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Culture
The Fairy Tale Code
by Kelley Bell
The term
fairy tale brings to mind a children's story, but in truth these tales
are parables of history. It is a spiritual teaching that calls out to us
from the ancient past. It is a lesson that will not die, even though it
has been suppressed, repressed, persecuted, attacked, and twisted for
centuries.
In olden times, it was common for all religious teachings to take the
form of parable. We all know that the New Testament stories of the
shepherd and his flock are not lessons in animal husbandry. They are
parables for religious teachings.
Fairy tales are the same. In order to decipher them and find their
message, we need only grasp the concepts behind the 'Olde Ways',
and remember the persecution of these peoples and their history.
The libraries of Alexandria were one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
It was a truly metropolitan centre of culture and learning. In AD 351,
Bishop Theophilus of Rome led an attack on the great libraries,
destroying the accumulated knowledge of the ancient world. The reason
for this onslaught was based on The Council of Creeds of Nicaea, which
demanded that orthodox Christianity be the official religious doctrine
of the people. This bloody trend of persecution continued for almost
2,000 years, spreading across Europe and the Middle East, and eventually
crossing to the Americas in the form of the Salem Witch Trials.
One such story, rarely taught in school, tells the tale of Hypatia. She
was a professor of philosophy, a noted authority on the works of Plato
and a teacher of algebraic mathematics. However, in the eyes of the
Mother Church, Hypatia was a witch.
After the destruction of the Alexandrian libraries, the cleric mobs
hunted down any scholars whose works conflicted with the teachings of
the Church, especially women like Hypatia who, they claimed, had no
place in the academic world. She was captured and dragged from her
carriage by a group of monks, stripped naked and paraded through the
streets to the churchyard of Caesarium. They held her down and "scooped
the flesh from her bones with sharp tiles and oyster shells". When she
finally died from the shock and torture, the monks scattered her remains
in the streets as a grisly warning to the people of Alexandria.
The fairy tales and children's songs that have survived over the
centuries tell the story of these atrocities, and preserve a history
that would otherwise be lost, if spoken of openly. It is amazing that
the connection between these stories and the religious history of early
Europe has been completely overlooked by researchers. The most probable
reason is that most scholars are either viewing their studies from a
Christian perspective, or they simply realize that there is no money to
be made from research that raises the ire of the Church.
Snow White, Cinderella and Rapunzel are examples of oral folk tales that
carry the hidden history of the Olde Ways. These maidens were pricked
with needles, subjected to evil spells, fed poisoned apples, demoted
from places of status, or condemned to servitude. The maiden in the
parable is not Hypatia herself, or any of the other hundreds of
thousands of women who were burnt or tortured by the church; the Maiden
is the symbol of the belief system that was under attack.
Look at Snow White. She is The Maiden. Her friends are the forest
animals or forest people, like dwarfs or fairies. She draws her wisdom
from her connection to nature. It is obvious that the Maiden is a
metaphor for the Earth-Based Matriarchal Religions of pre-Christian
Europe. A stepmother, a woman who is competing with Snow White for the
attentions of her father, is replacing her real mother (Mother Nature),
the Goddess symbol of Olde.
The Wicked Stepmother is a woman of great power and standing, who wants
to take over and supplant herself in place of the maiden. She is the
symbol of the violent censorship of the rising patriarchy. She is not
the real mother, the earth mother; she is the false mother, the
stepmother, "The Mother Church" of Rome.
The father represents the commoners who were swayed into turning their
backs on their true family in exchange for the new doctrine.
The stepmother calls to the powers of the spiritual realm by praying to
the deity in the mirror. "Mirror Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest
of them all?" The Church has always fought against all other belief
systems, insisting that it is indeed "the fairest of them all". As long
as Snow White - whose truth and beauty are pure - is in view, no one
will ever give their attentions to the stepmother, in spite of her
wealth, her ornate attire, or her powers of persuasion. Snow White must
be destroyed!
The stepmother then goes to work, and uses a poisoned apple to destroy
her rival. This is significant, because the apple is the symbol of Eve,
and the basis of the patriarchal doctrine of original sin. This biblical
doctrine has been used to denounce and demote women from any position of
power or respect in Islamic, Christian and Hebrew cultures. It is the
single-most damaging thing ever written about women.
The stepmother expected Snow White to die from this poison, but she did
not. Her faithful forest friends hid her away and altered the spell, so
that she would simply sleep for a hundred years. Snow White would sleep
until a hero - representing the next generation of her father's people -
would return to nature and find her again. Her glass casket tells us
that she is still visible, still there, for those who seek her out.
The parables of this teaching are everywhere, once you learn to seek
them. For example: The Little Mermaid enters a pact with the sea witch
and attempts to conform (grow legs and walk on the sand) in order to
unite with her prince. This is a girl who turns her back on Matriarchy
and becomes a member of the new religion. The story shows that there is
no middle ground. She must choose one life or the other.
Little Red Riding Hood is about being fooled by the wolf, disguised as
the grandmother. The wolf is a symbol of evil, and is the same sort of
antagonist as the wicked stepmother and the sea witch. He is a male,
representing the Patriarchy, disguised as the Grandmother Crone, who is
the ultimate wise woman of the Matriarchy.
It is interesting to note that Riding Hood wears red. The red robe was a
symbol of the Essenes, worn by their highest-ranking Women Priestesses.
Jesus was a member of this priestly group, and there is a direct
correlation between the traditional robes of the Essene Priestesses and
the red robes worn by the Cardinals of the Catholic Church. Further, it
must be noted that in olden times, a "Woman in Red" was a sign of a
woman who held high office as a spiritual leader. The symbolism is,
ironically, quite different today.
The examples are ample enough to fill volumes of books. So rather than
bore you with any more, dear reader, I will bid you good hunting as you
seek the deeper meanings in the fairy tales you encounter, and hope that
you too will find the hidden wisdom of these parables, and live happily
ever after.
May 7, 2006
(Kelley Bell is an Ohio-based writer, graphic designer, Qi-Gong Master,
self-defense instructor and seminar leader.)
By arrangement with
Women's Feature Service
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The Week of May 7, 2006
India-Pakistan Must Jointly Combat Terrorism
by Rajinder Puri
Releasing Masood Azhar was a Political Decision
by MH Ahsan
Extinction of Democracies and The Irish Elk by
Gaurang Bhatt, MD
Bhutan: India's Trusted Strategic Friend and
Ally in South Asia by Dr. Subhash Kapila
What is the Solution to the Kashmir Imbroglio
by TA Ramesh
Natural Disaster: A Concern for Security by
VK Joshi
High on Grass by Chitra Balasubramaniam
Look Around You by Naira Yaqoob
An Indian Summer by Dr. Prasenjit Maiti
The Question of Truth and Yogic Practice by
Ashish Nangia
Myths in Jyotish by Rohiniranjan
The Fairy Tale Code by Kelley Bell
Make Travel Fun for your Little One by
Garima Gupta
A Passionate Cry for Human Dignity by V.
Sundaram
Never Victorious, Never Defeated A Book
Review by Amreeta Sen
Bankim's Krishna-Charita : Some Observations
by Major Gen. Shekhar Sen, VSM
VPN : An Introduction by Ruchi
Gupta
The Witty Side by Melvin Durai
O Cancer: I am a Fighter Too by Ravi Pipal
My Mother : A Cup of Wonder by Dhiraj Bhimji
Raniga
Suseela a short story by NS Murty
Divorce a short story by Vikram Karve
Naushad : End of an Era by Ramendra Kumar
Interview with Emraan Hashmi and Shiney Ahuja by
MH Ahsan
To be Single and a Mother by Karina Araos
Plenty but not
Enough by Kavita Devgan
Ayurveda as a Career by Pallavi Bhattacharya
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