A Civilization Possessed – Chapter 04

Is it possible that behind what is taking place in America and the world lies a mystery that goes back to the gods of the ancient world…and that they now have returned?
The Return of the Gods is the most explosive book Jonathan Cahn has ever written. It is so explosive and so revealing that no description here could do it justice. Jonathan Cahn is known for revealing the stunning mysteries, many from ancient times, that lie behind and are playing out in the events of our times. But with The Return of the Gods , Cahn takes this to an entirely new level and dimension.
The Return of the Gods , Cahn takes the reader on a journey from an ancient parable, the ancient inscriptions in Sumer, Assyria, and Babylonia that become the puzzle pieces behind what is taking place in our world to this day, specifically in America. Is it possible that what we in the modern world take as nothing more than ancient mythology could actually possess a reality beyond our fathoming?

Chapter four, a civilization possessed.
If the gods of the ancient world were joined to the spirits, then what happened to those peoples and nations under their Dominion?
The word Dimon is used in the New Testament to speak of the effect of a spiritual principality on an individual.
It can be translated as demonized or possessed.
So if behind the gods of the ancient world were spirits, we would expect the signs of Diami or demonization to manifest in those cultures that worshiped and served the gods, the signs of possession.
And that is exactly what we find seized of the gods.
The phenomenon of possession can be found in most pagan cultures of the world where there are gods.
There is more likely to be possession.
One can finds the phenomenon of possession in virtually every region and people group of the world.
From the mesopotamians to the Greeks, to the Romans, to the Zambians, to the Taiwanese, to the Eskimos, to the peoples of Africa, Asia, South and North America and Europe.
It is another example of a strange phenomenon manifesting in virtually every land and people group on earth.
Beyond that, the signs and manifestations of possession as recorded in virtually every culture and land are remarkably consistent.
If behind the gods were Principalities, then we would expect that those who especially worshiped and communed with them would be especially vulnerable to possession.
And that too is exactly what we find.
In fact, in the pagan world, the phenomenon of possession was often linked to the gods.
The ancient Sumerians experienced the possession of the goddess in Nana.
The ancient Greeks experienced the possession of the God Dionysus.
The closer one was to the deity, the more in danger one was to possession the priests and priestesses of the gods and goddesses were especially vulnerable.
What are the signs of possession? The Bible gives several accounts that reveal them.
The symptoms of possession include convulsions, shakings and violent frenzies.
These very same signs appear in pagan accounts of the individuals being possessed by the gods.
In fact, shakings convulsions and violent frenzies were often the most dramatic and striking features of pagan worship.
The oracle of Delphi, the most famous seer of the pagan world was the high priestess of the temple of Apollo at Delphi.
The oracle of Delphi. She was known as the Pythia after the mythic giant Python that was said to have guarded the sacred site at Delphi.
The Python gave revelation and prophecy from the gods.
According to Greek mythology, the God Apollo slew the Python and established his own temple and his own prophetic oracle on the site.
Thus, the God took the name of the serpent and became the Python Apollo.
And as such would take possession of the oracle and speak through her.
For the Greco Roman world, the oracle of Delphi was the epitome of divine revelation.
Kings and emperors came to Delhi to inquire of her and to receive revelation from the gods.
Signs of the serpent. In the pagan world.
The serpent was often seen as a source of divine wisdom.
But in the Bible, the serpent is a symbol of darkness of the satanic or demonic realm.
Before uttering her prophecies, the Pythia would fall into a frenzied delirium, violently shaking, moaning, shrieking, foaming at the mouth and speaking unintelligible words.
All these are classic signs of spirit possession and indeed, even the oracle claimed to be possessed by a spirit, the spirit of the God.
And so the highest realm of revelation in the ancient pagan world was occupied by a woman possessed by a spirit.
Again, we see the mystery of the shade and the diana, the gods and the spirits moved as one mass phenomenon.
This opens up an even larger truth.
If the oracles, the high priests and the priestesses were possessed of the spirits and they were each the highest vessels of their nation’s spirituality.
Then what about their nation? The Dominion of the gods and spirits was never confined to the temples and shrines.
It permeated entire cultures and civilizations.
The deity was not worshiped only in their temples and shrines, but in their homes, workplaces, marketplaces, fields, mountains and valleys.
The majority of their worshippers were not priests or efficient but farmers shepherds, potters, traders, everyday men, women and Children.
So if the culture or kingdom worshiped the gods and the gods were spirits, then the culture and kingdom were joined to the spirits subject to them.
And under their Dominion, the signs of possession were not confined to the priesthood or temple.
The shakings, the convulsions and the violent frenzies could manifest anywhere at any time.
And with anyone a civilization possessed beyond the signs of individual possession were other signs and symptoms of a much larger phenomenon in pagan culture.
It was not uncommon for people to offer up other people as sacrifices to the gods.
In some pagan cultures, people even murdered their own Children and sacrificed to the gods.
They did so as acts of worship, such things were not the spontaneous acts of a possessed individual, but the ways traditions, rituals and collective acts of a possessed culture.
The larger truth is that possession may involve more than an individual.
It may involve an entire culture, nation, kingdom or civilization.
It is this phenomenon that of collective mass or civilizational possession that is critical to understand if one is to understand the radical metamorphosis that took place in ancient times, that altered world history and the equally radical transformation taking place at this very moment in the first century in an unlikely place, a peripheral land of the Roman Empire known as Judea.
An unlikely revolution was begun. It would change the history of the gods and of the world itself.
We now journey to that unlikely place and that unlikely phenomenon that brought about the twilight of the gods.