“Originally the idea [of birthday greetings and wishes for happiness] was rooted in magic. The working of spells for good and evil is the chief usage of witchcraft. One is especially susceptible to such spells on his birthday, as one’s personal spirits are about at that time. Dreams dreamed on the birthday eve should be remembered, for they are predictions of the future brought by the guardian spirits which hover over one’s bed on the birthday eve. Birthday greetings have power for good or ill because one is closer to the spirit world on this day. Good wishes bring good fortune, but the reverse is also true, so one should avoid enemies on one’s birthday and be surrounded only by well-wishers. “Happy birthday” and Many (more) happy returns of the day” are the traditional greetings”, -[The Lore of Birthdays, Linton, p. 20]… “The giving of birthday gifts is a custom associated with the offering of sacrifices to pagan gods on their birthdays. Certainly the custom was linked with the same superstitions that formed the background for birthday greetings. The exchange of presents is associated with the importance of ingratiating good and evil fairies on their or our birthdays [ibid]. “The traditional birthday cake and candles also have their origin in ancient pagan idol worship. The ancients believed that the fire of candles had magical properties. They offered prayers and made wishes to be carried to the gods on the flames of the candles. Thus we still have the widely practiced birthday custom of making a wish, then blowing out the candles. The Greeks celebrated the birthday of their moon goddess, Artemis, with cakes adorned with lighted candles…” -[Should Christians Celebrate Birthdays?: Do Birthdays Have Pagan Origins?, Bob Theil]. “The Egyptians discovered to which of the gods each month and day is sacred; and found out from the day of a man’s birth, what he will meet with in the course of his life, and how he will end his days, and what sort of man he will be,” [Herodotus, Persian Wars, Book II, ch. 82]. “Since it was believed that the positions of the stars at the time of birth influenced a child’s future, astrological horoscopes came into being, purporting to foretell the future, based on the time of birth. “Birthdays” are intimately linked with the stars, since without the calendar, no one could tell when to celebrate his birthday. They are also indebted to the stars in another way, for in early days the chief importance of birthday records was to enable the astrologers to chart horoscopes,” [The Lore of Birthdays, p. 53]. Rawlinson’s translation of Herodotus includes the following footnote: “Horoscopes were of very early use in Egypt and Cicero speaks of the Egyptians and Chaldeans predicting a man’s destiny at his birth”… Furthermore, the book “The Lore of Birthdays” (New York, 1952) by Ralph and Adelin Linton, on pages 8, 18-20 had this to say: “The Greeks believed that everyone had a protective spirit or DAEMON(jinn) who attended his birth and watched over him in life. This spirit had a mystic relation with the god on whose birthday the individual was born”.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 15:29:44 +0000
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