Grid of the Gods by Joseph P. Farrell, Scott D. de Hart Page A
Authors: Joseph P. Farrell, Scott D. de Hart
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and within some cultures on the Grid remains a mystery, although, as we saw in the previous chapter, there are clues.
Perhaps no human culture has been so identified with the practice, however, than that of the Aztecs. It intrudes itself as a moral ugliness and incongruity into a society and culture in which — as with the Mayans — it seems out of place, an inexplicably bloody ugliness. Hancock and Faiia capture this terrible anomaly as best as anyone, in very evocative words:
Travelers in Central America who have attempted to explore its monuments and its past have come away haunted by the intuition of a great and terrible mystery. A dark sorrow overhangs the whole land like a pall, and what is known of its history is filled with inexplicable contradictions.
On the one hand there is tantalizing evidence of lofty spiritual ideas, of a deep philosophical tradition, and of astonishing artistic, scientific and cultural achievements. On the other hand we know that repulsive acts of psychopathic evil have becomeinstitutionalized in the Valley of Mexico by the beginning of the sixteenth century and that every year, amidst scenes of nightmarish cruelty, the Aztec empire offered up more than 100,000 people as human sacrifices. Two wrongs do not make a right, and the Spanish Conquistadores who arrived in February 1519 were pirates and cold-blooded killers. Nevertheless, their intervention, motivated exclusively by material greed, did have the happy side- effect of brining the demonic sacrificial rituals of the Aztecs to an end…
Their accounts reveal the dark side of a schizophrenic culture, addicted to murder, which also, with apparently quit staggering hypocrisy, claimed to venerate ancient teachings concerning the immortality of the human soul — teachings that urged initiates to seek wisdom and to be ‘virtuous, humble, peace-loving… and compassionate’ towards others. 2
However, as we shall see, it was less the confrontation of one culture that practiced sacrifice with a culture that did not , but rather, the confrontation of two cultures, each with massive conceptual parallels where sacrifice was concerned, and in that confrontation, comes a further anomaly, for not only do both cultures conceive of sacrifice in almost exactly the same way, they even conceive of it to fulfill a similar purpose.
A. The Aztecs and Human Sacrifice: 1. The Original Teaching of Quetzlcoatl
The Aztec’s principal god was the god Quetzlcoatl who, like the Mayan’s Kukulcan, and the Incas’ Viracocha, was a white-skinned, blue-eyed, bearded “civilizer god” who taught the Aztecs the basics of civilization. Like the Mayans’ Sovereign Plumed Serpent, Quetzlcoatl was a feathered serpent. Ruling the Mexica in a past Golden Age when he taught the arts of civilization, he also stipulated, clearly and unequivocally, that living things were never to be harmed and, more importantly, that humans were never to be sacrificed. The only things to be sacrificed were various plants, fruits, and flowers of a particular season. 3 If one were to place this conception within thecultural framework of the Old Testament, Quetzlcoatl would be the Old Testament’s Cain — who offered God only sacrifices of plants — to its Abel, who offered the “more acceptable” sacrifices of animals.
We are looking, in other words, in all likelihood, at a common metaphor, a symbolic motif, that is not unique to one specific religion — in this case, that of the ancient Hebrews — but at a much more widespread idea, for in both cases, the earliest type of sacrifice is hardly bloody, but is later replaced by one which is. Indeed, as far as the Aztecs were concerned, their civilization — like the Egyptians’ views of their civilization an ocean away — was a legacy received whole cloth from Quetzlcoatl. 4
As if to reinforce this idea of common motifs spread over the planet and dispersed among distinct cultures, one can also
Perhaps no human culture has been so identified with the practice, however, than that of the Aztecs. It intrudes itself as a moral ugliness and incongruity into a society and culture in which — as with the Mayans — it seems out of place, an inexplicably bloody ugliness. Hancock and Faiia capture this terrible anomaly as best as anyone, in very evocative words:
Travelers in Central America who have attempted to explore its monuments and its past have come away haunted by the intuition of a great and terrible mystery. A dark sorrow overhangs the whole land like a pall, and what is known of its history is filled with inexplicable contradictions.
On the one hand there is tantalizing evidence of lofty spiritual ideas, of a deep philosophical tradition, and of astonishing artistic, scientific and cultural achievements. On the other hand we know that repulsive acts of psychopathic evil have becomeinstitutionalized in the Valley of Mexico by the beginning of the sixteenth century and that every year, amidst scenes of nightmarish cruelty, the Aztec empire offered up more than 100,000 people as human sacrifices. Two wrongs do not make a right, and the Spanish Conquistadores who arrived in February 1519 were pirates and cold-blooded killers. Nevertheless, their intervention, motivated exclusively by material greed, did have the happy side- effect of brining the demonic sacrificial rituals of the Aztecs to an end…
Their accounts reveal the dark side of a schizophrenic culture, addicted to murder, which also, with apparently quit staggering hypocrisy, claimed to venerate ancient teachings concerning the immortality of the human soul — teachings that urged initiates to seek wisdom and to be ‘virtuous, humble, peace-loving… and compassionate’ towards others. 2
However, as we shall see, it was less the confrontation of one culture that practiced sacrifice with a culture that did not , but rather, the confrontation of two cultures, each with massive conceptual parallels where sacrifice was concerned, and in that confrontation, comes a further anomaly, for not only do both cultures conceive of sacrifice in almost exactly the same way, they even conceive of it to fulfill a similar purpose.
A. The Aztecs and Human Sacrifice: 1. The Original Teaching of Quetzlcoatl
The Aztec’s principal god was the god Quetzlcoatl who, like the Mayan’s Kukulcan, and the Incas’ Viracocha, was a white-skinned, blue-eyed, bearded “civilizer god” who taught the Aztecs the basics of civilization. Like the Mayans’ Sovereign Plumed Serpent, Quetzlcoatl was a feathered serpent. Ruling the Mexica in a past Golden Age when he taught the arts of civilization, he also stipulated, clearly and unequivocally, that living things were never to be harmed and, more importantly, that humans were never to be sacrificed. The only things to be sacrificed were various plants, fruits, and flowers of a particular season. 3 If one were to place this conception within thecultural framework of the Old Testament, Quetzlcoatl would be the Old Testament’s Cain — who offered God only sacrifices of plants — to its Abel, who offered the “more acceptable” sacrifices of animals.
We are looking, in other words, in all likelihood, at a common metaphor, a symbolic motif, that is not unique to one specific religion — in this case, that of the ancient Hebrews — but at a much more widespread idea, for in both cases, the earliest type of sacrifice is hardly bloody, but is later replaced by one which is. Indeed, as far as the Aztecs were concerned, their civilization — like the Egyptians’ views of their civilization an ocean away — was a legacy received whole cloth from Quetzlcoatl. 4
As if to reinforce this idea of common motifs spread over the planet and dispersed among distinct cultures, one can also