December 25

December 25 serves in the novel as a hinge between religious narrative and astronomical interpretation. A professor invokes it as the date of Horus’s birth and uses the winter sky to explain recurring elements in religious stories; the date’s solar symbolism also resonates with the rituals and teachings of the Nature Absorption Academy, where Horus and the sun are central. The lecture presents an interpretation, not an independently established account of religious origins.

The Date in the Horus Narrative

The professor describes Horus as born on December 25 to a virgin, with his birth foretold by a star in the eastern sky and attended by three kings. His account continues with a familiar sequence of motifs: Horus becomes a teacher at twelve, is baptized at thirty, gathers twelve followers, performs miracles, is betrayed, crucified, and resurrected after three days. The accumulation makes December 25 the starting point of a deliberate comparison between the story of Horus and Christian tradition.

The professor extends that comparison beyond a list of narrative parallels. He argues that shared elements among religious histories descend from astronomical, and often astrological, phenomena. In this framework, December 25 is not merely a date attached to a sacred birth: it participates in a pattern through which celestial events are given religious meaning.

The Winter Sky and the Three Kings

The professor’s proposed astronomical explanation begins with Sirius, which he identifies as the northern hemisphere’s clearest star in December, aligned with the three stars of Orion’s Belt. Those three stars, in his account, are the celestial counterpart of the three kings. He says they point downward toward sunset on December 25, so their movement can be read as following the eastern star toward the solstice, a symbol of life and salvation.

He adds Virgo, also known as the House of Bread, to this network of correspondences, then connects that name to Bethlehem through the professor’s translation of the place-name as House of Bread. The argument works by aligning stars, titles, and religious locations: December 25 becomes a point in a larger symbolic arrangement rather than an isolated item of tradition.

The lecture’s account of the cross and resurrection makes the seasonal connection explicit. The professor describes December 22, 23, and 24 as the sun’s lowest point in the year, the darkest days in the north, once experienced as a possible death of the sun. He says that around two thousand years earlier the constellation Crux would have been especially clear on December 22; after three days beneath the cross, the sun begins moving north again. In his reading, the sun’s apparent return supplies an astronomical image for crucifixion followed by resurrection.

The Academy’s Solar and Ritual Language

The Academy’s teachings give this solar interpretation a counterpart in the present-day plot. Atu Abanshamash Dumuzi presents the universe and the sun’s energy as central to nature absorption, leading participants in a repeated chant of his name. At the Academy’s London branch, his teaching is framed as a bodily practice: disciples are encouraged to breathe in well-being and imagine their cells and bodies joining with the surrounding universe.

At a later assembly, Atu tells newcomers that Horus is central to the Academy, while describing its daily exercises as rituals rather than dogma or creed. He presents the use of Horus’s name as gratitude for life and nature, and says the practice is intended to cultivate compassion, love of others, peace of mind, and the capacity to assess the future and past. The teaching thus places religious imagery in the service of a practical discipline, even as the professor’s lecture treats such imagery as the product of celestial patterns.

The Academy’s ritual authority is also made visible in its setting and repeated gestures. Before one session, Pirjo arranges the disciples according to rank and association; the glass-tiled floor where Atu will stand appears golden beneath the October light. In another gathering, Atu leads the assembled disciples in a chant, first alone and then collectively. These scenes are not identified as December 25 observances, but their staged repetition and emphasis on the sun and Horus echo the lecture’s account of ritual as a way of giving celestial cycles religious form.