Part Six of The Giza Discovery
Domination by Deception
By Peter Goodgame
“Spirits narrate things wholly false, and lie. When spirits begin to speak to man, care should be taken not to believe them, for most everything they say is made up by them, and they lie; so if we permitted them to relate what Heaven is, and how things are in Heaven, they would tell so many falsehoods, and with such strong assertion that man would be astonished; wherefore it was not permitted me when spirits were speaking to have any belief in what they stated. They love to feign. Whatever may be the topic spoken of, they think they know it, and if man listens and believes, they insist, and in various ways deceive and seduce.”
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), Miscellaneous Works [1]
In virtually all of the mythologies of the world there is the theme of an ancient conflict among the gods. In Egyptian myth it is the conflict of Osiris and Horus against Set; in Babylonian myth it is the battle of Marduk against the primeval goddess Tiamut; in the Canaanite myths of Ugarit it is Baal against Yam and Mot; and in Greek myth it is Zeus against the Titans. All of these conflicts relate in one way or another to the original conflict, the first divine conflict ever set down in writing, which was the ongoing conflict between Enlil and Enki as told by the ancient Sumerians.
This conflict never involved physical violence but it was a bitter conflict nonetheless. The Sumerians did not record its resolution but their myths show that they clearly favored Enki, and later accounts of the Babylonians portray Enki as the eventual victor.
Much of pagan mythology and religion, in its many different forms and cultural expressions, can be traced back to this original conflict, but it is interesting that the accounts that most closely parallel the Sumerian accounts of creation, of the gods, and of human civilization and religion, are not to be found in later “pagan” traditions, but are instead found in Hebrew accounts, specifically the book of Genesis.
Both the Sumerians and the Hebrews told a story of mankind being created from the earth or from clay with divine assistance; both sources refer to an ancient dispute between a farmer and a shepherd; both give an account of gods or angels descending from heaven and influencing human civilization; both mention the creation of the first city; both testify of a great flood that covered the land which wiped out civilization and almost all of mankind; and both sources speak of the conquests of a great king who was involved in some way with a great temple or tower and with the creation of the many languages that divided the nations.
When the cuneiform tablets of the ancient Sumerians were uncovered in the mid-1800s from archaeological excavations in Nineveh, Nippur, Babylon, and elsewhere, the discoveries sent shockwaves around the world. Many Biblical scholars were greatly encouraged and believed that the Genesis accounts were finally vindicated. For them, it was obvious that the Sumerians had handed down, with a few distortions, memories of the same historical events that God had inspired Moses to record in Genesis. For other Biblical experts, however, the newly-discovered Sumerian texts were interpreted in a different way. Skeptical Biblical critics took the view that because the Sumerian texts predated the book of Genesis by 500-1000 years, then it was obvious that the Sumerian texts must be the authentic accounts.
Both accounts were viewed by the critics as merely myths, and certainly not based on historical events, but because the Sumerian myths were older and it was assumed that “antiquity equals authenticity” then they had to be the true myths. The book of Genesis was then viewed as merely a distorted compilation or recollection of the Mesopotamian originals.
This interpretation of the relationship between Sumerian “myth” and the book of Genesis remains the dominant view in the academic world today.
There are many parallels between Sumerian myth and the book of Genesis, yet there are also some very important distinctions which, if examined, bring forth a number of important questions. Perhaps the most important of these questions has yet to be answered by the academic community, which is: How could such a strict form of Hebrew monotheism have “evolved” from the liberal and diverse polytheistic religion of the Sumerians? Another way to pose this question is: Where is the God of Israel to be found within the Sumerian pantheon? This is a good question to ask because Abraham, the founder of the nation of Israel, was supposedly called out by God from the city of Ur, which was located in the heart of the land of the Sumerians.
Israel’s God and the Gods of Sumer
The God of Israel was certainly unique when compared with the ruling gods of the pantheons worshiped by the nations that surrounded Israel. For the Hebrews the identity of the God of Israel could be understood on two related levels. The first level was the identity of God as He related to Israel itself, and the second was the identity of God as He related to all of reality.[2]
As far as the first level was concerned, God had revealed Himself to Israel and given His name as YHWH (Yahweh or Jehovah), which is usually translated as something like “Oh He Who Is” or “I am who I am.” YHWH was Israel’s personal God and Israel’s relationship with YHWH was based upon successive covenants or agreements made between the two parties. This type of relationship was rarely to be found within the pagan nations.
The second level by which the Hebrews understood the identity of their God was the level on which He related to all of reality. When Moses elaborated upon the identity of Israel’s God as the Creator of the entire universe and as the ultimate Ruler and Sovereign Power over the universe these claims must have been looked upon as completely outrageous and presumptuous by Moses’ pagan contemporaries. The pagans had their traditions about creation (see Part Five) and they had their traditions of how the dominant god achieved supremacy over creation, but they did not unite Creator and Ruler in one figure and worship this figure alone to the exclusion of all other gods.
Despite these major distinctions between the God of Israel and the gods of the surrounding nations, there are a few scholars who have attempted to identify Israel’s God as a figure who, it is believed, had to have “evolved” from the earlier and very similar Sumerian tradition. These attempts usually focus upon YHWH’s similarities with the three major Sumerian gods: Anu, Enlil and Enki.
YHWH is similar to the enigmatic god Anu in that both are viewed as “Father” deities. Anu was understood as the father of the first generation of gods including the two brothers Enlil and Enki, while YHWH was the “father” of the angelic host who are referred to throughout the Old Testament as the B’nai Ha Elohim, or “Sons of God.” Anu may have also been viewed by the Sumerians as the original creator of the universe, but gradually creation became viewed as a “natural” process involving impersonal primordial “forces.” For the Sumerians Anu was really unimportant and he existed as an “otiose” deity far away in heaven, which was also the place from where YHWH ruled according to the Hebrews.
The apparent relationship between YHWH and Enlil is much more substantial. Enlil was not viewed by the Sumerians as the original Creator of the universe but he was viewed as the ultimate Ruler of the gods and of mankind.
Sumerian myths also describe Enlil as the father of a generation of gods, and several myths refer to Enlil (as opposed to Enki) as the creator and father of mankind.[3] The cult center of Enlil was located in the holy city of Nippur, which was never a political capital and does not appear as a capital city on the Sumerian King List. Nippur was instead a sort of religious capital where the kings of Sumer went to receive Enlil’s approval and to honor the mightiest and most-feared of the Sumerian gods. According to the Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta epic, prior to the reign of Enmerkar the Sumerians worshiped Enlil alone, which implies something similar to Hebrew monotheistic worship of YHWH.
The Sumerians also looked to Enlil as the ultimate decision-maker within the council of the gods and, like YHWH in the book of Genesis, it was Enlil who decided to send the Great Flood to wipe out mankind.
The relationship between YHWH and Enki presents much more of a challenge for scholars of the ancient texts and remains a highly debated question. If any god could be said to be the “personal” god of the Sumerians it would have to be Enki.
Like YHWH’s relationship with the Hebrews, Enki was viewed by the Sumerians as powerful, kind, and wise in his schemes to protect the Sumerians from the animosity of other gods (especially Enlil) and from neighboring enemy tribes. Just as YHWH cared for his people, the Hebrews, so was Enki portrayed as caring for the Sumerians. As mentioned in Part Five, Enki’s apparent love for mankind could be traced back to Sumerian traditions that Enki, just like YHWH in Genesis, was personally involved in creating mankind out of clay. Enki also played a role similar to YHWH when, through his actions, a particular family was chosen, warned, and spared from the Great Flood by being given instructions for building an ark.
For David Rohl, YHWH has more in common with Enki than with Anu or Enlil, and the similarities between YHWH and Enki outweigh their differences. In his books Legend and The Lost Testament, which have been referred to often throughout this study, Rohl concludes that the god who was revealed to Moses was none other than Enki, who was known in the Akkadian language as Ea. YHWH is portrayed as a positive and caring god in the Hebrew Bible, and Enki/Ea is portrayed as equally benevolent in Sumerian myths, so for David Rohl this is where the connection exists between the Sumerians and the Hebrews. Rohl even believes that YHWH actually declared His identity as Enki/Ea to Moses in a straightforward manner at the incident of the burning bush:
“Moses then said to God, ‘Look, if I go to the Israelites and say to them, “The god of your ancestors has sent me to you,” and they say to me, “What is his name?” what am I to tell them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am’.” [Exodus 3:13-14]
Here is how David Rohl explains this curious dialogue between Moses and the Voice from the burning bush:
“As we have learnt, Enki (‘Lord of the Earth’) was called Ea in Akkadian (East Semitic) – that is to say in the Babylonian tradition. Scholars have determined that Ea was vocalized as ‘Éya’. So, when Moses stood before the burning bush and asked the name of the god of the mountain, did he really reply ‘I am who I am’ (Heb. Eyah asher eyah)? This puzzling phrase has long perplexed theologians but now there is a simple explanation. The voice of God simply replied ‘Eyah asher Eyah’ – ‘I am (the one) who is called Eyah’ – the name of Ea in its West Semitic (i.e. Hebrew) form. Scholars have simply failed to recognize that this is another of those characteristic puns in which the Old Testament abounds. ‘I am (Eyah) he who is called (asher) Ea (Eyah)’ is a classic biblical play on words. It also explains God’s apparently nonsensical instruction: ‘This is what you are to say to the Israelites, “I am has sent me to you.”‘ God’s words should really be translated as ‘Eyah has sent me to you.’
‘Eyah’ or simply ‘Ya’ is the hypocoristic form of the name Yahweh found as an element of so many Old Testament names. So Enki/Ea, the god who created Man and then later warned Ziusudra/Utnapishtim of the impending destruction of mankind, is one and the same as the god of Moses.” [4]
David Rohl is correct that the vocalization for the Hebrew phrase “I AM” sounds very similar, if not the same as, the East Semitic vocalization for the name “Ea,” which is indeed the Akkadian name for the Sumerian god Enki. However, if YHWH had actually meant to name Himself as “I AM,” which has been the orthodox understanding in Judaism from its inception, it is not nearly as perplexing and puzzling as Rohl tries to portray it. “I AM” is actually a very appropriate name for the God who claims to be the single eternally existent One, who refers to Himself in Revelation 1:8 as the One “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Rohl’s etymological argument for equating YHWH with Enki might sound good, but it is far from conclusive.
In equating YHWH with Enki David Rohl focuses almost completely on the perceived similarities and he minimizes or ignores the many profound differences that exist between the two.
These differences, if examined thoroughly, make it highly unlikely that YHWH and Enki are the very same entity. In the first place, we must return again to the unique Hebrew conception of the identity of YHWH. This conception was based upon YHWH’s two-fold role as both Creator and Ruler of the universe. In the many Sumerian myths that praise and glorify Enki, there are none in which Enki is said to be the original Creator of material reality, a claim made by YHWH at the very beginning in Genesis 1:1. Regarding the Ruling aspect of YHWH, within Sumerian myth this aspect is better represented by Enlil. It is true that at one point Enki does gain possession of the me in the myth Enki and the World Order, as explained in Part Five, but this authority is given to Enki only by the permission of Enlil, who retains ultimate power as the primary decision-maker within the council of the gods. The bottom line is that for the Sumerians Enki was neither the Creator nor the Supreme Ruler, while for the Hebrews YHWH was and is both.
There are many more aspects of Enki that directly contradict the Hebrew understanding of the identity of YHWH. According to Sumerian texts the practice of a hereditary kingship was first established at Eridu, which was the cult-center of Enki where the descendents of the biblical Cain became established.
On the other hand, within the Israelite nation the custom of a hereditary kingship did not exist from its beginning with Abraham, through the Egyptian captivity and the Exodus, through the centuries of the Judges all the way up until the time of the prophet Samuel. It was at this point that the Israelites demanded that YHWH give them a king, to which YHWH at first refused before grudgingly allowing the institution of the monarchy (1 Samuel 8:7-22). In this respect YHWH and Enki are again proven different. For Enki a monarchy was essential and necessary to maintain his power and influence, but for YHWH a monarchy was viewed as undesirable and unnecessarily oppressive of His people.
Another major difference between YHWH and Enki comes from examining some of the religious practices associated with the two gods. When we examine the Sumerian conception of Enki we find that one of his primary characteristics was his association with magic and sorcery, with rituals allowing contact with the spirit world, and with divination of the future. When we examine YHWH and his relationship with Israel, and especially the Law or Torah that He gave to Israel, we find that these occult practices are completely forbidden:
“There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord; and because of these detestable things the Lord your God will drive them out before you.” (Deuteronomy 18:10-12)
These occult practices were the foundation of Sumerian religion and they evolved to become the basis of initiatory rites and hierarchical priesthoods around the world, from Egypt to India, and from the Greeks and Romans to the Mayans and Aztecs of the New World.
These religious systems and occult practices were all similar, so one has to wonder why the god worshiped by the Israelites demanded such a strict separation of his people from the rest of the world? Was YHWH keeping them from spiritual practices that were necessary for their own spiritual advancement, or was He simply protecting them from a spirit world that was deceiving everyone else with fleeting metaphysical experiences and false promises and expectations?
If we are correct to conclude that YHWH and Enki are actually separate entities, then it becomes more plausible to equate YHWH with the Sumerian god Enlil, who was the long-time adversary of Enki in the Sumerian accounts.
This brings a whole new set of problems to the table, however, because of the negative and derogatory portrayal of Enlil throughout Sumerian myth. Enlil is portrayed as angry, vindictive, abusive and cruel, and he commits crimes including adultery, rape and genocide.
YHWH is sometimes portrayed as angry and violent in the Hebrew Old Testament, but to the Hebrews YHWH’s actions were always justified, no matter how cruel they appeared to be. For the Sumerians there was rarely any justification for the rash abuses of power that characterized the rule of Enlil.
In examining YHWH and Enki and their respective traditions one must also address the fact that they make conflicting claims. In the book of Genesis YHWH is credited with creating mankind, while in the majority of Sumerian texts Enki is portrayed as man’s creator. Another case is the similar tradition of the Great Flood. The book of Genesis explains that YHWH brought the flood as a judgment upon human society that had become wicked through negative influences from fallen angels. In the Sumerian accounts it is Enlil who brings the flood to cull the human population that had become “too noisy.” However, the book of Genesis tells a story of YHWH mercifully saving Noah and the last righteous family on earth from the impending destruction. Contrasting this account, in Sumerian myth it is Enki who saves Atrahasis and his family from the flood against the wishes of Enlil.
These conflicting claims and accounts cannot both be true if Enki and YHWH are indeed separate entities. If YHWH is the spiritual source for the Hebrew tradition, and if Enki is the spiritual source for the Sumerian tradition, then we must face the reality that one of them is lying.
If YHWH in the Sumerian tradition is represented as Enlil, the adversary of Enki, then where can we expect to find Enki within the Hebrew tradition? Perhaps we need to examine the Biblical adversary of YHWH to find the answer. While Rohl equates YHWH with Enki, he nonetheless provides the following description of Enki that resembles this Biblical Adversary much closer than it resembles YHWH Himself:
“It is clear from the numerous incidents in the myths associated with Enki that he is a clever, even cunning, deity; he is mischievous and non-conformist; in his aspect of the creator of humanity he is a fertility-god; he liaises with humans by whispering through reed walls so that he may circumvent the ban, placed on him by his fellow deities, which prevents direct communication with humans. One could look upon him as a bit of a wily prankster. He is sometimes shown with the legs of a goat complete with cloven hooves, whilst his upper body is clothed in the scales of a fish. Enki is also, as we have seen, very much the protector of his creation – humankind – and the provider of the life sustaining sweet water.” [5]
Enki Unmasked
Over the last one hundred and fifty years or so since the discovery and translation of the ancient Sumerian texts modern scholars have been drawn to Enki as the most interesting and enigmatic of all the Sumerian gods. Near the end of his career Samuel Noah Kramer, perhaps the most respected Sumerologist of the twentieth century, chose to focus on Enki in a book he published in 1989 entitled Myths of Enki, the Crafty God. Within this book the late Dr. Kramer examined the many different myths and traditions of Enki in the Sumerian and Akkadian texts and he makes a number of crucial observations regarding the role of Enki in the evolution of paganism after the fall of Sumerian civilization.
Kramer is remembered within the academic world as a giant in his field, but within the world of popular culture, a world influenced by talk radio and the mass-market paperback, he remains relatively unknown.
Zecharia Sitchin is an author/scholar who is perhaps the exact opposite of Kramer. Sitchin cannot claim any academic achievements within the field of Sumerian studies, yet he has gained international popularity and acclaim as a reputed expert on ancient Sumerian texts since the appearance of his book The 12th Planet in 1976. The basic theory behind Sitchin’s book, which has since been expanded to a six-volume series called “The Earth Chronicles,” is that the gods of the Sumerian pantheon were actually extra-terrestrial visitors from an alleged planet “Nibiru,” who arrived on earth 450,000 years ago in search of gold.
Sitchin’s Jewish roots became apparent with the publication of Divine Encounters in 1995, in which he argued that YHWH of the Hebrew tradition is the Creator of the universe who also created the Sumerian pantheon of extraterrestrial “gods” including Anu, Enlil and Enki. Sitchin’s primary affections, however, are reserved for the god Enki. Just like David Rohl and Samuel Noah Kramer, Sitchin is taken in by the positive characterizations of Enki that are found throughout Sumerian texts. Sitchin’s latest work The Lost Book of Enki focuses on Enki and claims to be “the autobiographical memoirs and insightful prophecies of an extraterrestrial god.” [6]
While Sitchin argues in Divine Encounters that YHWH is actually the Creator of the “extra-terrestrial visitors” Anu, Enlil and Enki, he does concede that there are many similarities between YHWH and Enlil, much more than exist between YHWH and Enki. Regarding the YHWH-Enki relationship Sitchin puts forth the following tentative hypothesis in The 12th Planet (1976): “The possibility that the biblical antagonists—the Deity and the Serpent—stood for Enlil and Enki seems to us entirely plausible.”[7] Sitchin elaborates upon this theory in his later book Genesis Revisited (1990):
“In the biblical tale of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the antagonist of the Lord God who had caused them to acquire “knowing” (the ability to procreate) was the Serpent, Nahash in Hebrew… in the original Sumerian version the “serpent” was Enki. His emblem was entwined serpents; it was the symbol of his “cult center” Eridu (a), of his African domains in general (b), and of the pyramids in particular (c); and it appeared on Sumerian illustrations on cylinder seals of the events described in the Bible.” [8]
The idea that the Serpent of the Garden of Eden, identified as Satan in the Judeo-Christian tradition, is in fact a representation of the Sumerian god Enki seems to be hinted at by Professor Kramer himself by the very title of his book Myths of Enki, the Crafty God, which is a characterization found in Genesis 3:1,
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD GOD had made…”
Since the early 1980s Sitchin’s radical theories of extra-terrestrial “gods,” (based on a face-value acceptance of Sumerian myth as legitimate history and often utilizing the conservative scholarship of Kramer), have opened up a whole new genre of alternative research involving extraterrestrial interference, political conspiracy and New Age spirituality. This new genre is predominantly skeptical of, and antagonistic towards, the Judeo-Christian tradition, and usually promotes the forgotten “wisdom” of paganism and the Ancient Mysteries as the key to mankind’s spiritual advancement. From this perspective the Serpent of the Garden of Eden is viewed as an Illuminator and Liberator of mankind and Lucifer/Satan becomes a positive figure repeatedly identified with the Sumerian god Enki.
Laurence Gardner is a well-known member of this school of alternative research, and he combines many of Sitchin’s theories with some of the anti-Christian conspiratorial ideas found in the best-selling book Holy Blood, Holy Grail (1983). His credentials are impressive: Laurence Gardner is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and a Professional Member of the Institute of Nanotechnology. Distinguished as the Chevalier de St. Germain, he is a constitutional historian, a Knight Templar of St Anthony, and is Presidential Attaché to the European Council of Princes. Based in England, he is author of The Times and Sunday Times bestseller, Bloodline of the Holy Grail. This was serialized nationally in the Daily Mail and gained Laurence a UK Author of the Year award in 1997.” [9]
Gardner approaches the subject of Enlil and Enki in his follow-up book Genesis of the Grail Kings (1999), and for him the identity of YHWH/Jehovah is very obvious: “The Jehovah of the Jews (El Elyon of the Canaanites) was, therefore, synonymous with Enlil of the Anunnaki, son of the great Anu.”[10] Gardner then goes on to identify Enki:
“The serpent who conversed at length with Eve was clearly not a lowly, dumb creature, but a guardian of the sacred knowledge… It is further evident from the Mesopotamian serpent illustration that it has a direct Enki association, since Enki (Ea) was traditionally depicted as the Serpent-Lord of the Euphrates. Just as the serpent was the giver of wisdom, so Enki was constantly referred to as Enki the Wise…” [11]
For Gardner the “Grail Kings” are the true kings who have the divine right to rule over mankind. He traces the genealogy of this illuminated elite back to Cain, the first son of Eve, and Gardner resurrects the ancient Talmudic legend that Cain’s true father was Samael the serpent, identified by Gardner as Enki. He writes, “In terms of sovereign genealogy, the line of Ham and Nimrod (in descent from Cain, Lamech and Tubal-cain) held the true heritage of Grail kingship, while the Sethian line through Noah and Shem were of lesser standing…” [12] According to Gardner, Ham was in fact the first-born son of Tubal-Cain, and not the son of Noah as stated in Genesis. With this step Gardner is able secure a line of human descent directly to Enki himself, even through the catastrophe of the Great Flood.
In commenting on the Judeo-Christian concept of Satan/Lucifer as the great Adversary of God and man, Gardner claims that this is a spurious theological invention created to help intimidate and subjugate early Christians under the domination of the Roman Church. For Gardner, the serpent-god Enki was mankind’s original creator, our most important teacher, our protector against the animosity of Enlil/YHWH, and essentially “a true champion of mankind.” [13]
Mark Amaru Pinkham is a successful author who also alleges that mankind’s true creator is Lucifer, a name which he says is synonymous with Enki of the Sumerians. Pinkham’s ideas are explained in his book The Return of the Serpents of Wisdom (1997), while in another book, The Truth Behind the Christ Myth (2002), he explains that Jesus Christ was simply one of a series of manifestations of this divine figure. Pinkham has also written on the connection between the true “christ” and the medieval Knights Templar, and he is the founder of an organization called The International Order of Gnostic Templars.
William Henry is another name associated with Sitchin’s “extra-terrestrial origins” theory. Henry refers to himself as an “investigative mythologist,” he has published close to a dozen books, and he can be heard often on late-night radio on shows such as Coast-to-Coast AM that discuss alternative and esoteric issues. In one of his online articles Henry explains how the conflict between Enki/Ea and Enlil continues to the present day: “E.A. and his priests, seek to uplift humanity to the level of the gods through global education and revelation of all sacred secrets. Enlil’s priests seek to keep humanity at the level of slaves and sex objects, the property of a police state cryptocracy.” [14]
Philip Gardiner and Gary Osborn are two British-based writers who, together and separately, have written a number of books covering these same themes. The title of their most recent collaboration is enough to explain their perspective: The Serpent Grail: The Truth Behind the Holy Grail, the Philosopher’s Stone and the Elixir of Life (2005).
Alan Alford is another British writer who takes the Sumerian myths at face-value. He published Gods of the New Millennium in 1997, and has followed it up with several more books, turning his focus recently towards Egypt. In an article that appeared in New Dawn magazine Alford refers to Enki as “the Serpent God of the Garden of Eden.”[15] Alford greatly admires Enki, whose Mesopotamian cult center was Eridu, which is reflected in the address of Alford’s website at www.eridu.co.uk, and in the name of his publishing house: Eridu Books.
Dagobert’s Revenge is a magazine that was started in 1996 by editor and publisher Tracy Twyman. Originally it focused on themes such as the Holy Grail, the Merovingian Dynasty and the Knights Templar, but it quickly broadened to include many more alternative and esoteric subjects. In 2004 Twyman published her book The Merovingian Mythos and the Mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau. In keeping with the trend Twyman credits Enki as being mankind’s extra-terrestrial creator, and her writing is more blunt as she unashamedly refers to Enki as “Satan” throughout her book, with Jehovah/YHWH taking the familiar role of the “villainous” Enlil.
Since 1994 Atlantis Rising magazine has been another repository for scholarship and research dealing with mankind’s ET origins and other related subjects. In Spring of 2005 editor J. Douglas Kenyon published Forbidden History: Prehistoric Technologies, Extraterrestrial Intervention, and the Suppressed Origins of Civilization. The book is a collection of forty-two articles that have appeared in Atlantis Rising over the years, written by seventeen different authors. As a collection it represents the New Age consensus that the appearance of modern homo sapien sapiens is the result of extra-terrestrial intervention. This understanding includes the notion that ancient Sumerian texts are the most literal and trustworthy accounts of human origins, and that the primary character in this episode was Enki, known in the book of Genesis as the Serpent of the Garden of Eden, whose benevolent character has since been slandered by the Judeo-Christian establishment.
The glorification of Enki at the expense of the Judeo-Christian Creator has also been embraced by those who consider themselves part of the belief system that calls itself “Satanism.” The website www.exposingchristianity.com is edited and promoted by Satanists and it includes the following quote:
“[Christianity] is based upon stolen material that has been twisted, warped and distorted to manipulate, confuse and incite fear into humanity. CONTROL. It has taken the ORIGINAL GOD AND CREATOR OF HUMANITY, EA/ENKI aka SATAN/LUCIFER and turned him into an assumed enemy of humanity. It has been used to blaspheme, ridicule and malign the Old Gods, create estrangement and enmity from legitimate deities of which it replaced with the false god “Yaweh/Jehova.” [16]
A Satanist website called “Joy of Satan” also equates Enki with Satan, which appears to be a trend within Satanism that is steadily gaining ground: “The Christian Churches have dictated to a populace cut off from all ancient knowledge and the Original Gods, namely our Creator God, Ea, also known as Enki, Lord of the Earth and “Satan,” what “Satanism” is supposed to be all about.” [17]
One of the most interesting and compelling books written on the subject of alleged extra-terrestrial control and manipulation of mankind is The Gods of Eden (1989) by William Bramley. The majority of researchers in this field view the ancient gods as benevolent caretakers of humanity, but Bramley is one of the few who argues against this consensus. The back cover of his book explains Bramley’s unique perspective:
They came to earth millions of years ago to spread the poison of hatred, war and catastrophe… They are still with us… Human history is a seemingly endless succession of bloody conflicts and devastating turmoil. Yet, inexplicably, in the light of astonishing intellectual and technological advancement, Man’s progress has been halted in one crucial area: he still indulges the primitive beast within and makes war upon his neighbors.
As a result of seven years of intensive research, William Bramley has uncovered the sinister thread that links humanity’s darkest events—from the wars of the ancient pharaohs to the assassination of JFK. In this remarkable, shocking and absolutely compelling work, Bramley presents disturbing evidence of an alien presence on Earth—extraterrestrial visitors who have conspired to dominate Humankind through violence and chaos since the beginning of time…a conspiracy which continues to this very day.
Bramley points to Sumerian texts that explain that humans were created by these “gods” to be slaves to the gods. Here is his basic thesis:
Human beings appear to be a slave race languishing on an isolated planet in a small galaxy. As such, the human race was once a source of labor for an extraterrestrial civilization and still remains a possession today. To keep control over its possession and to maintain Earth as something of a prison, that other civilization has bred never-ending conflict between human beings, has promoted human spiritual decay, and has erected on Earth conditions of unremitting physical hardship. This situation has existed for thousands of years and it continues today. [18]
Bramley refers to these alleged ET controllers as the “Custodians,” and he views them as the ultimate source of the most deep-seated and perplexing evils that affect humanity. However, like all the rest, Bramley identifies Enki as a uniquely positive figure and as a “renegade” Custodian who has always tried to help mankind. This, despite the fact that Sumerian records state that Enki is the god who created mankind to serve as slaves in the first place. In fact, in the Sumerian language the word for “worship,” avod, is the very same word used for “work.” [19]
Sitchin and his immediate followers all view the ancient gods, as well as the modern UFO phenomenon, as visitations of physical entities whose origin is from other planets or galaxies. Dr. Jacques Vallee is a French-born scientist who has studied UFOs all his life and is one of the most highly-respected members of the ufological community. Vallee understands the “extra-terrestrial” premise that underlies so much of UFO research, but he disagrees with it completely. For Vallee, the entities that so many researchers refer to as “extra-terrestrial” are more properly described as “extra-dimensional.” In other words, they are not purely physical beings, but are better understood as primarily spiritual. In his book Messengers of Deception (1979), Vallee wrote that “what we see in effect here is not an alien invasion. It is a control system which acts on humans and uses humans.” In his book Dimensions (1989) Vallee elaborates on this hypothesis:
I propose that there is a spiritual control system for human consciousness and that paranormal phenomena like UFOs are one of its manifestations. I cannot tell whether this control is natural and spontaneous; whether it is explainable in terms of genetics, of social psychology, or of ordinary phenomena—or if it is artificial in nature, under the power of some superhuman will. It may be entirely determined by laws that we have not yet discovered. [20]
If indeed the ancient “gods” are manipulating and controlling human consciousness from other dimensions then we can expect Enki to be playing a major role in this ongoing program. But is his role positive, as the Sumerians and modern New Age authors assure us, or is he the Great Deceiver and the greatest enemy of both God and man, as Judeo-Christian traditions have warned from the very beginning?
History is Written by the Victor
The battle between Enki and Enlil is never completely resolved within Sumerian myth itself, but texts such as Enki and the World Order and Inanna and Enki give the impression that Enki gains the upper hand, at least as far as authority over mankind is concerned. After all it was in Eridu, Enki’s cult headquarters, where the office of the hereditary kingship was established, and it was Enki who eventually gained possession of the me (see Part Five) that were associated with the organization of human civilization.
Modern researchers who look to Sumerian texts as unbiased and authentic accounts of mankind’s origins need to re-evaluate their positions and take this development into consideration. The old adage that “history is written by the victors” has been proven true time and again, and if Enki was indeed the victor in his clash with Enlil, then perhaps that explains why he is portrayed in such positive terms by the societies that he came to dominate. By the same token this also explains why Enlil is portrayed in such negative terms.
This brings us to the development of the art of writing itself. According to the Sumerian myth Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta the very first person to originate “the writing of messages on clay” was none other than Enmerkar, whom we have identified as Osiris and Nimrod. Enmerkar was a devoted servant of Enki and he was also involved in renovating the great temple of Enki at Eridu. David Rohl places the end of Enmerkar’s reign at circa 2850 BC.
Modern scholars mark the Proto-Literate Period, when primitive pictographic writing emerged and evolved, at approximately 3500-2800 BC. Near the end of this period the pictographic system was replaced by a syllabic system and the thousands of signs in the Sumerian vocabulary were reduced to a few hundred, which made writing much more practical and functional.[21] Under a syllabic system the art of writing, which had previously been useful only for bureaucratic or financial purposes, suddenly produced literature, and this new invention quickly became an important tool for the purposes of propaganda. Samuel Noah Kramer explains how Enki was viewed by the Sumerians as the protector of this important innovation:
“Enki is, in addition to the lord of magic and the great problem-solver of the gods, the god of craftsmen, including what we would now call artists and writers… Enki was, perhaps more than any other ancient deity, essentially identified with the spoken and the written word.” [22]
The eminent Assyriologist Georges Roux also points out the historic connection between Enki and the art of writing:
“Enki-Ea, the tutelary god of Eridu, was above all the god of intelligence and wisdom, the ‘broad-eared one who knows all that has a name.’ He stood as the initiator and protector of arts and crafts, of science and literature, the patron of the magicians, the Great Teacher and the Great Superintendent who, having organized the world created by Enlil, assured its proper functioning.” [23]
The recently-published Historical Atlas of Ancient Mesopotamia notes Enki’s association with writing as well:
“According to the Sumerian epic poem of Inanna and Enki, the ‘one hundred basic elements of civilization’ were transferred from Eridu, City of the First Kings, to Uruk. Among these basic elements was writing, considered to be a divine decree from the deities and under the patronage of Enki, God of Wisdom. From its inception, writing was therefore considered a gift of the gods and carried with it both power and knowledge.” [24]
It is certainly true that control over the craft of writing meant power and knowledge. From the very beginning, when individual kingdoms first appeared, politics and religion were closely connected and there was no separation of Church and State. The Priesthood served the State, and the State was obliged to follow the decrees of the Priesthood, which were understood to come directly from the spirit-world of the gods. The chosen few who were taught the skills of reading and writing were privileged members of a scribal class that was itself a part of the official Priesthood. Consider the following brief biographies of historians from the ancient world, as proof of the connection between what we view as “history” and the pagan system of worship erected for mankind by the “gods.”
Berossus of Babylon was a highly educated man who lived from approximately 340-260 BC. He personally witnessed Alexander the Great’s conquest of Persia and much of Asia, and after the Greeks took over Babylon Berossus was quickly assimilated into the new regime. Berossus is known to us through his Babyloniaca, or History of Babylon, which was a three-volume study written in Greek that used ancient texts such as the Enuma Elish and Atrahasis to give the Babylonian perspective on the history of the world. According to scholars this work was either commissioned by the Seleucid king Antiochus I, or by the High Priests of Marduk to justify the worship of Marduk throughout Babylon under the Seleucid Greeks. According to Berossus, Marduk was the very same god as the Greek high god Zeus and the Egyptian god Ammon. Berossus was himself a priest of Marduk, and his Akkadian name was most likely Bel-re-ushu, which means “Bel is my shepherd,” with Bel being simply another name for Marduk.
Manetho of Heliopolis was a historian who lived from approximately 300-220 BC. Like Berossus, Manetho lived in the aftermath of Alexander’s conquests. Manetho’s greatest work was his three-volume Aegyptiaca, or History of Egypt, also written in Greek. Scholars believe that Manetho’s work was inspired by the Histories of Herodotus, and was meant to correct many of Herodotus’ errors and give the Egyptian perspective on world history. During his day Manetho’s greatest contribution was in bringing unity to the Greek and Egyptian people through the creation of the new cult of Sarapis. According to Plutarch this project was initiated by a dream received by Ptolemy I, after which Manetho the Chief Priest of Ra at Heliopolis was introduced to Timotheus the Eumolpid, the Greek High Priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries, to work out the doctrines and rituals of the new cult.[25] Most scholars view Sarapis as a combination of the Greek god Zeus and the Egyptian god Osiris, who was also worshiped as Apis the bull of the Nile. Thus, Osir-Apis, or Sarapis. On the other hand, Samuel Noah Kramer is inclined to see the cult of Sarapis as a return to the direct worship of Enki:
“In his survey of Akkadian epithets of the gods, Knut Tallqvist gives many citations for the title sar apsi, king of the Abzu (Apsu). Only one god is called sar apsi, Ea. E. Douglas van Buren was intrigued by the possibility that the epithet of Ea gave rise to the popular Hellenistic god Sarapis. The story of the invention or discovery of Sarapis is reasonably well attested in antiquity, but the origins of the god remain obscure. Tacitus was told by Egyptian priests that Ptolemy I received a dream of “a young man from heaven” who told Ptolemy to send for the statue of Sarapis. At Sinope the statue was found, worshiped as Jupiter Dis along with Proserpina. Priests of Apollo at Delphi advised the Egyptians to take the statue of Sarapis to Alexandria, but to leave his consort behind. The statue arrived in Alexandria and a shrine was built for it, where the Egyptians assimilated Sarapis to Osiris. The god caused a good bit of etymological and historical speculation in the ancient world, but the explanations of Sarapis are not very convincing. Van Buren’s suggestion that Serapis is Ea is based on knowledge that Sinope had been an Assyrian seaboard colony… Sarapis was widely popular as one of the great savior gods, a miracle-worker and healer. Zeus Sarapis was a benefactor of humanity, especially those like sailors who made their way by water.” [26]
If the tale of Ptolemy’s dream is true, and a statue known to depict “Sarapis” was found in Sinope in Pontus on the Black Sea coast, a colony with Akkadian connections, then it is virtually a foregone conclusion that the statue was in fact a statue of Ea/Enki, the only Akkadian god ever known as Sar Apsi, the Lord of the Abyss. Supporting this conclusion is the fact that “Sarapis” was especially favored by Alexander the Great:
“The earliest mention of Sarapis is in the authentic death scene of Alexander, from the royal diaries (Arrian, Anabasis, VII. 26). Here Sarapis has a temple at Babylon and is of such importance that he alone is named as being consulted on behalf of the dying king.” [27]
The “Sarapis” honored by Alexander is of course the Sar Apsi known as Ea/Enki, a point on which all scholars agree. It should then be obvious that the cult of “Sarapis” created by one of Alexander’s greatest generals was a cult to this very same god. What may have happened is that after Sarapis became installed in Alexandria perhaps the god’s identification with Osiris/Apis was something that the leaders of the cult allowed in order to ensure its popularity within Egypt, while his true identity remained known to the inner circle of initiates.
During the Hellenistic and Roman periods Alexandria was understood to be the capital of the world. It was the most populous city in the world, and the center of learning and religion. Many gods were worshiped in Alexandria, but Sarapis stood head and shoulders above them all. According to Franz Cumont, by about 30 BC there were forty-two Serapeums, or Temples to Sarapis, in Egypt alone.[28] There was also a major Serapeum in the city of Pergamum (in modern Turkey), a city known also for its center of healing dedicated to the god Asclepius [29], and for its massive altar to Zeus, which was brought to Berlin just prior to the rise of Hitler. In Revelation 2:13 Jesus Christ declares that “Satan’s Throne” is located in Pergamum, “where Satan dwells.”
Plutarch of Delphi was another high initiate of the pagan Mysteries who left a legacy as a historian. He lived from 46-127 AD, and was a High Priest of Apollo based at the famous Oracle of Delphi. Plutarch’s most famous work is Parallel Lives, a series of biographies featuring pairs of famous Greeks and Romans. During his life Plutarch was a very rich and influential man also successful as a politician. His prestige allowed him to travel to Egypt where he was initiated into many of the Egyptian Mysteries, after which he wrote the first ever prose account of the myth of Osiris in Isis and Osiris. Throughout his many writings on spiritual matters Plutarch often refers to “secrets” that he is not allowed to reveal on account of his oaths of initiation.
Philo of Byblos lived from 64-141 AD and was an important writer who did for the Phoenicians what Berossus and Manetho did for the Babylonians and Egyptians. His primary work is Phoenician History, and what we know of this Greek text comes primarily from quotes found in the writings of Eusebius and Porphyry. According to Philo, the basis of the History were Phoenician texts attributed to a priest of Baal named Sanchuniathon, who lived prior to the Trojan War, probably within the thirteenth century BC. Philo writes that Sanchuniathon began his quest for knowledge through his devotion to the god Tauthus, who “was the first who thought of the invention of letters, and began the writing of records.” Philo explains that Tauthus is known as Thoth to the Egyptians and as Hermes Trismegistus to the Greeks.
According to this History [30], the universe was created through a sequence of events that are remarkably similar to the modern theory of evolution. Out of chaos, water, wind and mud, eventually early man developed, and after several generations the earliest gods were born. The first divine conflict was between Uranus and his son Kronos, and after Kronos was victorious, with crucial help from his secretary Tauthus, he founded the first city which was, as can be expected from a Phoenician scribe, the Phoenician city of Byblos. After the eventual death of Uranus at the hands of Kronos (in the thirty-second year of Kronos’ reign), the text records:
“This, then, is the story of Kronos, and such are the glories of the mode of life, so vaunted among the Greeks, of men in the days of Kronos, whom they also affirm to have been the first and ‘golden race of articulate speaking men,’ that blessed happiness of the olden time!”
The pagan custom of human sacrifice, a common occurrence during the “blessed happiness” of the “Golden Age,” is also traced back to Kronos:
“It was a custom of the ancients in great crises of danger for the rulers of a city or nation, in order to avert the common ruin, to give up the most beloved of their children for sacrifice as a ransom to the avenging daemons; and those who were thus given up were sacrificed with mystic rites. Kronos then, whom the Phoenicians call Elus, who was king of the country and subsequently, after his decease, was deified as the star Saturn, had by a nymph of the country named Anobret an only begotten son, whom they on this account called ledud, the only begotten being still so called among the Phoenicians; and when very great dangers from war had beset the country, he arrayed his son in royal apparel, and prepared an altar, and sacrificed him.”
The identity of Kronos is revealed through the work of Berossus, who was intimately familiar with the Sumerian and Akkadian myths and legends. In his Greek interpretation of various parts of the Enuma Elish, “Enki” is simply translated by Berossus as “Kronos,” seemingly without any need for an explanation. Philo concludes that this deity is now deceased, but unfortunately for us the facts show that these rumors are greatly exaggerated.
In ancient times writing was a very exclusive, valuable and highly protected skill. From the time of its invention it existed for hundreds of years as the property of the Priesthood and the State, which were themselves virtually inseparable. As we have seen, religion in the world prior to the appearance of Christianity was similar in virtually every key aspect from culture to culture. Each was governed by a hereditary monarchy and led by a hierarchy of initiated priests who communicated with the gods in ways very similar to the shamanism practiced within Eastern religions and indigenous cultures today. Each of these ancient cultures viewed the gods in a pantheistic framework, with the pantheon itself being led by a high god who exercised authority over heaven and earth. In early antiquity this high god was known as Kronos or Enki, who was represented by the planet Saturn. In later antiquity this leader of the gods was viewed as the son of Enki, and his name was Marduk, Baal, or Zeus, who were gods all represented by the planet Jupiter.
As far as the pagan world was concerned there was only one story to be told, even though each culture told it in a unique way with different names and each with its own culturally-relevant details. In the final analysis this story is Enki’s story, and Enki’s great rival Enlil, understood by so many to be YHWH the God of Israel, had to wait about fifteen hundred years before He could give His side of the story. That was the approximate length of time from the invention of writing to the moment when Moses met his appointment with God on the top of Mt. Sinai. It will be interesting as we find out what He had to say.
The Biblical Response
The early chapters of the book of Genesis are written according to the following outline:
Genesis 1: Creation of heaven and earth and all living things in six days.
Genesis 2: Creation of Adam and Eve.
Genesis 3: The Garden of Eden, the Serpent, and the Fall of Man.
Genesis 4: The story of Cain and Abel, and the first city built for Cain’s descendents.
Genesis 5: The descendents of Adam from Seth to Noah.
Genesis 6: “Sons of God” descend to earth, produce Nephilim from relations with human women.
Genesis 7-8: The story of the Flood.
Genesis 9: The Noachide Covenant, the indiscretion of Ham and the cursing of Canaan.
Genesis 10: The seventy descendents of Noah’s sons and the separation of the Nations.
Genesis 11: The Tower of Babel, the diversity of tongues, and the dispersion of the Nations.
Genesis 12: The calling out of Abraham to create the Lord’s own nation.
Modern scholars find many similarities when they compare Genesis with the creation accounts of the Sumerians and Babylonians. For instance, according to Genesis, creation took place in seven days, literal or otherwise, whereas the Enuma Elish creation account of the Babylonians was written down in a division of seven tablets. Other similarities exist which were covered in Part Five, but these many similarities only serve to highlight the few important differences that do exist. These differences are enough to prove that the Hebrews had an understanding of creation and early history in common with the pagan cultures, but they viewed these events from a completely different, and in many cases opposite, perspective.
Concerning the “Fall of Man,” this is the event in Genesis that sets the stage for all further divine-human relationships, whether they be mankind’s relationship with God, or mankind’s relationship with the “Sons of God,” also known as the fallen angels, who manipulate human affairs from the spirit-world. This event also introduces the primary adversary of God and Man, who is referred to in Hebrew as the nachash of the Garden of Eden. Semitic languages scholar Dr. Michael S. Heiser believes that this word, which is usually translated as “serpent,” can also be translated as “the shining one.”[31] This means that this creature was not a mere snake, but was a divine being capable of using speech to flatter and deceive. Heiser associates this nachash with the descriptions of Satan in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. In Isaiah his name is given as Helel ben Shakar, which means “the shining one, son of the dawn,” translated in some Bibles as “Lucifer, son of the morning,” whereas Ezekiel helps to explain the origins of his overblown pride: “You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God...”
While the tempter of Eve may not have been an actual snake, he has always been associated with the serpent in one way or another. The book of Revelation (12:9) describes him as a red dragon, and refers to him as “the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.” In the book of Genesis his punishment for deceiving Eve also appears to be related to his “serpentine” aspect:
“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:14-15)
Within this curse upon the serpent was also a prediction of the serpent’s doom, which would come from a man descended from Eve herself. The Hebrews understood this promise as the Protoevangelium, or “first prophecy,” of the coming of the world’s Messiah who would provide the remedy and reverse the effects of the Fall.
For the Hebrews “Satan the Serpent” was known from the beginning as a cunning deceiver who was cursed by God and would one day be destroyed by the Messiah. Compare this with the pagan view of the “shining serpent,” as given by Philo of Byblos, translated from even earlier Phoenician texts:
“The nature then of the dragon and of serpents Tauthus [Egyptian Thoth, Greek Hermes] himself regarded as divine, and so again after him did the Phoenicians and Egyptians: for this animal was declared by him to be of all reptiles most full of breath, and fiery. In consequence of which it also exerts an unsurpassable swiftness by means of its breath, without feet and hands or any other of the external members by which the other animals make their movements. It also exhibits forms of various shapes, and in its progress makes spiral leaps as swift as it chooses. It is also most long-lived, and its nature is to put off its old skin, and so not only to grow young again, but also to assume a larger growth; and after it has fulfilled its appointed measure of age, it is self-consumed, in like manner as Tauthus himself has set down in his sacred books: for which reason this animal has also been adopted in temples and in mystic rites… The Phoenicians call it “Good Daemon”; in like manner the Egyptians also surname it Cneph; and they add to it the head of a hawk because of the hawk’s activity. Epeïs also (who is called among them a chief hierophant and sacred scribe, and whose work was translated by Areius of Heracleopolis), speaks in an allegory word for word as follows: ‘The first and most divine being is a serpent with the form of a hawk, extremely graceful, which whenever he opened his eyes filled all with light in his original birthplace, but if he shut his eyes, darkness came on.’ Epeïs here intimates that he is also of a fiery substance, by saying ‘he shone through,’ for to shine through is peculiar to light.” [32]
The question that begs to be asked is this: What can possibly explain these two radically different perspectives on the nature of the serpent? For the Hebrews he was cursed by God to a level lower than that of animals and forced to eat dust, whereas for the pagans he was the “Good Daemon,” and “the first and most divine being.”
After God’s cursing of the serpent the next curse falls upon Cain for killing his brother Abel. In Part Five we saw how the dispute between the shepherd and the farmer is resolved differently in Sumerian texts than in the book of Genesis, with the farming winning divine favor over the shepherd, and the shepherd becoming belligerent towards the farmer. There is also a different emphasis on the lines of descent. Genesis gives the descendents of Cain and relates their founding of the first city, but Seth’s line is more important because it leads to Noah. On the other hand, the Sumerians appear to focus upon the line of Cain, with the institution of the hereditary monarchy “descending from heaven” to Enki’s city, the city of Eridu, named for Irad the grandson of Cain. In contrast, as far as YHWH was concerned the institution of a monarchy was unnecessary and was viewed as inevitably leading to oppression (1 Samuel 8:10-22).
The other “descent from the heavens” account is the descent of the fallen angels themselves. This is portrayed in Genesis 6, and it involves unholy relations between some of the “sons of God” and human women, a relationship which produced the Nephilim. From this human-angelic interaction the world became “corrupt in the sight of God” and “filled with violence,” which became the justification for sending the global Flood. According to pagan mythologies this was the Golden Age of Kronos when the gods lived with men during the era of the kingdom of Atlantis. However, even though it was viewed as an idealistic time when the “true religion” originally ruled, Greek writers such as Plato explained that Atlantis became corrupt in its spiritual teachings and used its great power to dominate and abuse the entire world.
The non-canonical book of Enoch explains how the fallen angels taught mankind astronomy and astrology, charms and spells, and the properties of plants and herbs. One particular angel named Azazel “taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and taught them about metals of the earth and the art of working them” (Enoch 8:1). In Genesis the craft of metalworking is ascribed to Tubal-Cain, a descendent of Cain. David Rohl associates this name with Bad-tibira, which is the second city on the Sumerian King List, following Eridu where “kingship descended from heaven.”
According to Sumerian accounts the great “civilizer” of mankind was the great god Enki, the Lord of the Abzu in Eridu, who was portrayed as a firm friend and champion of mankind. On the other hand the book of Enoch explains that the innovations given to mankind were used for wicked purposes. The Nephilim ruled with an iron fist, “and when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind” (Enoch 7:4). Regarding Azazel himself, Enoch 10:8 reads: “The whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe ALL SIN.“
After the Great Flood we come to a curious incident in which Ham, one of the three sons of Noah, dishonors his father. This brings about another curse, which is a curse from Noah, given because of Ham’s indiscretion but applied to Ham’s son Canaan. In the Sumerian King List and in the myth Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta both Meskiagkasher (Cush) and Enmerkar (Nimrod) are said to be descendents of Utu. If Utu is to be found within the book of Genesis then Utu can only be Ham, the third son of Noah who is described negatively in Genesis. On the other hand, within Sumerian mythology, specifically Enki and the World Order, we find that Utu/Ham is glorified:
“Enki placed in charge of the whole of heaven and earth the hero, the bull who comes out of the ašur forest bellowing truculently, the youth Utu, the bull standing triumphantly, audaciously, majestically, the father of the Great City, the great herald in the east of holy An, the judge who searches out verdicts for the gods, with a lapis-lazuli beard, rising from the horizon into the holy heavens.” [33]
Utu became known as the Sun God in Sumerian mythology and the god of Truth and Justice. In the Akkadian language Utu was known as Shamash. It was Ham’s grandson Nimrod who was responsible for the Tower of Babel, and we have already shown how this is portrayed in Sumerian myth as Enmerkar’s attempt to renovate the Holy Abzu of Eridu in honor of Enki. In the descriptions of the role given to Utu by Enki, we can perhaps read how the young Ham (the youth Utu) left the home of his father Noah (which was a mountainous land of forests), in a fury of indignation (bellowing truculently) because of what he perceived to be an unjust verdict against himself and his son. Then Enki appears, offering flattering words and deceitful promises, after which we find that Ham becomes deified by Enki as the Sun and God of Justice!
In Egyptian myth we find that Ham is most likely represented as the god Horus. This may sound confusing on the surface, because Horus is usually viewed as the son of Osiris, who has been shown to be Nimrod, the grandson of Ham. The problem is resolved once we realize that the earliest Egyptian myths describe Horus as either the brother or uncle of Osiris. Eventually two separate Horus identities appeared whom Plutarch refers to as “Horus the Elder” and “Horus the Younger,” the latter being the well-known son of Osiris and the great unifier of Egypt.[34] This interpretation makes sense because the facts show that the cult of Horus was well-known some time before the cult of Osiris was established. The worship of Horus dates back to Pre-Dynastic times to the “Falcon City” of Nekhen, while concrete evidence for the worship of Osiris first appears only in the Fourth Dynasty.
Horus was the god of the Falcon Tribe, who were the dynastic invaders of the Nile Valley who came from Mesopotamia in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Eridu. As worshipers of Enki they identified above all with Ham their most important post-flood ancestor who was, as we have shown, honored by Enki as the Sun God. In Egypt we also find that Horus is closely identified with the Sun:
As Horakhty (Harakhty), or “Horus of the two horizons”, Horus was the god of the rising and setting sun, but more particularly the god of the east and the sunrise. In the Pyramid Texts, the deceased king is said to be reborn in the eastern sky as Horakhty. Eventually, Horakhty became a part of the Heliopolis sun cult and was fused with its solar god as Re-Horakhty. As Behdety, or “he of [the] behdet”, Horus was the hawk-winged sun disk which seems to incorporate the idea of the passage of the sun through the sky. As Hor-em-akhet (Harmachis) or “Horus in the horizon”, Horus was visualized as a sun god in falcon or leonine form. [35]
Further evidence that Horus can be identified as the Biblical Ham comes from the fact that throughout Egyptian texts there are repeated references to the deified Four Sons of Horus, which is documented in the book The Ancient Gods Speak – A Guide to Egyptian Religion. These four sons are mentioned fourteen times in the Pyramid Texts, throughout the many coffin texts of the Middle Kingdom, throughout the Book of the Dead and the Book of Gates, and they even appear as representations on canopic containers holding organs of the deceased in royal tombs.[36] If Horus is indeed a deification of Ham, then the Biblical names of these four sons would be Cush, Mizraim, Put and Canaaan. The descendents of Ham were Flinders Petrie’s “Falcon Tribe,” known to the Egyptians as the Shemsu Hor, or “Followers of Horus,” who migrated from Mesopotamia and settled in northeast Africa and around the Mediterranean Basin. They all worshiped various forms of the god Enki as their primary god, which can be traced back to Enki’s spiritual seduction of Ham after Ham’s unfortunate episode in the house of Noah.
It seems that at every important stage of the book of Genesis we find a description of events very similar to pagan accounts, but the interpretation of the events is given a completely opposite spin. What can account for the fact that the Hebrews, a seemingly insignificant tribe of refugees fleeing from Egypt, would seek to create a history of creation and civilization that repeatedly contradicted the way in which the surrounding nations viewed the very same history? The next section will help to answer this question.
God Against the Gods
After the account of the indiscretion of Ham the book of Genesis continues in chapter ten with a listing of seventy of the descendents of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the three sons of Noah. At the end of this listing is an explanation: “and out of these the nations were separated on the earth after the flood.”
Chapter eleven then continues with the story that helps to explain exactly how these nations were separated, which is the story of the Tower of Babel. Hebrew tradition, as well as Josephus, maintains that this episode was directed by Nimrod, whose empire included virtually the entire civilized world. At his prodding the people of the earth said “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the earth.”
According to Genesis the building of the city and the tower was begun for two reasons: 1) To “make for ourselves a name,” and 2) To establish a base from which to resist the divine command given in Genesis 9 as part of the Noachide Covenant to “multiply and fill the earth.” As a result of this disobedience Genesis 11:5 explains that the Lord “came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.” God’s response to the situation is explained in Genesis 11:6-7, which included an appeal from God to His heavenly host:
“The Lord said, ‘Behold, they are one people and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language so that they will not understand one another’s speech.'”
The Book of Jasher is a non-canonical book that is mentioned in Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18, and it explains the identity of the “us” that God refers to in Genesis 11,
“And they built the tower and the city, and they did this thing daily until many days and years were elapsed. And God said to the seventy angels who stood foremost before him, to those who were near to him, saying, ‘Come let us descend and confuse their tongues, that one man shall not understand the language of his neighbor,’ and they did so unto them.” (Jasher 9:31)
This strange episode was concluded after these “angels” agreed to God’s invitation to make a “descent” from heaven to earth. The final result is given in Genesis 11:8-9, which explains how the people of the earth who resisted being scattered were forced to meet the terms of the Noachide Covenant of Genesis 9:
“So the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
In Part Five we explained how the name of this city, given in Genesis as “Babel,” was known as “Nun.ki” in Akkadian, which was the name for the original city of Eridu that was abandoned at the end of the career of the Sumerian king Enmerkar, who was the Biblical Nimrod. In Sumerian myth Eridu and Enmerkar are both intimately associated with the Sumerian god Enki. With Enki’s support Enmerkar was able to conquer the civilized world, re-inhabit and rebuild Enki’s pre-Flood capital of Eridu, and begin building a great Temple or Tower in honor of Enki, while at the same time resisting the divine command to spread out and inhabit the entire earth.
Under the authority of Enmerkar the world had essentially reverted back to its pre-Flood condition. Through Enmerkar Enki had succeeded in re-establishing the oppressive “kingship,” and through his building projects mankind was being directed away from the worship of God and towards the worship of God’s unholy Adversary. With the sign of the rainbow God had promised never to destroy mankind again, so another remedy to the situation had to be arrived at. This is the context from which to interpret God’s response to the situation, which included an appeal to the seventy “angels” who stood before Him, and an agreement allowing them to “descend” to the earth once again. It was this “descent of the angels” as well as the creation of the different languages that served to separate and divide humanity from that point forward, with the “descent” proving to be most spiritually significant.
The book of Genesis does not elaborate on how these descending angels affected mankind at the time of the division of the nations. In fact, the explanation of this event does not appear until the book of Deuteronomy where it can be found within the final speech that Moses gave to the people of Israel just prior to his death:
“When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.” (Deuteronomy 32:8) [37]
These “sons of God” were members of the “heavenly host” of angelic beings that God originally created to help manage the earth and all creation. This explanation for these “sons of God” is clarified by an old Jewish Targum on this text found in a manuscript known as Pseudo-Jonathan.
“When the Most High made allotment of the world unto the nations which proceeded from the sons of Noach, in the separation of the writings and languages of the children of men at the time of the division, He cast the lot among the seventy angels, the princes of the nations.”
The decision to divide the nations of the world took place in a “Divine Council” setting, with God consulting with a council of seventy “sons of God” before arriving at a decision. The “sons of God” are advanced beings, also known as “angels,” and because they were created with Free Will not all of them have always acted in obedience with God and His divine plan. The seventy “sons of God” who appeared before God at this particular Divine Council to come to an agreement with God regarding the problem of the Tower of Babel were rebel angels whose interaction with humanity far pre-dated the Flood. In other words, they were a dissident faction of angels who thought they could manage humanity much better than God could. To deal with the problem of Enki’s domination of the world through Nimrod and his empire God decided to allow these angels a chance to prove their argument. The end result was that the world was divided up according to “the number of the sons of God.” “Seventy” was the number of members within this particular angelic faction, which is why the Table of Nations of Genesis 10 lists exactly seventy descendents of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who made up the nations that “were separated on the earth after the flood.”
From God’s perspective, a situation in which humanity was united against God under the control of Satan and Nimrod was exchanged for a situation in which humanity was divided against God under the control of the seventy fallen angelic “princes.”
From the perspective of these seventy fallen angelic princes, they willingly agreed to the dismemberment of Nimrod’s empire because it allowed for them to take control of their own individual nations and prove their skills as human managers. Now they could try their hand at “playing God” without YHWH’s interference.
From the perspective of Satan/Enki, the breakup of Nimrod’s empire and the fall and abandonment of Eridu was certainly a negative effect. However, as the most powerful member of this breakaway group of dissident angels Satan was confident that he would quickly regain dominance. The life of Nimrod was a sacrifice that Satan was willing to offer because it removed God from the picture and it allowed Satan and the fallen angels freedom to rule over humanity. Nimrod became the historical basis for all of the many different “Dying and Rising” gods found throughout ancient mythology, and he can be viewed as a human sacrifice offered on behalf of the “gods,” for without Nimrod’s death they would not have had their chance to rule as “gods.”
Ancient mythology reflects the spiritual transition that occurred at the Tower of Babel. According to the Sumerian epic Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, at one time “the people in unison … to Enlil in one tongue gave praise.” Afterwards the authority of Enlil was diminished and it was Enki who rose to prominence, which is celebrated in the myth Enki and the World Order, which includes the account of Enki gaining control over the enigmatic me, the holy and valuable “powers” associated with divine authority and the management of human civilization.
The disappearance of YHWH from human affairs, through the transfer of direct authority over humanity to the “fallen angels,” can be deduced by the existence of so-called “otiose” deities at the head of the pantheons of the pagan world. For instance, most scholars refer to the Sumerian god Anu as an “otiose Deity.” He was the head of the Sumerian pantheon, but he did not actually do anything, and the Sumerians had very few, if any, representations of him, despite the fact that temples were built in his honor, such as the one excavated by Sir Leonard Wooley at Ur.
In Canaanite mythology, which is known to us from the Ugaritic texts of Ras Shamra, the “otiose deity” is the great god El. The primary Canaanite myth known as The Baal Cycle characterizes El as a deity far removed from human affairs, who falls into a dispute with his wife when he is faced with promoting one of his sons to the position of active leader of the pantheon. According to Ugaritic accounts, and this is a very significant point, the number of El’s sons was exactly seventy. (See Against World Powers IV.)
In Greek mythology the sky god was known as Ouranos, and he was reputed to be the wife of Gaia (the earth goddess) and the father of Kronos. Unlike the Sumerians or the Canaanites, Ouranos was not written out of the Greek story as an otiose “figurehead” deity—instead he was simply killed off by his son Kronos, who was in turn slain by his son Zeus.
The brief disappearance of YHWH from an active role in human affairs appeared to the pagan world as evidence of Enki’s victory over Enlil. It also explains how YHWH’s character could be so terribly slandered by the pagan priests and scribes from whom we get our descriptions of YHWH in his various degenerated forms.
In Sumerian myth it appears that the identity of YHWH was split into two aspects. One aspect was named Anu, who became completely inactive and placed up above in the unreachable and unknowable heights of heaven, whereas the other aspect was portrayed as Enlil, who was the active opponent of Enki and the alleged enemy of mankind, who sought to exterminate mankind because we had become “too noisy.”
In Ugaritic mythology El is similarly slandered and abused and is characterized as cowardly, spiteful and conniving, despite the fact that he is viewed as basically powerless. Nevertheless El’s connection with YHWH/El of the Hebrews is very clear. Lowell K. Handy, in his book Among the Host of Heaven, shows that the Canaanites preserved a memory of the division of the earth similar to the Hebrew understanding, and this division was mandated by the authority of El. He writes,
“The division of the world into regions of authority is ascribed to El in the narratives related by Philo of Byblos. These regions were distributed to various deities to govern under the care of and with the consent of El. Both material and immaterial regions were allocated by El. Even the realm of the dead was assigned to Mot by El.” [38]
In conclusion, the Tower of Babel event, more than being simply a fascinating story of how the different languages came to exist, is in fact the place and time where “Paganism” came into existence as a religion and as a system of spiritual control over, and enslavement of, the minds and souls of humanity. In this sense William Bramley was absolutely correct in his characterization of the oppression of humanity at the hands of the “Custodians” when he wrote,
“To keep control over its possession and to maintain Earth as something of a prison, that other civilization [the fallen angels / Custodians] has bred never-ending conflict between human beings, has promoted human spiritual decay, and has erected on Earth conditions of unremitting physical hardship. This situation has existed for thousands of years and it continues today.” [18]
God allowed the fallen angels to achieve a position of authority over mankind which led to them being worshiped as “gods.” As the strongest and most intelligent of these “gods” it was Lucifer who emerged as the leader of the group, and from the Sumerians to the New Testament we find that he is referred to as “The Lord of the Earth.” Yet God had a plan to redeem the world from these false gods that would be worked out through His own nation, which began with the choosing of Abraham as described in Genesis 12.
God’s Nation
The division of the nations of the world into the hands of the “gods” took place around 3000 BC, give or take 100-200 years. For about a thousand years these advanced beings used their power and authority to dominate, deceive, and manipulate mankind without any overt interference from YHWH, who remained for the most part only an observer.
Finally around 2000 BC God reached out to an influential Sumerian family from the city of Ur, who were direct descendents of Noah through the line of Shem. This family had settled in Haran in northern Syria, and it was there that God gave Abram, the patriarch of the family, instructions to move his family into the land of Canaan:
“Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3)
The calling out of Abraham for the purpose of creating a “great nation” for the Lord needs to be understood in relation to the events described in Genesis 11 when the “sons of God” descended to the earth to take possession of the nations of the earth. In effect, the creation of the Nation of Israel was a delayed response to the creation of the seventy nations that were handed over to the “gods.” These “gods” possessed seventy nations, whereas God Himself took only one, but it was through this one that “all peoples on earth” were promised to be “blessed.”
There are many references throughout the Old Testament to the “gods” of the pagan nations, and the fact that they exist is never denied. However, the God of Israel shows Himself unique by claiming to be the creator of these gods, the creator of heaven and earth, and the true and only ruler of all that He created (Nehemiah 9:6, Isaiah 40). Israel’s status as God’s unique possession is explained in Deuteronomy 32:9,
“When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. For the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance.“
In Leviticus 20:23-26, prior to Israel’s entrance into the Promised Land of Canaan, God explained His attitude towards the nations ruled by the gods, as well as Israel’s special status as the Lord’s unique nation.
“You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. But I said to you, ‘You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ I am the LORD your God, who has set you apart from the nations… You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.“
Similar commands and characterizations are given again in Deuteronomy 18:9-14,
“When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the LORD your God. The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so.“
These “detestable” practices were the very basis of the pagan religious system of ritual and worship and the means by which the pagan priests contacted the spirit world and received instructions. Today these practices are known collectively as shamanism, which is making a resurgence through the New Age movement in the world today. The modern New Age consensus is that “spirits are our friends,” but the Hebrews were warned quite the opposite.
From the very beginning the angelic “sons of God,” both holy and unholy, were always associated with the heavens and equated with stars (Job 38:4). Within paganism many deities became represented by the sun, moon and planets as well. This explains the many Old Testament passages in which the angels are referred to collectively as the “host of heaven.” They are often pictured as God’s subservient retinue in heaven (Job 1:6), standing by His side (2 Chronicles 18:18-21), and they are often mentioned in the context of a warning, reminding Israel not to worship them as the heathen do. The following text gives further evidence that certain members of the “host of heaven” have been allotted to the peoples of the earth:
“And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.” (Deuteronomy 4:19)
Whether they are referred to as “angels”, “gods,” “sons of God,” the “heavenly host,” or the “princes” of the various nations (Daniel 10:12-21), God’s instructions to Israel make it clear that these beings, although in positions of authority, have abused their power and will one day be faced with their end. The judgment upon these fallen angelic powers and a prediction of the end of their authority over the nations is given in Psalm 82:
“God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: ‘How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.’ They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I say, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like men, and fall like any prince.’ Arise, O God, judge the earth; for to thee belong all the nations!”
The Kosmokrators and the Occult
In the New Testament the apostle Paul makes it clear that the world is controlled by fallen angelic forces under the authority of Satan, whom he refers to as the “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). In his epistle to the Ephesians Paul concludes his message of encouragement with the following words:
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:10-12)
For early Christians who were grounded in the traditions and perspective of the Hebrews it was understood from the beginning that the world was ruled by evil authorities, powers, and spiritual forces that had rebelled against God and served Satan, the devil. Paul simply explained to the Ephesians that in the day-to-day struggle to maintain and proclaim the Faith these “powers,” or Kosmokrators (world-powers) in Greek, who ruled over the darkness of this “world” (aion or Age), were their ultimate enemies.
The birth of Christianity brought about the downfall of Paganism as an overt system of political and religious control over humanity. Nations turned away from taking advice and direction from the initiated High Priests who stood at the pinnacle of the spirit-led Mystery Religions and instead embraced the Bishops and Popes of the Church as spiritual leaders. Eventually the institutions, rituals, practices and practicers of Paganism were forced to go underground to survive, and they took with them their worship of the Kosmokrators as well as an entrenched faith that one day the gods and spirits that they served would once again take their “rightful” place as honored and accepted rulers of humanity.
For the Hebrews and for the Pagan world the number of Kosmokrators at the top level was originally understood to be seventy. We find this in Hebrew traditions of the seventy nations and seventy languages of the world, and we find this in Pagan tradition through the Canaanite texts of Ugarit which depict the great god El’s division of the different aspects of global management over to his seventy sons, before his power is usurped by Baal.
Seventy was the original number of Kosmokrators but with the rise in sciences such as geometry, mathematics and astronomy in late Hellenistic antiquity the preferred number of Kosmokrators came to be viewed as seventy-two. We find this fact evident in two of the most important spiritual movements that emerged from Alexandria, Egypt, around the same time that Christianity was becoming popular. These movements were Hermeticism, which was essentially a fusion of Pagan spirituality, Greek philosophy and ancient Egyptian tradition; and Gnosticism, which was similar but added twisted aspects of Hebrew tradition and bits and pieces of Christianity.
Hermeticism
Hermeticism takes its name from Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary figure associated with the Greek god Hermes (symbolized by the planet Mercury); with the Canaanite god Tauthus the secretary of Kronos (see above); with the Babylonian god Nabu (also identified with Mercury) who was the son and scribe of Marduk (Jupiter); and especially with the Egyptian god Thoth the scribe of Osiris and god of learning to the Egyptians.
The textual foundation of Hermeticism is a collection of dialogues involving Hermes and his disciples in which the major metaphysical questions of life are addressed. These texts date to the second and third centuries AD, but at the time of the Renaissance when they became famous they were believed to date back much further. Modern collections of the Corpus Hermeticum include eighteen Greek texts and one Latin text known as the Asclepius.
It is in the Asclepius that Egypt’s role as the primary home of the gods is highlighted, and within this description there also appears a prophecy of Egypt’s decline and the disappearance of the gods, leaving Egypt destitute and abandoned:
“Do you not know, Asclepius, that Egypt is an image of heaven or, to be more precise, that everything governed and moved in heaven came down to Egypt and was transferred there? If truth were told, our land is the temple of the whole world.
And yet, since it befits the wise to know all things in advance, of this you must not remain ignorant: a time will come when it will appear that the Egyptians paid respect to divinity with faithful mind and painstaking reverence – to no purpose. All their holy worship will be disappointed and perish without effect, for divinity will return from earth to heaven, and Egypt will be abandoned. The land that was the seat of reverence will be widowed by the powers and left destitute of their presence… Then this most holy land, seat of shrines and temples, will be filled completely with tombs and corpses.
O Egypt, Egypt, of your reverent deeds only stories will survive, and they will be incredible to your children! … For divinity goes back to heaven, and all the people will die, deserted, as Egypt will be widowed and deserted by god and human.” [39]
The Hermetic pantheon is described in the Asclepius as being led by a groups of five major gods who are “hypercosmic” and “intelligible” who each rule over divine aspects of the universe that are “cosmic” and “sensible.” Jupiter is the primary deity, corresponding with Zeus, and he is described as the god of heaven, “for Jupiter supplies life through heaven to all things.” Light is second, which rules over its “sensible” divine aspect the Sun. Thirdly there is a deity named as Pantomorphos of Omniform, who rules over the “Horoscopes” or “Thirty-six.” These are thirty-six gods, also known as Decans, so-named because they each have authority over ten degrees of the zodiacal circle. Fourth is the deity Heimarmene that rules over the seven planets, and fifth is a secondary aspect of Jupiter that rules over the Air, sometimes known as Zeus Neatos. [40]
The twelve major signs of the Zodiac each include three of the thirty-six Hermetic Decans, known as “Horoscopes” and referred to as “stars” in the text. This division of the Zodiac into thirty-six Decans was also doubled to seventy-two Duodecans, a division which gave each of the twelve Zodiacal signs six stars, making each of these Duodecan stars, also known as Quinances, the ruler over five degrees of the Zodiacal circle. From this comes one of the explanations for the occult significance of the Pentagram which is a five-pointed star. Each of the five points represents one of the five “hypercosmic” deities, or five degrees of the zodiac, and each point is created by an angle of 72 degrees, with the product of five by seventy-two being 360, which completes the circuit of the zodiac.
In ancient Egypt the priests of the sacred rites were known as horoskopoi [41], and the Hermetic emphasis on the astrological relationship between mankind and the stars who represented the Kosmokrator gods is explained by Frances Yates in her book Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition:
“That strange people, the Egyptians, had divinised time, not merely in the abstract sense but in the concrete sense that each moment of the day and night had its god who must be placated as the moments passed… They had definite astrological significance, as “Horoscopes” presiding over the forms of life born within the time periods over which they presided, and they were assimilated to the planets domiciled in their domain… But they were also gods, and powerful Egyptian gods, and this side of them was never forgotten, giving them a mysterious importance.” [42]
The return of these gods to an active and outward position as rulers of mankind is predicted in the Asclepius, which is predicted to come after the long period of spiritual decline in Egypt:
“Those gods who rule the earth will be restored, and they will be installed in a city at the furthest threshold of Egypt, which will be founded towards the setting sun and to which all human kind will hasten by land and by sea.”
This text and the physical location of this divine city is explained by Garth Fowden in his book The Egyptian Hermes [43]:
“… in answer to Asclepius’s enquiry where these gods are at the moment, Trismegistus replies (at Ascl. 27): ‘In a very great city, in the mountains of Libya (in monte Libyco)’, by which is meant the edge of the desert plateau to the west of the Nile valley. A subsequent reference (Ascl. 37) to the temple and tomb of Asclepius (Imhotep) in monte Libyae establishes that the allusion at Ascl. 27 is to the ancient and holy Memphite necropolis, which lay on the desert jabal to the west of Memphis itself.”
The “mountains of Libya,” (which was also the place where Heracles was killed by Typhon according to Greek myth—see Part Three), is simply a reference to the plateau that rises above the desert on the west bank of the Nile, west of the ancient city of Memphis. In other words, according to this Hermetic prediction, when the Kosmokrators are “restored” they will be “installed in a city” on or near the Giza Plateau.
Gnosticism
This brings us now to that strange sect known as the Gnostics who, like the Hermetics, had their beginnings in Alexandria, Egypt. From the outset it must be stated that the Gnostics were purely Pagan, and they subscribed to the most fundamental Pagan doctrines, such as the realization of immortality through acquiring hidden knowledge (gnosis), reincarnation, and the belief in the divinity of Man. In addition to these outright Pagan doctrines the Gnostics had a very clear understanding of the Hebrew scriptures, but their interpretation of these scriptures was completely and unreservedly anti-Semitic.
The anti-Semitic basis of Gnosticism is enough for most serious scholars, except perhaps for Elaine Pagels, to conclude that Gnosticism is “Christian” in name only, and cannot possibly have anything to do with the original teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who remained a pious Torah-observant Orthodox Jew his entire life. Gnosticism is “Christian” only in the sense that it attempted to utilize the story of Jesus and incorporate it into the Pagan system of gnosis and illumination. In other words, Gnosticism was simply an attempt to neutralize the full force of the revolutionary message of Jesus, so that the Pagan system could survive as a political force in the world. This attempt failed for the most part, but the teachings and beliefs of Gnosticism have survived and are making a major resurgence in popular culture today.
The basic teaching of Gnosticism is that all matter is inherently evil, which is symbolized by Darkness. The purpose of life is therefore to transcend this Darkness by reaching towards the Light, which can be achieved through knowledge, or gnosis, of Man’s true predicament. The Gnostics believed that the true and ultimate God is the God of Light, who is purely spiritual, and has no relationship either as a Creator of, or as a Ruler over, material reality. To the Gnostics the god of material reality was the God of Israel. He was accepted as the Creator and Ruler of the material universe, but he was denigrated as inferior to the God of Light and viewed as the ultimate personification of evil. The grand scheme of Gnostic cosmology is explained by Hans Jonas in his authoritative study The Gnostic Religion:
“The universe, the domain of the Archons, is like a vast prison whose innermost dungeon is the earth, the scene of man’s life. Around and above it the cosmic spheres are ranged like concentric enclosing shells. Most frequently there are the seven spheres of the planets surrounded by the eighth, that of the fixed stars. There was, however, a tendency to multiply the structures and make the scheme more and more extensive: Basilides counted no fewer than 365 “heavens.” The religious significance of this cosmic architecture lies in the idea that everything which intervenes between here and the beyond serves to separate man from God, not merely by spatial distance but through active demonic force. Thus the vastness and multiplicity of the cosmic system express the degree to which man is removed from God.
The spheres are the seats of the Archons, especially of the “Seven,” that is, of the planetary gods borrowed from the Babylonian pantheon. It is significant that these are now often called by Old Testament names for God (Iao, Sabaoth, Adonai, Elohim, El Shaddai), which from being synonyms for the one and supreme God are by this transposition turned into proper names of inferior demonic beings—an example of the pejorative revaluation to which Gnosticism subjected ancient traditions in general and Jewish tradition in particular. The Archons collectively rule over the world, and each individually in his sphere is a warder of the cosmic prison. Their tyrannical world-rule is called heimarmene, universal Fate, a concept taken over from astrology but now tinged with the gnostic anti-cosmic spirit. In its physical aspect this rule is the law of nature; in its psychical aspect, which includes for instance the institution and enforcement of the Mosaic Law, it aims at the enslavement of man. As guardian of his sphere, each Archon bars the passage to the souls that seek to ascend after death, in order to prevent their escape from the world and their return to God. The Archons are also the creators of the world, except where this role is reserved for their leader, who then has the name of demiurge (the world-artificer in Plato’s Timaeus) and is often painted with the distorted features of the Old Testament God.” [44]
The Gnostic hatred of the God of Israel extends to the very beginning of the book of Genesis. Gnostic texts explain that Ialdabaoth and the Archons created Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden with an intent to deceive him. After learning of this situation the feminine aspect of the “God of Light,” known as Sophia-Prunikos, acted to disrupt the schemes of the demiurge by sending an emissary of the Light to bring knowledge to Adam, allowing him to break free from his bondage. This divine emissary, according to the Gnostics, was none other than the Serpent of the Garden of Eden, and subsequent Gnostic sects reflected this veneration of the serpent by referring to themselves as Ophites (from the Greek word for serpent, ophis), and as Naassenes (from the Hebrew word for serpent, nachash). Jonas explains what Adam and Eve’s “sin” actually meant to the Gnostics,
“It is the first success of the transcendent principle against the principle of the world, which is vitally interested in preventing knowledge in man as the inner-worldly hostage of Light: the serpent’s action marks the beginning of all gnosis on earth which thus by its very origin is stamped as opposed to the world and its God, and indeed as a form of rebellion.” [45]
The Gnostics took the idea that the Serpent was the true savior of mankind right up to the life of Jesus of Nazareth, as the following text shows,
“This general Serpent is also the wise Word of Eve. This is the mystery of Eden: this is the river that flows out of Eden. This is also the mark that was set on Cain, whose sacrifice the god of this world did not accept whereas he accepted the bloody sacrifice of Abel: for the lord of this world delights in blood. This Serpent is he who appeared in the latter days in human form at the time of Herod…” [46]
According to the New Testament, the sacrifice of Jesus did represent the triumph of the Kingdom of God over the “lord of this world,” but this “lord” is clearly identified as Satan in several passages (Matthew 4:8-10, Luke 4:6-13, John 12:31, John 14:30, 2 Corinthians 4:4, etc). The Gnostics turned this belief around and argued that the “lord of this world” was actually the Creator-God of Israel, and that the life and teachings of Jesus represented a manifestation of the Serpent against this “God of Darkness.”
Marcion, a hugely influential second century Gnostic based in Rome, also articulated a strong hatred of the Old Testament and of the Jews. Jonas writes that Marcion taught that upon His death “Christ descended into hell solely to redeem Cain and Korah, Dathan and Abiram, Esau, and all nations which did not acknowledge the God of the Jews, while Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and so on, because they served the creator and his law and ignored the true God, were left down below”[47]. This glorification of the enemies of the God of the Old Testament as heroes of the “God of Light” also included Nimrod, and the positive characterization of Nimrod became part of the founding mythology of the Freemasons, which we will examine later.
It is within Gnosticism that we find that the transition of the number of Kosmokrators from seventy to seventy-two occurs, bringing older traditions in line with Pythagorean and Hermetic astrological designs. The following selections are taken from The Nag Hammadi Library, edited by James M. Robinson, 1990:
“Then the twelve powers, whom I have just discussed, consented with each other. <Six> males (and) females (each) were revealed, so that there are seventy-two powers. Each one of the seventy-two revealed five spiritual (powers), which (together) are the three hundred and sixty powers. The union of them all is the will…
And when those whom I have discussed appeared, All-Begetter, their father, very soon created twelve aeons for retinue for the twelve angels. And in each aeon there were six (heavens), so there are seventy-two heavens of the seventy-two powers who appeared from him. And in each of the heavens there were five firmaments, so there are (altogether) three hundred sixty firmaments of the three hundred sixty powers that appeared from them.” (From the text Eugnostos the Blessed)And before his mansion he created a throne, which was huge and was upon a four-faced chariot called “Cherubim”. Now the Cherubim has eight shapes per each of the four corners, lion forms and calf forms and human forms and eagle forms, so that all the forms amount to sixty-four forms – and seven archangels that stand before it; he is the eighth, and has authority. All the forms amount to seventy-two. Furthermore, from this chariot the seventy-two gods took shape; they took shape so that they might rule over the seventy-two languages of the peoples.” (From On the Origin of the World)
“James said, “Rabbi, are there then twelve hebdomads and not seven as there are in the scriptures?” The Lord said, “James, he who spoke concerning this scripture had a limited understanding. I, however, shall reveal to you what has come forth from him who has no number. I shall give a sign concerning their number. As for what has come forth from him who has no measure, I shall give a sign concerning their measure”
James said, “Rabbi, behold then, I have received their number. There are seventy-two measures!” The Lord said, “These are the seventy-two heavens, which are their subordinates. These are the powers of all their might; and they were established by them; and these are they who were distributed everywhere, existing under the authority of the twelve archons.” (From The Apocalypse of James)
The Kabbalah
In addition to Gnosticism and Hermeticism another major component of the Occult is the tradition of Jewish mysticism known as the Kabbalah. The origins and teachings of this tradition are covered in depth in Red Moon Rising’s “The Divine Council and the Kabbalah,” so for now we will only examine how the Kabbalah viewed the seventy Kosmokrator angels and how it followed the occult trend of also numbering them as seventy-two.
One of the earliest Kabbalist texts is a document known as the Bahir, meaning “bright,” which originated in southern France and dates to the twelfth century. The Bahir popularized the concept that the God of Israel possessed seventy-two sacred names, which is an idea based upon the Biblical passage in which the angel of the Lord protects Israel in Exodus 14:19-21. This passage contains three verses, and each verse is made up of exactly seventy-two Hebrew letters. Early Jewish mystics were infatuated with this anomaly and so they came up with the idea that the entire passage is composed of exactly seventy-two names of God that contain three letters each. This mystical concept came to be known throughout the Middle Ages as the Shem ha Mephoresh, which means basically “The Name of Extension.” What it became was a powerful tool for occultists to summon spirit-beings that were assumed to be Holy Angels.
The Bahir also elaborates on the Kabbalistic conception of the universe as the “Tree of Life,” known as Zeir Anpin, which is made up of ten Sephirot joined together in a geometrical manner. The Bahir explains that the twelve diagonals of the tree signify the twelve “Functionaries” or “Directors” that are also associated with the twelve stones erected by Israel in Joshua 4:9. Then, because Exodus 28:10 mentions engraving six names on a stone, the Kabbalists assumed that each of Joshua’s twelve stones also had six names, for a total of seventy-two names. The Bahir explains that “This teaches us that God has twelve Directors. Each of these has six Powers. What are they? They are the 72 languages.” These Powers are also referred to as Holy Forms, and another portion of the text explains that “all the Holy Forms oversee all the nations. But Israel is holy, taking the Tree itself, and its Heart.” The Kabbalistic belief that the fallen angelic Kosmokrators were Holy and existed in harmony with the God of Israel led to some very serious spiritual repercussions that are still being felt today.
Some years after the publication of the Bahir there appeared a new and far lengthier compilation of Kabbalistic philosophy and theology. It was known as the Sefer Ha-Zohar, meaning “Book of Splendor” and it first appeared in Spain near the end of the thirteenth century. The Zohar, as it is called, also contains frequent references to the seventy Kosmokrator “world powers” that were known to rule over the nations of the world:
Volume 5 Vayishlach, Section 24, verse 236:
“…Come and behold: when the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, He divided the earth into seven regions that correspond to the seventy ministers appointed over the nations. These are the secret of the exterior–Chesed, Gvurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut–each consisting of ten and thereby totaling seventy. The Holy One, blessed be He, appointed the seventy ministers over the seventy nations, each according to its worth, as it is written: “When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Yisrael ” (Devarim 32:8).”Volume 9 Beshalach, Section 24, verses 315-316:
“Rabbi Shimon said: There is a great and strong, tall supernal tree, which is Zeir Anpin. Those above and those below are sustained through it… And seventy branches, which are the seventy princes that are appointed over the seventy nations of the world, rise in it and are nurtured by it. From the center of its roots they nurture from around. And they are the branches that are found in the tree.
When the time of dominion arrives for each branch, they all want to completely destroy the trunk of the tree, which is the mainstay of the branches, that rules over Yisrael who are joined with it. And when the domination of the trunk of the tree reaches them, which is the portion of Yisrael, it wants to guard them, and to arrange peace among them all. For this purpose, seventy oxen are offered during Sukkot to bring peace among the seventy branches in the tree, which are the seventy patron angels of the nations of the world.“
The occult significance of the Kabbalah which all initiates eventually learn is that it acts as a bridge connecting the initiate with the world of the spirits, specifically with the Kosmokrator angels that the Kabbalistic texts blasphemously connect with their dubious “Name of God.” This connection is made throughout the Zohar including the following passage:
Volume 3 Vaera, Section 20, verses 274-279:
“Ten Names are engraved by the King’s authority. The ten names refer to the ten sfirot; there are ten sfirot… nevertheless, they also add up to a greater number, which is a reference to the 72 names. This can be explained further. These seventy colors that glow in all directions derive from these Names, that is, from the 72 names. And these seventy colors were engraved and formed into the secret of the seventy Names of the angels, which are the secret of the heavens…
When they are all joined together as one, in one secret, by the power of the Almighty, namely Zeir Anpin, then He is called Vav-Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei, which means that all are united as one. This refers to Zeir Anpin and the Nukva together with the seventy angels below her. The phrase, “from Hashem out of heaven” refers to the Holy Name that is engraved with the other seventy Names of the secret of the heavens–which allude to Zeir-Anpin, which is the name of 72 that are in the Mochin of Zeir-Anpin, while in essence it includes seventy…
…the lower ones, which are the seventy judgments, are dependent on the upper ones, which are the seventy names of Zeir Anpin. They are all connected together and they all shine simultaneously. And thus, the Holy One, blessed be He, appears in His glory… the heavens have a numerical value of seventy and the secret of Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei… is the secret of the 72 names derived from the three verses (Exodus 14:19-21).”
The practices of the Kabbalah are expressly forbidden by the Torah, as representatives of traditional Judaism have maintained ever since they came into the light of day. One of the early opponents of the Kabbalah was a famous thirteenth century Hasidic Jew named Jehudah the Hasid. In his Book of the Devout Jehudah gave the following warning:
“If you see one making prophecies about the Messiah, you should know that he deals in witchcraft and has intercourse with demons; or he is one of those who seek to conjure with the names of God. Now, since they conjure the angels or spirits, these tell them about the Messiah, so as to tempt him to reveal his speculations. And in the end he is shamed because he has called up the angels and demons, and instead a misfortune occurs at that place. The demons come and teach him their calculations and apocalyptic secrets in order to shame him and those who believe in him, for no one knows anything about the coming of the Messiah.” [48]
The history of the Kabbalah is essentially a long chronology of the appearance of one false messiah after another. Akiba ben Joseph is viewed as one of the most important of the early Kabbalists, and the angels that he contacted told him to name Simeon bar Kochba as the Messiah. The Bar Kochba revolt of 132-135 AD was a disastrous failure and Jews suffered immensely because of it. Centuries later a Kabbalist named Abraham Abulafia became convinced that he was the Messiah, and he appealed to the Pope in 1280 before disappearing without a trace. In his own writings Abulafia explained that his spiritual quest was greatly impeded by Satan and the demons, as renowned scholar Gershom Scholem explains,
“By immersing himself in the mystical technique of his teacher, Abulafia found his own way. It was at the age of 31, in Barcelona, that he was overcome by the prophetic spirit. He obtained knowledge of the true name of God, and had visions of which he himself, however, says, in 1285, that they were partly sent by the demons to confuse him, so that he “groped about like a blind man at midday for fifteen years with Satan to his right.” Yet on the other hand he was entirely convinced of the truth of his prophetic knowledge.” [49]
Another major Messianic failure was the career of Sabatai Sevi. Just prior to the year 1666 a young Kabbalist mystic based in Palestine named Nathan of Gaza became convinced that he was in contact with “holy” angels, and they told him to name Sabatai Sevi as the predicted Messiah, which marked the beginning of the Sabbatean movement that affected Judaism worldwide. Nathan’s role was simply to act as a mouthpiece for the “angels” that spoke through him, and Sabatai Sevi was directed even to the point where he apostatized from Judaism as a prisoner in Turkey and converted to Islam.
The Key of Solomon (Clavicula Salomonis) and the Lesser Key of Solomon (Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis) were both natural products of the angel-summoning practices promoted by the Kabbalah. Both of these legendary grimoires appeared as complete manuscripts in the seventeenth century, but both were composed of even earlier writings that dated back to the Middle Ages.
One of the co-founders of the occult society known as the Golden Dawn was a Rosicrucian Freemason named S. L. MacGregor Mathers, who was the first to print and publish the Key of Solomon (in 1889) making it readily available to the public. Mathers describes it as a primary occult text: “The fountain head and storehouse of Qabalistic Magic, and the origin of much of the Ceremonial Magic of mediaeval times, the ‘Key’ has been ever valued by occult writers as a work of the highest authority.” Of the 519 esoteric titles included in the catalogue of the Golden Dawn library, the Key was listed as number one. As far as contents are concerned, the Key included instructions on how to prepare for the summoning of spirits including departed human beings (necromancy), angels, and even demons. Animal sacrifice and astrological awareness are both described as critical aspects of this preparation.
One of the most well-known members of the Golden Dawn was the magician Aleister Crowley. In 1904 Crowley published the first part of the five-part Lesser Key of Solomon known as the Ars Goetia, which is Latin for “art of sorcery.” The Goetia is a grimoire for summoning seventy-two different demons that were allegedly summoned, restrained, and put to work by King Solomon during the construction of the Temple of YHWH. The demons named in the text include figures such as Baal, Astaroth, Asmodeus, and Belial. Occultists have always wondered at the relationship between the seventy-two Goetic demons and the seventy-two “angels” of the Shem ha Mephoresh, and the usual explanation is that they are “polar opposites.” However, this explanation only holds for those who view the Kabbalah’s Kosmokrator angels as “good” and “holy” angels, which they are definitely not.
Throughout his life Aleister Crowley was a very ambitious and daring sorcerer, and his exploits in dealing with the spirit world have become legendary. His most enduring contribution to modern occultism is known as the LIBER AL vel LEGIS, or Book of the Law. It was a message channeled through Crowley from a spirit-entity known as Aiwass, a spirit that claimed to be a messenger from the “the forces ruling this earth at present,” which are none other than the Kosmokrator fallen angels that we have been studying. The message itself was verbalized through Crowley on the three days of April 8, 9 and 10, in Cairo, Egypt, in the same year of Crowley’s publication of the Ars Goetia in 1904. The demonic nature of the “forces ruling this earth” becomes readily apparent within the text of the infamous Book. Against the Golden Rule of Christianity of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Luke 6:31), the Egyptian spirit Aiwass proclaimed the message of “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” To this was added, “Love is the law, love under will,” which Crowley would later explain by showing that the numerical value of the Greek word thelema, which means “will,” is the same as that of agape, a Greek word for “love.” With this logic Crowley taught that the truest expression of love was to live purely according to one’s own will, which is essentially the opposite of the teachings of Jesus. The demonic hatred of Jesus is expressed in the final chapter of the Book of the Law in the verse that reads, “With my Hawk’s head I peck at the eyes of Jesus as he hangs upon the cross.”
The Kosmokrator angels are also represented in the occult system of divination known as the Tarot, which Tarot scholar Christine Payne-Towler refers to as the “flash cards of the Mysteries.” In an article located at www.tarot.com she gives a brief history of the creation of the Tarot, its deep roots in Hermeticism and the Kabbalah, and how it emerged during the magical heyday of the Renaissance:
“In the sequence of Renaissance magi from Ficino to Kircher … we see the force that drives Tarot into expression. The ancient Mysteries were already in place, although episodically forgotten and re-remembered with the cycles of history. The rediscovery of the bone structure of the Mysteries at the cusp of the publishing revolution made the creation of Silent Invocations in card form possible for the masses.” [50]
The “silent invocations” of the Tarot are nothing more than appeals to the spirits that allegedly govern all aspects of life which, as we have shown, are associated with the Shem ha Mephoresh and the Zodiac. Most modern Tarot packs are made up of 78 cards where the angels of the Shem ha Mephoresh are linked 2-1 with the thirty-six Minor Arcana (cards 2-10 of each of the four suits). However, there are also 72-card Tarot packs, like the ones favored by Eliphas Levi and Hermeticist Franz Bardon, where each card is linked with its own angel. The Tarot is also intimately associated with the curious culture known as the Gypsies, which is a name derived from the medieval belief that the Gypsies were direct descendents of the Egyptians and the heirs and protectors of the ancient Egyptian “wisdom.”
Franz Bardon is regarded by many as “the greatest Hermetic adept of the 20th century.” He was born in Czechoslovakia in 1909 and was allegedly possessed by “the spirit of a high hermetic adept” when he was fourteen. During his life he was captured and tortured by the Nazis during World War II, and later he was imprisoned by the Soviets up to his death in 1958. His occult teachings live on through four books that he was able to publish during his lifetime. One is a novel based upon his life experiences, and the other three make up a trilogy known collectively as the “Holy Mysteries.” Volume I is entitled Initiation Into Hermetics and is basically an introduction to the occult which includes explanations of the Tarot. Volume II is The Practice of Magical Evocation, which provides step-by-step instructions for communicating with the spirit world. The third volume of Bardon’s “Holy Mysteries” trilogy is entitled The Key to the True Kabbalah, and it gives a detailed explanation of the Shem ha Mephoresh, with Bardon referring to its associated angels as “the seventy-two genii of Mercury.”[51] An introduction to Volume II explains the purported relationship between mankind and the “angels”:
“Bardon provides hundreds of seals of positive spiritual beings, angel spirits, intelligences, genii, principals and the spirit beings of the elements. These beings have been teachers to mankind since time immemorial. They teach the mature magician subject matters from A to Z, i.e. arithmetic, alchemy, astrophysics, astrology, astronomy, the arts, biology, zoology, and so on. In other words every subject of earthly science and universal laws. They also help every profession and every trade, whether or not they are magicians. Since magic and the Kabbalah are the highest sciences in the universe, the reader requires the proper theoretical education and practical training before he can contact these spiritual beings.” [52]
The characterization of the spirits as the “teachers of mankind” goes directly back to the Sumerian beliefs regarding the descent of the “gods” to the earth and their gifts of technology and religion that became the basis of pagan civilization. The pagans viewed the “gods” as great and benevolent benefactors but, lest we forget, the Hebrews viewed them as angels that had fallen from heaven, who had descended to rule over a world inhabited by a human family that was similarly fallen and in need of redemption.
Lon Milo Duquette is one of the most well-known and well-respected Hermetic Magicians alive today. A prolific author and teacher of the ancient mysteries, DuQuette is featured throughout the Magical Egypt video series produced by Egyptologist and mystic John Anthony West. In Episode Six DuQuette remarks upon the Egyptian influence over the Golden Dawn, which included a ritual that dramatized the resurrection of Osiris from his tomb. Duquette explains that the Egyptian influence was intensified even greater through Aleister Crowley who “just went hardcore Egyptian!” Concerning the magical system of Crowley, Duquette describes it by saying that “it’s just as wholesome as anything else. It’s scary, but it’s wholesome.”
DuQuette is the author of Angels, Demons, and Gods of the New Millenium, and a review of the book in Gnosis magazine explains how the Kosmokrator angels of the Shem ha Mephoresh are the cornerstone of Duquette’s system of sorcery:
“One excellent display of his skill is his presentation of the Shem ha-Mephorash, the 72-fold divided Name of God from which a series of spirit names are generated. DuQuette boils down the abundance of turgid writing on this subject to a few pages accompanied by a chart… This, combined with the methodology presented in the later chapter “Demons Are Our Friends,” provides a sufficient, though sparse, basis for sorcery, the practice of spirit conjuring.” [53]
The Kosmokrators, Egypt and Freemasonry
The Hermetic text known as Asclepius predicts that “Those gods who rule the earth will be restored, and they will be installed in a city at the furthest threshold of Egypt.” This understanding of Egypt’s role as the land of the gods and primary seat of the Ancient Mysteries permeates the occult and secret societies such as the Golden Dawn and Crowley’s OTO, as we have shown, and it can be found as well within the more mainstream esoteric organizations such as the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons.
As an independent secret society the Rosicrucians date back to the publication of three famous manuscripts from the early seventeenth century in Germany. Since that time there have appeared a number of groups that have referred to themselves as “Rosicrucian,” all with alleged connections with the original group. In the United States the primary Rosicrucian order is the AMORC (Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis), which was created in 1915 and is based in California. One of its primary achievements was the establishment of “The Rosicrucian Egyptian Oriental Museum” in San Jose in 1928. On its website the question is asked: “What does the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC have to do with Egypt?” The answer follows:
“The older connection to Egypt is of a Traditional nature. All Rosicrucians from the 17th century onward understood that the wisdom they received had been transmitted through many paths from the earliest times of human civilization, and were consistent with the teachings of the ancient Mystery Schools.
The first mention of the organization of such Schools is associated by mystics with the reign of King Tuthmosis III during the 15th Century BCE. In addition, the 14th Century BCE King Akhenaten taught the ideal that there was one Divine force behind all things, even the many Gods of Egypt.
Thus Rosicrucians trace their Traditional connection back to ancient Egypt because the wisdom and methods they follow are consistent and continuous with those from the Mystery Schools of Egypt through the Rosicrucian Manifestos of the 17th century to the modern-day Rosicrucian Order, AMORC.”
The Rosicrucians are basically very straightforward in promoting their connection with ancient Egypt, but when it comes to the institution of Freemasonry the subject of Masonic origins is much more controversial and hotly debated. Within Freemasonry there have been three primary study groups involved in researching and publishing material concerned with this question.[54]
The foremost of these “study groups” is the Quator Coronati Lodge based in London, England, which was created in 1884 by the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE), the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII. The first Grand Master of the QC Lodge was Sir Charles Warren, who was the president of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF). Another founding member of the QC Lodge was Sir Walter Besant, who worked under Charles Warren as the Treasurer of the PEF. He was the brother-in-law of Annie Besant who led the Theosophical Society after the death of Helena Blavatsky. It should also be pointed out that an early member of the QC Lodge was Dr. Wynn Westcott, who was the primary founding member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Perhaps Westcott was involved in the lecture presented at the founding of the QC Lodge which was entitled “Freemasonry as Seen in the Light of the Cabala.”
The primary purpose of the Quator Coronati Lodge was to focus on Masonic origins, to research the Kabbalah and Solomon’s Temple, and to promote the creation of a Jewish homeland in Israel. Sir Charles Warren had been the director of British excavations on the Temple Mount two decades earlier, and his Palestine Exploration Fund, which was created in 1865, was itself funded with money from the British Crown, UGLE, the Church of England, and the Rothschild banking trust. The event commemorating the PEF’s founding was chaired by the Archbishop of York who proclaimed that the Holy Land was, by divine right, British property.
The Quator Coronati Lodge was therefore intimately involved in the “Jewish” or “Hebrew” side of Masonic origins (and Masonic ‘destiny’) and it downplayed the relationship Freemasonry had with the Ancient Mysteries associated with “pagan” cultures. This was a situation that disgusted several QC members including Dr. Wynn Westcott who, according to one source, “made several attempts to steer the representatives of the prevailing ‘authentic’ school of masonic historiography into considering the possibility of Freemasonry having more occult origins. That approach was ridiculed then and anyone who has tried to make similar suggestions since then has received a similar response generally from the members.” [55]
Perhaps because of the “narrow orthodoxy” of the QC Lodge another Masonic study group, the Masonic Study Society (MSS), was founded in London in 1921 by Alvin Coburn, J.S.M. Ward, and Walter Wilmshurst:
“Their aim was to encourage the study of masonic symbolism, to chart its origins and possible interpretations along anthropological lines. Avoiding the methodology espoused by the so-called ‘authentic’ school, this group is still active and studies Freemasonry in light of cultural phenomena that are broadly similar, in the past and present. They use approaches that have been adopted in the fields of comparative religion and folklore studies. They view Freemasonry as a living organism. Their published transactions are circulated world-wide and devote special attention to the symbolic and mystical interpretation of the various masonic Degrees.”
Of the founding members of this group J.S.M. Ward is the most interesting because he is the author of Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods, a lengthy examination of Masonic origins that journeys throughout the pagan world to examine the beliefs of cultures including India, Africa, America, and of course Europe, Egypt and the Near East. Ward’s thesis reflects the Darwinian overtones of his day and the palpable influence of James G. Frazer’s Golden Bough:
“…Freemasonry originated in the primitive initiatory rites of prehistoric man, and from those rites have been built up all the ancient mysteries, and thence all the modern religious systems. It is for this reason that men of all religious beliefs can enter Freemasonry… Thus Freemasonry is the basis of the mysteries, not the mysteries cut down and mutilated… Therefore it is that to this day, if we look carefully, we can find in our ritual the seed of practically every important dogma of every creed, whether it be the Resurrection or Reincarnation.” [56] p.viii
The third major study group involved with researching the origins and purpose of Freemasonry is the Dormer Masonic Study Circle, founded also in London, in 1938. It met more frequently than the MSS, and published more papers, but it shared the former group’s interest in the ancient mysteries and Freemasonry’s occult origins. Its very first paper was entitled “The Pythagorean Tradition in Freemasonry,” by the Rev. J. R. Cleland, and begins with the following characterization of Freemasonry:
“Freemasonry is closely allied to the ancient Mysteries and, if properly understood, and in spite of repeated revision and remolding at the hands of the ignorant and sometimes the malicious, it contains “all that is necessary to salvation”, salvation from the only “sin” that ultimately matters, that which lies at the root of all other sin and error, the sin of ignorance of the self and of its high calling.”
With this introduction the Gnostic influence upon Cleland and this study group becomes evident. The Egyptian influence comes a few sentences later:
“…the usages and customs among Freemasons have ever borne a near affinity to those of the Ancient Egyptians; The Philosophers of Egypt, unwilling to expose their mysteries to vulgar eyes, concealed their systems of learning and polity under hieroglyphical figures, which were communicated only to their chief priests and wise men, who were bound by solemn oath never to reveal them.” [57]
However, an analysis of the most important Egyptian connection with Freemasonry was not published until paper #47, entitled “The Great Work In Speculative Masonry,” which begins with the following introduction:
“In this Paper the attempt will be made to present, for the guidance of Masonic students, an interpretation of the Egyptian metaphysical tradition in harmony with the teachings set forth in what are called the Mysteries; the Egyptian tradition will then be briefly discussed in the light of its transmission and ultimate incorporation in Speculative Freemasonry; finally, reasons will be given in support of the theory, which we hold to be valid, that the Great Work (“Magnum Opus”) of the Rosicrucians and Spiritual Alchemists is the same as that which is symbolised in our Masonic legend of H.A. (Hiram Abiff). Thoughtful students may find in the references to the Old Wisdom and the Mystery tradition an introduction to a great subject; nor should the Mysteries be thought of only as institutions long vanished into the night of time; rather their re-establishment is to be accepted as inevitable. In years to come a wiser generation will restore the sacred rites which are indispensable to the spiritual, intellectual and social security of the race.” [58] (emphasis mine)
The legend of Hiram Abiff is the basis for the most important ritual within the Masonic Brotherhood, the ritual of “raising” the Fellow Craft initiate (2nd Degree) to the level of Master Mason (3rd Degree). According to the myth, which is very loosely based on passages from the Old Testament, Hiram Abiff was a Phoenician master builder who was provided by the king of Tyre to King Solomon to offer help in building the Temple of YHWH in Jerusalem. According to the Masons, Hiram Abiff was murdered by three conspirators after they failed to coerce from him the “hidden secrets” of building, or “masonry.” In the ritual the initiate plays the role of Hiram Abiff and is led along as he is struck once, twice, and then a third fatal time. The ritual ends with the initiate (Hiram Abiff) being resurrected from his dark tomb and into the pure light as an equal and “raised” member of the Masonic Fraternity.
The author of the Dormer paper “The Great Work” connects Freemasonry with Egypt and, more specifically, he connects the legend of Hiram Abiff firmly and directly with the Egyptian tradition of the death and “resurrection” of Osiris, commenting on the fact that Osiris was the basis for the ancient “Dying God” myth found throughout the pagan world:
“It is now generally acknowledged by those competent to judge, that of all the ancient peoples the Egyptians were the most learned in the wisdom of the Secret Doctrine; indeed, there are some who would have it that Egypt was the Mother of the Mysteries, and that it was on the banks of the Nile that the Royal Art was born. We can affirm, without entering into any controversy on the matter, that the wisest of philosophers from other nations visited Egypt to be initiated in the sacred Mysteries; Thales, Solon, Pythagoras and Plato are all related to have journeyed from Greece to the delta of the Nile in quest of knowledge; and upon returning to their own country these illumined men each declared the Egyptians to be the wisest of mortals, and the Egyptian temples to be the repositories of sublime doctrines concerning the history of the Gods and the regeneration of men. To the earliest period of Egyptian metaphysical speculation belongs the fable of Isis and Osiris, and we find that the myth of the Dying God recurs in many of the great World Religions; also it is an established fact that the life, death and resurrection of the immortal-mortal have become the prototype for numerous other doctrines of human regeneration.
The fable, as it has descended to us in the account given by Plutarch, the celebrated Greek biographer, has not been much amplified by modern research; nor has any new key been found to unlock this sublime drama, which may well be termed the “Passion Play” of Egypt. Plutarch himself, however, says that “the mystic symbols are well known to us who belong to the Brotherhood,” and this intimation suggests that the interpretation of the myth as it is given by him in his “Isis and Osiris” will reveal its hidden meaning to students who are already familiar with the principles of the doctrine…
In the Egyptian metaphysical system, TYPHON, the conspirer against OSIRIS, is the embodiment of every perversity… The traditional history relates that TYPHON lured OSIRIS into the ark of destruction, stated to be a chest or coffin… Typhon was assisted in his “impious design” to usurp the throne of Osiris by ASO (the Queen of Ethiopia) and seventy-two other conspirators. These conspirators represent the three destructive powers, “the three ruffians,” which are preserved to modern Freemasonry as the murderers of the Master Builder [Hiram Abiff]; they are ignorance, superstition and fear. Thus the advent of greed and perversion marked the end of the Golden Age, and with the death of Osiris, Typhon forthwith ascended the throne as regent of the world… At this stage, Isis, now represented by the scattered but still consecrated body of Initiates, began the great search for the secret that was lost; and in all parts of the world the virtuous in “grief and distress” raised their hands to the heavens, pleading for the restoration of the reign of Truth. Continuing their search in all parts of the earth and throughout innumerable ages, the congregation of the just at last re-discovered the lost arcana and brought it back with rejoicing to the world over which it once ruled. In this manner, we learn, Isis by magic (the initiated priests were magicians), resurrected the dead God, and through union with him brought forth an order of priests under the collective title of HORUS.”
The Dormer study group was not the first, and certainly not the last, to equate the legendary Hiram Abiff with the Egyptian god Osiris. Underneath the surface of mainstream Freemasonry this association has been known and understood as fact probably since the beginning of the organized fraternity. This fact was certainly not lost on the celebrated 33° Masonic historian Manly P. Hall, who promotes this association in a paper he wrote on “Rosicrucian and Masonic Origins”:
“Preston, Gould, Mackey, Oliver, and Pike—in fact, nearly every great historian of Freemasonry-have all admitted the possibility of the modern society being connected, indirectly at least, with the ancient Mysteries, and their descriptions of the modern society are prefaced by excerpts from ancient writings descriptive of primitive ceremonials. These eminent Masonic scholars have all recognized in the legend of Hiram Abiff an adaptation of the Osiris myth; nor do they deny that the major part of the symbolism of the craft is derived from the pagan institutions of antiquity when the gods were venerated in secret places with strange figures and appropriate rituals.”
This association is also explored in the relatively recent Harpers’s Encyclopaedia of Mystical & Paranormal Experience (1991) under the heading “Freemasonry,” which introduces another provocative symbol associated with the seventy-two Kosmokrator “gods”:
“…In ritual Masons “die” as Hiram Abiff died, and are reborn in the spiritual bonds of Freemasonry.
Philosopher Manly P. Hall compared the Hiramic legend to the worship of Isis and Osiris in the ancient Egyptian mystery schools, another reputed source for Freemasonry. Osiris also fell victim to ruffians, and the resurrection of his body minus his phallus – and Isis’s search for it – seems symbolically similar to the quest for the Lost Word of God. Followers of the Isis cult were known as “widow’s sons,” after the murder of her husband/brother Osiris, and Masons also are called “sons of the widow.”
Speculative Masonry borrowed the tools of the craft as symbols of the order: the square, compass, plumb line, and level. Members wear white leather aprons associated with builders. Ritual colors are blue and gold. The capital letter G appearing in the Masonic compass most likely stands for God. Meetings are held in Lodges or Temples: four-sided rectangular structures decorated with Masonic symbols and black-and-white checkered floors, symbolic of humankind’s dual nature.
Another Masonic emblem is the Great Pyramid of Giza, always shown with seventy-two stones representing the seventy-two combinations of the Tetragrammaton, or the four-lettered name of God (YHVH) in Hebrew. The pyramid is flat-topped, unfinished, symbolizing humankind’s incomplete nature. Floating above the pyramid is the single All-Seeing Eye of the Great Architect, also associated with Horus, son of Isis and Osiris. Both the pyramid and the All-Seeing Eye appear on the United States dollar bill and the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States.” [59]
So once again we are brought back to the Great Pyramid of Giza, the first built and last remaining of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, which is the reputed resting place of Osiris. The Great Pyramid itself is but one structure within a major Necropolis that was designed according to the layout of the constellation Orion, the Great Hunter in the sky. As we have endeavored to show, Osiris is none other than the Biblical Nimrod, the “mighty hunter before the Lord,” whose death brought about the division of his global empire into the hands of the seventy Kosmokrator angels who descended from heaven to begin their era of authority over mankind. The seventy angelic “world powers” eventually came to be understood as seventy-two, which is the number of “conspirators” who aided Set/Typhon in the murder of Osiris. It is also the number of angels associated with the Kabbalistic Shem ha Mephoresh, and the number of stones portrayed in Masonic representations of the Great Pyramid.
Another representation of the Great Pyramid of Giza may perhaps be found in the “square and compass” symbol of Freemasonry. The compass is opened to the familiar number of 72° as the apex of the pyramid, whereas the base of the pyramid appears as the square, while the “G” represents, not “God,” or “Geometry,” as some have speculated, but “Giza,” the location of the resting place of Masonry’s dear departed master.
There is little doubt that Hiram Abiff is but a veiled representation of Osiris, and the Third Degree ritual of the “resurrection” of Hiram is simply a reenactment of the different pagan Mysteries that ritualized the “raising” of Osiris, the “awakening” of Heracles, or the “resurrection” of Dionysus. By the same token there is a great deal of doubt regarding the legend of Hiram Abiff and Masonry’s reputed connection with King Solomon and the building of the temple of YHWH. The fact is that the legend of Hiram Abiff is a relatively late addition to the Masonic tradition which is first documented in Anderson’s Constitutions of 1723. The little book Symbols of Freemasonry, translated from the French publication Les Symboles des Francs-Maçons (1997), reveals that the original “Legend of the Craft” connects directly with our understanding of Osiris:
“…the date of the construction of King Solomon’s temple has not always been the key date in the Freemasons’ cosmology. This central role was once given to the Tower of Babel. The Regius manuscript, which predates Cooke [1410] by twenty years, cites King Nemrod, the builder of that famous tower, as “the first and most excellent master.” He it was, and not King Solomon, who gave the Masons their first “charge,” their rules of conduct and professional code.
For a long time both King Solomon and King Nemrod played a part in the tradition. A Masonic text known as the Thistle manuscript, of 1756, says that Nemrod “created the Masons” and “gave them their signs and terms so that they could distinguish themselves from other people … it was the first time that the Masons were organised as a craft.”
It was during the early years of the eighteenth century that Freemasonry stopped seeing its origins in the Tower of Babel and that Solomon alone was considered “the first Grand Master”.
The eighteenth-century Masonic texts shed light on the ideas and attitudes at the time of the shift from Operative Masonry to Speculative Masonry… Speculative Masons, who were concerned with social responsibility and had no desire to threaten the establishment, finally rejected the “Legend of the Craft” which honored the Tower of Babel, a pagan edifice constructed in open defiance to heaven. Instead of the Promethean or Faustian Nemrod, they preferred “our wise king Solomon,” or as A Mason’s Examination of 1723 puts it: “Grand Master in his time of Masonry and Architecture.” [60]
One way or another the legendary origins of Freemasonry all point back to Egypt, to the Great Pyramid, and to Osiris or Nimrod, the original Dying God intimately associated with Giza and the constellation Orion, whose death brought about the era of the pagan gods.
The most recent comprehensive study of Osiris was mentioned at the end of Part Three, which is Osiris: Death and Afterlife of a God, by respected Egyptologist Bojana Mojsov. This study mentions several interesting aspects of the Osiris cult that provide evidence that perhaps the original number of “conspirators” involved in the death of Osiris may have actually been seventy, rather than seventy-two, which would bring Egyptian myth in line with Canaanite and Hebrew traditions regarding the seventy Kosmokrator gods that were given authority to rule the earth. Mojsov mentions that the ritual process of mummification, which traces back to Osiris the first mummy in history, was a strict process that lasted for exactly seventy days. According to Mojsov, it was during this time that the departed soul “lay unconscious” in the Underworld, waiting for the mummification process to end, after which the individual would be “resurrected” on the other side.
The number seventy is also associated with the constellation Orion, which was known by the name “sah,” which was also the Egyptian word for “mummy,” as well as a word meaning “nobility” and “dignity.” Mojsov explains that Orion was understood to be “the spirit of Osiris,” and sah was also a word that meant “spirit” or “soul.” The number seventy is connected with Orion because that was traditionally the number of days during which the constellation disappeared from the summer night sky over the land of Egypt. This was understood as the time during which Osiris himself underwent his own regeneration process. Mojsov writes that “Mummification was more than the mere preservation of the corpse; by substituting perishable substances with everlasting ones, the body was transfigured and “filled with magic.” It became ‘an Osiris.’ ” [61]
Plutarch’s account of the Osiris myth was written at the end of the era of the Egyptian Mystery Schools when Greek influence brought about the rise of Hermeticism and related beliefs. When Plutarch wrote that there were seventy-two conspirators perhaps this was a late innovation rooted in the desire to connect the myth with the zodiac, with seventy-two being exactly a fifth of 360. The number seventy may be preserved in Plutarch’s account, however, because after the death of Osiris his body is divided into fourteen parts by Seth/Typhon, which is exactly a fifth of seventy, the number of Kosmokrator “gods” among whom the entire world was divided after the death of Nimrod according to the Hebrews.
By whatever route we take we arrive at the fact that Osiris was intimately connected with the appearance of pagan religion in the past, and his reputed burial place at Giza appears as a location intimately associated with the re-appearance of the “gods” in the future, when they are predicted to once again take their positions as direct rulers over humanity.
The End of the “World Powers”
Despite the fact that the Kabbalah erroneously portrays the angelic “world powers” as holy “angels of God,” the medieval Kabbalists remained tied to the primary themes of the Old Testament, themes such as the uniqueness of God’s nation Israel, the numerous promises involving a Messiah or Redeemer figure for Israel (and for the world), and the apocalyptic belief that the “time of the end” would involve judgment on the Gentile nations and the salvation and glorification of Israel. Psalm 2 is an Old Testament passage that speaks of these themes:
“Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One [Heb. mashiach].
“Let us break their chains,” they say, “and throw off their fetters.”
The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.” I will proclaim the decree of the LORD: He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”
Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” (Psalm 2)
This passage predicts that the kings and rulers of the world will one day violently resist God and His Messiah, but they will fail miserably. The end result is that the nations of the world which are presently the possession of the fallen angelic “world powers” will become the possession and “inheritance” of God’s Son, the Messiah. These verses are commented upon within the Kabbalist’s bible, the Zohar:
Volume 9 Beshalach, Section 22, verse 309:
“Rabbi Yitzchak said: This verse refers to the time when The Holy One, blessed be He, will attire Himself with majesty over the nations that shall gather against Him, as it is written: “And the princes take counsel together, against Hashem, and against His anointed” (Tehilim 2:2). As we have learned, seventy generals of armies shall gather from every side at that time with the hosts of the entire world to wage war against Jerusalem, the Holy City, and to plan against the Holy One, blessed be He. What do they say? ‘Let us rise against the protector first, and then against His people and His sanctuary’.”
A. E. Waite was an occult historian, high level Freemason and former member of the Golden Dawn who was also a very serious scholar of the Kabbalah. A brief passage in his book The Holy Kabbalah shows that he understood these apocalyptic themes and predictions which found their way into Kabbalistic teaching from the Old Testament:
“A great king will rise up and will conquer the world. There will be war against Israel, but the chosen people shall be delivered. According to one account, the seventy celestial chiefs who rule the seventy nations of the earth will marshal all the legions of the world to make war on the sacred city of Jerusalem, but they will be exterminated by the power of the Holy One.” [62]
Kabbalistic teaching has many Gnostic, Pagan, and Occult overtones, especially when it comes to communicating with the spirit world as a shortcut to determining the will of God. However, these Torah-forbidden Pagan influences are not enough to overshadow the influence of the Old Testament, which predicts the eventual downfall of the very spirits that the Kabbalist places his faith in as guides of his spiritual quest.
So the question that must be addressed is the final fate of the Kosmokrator “gods.” These “gods” are portrayed by many sources as holy angels, as spiritually evolved “Ascended Masters,” or as benevolent extra-terrestrials, and they are credited as being humanity’s ancient teachers, our future saviors, and even as our original creators. Occult sources including Pagan mythology, Hermetic literature, Aleister Crowley, Helena Blavatsky, Alice Bailey, and channeled messages from UFO cults and New Age mystics, all predict that the “New Age” of peace and enlightenment will come with the appearance of these “gods” to accepted and outward positions in human society. With their guidance it is believed that mankind will spiritually evolve, realize our inherent inner divinity, and finally become the gods that we have always been, just as the Serpent promised in the Garden of Eden.
The Judeo-Christian tradition speaks of a different fate for these “gods” and for the human beings who are deceived into following them. We have already looked at Psalm 82, in which God sits in the Divine Council and judges against the “gods” because they have abused their positions of authority. God says that their final end will be “death” and that the nations will become God’s “inheritance.” Psalm 2, above, similarly explains that the “rulers” of the earth will be destroyed when they resist God and the nations will then become the inheritance of the Messiah.
Daniel 7 is the description of an apocalyptic dream that was given to the Hebrew prophet Daniel who was living in exile in Babylon. In this dream the Gentile nations of the world are represented as four great Beasts and the final Beast represents a kingdom that will conquer the entire world. God is predicted to destroy this Beast, and following that Daniel witnesses the transition of global authority into the hands of a figure who is referred to as a “Son of Man”:
“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13-14)
In the New Testament Jesus of Nazareth claimed that He was this very “Son of Man” mentioned enigmatically by the prophet Daniel, who would “inherit” all the nations of the world. Before His crucifixion Jesus was put on trial by the chief priests of the Sanhedrin. Caiaphas the High Priest demanded of Jesus, “Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” In response Jesus said,
“Yes, it is as you say… But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Matthew 26:64)
Because of this statement the High Priest accused Jesus of blasphemy, Jesus was sentenced to death, and the trial was immediately ended. There was absolutely no question that Jesus was claiming to be the Jewish Messiah who was predicted to one day rule as King over the nations of the world. Afterwards Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate, the Roman ruler in charge of Palestine. Pilate repeated the question that had prompted the death sentence given by the High Priest: “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus replied by saying,
“You are right in saying I am a king. In fact for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” (John 18:37)
However, Jesus prefaced this remark by saying, “My kingdom is not of this world.” What Jesus meant was that His kingdom would first be a spiritual kingdom before becoming a physical earthly kingdom, which will only begin after the defeat, judgment, and destruction of the unholy “world powers.” Foreshadows of this “spiritual kingdom” can be seen in an episode near the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, which reveals that Jesus knew He was dealing with a “world order” ruled by spiritual beings under the authority of Satan.
The Gospel of Luke explains that Jesus appointed seventy disciples to travel ahead of Jesus throughout Israel “to every city and every place.” When they entered a house they were instructed to say “Peace be to this house,” and then to give the message that “The kingdom of God is near you.” Jesus even told these seventy messengers that if they entered a city and were not accepted into any homes then they were to proclaim their message in the streets.
Some of the Greek manuscripts that record this event say that Jesus appointed “seventy-two” disciples for this mission, but whether the actual number was seventy or seventy-two the symbolic intent behind the mission was clear: Jesus was serving notice to the spiritual powers behind the scenes that the Pagan World Order was coming to a close. The era of the “gods” was ending and the “Kingdom of God” would take its place. When the seventy disciples returned to Jesus they joyfully announced to him, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.” Jesus responded to them by saying (Luke 10:18),
“I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”
The spiritual “Kingdom of God” had just been established on earth, at the expense of Satan and the fallen angels. Jesus then went on to explain what this meant to His disciples (Luke 10:19-20, 23-24),
“Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven…
Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see, for I say to you, that many prophets and kings wished to see the things which you see, and did not see them, and to hear the things which you hear, and did not hear them.”
The fallen angels exist as two distinct groups. One group is already chained up in the Abyss and awaits the final judgment. Jude 6-7 connects the fallen angels of this group with the angels that had sexual relations with human women in Genesis 6 which states, “…the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home–these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.” The Apostle Peter also refers to this group of angels bound in the Abyss: “…God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment” (2 Peter 2:4). Throughout the Gospels, when people were cured of demon possession, the demons would often be cast into the Abyss to await their judgment and punishment.
The other group of fallen angels is the group that the Apostle Paul refers to as the “powers of this dark world,” and as the “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). They exist in the heavens from where they attempt to manipulate the affairs of humanity as much as they are able, against the Church which has been given “all power” through the name and authority of Jesus Christ. For the last two thousand years this has been the spiritual struggle that Paul referred to in his letter to the Ephesians.
The book of Revelation explains that one day Satan and his fallen angels will be forcefully evicted from heaven and thrown down to earth, where they will be in control for only a short time before their judgment comes,
“And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down–that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.” (Revelation 12:7-9)
The judgment upon the “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” is predicted by Isaiah the prophet as one of the results of the apocalyptic “Day of the Lord”:
“The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth is thoroughly shaken. The earth reels like a drunkard, it sways like a hut in the wind; so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion that it falls–never to rise again. In that day the LORD will punish the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below. They will be herded together like prisoners bound in a dungeon; they will be shut up in prison and be punished after many days. The moon will be abashed, the sun ashamed; for the LORD Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before its elders, gloriously.” (Isaiah 24:19-23)
The prophet Jeremiah simply states:
“These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.” (Jeremiah 10:11)
The book of Revelation is a detailed account of the final confrontation between God and the “gods” before the Messianic Kingdom is established. Central to this conflict is a document held by God that is described as a Scroll sealed with seven Seals, which many scholars of Bible prophecy believe to be something like a Title Deed to the earth. In the aftermath of the Tower of Babel and the death of Nimrod this Deed became the property of the seventy angelic princes and Satan their leader. That is why Satan was able to tempt Jesus by offering to give Him authority over the kingdoms of the world in Matthew 4. Satan could offer it because it was Satan’s possession to give. That is also why the Kingdom of God is only a spiritual kingdom for now, and “not of this world.”
But one day this world will be taken away from the “gods” and given into the hands of the Son of God. The precise moment that this occurs is shown in Revelation, after the blowing of the seventh Trumpet, which is the final Trumpet released by the breaking of the seventh Seal of the Scroll:
“The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.’ And the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying: ‘We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. The nations were angry; and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great– and for destroying those who destroy the earth.’ ” (Revelation 11:15-18)
Until that moment the earth will still be the physical property of Satan and the fallen angels. Within this system human beings are also the possession of Satan, as harsh as that may sound. Redemption from this terrible situation can only be achieved through faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The book of Revelation explains that it was this divine sacrifice, of the life of the Son of God given on behalf of human beings everywhere, that “purchased men for God”:
“Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders… He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb… And they sang a new song: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.’ “ (Revelation 5:6-10)
The Second Coming of Jesus Christ will put an end to the strange situation that presently exists in our little corner of the universe, of fallen angelic spirits ruling over a fallen earth that is inhabited by fallen human beings. The fallen angels will be cast into the Abyss, judged, and finally destroyed, along with the human beings that they were able to deceive. On the other hand, those who reject the lies and deception of the “world powers,” who embrace the Creator and Jesus Christ as their Savior, will be raised up from their fallen condition and given an eternal life with infinite rewards.
But that is looking into the future. Today the world still exists in its fallen condition, manipulated by spiritual beings that look forward to a brief period when they will enjoy power and authority as they exercised it in the past. The central figure in this brief demonic renaissance is known as the Beast in the book of Revelation, and named the Antichrist by John the Apostle (1 John 2:18). His brief return will be the subject of the seventh and final part of “The Giza Discovery” series.
(For further reading on the Biblical relationship between the nations and the fallen angels see the online series Against World Powers located at http://www.redmoonrising.com/worldpowers/awpindex.htm)
Footnotes
1. Swedenborg quote from “Forerunners to Modern Spiritualism: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)” by Rev. Simeon Stefanidakis, located at http://www.fst.org/spirit2.htm
2. God Crucified : Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament, Richard Bauckham, 1999, pp.9-11
3. For instance, Enlil is portrayed as the creator of mankind in the myth “The Creation of the Hoe” (see Treasures of Darkness, by Thorkild Jacobsen, 1976, p.103), and in “The Curse of Agade” the text speaks of “mankind fashioned by Enlil” (see The Sumerians, by S. N. Kramer, 1963, p.64). However the most descriptive and well-known Sumerian myths credit Enki as the creator of mankind.
4. Legend – the Genesis of Civilisation, David Rohl, 1998, pp.206-207
5. Ibid, pp.345-346
6. The Lost Book of Enki, Zecharia Sitchin, 2002, p.9
7. The 12th Planet, Zecharia Sitchin, 1976, p.370
8. Genesis Revisited, Zecharia Sitchin, 1990, p.202
9. From Laurence Gardner’s website at http://www.graal.co.uk/
10. Genesis of the Grail Kings: The Explosive Story of Genetic Cloning and the Ancient Bloodline of Jesus, Laurence Gardner, 1999, p.82
11. Ibid, pp.118-119
12. Ibid, p.193
13. Ibid, p.120
14. “Secrets of the Cathars” by William Henry, located at:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_autor_whenry04.htm
15. “The Gods of Eden” by Alan Alford, located at:
http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/Articles/Gods%20of%20Eden.html
16. From http://www.exposingchristianity.com/Old%20Testament.html
17. From http://www.freewebs.com/eridu666/Origins.html
18. The Gods of Eden, William Bramley, 1989, p.34
19. The 12th Planet, Zecharia Sitchin, 1976, p.337
20. Dimensions, Jacques Vallee, 1989, p.243
21. Civilization – Past and Present, Scott, Foresman and Company, 1987, pp.10-11
22. Myths of Enki, The Crafty God, Samuel Noah Kramer and John Maier, 1989, p.5
23. Ancient Iraq, Georges Roux, 1964, p.95
24. Historical Atlas of Ancient Mesopotamia, Norman Bancroft Hunt, 2004, p.24
25. Oriental Religions In Roman Paganism, Franz Cumont, 1956 (1911), p.75
26. Myths of Enki, The Crafty God, Samuel Noah Kramer and John Maier, 1989, pp.166-167
27. http://serapis.biography.ms/
28. Oriental Religions In Roman Paganism, Franz Cumont, 1956 (1911), p.75
29. http://www.bibleplaces.com/pergamum.htm
30. “Phoenician Theology,” http://phoenicia.org/theomythology.html
31. “The Nachash and His Seed” by Michael S. Heiser, http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/nachashnotes.pdf
32. “Phoenician Theology,” http://phoenicia.org/theomythology.html
33. “Enki and the World Order,” http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.1.3#
34. Isis and Osiris, Plutarch,
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Isis_and_Osiris*/A.html
35. “Horus the God of Kings,” http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/horus.htm
36. The Ancient Gods Speak – A Guide to Egyptian Religion, Donald B. Redford, 2002, pp.132-134
37. Regarding Deuteronomy 32:8, most Bible versions read “Sons of Israel” which follows the Masoretic text, but the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint, as well as most updated Bible versions read “Sons of God.” See the article Deuteronomy 32:8 and the Sons of God, by Michael S. Heiser (http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/DT32BibSac.pdf) for a detailed argument that “Sons of God” is the original and correct reading.
38. Among the Host of Heaven, Lowell K. Handy, 1994, p.83
39. Hermetica, translated by Brian P. Copenhaver, 1992, p.81
40. Ibid, pp. 231-232
41. Ibid, p.232, citing Egypte, by Franz Cumont, pp.124-5
42. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Frances A. Yates, 1964, p.46
43. The Egyptian Hermes, Garth Fowden, 1986, p.40
44. The Gnostic Religion, Hans Jonas, 1958, pp.43-44
45. Ibid, p. 93
46. Ibid, pp.94-95
47. Ibid, pp.95-96
48. Major Trends In Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem, 1995 (1946), p.88
49. Ibid, p.127
50. “The Kabbalah/Cabbalah,” by Christine Payne-Towler,
http://www.tarot.com/about-tarot/library/essays/kabbalah
51. “THE HERMETIC MAGICK OF THE GREAT MAGUS FRANZ BARDON,”
http://www.glassbeadgame.com/magic.htm
52. http://www.merkurpublishing.com/franz_bardon_hermetics_evocation_kabbalah.htm
53. http://members.cox.net/heru-ra-ha/reviews.htm
54. “A Basic Historico-Chronological Model of the Western Hermetic Tradition,” R.Wy. Frater Trevor Stewart,
http://sric-canada.org/stewartintro.html
55. Ibid.
56. Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods
57. “The Pythagorean Tradition in Freemasonry,” Rev. J. R. Cleland
http://users.ucom.net/~vegan/dormer.htm
58. “The Great Work In Speculative Masonry,” http://www.mt.net/~watcher/greatwork.html
59. http://www.gaiaguys.net/Freemasons-Harpers.htm
60. Symbols of Freemasonry, Daniel Béresniak, 2000 (1997), pp.26-28
61. Osiris: Death and Afterlife of God, Bojana Mojsov, 2005, p.18
62. The Holy Kabbalah, A.E. Waite, 2003 (1929), pp.322-323
Peter Goodgame
December 24, 2005
www.redmoonrising.com