http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/10/01/jesus-bowl.html

Earliest Reference Describes Christ as ‘Magician’

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Oct. 1, 2008 — A team of scientists led by renowned French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio recently announced that they have found a bowl, dating to between the late 2nd century B.C. and the early 1st century A.D., that is engraved with what they believe could be the world’s first known reference to Christ.

If the word “Christ” refers to the Biblical Jesus Christ, as is speculated, then the discovery may provide evidence that Christianity and paganism at times intertwined in the ancient world.

The full engraving on the bowl reads, “DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS,” which has been interpreted by the excavation team to mean either, “by Christ the magician” or, “the magician by Christ.”

“It could very well be a reference to Jesus Christ, in that he was once the primary exponent of white magic,” Goddio, co-founder of the Oxford Center of Maritime Archaeology, said.

He and his colleagues found the object during an excavation of the underwater ruins of Alexandria’s ancient great harbor. The Egyptian site also includes the now submerged island of Antirhodos, where Cleopatra’s palace may have been located.

Both Goddio and Egyptologist David Fabre, a member of the European Institute of Submarine Archaeology, think a “magus” could have practiced fortune telling rituals using the bowl. The Book of Matthew refers to “wisemen,” or Magi, believed to have been prevalent in the ancient world.

According to Fabre, the bowl is also very similar to one depicted in two early Egyptian earthenware statuettes that are thought to show a soothsaying ritual.

“It has been known in Mesopotamia probably since the 3rd millennium B.C.,” Fabre said. “The soothsayer interprets the forms taken by the oil poured into a cup of water in an interpretation guided by manuals.”

He added that the individual, or “medium,” then goes into a hallucinatory trance when studying the oil in the cup.

“They therefore see the divinities, or supernatural beings appear that they call to answer their questions with regard to the future,” he said.

The magus might then have used the engraving on the bowl to legitimize his supernatural powers by invoking the name of Christ, the scientists theorize.

Goddio said, “It is very probable that in Alexandria they were aware of the existence of Jesus” and of his associated legendary miracles, such as transforming water into wine, multiplying loaves of bread, conducting miraculous health cures, and the story of the resurrection itself.

While not discounting the Jesus Christ interpretation, other researchers have offered different possible interpretations for the engraving, which was made on the thin-walled ceramic bowl after it was fired, since slip was removed during the process.

Bert Smith, a professor of classical archaeology and art at Oxford University, suggests the engraving might be a dedication, or present, made by a certain “Chrestos” belonging to a possible religious association called Ogoistais.

Klaus Hallof, director of the Institute of Greek inscriptions at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy, added that if Smith’s interpretation proves valid, the word “Ogoistais” could then be connected to known religious groups that worshipped early Greek and Egyptian gods and goddesses, such as Hermes, Athena and Isis.

Hallof additionally pointed out that historians working at around, or just after, the time of the bowl, such as Strabon and Pausanias, refer to the god “Osogo” or “Ogoa,” so a variation of this might be what’s on the bowl. It is even possible that the bowl refers to both Jesus Christ and Osogo.

Fabre concluded, “It should be remembered that in Alexandria, paganism, Judaism and Christianity never evolved in isolation. All of these forms of religion (evolved) magical practices that seduced both the humble members of the population and the most well-off classes.”

“It was in Alexandria where new religious constructions were made to propose solutions to the problem of man, of God’s world,” he added. “Cults of Isis, mysteries of Mithra, and early Christianity bear witness to this.”

The bowl is currently on public display in the exhibit “Egypt’s Sunken Treasures” at the Matadero Cultural Center in Madrid, Spain, until November 15.

This came to mind as I viewed my 11-month old daughter’s pointy ears and remembered my mother calling me “Pixie-ears” my entire childhood.  It occurred to me that such traits as pointy pixie ears, tallness and longevity do run in certain families. Also some people simply feel a resonance with elves and intuitively sense they have elven blood. 

DNA memory could be calling, tugging at your awareness.  The elves interbred with “regular” humans so no one alive today has more than a smidgeon of elven blood.  But elven blood is out there flowing in some veins, methinks. You might be an elf if….

1.  You have pointy ears or did have pointy ears as a child. We are not talking Dr. Spock or Christmas elves here because as said above, the bloodline is watered down.  Ears come in all varieties but the pointy kind could indicate elf ancestors just as pointy eyes usually indicate far eastern ancestors.

2.  One side of your family is very long lived, especially as noted in family trees before the onset of modern medicine.  We’re talkin’ grandmas and grandpas that live to 90.  This is not normal as even in modern countries the lifespan is only up to 72 at best.  In most countries and just a hundred years ago, the lifespan couldn’t make it out of the 40s.  So if you have great grandparents or great great grandparents that made it to their late 80s or beyond, you are talkin’ unusual longevity.  The elves lived into the hundreds of years, so having one or more for an ancestor would increase longevity well beyond the norm.

3.  You are tall, or the great majority of one side of your family is tall.  Males above 5′-8″ and females above 5′-2″.

4.  You or much of your family are fair of face.  Elves were known for surrealistic beauty, a la Gweneth Paltrow.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however, and all the most beautiful people on the planet are not necessarily elvish.  But if coupled with longevity and tallness, perhaps they are…

5.  You have an inner knowing.  If elves and elf magic, lore, etc. resonate strongly with you and seem to call you “home” every now and then, you are probably descended from them, at least partially.

6.  You and your ancestors love to travel, especially by ship, especially to new lands on the edges of civilization.  Elves were known to stay on the fringe and keep a low profile, taking ship when need be to faraway shores.  Ancestors of Americans and others who up and left the homeland possessed of the roaming spirit of adventure may have the elfish wanderlust and founding spirit.

7.  You love magic and all things magical.  Many people despise such intuitive alternative spiritual things as “magic”, wanting only logic and proofs to rule their lives.  (Those poor sots ain’t elves, get it?)

Again, nobody is purebred elf on earth today. Bloodlines theories like this and the Jesus bloodline are fascinating.  The bottom line is it can be in any person if said person strongly senses it.  Those who speak don’t know and those who know don’t speak, so if someone is trying to gain fame and fortune from their bloodline association you should be suspicious. But otherwise, I say don’t be so dubious.  Mankind goes back to the dawn of time.  You have ancestors from said dawn of time simply because you are alive today!  Stranger things have happened than a tall long lived race of magic-loving people to live here, a few of them intermarry, and then die off.  Cro-magnon man died off as did the “hobbits” scientists discovered in 2005.

Just some musings from a tall pointy-eared esoteric Christian with lots of 90 year old relatives.

Katia

P.S.  We need to expand our Mystery School’s Folklore and pre-Christian European magical studies programs.  In our Teutonic Studies we cover Lord of the Rings, the symbolism, the drawing upon earth’s ancient lore, etc.  But it is intriguing that Tolkein considered himself a “mystical” Christian.  His work is a merger of esoteric, occult Christian themes (as is his crony C.S. Lewis’ great work, Chronicles of Narnia).

The Art of Happiness, by Prescription
Nov. 27, 2006 — Amid the stress of the holiday season, scientists have some comforting news: People can make themselves happier, research suggests — and not just for a day or two, but long-term. There’s no shortage of advice in how to become a happier person, as a visit to any bookstore will demonstrate.

In fact, Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues have collected more than 100 specific recommendations, ranging from those of the Buddha through the self-improvement industry of the 1990s. The problem is, most of the books on store shelves aren’t backed up by rigorous research, says Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside, who’s conducting such studies now. In fact, she said, there has been very little research in how people become happier. The reason, she said, is that many researchers have considered that quest to be futile. For decades, a widely accepted view has been that people are stuck with a basic setting on their happiness thermostat. It says the effects of good or bad life events like marriage, a raise, divorce, or disability will simply fade with time. As two researchers put it in 1996, “It may be that trying to be happier is as futile as trying to be taller.”

But recent long-term studies have revealed that the happiness thermostat is more malleable than the popular theory maintained, at least in its extreme form. “Set-point is not destiny,” said psychologist Ed Diener of the University of Illinois. One new study showing change in happiness levels followed thousands of Germans for 17 years. It found that about a quarter changed significantly over that time in their basic level of satisfaction with life. (That’s a popular happiness measure; some studies sample how one feels through the day instead.) Nearly a tenth of the German participants changed by three points or more on a 10-point scale. Other studies show an effect of specific life events, though of course the results are averages and can’t predict what will happen to particular individuals. Results show long-lasting shadows associated with events like serious disability, divorce, widowhood, and getting laid off. The boost from getting married, on the other hand, seems to dissipate after about two years, said psychologist Richard E. Lucas of Michigan State University.

Still, many people want to be happier. What can they do? That’s where research by Lyubomirsky, Seligman and others comes in. Exercises such as thinking of three good things that happened during the day are being tested by Seligman’s group at the University of Pennsylvania. People keep doing it on their own because it’s immediately rewarding, said Seligman’s colleague Acacia Parks. It makes people focus more on good things that happen, which might otherwise be forgotten because of daily disappointments, she said. Miller said the exercise made her notice more good things in her day, and that now she routinely lists 10 or 20 of them rather than just three.

A second approach that has shown promise in Seligman’s group has people discover their personal strengths through a specialized questionnaire and choose the five most prominent ones. Then, every day for a week, they are to apply one or more of their strengths in a new way. Strengths include things like the ability to find humor or summon enthusiasm, appreciation of beauty, curiosity and love of learning. The idea of the exercise is that using one’s major “signature” strengths may be a good way to get engaged in satisfying activities. These two exercises were among five tested on more than 500 people who’d visited a Web site called “Authentic Happiness.” Seligman and colleagues reported last year that the two exercises increased happiness and reduced depressive symptoms for the six months that researchers tracked the participants. The effect was greater for people who kept doing the exercises frequently. A followup study has recently begun.

Another approach under study now is having people work on savoring the pleasing things in their lives like a warm shower or a good breakfast, Parks said.

Yet another promising approach is having people write down what they want to be remembered for, to help them bring their daily activities in line with what’s really important to them, she said.

Lyubomirsky, meanwhile, is testing some other simple strategies. “This is not rocket science,” she said. For example, in one experiment, participants were asked to regularly practice random acts of kindness, things like holding a door open for a stranger or doing a roommate’s dishes, for 10 weeks. The idea was to improve a person’s self-image and promote good interactions with other people. Participants who performed a variety of acts, rather than repeating the same ones, showed an increase in happiness even a month after the experiment was concluded. Those who kept on doing the acts on their own did better than those who didn’t.

Other approaches she has found some preliminary promise for include thinking about the happiest day in your life over and over again, without analyzing it, and writing about how you’ll be 10 years from now, assuming everything goes just right. One thing is clear, Diener said, and that is happiness takes work.

“Happiness is the process, not the place,” he said via e-mail. “So many of us think that when we get everything just right, and obtain certain goals and circumstances, everything will be in place and we will be happy…. But once we get everything in place, we still need new goals and activities. The Princess could not just stop when she got the Prince.”

From http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/11/27/happiness_hum_print.html

The following was in the same email the article came in. (From care2.com).

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life–happiness, freedom, and peace of mind–are always attained by giving them to someone else.
–Peyton Conway March