The Origin of Easter & Gay Pride Parades:

24-25 March:  A pine tree [Christmas tree of Semiramis; censored by Jeremiah] is felled, representing the death of the god. Acolytes and initiates proceed to the Temple of Cybele with the sacred pine bearing the effigy of the god in its branches (god hung on the tree). The tree is laid to rest (interred) at the Temple of Cybele. The following day was a day of mourning and lamentation. The Salli (priest dancers of Mars) went in procession, sounding their trumpets and beating their shields. The sacred pine tree and an effigy of Attis were buried in a tomb, and a day of mourning, fasting, sexual abstinence, self-flagellation, and self-mutilation commemorating the Mother’s grief, followed. People would beat their breasts with pine cones [1] and cut their arms and shoulders with knives. The High Priest playing the part of Attis draws blood [2] from his arm and offers it as a substitute for a human sacrifice.

That night the tomb is brightly illuminated but empty, the god having risen on the third day. Initiates undertake the Mysteries and are baptized in bull’s blood at the Taurobolium to wash away their sins, whereupon they are “born again” after being washed in the blood [Gnostic Christian ruse]. They then become ecstatic and frenzied. Recruits for the priesthood castrate themselves in imitation of the god. This was performed with broken pottery, sharp flint, and glass (in later times, only testicles were removed). Initiates were left in the temple during the night. In many cases, they saw visions sent by the goddess, affirming their initiation [like Ignatius Loyola and many Catholic saints]. This experience is a cardinal mark of blasphemy as also is the demonic manifestation of the Stigmata.

At the close of March 24:  priests reverently removed the sacred effigy from the tree and laid it in the tomb. Older, as well as newly de-sexed initiates, watched and fasted through the long night until the Dawn. The tomb was then opened, and a great shout of joy went up from the assembled worshipers: for it was empty, the god was not there. He had been resurrected from the grave into eternal life.

The resurrection of Attis and the onset of spring are celebrated with a sacramental meal and a day of joy and feasting. With the resurrection, the people gave themselves over to an unrestricted Saturnalia of joy, gaiety, and sexual license. Processions of overwrought mourners bearing images upon their breasts followed a statue of the goddess through the streets, driven to the highest pitch of frenzy by the wild and discordant music of fifes, cymbals, tambourines, and kettledrums.

They screamed and whirled and leaped about like dervishes and slashed themselves with knives and swords. The festival ended with a procession bearing the sacred black stone [meteorite] to the river Almo, where it was washed and purified, after which it was returned amidst singing and rejoicing to its sacred place within the temple. Those who castrated themselves become Galli—i.e., cocks—and thereafter dressed in women’s clothes and wore perfumed oils.

26 March:  A quiet day of rest and recovery;
27 March:  The Goddess was asked if she would return to Rome. A procession was made with Cybele’s Idol along the Appian Way until the Almo River was reached. Then the idol would be dipped into the river, rubbed with ash, and then washed. The conclusion of the festival with a procession in which the statue of the goddess, with a meteorite embedded in her brow [Cyclops effigy and/or pineal third eye of Horus indicating ‘enlightenment’], is majestically carried to her temple, and a series of religious dramas and entertainments followed. Clay statues of the gods were made in ancient times, just as statues of saints are sold today at Catholic shrines.

The gallus indulged in extravagant personal appearance. On the day of blood (dies sanguinis), he forever discarded male attire; henceforth, he wore a long garment (stola), mostly yellow or many-colored, with long sleeves and a belt. On their heads, these priests wore a mitra, a sort of turban, or a tiara, the cap with long ear flaps which could be tied under the chin (Phrygian Cap of the French White Terror). The chest was adorned with ornaments, and sometimes they wore ornamental reliefs, pendants, and ear and finger rings. They also wore their hair long like Merovingians, Danites & Benjamites, which earned them the epithet:  “long-haired.”  By preference, they had their hair bleached.

On the day of mourning for Attis, they ran around wildly with disheveled hair but otherwise had their hair dressed and waved like women. Sometimes they were heavily made up, their faces resembling white-washed walls [heavy metal band: Kiss]. Galli was also conspicuous [eccentric] when they showed themselves in the city outside the temple precincts.

With a procession of enthusiastic followers, they went about begging; in exchange for alms, they told fortunes like Gypsies (vaticinari); they performed dances to shrill music of the pipes and the dull beat of the tambourine. When the deity entered into them [possession], and they were possessed by divine power, they flogged themselves until the blood came [like Shi’ites on Ashura, or subgroups of the Jesuit Opus Dei cultus].

Vermaseren MJ (1977).
Cybele and Attis: The Myth and the Cult. London: Thames & Hudson

[1] The pinecone remains a major icon in Freemasonry.
[2] According to Aleister Crowley, this is the highest form of Hermetic Magick, along with the completion of sexual rites, the high priest offers his own blood, as purportedly did Jesus, in seeking demonic favor for the dispensation of power. Satanic cults still practice this. Francis Bacon considered the practice of magic “superstition’s cure” ~ oz.