Fertility Cults In The Earth

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Introduction – the Earth The Earth, with her landmasses, water bodies, mountains, valleys, plains, swamps, grass lands, forests is not just the planet that we live in. The Earth is the basis of our existence, the root of our being. There are no us without the Earth. All cultures recognized the importance of Earth for the sustenance of human life, and thus in every cultural system, we see an ardent reverence and worship of Earth as a life giver, and preserver, even destroyer and thus a creator of new forms and an embodiment of change. These practices of Earth worship, Earth healing and Earth orientation that was part of the lives of various people across cultures is now being scientifically studied and researched upon. Many beliefs and practices…show more content…
Fertility cults existed in almost all cultures, where Earth is treated as the Mother (female) and Sun, the Father (male). For instance in Babylon, Ishtar, the earth-goddess, was considered as a supreme deity among the female divinities. Throughout western Asia, the Great Earth Mother, representing fertility was worshipped under diffrent names. When Greek colonists in Asia Minor found her temples, they named her Artemis and the existing cult was practiced by them. This is led to the origin of “Diana of the Ephesians." Later when Christianity took over ancient religious systems, they transformed the Earth mother into the Virgin Mary, and she became the virgin mother of the Son of God. It was a Council at Ephesus that legitimated the title "Mother of God" as applied to Our Lady. According to Greek mythology Goddess Gaia is the Great Universal Mother of Everything. She gave birth to the Earth as well as to the entire Universe, even the Gods. Gaia means Earth, and thus she is both the Universal mother and the Earth herself. Gaia’s desire to become a Mother, made her pregnant by herself, and she gave birth to Uranus, who was a God like Gaia. Later Gaia and Uranus had children together. Ancients across cultures also believed in an underworld, beneath the Earth, where dead souls would go. Thus Earth for the ancient Greeks represented life and death. In Aristotle’s study of the five elements he believed that the Earth rests on water. Plato assigned the geometric form of cube to the element Earth. Anaximander in his study of the five elements, believed that the soul is air, which when condensed becomes water, when on further condensation becomes stone or earth. He believed that Earth was a disc, like a round table. It was later the Pythagoreans who discovered that the Earth was spherical. Another philosopher Xenophanes argued that
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