesser Mysteries would end
with a water baptism,
while the Greater Mysteries climaxed
with a fire initiation.
- www.ancient-origins.net/ sacred-sex
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The gnome woman reached a practiced hand into the stream and unfastened the bag from the stone that anchored it down. She pulled the net bag out of the stream and unhooked the fibrous ropes that tethered it to the lowest tree limb. A network of similar immersion devices stretched up and down the stream at intervals, with the straps of the thicker clusters interlaced geometrically, resembling the webs of gigantic spiders. The female elder wrapped the straps around her neck and hung the bag in front of her stomach. She grinned and gesticulated with her arms, pantomiming as if the bag were a full stomach or an engorged womb. Louis laughed aloud as he played along with the joke.
“Ha ha ha. So what's your baby’s name?”
The woman chuckled, delighted to see Louis smile. She brought her hand to her mouth and mimicked eating.
“Nom. Nom.”
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Ogun was always bound into a ceremonial sequence
that linked him with collective and royal ancestors,
and with the forces of annual renewal,
of which eating the New Yam was such a powerful symbol.
- Sandra T. Barnes
Africa’s Ogun: Old World and New
Thus the houn’gan sacrifices the yam,
in order to sacrifice the first of the best harvest of the land,
exactly as the priest proceeds to the sacrifice of the mass
or the body of Christ (the Voodoo yam),
which is offered in transubstantiation,
and as Golgotha is concerned with the sacrifice of the Messiah.
The yam, as first and principal fruit of the land,
is therefore traditionally considered to be illuminated
- Milo Rigaud
Secrets of Voodoo
[Port. inhame, poss. < Bantu nyama, meat
< or Bambara nyana, wild yam.]
- The American Heritage Dictionary
Second College Edition
In Vanuata, where the cycad is known by the Bismala name namele,
the tree has a deep customary and spiritual significance.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycad
The cycad and the yam
were two of the most important foodstuffs
of paleolithic humans living in Sundaland during the Ice Age.
As the world's moisture was locked into the great northern glaciers,
many parts of the Southern Hemisphere
experienced a drought that lasted thousands of years.
Outside of Sundaland, the modern human population
dropped to approximately 2000 individuals.
In Sundaland, the drought and fire resistant cycad
became a central aspect of the solar fire cult.
The holy marriage of the cycad and the yam,
their hieros gamos, is what we see represented
in the famous Sumerian Tree of Life bas-reliefs.
-- Professor Thomas Mal’Akh’I
Private interview with W. H. Kidder 5/5/2005
myths tell of the introduction
of cycad palm food into western Arnhem Land.
The ‘fruit’ of this tree is usually prepared in a special way:
after soaking and drying
- Ronald M. Berndt
The Speaking Land:
Cycas media is a palm-like cone-bearing plant
widespread in seasonally dry tropical sclerophyll woodlands
close to the east coast of Queensland, with scattered occurrences also
in northern Northern Territory and Western Australia, Australia.
The dark green leathery, thick leaves are pinnately divided
and grow in annual flushes from a massive apical bud.
It is tolerant of bushfire
and often re-foliates immediately
following a dry season fire,
before the beginning of the next rainy season.
All plant parts are considered highly toxic.
However, the seeds were eaten by aborigines
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycas_media
In 1907, John B. Cleland remarked
that the high degree of fire adaption with the Australian vegetation
may have been due to human causes
and that this suggested a considerable antiquity
for the ancestors of modern Aboriginal people arriving on the continent.
Academics have more recently speculated, based on a wide range of evidence,
that these people arrived in Australia between 46,000 and 50,000 years ago,
bringing with them both fire-making technology
and burning practices.
- Philip A. Clark
Aboriginal People and Their Plants
Fire-starters worked to predetermined pattern,
using knowledge of wind changes to help direct the blaze.
This control over the course of the fires
was employed to stop sacred areas being burnt
and also to protect particular food sources from being destroyed.
- Philip A. Clark
Aboriginal People and Their Plants
In the Kakadu region,
the deliberate burning of the grasslands
fringing the patches of jungle and paperbark forest
helped to protect fruits and yams.
- Philip A. Clark
Aboriginal People and Their Plants
Hunting in dense grass is hazardous because of the snakes.
After burning, these and other reptiles are more easily seen and caught.
There is evidence to suggest that aboriginal burning in the tropics
contributed to the transformation of rainforest into Eucalyptus woodland,
as well as helped to create large stands of cycad palms.
In case of cycads, fire not only increases seed production,
but also increases their fruiting season,
thereby making them a more reliable Aboriginal food source.
This factor is important to Aboriginal people when planning ceremonies,
as large numbers of people will assemble and require feeding.
In Northern Australia, some cycads are referred to locally as ‘fire-fern’.
- Philip A. Clark
Aboriginal People and Their Plants
the normally wet tropical climate of Indonesia
was interrupted by a severe dry period
from around 33,000 years ago until about 16,000 years ago.
The period coincided with the peak of the last ice age,
when glaciers covered vast swathes of the Northern Hemisphere.
- www.asiansciantent.com/2014/04/in-the-lab/indonesian-dry-spell-amplified-ice-age-2014/
At the end of the dry season,
when there has been no rain for months,
and when many foods are in short supply,
Yolngu have traditionally gathered together for ceremonials
and been sustained by bread made from Cycad nuts.
This bread has sacred aspects to it,
and the nuts being poisonous,
a complex preparation process is involved.
- Michel Christie
Yolngu Language Habitat
The process entails
-- going to particular religiously significant cycad groves
-- the right women selecting the right nuts
in the right place at the right time.
Their roles have specific names
depending on their clan group and where they are.
-- preparing a proper named space for the work
-- cracking and sorting out the kernels,
the whole ones and the split ones have different names
and are sorted and treated differently.
-- leaving them for a while to dry in the sun
for careful, timely airing and consideration
-- soaking in fresh running water for several days
to leech out the poison;
each place of preparation belongs
to a particular group of people, and has its own name.
In each place the flowing water has its own name.
Natural processes purify the product.
Each day in the process has its name.
The poison has its various names,
belonging to the owning clan groups,
used in other contexts as a symbol of strength.
The people who taste it have special names.
-- grinding and preparing the dough on special stones,
different nuts are used
to prepare different sorts of loaves
for different sorts of people.
Children are not allowed to play around while they do this
-- wrapping up the cycad bread
in the right (totemically connected) sort of paperbark,
preparing different shaped loaves
with different names for different people
-- roasting in the coals of the land from which it came –
the lirrwi mentioned above,
each with its own name.
-- distribution for food, and for ceremonial purposes.
Its preparation and use,
like all special totems,
must be supervised by a caretaker or manager.
This ritualized and religious
work is often given as a metaphor
- Michel Christie
Yolngu Language Habitat
The Habitat of Australia’s Aboriginal Languages:
Past, Present, and Future
At the lesser mysteries, the teachings were given
in which the true meanings were hidden.
All of this was to prepare those few who were going forward
to the Greater Mysteries,
- www.ancient-origins.net/ sacred-sex
The claim is also made that men
who have taken part
in the mysteries
become both more pious and more just
and better in every respect than they were before.
And this is the reason,
we are
- www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Kabeiroi.html
the fire and the flood
- Vance Joy
Fire and the Flood
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