Customer Reviews

Lost Secrets of the Mystery Schools: The Coming of the Gods: Initiation and Rebirth (Astara's Library of Mystical Classics)

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For those of you new or not familiar with Astara, this organization was founded in 1951 by Robert and Earlyn Chaney. Other sources say it was founded on May 1, 1954. There is a strong Christian element in Astara. This book of Astara, like many others deals with a lot of New Age subjects such as mysticism. If you go deeper into the symbolism of Astara you'll notice a seven pointed star with a lotus in the middle. This star represents the perfected man. The seven pointed star and the lotus is also tied into the Ancient Mystic Order of Melchizedek. Astara is very to the Rosicrucians, but more watered down. There explaination about the seven pole stars is very fascinating and kind of goes into the realm of astrology. But over all, besides for the symbolism and the knowledge of the pole stars, this book is still the basic New Age information dealing with karma and philosophy.

I made the title of this review 'New Age Philosophy' but often things that are associated with the new age movement are really related to the very distant, even prehistoric past. The 'new age' part means we are going to rediscover that ancient knowledge.

So far all of the books by Earlyne Chaney that I have read talk about the process of 'initiation' which was practiced in some form in very ancient Egypt and in Greece at various times. There were two forms of initiation which were the 'lesser mysteries' and the 'greater mysteries'.

The initiation process was very mysterious and enabled the initiates to reach various levels of understanding of the mysteries and secrets which were given to the human race by the gods. Plato and Pythagorus travelled to Egypt and went through this process.

She talks about the Oracle At Delphi which is associated with the god Appollo. Sadly the psychotic Roman emperor Nero had the priests and priestesses at Delphi buried alive because the pythoness informed Nero that his presence disgusted her. Her prophecy warning Nero to 'beware of 73' came true one year later however when Nero died and was succeeded by someone who was 73 years old.

An interesting idea is that a great spirit or god merged with our sun to make it come alive or something like that. Earlyne believed the sun and the earth are living entities.

She talks about the relationship between the mystery religions of antiquity and Christianity. Some people think that Christianity stole ideas from earlier religions and mythologies. But rather Christianity has some similarities with those other religions because they are all based on similar concepts and truths. Some people believe Christ and Melchizedek are the same person. The ancient priesthood in Egypt was part of the 'order of Melchizedek' as was Abraham.

I don't think Earlyne thought much of the form of Christianity that we see today. Rather she seemed to yearn for those long lost days of old when the priests in ancient Egypt taught the initiates about the mysteries of nature and the universe.

Earlyne felt that those mystery religions will rise again or perhaps merge with Christianity as we enter the Age of Aquarius in 2012.

Jeff Marzano

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