There are many religions in America, but there are at present only two significant cults: the cult of Demeter, and the cult of Cybele. These two cults may seem ancient and foreign to you, but bear with me. Over the next week or so I will explain their importance, both directly and through a series of future posts to be entitled "The Passion of George the Third".

Demeter is the Greek goddess of fertility, and the mother of corn and other grains. She was the first to gather, prepare, preserve it, and the first to instruct mankind how to sow it. Her story is rich and extensive, and there are many good sites on the Internet which explain it. For now, we will focus on two lesser-known aspects of her myth:

• Demeter is the mother of the Greek god of wealth named Plutus; and
• Demeter, not Libertas, is the main goddess portrayed by the so-called Statue of Liberty.

Your may be familiar with the poem from World War I entitled "In Flanders Fields" (you can read it at http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm). One of the underlying bases for the poem is that the poppy flower often grows in freshly-plowed soil, and it grows very well in fields such as Flanders Fields plowed by the implements of warfare. Interestingly the poppy also is the sacred flower of Demeter. When we hand out poppies on Armistice Day in memory of our war dead, they are symbolic of the new life that grows in the fields freshly plowed by the dead of LTC McCrae's poem.

Part of Demeter's mythology is that she lay down with a demi-god named Iasion in a "thrice-plowed field", and they conceived a child named Plutus. Plutus was the Greek god of wealth, and he was said to bestow wealth upon all mankind without regard to greed or selfishness.

The United States has had three Presidents named "George" (George Washington, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush). The meaning of the name George is "farmer", and each of these farmers of ours has had a war (the Revolutionary War, Desert Storm, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, respectively). Thus symbolically America's goddess Demeter lay down in a field plowed three times by our George/farmers; and the offspring was ... Barack Hussein Obama (not his real name). He does portray himself as a man who wants to bestow the earth's wealth upon all mankind without regard to greed or selfishness.

Is it a coincidence that Obama (not his real name) ascended to the Presidency at this exact time in America's history, or did it occur to fulfill this particular aspect of the Demeter cult? We'll discuss the subject more fully later, but at present let's take away from the discussion that one of "Obama's" symbolic names may be "Plutus".

At this point you may be asking, "why is Demeter America's goddess"? When the so-called "Statue of Liberty" was dedicated in 1886, President Grover Cleveland declared "we will not forget that liberty here made her home; nor shall her chosen altar be neglected." A Presidential declaration that her site is an "altar" implies that this goddess will be worshipped after a fashion. You may object that Americans do not "worship" the statue, but as far as I'm concerned if you are willing to die for something you are worshipping it. Most soldiers say they are fighting and dying for "liberty"; is this not a form of worship or idolatry?

In spite of what President Cleveland and others have said, the statue on Liberty Island represents Demeter and not Libertas. The following set of images illustrates the difference between the two:

The panel on the left is the "Statue of Liberty". The panel in the center shows a proposal for the Great Seal of the United States sketched by Thomas Jefferson; the figure on the left of Jefferson's seal is Libertas (liberty). The panel on the right is the reverse side of the Seal of the State of Virginia. The three goddesses represented on the seal are (from left to right) Aeternitas, Libertas, and Ceres (the Roman version of Demeter). I would argue that Thomas Jefferson, of all people, would know what Libertas looks like, and that clearly the Statue of Liberty looks more like Demeter than Libertas.

So, what does it signify that America worships at the altar of an idol called Libertas that is actually Demeter?

We'll soon see. And it ain't a pretty sight.