I am currently reading the New York Times Bestseller, The Secret History of the World, by Mark Booth. In the beginning of the book, he does a great job showing how ignorant our modern scholars can be when trying to explain what the ancients really believed spiritually. For example, in one passage he states that scholars like to believe the Egyptians actually worshipped the sun as a sentient being. This is silly. As Booth tells us Robert Temple’s commentary on texts by Aristotle, Strabo, and many other philosophers of the ancient world have clearly shown that they “…saw the sun as a sort of lens through which the spiritual influence of a god rayed from the spiritual into the earthly realms.”

In other words, people like the ancient Egyptians never worshipped the sun itself. To them it was no God. The sun was more like a conduit, something that received God’s power or love and in turn poured it out on humanity. By “spiritual realms” is meant higher or advanced states of consciousness, which God is the highest or first cause. Therefore when God created the sun, he was expressing a part of his love which would be poured out so that consciousness could experience life more abundantly (as we’ll see in a moment, this has direct relevance to a scripture from 2 Peter).

Everything that we have discovered in modern science about the sun’s importance to our solar system shows that that is exactly what God did. Without the sun, no life would exist. Even the atoms which make up our body were made from the remnants of another sun that went supernova billions of years ago. We can be assured of this fact because we now know that all the elements of the periodic table following hydrogen and helium are made in this manner. Without a supernova, there would be no oxygen to breathe, no gold to mine, and no carbon to form carbon-based life. As much as you might hate the new age phrase, you really are a star child!

Maybe it’s time to realize that the ancients weren’t ignorant or superstitious, but possibly had a better understanding of our place in the universe than we do. The ancient Egyptians were quite intelligent. Booth reminds us of the fact that ancient Egyptian wise men knew that Sirius is a three-star system as opposed to being a binary star system. In the modern world this fact was only recently discovered in 1995 when French astronomers uncovered a red dwarf using strong radio telescopes. In the ancient world, this type of advanced astrological / astronomical knowledge was taught in the Mystery schools.

So what’s any of this have to do with the Bible?

Mystery schools of the ancient world instructed that mankind has both a head and heart consciousness. They taught that heart consciousness emanates from the sun (as a metaphor for the “son”) and actually is received in the mind through the heart. In other words, and as Booth puts it, the ancient Mystery schools taught that “…the heart is the portal through which the Sun god enters our lives.”

Fascinating. The sun god, eh?

Could this be part of the reason for a well-known scripture in 2 Peter 1:19:

“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.”

The phrase day star is an obvious reference to Christ. A star produces light and the Bible says God is light. The imagery in our verse from 2 Peter suggests that His (Christ’s) conscious light rises within us via the heart, or that aspect of consciousness which is concerned with higher emotions. In esoteric literature, these higher emotions come from a plane just above the mental plane—known in esoteric literature as the Buddhic or spiritual plane—closely connected to the wisdom of the spirit. This is because through the receiving and application of true wisdom results automatically in the individual expressing higher emotions well beyond the limited aspects of the ego.

Returning again to the imagery in 2 Peter, the sun, or “day star” as it is called, has always been a symbol for the higher self in esoteric literature. The sun rising and the imagery of the “dawn” refers to the fact that when the higher self, your true self, begins to manifest over the ego on the higher planes, there is a new dawn within you. It is an advancement of consciousness, and this is what happens as the Christ rises within you. All this powerful imagery used by the ancients, including the authors of the New Testament, suggests that the risen sun / son (Christ) is a risen state of consciousness.

The Biblical writers obviously knew and taught the wisdom of the Mystery schools. And yes, my dear reader, it is true: metaphorically speaking, you are a sun child and Jesus really is a Sun god! Remember, Jesus’ birthday is on December 25^th, the symbolic death of the sun (winter solstice) before it is raised again after three days and begins to wax stronger as it shines longer each day heading towards spring.

Next time we read anything in our history books about the ancients being sun-worshippers, let us remember that the earliest Christians and even the New Testament writers used the same imagery and spiritual principles as they Egyptians. In fact, this was the heritage of the Old Testament as well. Perhaps you remember this often quoted scripture from church services:

“But unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings…” (Malachi 4:2).

Oh yes, Malachi said sun, not son. It’s certainly something to contemplate.

I write this post to point out one thing: perhaps everything in our physical world is more spiritual than modern Christianity would let on. Perhaps it is ALL spiritual just like the ancients said it was!

Blessings!