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![The Devolution of the Goddess](images/thedevolutionofthegoddess_title.gif)
Sacred to Profane Marriage
Review "Sacred to Profane Marriage".
"Possibly, then, the "Sacred Marriage" rite was not originally concerned with king-making at all, but rather with "goddess-making"; perhaps it was a ritual for, as it were, "activating," making fertile a "Goddess on Earth." To that end, the ceremony entailed ritual mating between the entu-designate and, say, a temple priest, since, for the Mesopotamians, fertility on earth, as in heaven, resulted from the union of male and female.
![Sacred Marriage](bookimages/inanna3-sm.gif)
Couple on terracotta bed, perhaps representing the "Sacred Marriage." Object could have been bought at the festival. Mesopotamia 3rd. millennium BCE.
© S. Beaulieu, after Teubal 1983: 117. |
The ritual would, I theorize, have confirmed the priestess as Inanna — permanently — and, for a short time, the priest would have incarnated a divine lover. However, to have embodied a deity, if only temporarily, would have set him apart: for a time he had been a god!
At some point, one priest might have seen the advantage of continuing to incarnate the goddess's lover, of using the role's charisma to achieve power in the community."
~ "Inanna and the "Sacred Marriage", by Johanna Stuckey. Read the article...
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