The Celestial Snow White – Ancient Tale, Hidden Cypher- PART I
The fairytale of Snow White was written by the Brothers Grimm during the mid-19 th century, and like all of their fables it was written as a parable and therefore infused with layers of hidden meaning. The Brothers Grimm were not simply storytellers, they were academics, lexicographers and linguists who were deeply immersed in historical and cultural research. They not only knew of the literary usage of the Gospel parable and the Talmudic pesher, they wanted to emulate these tried and tested techniques. And the deliberately cryptic nature of Gospel parables is made perfectly clear by Jesus himself, when he says:
The disciples came to Jesus and said: Why do you speak in parables? He answered: Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given ... Therefore I speak to them in parables, because they seeing see not and hearing they hear not, nor do they understand. (Math 13:10-13)
Parables to Keep Secrets
So biblical parables were used to keep secrets from the common people, just like a Mason passing codes and cyphers in plain sight to fellow Masons. That was the true nature of the Church of Jesus and James, before it was turned into Simple Judaism (Christianity) by Saul. Some of the Gospel parables were deliberately overt, like the merchant who bought a precious pearl (Math 13:45) or the mustard seed that grew very large (Math 13:31), to give the common people the erroneous belief that they were a part of the initiated few. But other parables were purposely designed to resonate only with an inner circle of disciples and trusted followers, like the parable of the wicked tenant (Math 21:33).
Fig 1. The Brothers Grimm. Grim by name and grim by nature, but highly intuitive. ( Public Domain )
The Wicked Tenants
In fact, the parable of the wicked tenant was so astutely obscured and so contrary to normal expectation that it has very rarely been correctly translated even within modern academia. It is actually an explicit description of the Syrio-Judaean struggle against Roman taxation during the first century, with the Romans being cast as the wicked tenant. The Romans were living on Judaean land (tenants) and yet they would not pay any rent to the princes and kings of the region, and demanded rent (tribute) from them instead. From the Syrio-Judaean perspective the Romans were indeed 'wicked tenants' in refusing to pay their dues to the landowning monarchs of the region, and this was a divisive grievance that eventually precipitated the Jewish Revolt - but one that also highlights the royal status of the biblical Jesus.
- Exploring the True Origins of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
- Celestial Goddess Selene: The Star of the Night
During their research into German language and culture the Brothers Grimm came across many folk tales that appeared to contain similar hidden meanings, and they were determined to preserve them for future generations.
The mid-19 th century was a peak of social change, as the Industrial Revolution swept away old rustic traditions that had endured for centuries and replaced them with a newly urbanized void. And if these ancient customs and fables were to survive in this new world, they would have to conform to the edicts of an increasingly centralized and powerful academic and religious elite. The Green Man and Maypole may have been de rigueur out in the rural provinces, but were less acceptable in the emerging industrialized metropolises of Europe, where conformity was a virtue and the finger of heresy could easily end a career. And these conformist threats were very real, as the Brothers were to find out in 1837 when they were suspected of being allied to the Young Germans - a group of radical academics and writers who fought for a separation of Church and State and for transparency in religious teaching - and lost their university teaching positions as a result.
So the Brothers were now in possession of many unorthodox Christian traditions, which included some decidedly heretical stories about New Testament events - the kind of heretical elements that have been explored in Ralph Ellis' The King Jesus Trilogy . And surprisingly, Snow White was one of the most heretical of all the fables the Brothers had come across.
Snow White: A Celestial Egyptian Drama
The story not only contained obvious cosmic and astrological elements but, just like Rapunzel, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, it also contained distinct Gospel overtones. So the foundations of the Snow White fairytale are essentially celestial, because the gods were celestial beings and the drama of their lives could be interpreted in human terms. And so the lives of the gods were paralleled by the lives of the sacred royal families, who often sought to emulate their spiritual mentors and draw upon their majesty and power. Hence the old adage: 'As above, so below'.
The fable of Snow White begins with an evil queen who is jealous of the radiant beauty of her young stepdaughter, and arranges for a huntsman to take her into a deep forest and have her killed. Significantly, in the first edition of the story the jealous queen was actually the biological mother of Snow White, and while this alternative rendition fits the cosmic version of the story much better, it was not so suitable for bedtime reading. This was not a story that mothers wanted to read to their young daughters, and so in later editions the evil mother became an evil stepmother.
In cosmic terms there were three queens in the heavens who might correspond with this evil queen, and these are Venus, the Moon, and the Milky Way. And in this case, the most likely candidate for the jealous goddess-queen is the Milky Way.
The foundations of this fairytale were explored in Mary Magdalene, Princess of Orange and King Jesus , and in these two books the Egyptian goddess Nut was identified as being the Milky Way - the faintly glistening outline of our own galaxy. Take a look at how the goddess Nut arches her body across the night sky, and compare that with how the Milky Way is arched across the night sky. And if you look at the ends of the Milky Way, they do indeed appear to split into arms and legs. Quite clearly, the Egyptian goddess Nut was a graphic representation of the Milky Way. Which is why the Sun was said to have been swallowed and then reborn by Nut, a story that traces the course of the Sun during the year, against the background of the Milky Way. And in a similar fashion, in Greek mythology Aphrodite (Venus) was said to have been born in the 'foam of the sea', which is another reference to the foaming silvery filaments of the Milky Way.
Fig 2. The goddess Nut arches her body across the night sky, with her partner Geb (the Earth) prostrate below her. Note the solar barque of Ra-Horus sailing across the body of Nut, because the cosmos was seen to be a celestial sea. ( Public Domain )
In a strikingly similar fashion, the Milky Way also arches its body across the night sky, while its extremities appear to split into arms and legs. Quite clearly, the Egyptian goddess Nut represented the Milky Way. (Wikipedia/Hdwallpaper)
But the great goddess-queen Nut, the Milky Way, only appears as a faint gossamer of lace arching across the night sky, and she was greatly afraid of being outshone by the other goddesses. So the jealous Nut looked into her mirror and asked who was the fairest queen in the heavens. And since Nut arches her body across the heavens and looks down upon the Earth, the great mirror of Nut is the Mediterranean Sea, an enclosed lake that reflects the entire vista of the heavens above. As above, so below.
- The Grail Cypher: A radical reassessment of Arthurian history
- Hero of Alexandria and his Magical Jugs
But the answer from the Mediterranean mirror was not encouraging, for the serene waters below observed that there was a much brighter and more radiant Snow White goddess in the heavens above - Selene, the full Moon. The horror Nut felt was palpable, for she was being eclipsed and outshone by her own goddess-princess daughter who was far more radiant. Just look at that beautiful white orb, gleaming in the Mediterranean mirror, how could the translucent specter of Nut compete with such a bright young goddess as Selene-Moon? While the Snow White Selene may have been the daughter of Nut, jealousy got the better of the old queen and so she asked the huntsman of the heavens to take Selene into the great forest, and dispose of her.
Fig 3. An image of Nut's terrestrial mirror, the Mediterranean Sea. The Mediterranean never lied because it reflected a vista of the entire cosmos, and the most beautiful princess in the heavens above was the radiant face of Selene, the full Moon. (Image: Allwallpaper)
In Egyptian terms the cosmos was a great sea, upon which the solar barque or Ark of Ra-Helios sailed each day. So the great seas of the terrestrial oceans were mirrored by the great seas in the heavens above. And the celestial bodies sailed across this great sea in barques or ships, as can be seen in fig 2. As above, so below. However, in the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, the cosmos was said to be a great forest, and no doubt each pinprick of starlight was seen as a tree in that great celestial forest.
Fig 4. Orion depicted as Hercules, brandishing his club and the shield of the Nemean lion, plus a sword hanging from his belt. In comparison Gilgamesh was described as holding an axe and a bow, plus his sword, but they are both quite clearly manifestations of Orion. This is why Orion is kneeling, because Hercules was called Engonasisn, meaning 'The Kneeler'. ( Public Domain )
And the great huntsman of this heavenly forest was Gilgamesh, who was an image of Orion, armed with his great axe, his bow, plus a sword hanging from his belt. The Greeks devised a very a similar iconography, but they depicted Orion as the mighty Hercules, armed with his great club and the shield of the Nemean lion, plus a sword hanging from his belt.
And it was Orion-Gilgamesh-Hercules who maintained order in the cosmos. So in the Gilgamesh epic it was Gilgamesh (Orion) who oversaw the transition from the Great Year of Taurus to the Great Year of Aries, by killing the Bull of Heaven (Taurus). In Greek mythology it was Hercules who performed the twelve labours pertaining to the twelve zodiac constellations. And in Roman mythology Orion was called Mithras, and he again killed the Bull of Heaven (Taurus) so that Aries the Ram could become the dominant constellation.
© Ralph Ellis www.edfu-books.com Feb 2016
The King Jesus Trilogy includes “Cleopatra to Christ”, “King Jesus”, “Jesus, King of Edessa”, and now “The Grail Cypher”, plus “Mary Magdalene, Princess of Orange”.
By Ralph Ellis