THE FLOWERS OF AMALEK

THE SEED OF AMALEK

“This is what the LORD Almighty says: I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel
when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally
destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women,
children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”1

In evidence presented to the International Court of Justice soldiers from the Israeli army were
witnessed celebrating the command “to wipe off the seed of Amalek.” This followed
Netanyahu’s invocation of the biblical command to “remember Amalek” that heralded the
ground invasion of Gaza on 28 October 2023.

In Deuteronomy the command is given to remember the attack by the Amalekites on the
Israelites as they came out of Egypt. “Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way
when you came out of Egypt… you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do
not forget!”2
THE FLOWERS OF AMALEK

Flowers that arise from the blood-soaked earth are referenced in multiple myths from antiquity.
These concepts are related to archaic creation myths dealing with the origins of human life.
They symbolize the potential for human resurrection as evidenced by the death and
regeneration of flowers.

Concepts of mutilation leading to rebirth formed part of the mysteries of the Great Mother
(Cybele) and Attis. They are also related to the mysteries of Eleusis. On the Day of Blood, during
the rites of Attis, the Galli castrated themselves in a frenzy of ecstasy and offered the severed
parts to the goddess. The genital parts were buried in subterranean chambers where like seeds
they celebrated the resurrection of flowers in the spring.

“These broken instruments of fertility were afterwards reverently wrapped up and buried in the
earth or in subterranean chambers sacred to Cybele, where, like the offering of blood, they may
have been deemed instrumental in recalling Attis to life and hastening the general resurrection
of nature which was then bursting into leaf and blossom in the vernal sunshine.” 3

The vernal equinox of spring marked the resurrection of Attis from the underworld. Human
fertility is linked with the process of nature’s cycle of decay and rebirth. Attis castrated himself
under a pine tree in an act that is compared to the castration or mutilation of a flower before
the fruit appears.

“... Atys (Attis) signifies the flowers of spring, which is the most beautiful season, and therefore
was mutilated because the flower falls before the fruit appears. They have not, then, compared
the man himself, or rather that semblance of a man they call Atys, to the flower, but his male
organs - these, indeed, fell while he was living.”4

These mutilated genital parts were gathered by the goddess and covered by a funeral shroud.
From the blood-soaked earth sprang violets. The violet’s colour was associated with the bruising
of human skin and ultimately with death. Violets therefore had a funerary colour and were used
in wreaths that were presented to the deities.

“With the steaming blood his life flies; but the Great Mother of the gods gathers the parts which
had been cut off, and throws earth on them, having first covered them, and wrapped them in
the garment of the dead. From the blood which had flowed springs a flower, the violet, and with
this the tree is girt.”5
In the related myths of Adonis the deity is genitally gored by a wild boar but the Great Mother
goddess intervened by sprinkling nectar on the blood that soaked the earth. The lifeless body of
Adonis was reborn as the anemone. “‘... your blood will be changed into a flower’ … So saying,
she (the goddess) sprinkled the blood with odorous nectar: and, at the touch, it swelled up, as
bubbles emerge in yellow mud. In less than an hour, a flower, of the colour of blood, was
created such as pomegranates carry, that hide their seeds under a tough rind. But enjoyment of
it is brief; for lightly clinging, and too easily fallen, the winds deflower it, which are likewise
responsible for its name, windflower: anemone.”6

The cutting away of the petals of the anemone by the action of the wind reflects the theme of
mutilation which gives birth to the seed of the flower. Thus the cycle of resurrection and
mutilation is endlessly replicated. The blood-red flower of the anemone is comparable to that of
the pomegranate. Concepts of violent castration and resurrection also formed part of the myths
of Dionysus. These relate that the body of the god was brutally torn apart. From the blood shed
by the act pomegranates sprang to life.

Genital parts were symbolized by the pomegranate with its blood-red flesh that encased
multiple seeds. Human genitalia in both the mysteries of the Great Mother and also those of
Eleusis represent the receptacles of seeds. The Eleusinian Mysteries reflect the myths of
Persephone as outlined in the Hymn to Demeter. In these myths Persephone consumes
pomegranate seeds and is compelled to inhabit the underworld for the duration of the
gestation of the seed. Natural mortality is followed by resurrection in the spring indicating the
potential for the immortality of the human soul.
Shedding of a flower’s petals and the metaphor of castration are concepts that incorporate the
mystica vannus, a central signifier in the Eleusinian Mysteries. This was the winnowing fan or
basket that separated the corn from the chaff and thus metaphorically separated the mortal
body from the soul. Purification of the seed symbolized the purification of the mortal human
body.

The image or statue of the goddess in the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Sicyon holds in one hand an
apple and in the other a poppy. This indicates the fluid classification in antiquity between the
generic term for the pomegranate (pomum granatum - apple having multiple seeds) and the
poppy. Both plants have hard-skinned containers or vials of seeds. When extracted from the
seed container of the poppy the whitish liquid that emerged would have been seen as
equivalent to the semen of the plant. This was the semen of the gods that coursed through the
universe. The Greek word opos meaning ‘juice’ was applied to the seminal extract from the
poppy container. From this etymology comes the term opium. The substance was the ultimate
form of deified semen and was a catalyst for the mysteries of Eleusis.

Pliny describes the seed capsule of the poppy as a calix (chalice) revealing the symbolism that
combines the narcotic quality of the opium with the chalice of the mysteries. A synthesis of
plants and human genital organs opened up a path to the gods. The formal relationship
between the seed capsules of plants, especially the poppy, and human genitalia is at the centre
of the mysteries. Mutilation of the poppy capsule to extract the seminal liquid is a metaphor for
religious desecration.

Sacrilege and desecration is recorded in the most ancient Egyptian myths whereby Seth tears
out the eye of Horus. In the archaic myth, the Contendings of Horus and Seth, both eyes are
torn out and buried in the earth. From the two bulbs spring lotuses and thus from mutilation
springs new life in a cosmic regeneration. An equivalence is established in the myth between
eyeballs, bulbs of plants and human testicles.
“Thereupon Seth found him (Horus), and took hold of him, and threw him on his back upon the
mountain. And he removed his two Eyes from their places, and buried them upon the mountain
in order to illuminate the earth. And the two bulbs of his two eyes became two bulbs, and they
grew into lotuses.”7

These concepts of deified mutilation appear in Hurrian/Hittite myths whereby the blood shed
from the mutilated genitals of the god falls to earth and gives birth to primordial beings. The
substance of the myth is related by Hesiod in the Theogony which is recognized as being
influenced by archaic mutilation myths. In this myth the original supreme Greek deity Ouranos,
symbolizing the vault of the sky, is castrated with a giant sickle wielded by Cronus (Saturn).

Hence the earth is split from the sky and from the blood of the generative organs of the deity
arises giants with gleaming armour holding long spears. The metaphorical reference to spears of
golden wheat that spring from the fields links this archaic text to the Eleusinian Mysteries. A
central theme of these mysteries, as described in the Hymn to Demeter, is the curse the
goddess places on grain crops leaving the fields fallow until it is lifted. The concept of the
generative blood from a castrated deity fertilizing the earth is here applied to grain crops as
opposed to flowers.

“Then the son (Cronus/Saturn) from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right
took the great sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father’s members and
cast them away to fall behind him. And not vainly did they fall from his hand; for all the bloody
drops that gushed forth earth received, and as the seasons moved round she bore the strong
Erinyes and the great Giants with gleaming armour, holding long spears in their hands and the
Nymphs whom they call Meliae all over the boundless earth.”8

Similar concepts are contained in the Epic of Atrahasis which states that primordial humans
derive their existence from divine blood mixed with clay. The blood of the deity is mixed with
the earth in a procreative act that is directly comparable to ancient Babylonian creation myths.
By mixing the blood of the god with earth or clay humans were created that could breathe the
air.

The concept of a god that sheds blood from which springs a sacred plant is equivalent to
archetypal Babylonian myths of a god that sheds blood from which humans were created. From
these myths arises the Trojan hero, Ajax, who is reborn as a purple flower that bears an
inscription. According to Ovid the letters AI AI, signifying a cry of woe, were inscribed on the
petals of the flower.

“... the blood that had spilt on the ground staining the grass was no longer blood, and a flower
sprang up, brighter than Tyrian dye, and took the shape of a lily, though it was purple in colour,
where the other is silvery white. Not satisfied with this alone, Phoebus (he, indeed, was the
giver of the honour) himself marked his grief on the petals, and the flower bore the letters AI AI,
the letters of woe traced there.”9

The continuous cycle of desecration, mutilation, death and resurrection exists at the centre of
all these myths suggesting that this was the message of the mysteries. Desecration is a central
concept of religion since by the act of desecration arises a cycle of regeneration revealing an
eternal cycle of immortality.

1. 1 Samuel 15:2-3
2. Deuteronomy 25:17-19
3. James Frazer - The Golden Bough
4. Augustine - City of God 7.25
5. Arnobius - Adversus Gentes 5.7
6. Ovid - Metamorphoses 10
7. Contendings of Horus and Seth
8. Hesiod - Theogony 178-188
9. Ovid - Metamorphoses 10