Gleb Botkin writes (In Search of Reality, p. 31):
To
Greece, the religion of Aphrodite was brought by Orpheus. Horace refers to him
as “the Sacred Messenger of the Gods, who had reclaimed the Greeks from a rude
and savage life.” Significantly, it is also to Orpheus that the Greeks
attributed their knowledge of agriculture and the diatonic scale of music.
Orpheus himself called his teaching, “the religion of the Golden age,” and
stated that people of that Age were so good and so happy for the very reason
that they worshiped Aphrodite and Aphrodite Alone.
This statement connects with a quote from ancient Greek Philosopher Empedocles (Fragment
128):
"Nor had they any Ares for a god nor Kydimus, no nor King Zeus nor Kronos nor Poseidon, but Kypris the Queen.... Her did they propitiate with holy gifts, with painted figures and perfumes of cunning fragrancy, with offerings of pure myrrh and sweet-smelling frankincense, casting on the ground libations of brown honey. And the altar did not reek with pure bull's blood, but this was held in the greatest abomination among men, to eat the goodly limbs after tearing out the life."
During the Golden Age,
Kypris (Aphrodite) alone was worshiped – meaning that she was not one god among
many, not a consort of another god, not merely a power or projection, but was
seen as God, the Universal Deity. Based on Empedocles, all were good and all
were happy since there was no animal sacrifice and humans were vegetarians. The
work of Gleb Botkin in establishing the Church of Aphrodite was intended to
mark a return to the Golden Age.
The same is true with the
work of Mai Markand in establishing Mai-ism.
Mai Markand writes (Mai-ism, Note 7):
Mai माई or Maijee माईजी is Universal and a
Personification of Mother, God Himself as Mother and not God's
Power. With Hindu-Matajee, the relationship of the devotee and the
deity is that of the demander and
donor of powers leading to general happiness, success, rulership,
controllership, victoriousness, infatuatingness, etc. The relationship with Mai
is that of a mother and child. Matajee
माताजी is mostly a goddess of
fear and power, whereas Maijee is the Goddess of parental
love and permanent welfare. Except
the common element of the feminine sex, the conception of Matajee and
Maijee are entirely different and dis-similar, if not contradictory. To put it
in the usual Hindu scriptural language, Matajee, as mostly believed by Hindus,
is the Tamasik तामसीक aspect, whereas Maijee is the purest Sattvik सात्विक aspect. Mai-ism is working
hard for the past over 18 years, (i.e. since 2-9-1932), to transform the
Tamasik तामसीक belief
about the Mataji to the Sattwik सात्विक, to change the idea of fear into that of love, to
raise the notion of Maya माया, Power and Consortship, to that of Motherhood, to broaden the
Hinduistic restricted notion and vision to the Universal one.
