First the Tomb, then the Manger

Zygomnesis applied to Christianity, leads to the inconvenient suspicion that the first event of the Christ story is actually the last event—that the crucifixion occurred before the birth in the stable. Zygomnesis takes place as a reaction of the mind to stressors in the environment: Juan Diego torn between two cultures underwent the traditional regressus ad uterum and then a step beyond, to his conception where he interpreted all he “saw” as an encounter with a pregnant Virgin Mary encased in a corona of light; Moses, drawn by two competing cultures encountered his own conception and decided it was not an egg engulfed by ravaging sperm, but a burning bush, and that the voice calling out I AM was not his own existential cry, but the cry of someone named I AM; Mohammed, drawn to Monotheism but unable to find his home in one of the great traditions, placed a mystical stone in a wall and appropriated a pagan ritual which perfectly mimicked the sojourn of male sex cells on their pilgrimage to the egg; and in the incipient new religion called Christianity, I would argue that the dreamer/artist reacting to the stressors of his time was principally St. Paul, whose familiarity with the Greek culture, his eager longing for inclusion in the Jewish Temple Culture of his day and his clear fascination with the young cult of the man-god, Jesus, evoked from him the primary images of the Christ story but always in reaction to the crucifixion, that primary psychological stressor of the era. So, we begin with the manger but acknowledge how one man’s manger is another man’s tomb.

Stables in Bethlehem would have looked like this: remarkably similar to a tomb of the same era.

Above left, a first-century stable in Jerusalem. Above right, a first-century tomb. Stables and tombs looked very much alike. And, vexed to nightmare by the reality of a messiah laid to rest in his tomb at age 33, the artist-dreamer—probably Paul—found an easy modulation to the stable and a story of birth. That's why I say the cross came before the manger since it is a psychological response to it. Follow the details of dream work, and they will never lead you very far from the truth, no matter how uncomfortable. For example, the shroud is an important detail because the dreamer, the zygomnete, turned it into a complimentary touch: swaddling clothes.

How have we managed to look at these twin scenes, manger and tomb, swaddling clothes and shroud, frankincense in the air both of stable and crypt and not seen that they are the same moment. One is real, one the spontaneous product of a crushed spirit. So let us begin in pure story and see that it leads us to real tomb. Let's begin with the "wise men," or, as scripture actually calls them "astrologers."

This (on right) is what the eruption of the egg--and, metaphorically, the "rising" of the "star"--look like according to a talented artist. The fingers, called fimbrae, will coax the egg along, almost like palm fronds heralding the arrival of a King.

Medusa is to snakes as Christ is to thorns.

A typical 1st Century tomb in Jerusalem.

Below, Jesus is wrapped in the shroud.

Here they are, as we have come to know and love them: Gaspar, Balthasar, and Melchior.

And, to our left, observe the real star of this pilgrimage. The wise men, the astrologers, the "three kings" are, in reality, male sex cells, sperm, seek union with the only object in the universe that matters. Timing is everything in conception, so the "kings" had best hope the egg is erupting from its ovary right now...

The next symbol of Kingship will be less pleasant. The crown of thorns, like all details of an ecstatic vision, is a substitution; the manifest symbol of a latent reality. Here is the manifest and the latent side by side.

Enter images and other content here

to Calvary