Last year, I was up to my neck, reading about sin-eating and funeral customs throughout the ages. A few people told me I was morbid. One in particular was very upset by it. They wanted me to fix myself.
I was taken aback by this. I was really interested in these topics at the time. I was hot on a trail of breadcrumbs. I’m sure you other seekers know what I mean. ‘
What could possibly be wrong with trying to acquire knowledge? Never mind, my reading cast a cool shadow on my blog at the time. I hate being fixed, don’t you?
I came home with, The Science of the Initiates: A Ready Handbook on the Ageless Wisdom of Questions and Answers. It appears to mash astrology with religion and some other elements. This may be some joker talkin’ (the book is in Q & A form). But the author (or the entity) has some interesting things to say…
For example, he claims that nobody dies, unconscious. Everyone has their moment of clarity, even the insane!
The whole book is full of proclamations, explanations and predictions. Like this:
Q. And America?
A: The law of cycles is one and immutable. America too, must disappear in vast ages to be. No continent can overlap it’s period on the schedule of destiny, as no race can impinge upon the prerogatives of it’s successor.
The book was published in 1934. The conversation (?) took place under the full moon, May 1933.
While this is interesting, it’s not as interesting as learning how people treated death, throughout history, around the world. I think this guy is a nutcase! But it’s what I’ve got and I’m runnin’ with it.
With Mars stuck in my 9th house for eight months, I don’t see a lot of choice. I have a drive to see what’s out there. But with this book in hand, I sure miss being morbid. I hope I can get back to that, real soon!
Nobody likes being “fixed” 🙁
I think interests are naturally cyclical, though.
I know what you mean, though…I rather like the dark, the dirty, and the disturbing subjects myself…
I say read/study what you like, what interests you…life is too short to waste time on anything else. (Even nutjobs can be interesting, though…lol)
A person’s thinking provokes my thinking so it seems worthwhile. I just preferred the other!
I can see that and I think that’s because you excel at analyzing – whether it’s people, a situation, etc. Plus, I think you truly enjoy anything that expands the mind & your knowledge. (I’m sure your Jupiter is involved, somehow. LOL) So, any “new” knowledge is worthwhile 😉 But, yes, I would prefer morbid to nutty myself. 🙂
Ha ha ha! Thanks for understanding me, Lilly!
I had to put down the freakazoid book last night and go back to, “Theology And Sanity”. It’s very good, but dense.
I have all these books a person could read over and over, for the rest of their life. It’s a bit frustrating for Mars conjunct Mercury, which prefers to run through things, “like crap through a goose”!
I am just not made to sit and ponder every paragraph, yanno? So you can see what I’m looking back, fondly.
This guy said that the British are the Romans, reincarnated. My husband went ballistic, lol.
He ranted and ranted, but I liked his last line: “How dare you say you’re a Roman!”
Ha ha ha.
Why in the world would someone think you were broken. I don’t see one thing wrong with studying about and reading about sin-eating and funeral customs throughout the ages. I think that is part of the evolving process personally, but I am a Scorpio with lots of stuff in my 8th and 9th houses. I think everyone needs to know about such so they can know what they want done with it is their time to leave this Earth plane.
I don’t know. Some people want me to write what they want me to write…be what they want me to be, think what they want me to think.
I don’t understand the obsession. I was made in this way.
News stories about an FBI investigation of a former funeral home director in the body parts trade broke in Detroit and Phoenix and I was all over it. Downloaded a book, “Body Brokers – Inside America’s Underground Trade in Human Remains” published in 2006 and lo and behold, there is he is in the cast of characters:
“Arthur Rathburn
Funeral director, Grosse Pointe, Michigan
Former diener, University of Michigan Medical School
Owner, International Biological, Inc.”
Excerpt From: Cheney, Annie. “Body Brokers.” Broadway Books, 2006-03-07. iBooks.
The FBI was at his warehouse in Detroit sifting through body parts for days. Scary, scary [but lucrative] business, for sure.
I saw a program on that guy. Ugh!
Really? Can you recall whether it was Dateline or along those lines? I’d like to watch it too.
My natal 9th house Mars in Scorp is receiving a long term Saturn transit; thus. this sobering information about the business of death I feel compelled to know 😉
I’m pretty sure it was an episode of “Who The %&**$ Did I Marry”. 🙂
Wow! Did not expect one like that … now I’m even more intrigued. Thanks for tip.
I had a similar intense period around that subject a few years ago..one of the highlights of my life. I started to be surrounded by turkey vultures, seen and unseen. I wondered if it was time for me to pass. but I was drawn to researching these birds. The Latin name is “golden aura”- the only bird that does not kill. Rather they clean up battlefields. I was on my way to Bosnia to volunteer with concentration/rape camp survivors. While this was unfolding 3 people told me to watch “the green mile” AND one patient just flat out told me I was a ‘sin-eater’. I’d never heard the term. In the end, it all wove together in time for me to understand the real purpose of the work that was coming. It is a really worthy subject!!! We just don’t always know why.
good for you Elsa for sharing your process…terrific!
Great post!
One of my friends is burying his mother today. It is a long trip and I can’t attend but your blog makes me think of our burial rituals today. We dress them up pretty and lay the dead out for all to view. My daughter was 6 at my mother’s funeral and when we walked into the viewing room my mother was in her casket dressed in pink and looking pretty good; sitting in a chair next to the coffin was her sister, my aunt, dressed in pink and looking good. My daughter looked at me and said, “I thought you said Grammy was dead!” It was a great moment…no sin eating required. P.S. I always loved a particular Twilight Zone or one of those shows called “The Sin Eater” from the 1960’s.
I saw that episode (John Boy from the Walton’s in a dark role).
I found every reference on the planet to this custom…I’m pretty sure.
Also, one of my favorite observances I came across back then, was the undertaker who said, we used to burn trash and bury people, now we bury trash and burn people…”
I wrote about all this, of course. I miss it! I hope to get back to it. I’ve been waylaid, working on the site…but I like to read and offer weirdness here. It’s impossible to do when so much times is spent on admin stuff.
I also ran across that undertaker poet at this time. It’s not that easy to find such a rich vein to tap. So much is so boring!!!!!!!
Well I’d ‘like’ this, but since there’s no ‘like’ button, I’m thinking ‘tap it’ will do. 😀
I’ve had a lifelong fascination with the subject. My circle has experienced more than a dozen deaths through this current Uranus/Pluto cycle. Is there an astrological connection?
I’m sure there is.
Dad’s chart had a big red square that day. Many were older but my neighbor wasn’t and neither were two school chums. One went to sleep Christmas Eve a couple of years back and never awoke.
I think being morbid just adds character. 😉
LOL, kab. It’s a dirty job, but…
I appreciate people who can dig deep into dark subjects and still keep their heads. I can’t and know that about myself. I get bad dreams and have trouble sleeping. Even the sight of blood makes me squeamish. I worked in a kitchen years ago and a co-worker cut herself badly but kept going because she thought she’d get fired. Blood was spurting everywhere and another worker jumped in the room and yelled at the girl to put the knife down and go get help. He looked at me and told me to get out and go sit down. I guess I’d turned white. I was shaking.
Elsa, I sometimes think being morbid is a bit of a gift in a way. You are able to understand the natural process of death. It will happen eventually. This morbid thinking of yours can actually help others when the time comes for them to face it. Other people just either don’t understand or can’t accept your morbid ways. My sister and I have an extremely morbid sense of humor. We’d tell each other occasionally what we would be doing on our funerals. We have a cultural tradition to feed our dead loved ones before they get buried so they will spiritually have enough to eat on their “journey” into the afterlife. My Pisces-Sun/Venus sister said she will feed my dead self some pizza from our favorite pizza place. However, she will not feed me the entire slice as she would want some for herself. Since she is Pisces, she usually starts these morbid conversations 🙂
“This morbid thinking of yours can actually help others when the time comes for them to face it.”
I agree! But there is a coalition out there who does not want to face it until they have to face it and they want it hidden from sight between now and then.
But I know – and I mean that I KNOW, that people who read here will benefit, eventually.
I am a bit ahead (Jupiter Uranus). I can’t help it.
Death and the Civil war (free on Amazon Prime) is grim to the extreme…but interesting as can be.
Thank you! I will check it out 🙂 I love that sort of thing.
https://elsaelsa.com/astrology/2013/11/30/death-diversity-transformation-and-the-civil-war/
I can’t get over how people used to prop up the dead and take pictures of them. It’s interesting to check out but creepy as hell at the same time. Can you imagine if social was around at that time.
*social media
Yikes! I think that’s beyond my imagination, though I have some pictures like that. They belonged to my grandfather. I have pictures in coffins as well.
But I can’t imagine mashing this with the modern day. ::shivers::
Y’all think that’s creepy? My birth dad’s side of the family puts open casket pictures in with regular family photos. I can go through an album or stack of their photos, and there’s a closeup casket pic of one of my dead uncles in the bunch.
I don’t see what you are interested in as morbid. I see it as having an intellectual curiosity and an eagerness to learn. Morbid for me would be going to the graveyard and digging up corpses—just because you wanted to. I think of post-mortem photographs from the Victorian era as sentimental rather than morbid. Many of those pictures of people (especially children) who had never been photographed during life. There is a new industry (relatively new) where photographers will go to the hospital and photograph deceased newborns for the parents. I think that is touching.
I’ve not heard of this book or author, but I think he’s onto something in that we don’t die unconsciously. I think when we die, it’s our ultimate awakening. We are all aware when we ‘go home’. As for the idea that everything has it’s own time and place, well that’s an idea as old as time/Saturn 😉
Angie
Yeah, some of the stuff seems right. It’s good to stimulate thought and discussion, which of course I LOVE with Mars+ Mercury in Libra!
I just got sick of my husband’s rants…even though they’re funny. He discredited the guy so much, I drifted off. 🙂
It’s not like I am short of things to read around here, that’s for sure. I am BURIED in things to study right now…like I haven’t been since…the early 90’s!
I really enjoy when I come across a book that is good for stimulating thought & discussion. It can be such a hard find sometimes.
I also Really enjoy having lots to read, I usually have way more than I possibly have time for. But that has never stopped me, or stopped me from picking up more that interests. I’ve noticed, like you said, that some things I was interested in and ordered books on; by the time the book got there I was so far beyond it or removed from it. Still, some are worth going back for. But I see things moving so fast lately, there’s no practical way to read all I’d and keep up, even if I didn’t have a full life to begin with 🙂
Angie
I’m so glad you posted this. I often get crap for being morbid too. I’m reading a book right now about the science of Disgust. I think you’d enjoy it, as it certainly relates to morbidity. There’s a quiz inside that tests your personal tolerance of disgust. I scored well below average, meaning I have pretty thick skin. The book is called “Thats Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion”. I finally found people of similar ilk to hang out with after joining a local Horror Book club and I’m planning on passing around the test from that book at our next meeting. i have a feeling they’ll get similar scores.
Boy, I don’t know. I will check that out, but I avoid horror movies. I hide my eyes. I see them sometimes, because my husband likes the genre, but gore that is gratuitous…well, I have Libra and would rather have a discussion…some kind of (pleasant) discourse.
I can’t stand gore either! I thought I was the only one!
My fiance loves horror movies….the kind that make you jump. He watches gross stuff late at night sometimes and my Libra planets + Neptune in 12th get tweaked. Thankfully he watches other stuff too, so it’s not too much. 🙂
I don’t miss being morbidly obese Sorry, joke!
I also read a book about Sin Eating! (I´m training in shamanism..) The title is: Lost traditions of celtic shamanism – The Sin Eaters Last Confessions by Ross Heaven
Im a jupiter scorpio in the 9th. Go on with yer bad self.
I still miss this but I’ve found other things, as meaty.