Secret_History

406 The Secret History of the World
from father to son because the queen symbolizes the land. It is interesting that this
drama was enacted between Jacob, and an “angel of Yahweh”, playing the role of
Set. In this way, the people understood that the kingship had been handed to
Yahweh personally because he “Tabernacled with Jacob” playing the role of the
goddess. Yahweh, the Boar god.
We need to understand here that these ritual combats, dying kings, cannibalistic
and sacrificial activities are only the extreme corruptions of an original, core idea
that can be seen to represent an ancient technology. Indeed, the technology aspect
emerges from time to time, but is often so disguised that it is difficult to sort out
the many twists and turns in the threads of transmission. Among the most archaic
representations of these ideas - even though we can consider it to still be a
corruption of the truly ancient knowledge - are the rites of the Shamans of central
Asia.
When we look to the function of the shaman, we discover: the shaman either
descends to the underworld to save man, or he ascends to the heavens to intercede
with the gods on behalf of his people. He is, in effect, the divinely chosen “knight”
who has the “right stuff” to be able to make this journey. The symbolism of the
stairs on which the shaman ascends and descends are typically shamanic. The
“Tree of Life”, the symbol of the birth goddess, is a symbol of the shamanic ascent
to the celestial spheres to receive the communication from god concerning the fate
of the tribe. In this sense, the cosmic axis and the heavenly book have become
joined in terms of symbolism. One can clearly see these elements in the story of
Jacob’s ladder and his wrestling with the “angel”. Unfortunately, Jacob lost the
match.
What is most fascinating in terms of shamanic studies is a mysterious “female
sickness” that male shamans often suffered. One of the reported (and variable)
symptoms of becoming a shaman is that the individual begins to dress as a woman,
to act as a woman, and to generally begin a process of feminization. We see a hint
of this factor in Jacob’s journey south to “build booths” which was a strictly
female activity!
This feminization of the shaman directs us to consider the fact that the original
shamanic/grail function was most likely fulfilled by women only, and at some
point, men attempted to dispense with the function of the female and to acquire her
attributes and natural shamanic capabilities. It seems that, at the same point in
time, the place of the woman in the rites, who was present to “embody” the
goddess in the sacred marriage, was replaced by other items, including stairs,
celestial trees, and even horses. The rhythmic function of ritual intercourse, which
was merely a corruption of the act of “dissolving” into space/time, was replaced
by drumming and other trance inducing methods.
The clues to these transitions are held in the very words themselves: knight and
mare. Knight is derived from the same root as yogi, or juga, which means “to join
together”, and the word “mare” for “mer” or Sea of the mother is obvious. In order
to get us a bit closer to some idea of how the transitions occur, Eliade remarks on
the shamanic role in funerary rites, which have been described and observed. It is
thought that these sorts of rites are very similar to the “secret rites” or functions
that are hidden by vows of secrecy.