Nature Worship: Separating Delusion from Reality (PART-3)

Nature Worship

CHAPTER- 1 

Elements and forces of nature

 

In the worldviews of early archaic civilizations, the natural energies of fire and water, which appear to be mutually exclusive, are brought together in a unity of opposites. Both forces are cleansing and protecting, and many people believe they are linked to the sun and moon's cosmic powers. Fire (as the sun) is typically masculine and water (as the moon) is usually feminine if they are fully united, often genetically. Where fire is viewed as the semen of heaven, which is usually personified as male, it takes on a male character (e.g., fire in the earth, preserved in the womb); where rain is viewed as the semen of heaven, which is usually personified as male, it takes on a male character (e.g., fire in the earth, preserved in the womb).

Water

Many of the properties of water give it the appearance of being alive; as a result, it is psychologically understandable that water (rain, sea, lakes, and rivers) could become a natural phenomenon worthy of worship. Water is constantly in motion, changing color in the light of the stars, reflecting the world, murmuring and roaring, reviving dry vegetation, refreshing living creatures, including the tired and ill, and healing. Water is ideal for purification of the soul because it dissolves dirt (e.g., after the violation of a taboo or the commission of a sin of any kind). Even icons must be cleansed under certain situations. Water shows destructive forces as well (sea quakes, floods, and storms). The following are the most important mythological-religious facts signified by water: the primal matter, the instrument of purification and expiation, a fructifying force.

Water as primal matter

The concept of a primordial body of water from which everything is derived is especially prevalent among peoples living near coasts or in river areas—for example, the Egyptian (the primordial ocean) and the Mesopotamian Apsu (the primaeval watery abyss) and Tiamat (the primal watery abyss) and Tiamat (the primal watery abyss) and Ti (the primaeval chaos dragon). The earth may be fished out of the primordial sea or emerges from it; heavenly beings (such as Ataentsik, the Iroquois' ancestress) appear on the emerged earth; and birds lay an egg on the chaotic sea that is later divided into two halves (heaven and earth). As a result, water is regarded as the foundation of everything. In such tales, the water that flows around the earth's disc is a relic of the original primaeval sea (e.g., Oceanus).

Water as an instrument of purification and expiation

Water is seen as a means of purification and atonement, particularly in arid areas. In such places, cultic acts are usually performed only after lustrations—water sprinkling or immersion. The same may be said about joining new communities or starting a new life (e.g., baptism). Water lustration is especially important after touching the dead and for priests and kings as a purification wash. Water is sometimes used to anoint images of the gods.
Over Eurasia and America, legends of a massive flood (the Deluge) abound. This flood, which, with a few exceptions, eliminates a disobedient initial population, is a form of water retribution, after which a new sort of planet emerges.

Water as a vivifying force

water, like the heavenly rains that hydrates the earth, is said to be vivifying. Water is also associated with the body's flowing vital energies (e.g., blood, sweat, and semen). Water was poured to the mummified deceased in Egypt to replenish the lost liquids. The Asante of Africa name their patrilinear clans ntoro, which means "water," "river," and "semen," while the Wogeo of Papua New Guinea call them dan, which means "both water and semen."

Water as fructifying

There was also a concept that heaven fructifies the earth with heaven's seed, wherever early archaic civilization transmitted the myth of heaven and earth as world parents. As a result, the earth's springs, pools, and rivers may provide not just healing and forgiveness, but also fertility. In ancient Greece, the Scamander River (now Turkey's Küçükmenderes ay) was clearly personified; according to Aeschines, a 4th-century BCE Greek orator, females washed in it before marrying and said to it, "Scamander, accept my virginity." There are various magical ceremonies in which water is used to replace semen or male fertility.

The Bamessing corn festival (Nsiä) in Cameroon begins with the lamentation of the dead plants during the dry season. Nsiä stresses that the deity who provided nutrition has died and is being grieved as a leader, similar to the Egyptian Osiris and Mesopotamian Tammuz festivities. The chief must be strengthened with a miracle "chieftain water," which must be collected by virgins from the chieftain's tribe, while he dies metaphorically with the deity. After the women of the tribe have drunk from the holy water spot, the chieftain drinks from the gourds of all the maidens for two weeks.

In mythology, battles between gods and heroes and mythological entities, animals, and monsters who keep back the fructifying water are common. The conclusion of the dry season or a drought, as well as the rebirth of plants, is equated to the release of water during the epic war. In Indian mythology, Indira kills Urtra; in Syrian and Palestinian mythology, Baal fights Leviathan; and in Huron mythology, Joskeha, the spring hero, kills the frog that tried to stop the water from flowing freely.

Water as a revealing or judging instrument

water is used as a revealing and judging device in various civilizations. Reflections in the water spawned a slew of oracles based on water's purported prophetic or divinatory powers. A visionary look into the water surface was thought to reveal both the future and past wrongdoings. The employment of crystal balls by modern fortune-tellers may have perpetuated this historical ritual. Ancient Europe, North Africa, the Middle East (e.g., Babylonian fortune-telling with cups), eastern and northern Asia (where shamans typically utilize metal mirrors instead of water as a divining tool), and Southeast Asia and Polynesia all practise water divination. Where such divination practises were severely prohibited, such as in Sub-Saharan Africa, mirror and water gazing were transformed into contrived water ordeals. Water ordeals (e.g., immersion in water) and the more common fire ordeals both employ water as a judging element in ordeals supposed to illustrate the gods' judgement. There, too, the water's cleansing properties come into play.