Nostradamus Volume 11 of 17: And Explanations of Afterlife Experiences

By William Dudley Pelley and Sister Thedra

This series of books entitled "Nostradamus" is a publication of William Dudley Pelley’s original "Soulcraft Fellowship, Letters from Home, The Nine O’clock Sessions, Survey of Probabilities, Purposes of the Infinite, Letters from the Heavenly Home and Halls of Light Illumination" representing over 1500 legal-sized, single-spaced typewritten pages originally written in 1955 but never published in its entirety before now.

This material, thought to be unique in Pelley’s writings, was channelled by him and mailed weekly to his subscribers in five-page sets. One unknown individual in Washington State assembled these sets (minus issue #1) and bound them into the manuscripts. We at TNT Publishing obtained the manuscripts, digitized them and are publishing them herein, beginning with Letter Number 2.

While the majority of this material was received psychically from Nostradamus, other Steller historical personalities also "tuned in" to provide (absolutely awesome!) knowledge and valuable communication while Pelley was in contact with Nostradamus, Democritus, Henry Ford, Benjamin
Franklin, Thomas Edison and others...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781716139055

Book preview

NOSTRADAMUS

And Explanations of Afterlife Experiences

Volume 11 of 17

William Dudley Pelley

&

Sister Thedra

Copyright © 2021 by Halls of Light, LLC

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 978-1-716-13905-5

Contents

LETTER No. 191

LETTER No. 192

LETTER No. 193

LETTER No. 194

LETTER No. 195

LETTER No. 196

LETTER No. 197

LETTER No. 198

LETTER No. 199

LETTER No. 200

LETTER No. 201

LETTER No. 202

LETTER No. 203

LETTER No. 204

LETTER No. 205

LETTER No. 206

LETTER No. 207

Mission Statement

Other Books by TNT Publishing

Reference Pictures

Nostradamus 1846

Contains hundreds of never-before-published Nostradamus Quatrains!

LETTER No. 191

How the Religion of Mithras Shaped the form of Our Earliest Orthodox Christian Church

Dear William and Soulcrafters:

It now becomes part of these weekly communications to have the facts of ancient Mithraism before us that we may recognize the role it played in the projection of early Christianity. Who was Mithras, you well may ask, and whence came he? Do you box the information in your memory for all time.

Mithras was the Persian god of Light, going back to a period before the separation of the Persians from the Hindus. The Persians had, ages before, embraced the religion of Zoroastrianism, some claim at least 3,000 years before Christ. Although but faintly pictured in the Hindu Vedas he is there invoked nevertheless with Ahura-Mazda, god of the sky and clearly a divinity of Light, the protector of Truth and enemy of falsehood and error. After the separation of the Hindus from the Iranian stock, the rise of Zoroastrianism elevated Ahura-Mazda to the summit of the Persian theological system. The role of Mithras became then more distinct. Between Ahura-Mazda who reigned in eternal brightness and Ahriman, whose realm was eternal darkness, Mithras occupied an intermediate position as the greatest of the yazatas, being created by Ahura-Mazda to aid in the destruction of evil and the constructive administration of the earth-world. He was thus a deity of the realms of air and light and by transfer to the moral realm the god of truth and loyalty.

As I mentioned fleetingly to you in an earlier paper, because Light is accompanied by heat he was likewise the god of vegetation and increase. He sent prosperity to the good and annihilated the bad, being the god also of armies and the champion of heroes. As the enemy of Darkness and all evil spirits he protected souls on their journey to Paradise. Thus he became a sort of Redeemer, not unlike the relationship of Jesus to Jehovah later. As the god who gave victory he was prominent in the official cult of Persia, the seventh month and the sixteenth day of other months being sacred to him.

The worship of this deity spread with the empire of the Persians throughout Asia Minor, and Babylon became to him what Rome became later to Christians. Mithraism was at full maturity on its arrival at Rome after the eastern conquests of Alexander, its only modifications having been suffered during its earlier days in Asia. By contact with the star-worship of the Chaldaeans he became identified with Shamash, god of the sun. The Greeks of Asia Minor identified him with Helios, their sun-god. The cult was first introduced to the Romans about 200 years before Jesus by certain Cilician pirates captured by Pompey. For almost two centuries, however, it attained no importance. It never became of much prominence in Greek lands, being regarded by Hellenized nations as a barbarous worship. Particularly did rival the Egyptian worship of Osiris. As a cult at Rome it began to attract attention about the end of the first century after Christ. But throughout the second century, B. C., it began to take root throughout the Roman army, merchants and slaves being its chief missionaries, many of which classes were Asiatics. When it permeated into Germany, Rome was recognized as the favorite seat of the religion. From the end of the first century the cult began to attract serious attention in the Roman capital particularly from the emperors because of the religious support it contributed to the divine right of monarchs, Mithras, identified with Sol Invictus at Rome, became the giver of authority and victory to the imperial house. From the time of Commodus, who was known to have participated in its mysteries, its supporters were found in and among all classes. Its importance at Rome may be judged from the abundance of monumental remains -- more than 75 pieces of sculpture, 100 inscriptions, and the ruins of temples and chapels in all parts of the city and suburbs. When Christianity came along, promoting a Christ whose functions were almost identical with Mithras, it was the most natural of steps for the Roman emperors to read the rites and practices of Mithras into it. Especially did the basic Christian Church when it claimed to be founded. Certainly its high officials copied the Mithric forms of internal organization in its pristine compositions. Thus did the lowly Jesus of Nazareth really have three predecessors in the Christus role: Bel of the Babylonians, Osiris of the Egyptians, and Mithras of Romanized Zoroastrianism. Get around these similarities we cannot. The ancient world wasn't truly one-half so pagan as the zealous early Christians would have made it out. Still more significantly, it was undoubtedly the Mithric form of church or chapel worship that probably gave the early monastic copyists their ideas for attributing to Jesus His alleged remarks to Peter, On this Rock will I build my church! Churches were structures not much known until Mithric times.

The Mithric temples of Roman times were small artificial grottoes wholly or partially underground, in imitation of the original secluded mountain caverns of Asia. The Mithraeum hewn in the tufa quarries of the Capitoline Hill, still in existence during the Renaissance, was example. The main room of the ordinary temple was rectangular, with an elevated apsidal arrangement like a choir at the end opposite the entrance and continuous benches built against the wall on the long sides. The choir and the long spaces between the podia were for ministrants, the podia themselves for kneeling worshipers. It long served as model for Christian church arrangement, being the first time constructed anywhere. You, in today's Christian churches, are inheritors of all of it.

I'm hoping that our Halls of light at some future period will contain a full and comprehensive account of the worship of Mithra, for no other ancient cult so profoundly influenced the early forms of Christianity. In fact, the early church-forms of ecclesiastical theology as taken from the writings of Paul, followed so closely the formats of Mithras that one was scarcely distinguishable from the other. There were seven degrees of initiation to full Mithraism, corresponding to the Seven Octaves of Consciousness in Etheria, and the Seven Heavens described by Paul. The Mithras legend has been lost and can only be reconstructed now by scenes on the bas-relief on the walls of the most ancient Mithric temples. Mithras was born of a rock, so these sculptured pictures tell us, the marvel being seen only by certain shepherds, who brought gifts and adored him -- a perfect format for the Bethlehem story of the shepherds at the Nativity. In fact, all the tales, legends and folklore about these Redeemers is so similar and repetitive that today it's impossible to decide which is fact and which is fiction. In fact, when we come to consider the behavior of Jerome in making his own personal decisions as to what were the accurate occurrences at the beginning of the Christ-life, we find him tossing aside capriciously two whole gospels equally as pretentious as Mark or John, and declaring them to be of no importance whatsoever. Civilization today pays the cost of Jerome's arrogant caprices. Truly we know so little of the accurate details of the Messianic advent that it is little short of tragedy.

But Mithras was the most influential figure in that ancient Roman situation that gave us the modern Romanist Church with its Pope, or pater, and Cardinals and lesser satraps, not to overlook those who presided at the Eucharist and mass. Besides the administration of sacraments and the celebration of offices on special occasions, the priest ke alive the eternal fire on the altar, addressed prayers to the Sun at dawn, midday and twilight, turning to east, south and west respectively. There was pouring of libations, music and chanting, and bells and candles were employed in the service. The Mithric community of worshipers, besides being a spiritual fraternity, was a legal corporation enjoying the right of holding property. It developed governing councils resembling assembly and senate in cities, annually elected presidents, financial agents, advocates, protectors among the influential. The cult as such, however, was mainly supported by voluntary contribution. An abundance of evidence testifies to the devotion of rich and poor alike.

Mithraism it was, as such, that Constantine embraced in envisioning the Official Church that came to life at Nicea and produced the Vatican ultimately with all it pomp and ceremony. To alter Mithras and introduce the Christ was a trifling matter of detail. Consequently it is a Mithric Church that you have today in Romanism, my dear students, the legendary figure of The Man of Galilee becoming only a technical expedient. All the forms and ceremonials are still observed, the wafer eaten at the mass being but a symbol of Helos, the Sun, and the wine consumed representing the blood of the sacred Bull reluctantly sacrificed by Mithras, from the dying animal springing the life of the Earth. The soul of the bull rose to the celestial spheres and became the guardian of herds and flocks under the name of Silvanus. Mithras was, through his deed, the creator of life.

In consequence of it all, Ahriman the god of Darkness, sent a terrible drought upon the land. Mithras defeated this by discharging an arrow against a rock and drawing water miraculously from it. Next Ahriman sent a deluge, from which one man escaped in a specially prepared boat, together with his herds and family. Finally a great all-encompassing fire was sent upon the earth -- undoubtedly associated with the catastrophe of the earth passing through the tail of the Ragnarok Comet -- and only the creatures of Ormazd escaped. Mithras, his work accomplished, banqueted with the Sun for the Last Supper in his earthly career, and was then lifted in a heavenly chariot to the habitation of the immortals where he continued to help and plead for the faithful and the forgiveness of their sins by Ormazd.

Owing to the almost total disappearance of documentary evidence -- some of the more priceless papers having been destroyed by Jerome that they might cast no reflection on the Christ Story -- it is impossible up here in the twentieth century to know the inner life of Mithras. excepting imperfectly. It is the conviction of myself and associates, my dear children, that every particle of legendary data about this Zoroastrian deity should be collected and made available for reference in our Halls of Light archives that humanity of an enlightened day might be fully apprised of what a theft of traditions entered into the original liturgies of the so-called Christian Church. None of it would be for any special undermining of the Christian faith but to show the dispassionate student the true causes of the theological dissensions and denominational hair-splittings that have disgraced and befuddled History up so many generations.

The most interesting aspects of Mithraism were its analogies to Christianity and vice versa, Both religions were of Levantine origin and spread with equal rapidity or account of the same causes, the unity of the political world and the debasement of its morality. By the end of the 2nd century each had advanced to the furtherest limits of the Empire, though the one possessed greatest strength on the frontiers of the Teutonic countries while the other throve especially in Asia and Africa. The points of collision were especially in the Rhone Valley, at Rome, and throughout northern Africa, and the struggle was the more obstinate because of their resemblences where Christianity had been built upon the earlier, and thus caused mutual recriminations. Truth to tell and as spirit-souls of the higher octaves of Consciousness now identify it there really IS no Christian Church. There is only the Mithraic Church advanced down into modern times with Jesus being substituted for the heralded Deity. Consider the points of similarity --

First was the fraternal and democratic spirit of the first communities and their humble origin, the identification of the object of adoration with light and the Sun. Then came the adoration of the shepherds with their gifts, the legends of the Flood and the Ark, the representation in Art of the fiery chariot that indicated the Ascension. When the priesthood had developed, we observe the uses of bell and candle, holy water and communion, the sanctification of the Seventh Day of the week and the 25th of December as the holy natal anniversary -- in Mithraism the Feast of Saturnalia. Jerome's Christmas date in his earliest manuscripts had indicated Christ as being born on or about the 4th of October. Ethically both religions laid the same stress on moral conduct with emphasis on abstinence and self-control of the passions. But in both we find the doctrine of Heaven and Hell, of primitive (psychical) revelation, the mediation of the Logos emanating from the divine, the atoning sacrifice, the constant warfare between good and evil and the ultimate triumph of the former, the immortality of the Soul (derived from sensory evidences of earlier patriarchs being seen etherically), the Last Judgment, the resurrection of the flesh and the fiery destruction of the universe. The title of the Mithraic high priest was summas pontifex, just as it became in Catholicism. The Mithraic community of worshipers, besides being a spiritual fraternity, was a legal corporation enjoying the right of holding property, with temporary officials at its head like any other sodalitas. There were also governing councils resembling senates and assemblies in cities, magistri or annually elected presidents, financial advocates, agents, and patroni protectors among the influential. The Mithraic cults were supported by voluntary contributions -- and the Christian followed suit. The impressiveness and stimulating power of the mystic ceremonies, the consciousness of being the privileged possessor of the secret wisdom of the ancients, the sense of purification from Sin and a better life compensating for the sufferings in mortality, were all strong appeals to average human nature. The necessity of moral rectitude was of itself incentive. Courage, watchfulness, constant striving for purity, were major features in the combat with Evil. Mithras was ever on the side of the faithful, who were certain to triumph in the next world if not in this. The worthy soul passed by ascension to its former home in the skies by seven gates or degrees while the unworthy soul descended to the realms of Ahriman. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul was accompanied by that of resurrection of the flesh -- borrowed probably in turn from Egyptianism or Osirianism -- the struggle between Good and Evil was one day to cease and the Divine Bull was to reappear on earth. Mithras was to descend to call all men from their tombs and separate the good from the bad. The Bull was to be sacrificed anew by Mithras who was to mingle its fat with consecrated wine and give it to the just to drink, rendering them immortal. The unjust, together with Ahriman and his cohorts, were to be destroyed by fire sent from heaven by Ormazd. The universe, thus purged and renewed, was to enjoy eternal happiness.

Can we not see plainly enough that what St. Paul did was to take prevalent Mithraism as his theologic basis and rewrite its lethargic tenets after his own idealism. He called the product the Apostolic Writings of Christianity. He had never met Jesus, never heard Him utter one syllable excepting during that one ESP epiphany on the road to Damascus. He stolidly ignored that Jesus had constantly and continually preached Reincarnation -- Ye must be born again! meant literally. The cumbersome condition -- of water and the Spirit -- was forcibly evolved into the Osirian interpretation of being born to the succeeding Higher Life instead of merely relinquishing the mortal flesh by dying and merely altering into it, whereas in the accurate sacred terminology water and the Spirit was the phrase describing mortality, the mortal instrument being 86 to 92 percent water as the nearest physiologist of your present will confirm.

At any rate, Christianity seems to have been merely a reinterpreted Mithrism, fact and fiction hopelessly intermingled. But the Council of Nicea made the amalgation complete in 325 A. D. Constantine I, known as The Great, was then emperor. He had issued an edict of toleration of the Christians, paving the way for the downfall of paganism throughout the Roman world. But take note that practically as much time had elapsed since the termination of the Christ-life as has elapsed in your America since the landing of your Pilgrim Fathers on Plymouth Rock. And the episode that brought the matter to issue was the so-called Arian Heresy, developing among the theologic clerics over the meaning of the Holy Ghost in the Christian Trinity.

Arius was the name of a 4th century priest residing in Alexandria, Egypt. He got into a controversy with the great Athanasius, another profound cleric, as to whether or not Jesus the Christ was equal in essence or importance to God the Father. Arius contended He was not. He could not be equal in essence and importance if He was to be identified as the Only Begotten Son. A son, Arius argued, could not be equal to his father and certainly could not be co-eternal with his father as a time must have existed when the son was not. Otherwise the son could not have been begotten. This could mean only one thing, namely that the son came into existence after his father, and, in any case Jehovah had always claimed that He alone was God.

Arius took the occasion, when all Alexandria was discoursing on the unity of the Holy Trinity, to question Athanasius on these points. This greatly perturbed the Christian bishops as sides were swiftly taken for and against the unity of the Trinity - a problem incidentally that even yet has not been solved. Alexander, the prevailing bishop, made this the reason for calling a conference so that both sides could express their opinions. He presided and ruled against Arius. From that hour onwards, in fact for many years, this seemingly unimportant question was the burning topic of the Church and the direct cause of the terrible persecutions directed against the orthodox heretics.

Arius, described to us today as one who had lived a strict life and was of agreeable manner, found many sympathizers throughout the Near East and as he was a determined and resolute man he made sure his side remained well to the fore. He declared, in fact, that the whole Christian Church must now decide this question as three hundred years had been quite long enough to leave it unsettled. He was, however, forced to leave Alexandria although he had two bishops, twelve presbyters, and a hundred deacons behind him. He took refuge in Palestine, where Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, tried to settle the quarrel by mediation. Alexander, on the other hand, sent out notices to all Christian church warning them of Arius and his unhallowed opinions. As a counter-move the Bishop of Nicomedia, a friend of Arius, in 319 called together a synod of priests at Bithynia, which passed a resolution that the Arian beliefs were wholly unorthodox. Constantine became much worried over the whole dispute, as it threatened the whole existence of the Church he was befriending and rendered the idea impossible of making Christianity the faith of his Empire. He had, moreover, to stand up to the jeers of a great majority of his Mithraic subjects who were delighted at such turn of events. The pagan priests were not long in calling attention to the unity of belief prevailing in the ranks of their followers with the dissension and wrangling forever occurring among the Christians. Constantine was in a quandary. But he did see that he must put an end to this quarreling among his people or throw the new religion out and return to the saner and more peaceable Mithraism of the greater quota throughout the empire.

His first move, showing wisdom and moderation, was to write a joint letter to both Arius and Alexander expressing his own viewpoint that the one essential religious belief was firm understanding and respect for the identity and nature of Divine Providence and to quarrel over imaginary theological differences was greatly damaging to both Church and Faith. Work for peace and concord, he chided them, even if it meant taking a principle out of the book of