Agdistis

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In Greek mythology heavily influenced by cultures from the East, Cybele was a goddess pursued by Zeus who raped her after she disguised herself as a rock called Agdistis. The result was a hermaphrodite named Agdistis.

Another version claims that Agdistis was born when Zeus dropped his semen upon the ground in his excitement over an unknown Goddess that resisted his attentions, causing a rock or a mountain to become pregnant. Or perhaps Zeus's grandmother Gaia herself became pregnant. Either way, Agdistis was the result. It was a powerful hermaphroditic Daemon. It was chaotic, neither good nor evil, but impossible to control, containing all of the powers of creation within its own body and fully aware of its power, it went about wreaking havok by its whims.

The Gods decided that it must be stopped. Dionysus got it drunk by turning a spring into wine and it fell into a deep sleep. He tied its male parts to its legs or arms, and startled it, so that it woke and leapt up in fright, it tore off its own male genitals. Where the blood fell upon the ground, an almond tree sprung up.

Deprived of its male parts, Agdistis was now a female divinity and became the great Mother Goddess Cybele.

Some time later, Nana, the daughter of a river spirit, came upon the almond tree and either eating an almond, placing it in her lap, or bringing it to her breast she became pregnant and bore Attis. She subsequently abandoned Attis to be found and raised by shepherds under the watchful eye of Cybele, his Mother/Father/Grandmother, who later would be his lover.

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