>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: Re: a dreamers look at san francisco >Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 20:57:55 EDT >i would like to mention a graffiti about dreams i saw in san francisco >on polk st. between northpoint and bay probably at the corner of >northpoint and polk but it maybe polk and bay on the west side of polk . >i noticed it driving toward fishermans wharf having had a delightful chat >with richard wilkerson at the palace of fine arts lagoon. the graffiti is there >for those in the bay area to see and it was quite spectacular for me as >there are very few of us with that grafitti's message. it warmed my heart >that cold afternoon. that siting made my trip to san francisco. by the way >richard, the book i mentioned on linguistics is THE SACRED CROSS >AND THE MUSHROOM by JOHN ALLEGRO. If you wouldn't mind, please relate to us what the graffito said. Meanwhile, I am going to post a letter I wrote to The Straight Dope, a column by Cecil Adam, which appears in the Chicago Reader, AOL and in various newspapers. Mr. Adams attempts to answer questions of about urban legends and anything else that strikes his fancy. He hasn't answered my letter yet. The letter I wrote was about the book Heratheta mentions above. Dear Mr. Adams, I read "The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, A study of the nature and origins of Christianity within the fertility cults of the ancient Near East," by John M. Allegro, a philologist. The book was published by Doubleday & Company Inc. in 1970. Allegro says the Indo-European and Semitic language families are both derived from the ancient tongue of Sumeria, long extinct. (Encarta contradicts Allegro, saying, "Its vocabulary, grammar, and syntax do not appear to be related to those of any other known language.") Allegro says religions in the ancient Near East, including the Greeks', Hebrews' and Christians', were based on worship of a fertility god whose sperm was the rain that fell on the earth and the fields, which were furrowed into a vulva. Their union produced crops. "Chrisitian" means "smeared with semen" and refers to their practice of smearing themselves with "aromatic gums and spices of the traditional Israelite anointing oil: myrrh, aromatic cane, cinnamon, and cassia, all representing the powerful semen of the god." There was another ingredient in the anointing oil: magic mushrooms (Amanita muscaria), which were "the pure unadulterated semen of the god" and the "son of God", and which when eaten, bestowed divine knowledge on the priest or adherent. The Old and New Testaments, written in code to conceal the true fertility/mushroom cult from outsiders and the authorities, are, according to Allegro, filled with puns that allude to the holy mushroom. Here are a couple of passages from "The sacred Mushroom and the Cross": "The use of the name Jesus (Greek iesus) as an invocation for healing was appropriate enough. Its Hebrew original, yehoshua, Joshua, comes from Sumerian IA-U-ShU-A (ShUSh), 'semen, which saves, restores, heals'. Hellenized Jews used for 'Joshua' the Greek name Iason, Jason, very properly, since iason, 'healer', and the deponent verb iaomai, 'heal', come from the same Sumerian source. In the New Testament taunt, 'Physician, heal thyself' (Luke 4:23), we probably have a direct allusion to this meaning, as we certainly have in Jesus' title 'Saviour', Greek soter, the first element of which reflects the same Sumerian word ShU, 'save', and so is rightly used in Greek for saving from disease, harm, peril, etc., and is a common epithet of Zeus and kings. "The fertility God Dionysys (Greek dionusos), whose cult emblem was the erect phallus, was also a god of healing, and his name, when broken down to its original parts, IA-U-NU-ShUSh, is almost idential to that of Jesus, having NU, 'seed', only in addition; 'Semen, seed that saves', and is comparable with the Greek Nosios, 'Healer', an epithet of Zeus. And this: "If we are to make any enlightened guess at 'primitive' man's ideas about god and the universe it would have to be on the reasonable assumption that they would be simple, and directly related to the world of his experience. He may have given the god numerous epithets describing his various functions and manifestations but there is no reason to doubt that the reality behind the names was envisaged as one, all-powerful deity, a life-giver, supreme creator. The etymological examination of the chief god names that is now possible supports this view, pointing to a common theme of life-giving fecundity. Thus the principal gods of the Greeks and Hebrews, Zeus, and Yahweh (Jehova), have names derived from Sumerian meaning 'juice of fecundity', spermatazoa, 'seed of life'. The phrase is composed of two syllables, IA (ya, dialectically za), 'juice', literally 'strong water', and U, perhaps the most important phoneme in the whole of Near Eastern religion. It is found in the texts represented by a number of different cuneiform signs, but at the root of them all is the idea of 'fertility'. Thus one U means 'copulate' or 'mount', and 'create'; another 'rainstorm', as source of the heavenly sperm; another 'vegetation', as the offspring of the god; whilst U is the name of the storm-god himself. So, far from evincing a multiplicity of gods and conflicting theological notions, our earliest records lead us back to a single idea, even a single letter, 'U'. Behind Judaism and Christianity, and indeed all the Near Eastern fertility religions and their more sophisticated developments, there lies this single phoneme U'.'' And one more: "The idea of the creative Word of God came to have a profound philosophical and religious importance and was, and still is, the sujbect of much metaphysical debate. But originally it was not an abstract notion; you could see the "Word of God", feel it as rain on your face, see it seeping into the furrows of mother earth, the "labia" of the womb of creation. Within burns an eternal fire ..." My questions for you are these: Did Allegro originate these theories, and have they been accepted by other philologists and scholars? Is he a reputable scholar? Does anyone else believe that the Indo-European and Semitic languages and religions are indeed fertility and mushroom cults derived from ancient Sumerian language and culture? I noted in front of the book that he also wrote "Dead Sea Scrolls" (Pelican A376), "People of the Dead Sea Scrolls" (Doubleday, N.Y.) and other books. I look forward to reading your answer. Thanks. Mark Miller _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]
