The Mistery of Belicena Villca while the most " uneducated " Iberians , that is , the more barbarian , were more " cultivated " spiritually than the Lydians , they had more Wisdom than knowledge .
These differences would cause the Lydian Princes , now of the same family of the Lords of Tharsis , to accept without deepening the esoteric meaning of the Cult of the Goddess of Cold Fire , which would henceforth be called , by common agreement " Pyrene ", and use all their effort to perfect the exoteric form of the Cult . Such an application is always detrimental to the esoteric part and , how could it be otherwise , in the long run it was going to be fatal for the Tartessians . But you will see this , because , as I announced , I am going step by step .
The Lydians , as in other industries , were skilled stone craftsmen . What do you think they did in their quest to perfect the outer form of the Cult ? They decided , to the horror of their Iberian relatives , who could do nothing to prevent it , to carve the menhir of the Sacred Forest with the Figure of Pyrene ; the sculpture would contribute to sustain the Cult , they explained , since the Lydian people needed a more concrete image of the Goddess : the representation of her as a Flame was too abstract for them .
The menhir consisted of a crude olive-colored stone , about five meters high , and shaped like a truncated cone : the Lydians intended to use it entirely to carve the Head of the Goddess . According to their project , the nape should never face the Apple Tree , in such a way that the Divine Face looked directly to the people ; and the people , spread out in a surrounding clearing from which the ritual scene was dominated , would see the Face of the Goddess and , behind her , the Tharsis apple tree . Two Master sculptors worked on the carving , one to sculpt the Face and another the serpentine locks , while three assistants were busy practicing the hollow of the neck , connected with the Eyes of the Goddess . The work was not ready before five years because , even though the iron tools of the Lydians allowed to advance much at the beginning , the completion of the polished finish they wanted took long years of work : in truth , the Tartessians would continue to polish the Head of Pyrene for decades , until giving it an impressive realism .
The Lydians ' need to contemplate a figurative manifestation of the Goddess was typical of the time : the peoples of the Cultural Pact then experienced a general decline into the exoterism of the Cult , which led them to worship the more formal and apparent Aspects of Deity . The peoples sensed that the Gods were withdrawing from within , but they could only hold them from without : that is why they clung desperately to the Bodies and to the Divine Faces , and to any natural form that represented them . Thus being , the intense religious fervor awakened in the peoples should not be surprising , and the extraordinary geographical spread , which the Cult of Cold Fire produced after the transformation of the menhir . In addition to the Tartessians , proud trustees of the Promise of the Goddess , men belonging to thousands of different peoples made a pilgrimage to the " Sacred Forest of Tartessos " to attend the Ritual of the Cold Fire : among others , the Iberians and Ligurians came from all corners of the peninsula , and the bright Pelasgians from Etruria , and the burly Berbers of Libya , and the silent Spartans of Laconia , and the tattooed Picts of Albion , etc . And all those who came to Pyrene came ready to die . To die , yes , because that was the condition of the Promise , the requirement of Her Grace : as all the worshipers knew , the Goddess had the Power to turn man into a God , to raise him to the Heaven of the Gods ; but , as everyone also knew , the rare Chosen that She accepted had to go through the Cold Fire , that is , through the experience of Her Mortal Gaze ; and this experience generally ended with the physical death of the Chosen One . According to what her followers knew , and without such certainty affecting an apex the fascination for Her , many more were the Chosen who had died than the proven reborn ; those who received Her Mortal Gaze certainly fell ; and many , the most , never got up ; but some did : and that remote possibility was more than enough for the worshipers of the Goddess deciding to risk everything . Those who woke up from Death would be the ones who had truly given their hearts to the Cold Fire
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