Neo-Platonism vs. Capitalism

[shaberon]

Misfit Egypt


This amazing lair of stoneworkers is a wild child, in the sense that its language shows very little impact from the outside, nor does it appear to stream influence to others.


I've searched the forum for related topics. I thought it was a typical understanding that Zoroastrianism was in some way the underpinning of religion and philosophy, and there is hardly anything on it. Least of all a response from the inside, from a Zoroastrian person. I would say the tradition would benefit from the "Theosophical impulse", i. e., to revive itself from within, and it seems to be self-aware of its relative stagnation since the early 1900s. And so with a closer look, it seems to me, yes, the main nucleus is rather elegant and inspiring, and most of the accretion is diversionary.

So I figured Egypt was more familiar or interesting, and what we have in many posts is a lot of discoveries, recovered artifacts or buildings, etc., and the relevant replies are about advanced technology and aliens, and there is nothing on what the material is actually about.

I don't get it. I grew up with the Book of the Dead, and I have nattered with it but it is difficult, because it is based in a very unique language that has no equivalent of the modern Zoroastrians, no living tradition.

I find the more tangible line of inquiry there is as a big clock, because we can say around 3,200 B. C. E., the temple of Thebes marked the Age of Taurus, even if they did not know it. At that time, the evidence is the knowledge base and technology were dependent on imported Lapis Lazuli, as well as cedar and related woods, on an industrial scale. So it is not isolated from other languages, and, there has to be some level of common understanding in order to function.

Byblos was a major center of trade and a source of wood, oil, wine and lapis lazuli imported to Egypt.

Unlike, I suppose, many modes of inquiry, we are doing a type of detective work about the opening and development of material and spiritual knowledge that is of benefit. When we find it, then, we expect a repercussion from greedy and ignorant forces. And so we are learning how to protect the mind.

The Egyptian saga is not quite so cut-and-dried in its early times.

It shows as a change of the entire civilization. It leaves a new class of evidence, which, itself, is not necessarily a "revelation", because it is just a way of recording parts of the sea of ideas. So when we call something "Coffin Texts", it reflects a popular conversation, which previously existed but may have been narrowly restricted or not quite as developed.

J Mark explains why it should perhaps be called "Coffin Map":

They include the text known as the Book of Two Ways which is the first example of cosmography in ancient Egypt, providing maps of the afterlife and the best way to avoid dangers on one's way to paradise. Egyptologist Geraldine Pinch notes how "these maps, which were usually painted on the floor of the coffins, are the earliest known maps from any culture" and that the Book of Two Ways "was nothing less than an illustrated guidebook to the afterlife". The Book of Two Ways was not a separate work, nor even a book, but detailed maps which corresponded to the rest of the text painted inside the coffin.

It's not cookie cutter. It's Osiris blended with a personalized mix drawn from the overall milieu.


Most of the ideas being painted here are not new, but the fact of them being painted is.

Why should this be remarkable?


The main problem here is that Old Kingdom was a Priest Caste extraordinaire:

Throughout the period of the Old Kingdom, the rulers not only needed to build their own grand tombs but also maintain those of their predecessors. Giza was the royal necropolis of the Old Kingdom monarchs but there was also the pyramid complex at Saqqara, another at Abusir, and others in between. All of these had to be staffed by priests who performed the rituals to honor the dead kings and aid them in their journey in the afterlife.

The priests were given endowments by the king to recite the spells and perform the rituals but, further, were exempt from paying taxes. As the priests owned a great amount of land, this was a significant loss in revenue to the king. During the 5th Dynasty, the king Djedkare Isesi (2414-2375 BCE) decentralized the government and gave more power to the regional governors (nomarchs), who were now able to enrich themselves at the central government's expense. These factors contributed to the collapse of the Old Kingdom toward the end of the 6th Dynasty and initiated the First Intermediate Period.

It is uncannily close to talking about the Roman Church.

Theoretically, mankind should be learning some moral and legal lessons. You just got a major bad example during an era of writing. It doesn't lead to a denial of what those priests were supposed to be about.


As an example of the basic belief:

The Coffin Text spells and incantations reference many gods (most notably Amun-Ra, Shu, Tefnut, and Thoth) but draw on the Osiris Myth consistently.


The soul of the dead participated in Osiris' resurrection because Osiris had been a part of the soul's journey on earth, infused the soul with life, and was also part of the ground, the crops, the river, the home which the person knew in life. Spell 330 states,

Whether I live or die I am Osiris
I enter in and reappear through you
I decay in you
I grow in you...I cover the earth...I am not destroyed

There's no process of change. Suddenly, there simply are numerous claims that Osiris is the afterlife for anyone. By implication, the "myth of Osiris" must have been understood this way already. The "coffin" is just a type of technological change, employed by a changing society. It is not, itself, representative of a "myth cycle", because there are not stories, only spells that imply stories existed.

Apparently, in the time of the Pyramid Texts, there are some additions on behalf of non-royalty, i. e., a sign that Osiris was not "restricted" to Pharaoh. In the words of A Calvert:

From the surviving evidence, however, it is clear that there was a common collection of mortuary rites—equally valid for king and commoner—that were being used by both groups as early as the Fourth Dynasty.

This collection of texts had clearly been in use for quite some time for both royal and non-royal burials before they were inscribed on the walls of Unas’s burial chamber and antechamber. Their goal was to aid the deceased in avoiding decay and to help their spirit ascend to the celestial realm, taking their place among the gods as one of the “imperishable stars.”

Some 200 deities are mentioned in the Pyramid Texts and several of the major mythic themes of Egyptian religion are alluded to (such as the murder of Osiris, the conflict between Horus and Seth, and the daily journey of the sun god). The earliest references to Osiris as king of the netherworld appear as well.

In other words, the first Pyramid Text of Unas implies that the belief system was already mostly mature and distributed. The "spells" call themselves:


dd-mdw (usually translated as “recitation” or “words to be spoken”)


As a modest change in the Coffin Texts:

Another new motif was an expressed desire to reunite with family and loved ones in the afterlife. Apophis, the giant chaos serpent who endangered the course of the sun god’s nocturnal journey through the underworld and had to be defeated every night, makes its first appearance in these spells. Osiris, and the merging of the deceased with this god, increases in importance. Important spells and emphasized words were often written in red to highlight them.

The main element being highlighted is the Feather of Ma'at, failure at which is believed to cause one to cease to exist.


The "Book of the Dead" then merely refers to the use of papyrus from around 1,500 B. C. E., serving as a catch basin for what had come before:

This collection included nearly 200 spells, although individual copies vary greatly in the number of spells they contained.

The spells mention many different deities, but the text was dominated by the gods Ra and Osiris and was focused on outlining the ways that the deceased could become part of the crew on Ra’s solar boat or find a place in Osiris’s court. Spells were set apart by titles in red and many included colophons with specific instructions on their use. These spells were practical in their intent, providing magical assistance to the deceased on their netherworld journey. There appears to have been no required sequence, but there were groupings and preferences that became apparent.


From the beginnings of its history, the afterlife was available to all segments of Egyptian society. What changed over time was the access to practices that were believed to be necessary to successfully achieving full rebirth and an idealized ongoing existence in the afterlife. The afterlife manuals and collections of mortuary spells included with burials and intended to assist the deceased in their netherworld journey became highly personalized and individual. For example, even after the development of the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead, spells from the Pyramid Texts continued to be used until the Late Period by those who chose to include them in their burials. An idealized afterlife as an effective akh was the goal of all Egyptians, no matter their status, and these texts were specifically developed to help make that goal a reality. As such, Egyptians did all they could to include as much of this helpful information in their burials as possible to support them on their dangerous journey to the Field of Reeds.

It seems to me we are getting a lot more detail on something that hasn't changed much.

In response, if someone was trying to "teach" me this, I would wonder how the deceased could benefit from the hieroglyph of a loaf of bread.

The view is very materialistic -- you read the map when you wake up in the coffin. It mas as well be a physical journey, for which you need food and supplies, and as we saw, for ultimate success, you need a staff of priests praying for you centuries after you are gone, and then maybe you are a star.

The closest thing to validity I can get out of it, is, that if you need to be able to recognize doors, remember names, or find friends, you have to remain alert. The opposite of alert is darkness, swoon, a type of nothingness although we would not say it is "everlasting". But that illustrates the basic struggle of consciousness. So rather than act out of fear from being destroyed, the approach should be more like "pay attention".


In a rudimentary sense, the Book of the Dead is exactly like the Rg Veda. A collection of enchantments, visibly drawn from a wider mythology, which itself has no written evidence until later.

Another similarity would be goddess Tefnut, a solar goddess having an "escapade", which does not seem available from the primordial Vedic hymns, but appears to derive from Dirghatamas. India and Egypt have this similar enhancement, it may be done at the same time, it may be done together. The likelihood that Tefnut was a public performance seems apparent, with actors possibly also making sketches on chalkboards. It seems to be generally accepted that the amount of influence on spoken tradition to writings and art grows in the New Kingdom. It likely has an international aspect.


Tefnut:

Tefnut was connected with other leonine goddesses as the Eye of Ra. As a lioness she could display a wrathful aspect and is said to have escaped to Nubia in a rage, jealous of her grandchildren's higher worship. Only after receiving the title "honorable" from Thoth, did she return. In the earlier Pyramid Texts she is said to produce pure waters from her vagina.

Ra is made of two twelve-hour periods, and has a certain place:

The cobra (of Pharaoh, son of Ra), the lioness (daughter of Ra), and the cow (daughter of Ra), are the dominant symbols of the most ancient Egyptian deities. They were female and carried their relationship to the sun atop their heads, and their cults remained active throughout the history of the culture.

The earliest deities associated with the Sun are all goddesses: Wadjet, Sekhmet, Hathor, Nut, Bast, Bat, and Menhit. First Hathor, and then Isis, give birth to and nurse Horus and Ra, respectively. Hathor the horned-cow is one of the 12 daughters of Ra, gifted with joy and is a wet-nurse to Horus.

From at least the 4th Dynasty of ancient Egypt, the Sun was worshiped as the deity Ra (meaning simply 'the sun'), and portrayed as a falcon-headed god surmounted by the solar disk, and surrounded by a serpent. Re supposedly gave warmth to the living body, symbolized as an ankh:

Ra is syncretic, primarily elsewhere in Egypt such as Amun-Re, etc., which is simple enough; Hathor of Byblos is astounding.

In one particular response:

Worship of the Sun is condemned in Ezekiel 8:16-18. Horses and chariots dedicated to the sun are mentioned in 2 Kings 23:11 where they are destroyed by Josiah.

which comes around the 600s B. C. E..


So, we can only partially change the myths at times, since what happened in Egypt is not a schism like that, but more of a question of whether New Kingdom represents a "better system" than Priest Caste.

That means what happens is, where we first marked the clock around 3,200 B. C. E., with Spica, the Sceptre, Waset, Thebes, later Luxor, is the capital of this "New Kingdom", and remains the "spiritual center" until the Hellenistic period. This new prominence was essentially brought by
Osiris ca. 2,060 - 2,009 B. C. E. and:

The city attracted peoples such as the Babylonians, the Mitanni, the Hittites of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), the Canaanites of Ugarit, the Phoenicians of Byblos and Tyre, and the Minoans from the island of Crete.

So the Egyptian New Kingdom is based on outer relations to the Minoan Temple system. There, we recognize its replacement by the Mycenean Palace system, which is another lesson in bad government pertaining more to commerce and oppression of labor. At least temporarily, this makes a league with the Phoenicians from:

gwb, gwbˀ (goḇ, gubbā) n.m.
well, cistern


of El.

Unlike normal language, such as for the king, mlk gbl, which is divided, the Phoenician script for Our Lady is a single run-on word, bltgbl.


This is a simple proposition about communication between languages.

As an organism, I can't quite deny that the sun is the source of my life and energy, and, I can accept this is just on the material plane, so, there should correspondingly be a mental sun on the plane of Immortality. I am prone to run with a hypostasis of the sun into multiple roles or different deities, and I would expect other people to say the same in different languages.

Hittite Queen Puduḫepa mentions her in her prayers using both names:

Sun goddess of Arinna, my lady, queen of all lands! In the Land of Ḫatti, you ordained your name to be the "Sun goddess of Arinna", but also in the land which you have made the land of the cedar, you ordained your name to be Ḫepat.

— CTH 384

or:

The Ugaritic texts reveal significant parallels between the goddesses Athirat and Shapshu, suggesting a possible identification. Both are referred to as "Queen" (rbt), a title signifying supreme authority in the pantheon, and they are described as mothers of the gods, key figures in creation, and central to maintaining cosmic order. Athirat’s epithet rbt ˀaṯrt ym has traditionally been interpreted as "Lady Athirat of the Sea," but recent analyses propose that ym might mean "day" instead of "sea." This reading aligns with Athirat’s name (ˀaṯrt), meaning "the one who goes," reflecting the sun’s journey across the sky.

Another significant reason for this conflation would be a passage found in Ugaritic inscription K1.23 which describes the myth known as The Gracious and Most Beautiful Gods. In this text, twins Shahar (dawn) and Shalim (dusk) are described as offspring of El through two women he meets at the seashore. The brothers are both nursed by "The Lady", likely Asherah and in other Ugaritic texts, the two are associated with the sun goddess Shapshu.


As ʾAṯirat (Qatabanian: 𐩱𐩻𐩧𐩩 ʾṯrt) she was attested in pre-Islamic south Arabia as the consort of the moon-god ʿAmm.

With the "Mycenean collapse", there is another decline, until, around 300 B. C. E. as "Serapis" and Parthian syncretism, there is perhaps another round of "conversation" until about the 300s when the west permanently achieves the mutual anathema of current existence. Contrastingly, the east had Pax Kushana with Buddhist literature and other kinds.


From that point, the interest becomes that of Hellenization. Ruminating a vault of artifacts at The Met, Serapis is plainly given the Greek aspects of Hades and Agathodaimon.


The Egyptian Herakles:


Harpokrates, or "Horus the child," the son of Isis and Osiris/Serapis



On an exquisite gold bracelet, the following is conjoined with the interpretation of Isis as Tyche - Fortuna:


Serapis is flanked by Demeter with her torch and Isis who appears to hold a cornucopia. Behind Demeter is Thermouthis, the Egyptian agrarian snake-deity Renenutet. Behind Isis is Agathodaimon, a Greco-Roman benificent snake deity who received a cult in Egypt; he wears a white crown and a beard.

Isis and Demeter were associated in the Greco-Roman Period, while the snake Agathodaimon is associated with Serapis, and Thermouthis with Isis.







Here, I, at least, get the sense of Demeter invited *into* Egypt, and Isis/Tyche/Fortuna "sent out" with Agathodaimon towards Herakles or the wider Greek syncretism.

We started with Goddess Fortuna on page one of this thread.


As a funerary image, there is a double-sided stela with Serapis opposite Serpent Isis Hathor with Harpokrates under an image of the deceased.

The parents may correspond to Etruscan Saturn and Ops; his gesture is hieroglyphic for "child", not "silence". Greco-Romans imposed their default understanding over an old symbol.


This "child" aspect is not quite "original Horus", but, most likely, a newer immanence:

...the actual name first appears late on in Egyptian history, in the 21st dynasty, ca. 1070 BC. It first appears associated with the iconography of Harpokrates in the 22nd dynasty, in the reign of Sheshonq III (835-785 BC). The name of Harpokrates appears for the first time in Phoenician and Aramaic in the 5th century.

No, it does not necessarily have to have its own individual temple or priest cult, etc., just as with Qudshu we are basically showing mutual comprehension. That "gutting" sounds in keeping with the "decline and restoration" of cultural bonds.

What seems apparent is that "foreigners" were never fluent in hieroglyphics.

I would say that conditions half or more of old translating work, that is, there is no malicious intent, but it is like a Swiss cheese riddled with innumerable simple mistakes.


If this New Kingdom at least superficially matches the Age of Aries, then, it would probably be mostly correct to categorize Pisces as an era when the foregoing meshed with Iranian or Zoroastrian thought. I think you could reasonably describe Egypt as witnessing these three Ages.


The outflow of Serapis through those Roman pieces is bewildering. He goes in a pack, or, there are plenty of individual images as well. It covers the span from the most basic to the most expensive kinds of articles.

One particularly detailed example is a Jasper intaglio.

On the obverse, Ouroboros enclosing Serapis on throne above a crocodile; above, scarab; below, mummy of Osiris carried on the back of a lion. On the reverse side, scarabs, hawks, goats, crocodiles, snakes, grouped in threes.












Visually, we would tend to agree Serapis is on a ca. 200s Kushan near Balkh terra cotta panel.





As to The Met independently identifying him with or as Ohramazd, Persian for Ahura Mazda, is not explained.

The Balkh region simply had a Greek community, it was just Greek that had Greek things in the same time and place as Iranic and Buddhist ones. So then what is truly unusual here is that it shows a non-noble, typical Iranic person as the artistic equivalent of a "Shah" making tribute to a plainly Greek Serapis. That does not imply Zoroastrianism.


In actuality, the Achemenid period mostly indicates Persian hostility towards Egyptian cults. The ethnic name for old enemies remained in a transitional manner until:

Toward the end of the 2nd century B.C.E. Persēs tēs epigonēs took on a new, purely legal meaning in the papyri, designating a category of debtors, a meaning that remained current until the end of the 2nd century C.E. At that time the term went out of use, and neither ethnic nor military status played a role in the designation Persēs.

Pisces is a slight rejoinder:

Direct connections between the Egyptian Red Sea ports and India developed during the last phase of Ptolemaic rule and became a regular feature after the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 B.C.E. (Sidebotham; Harrauer and Sijpesteijn; Casson). Some of the trade between Egypt and the east must have been conducted via overland routes through Parthian territory and regions controlled by the Palmyrenes and Nabateans (Johnson, pp. 335-54). This hypothesis is supported by a famous passage in a speech by the Greek orator Dio Chrysostomus to the people of Alexandria (early 2nd century C.E.), in which he mentioned Syrian, Arab, Bactrian, Scythian, and Persian visitors to the city in the context of its wide range of commercial links (32.37-38, 32.40).

Cleopatra was said to have been able to communicate with Medes and Parthians in their native languages (Plutarch, Antony, 27). Among isolated testimony to a Persian presence in Ptolemaic Egypt the epitaph of Dioscorides for the slave Euphrates, who, if the epitaph is not a fiction, may actually have existed, is one of the most characteristic: “Burn not Euphrates, nor defile Fire for me, I am a Persian as my fathers were, a Persian of pure stock, yea, master: to defile Fire is for us bitterer than cruel death. But wrap me up and lay me in the ground, washing not my corpse; I worship rivers also, master” (Paton, 7.162; cf. Fraser, 1972, I, pp. 279-80, II, pp. 435 n. 742, 436 n. 745 ). On the other hand, ancient authors provided some famous but very dubious information on the cult of the Egyptian god Serapis in Babylonia at the time of Alexander the Great and in Syrian Seleucia at the time of Ptolemy III, in the mid-3rd century B.C.E. (Tacitus, Historiae 4.84; cf. Fauth, pp. 198-99). The indisputable evidence of a Greek inscription of the period 281-61 B.C.E. from the region of Gorgān, southeast of the Caspian Sea, includes mention of the god Serapis in a semiofficial context (Robert, pp. 85-91; Fraser, 1967, pp. 29 ff.).

There is greater tolerance when Hariti is the Plague of Marcus Aurelius 166:

One should not, however, suppose that the Kushans themselves professed Buddhism, and the predominance of coin types reflecting a variety of Iranian religion suggests that they practiced an eclectic form of Zoroastrianism. Specific to that faith were renderings of three of the six Amahraspands (see AMƎŠA SPƎNTA), Šaoreoro (Šahrewar), Ashaeixsho, and Manaobago, if the last two are correctly identified with Ardwahišt and Wahman. At the same time, representations of “pagan Iranian” or possibly Mithraic deities, such as Mithra, Nana, Vərəƒraγna (Orlagno, Wahrām “Mars”), and Tīr “Mercury” (not Tistriya “Sirius,” as later conceived) are prominent. The figuring of Vēš “Vayu” in the form of the Brahmanical Śiva was already mentioned. Several classical deities appear, including Serapis (Göbl, p. 69; photo no. 185) and Heracles. Again, there are several enigmatic figures such as Mozdooano (probably not identical with Ahura Mazdā) with his two-headed horse. Ahura Mazdā, the supreme deity of Zoroastrianism, is in fact a rare type, if reported specimens are genuine at all (Göbl, p. 65).

In other words, we don't find anyone taking any ancient mantra of Ahura Mazda, adding "and today you are also Serapis". It's a bilateral image, not the tripartite Egyptian kind that looks like peace treaties. It *may* have to do with that level of acceptance, by *someone*, but so far it mostly appears to show tolerance.


Increasing prominence is actually given to Shiva, who:

...in Bactrian, for the Kushans, was OHÞO Vēš, corresponding to the Iranian wind-god Vayu. Since Śiva “the Destroyer” had clearly some aspects of an underworld god, one may understand this aspect of the identification. On the Kushano-Sasanian coins with Pahlavi inscriptions, the corresponding deity seems to be Mithra...

and a possible confusion of "mega" with "maga":

The most prominent coin series following on the demise of Kujula is that which has been called that of the Nameless King, since it bears merely the Greek titles Basileùs Basiléōn Sōtēr Mégas “King of Kings, Great Savior.” Also, several Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions datable after the middle of the first century CE appear not to name the reigning Kushan emperor, referring only to “The King of Kings, son of the God(s), the Kushan.”

Kujula, the first or Kushan founder, possibly already a devotee of Shiva, is portrayed as Hermes Herakles.


This makes sense as a later, additional detail beyond Osiris.

Thoth gradually became seen as a god of wisdom, magic, and the measurement and regulation of events and of time. He was thus said to be the secretary and counselor of the Sun god Ra, and with Ma'at (truth/order) stood next to Ra on the nightly voyage across the sky.

During the Late Period of ancient Egypt, a cult of Thoth gained prominence due to its main center, Khmun (Hermopolis Magna), also becoming the capital.

So this is post-Achemenid attack:

His designation in inscriptions was "The Lord of Eshmoon". This portico was a work of the Pharaonic era, but the erections of the Ptolemies at Hermopolis were on a scale of great extent and magnificence and, although raised by Greek monarchs, are essentially Egyptian in their conception and execution.

In broaching these subjects, Theosophy is a good starting point, but incomplete. With respect to QDS as we have examined it, she is able to deliver the "slander" and the "Mandean" versions:


Qodesh (Hebrew) Qodesh Also Kedosh, Kedesh. Holiness, sanctity; a holy place, sanctuary; that which is holy or consecrated. The feminine plural, Qedeshoth, and masculine plural, Qedeshim, in Biblical times referred to the women and men of degenerate times who were attached to certain temples as temple servants, the women here being equivalent to the nachnis (nautch-girls of the Hindu pagodas) or temple prostitutes. The men were “Galli, the mutilated priests of the lascivious rites of Venus Astarte, who lived ‘by the house of the Lord’ ” (TG 169).

Qodesh Qodashim The “holy of holies” in the temple; while in the Zohar the Holy Ancient one is called ‘Attiqa’ Qaddisha. In the Codex Nazaraeus the sun was named Kadush (holy).



With "Chrestos" she gives us the basic argument, but does not cite any sources. I'm not sure anyone else does either, in the sense that we are suddenly told christos = messiah by the authorities. Let's pause there and note "messiah" was an extant word for centuries that has had opportunity to be discussed. As to the root word, here is the more likely cognate:

khrio (χρῑ́ω)

ghṛtá (घृत)


To this day, attempts to narrow it down by attestations lie in the realm of conjecture.

The Spetuagint translates all 39 instances of "messiah" as "christos".

Chrestos is attested as a personal name in Egypt by around ca. 300 b. C. E..


chreston as chicory by Pliny


In Herbology:

Phing called the wild plant Cichorium, Chreston (useful), Pancration (all powerful) and Ambubara or Ambubeia. It was supposed to be a panacea and to have the property of fixing the affections. The Syrian dancing girls, whom Cneius Manlius first brought to Rome, were also called Ambubaia on account of their attractive allurements. Ambubaia is a Syrian term, but the component parts of it, 'Ambui'- 'odor' and 'Baia'- 'full', occur in old Persia. Together they signify ' full of odours', i.e. allurements.

which, of course, is what I was looking for, since it refutes the "slander" of nautch-girls. Nevertheless, they may not always have worn many clothes, or any clothes, and there may have been a sexual aspect, however in the main we see it revolves on medicine. And this would match how it goes in India.

From this same question, there is however a dig at other references starting from Homeric:


It is used by Homer as applied to the rubbing with oil of the body
after bathing (Il. 23, 186; also in Od., 4, 252). Yet the word
Christes means rather a white-washer, while the word Chrestes
means priest and prophet...

Demosthenes saying [o Chreste] (330, 27),
means by it simply "you nice fellow";
Demosthenes, De Corona, 313, declares that
the candidates for initiation
into the Greek mysteries were anointed with oil.


Philo Judaeus speaks of theochrestos "God-declared,"
or one who is declared by god, and of
logia theochresta "sayings delivered by God" --
which proves that he wrote at a time
when neither Christians nor Chrestians were yet known
under these names, but still called themselves the Nazarenes.


It turns out the Glossary is using similar references, so, in Greek, there is sort of an array of usages of the vocabulary, which is therefor not "brand new" in Abrahamic scriptures.

It's not obscure. There is a difference between regular hygiene, the state of prophecy, and the installation ceremony of a monarch. Therefor, there would be similar vocabulary, that varies by context.

Christos as Messiah is an arbitrary declaration from Jews ca. 300 B. C. E.; and then if applied to Jesus, "messiah" has to be re-defined as meaning the future, and then again meaning the indefinite future. He lacks any ceremony to correspond to that meaning.



It may be that the discrepancy is agadic:

The word usually translated as “Christ” in the New Testament is represented in the Sinaiticus by the abbreviations XC or XPC, which are used to denote “Chrestos” as well. Thus, the Sinaiticus could be all about “Jesus [the] Chrest,” not “Jesus Christ.” Interestingly, however, where the words “antichrist” and “antichrists” appear in the Sinaiticus MS, such as at 1 John 2:18, 2:22, 4:3, the relevant word is clearly christos. This fact is indicative of the separate but related factions using the two epithets at the same time, at least by the time the Sinaiticus was written.

That is to say, the midrashic tendency deliberately plays on the similar sounds, provoking discord. It may be that there are "Serapis Christians" as well as "Church Chrestians"; while the semantic quarrel might, in some way, be negotiated, the issue comes down to how the name "Jesus" interfaces with it. Obviously, the camp following Peter lies to one side of the pun:

The evidence points to two separate strains of Christianity in this regard, of which one was based on “Jesus the Chrest,” the followers of whom were styled “Chrestians,” the term in the oldest extant manuscript of the Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus (c. 350), used to describe those whom perceive of as “Christians,” as at Acts 11:26, 26:28; and 1 Peter 4:16.

Paul may have spoken of "Christ", that had nothing to do with Jesus. At any rate, there is no need to un-word "christos" as not having any special significance before Jesus; it did. We, of course, have probably lost the best resources, after the Serapeum and Hypatia there were practically no more devotees in the early 400s

The so-called "Fayum portraits," named after the oasis south of Cairo where the greatest number have been found, are extraordinary artifacts from the classical world. Painted on thin curved panels of lime wood in encaustic (melted wax in which pigment has been mixed, and applied with a brush or spatula) or less often in tempera on linen, these naturalistic portraits were placed over the face of the mummy's wrapped shroud. A unique art form, which flourished in Roman Egypt from the first to the third century AD, it combines the Greek tradition of painting with the Egyptian custom of mummifying the dead.

This image was found at Hawara, the necropolis of Arsinoe, named after the sister and wife of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, and the most important site for Fayum portraits. It depicts a priest of Serapis, who can be recognized by the characteristic seven-pointed star on his diadem, as well as the three locks of hair below it. The portrait dates from early in the reign of Antoninus Pius (AD 138-61) and now is in the British Museum.

Egypt has two other serapeums, the Saqqara necropolis of Apis Bulls, and at Canopus on the delta:

Auxiliary shrines dedicated to other, less universal, Egyptian deities could be found here as well, including those dedicated to Anubis (Hermanubis), Hermes Trismegistus, the syncretism of Thoth and Hermes, Harpocrates, and others. Ritual complexes dedicated to Isis were often built around a well or a spring, which was meant to represent the miraculous annual inundation of the Nile. This was also the case in sanctuaries devoted to the Egyptian gods in Roman-era Delos, where a central basin provided the water element central in the rites of Isis.


A temple to Osiris was built by king Ptolemy III Euergetes, but according to Herodotus, very near to Canopus was an older shrine,[n 2] a temple of Heracles that served as an asylum for fugitive slaves. Osiris was worshipped at Canopus under a peculiar form: that of a vase with a human head.

The ancient city of Canopus is attested to, in part, by the Decree of Canopus. The decree mentions the temple of Canopus and an important rite in which, once a year, [an effigy of] Osiris is transported from Heracleium to Canopus. Specifically, the decree says, "...to consecrate the same goddess like Osiris, in the temple of Canopus,...we shall draw along Osiris during the drawing along of the barge to the same temple, at the season of the year, from the temple which is in Heracleium, on the twenty-ninth of the month of Choac".

Now under the sea, there was, in fact, a ceremonial canal, and a massive Osiris Barge used for the event.

The tri-lingual Decree 238 B. C. E. refers to returning statues plundered by the Persians, and installs the most accurate solar calendar of 365 1/4 days.


The reason given was that the rise of Sothis advances to another day in every 4 years, so that attaching the beginning of the year to the heliacal rising of the star Sirius would keep the calendar synchronized with the seasons.

That's basically the standard of modern timekeeping. Hipparchus advanced the mathematics, and the Julian and Gregorian versions superseded the original concept, but the Decree of Canopus definitively outlines the slipping year, or twisting stellar deities, in the framework we still use.

The relatively new Hermes moves out here into the syncretism of Trismegistus and Herakles, which, so to speak, makes attachments to the Greco-Abrahamic and Greco-Parthian systems.

That seems to be a complete strategic shift. The Parthian era opens some amount of the fountain of Egypt, such that Serapis is painted on some Kushan building. It appears the actual "cultic input" is by Hermes--Thoth as adjunct to Herakles. That makes sense, if we consider the Apis Bull as native to Egypt. Hermes is effectively Thoth learning to speak Greek.


That this enables him to travel is seen on Hermes Pallas coinage ca. 240 B. C. E..

There was the relatively powerful Hermaeus Soter of Afghanistan, ca. 90-70 B. C. E., influential to Kujula.


This is just as soon Thoth from Anatolia to Bactria:

In the kingdom of Commagene on the upper Euphrates, royal steles carved under Antiochus I between 62 and 37 BCE show the king clasping hands with “Mithra-Helios-Apollo-Hermes,” who is named in the accompanying Greek inscriptions; the god is dressed in Iranian costume, with rays radiating from a high curved Iranian tiara (which was later on to be adapted as a Phrygian cap in the iconography of the Greco-Roman Mithras). In the Kushan empire Mithra is among the deities most frequently depicted on the coinage, always as a young solar god. This type appears first on the obverse of coins of Soter Megas (ca. 80-100 CE), where his head in profile replaces that of the king, a choice which perhaps echoes the king’s (Mithraic?) title Soter Megas “the Savior, the Great” always used instead of his personal name.

After an eclipse under Vima Kadphises, who promoted a Shivaite cult, Mithra reappears prominently under Kanishka I (127- ca. 153), when he is labeled first in Greek as Helios, then in Bactrian as Mihr (written Miuro, Miiro, Mirro, etc.); he keeps a similar position on the coinage of Huviška (ca. 153-91). On these coins he is never shown in a chariot, but standing, always with a rayed nimbus, an Iranian dress (tunic, cloak, boots) and warrior’s attributes (a sword, often a spear). He is most often brandishing a torque (FIGURE 2) or a ribboned wreath, both of which can be interpreted as symbolizing the royal investiture or perhaps more specifically the royal xvarənah.

He gives the Caduceus to multiple generations of Parthian coins, and is Kushan Pharro.


Again, at the most basic level, we are thinking of The Year in the modern sense. A somewhat common civil calendar everywhere. That part has actually happened.

We don't think every householder was an expert in libraries of Hermes Trismegistus, but, there must have been some kind of traffic.

We would not say an expert level of advanced theology and spiritual exercises ever manifested, but, such things have minorities of seekers in various places.


With this, lots of new discoveries have been made, and yet there is still hardly any narrative, there is no structure or doctrinal canon, and about the most that can be said is that such things are "implied" or "confined to oral tradition". That makes it dangerous to make any assertions. It is far easier to start this process in the Rg Veda, where the "narrative" is sort of blown to smithereens, like the body of Osiris, and recoverable. Egypt has minor use of "historiolas", small narratives that explain a new deity or action, that are more prevalent in other cultures. One of the best examples is Aramaic Uruk ca. 150 B. C. E., which shares a figure of speech with Ezra.

Generations of Egyptologists have been unable to come up with a starting point or any coherent attempt at a "complete, mature" mythology -- everything is all features, not explanations. From the long overview, we are reduced to only a couple of consistent themes, Ma'at and the Eye of the Sun retreating to Nubia:

In the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC), minor myths developed around deities like Yam and Anat who had been adopted from Canaanite religion. In contrast, during the Greek and Roman eras (332 BC–641 AD), Greco-Roman culture had little influence on Egyptian mythology.

Perhaps the better storytelling and descriptions are Canaanite -- and in the Late Period, there is greater reason to suppose that Thoth was informative *to* Hermes. Otherwise, there is still not really even an understanding of "wasr", although in the Coffin Texts there is the new expression Osiris of N..


If that is somewhat unsatisfying for practical mysticism, Egypt is still a clock on a grand scale, which, strongly connected to Byblos the whole time, for the most part *does* establish "intellectual cycles":



3,200 B. C. E., Thebes and the marker Spica, followed by a Priest Caste and a "dark age" of about 125 years, similar to Taurus


Mentuhotep II and Eleventh Dynasty ca. 2,000 B. C. E., involving social reforms and a better "international conversation", similar to Aries, having some examples of Wisdom Literature as begun in Sumeria


Decree of Canopus 238 B. C. E., giving the Year and syncretization of Hermes, mending Persian affairs, with Rosetta Stone Decree 196 B. C. E. on tax relief and amnesty, similar to Pisces; Hermetica is now generally held to be Egyptian in origin, attested at Nag Hammadi and in a few fragments



So it may be clarifying to see how the Egyptian emphasis of Hermes and Sirius relates to the Parthian examples of these:

Also the Iranian names of the planets confirm the influence of a Babylonian pattern—one that was also followed by the Greeks. Tīriya, for instance, was worshipped in western Iran, where he played a role corresponding to that of the Egyptian Thoth and the Babylonian Nabû, the patron of the scribes. All these gods, like Hermes for the Greeks, were associated with the planet “Mercury,” which in Middle Persian was named Tīr.

They originally had no planets. Going from the image of Sirius -- Arrow:


This image was already present in the Mesopotamian celestial lore, where Sirius was named KAK-SI-SÁ “arrow” in Sumerian and šiltaḫu or šukūdu “arrow” in Akkadian


If there quite possibly is a "Sirius Yasht", its adversaries are Apaosa, and possibly a seasonal burst of shooting stars:

It is worthwhile to recall that in later times Tištar and the planet Tīr (which is sometimes by folk etymology erroneously associated with the meaning “arrow” of Mid. Pers. tīr, which actually derives from OIr. *tigra-/i-) became direct antagonists, but a strange and complex relation actually existed between them. Already in Mesopotamian texts the Sumerian name of Sirius (KAK-SI-SÁ) was sometimes used also for that of the planet Mercury. In addition, the god of the planet Mercury, Tīriya in western Iran, a protector of the scribes, as in the parallel cases of Thoth-Mercury in Egypt and Nabû-Mercury in Babylon (Panaino, 1995, pp. 62-85), probably was associated with Tištrya, but after the (later) demonization of the planets he became a demon (see tir). Relics of the original positive role of Tīriya can be seen in the Pahlavi tradition which assumes that Tištar and Tīr were the same being (Ir. Bd. V, B, 12), while the same source contrariwise states that Tīr should correspond to Apōš; the later and modern well known custom, still extant among Zoroastrians, to call Tīr Yašt the hymn to Tištrya attests to a direct identification of the two names and beings.

...in the astronomical and astrological chapters of the Bundahišn (chaps. II and V; see Henning, 1942; MacKenzie, 1956; Raffaelli, 2001), where he plays the role of direct antagonist of the planet Tīr and the leader of the fixed stars of the Eastern quarter (Tištar xwarāsān spāhbed), but under the general command of the Pole Star. Also important is the account about the cycle of Tištar as summarized in the Anthology of Zādsparam 3.7-17. The Dādestān ī Dēnīg 92, gives an additional description of the liberation of the waters and rains (Gignoux, 1988).

Iranian Sirius is not necessarily the same as a Vedic entity, but, rather, has a certain role, raising a theological issue that a deity fails without some input:

Tištrya is the Iranian protagonist of the myth of the liberation of the waters, which, at least to a certain extent, could be structurally and functionally compared with that of Vedic Indra Vṛtrahā´n; the parallel passages in Yt. 8.56-61 and 14.48-53 (Wahrām Yašt) have been discussed in this Indo-Iranian framework...


The two champions appear in the body of a horse, but while Tištrya is a beautiful white stallion (auruša-), his antagonist is a black (sāma-), glabrous, and horrible horse. It is possible—but the passage is unclear (see Yt. 8.8)—that also the Vouru.kaṧa assumes the form of a mare, for whose possession the two male horses come to fight. Before the combat Tištrya assumes three diferent avataras, taking ten days for each; he successively changes the form of his body into a fifteen-year-old man, a bull with golden horns, and finally a splendid white horse. These three transformations (which correspond to three of Vərəθrγna’s avataras) probably should astronomically cover the period beginning with the heliacal rising of the star Sirius in July and lasting till the first appearance of the meteor showers between August and September.

So he is adjunct to the Sraosa Youth Form.

In the way that the Veda and Avesta share an identical "Indo-Iranian myth" with Tvastr and the Waters, Vrtrahan, though present in both, works differently.

Iranian Sirius would mark that region's rainy season, like the Ibex, contrasted to the flooding of the Nile, which would again be slightly different in India.



Just to run it by our larger genetic clock, we can say that Mal'ta Buret shows a variety of art or cultural symbolism not found at Sintashta. It is not the oldest genetic sample, but, a curiously pure specimen that *does* appear through Sintashta. There is a split in the male line:


a split between the Indian and Caucasus/European R1a lineages occurring about 16,500 years ago



And then number one on the map shows this "proto-Sintashta" individual:

The ancient DNA record has shown the first R1a during the Mesolithic in Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (from Eastern Europe, c. 13,000 years ago), and the earliest case of R* among Upper Paleolithic Ancient North Eurasians [Mal'ta Buret]


...no R1a1a has been found in their Yamnaya samples. This raises the question where the R1a1a in the Corded Ware culture came from, if it was not from the Yamnaya culture.

A male EHG of the Veretye culture buried at Peschanitsa near Lake Lacha in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia c. 10,700 BCE was found to be a carrier of the paternal haplogroup R1a5-YP1301 and the maternal haplogroup U4a. A male, named PES001, from Peschanitsa in northwestern Russia was found to carry R1a5, and dates to at least 10,600 years ago.

Somehow, a near-photocopy of this person continues in Sintashta around 2,300 B. C. E., and is preserved in the Chitrali Kalash, although as of yet we cannot determine their arrival in this region -- yet they fairly clearly speak "proto-Sanskrit".

[shaberon]

"Syncretic Deity" and Saturn



This is giving us some un-learning and re-learning, such as Mars is not exactly "War" so much as "Victory", which obviously leads to other, symbolic interpretations.

The phrase "Wisdom Religion" -- intentionally or otherwise -- translates "Mazda Yasna", which is unable to demonstrate great antiquity.

Wisdom Literature is a modern classification that separates Egypt and Sumeria, due to age, from other cultures that do not reflect this until around 1,500 B. C. E..


The Sumerian is seen as foundational to Biblical Works such as Job, Genesis, the Ten Commandments, and Book of Proverbs. It has advice to flood hero Utnapishtim, the Good Shepherd, and the teaching of Jesus from Kassite Babylonia:


"Do not return evil to the man who disputes with you; requite with kindness your evil-doer... smile on your adversary."


Or Shammash as a friend of the poor.


In Egypt, "teachings, instructions" are known as Sebayt. Some of these works were continuously propagated for 1,500 years. One example comes from Vizier Ptahotep, ca. 2,350 B. C. E., roughly contemporaneous with Naram-Sin. On the summary page, the translations tell us the Egyptians were about God, but the Egyptians never heard of God -- this should be un-translated:



Neter



Writing it that way makes it sound like Bible quotes; maybe a little better. If we go to the complete bi-lingual version of Ptahotep, I might believe I was listening to Buddha or Zoroaster:



14 (Papyrus Prisse column 7, lines 9-10)

Sms ib.k tr n wnn.k
m ir HAw Hr mddwt
m xb tr n Sms ib
bwt kA pw HDt At.f
m HAw n grg-pr
xpr xt Sms ib
nn km n xt iw sfA.f

Follow your heart as long as you live.
Do not make a loss on what is said,
do not subtract time from following the heart.
Harming its time is an offence to the ka.
Do not deflect the moment of every day
beyond establishing your heart.
As things happen, follow (your) heart.
There is no profit in things if it is stifled.



In other areas, you find much value in silence, the dangers of poverty, and the importance of having a noble character. Ptahotep lived to 96; which is significant with the maxim that one is not born with wisdom, you obtain it from experience. He is conceptually close to Melchizedek and most of this is being transmitted to his own son.


Other Egyptian literature uses "confessional" terminology, like "I follow my mouth all day like a cow after grass".

Clearly, something amounts to a "teaching", and, since they start with the core, the Heart, their wisdom is basically true and there is some forgiveness on fine details, such as an "earth image" of afterlife is better than ignoring it. By analogy, I have to consider such a thing as a bridge to a realm that is perhaps more subtle. And, it is difficult to research information, since, after all, it is the plane of death, not readily apparent to the senses. Being something difficult to experience, let alone discuss, then perhaps that is why it might be more apparent in the later Hermetic era.

Then we notice the "teachings" of scripture are meager, the closest thing would be Apocryphal, but then also Gnostic.

So, this is a rare, difficult discussion, that happens to be of extreme interest to a certain temperament. Just an ongoing inquiry through consciousness into nature and reality, different states of being.


The difficulty in maintaining a stable, consistent "level of meaning" is as in this review of the Gospel of Thomas:

In its opening words the Gospel of Thomas offers a stunning hermeneutic challenge: "whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death." Unfortunately, modern reader comes to this incipit devoid of a technique of interpretive reading -- an hermeneutics -- that grants entry into the mysterious meaning vouchsafed by such words.

The question I pose is this: Was there an original tradition of interpretation – a hermeneutic technique – implicit in early transmissions of the Thomas tradition that gave an organic coherence to readings of the text, and if so, is that hermeneutic method still accessible? Can modern readers meet the challenge of the Thomas incipit?

...

I suggest that at a very early stage in the development of the Christian tradition there were disciples who gave primacy to an anagogical hermeneutics – a hermeneutics I choose to call "the hermeneutics of vision". In my comments above I have briefly indicated evidences that might suggest existence of a visionary hermeneutics within the early Jesus movement. I further suggest this hermeneutics of vision persisted as an accepted form of tradition into the second century and was organically linked to development of what later was termed Gnosticism. Within Jewish culture, it found independent early expression in Merkabah mysticism and then a later and more general acknowledgment in Kabbalah.

It is my opinion that the Gospel of Thomas represents an early ramus of this tradition – a tradition which predated Jesus and flourished under his influence. This tradition is defined by its hermeneutics: Only one who understands the method of interpretation will understand the message. It is a psychological paradox: the message is the method; the method is vision – a perceptive, spiritually uplifted, visionary encounter with the message. The Words of the Living Jesus presented in Thomas became doorways to an experience of knowing. Implicitly and explicitly, they demand from their interpreter an anagogical hermeneutics – a technique of interpretation vouchsafed by vision. This argument does not date the origins of Thomas into a second century "Gnostic milieu" but rather asserts the hermeneutics of vision that engendered Gnostic Christianity was taking form around Jesus at a very early date.

A tradition of visionary hermeneutics might actually tend to preserve the integrity of a text more faithfully than did traditions of textual transmission focused on literal, moral or allegorical interpretation. By anagogically placing meaning above the concreteness of words, there was arguably less motive for a redactor familiar with anagogical tradition to reform the text in order to achieve conformity with literal (and temporally mutable) dogmatic demands. I suggest for this reason that the synoptic tradition was probably less stable within its provenances than were the logion of Thomas within their lineage of transmission. Within the vision tradition, the words of the Living Jesus were endowed with a spiritual or magical potential – they had intrinsic transformative power.

Secular discussions of Thomas usually become mired in moral, literal and allegorical techniques of interpretation, accompanied by their sociological congeners. The hermeneus who will meet the challenge of the Gospel of Thomas’ incipit needs enlist another type of hermeneutic technique – a technique hidden and obvious, ancient and modern, simple and complex. Unfortunately our human record documents well that this technique avails only those who have ears attuned to hear it. Without the grace of that gift, the hermeneutics of vision is an obscure and meaningless concept.

It's easier to call it a "conversation". Of course it had come up before and since. If we find one later interpretation is that it means to live forever in the body, there were others.

From the experiential view, I would say it is difficult to find the right way in words to describe "Gnosis", which is why I personally follow a tradition that elaborates this in considerable detail, like a full palette and set of brushes.

It would be like saying a "conversation" easily found in Sogdia continued into the Golden Age of Bengal:







We have seen that the Shahis included both Persians and Indians that resisted Islamicization. In India, the Pala era comes in ca. 750 and brings Bengal and Assam into the "country". At the end with King Ramapala, he knows "The Question", that is, this king knows the whole "conversation" as we have it.

Now, although, there is not really a direct connection, at least in terms of sequence, one can find some form of the intended meaning from Vizier Ptahotep to Zoroaster. Eventually there is the Parthian era of heavy syncretism. And so there is a fairly large knowledge base with valuable things in it, which my side of the conversation tells me to claim as Manjushri. That is to say, it is accepted as the Gentle Voice of Wisdom. Manjushri is Mars. Of course the Veda is the closest thing to an actual basis for what we have. But the principle of Manjushri is strongly akin to "syncretic deity"; or because he tells me to consider the things that may have merit, I try to outgrow the lens of nineteenth-century scholarship.

In actuality King Ramapala is making an exegetical point that is not Tibetan.

I would say it is actually retained in Kagyu and a few other places, but the entirety of the corpus is Indian.


Although he is the subject of the famous Ramacharitam, nothing is said about his apparent mastery of our school.

The point being made literally takes until the 1100s to develop the language for it, and then, the Mughals pave it. Glad we were through.

We don't have a special astrology, just an advanced goddess for dealing with it (Vasudhara Grahamatrika). It's not predictive, but psychological.


There cannot be much question that Egypt designed the template, but actually listened to others.

It mentions the planets, but we do not know that they are a "special group" or designated with magical or divine characteristics in the earliest references. We find that a very basic question centers around a phrase followed in later cultures and in the Veda, Bull of Heaven:

Given that the expressions serving as normal religious designations of the planets are also attested in other contexts than the astronomical decorations (especially those of Venus and Mars), the question has to be posed if they are also to be understood as planets in those contexts. This question is of fundamental importance because whether the Egyptians in pre-Ptolemaic times paid more attention to the planets than just mentioning them briefly in the classical sky image hinges on it.

In the Pyramid Texts and the Coffin Texts, a “bull of heaven” is mentioned several times. Already Brugsch had supposed that this could be understood as the planet Saturn, and he equally proposed that the “morning god” of these texts was Venus...

It may be physically identical to Saturn, without any special attributes. Of course, these could have been implemented before the Late Period.

If we take in a "conversation with others", it seems a bit doughy:

In the Late Period, probably under Mesopotamian influence, the sequence of the planets as well as their religious associations could change; at least one source links Saturn with the Sun god...

Much clearer is the name of Saturn, which in the fullest form is “Horus bull of the sky”; in the Late Period normally shortened to “Horus the bull.” He is called the “eastern,” or in some cases “western” star.

Saturn can be a bull-headed instead of a falcon-headed deity...

compared to a later change:

The association of Saturn with Nemesis should be fairly correct for Roman Period Egypt, since Nemesis, or rather the Egyptian form Petbe, “the retribution,” is identified with Kronos.

Saturn: crocodile-headed god (Sobek). The last case follows an Egyptian tradition of equating Sobek with Geb, who in turn was thought of as the equivalent to Kronos...

Dendera Saturn:











The cited article on this does much more than I personally can. However it is unaware of astrological expressions such as "horns of the lord of death", which are easily visible with the most modest telescope. I'm not even a rank amateur at it, but I have seen them. If he has the Bull symbol in the oldest period, which we can only be sure is observational, that meaning fits.


Well, in our "conversation", we would presume the same phrase when *not* associated with the planet Saturn, probably *is* telling us something of the attributes or characteristics associated with that name. In the case of these Egyptians, it appears to be paramount. If there is something "about it", then, it is an adventure of Unas reaching this conclusion on the Antechamber West Wall:

Utterance 260

316: To say the words:

"O Geb, Bull of Nut, Horus is Unas, the heir of his father.
Unas is he who went and came back, the fourth of these four gods who have brought the water, who have made a purification, ...

And so in a couple previous references, there is Bull of "Heaven", and then at the end we would not think "Nut" is anything different or otherwise. Then, yes, Horus is another deity, the sun or something, and this is actually a very long incantation that would take heavy scrutiny.

Obscure unless it is again the Pillar of Kenset in some Osirian Utterances.


The concomitance is at least recognized in a similar post on Pillar of Stars and the Bull of Heaven:

Theological Implications: The Bull of Heaven’s role extends beyond mythology into the realm of divine kingship. It reinforces the pharaoh’s role as a godly representative on Earth, endowed with celestial power and ordained to maintain maat (order and justice) in the kingdom...

Did they perhaps have any kind of Lens?


It has been proposed that glass eye covers in hieroglyphs from the Old Kingdom of Egypt (c. 2686–2181 BCE) were functional simple glass meniscus lenses.

Or:

To date, the earliest lenses identified in context are from the IV/V Dynasties of Egypt, dating back to about 4,500 years ago (e.g., the superb `Le Scribe Accroupi' and `the Kai' in the Louvre; added fine examples are located in the Cairo Museum).

Egypt too has examples one pair of glass lenses was excavated from the wrappings of a mummy and obviously were used as spectacles except that loops around the ears for modern style spectacles seem not to have been invented in ancient times. So these may have had some kind of nose loop or may have been held as a lorgnette.

The oldest evidence of a sophisticated optical capability which I have found goes back as far as 3300 BC. An ivory knife handle was excavated in the 1990s from a pre-dynastic grave of that date at Abydos in Egypt. It belonged to a king. It bears microscopic carvings which could only have been made with, and can only be seen with, a magnifying glass'.

A few related notes on optics:

In the fifth century BCE, Empedocles postulated that everything was composed of four elements; fire, air, earth and water. He believed that Aphrodite made the human eye out of the four elements and that she lit the fire in the eye which shone out from the eye making sight possible. If this were true, then one could see during the night just as well as during the day, so Empedocles postulated an interaction between rays from the eyes and rays from a source such as the sun. He stated that light has a finite speed.

In the 4th century BC Chinese text, credited to the philosopher Mozi, it is described how light passing through a pinhole creates an inverted image in a "collecting-point" or "treasure house".

The Indian Buddhists, such as Dignāga in the 5th century and Dharmakirti in the 7th century, developed a type of atomism which defined the atoms which make up the world as momentary flashes of light or energy. They viewed light as being an atomic entity equivalent to energy, though they also viewed all matter as being composed of these light/energy particles.

As for that, Empedocles is correct in some way, starting from the phosphenes up to visualization or hallucination, as beings, we must be fire or raying out something. Our physical sight and how objectivity works by a "receiver" is probably more complicated than this "inner light", which is simply subtle or requires a consciousness somewhat tuned out from the thralldom of the senses, or concrete or externalized representation. Our Buddhist optical theory is simultaneously psychological, i. e. the mind creates all that stuff at the frequency of the Planck Scale or 10^-34 seconds.


Hermeneutics of Vision?

Aha.

A bit like Beholding the Throne, which we would call Vairocana.


Now, to this day, there is such a thing as Sun Yoga or simply gazing at it -- it's said to be the highest octane "spiritual fuel". Further, there are other yogic siddhis which would, for instance, switch the spectrum and allow you to see the solar corona, or, magnify minute objects such as the rings of Saturn which are not normally visible.


I certainly don't claim to be an adept at that, however, I have experienced types of clairvoyance which allow me, I think, to verify at least part of the metaphor, and leaving room to surmise that others may experience something "similar but different", such as finding Saturn's rings, which would be practically guaranteed to look like horns.

They are about to go flat from our perspective for fifteen years, which will cause them to effectively disappear.

Because this happens periodically, if you were an ancient seeer, you'd freak out. If I believed Pharaoh had left earth to hypostasize into that Bull, and you see him get sheared, it might seem like an emergency. Because they take a few years to dim out, it would not be too hard to witness some disaster for mortals and blame it on this "eclipse".


That's Extremely Difficult because it is so weird and already uses the Ennead. The other archaic example is only Very Difficult.


This is Saturn in Sumerian:

Kajamānu or Kayyamanu (Akkadian: 𒅗𒀀𒀀𒈠𒉡 ka-a-a-ma-nu "the constant") or Uduimin-saĝuš (Sumerian: 𒀯𒇻𒅂𒊕𒍑 MULUDU.IMIN-saĝ-uš, "star of the sun") is the ancient Mesopotamian name for the planet Saturn. In ancient Mesopotamia, he was also regarded as the "star of Ninurta," the Mesopotamian fertility deity.

The Akkadian form is represented in Mandaic and the Assyrian dialect.


From a diatribe against malefic Saturn:

When the Greeks adopted Babylonian astrology, Ninurta became Kronus...

Very few astrologers know or care about the real origins of their science. If they did, they probably wouldn’t be using the Tropical Zodiac...

Anu or An has the role of Tvastr as "father of the deities" followed by "less active than others" and:

Anu was also the god of kings and of the yearly calendar.


Saturn was always associated with color black (also yellow), because it was only visible at night, and therefore called as the Sun of Night (Dark Star, Black Sun, Star of the Sun). This black and white dualistic symbolism is used in majority of the esoteric orders (the best and most visible examples are Judaism and Freemasonry).

Saturn is considered Anu's son. Another assertion presented here:

Ancient Babylonian literary sources say: “We learn from the notes written by the astrologers that by the word ‘sun’ we must understand the ‘star of the sun,’ i.e., Saturn”. The text is “Mul (il) Šamaš šu-u”. The word “Šamaš” (Shamash) is the name of the Babylonian sun god. In a more accurate rendering of this text, seeing as there is a division mark between “Mul” and “Šamaš”, it should read “Planet Saturn (as a) star is Shamash” or “Saturn is the sun-star”.

We also know that the original scribe’s reference to Saturn is not mistaking it for the Sun, but rather, it tells us that what was once called the sun is the same astral body that we presently call Saturn. Consider the text “(Mul) Lu-Bat Sag-Uš ina tarbas Sin izzaz”, which translates to “Saturn stands in the halo of the moon”. This cannot refer to the present Sun, because the effect of a moon’s halo only occurs at night. It therefore acknowledges that Saturn is indeed a nighttime star, yet the claim is that it used to be the Sun.

Sun of Night 2013 is a more precise look at this.

India negativizes the "central spiritual sun" as the "galactic core" -- it is called Mula or "root", which is "down", the least favorable direction. I wonder if Saturn is "a raja star behind Jupiter"? Something like that was important to the Mahatmas, although they described the central around the thigh of Hercules, which would be the Solar Apex -- which has no evident recognition in mythological sources. But that may be from not asking the question.

Seven Ancient Ones 2002 is a very concrete article, which agrees with the above, suggests Ninurta may have also been Mercury, but does not find a specific Sumerian original for Mars:


Gibil (Akkadian
Girra/u) is a Sumerian fire god; his primary function contributed
to his secondary roles being the patron of magic and smithing.



That is attested in later sources.

In their terminology, the Bull is moon god Sin, which is obvious because of the crescent.


Ninurta was prevalent for over two thousand years through Assyria:

Astronomers of the eighth and seventh centuries BC identified Ninurta (or Pabilsaĝ) with the constellation Sagittarius. Alternatively, others identified him with the star Sirius, which was known in Akkadian as šukūdu, meaning "arrow". The constellation of Canis Major, of which Sirius is the most visible star, was known as qaštu, meaning "bow", after the bow and arrow Ninurta was believed to carry. In the MUL.APIN Ninurta is consistently identified with Mercury, as it is read: "Mercury whose name is Ninurta travels the (same) path the Moon travels."

In Lugal -e, he provides Mountains and Waters.

In later Old Babylonian sources, he combats the Anzu bird, and also has a journey into the Abzu. It is then that Nebu is designated for Mercury, replacing him in that sense.


He has this mount:

Beast with the body of a lion and the tail of a scorpion

Egyptian Sagittarius has a scorpion's tail.

Bow-and-arrow Sirius resembles the Iranian version.

Nothing suggests any relation to the bull.


Its Sumerian associations are with Gugulana and Hadad.


The Bull "is" Anu, emanates to Ishtar, who challenges Gilgamesh. The constellation has two names as the main subject appears to be Taurus and Divine Marriage:


The name of the
constellation kusarikku appears almost exclusively in the so–called
'Prayer to the Gods of the Night' and its duplicates.

The Bull [Gugulana] appears successively as a monster
defeated by Gilgameš, an astral attribute of An, the god of heaven, and a
constellation of the third month of the Mesopotamian calendar.


Gilgamesh succeeds where Dumuzi (Hired Man -- Aries) fails.

Sumeria is primarily observing the Taurus Equinox, while the Egyptian temples mark Thuban as the Pole Star.


That means the Age of Aries would have to be a Greek invention.

The Babylonian sign is not a ram.


Gnosticism may be shuffling multiple streams of astrology:

The Gnostic treatise called Pistis Sophia, transmitted in Coptic language, but probably translated from a Greek original, contains substantial astrological lore (von Lieven, 2002), and in Book IV, Chapters 136–137 gives indications about the planets which seem to contain some Egyptian background. It gives the same order of Saturn, Mars, Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter as the ostracon Strasbourg 521 (see “Names, tutelary deities, and iconography of the planets on monuments with astronomical decoration”). The two sets of strange names indicated as forces linked to the planets as well as their incorruptible names may contain garbled Egyptian expressions (Quack, 2018, p. 88). In addition, in Chapter 140 of that work, Venus is called Boubastis, which is the name of an Egyptian goddess connected with love.

Having found that "Neter" is "divine", there is something quite similar.

Anyone like me has come up with one line from the Book of the Dead which uses "asr un nefer", which we are told is "myself made perfect" -- but it is an epithet of Osiris in the Aptu (West), one of the two fishes. Asar or Osiris is of "unknown meaning", so, if "self" has to do with it, that would be by applying "hermeneutics" -- but not necessarily done correctly by a single example.

If we expand this from newer discoveries, we find it resembles the Orb of Kings:


In ancient Egypt, the word for zero was nefer, a word whose hieroglyphic symbol is a heart with trachea. Nefer could mean “beautiful, pleasant, and good.” But it was also used to represent the base level from which temples and other buildings arose. It is from that meaning that our current concept of zero evolved.







Interesting...start from zero, make something good or perfect...the same term is subject to multiple usages:

The term nefer was very popular throughout the ages with the ancient Egyptians. It appears with a dozen different meanings in their literature... all positive. It was also incorporated into many personal names, including those of the famous queens Nefertiti and Nefertari.

The nefer hieroglyph was used to convey the concepts of "goodness" and "beauty". This is poignantly illustrated in the statue to the right of Merytamun, the daughter of Rameses II. Her necklace is nothing but rows and rows of the 'nefer' hieroglyph. It also could carry the meaning of happiness, good fortune, youth and other related ideas. The sign was used in amulets and other decorative jewelry. Vases were also sometimes produced in the shape of the hieroglyph.

The White Crown of Upper Egypt was sometimes called "the Nefer" or "the White Nefer."

As a noun, "Nefer" effectively translates Chrestos.


And there are far more, at least Thirty-three Nefer hieroglyphs with multiple meanings and multiple deities.


But we can rest assured -- there is a core meaning which is not exactly "myself", because it is Divine Word:

The Remetch (as the ancient Egyptians called themselves) developed ethico/spiritual principles such as Ma’at that guided communication, and a distinctive rhetorical style they called Medu Nefer (beautiful speech). It is important to note that while Ma’at supplied the philosophical and moral guidelines for excellent human speech, the method, the techniques for achieving this excellence were the providence of Medu Nefer. In this way, Ma’at functioned as the regulatory principle of morality while Medu Nefer was seen as a tool to manifest Ma’at. Thus, the relationship between Ma’at and Medu Nefer is one of end goal and instrument to achieve said goal.

There is some blur online between "neter" and "nefer", although the latter appears more appropriate were we to re-think older scholarship:


Dr. Melba Velez Ortiz's work was recently published in "Decolonizing Communication Studies". Her work, entitled "(Re)Introducing Medu-Nefer: Ancient Egypt’s Rhetorical Art" is featured in chapter five.


The two are distinguished by a site on Kemetic revival:

The art of Medu Nefer (good speech) and conflict resolution

Innerstanding the concepts of NTR and Neteru

The one being the tool for the other.

It is hard to imagine the Kemetists are Egyptian -- they don't actually say, but seem Sudanese.


Chances are, Egypt was never "strictly Egyptian", but hybridized Levantine and Nubian.


As we saw Semitic "Qadesh" in an Egyptian trinity as "Qudush", here is a similar principle:


The triad of Menkaure (Giza, 4th Dynasty) shows the pharaoh flanked by two deities: a local nome deity to the right and Hathor to the left.






So, yes, they have the important Heart principle from the Old Kingdom, passed through a "conversation" with open ears, which appears to absorb Babylonian astrology prior to re-processing it in Greek.


According to the study, the "conclusion" coalesced in Egypt:


While some of the actual astrological techniques can be traced back to Mesopotamian predecessors, it is obvious that astrology, including the treatment of the planets, took decisive shape in Greco-Roman Egypt.


Compared to the number of iterations we can extract:

The five visible planets are certainly attested to in Egyptian sources from about 2000 bce. The three outer ones are religiously connected with the falcon-headed god Horus, Venus with his father Osiris, and Mercury with Seth, the brother and murderer of Osiris.

In the Late Period, probably under Mesopotamian influence, the sequence of the planets as well as their religious associations could change; at least one source links Saturn with the Sun god, Mars with Miysis, Mercury with Thot, Venus with Horus, son of Isis, and Jupiter with Amun, arranging the planets with those considered negative in astrology first, separated from the positive ones by the vacillating Mercury.

The normal order of the planets is Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and then, after the triangle decans, Mercury and Venus.

The name of Mercury, sbg.w, and due to phonetic developments later also swgȝ, is of totally unknown meaning. There is a possible connection of this name with biblical Hebrew sekwi in Job 38, 36 where the word is used in parallelism with “Ibis” in connection with wisdom, and thus is likely to have a relation to the Egyptian god Thot (probably also present in phonetic rendering in this passage), who is the counterpart of Greek Hermes and Latin Mercury (Pope, 1973, p. 302; von Lieven, 1999, p. 125, note 261). An individual note in one subtype of images of this form, especially from the Ramesside Period, should also be mentioned. It is given for Mercury and says, “Seth in the evening twilight, a god in the morning twilight”.

A quite new sequence of the planets as well as religious interpretation is attested in a demotic Egyptian ostracon (Strasbourg D 521) dating probably to the late Ptolemaic or early Roman Period, but probably based on an early Ptolemaic model (Spiegelberg, 1902). It gives Horus the bull (i.e., Saturn): the star of the Sun; Horus the red one (i.e., Mars): the star of Miysis (“the fierce lion”); Mercury: the star of Thoth; the morning god (i.e., Venus): Horus, son of Isis; Horus the mysterious one (i.e., Jupiter): the star of Amun.

For the attestations in the Pyramid Texts, Krauss (1997, pp. 104–114) has proposed to identify the lone star with Capella. Obviously further research is needed for clarification.

A stairway of Mercury is mentioned in the Coffin Texts CT VII 261a (spell 1030), a spell for traveling in the great barque of the Sun god. Most versions from the Middle Kingdom write Mercury clearly like the planet (Sherbiny, 2017, p. 123ff.). In the New Kingdom and later, this spell appears somewhat reworked...

In the context of an Osirian glorification attested on a wooden tablet of the later 1st millennium bce, there is a phrase “your name is flourishing like Mercury,” and here the very specific name sbg of this planet leaves hardly any leeway for different interpretations.

The ostraca indicate a cycle of a “great year” (misread as “great place” in Ossendrijver & Winkler, 2018, p. 386, 391), which for the evening first (calculated according to A1) contains 1,513 appearances of Mercury in 480 (years), and for the morning last (calculated according to A2) 1,223 settings in 388 (years); and these are indeed the periods attested in the Mesopotamian sources (Neugebauer, 1975, p. 466); the first one also in Greek sources (Neugebauer & Parker, 1969, pp. 237–240; Neugebauer, 1975, p. 605). The ostraca divide the zodiac into several sections traversed by Mercury with different, abruptly changing speed and a defined number of elementary steps.

The standard order of the planets in them [Demotic] is from the slowest planet (the one with the highest orbit) to the fastest one (with the lowest orbit). Therefore the sequence is Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury. This is called “Chaldaean order,” although it is uncertain if it is really Mesopotamian in origin.

It [Papyrus Cairo] indicates Mercury as “sixth god” and gives the zodiacal signs of his triplicity. The number given would point to a sequence of the planets where the two luminaries were included in the sequence; thus, Mercury is sixth, and the Moon would be the seventh.

[from Achilles] Saturn: Star of Nemesis; Jupiter: Star of Osiris; Mars: Star of Herakles; Mercury: Star of Apollo

In the hermetic treatise Kore Kosmou, 28, Sun and Moon are placed at the very beginning (quite the opposite to the indication of Achilles), but otherwise the sequence follows the “Chaldaean” order.

An astrological lapidary is transmitted under the name of Damigeron and Evax (Quack, 2001). This text is likely to be the product of an Alexandrian tradition mixing Greek and Egyptian concepts. It indicates magical images to be engraved on ring stones. Mostly, it describes only the images, but the gods behind them can be recognized fairly easily. The religious associations we find here are: Sun: scarab (Re); Moon: Isis (?) with cow horns; Mars is lost; Jupiter: goat (Amun); Venus: Venus; Mercury: dog-ape (Thoth); Saturn: crocodile-headed god (Sobek).

So we see "alliance with the Sun" passes from Saturn to Mercury.


Achilles and many of them believed the Moon was inhabited.

But they may be developing "all lives" or Hylozoism, similar to Paul.

J Quack 2018 on which a lot of this was based, tells us that Egypt has simply been ignored in research on computational astronomy. Around the 200s B. C. E., it probably did export the forms of Aries and Virgo to Babylon -- which is always an "ethnicity", with hardly any specific writers or authorities ever mentioned. Similarly, Egypt, rather than Babylon, probably sent astronomy to India; around the Red Sea have been found Tamil fragments. The route of transmission was probably Egypt --> India --> Iran, while of course there was also Greece --> Iran, where, i. e., there was very little of their own, and it is a mix of the two streams.


India would be unlikely to have the sign "Taurus" before then, and at least in the Rg Veda, nothing obviously indicates any planets. The common symbol is here instead a multi-planar Triple Bull:


Aśvins, that work of yours deserves our wonder,—the Bull of heaven and earth and air's mid region.


That's weird, because it is not that they have made other deities, some of whom have or are this Bull trait.


People try to explain the Veda's Bull Vishnu with the Puranas.

Uksa sustains heaven and earth.


or:


Admixture: goat's milk which is poured into the cow's milk in the gharma; heaven and earth: the Aśvins (NIrukta 12.1); bull in the liquor: vṛṣabha = bull, Agni;

Rasa = rase, liquor is the goat's milk. The goat is dedicated to Agni, hence the contact of its milk with fire is proper.


There's two, but more famously Indra such as in Atharva Veda IV.11.

Paippadala recension:


He who is filler of people (carṣaṇí-), bull, heaven-finder (svarvíd)...


It's interpolated:


Ppp. has carṣaṇi instead of vṛṣabhas in a; The comm. renders carṣaṇi- by manusya-.


If anything, Bull Indra is probably more comparable to Baal Hadad and Bull El, planetary relations notwithstanding.


Instead, it remains unanswered why Greek philosophy and several deities resemble the Sanskrit. The resemblance pre-dates astrology. But, it's simpler in the sense of easier to talk about, and the presence of India in Old Syria and among the Mittani is certain. We found that Ashoka maintained relations from the Tamils as far west as Libya, including:


Antiochus Theos, King of Syria and western India


"Ionian" is basically the same in Egyptian, Semitic, and Iranian:


The Yona are mentioned in the Ashoka inscriptions, along with the Kambojas, as two societies where there are only nobles and slaves...brahmans and śramaṇas are found everywhere in his empire except in the lands of the Yonas and the Kambojas.


But the snippet above is fanciful or interpretive, there is no "West India" because there isn't a word for "India", and it mentions neither this nor Syria in the original text of the edicts in five copies and two translations.

Just the kings have names. The edict is definitely not saying there are those countries.

And of course Ashoka is not relevant to the influences seen in early Greek myths. Only to the question of the degree of "relations" before full-time direct shipping to Egypt -- or, if that's what he meant.

The closest thing, physically, appears to be music and dancing girls contributed to the "conversation", and from that, we should neither conclude they were "slave prostitutes", nor that the erotic element was necessarily censored. It is them as perhaps Ambubai or "pipers" and Kinnara or the (magically deified) lyre or lute. That's the closest thing to an Indian cultural effect I have found.

Although I would maintain Vedic and Avestan "Tvastr and the Waters" is identical to a certain extent, and, Sumerian An appears similar, there is no "Indian Utnapishtim" until this post-Ashokan exchange. In other words, there is no Indo-Iranian Flood Myth. It happened after them, or, it wasn't memorable. Again, less problematic if it is a symbol rather than a report. Other than this, I am not recalling the adaption of any other significant western myth motif. Sort of like they don't import much western merchandise. Ideas from math and astrology, definitely, and aside from that, there isn't much of anything else that comes to mind.

In actuality, Egypt is based on something fairly close to their own "mantra school". At first, it bears much to do with Saturn, who is a Golden Age deity anywhere, until in the late period it is Mercury. And this could be simultaneously meaningful if Saturn is more of a "national" level and Mercury is more personal.

Sophia Achamoth, daughter of Bast, is Venus in this later terminology.

[shaberon]

Mandylion and Thomas



I seized upon a particular Fayum portrait for a couple of reasons.

For one, the Wikipedia page gives maybe forty examples, with that one omitted.

These were for mummification (never forbidden by Christianity). They were curved and placed over your face, and that part of the wrapping was cut away, so, you would always look like...a picture of you.

These were used for a few centuries, up to around the time of the supposed Mandylion, which owes its origin legend to Eusebius, which does not usually bode well.


What makes it more difficult is that Edessa is a contest about the apostolic transmission of Christianity.

The whole claim of it is nothing but a handful of names, to which his and other embellishments have been added.

Given the location, the question naturally arises about perhaps an Aramaic source for the Gospels instead of Greek. As to its primacy or authenticity, in French, it is considered new apologetics, a gathering of later legends that basically leaves it objectively unsupported.


The idea is a school of thought from this effort:


Ses recherches s'inscrivent dans la lignée des travaux effectués par le jésuite Marcel Jousse, le cardinal Tisserant, le cardinal Jean Daniélou.


Moreover, en ses mots propres, it is a familiar form of supremacy:


Il y a deux mille ans, deux civilisations exceptionnelles coexistent au bord de la mer de Galilée : les
civilisations grécolatine et hébraïque.



I can contemplate the Greek aspect, but who said Latin and Hebrew were "exceptional"?

This work is probably a bit of preaching to the choir.

It makes no difference to me if it is true, because I don't literally believe parts of the Gospels. All that can be done is a conjecture based on a list of Syrians, but this is the same anywhere else. We can take any recorded people and speculate they may have been in favor of our position or held the information we say they did. However it looks like extra effort was taken in the Aramaic-then-Syriac speaking crowd to develop and promote Orthodoxy. The real question about that is did it come from James and what is it. Again it is not quite possible to show continuity of a particular thing.


The significance of the Mandylion is not so much the picture, but, the outlandish conversion process involved.


In a sense, the missing Edessa image was replaced by the Shroud of Turin, but the Fayum image I posted is in the British Museum, obtained from Hawara:

In his hair the subject wears a narrow fillet, with a central gold star with seven points laid on a purple ground. The rest of the fillet is grey with cream highlights, perhaps representing an original in silver. Below the fillet the dark brown hair falls in three locks on the brow in an arrangement typical of individuals associated with the cult of Sarapis.

Many times, a careful eye on the real thing gives us details like "purple" that are not obvious from online images. Similarly for a portrait at Menil thought to have busts of Isis and Serapis:


...a headdress known as a modius (for its resemblance to Roman grain measures), associated with Serapis.


Getty lists stand-alone Isis and Serapis, who is not identical to the appearance of "priests". This is just to affirm a widespread and consistent Greco-Egyptian fusion, similarly timed as the Parthian Empire.



Now, as we recall, Yhwh more or less got started by a simple inquiry about healing. This is told inversely in Mandylion of Edessa:

King Abgar of Edessa wrote to Jesus, asking him to come cure him of an illness. Abgar received a reply letter from Jesus, declining the invitation, but promising a future visit by one of his disciples. One of the seventy disciples, Thaddeus of Edessa, is said to have come to Edessa, bearing the words of Jesus, by the virtues of which the king was miraculously healed. Eusebius said that he had transcribed and translated the actual letter in the Syriac chancery documents of the king of Edessa, but who makes no mention of an image. The report of an image, which accrued to the legendarium of Abgar, first appears in the Syriac work the Doctrine of Addai: according to it, the messenger, here called Ananias, was also a painter, and he painted the portrait, which was brought back to Edessa and conserved in the royal palace.

This doctrine of Addai or Thaddeus can therefor be considered to have been composed ca. 400.


Edessa or Osroene was ruled by Nabateans for about five hundred years, roughly contemporaneous with and allied to the Parthians.

It's sandwiched. To the north is Commagene, and about 40 km south of Edessa is Harran:

Harran developed a rivalry with the nearby city of Edessa due to the cities having polarised attitudes concerning Christianity. Whereas Edessa adopted the new religion very early, Harran remained a pagan stronghold for centuries and became the largest center of pagan cults in eastern Syria.

The local Harranian religion continued to develop as a blend of ancient Mesopotamian religion and Neoplatonism and Harran remained notorious for its strong pagan traditions long into the Islamic period.

The deities worshipped at Harran for instance began to at times be referred to by the names of corresponding ancient Greek deities but their ancient Mesopotamian names also continued being used.


The Harranian pagans considered themselves the heirs of ancient star-worshipping civilizations such as Babylonia, Greece, India, Persia and Egypt. In addition to pagans, Harran was also home to Muslims, Christians, Jews, Samaritans, Zoroastrians, Manicheans, and other groups.

To the east is the Judaism-converting Adiabene, linked to the southeast in the area of Mandeans and Indians:

The Parthian king, Phraates IV (37-2 B.C.), chose as his successor his last-born son Phraataces and, for the latter’s safety sent the older brothers into exile in Rome. In a similar fashion, the ruler of Adiabene, Monobazus, in the first decades of the Christian era intended his heir to be a younger child, Izates (Ezad), but for protection sent the youth away instead to reside with Abinerglos, king of Characene or Mesene (Maišān). The latter gave Izates his daughter Samacha in marriage as well as a country estate. During his stay in Spasinu Charax, Abinerglos’ capital, Izates was converted to Judaism by Ananias, (Ḥannan), a Jewish merchant. Meanwhile, at the court of Monobazus, his wife Helena, mother of Izates, also took up the same faith, perhaps by the persuasion of the Jews of neighboring Nisibis (Naṣībīn), led at this time by Rabbi Judah ben Bathyra. The main trade route across upper Mesopotamia ran through Edessa (Urfa), Nisibis and Adiabene, the more southerly one by way of Carrhae (Ḥarrān) being much less frequented because of Bedouin activities; the merchants using these roads and those down to Characene at the head of the Persian Gulf were among the major instruments for the diffusion of culture and religion.

Well, Edessa and the track east was populated by the devotees of Nestor:


They invoked the Holy Spirit (as Thomas repeatedly did in the Acts of Judas Thomas ) to consecrate the eucharist and they denied that the Holy Spirit proceeded "from the Son" as well as from the Father.


And then we can see what was combatted, and what was installed:

In Edessa a Catholic bishop named Rabbula ruled the see from about 4ll to 430. He found, according to a panegyrical biographer, the whole region "solid with every briar of sin." Rabbula "vanquished and uprooted" the "wicked teaching of Bardaisan," and healed the "purulent cancer of the heresy of Marcion." He forbade the use of Tatian's Diatessaron, the second-century gospel harmony that combined the canonical gospels into one; Rabbula allowed only the four separate gospels to be used. He is said to have torn down the heretics' meeting places, transferred their property to the true church, and barred from communion consecrated virgins who had abandoned monastic life.

...the line from Thomas (through Addai, Aggai and Mari) was broken and Peter, through Palut, was substituted as the source of apostolic authority.

In Osroene:

It is believed that the Gospel of Thomas emanated from Edessa around 140. Prominent early Christian figures have lived in and emerged from the region such as Tatian the Assyrian, who came to Edessa from Hadiab (Adiabene). He made a trip to Rome and returned to Edessa around 172–173. Tatian was the editor of the Diatessaron, which was the primary sacred text of Syriac-speaking Christianity until in the 5th century the bishops Rabbula and Theodoret suppressed it and substituted a revision of the Old Syriac Canonical Gospels (as in the Syriac Sinaiticus and Curetonian Gospels).

Acts of Thomas:

Scholars detect from the Greek that its original was written in Syriac, which places the Acts of Thomas in Edessa, likely authored before 240 AD.


The Apostle Thomas:

It was to a land of dark people he was sent, to clothe them by Baptism in white robes. His grateful dawn dispelled India's painful darkness. It was his mission to espouse India to the One-Begotten. The merchant is blessed for having so great a treasure. Edessa thus became the blessed city by possessing the greatest pearl India could yield. Thomas works miracles in India, and at Edessa Thomas is destined to baptize peoples perverse and steeped in darkness, and that in the land of India.

— Hymns of Saint Ephrem, edited by Lamy (Ephr. Hymni et Sermones, IV).

According to tradition, in AD 232, the greater portion of relics of the Apostle Thomas are said to have been sent by an Indian king and brought from India to the city of Edessa, Mesopotamia, on which occasion his Syriac Acts were written.

The Indian king is named as "Mazdai" in Syriac sources, "Misdeos" and "Misdeus" in Greek and Latin sources respectively, which has been connected to the "Bazdeo" on the Kushan coinage of Vasudeva I, the transition between "M" and "B" being a current one in Classical sources for Indian names.

India was a huge deal to Ephrem the Syrian (306-373).

Ephraim inveighed against those who called proper Christians "Palutians": "They even call us Palutians but we have spewed them out and cast away [the name]."


Unless we consider that, we will simply be told Palut is Mari.



But notice the existing Syro- Malabar church is not the same as Thomas's community:

The earliest recorded organised Christian presence in India dates to the 4th century, when Persian missionaries of the East Syriac Rite tradition, members of what later became the Church of the East, established themselves in modern-day Kerala and Sri Lanka. The Church of the East shared communion with the Roman Imperial Church, within Nicene Christianity, until the Council of Ephesus in the 5th century, separating primarily over differences in Christology and for political reasons. The Syro-Malabar Church uses a variant of the East Syriac Rite, which dates back to 3rd century Edessa, Upper Mesopotamia.

The church retains this expression for Holy Spirit:

Ruha d Qudisha


which evidently is supposed to have performed resurrection on Jesus.


The issues are we don't really know what Thomas did in Ethiopia or Egypt, because the memories were re-transmitted by the Edessa organization, which, in turn, had been plowed by Petrine supremacy.

Correspondingly, the Church of the East was not in communion with the next two councils that absolved docetism and Nestorian beliefs. The Indian Malabar church is like the Maronites, a sort of Eastern Rite Catholicism.

One may suspect that the "Doubting Thomas" of the canon may be covering that he had not heard of a physical resurrection.





During the times of early discipleship, this image is worth repeating. It is from Edessa around the 100s, Aramaic Orpheus:









Whereas Thomasene literature merits a study in Thirty chapters:

A recapitulation of the "Thomas" literature--books ascribed to him, or in which he has a significant role: Gospel of John, Gospel of Thomas, Book of Thomas the Contender, Acts of Judas Thomas, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Pistis Sophia.

The True Wedding

Introduction to Christian Gnostic movement through episodes of AJT: Role of female Wisdom (Sophia/Hakhmuth) in creation. Valentinian rite of the Bridal Chamber: symbolic spiritual union.

In this literature, we have already found that the Nag Hammadi Gospel of Thomas is not a narrative but sayings, and where these parallel the synoptics, Thomas is thought to be closer to the source. And from Acts of Thomas, the Hymn of the Pearl is kept by Mani in "Psalms of Thomas".


Even without pursuing a Gnostic site, it remains similar to general information on Gospel of Thomas:

logia or "oracle"

Unlike the canonical Gospels, it is not a narrative account of the life of Jesus; instead, it consists of logia (sayings) attributed to Jesus, sometimes stand-alone, sometimes embedded in short dialogues or parables; 13 of its 16 parables are also found in the Synoptic Gospels. The text contains a possible allusion to the death of Jesus in logion 65 (Parable of the Wicked Tenants, paralleled in the Synoptic Gospels), but does not mention his crucifixion, his resurrection, or the final judgement; nor does it mention a messianic understanding of Jesus.

After the Coptic version of the complete text was discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi, scholars soon realized that three different Greek text fragments previously found at Oxyrhynchus (the Oxyrhynchus Papyri), also in Egypt, were part of the Gospel of Thomas.

Although it is generally thought that the Gospel of Thomas was first composed in Greek, there is evidence that the Coptic Nag Hammadi text is a translation from Syriac (see Syriac origin).


Parallels between the two have been taken to suggest that Thomas' logia preceded John's work, and that the latter was making a point-by-point riposte to Thomas, either in real or mock conflict. Pagels, for example, says that the Gospel of John states that Jesus contains the divine light, while several of Thomas' sayings refer to the light born 'within'. For Thomas, resurrection seems more a cognitive event of spiritual attainment, one even involving a certain discipline or asceticism.

Albert Hogeterp argues that the Gospel's saying 12, which attributes leadership of the community to James the Just rather than to Peter, agrees with the description of the early Jerusalem church by Paul in Galatians 2:1–14 and may reflect a tradition predating AD 70.

Moreover, there are some sayings, (principally log. 6, 14, 104) and Oxyrhinchus papyri 654 (log. 6) in which the Gospel is shown in opposition to Jewish traditions, especially in respect to circumcision and dietary practices (log. 55), key issues in the early Jewish-Christian community led by James (Acts 15:1–35, Galatians 2:1–10).

In saying 13, Peter and Matthew are depicted as unable to understand the true significance or identity of Jesus. Patterson argues that this can be interpreted as a criticism against the school of Christianity associated with the Gospel of Matthew, and that "[t]his sort of rivalry seems more at home in the first century than later", when all the apostles had become revered figures.

According to Meyer, Thomas's saying 17 – "I shall give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard and no hand has touched, and what has not come into the human heart" – is strikingly similar to what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:9, which was itself an allusion to Isaiah 64:4.

Trito-Isaiah comes back at us.

The Messiah however:

The earliest Christians believed Jesus would soon return, and their beliefs are echoed in the earliest Christian writings. The Gospel of Thomas proclaims that the Kingdom of God is already present for those who understand the secret message of Jesus (saying 113), and lacks apocalyptic themes.

Elaine Pagels points out the Gospel of Thomas promulgates the Kingdom of God not as a final destination but a state of self-discovery. Additionally, the Gospel of Thomas conveys that Jesus ridiculed those who thought of the Kingdom of God in literal terms, as if it were a specific place. Pagels goes on to argue that, through saying 22, readers are to believe the "Kingdom" symbolizes a state of transformed consciousness.


Thomas reflects a symbolic universe, and a worldview, which are radically different from those of the early Judaism and Christianity.

Tatian's widely used Diatessaron, compiled between 160 and 175 AD, utilized the four gospels without any consideration of others.

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, shorn of its mythological connections, is difficult to connect specifically to the Gospel of Thomas, but the Acts of Thomas contains the Hymn of the Pearl whose content is reflected in the Psalms of Thomas found in Manichaean literature. These psalms, which otherwise reveal Mandaean connections, also contain material overlapping with the Gospel of Thomas.

Mention of being forgiven in relation to blasphemy against the Father and Son, but no forgiveness to those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit (Logion 44).

The Coptic Psalms of Thomas are from Fayum. It is suspected they were translated from Aramaic. The "quest", which was of apparent interest to Mani, is:

"If [you would go] down into Egypt
and bring [back] the one pearl,
which is in the middle of the sea
surrounded by the hissing serpent...



Gospel of Thomas includes James in its inner circle; Pistis Sophia however has Mary Magdalene, Thomas, Phillip, and Matthew.


The latter manages to have a canonical Gospel in his name, however it may have an alternate original seen by Jerome. Concerning the 1400s Hebrew Gospel of Matthew manuscript, called Shem Tov or ST:

George Howard, who published a critical text and translation of this work in 1995, argued that it was not merely a Hebrew translation of our Greek Matthew–but that it showed evidence of an independent origin.

...it is the most unusual text of Matthew extant in that it contains a plethora of readings not found in any other codices of Matthew. It appears to have been preserved by the Jews, independent from the Christian community.

It sometimes agrees in odd ways with Codex Sinaiticus. It contains some striking readings in common with the Gospel of John, but in disagreement with the other Gospels. It is very likely that the author of John polemized against the portrait of John the Baptizer that he found in as text such as ST’ Hebrew Matthew. He might well have then known a Shem-Tov type Matthean text. ST also often agrees with the Lukan version of Q. ST also contains 22 agreements with the Gospel of Thomas.

N.b. Sinaiticus, Q, and Thomas were all lost in antiquity but found in modern times-making the parallels with ST all the more remarkable.

The Pseudo-Clementine writings (Recognitions and Homilies) when quoting or referring to Matthew occasionally agree with ST Hebrew Matthew against the canonical Greek versions.


Howard argues that Shem Tov did not create the Hebrew Matthew himself (e.g., translating from the Latin) but had an existing Hebrew text to work with-as he sometimes comments on its scribal errors and strange readings. Matt 11:11 is a good case in point, as the Greek, Latin, and all other Matthean witnesses contain the qualifying phrase: “nonetheless, the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Shem Tov comments on the unique Hebrew version he is following, and how its lack of such a phrase implies that John is greater than Jesus. If he were translating from the Latin, Greek, or any other version such a comment would be meaningless.

Papias (Eusebius, H.E. 3.39.16) “Matthew collected the oracles (ta logia) in the Hebrew language, and each interpreted them as best he could.”

None of these surviving quotations seem to have any relationship to our current version of Shem Tov’s Even Bohan.
ST never identifies Jesus as the Christ.

Pseudo-Clementine Writings, Rec 1.60.1-3, where one of the disciples of John argues that his teacher is greater than Jesus, Moses, and all men and thus the Christ.

The kind of polemic found in the Gospel of John appears to be directed toward an evaluation of John the Baptizer such as that found in ST Matthew.

Bultman argued that the Prologue was a hymn of the Baptist community, now recast to refer to Jesus (Gospel of John: A Commentary, 17-18). Luke-Acts 3:20-22 John is in prison-then only is baptism of Jesus mentioned! Luke drops Mark’s moving account of the death of John (Mark 6//Luke 9). Acts 18:25-Apollos knows only baptism of John. Acts 19:1-7-Twelve from Ephesus that only know of John’s baptism.

BAS has a similar article on the possibility of Aramaic Matthew:

A famous pun does occur in the Greek Matthew at 16:18: “You are Peter (petros) and on this rock (petra) I will build my church.” Because of the petros/petra wordplay, some have argued that this saying originated in Greek and goes back to the Greek-speaking segment of the Church rather than to Jesus.21 In Shem-Tob’s Matthew, however, there is a totally different pun—one that works in Hebrew but not in Greek. The Hebrew text reads: “You are a stone (even) and, upon you I will build (evneh) my house of prayer.”

M Black tried this approach to all Gospels; here is a response:


...does a plausible Aramaic version of Mark 4:12 connote something less harsh than the Greek seems to?



And so, yes, the non-Greek expressions would change the theology and adjust the beliefs somewhat.


Compared to the Diatessaron, Ireneus gives the most insipid reason for the Synoptical contradictions.

There is also reportedly an Ammonius strand of gospel harmony.


Originally converted by Justin Martyr, as for Tatian:


Among the Greek scholars, however, he became more and more regarded as a heretic, Encratite (ascetic), and Gnostic.



BAS informs us:

Black concludes that Aramaic sources, especially a collection of sayings, lie behind the Gospels.

This is different, however, from saying that the Gospels are translations of Aramaic originals.

It's different, because it is like taking Gospel of Thomas and adding events. In the 100s, there would be a huge need for re-evaluating "Messiah". You actually would have to be saying something new, which would have no prior context.

On the other hand, a likely-Aramaic set of sayings is at Nag Hammadi with Hermetics. Meanwhile, Harran is said to be the nexus of Abrahamic tradition with Hermetics.


Gospel of the Hebrews came out in Alexandria in Greek in the 100s and:

Hegesippus, Eusebius, and Jerome all used an Aramaic gospel, which Jerome referred to as the gospel used by a Jewish Christian sect known as the Nazarenes. The Gospel of the Nazarenes is the name adopted by scholars to describe the fragments of quotations believed to originate from an Aramaic gospel that was based on traditions similar to the Gospel of Matthew. A third gospel was known only to Epiphanius of Salamis, which he attributed to a second Jewish Christian group known as the Ebionites. Scholars have conventionally referred to seven fragments of a Greek gospel harmony preserved in quotations by Epiphanius as the Gospel of the Ebionites.

This genre is aimed at Jews and uses a Female Holy Spirit.



What is confusing about that gnostic website is that Mari and Palut are not two different people, and their write-up is unclear. The question is whether it would mean two kinds of character, as to whether instructions from Antioch would be obeyed in Edessa. Even though he is later in the sequence, he definitely was inculcated by the local Thaddeus -- Addai as is passed down in the eastern churches, the Liturgy of Addai and Mari:

In the form given in the oldest manuscripts, this anaphora does not include the Words of Institution, which has raised ecumenical concerns. The Eastern Catholic churches employing this liturgy have inserted the Words of Institution in accordance with their Eucharistic teaching.

It has also had Filioque added to and removed from it.

The manuscripts are no older than the tenth century, and, the absence continues in newer editions. Currently, the Catholic Syro-Malabar adds the "Institution", the Chaldean Syrian church of Kerala is an expansion of the Assyrian Church, which does not. However this church "gave the rite to" and "asserted jurisdiction" over whatever the Keralans may have believed. It means Nicene, although more or less Nestorian, lacking later phrasings or praxis.


There apparently is little to say about the Doctrine of Addai:

Helmut Koester regards the development of tradition of Thaddaeus' activity in Edessa as part of an effort to build the authority of the orthodox or Palutian faction in Syria against the Manicheans and gnostics, who had an older and stronger presence in the area and traced their lineage to Thomas the Apostle. He considers the Palutian faction to have come to Edessa around 200 CE and only become significant in the fourth century.

except it refers to the "tradition", and not to the doctrine itself. Rather, the doctrine is not "by" him, it is "about" him, written probably 100 years later, quite possibly a product of the foregoing argument.


Since we are by no means looking at manuscripts, we can't ask if they are using XS, or how this is done.

The Thomasene gnostics were a thousand Thaddeuses? That is, the "dispatch order" supposedly went Jesus --> Thomas --> Thaddeus; if so, what would really have been the mission?

By the time the legend had returned to Syria, the purported site of the miraculous image, it had been embroidered into a tissue of miraculous happenings.

Abgar receiving the Mandylion from Addai (encaustic icon, Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai):








Rabbula was completely about four Gospels of Antioch:


Rabbula became a friend of Cyril of Alexandria...



His changes were not permanent, the area relaxed until, from Bishops of Edessa, we see it became Chalcedonic in 526. That's five hundred years for a simple and straightforward teaching of Jesus to register with the neighbors -- or that long for a version to be spun and enforced.


In this case, if we ask if someone was "linked to" or "connected with", yes, contemporary to Palut, Serapion of Antioch opposed Montanism, the Docetic Gospel of Peter, and:

Serapion also acted (Pantaenus supported him) against the influence of Gnosticism in Osroene by consecrating Palut as bishop of Edessa, where Palut addressed the increasingly Gnostic tendencies that the churchman Bardesanes was introducing to its Christian community. He ordained Pantaenus as a Priest or Bishop in Edessa.

This is how it works. All churches observe the same Patriarchs of Antioch from 37 - 518. This is critical because Peter is the first, and for working Paul into Acts. But basically nothing is known of any of these people including Peter. The first appearance of anyone having anything definite to say is Theophilus ca. 170s against Marcion and Hermogenes.


Pantaenus was instrumental for the Catechism of Alexandria ca. 180:

He was the main supporter of Serapion of Antioch for acting against the influence of Gnosticism.


In addition to his work as a teacher, Eusebius of Caesarea reports that Pantaenus was for a time a missionary, traveling as far as India where, according to Eusebius, he found Christian communities using the Gospel of Matthew written in "Hebrew letters", supposedly left them by the Apostle Bartholomew (and which might have been the Gospel of the Hebrews). However, some writers have suggested that having difficulty with the language of Saint Thomas Christians, Pantaenus misinterpreted their reference to Mar Thoma (the Aramaic term meaning Saint Thomas), who is currently credited with bringing Christianity to India in the 1st century by the Syrian Churches, as Bar Tolmai (the Hebrew name of Bartholomew).

Yet this Alexandrian institution has equally cloudy claims about descending from Mark, Pantaenus is its first outspoken proponent who "introduced changes" that were viewed with suspicion by his successors Clement and Origen. Nevertheless, between this group and the Diatessaron, it would be hard to say there were not, at least, four discussions representative of the types that become canonical Gospels. We are not sure they were in their final form, nor associated together, but they probably were around in the early 100s when an "eschatological Messiah" was needed. Most other literature has no call for this.


One notices that the very a-political Harran is a "conversation" where all are present, which elsewhere degrades to a stand-off of two Abrahamic traditions and Zoroaster.

Here is a look at the relevant areas near the "Mazdaean Chakravartin" or King of Kings of Armenia right before Julius Caesar:








Why would there be a need for someone to stamp out and obliterate all other intellectual history?

I wouldn't generally accept any argument that there was a lack of teachings with positive values. That this was somewhat normally followed is echoed by an early comment that if you do not uphold your reputation, there will be slander and rumor in the marketplace, bad speech travels fast.


Following after Naram-Sin, there are notable points in Semitic literature.

The first known theodicy (theological response to evil and suffering) is Old Babylonian Akkadian ca. 1600s B. C. E.. In this lament, we find the two familiar terms, one such as in "lord of the house of rejoicing":


be-lu bi-it ri-a-ši-im


and a form given in translation as "god":


a-na il-ka ba-nu-uk tu-ku-ul-tu-uk



which has "Il or El" of Semitic languages. These expressions are objectified, i. e. "the god", whereas the first form is personal and repeatedly invocated, "my lord" showing as "be-li", and so these are all forms of addressing Baal. In the example above, it is a near-equivalent of Avestan Heaven, "House of Song". Moreover, it's Semitic "Beth" for "House", our letter B.

So, yes, that would qualify as a serious document, while some others probably not.

The Sumerian Kings List was possibly written in Akkadian in its first form ca. 2,080 B. C. E., accreted and revised, and must be considered fiction that has *some* real people within it. The thing is of course held to be propaganda for Sargon and the later or "known" rulers. What seems to me to be noticeable in its backstory is Dumuzi the Fisherman and Mari, since the latter is outside of Sumeria, but was however "colonized" or "built" by Sumerians as a canal city perhaps 100-200 years before the first known SKL text.

It ignores the post-Sargonic dynasty at the city of Utu the Sun near Uruk.

There is a primordial Dumuzi the Shepherd; then, when it moves to its objectively-verified section, there is Lugulbanda the Shepherd, followed by Dumuzi the Fisherman, who is defeated by Enmerbaragessi of Kish, the first verifiable person.

In its final dynasty, Iddin-Dagan ca. 1975 B. C. E. is famous for a Sacred Marriage hymn and rite, wherein he impersonates or becomes Dumuzi.


Dumuzi the Shepherd has clear meanings for Boat of Heaven and Bull:


These cakes would be baked in ashes and several clay cake molds discovered at Mari, Syria reveal that they were also at least sometimes shaped like naked women.


My vulva, the horn,
The Boat of Heaven,
Is full of eagerness like the young moon.

Who will plow my vulva?
Who will station the ox there?
Who will plow my vulva?


The "Fisherman" is a conjectured being, or i. e. imputing legitimacy:


Dumuzid šukud


so, i. e. he takes the namesake from the "fifth original king" from unreasonable ages ago, when the story transitions to someone that is known.


Gilgamesh easily launches metaphors of Agriculture and Sex:


The unusual word for vulva, hurdatu, is derived from a text which uses the simile:״this
date palm is like a vulva.״


Same as Old Babylonian Gurum.


This is ca. 2,600 B. C. E. ama-ušumgal, namesake of Bull Man Dumuzi:

As Ama-ušumgal-ana, Dumuzid is associated with the date palm and its fruits. This aspect of Dumuzid's cult was always joyful in character and had no associations with the darker stories involving his death. To ancient Mesopotamian peoples, the date palm represented stability, because it was one of the few crops that could be harvested all year, even during the dry season.

The reason for that is human females do not have seasons of heat like most mammals.

This would appear to be an aspect of Bull El.


The Abrahamic redactors may have misunderstood that this ca. 1,830 B. C. E. is not "sin":






A "sin" is a damage-and-liability claim. This common representation as above is like an agricultural human.

Or, we have seen this summarized as Household Religion.

It has the implicit meaning that what may be experienced by prophets or oracles, etc., in communion with Spirit, is the same for everyone. You can do this.

The majority of them are heavily conditioned by agriculture, for the purposes of going into a fixed house, which leads to enjoyment of sex in all seasons.

Ninurta is described as he
"whose sexual vigor is inexhaustible".

ürki pitêma kuzubki lilqi, "expose your üru that he may take your kuzbu"

When considered in its larger Near Eastern literary context the theme of the
"ascent of knowledge" is not so negative as the notion of "original sin" or a "fall
and leaving the garden may be viewed as difficult and necessary, but generally
positive.

Dumuzi or Tammuz -- Adonis was still current in Harran in the tenth century.

It's independent and not really a speck on the map above since its strategical purpose had been outclassed by Edessa.

Again, comparatively, as far as we know, the Orthodox church was allowed to set ground there, and, its eventual dominance was due to external factors, rather than locals going to extremes.


Ishtar's boat is ma an-na or Maana. She may have a sea-going vessel in other contexts; here, she names her vagina. And we soon find this is replete with something like our yogic Honey Doctrine with expressions like "Let me be your canal". This is taken into account recently enough that it turns up as a Title for a paper.


From a fragment in the erotic corpus:


Honey or syrup (lal)


A. Lowe 2014 recognizes it is sex not romance.


And so yes, of course we can only discover this in the 2000s -- older translators were unable to stop euphemizing and self-censoring. So you get the phrase "love goddess" even though the connotation is almost completely physical. Lowe also finds a "madonna/whore complex", that most of these writers could only portray a woman as utterly virginal, or a prostitute vampiress who had enriched herself by dominating males, very black-and-white, no middle ground that most actual people would inhabit. Whereas the tone of the original texts is very familiar and humanizing. Of course it isn't necessarily representing some kind of forgotten Amazon Matriarchy either. Chances are it's simply realistic.

That's more sensible and psychologically relaxing. It has a lot of sex but that is normalized. Correspondingly the Veda appears at least somewhat similar to Dumuzi and Inanna. This continues to be broadcast in Old Babylon as Ishtar, where we see the Code of Hammurabi with the ethic of debt relief. This gives us a picture in intellectual history, it may be an ideal and the question would be of how well it is developed. There is a spiritual investment of pathos, there is normal sex in an Agricultural symbolism, and there is the principle of good kingship. I'm not sure if that point was made in the Sumerian Kings List. It must at least qualify as a discussion somewhere, which most likely was in place when the Indians settled in a Mitanni province.

Mari already conquered Ebla and Harran ca. 2,400 B. C. E., Naram-Sin being after 2,250.

Is the SKL re-telling events from something about two hundred years previous, yes, it seems so.

It would be less problematic if openly stated, well, this is an allegory or symbolic grasp at theoretical stages of history or evolution. For example, if a "Shepherd" such as Shem or Dumuzi was perhaps a pastoralist, and then some chain of descent goes to the era of construction, and only finally if it reaches someone we know about. It's a lot different if you start taking it literally. On the other hand, a setting like Harran would allow us to interface with similar ideas and values in other languages, and perhaps the capability to advance and refine spiritual praxes. That is why I am not particularly pleased with what appear to be "state-crafted religions" that come up like a big eraser.

Old Babylonian Ishtar seems to be a better guide.

[shaberon]

Black Hole of Edessa




The vision of one-ness is not particularly new, is available in some way from most ancient cultures. Usually, it is held that the highest form of "one" is not available for intercession, cannot be prayed to, is rather passive and does not respond to events in time because it is absolute.

Therefor, most propitiations are aimed at a "secondary one", or its multiple agents.

The Abrahamic trend is to amputate most of the philosophy.

And, of course, that is its own self-designated identity, to which we are unsure they have a sufficient grasp of history. The school of thought is indistinguishable prior to Elijah. And what happens here is merely antagonism towards Ball Hadad, not a philosophical development, but tribal aggression. In this mentality, the first indication of "one god" is not Canaanite, but stems from the Captivity in Deutero-Isaiah:

Isaiah 44:6 contains the first clear statement of Yahwist monotheism: "I am the first and I am the last; beside me there is no God".

This model of monotheism became the defining characteristic of post-Exilic Judaism and provided the basis for Christianity and for Islam.

The chapter mainly goes on to mock idols and so forth, rather than developing the stated position.

Without dissecting the original phrase, it is at least recognizable as being close to the creed of Islam. This tradition purges "biographical Gospels" from their ability to claim crucifixion and resurrection; we are questioning the character of the New Testament, who seems to have nothing new. In fact, the debated epithet comes next at the beginning of Isaiah 45:

Thus saith the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him, and to loose the loins of kings; to open the doors before him, and that the gates may not be shut:

— Isaiah 45:1

The Septuagint refers to Cyrus the Great as "my anointed".

That means a rendering of christos. This is how it is in the Septuagint:


Thus saith the Lord God to my anointed Cyrus

οὕτως λέγει κύριος ὁ θεὸς τῷ χριστῷ μου



But in Hebrew Bibles it is Yahweh to His anointed:


lim·šî·ḥōw


It is not exactly the same form as "messiah" but shares the si- stem which refers to anointing. It is identical with respect to David in Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel.

In Greek, kurios would have a standing meaning of Baal and Hadad, and we see that Yhwh has been nested in the broader "Theos" which does not mean "god of Israel". Simultaneously, the broad possibilities of "anointing" have been used with Cyrus in a very particular way. Is it a pun against the perhaps more relevant "chrestos"?


Did anyone ask Cyrus if he knew of any anointing by Yahweh or Theos?

Would the one-ness of breath or power have been news to anyone?

Certainly not. This is obviously an adaptation of ideas that had been available for centuries.


The "tradition of Isaiah" at least appears to be important and influential to its followers until we find Jesus using it to rebuke them for not following it.

Now if I am willing to say that, it means that at least part of what is in the Gospel of Luke is not imaginary. To the contrary, it is completely concrete and specific: he points to Debt Jubilee in Trito-Isaiah, and his followers lost this and changed it to something else.


It wasn't a "miracle", but would come in the category of "sayings".

Aramaic seems to have primacy in the Thomasene literature, wherein Gospel of Thomas, where it parallels the Synoptics, seems to be closer to the source.


More explicitly, Aramaic was the language of Harran and Edessa.

It was most likely a mission from Edessa that formed the Diocese of Harran:

The first known bishop was a certain Barses, who was later transferred to the see of Edessa in 360/1 at the order of Constantius II, and Ephraim referred to the Church at Carrhae as "the daughter of Barses", implying that Barses was the first bishop of the city.

Not long after that, from perhaps the 400s, Turkey is excavating what may be the first, largest, and most influential Cathedral, including the well-known colorful mosaic work. The site is Harranian. Something definitely gathered momentum even though the region was a late conformist to Chalcedon.


Nevertheless, Harran continues to fluorish in a state of multiplicity, as frequently observed by Arab chroniclers:

The Harranians had many temples and idols named after the sun They were of specific forms, as Abu Ma’shar of Balkh (d. 886) mentioned in his book On the Houses of Worship, like the temple of Ba’lbak dedicated to the sun. Harran, however, was dedicated to the moon. It was built in the shape of a crescent, like a shawl worn over the head and shoulders. In its neighborhood was the village called Salamsin in Syriac. Another nearby village was called Tar’o ‘Uoz, i.e., The Gate of Venus.

It is said that the Harranians were not truly the original Sabeans but those mentioned by books as hanifs, or heathens. The Sabeans were, in fact, those children of Israel who remained in Babylon in the time of Cyrus and Artaxerxes and did not return to Jerusalem. They adopted the laws of the Magians and the religion of Nebuchadnezzar. Thus, their religion became a conglomeration of Magianism and Judaism, like that of the Samaritans of Syria. Most of them are found in Wasit and the land of Sawad in southern Iraq in the district of Ja’far, al-Jamida and the two rivers (the two branches of the Euphrates). By origin, they are traced to Anush, son of Seth. They are different from the natives of Harran, whose faith they reject. They disagree with them except in small matters.


Abu al-Hasan al-Mas’udi (d. 956) mentioned the temples of the Sabeans of Harran. He said, “The Sabeans of Harran have temples named after rational concepts and stars. Among these were the Temple of the First Cause and The Temple of Reason. But I have no idea whether they meant the First Reason or the Second Reason. Others temples were the Temple of the Virgo, The Temple of Form, and The Temple of the Soul, which were circular in shape, the hexagonal Temple of Saturn, the triangular Temple of Jupiter, the oblong Temple of Mars, the triangular Temple of Venus placed in a tetragonal frame, and the octagonal Temple of the Moon.

So there are a lot of "baptizers" and "astrologers", with "Mandean" representing a survival of a larger category. They may have been accepted and sheltered in Harran, without being completely identical to anything else there.


From Sabean Mysteries and Planets


A brief account of Sabian beliefs is given by a 9th-century writer, Ahmed ibn al-Tayyib. The Sabians, he maintains,
held that a supreme power, single and eternal, was the primal cause of the Universe. He is beyond the worship of
men; and he has delegated the administration of the Universe to the planets who proclaim his supremacy.

Furthermore, he has sent prophets— the most famous of whom are Arani (others omit this name), Agathodaemon
(whom other writers equate with Seth and Orpheus—represented, it will be recalled, in a mosaic at Edessa) and
Hermes (whom other writers equate with Idris or Enoch) to guide mankind. Sabian views on the nature of the deity,
on natural phenomena, on the soul and dreams followed the views propounded by Aristotle. A contemporary of
Ahmed ibn al-Tayyib tells us that the planets are deities, some male and others female, some benevolent, others
malevolent, with passions and lusts like human beings.

Ahmed states firmly that the Sabians were-united in their doctrines and free from sectarian feuds. But another writer
of the same century tells—with greater probability—of two dissident groups. One group, the Rufusiyyah, wore no
jewellery and held solemn sacrifice of swine; members of the other group never went out of their homes and shaved
their heads closely.

These alleged Sabian sects are unlikely to be the pagans of Harran. The mosaics of Edessa depict jewellery
prominently on the women's costume, the pig was a forbidden animal, the Harranians wear their hair long. A later
source, Mas'udi, an acute observer who himself visited Harran in the 10th century, uses the term Sabian for pagans
over an ever-broadening area. He writes, it is true, of the Sabians of Harran and those Sabians whom he describes as
Kimariyyun. The former, he declares, are Greek and follow eclectic forms of philosophy; the latter are clearly the
Mandaeans or Subba (whom we shall describe later), since they live near Basra and Wasit. Mas'udi, it must be
admitted, contradicts himself. In one passage he maintains that the founder of both groups of Sabians was Budhasaf
(Buddha), believed—as we are told elsewhere—to have come from India. In another he writes of four categories of
Sabians, the Chaldaeans who are the Mandaeans, the Chinese who follow Budhasaf, the Greeks and Romans, and
the Egyptians who survive at Harran! Later writers advance theories that are even more improbable. The more
distant our 'authorities' in time and space from the Sabians—however we identify them—the more reckless is their
definition of Sabian doctrines.

Nevertheless, we can arrive at a plausible outline of these doctrines. Sabians directed their prayers, as we have
already seen, to the spiritual beings which (they held) act as intermediaries between men and the Supreme deity;
these beings inhabit and guide, the planets, which stand to them in the relation of the body to the spirit. The activity
of these spiritual beings produces movement in space, and this creates material things—plants and animals and men.
But matter is bad by nature, and human beings have prejudices and passions; only through the influence of the
spiritual beings are they endowed with love and amity, knowledge and healing. The Sabians therefore rejected the
Moslem—al-Shahrastani calls it Haniphite—teaching that a human prophet can mediate between man and the
supreme deity. They did not believe in resurrection in the conventional sense; every 36,425 years, they maintained,
a new order of men, animals and plants is created afresh.

The Daily Ritual

The ordinary Sabian could not conduct his life by general principles of elevated philosophy such as these. The mass
of Harranians followed a complex scheme of ritual, worshipping idols in the temples as representations of the
remote and often invisible planets. There were temples, however, not only to the seven planets, but also to the
Primal Cause, the First Intellect, World Order, Necessity and the Soul. All these temples were round. The temples to
the planets were each, our sources declare, of a special shape—we are reminded of the buildings at Sumatar
Harabesi—and each reflected the ideas of those times about the colour and metal peculiar to each planet and the day
of the week which it was supposed to govern. The arrangement and order of the temples and the height of the idols
conformed to the distance of each planet from the earth. The temple of Saturn was hexagonal and black, his statue
was of lead, his day Saturday; the temple of Jupiter was triangular and green, his statue of tin, his day Thursday; the
temple of Mars was oblong (or square?), his colour red, his statue of iron, his day Tuesday; the temple of the sun
was square, his statue was of gold, his day Sunday; the temple of Venus was probably a triangle inside a rectangle
and it was blue, her statue was of copper, and her day Friday; the temple of Mercury was probably a triangle in an
oblong, it had no allotted colour, Mercury's statue was of clay and his day Wednesday; the temple of the Moon was
probably octagonal, her statue—the moon was now regarded as female—of silver, and her day Monday.

We do not know where these temples were located inside Harran—except for a temple of the Moon which will be
mentioned later. Outside Harran were two villages called Tar'uz, the gate of Venus, and Salamsin, the idol of
Sin, which were celebrated in the 9th and 10th centuries for the devoutness of their Sabian inhabitants. The latter
name recalls the present-day village of Sanimagara, east of Sumatar in the Tektek mountains, where may still be
seen an altar and a large complex of ruined buildings. Here may have been the site of the temple of the Moon which
was called Kadi [plate 16]. Legend, obviously apocryphal, related that the idol of the waters (Arabic sanam al-ma')
had fled to India, but upon entreaty had consented to return only 'thus' (Syriac kadi), 'so far'. This temple was the
scene of important celebrations, both monthly and annual. Other Sabian ceremonies were held annually at a temple
of Sin named Sini (or Sibti?).


We see an Arabic translation of an Aramaic term, which itself goes back at least as far as the east side of Aleppo ca. 700 B. C. E.:


The inscription identifies this figure as Sin-zer-ibini, priest (kmr) of the moon god Sahar at Nerab.



In the Lexicon:


kmr →kwmr, kwmrˀ (kŭmor, kumrā) n.m.
priest


similar root in other meanings:


kmry, kmrytˀ n.f.
dried up fruit


However, the sense as given is like the more familiar "Nasorean". It's a type of priest clan that seems only aware of itself as different from Jews or pagans when it finds them doing something differently.


From the Creation thesis, they also have an eastern name:


Macuch asserts that the
Mandaeans actually settled in southern Mesopotamia and had many names. In
Mesene (Maisan) especially they were called by their proper name
“Mandaeans and MaSkanaeans” and their script and dialect was called
maiSana’it “Messenian” i. e. “Mandaic”.




Continuing from Sabeans and Planets:


Resurrection is the theme of the 'Phoenix' Mosaic, found in 1956 and
dated AD 235-6 [pl 17]. It depicts the tomb in the form of the conventional arcosolium of the Edessa rock-caves;
above the tomb stands a wreathed pillar—we recall the sacred pillar of Sumatar—and the whole is surmounted by
the Phoenix, the symbol of rebirth.

The theme of another Edessa mosaic, the 'Orpheus' Mosaic, found in 1956 and dated AD 227-8, is one which will
recur in our analysis of the religion of Harran [pl 18]. The bard is depicted sitting, his lyre in his hand; around him
are a lion, a goat and birds in attitudes of becoming docility. We should not be surprised to encounter Orpheus at
Edessa, for throughout its history its citizens loved dancing, song and poetry. Moreover, in the 3rd century, the
Orpheus theme had acquired a considerable following in Rome's eastern provinces. A variation of the Orpheus
motif may be found in the presentation of David in the Synagogue at Dura Europos [figure 6]. More significant, the
biography of the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus, a Syrian by origin, informs us that the busts of Abraham,
Jesus, the philosopher Apollonius of Tyana, and Orpheus stood together in his private chapel. Alexander Severus
was acclaimed Emperor in 222, five years before this mosaic was made at Edessa; he passed through the region of
Edessa in 231 on his way to the East.

The broad synthesis of cults and beliefs of which Alexander Severus was a proponent is amply reflected in the
liberal philosophy of the school of Bardaisan the Edessan, to whom we have already referred. Born pagan, he
adopted Christianity and wrote against heretics; later, however, he encountered the violent opposition of churchmen
for what they regarded as his gnostic views. A century after his death, St Ephraim attacked Bardaisan without
mincing words: 'Let us pray for Bardaisan, who departed (this life) in heathenism—a legion of demons in his heart,
and our Lord on his lips.' Further evidence of gnostic beliefs at Edessa is provided by the remarkable, if obscure,
stone epitaph found there some fifty years ago:

'Pleasant is the resting-place of Shalman son of Kawkab (Star). They have answered thee and called thee, and thou
hast answered them whom thou hast touched. Thou hast seen the height and the depth, the distant and the near, the
hidden and the evident. And they—they know well the usefulness of thy reckonings....'


Again, not having the original, we can only question if they are talking about "Kochab" in that last instance.

What is the "resurrection" being discussed?

Only human images were reviewed in Edessa Funerary Portraits 2023:


The earliest mosaic is that of Orpheus, from AD 194; mosaics with portraits, however, were much more popular compared to those with mythological scenes alluding to beliefs about the afterlife, of which, only four have survived, two with Orpheus, one with Prometheus, and one with a phoenix.








This is the Phoenix of 236.







From Acts of Thomas, we are told Edessa was known as Daughter of the Parthians. It:

...had close political links to Arsacid Armenia, where Bardesanes took refuge for the remainder of his life after the Roman conquest of the city.

Poetry, particularly in the form of heroic epic recited by bards (Parthian gōsān; Armenian 1oanword gusan), played a central role in the pre-Islamic Iranian world in the transmission of religious ideas; and the Hymn, a poetic masterpiece, can be read as a compressed heroic epic, employing, for the purpose of inculcating the doctrine of a Gnostic religion (either Manicheism or a religion like it), the venerable themes of the quest and dragon-combat. In Armenia the latter aspect, which displays Anatolian, Indo-European, and Iranian features, figures in epics of all periods, from the archaic myths about the god Vahagn (Avestan Vərəthraγna), the “dragon-reaper” (Armenian višapakʿał), and the epic of Tigran II the Great (1st century B.C.E.) and his war with Aždahak the Mede, to the folk epic of Sasun recited down to the present day.

It's not the original Avesta, but it is syncretic and related to Mandean Baptizing.

The "Acts of Thomas" are canonical to Manicheanism. That is to say, his reverence for Jesus as a precursor has no concrete tie other than the preservation of Thomasene literature. Just this and Budhasaf as Josaphat, which is Bodhisattva re-told as apologetics for wrecking Thomas's Indian church.

Nothing there reflects any importance of an Aramaic Four Gospels or any similar Orthodox work. His influence was certainly there:

A letter from Mani (d. 274) to the community at Edessa, cited in the Cologne Mani Codex, indicates that Manicheans were also active in the city even during his lifetime.


He was largely influenced by the Aramaean philosopher Bar Daysan, with this being unreliable:

The literary heart of the work, as we now have it, is to be found in the speeches delivered by Addai in Edessa. The major themes in the speeches highlight the following issues: the Roman political and ecclesiastical alignment of Edessa and its territories; a hierarchical church order in communion with the sees of Antioch and Rome; a list of religious adversaries including pagans and Jews; a Christology reminiscent of that of Cyril of Alexandria; and moral imperatives concerned with the proper use of wealth in service of the poor. The study of the terms in which these themes are presented in the work leads to the conclusion that the Doctrina Addai in its final form comes from the pen of a writer in the entourage of Bishop Rabbula of Edessa (d.436) in the first third of the fifth century.

That was produced over the popular transmission of "Bardesanes of Edessa" to Mani. Definitely a form of competition on the way to building a cathedral.


The arm of Palut and Serapion hails from:


Zephyrinus of Rome (d.217)

This polemical zeal on the part of Ephraem convinced Walter Bauer that Ephraem and the writers against heresies who came after him invented the history of Christianity in Edessa in the third century in order to support the cause of Roman imperial, ecclesiastical Orthodoxy in the fourth century. Bauer proposed the hypothesis that what would later be called `heresy’ actually came first in Edessa, and only subsequently the teaching that would be recognized as `orthodoxy’, and then only as espoused by a small, embattled group.

Ephraem was mainly threatened by Mani's lyrical poetry, and tried to out-do it. And yes, his criticisms are puerile and unbecoming.

The way this doctrine brings in Zephyrinus is remarkable:


"Because he died speedily and rapidly at the breaking of his legs he was unable to lay his hand upon Palut. Palut himself went to Antioch and received ordination to the priesthood from Serapion, Bishop of Antioch. Serapion himself, Bishop of Antioch, had also received ordination from Zephyrinus, Bishop of the city of Rome from the succession of ordination to the priesthood of Simon Peter who received it from our Lord, and who had been Bishop there in Rome twenty-five years in the days of Caesar who reigned there thirteen years."


It's a plain grab from Zephyrinus to Peter. No mincing words. It's that authoritative.

The likelihood of it working that way is not possible:



Pope Zephyrinus was the bishop of Rome from the year 199 until his death on 20 December 217.

Serapion was a Patriarch of Antioch (Greek: Σεραπίων; 191–211).


Wiki is sparse on the Roman bishop, however he is known of reviling heretics, until he is rebuked by Hippolytus because he does not use the Trinity.


A hint is given in Early Bishops of Edessa:

...there is no surer way of detecting a break in the continuity of the history of a Church than by a break in the succession of its chief ministers. And it is to the great break in the succession of Edessa that I must now once more draw your attention. What is the real meaning, we ask, of the statement that Palut was not ordained by Aggai, but by Serapion of Antioch? The documents that make this statement, viz. the Doctrine of Addai and the Martyrdom of Barsamya, go on to tell us that Serapion himself was ordained by Zephyrinus of Rome, who was ordained by his predecessor, and so on up to S. Peter. The general ecclesiastical meaning is, of course, quite clear. It means that Palut was an accredited missionary of the great Church of the Roman Empire. Palut was a child of Peter: no such claim is made for Addai and Aggai, his predecessors at Edessa. But the form of the statement we are considering is curiously unhistorical. Serapion was Bishop of Antioch from 189 or 192 to 209. Zephyrinus was Bishop of Rome from 202 to 218, and certainly did not consecrate Serapion. There must be, therefore, a special reason for the mention of Zephyrinus, who was a comparatively undistinguished occupant of S. Peter's chair. I venture to suggest that this special reason is to be found in the fact that Zephyrinus was bishop at the time when Abgar IX made his famous visit to Rome. All the indications converge to show that the King Abgar who was converted to Christianity, or at least showed himself favourable to the new religion, was Abgar I X . Abgar I X . is the only ruler of Edessa who would ever have had occasion to send an embassy to Eleutheropolis in Palestine, as related in the Doctrine of Addai, he is said to have had Bardaisan for a friend, so that he was exposed to Christian influence; he was the only one of the later kings of his name who reigned long enough for legends to form about his personality.

The Doctrine of Addai changes the Paradigm to:


King Abgar V, 'the Black', (4 B.C. - 7 A.D. & 13 A.D. - 50 A.D.)


In other words, the later King Abgar really did convert to Christianity, which has been regurgitated as fantasy all over one of his predecessors.

We find the English make a simple mistake; certainly there is a Shroud:


...the Liber Pontificalis entry had been intended to reference not Britain, but, rather, the Britio
Edessenorum, Edessa’s citadel (Figure 6), and not King Lucius, but King Lucius Ælius
Septimius Megas Abgarus VIII of Edessa, otherwise known as Abgar the Great.



The roots of conversion stretch before Pope Zephyrinus:


The foregoing late second-century historical chronology well demonstrates two political
realities: (1) Eleutherius would have dispatched a mission to Edessa only during the period
defined by, at one end, the commencement of Commodus’ rule (180) and, at the other, his
own death; and (2) Abgar would not have accepted baptism after Septimius Severus
became Emperor in 193.


Thus, it seems very clear that only under Commodus could a papal mission to Edessa have been both safely
undertaken and successfully completed, and the fact that Abgar the Great was converted during
this period is further confirmed by his portrayal, with a cross-featured tiara, on an Edessan
coin which also bears the image of Commodus (Figure 8). Upon the ascension of
Septimius Severus in 193, however, Abgar promptly neutralized the Christian imagery of
his coinage, substituting a cluster of stars, and a crescent moon, for the cross on his tiara (Figure
9).

Pope Eleutherius ca. 174-189 is the very personage upon whom those English mistakes are forged.

There is really nothing much about him other than attributions from centuries later. He would realistically have opposed the Montanists of Phrygia.

Well, if we have to reckon there was a small mission church of this kind by around 200, what was it standing on? What do these legends cover?

A vacuum of evangelism from Antioch to Mesopotamia.

This whole area was ignored.






Suddenly, we have a way to say, Peter set this up, there was "Saul" of Damascus, and it starts looking like more than it is. There was nothing.


Shifts of Judaism and Roman politics are found in Conversion of Adiabene and Edessa 2020:


This
Christian legend reflects a positive relationship between Syriac Christians
and Jews. This is due in part to the Roman/Parthian stalemate which
isolated Syriac Christianity from the more anti-Jewish, Antiochian Gentile
Christianity.

After the Romans seized control of Edessa, Syriac Christianity
established new connections with Antioch and the Roman Empire more
generally; relations with Jews of Northern Mesopotamia deteriorated. These
changes are witnessed in a sixth century adaptation of the Legend of Abgar:
The Doctrine of Addai. As Syriac Christianity reoriented to Antioch, the
Legend of Abgar was changed to reflect this new reality. By examining the
social, cultural, and religious context that gave birth to the conversion
legends of Edessa and Adiabene, the increase in anti-Jewish rhetoric in
Syriac Christian writings is more easily explained.



Curiously, this legend bears a remarkable similarity to the
story concerning how Judaism became the religion of the region of Adiabene.
The Conversion of the Royal House of Adiabene records the conversion of
Queen Helena and her son Izates to Judaism in the first century AD at the
behest of two different Jewish traders...

By appropriating the original Abgar legend, the Doctrine of Addai restated the
Edessan claim to be the original church founded through the correspondence
of Jesus Christ himself. This document intentionally sought to undermine
the primacy and thus the authority of the Greek-speaking Gentile Church.


Not surprisingly, the city of Edessa and the region of Osrhoene were
annexed as part of the Roman Empire during the reign of King Abgar IX the
Great (177-212 AD).



I don't think kings typically write letters in the naive and condescending tone given in those legends, and the responses of Fathers are nearly unbearable. This may be strategically and socio-politically clever, but we wind up with a below-average concern of Afterlife and Spirit than we would expect from, well, a spiritual doctrine. Nevertheless, we are proffered a theology with a very adamant decision about "resurrection", that i. e. because this happened, that which is in these books is valid.

Resurrection is a mechanically-parsed Latin equivalent of Anastasis.


According to Justin Martyr:


"When we say ... Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propose nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you consider sons of Zeus." (1 Apol. 21).



Well, they...turned into stars sometimes, but perhaps you can find slain mortals issued from death into their revived and now-immortal body. But, if I already have sons of Zeus as inspiration for this, why do I need whatever he is saying?

So, at some level, this is not a "spontaneously invented" notion of the New Testament, although it is Jewish:



...it was notably rejected by the Sadducees but accepted by the Pharisees (Acts 23:6–8).

Acts 23:8

(The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, or angel, or spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge all three.)



This is supposed to be a "power", that perhaps some old Prophets had, and the Apostles are supposed to do it as well. Among its linguistic parallels, an expression for "resurrection" is used in the beginning:


And behold I establish [in the sense of something standing firm] my covenant with you, and with your seed after you, (LXE, Genesis 9:9)


Stories of overcoming death have been shown in various ways:

The Old Testament records individuals who die and are then subsequently restored to life again as, for example, the son of the widow of Zarephath, 1 Kgs. 17. 17-23. Similarly, in 2 Kings chapter 8 verse 1, reference is made to the woman whose son Elisha had revived. In both these instances, the Hebrew word hayah is used, and later in 2 Kings chapter 13 verse 21, the same Hebrew word is used to describe the man who came alive again after being in contact with the bones of Elisha. This idea of coming alive again, or of resurrection, is highlighted elsewhere in the Old Testament, especially where the Septuagint (LXX) directly uses the Greek noun anastasis as in the extended superscription of Psalm 65(66), ‘For the end, a Song of a Psalm of resurrection’. The word can also be translated as ‘rising up’, or ‘standing up’. Perhaps the one picture in the Old Testament that captures the essence of a general resurrection is Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones, and the revival of Israel in a future day. This is further developed with the idea of a specific resurrection, as in Isaiah chapter 26 verse 19 and Daniel chapter 12 verse 2. Interestingly, this hope of resurrection was maintained in Judaism, as the Inter-testament book 2 Maccabees records the story of the martyrdom of seven brothers and their mother at the hands of the Syrian King Antiochus Epiphanes IV. As each son is brutally murdered by Antiochus, they express their trust in God, and the fourth son, as he is near to death, says to the king, ‘One cannot but choose to die at the hands of mortals and to cherish the hope God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!’ 2 Macc. 7. 14.

Also in Job 19.



Septuagint instances of Anastasis as per Concordance.


A glimpse at the Book of Kings apprises us this is the story of Elijah, where he "revives" someone, and the linguistic problem is really, here, it translates Nephesh as "soul".

What if you make a body without a soul?

It's not Ruach or spiritual breath, it is the vital or animating energy.


The simple response is that Isaiah is metaphorical:

Verse 19 is the climax of this subsection, with the prophet continuing to address Yahweh on behalf of his people. Commentators generally agree that it speaks about the resurrection of the dead. If so, it is a unique statement in the Old Testament. However, the language here may be figurative. The dead may be those who have gone or will go into exile, so that resurrection is actually a figure for the restoration of the nation of Judah, as in Ezek 37.

The "statements" such as "dead shall rise", have been suggested as supplications, such as "may the dead rise". Isaiah's song is about return to Jerusalem as Place of Peace, so, no current understanding of this can possibly be true.

It does not foretell the New Testament, or promise a final resurrection.


As its "similarity", Ezekiel 37 uses Ruach. It is a different metaphysical meaning.

It doesn't look like physical resurrection was a big criterion or that it was something people were normally looking for or might be interested in.

Mostly aside from the Jews, there was at least some attention for an Afterlife of Heaven, or as a star, or something, conditions of transmigration and immortality.


I am not sure why someone would tell me "Anastasis" is that of the "sons of Zeus". Because this has a literal meaning:


Apotheosis



Foremost called to mind is Herakles:

Of all mortals, only Herakles becomes a god in Greek mythology, and he was the son of Zeus in the first place.

For the rest, it is hinted that a mortal could in principle become immortal, but it never actually happens in the age of Heroes or afterwards.

Achilles is dipped in the Styx by his mother Thetis in order to make him invulnerable, but she holds onto his heel making him vulnerable, and spelling his eventual doom
Calypso offers Odysseus immortality to stay with her, but he chooses to go home
Orpheus goes into the underworld to retrieve Eurydice, but he breaks the injunction not to look back and so loses her.
Unlike the Babylonian flood story, the Greek survivors, Deucalion and Pyrrha, are not granted immortality.

Generally, a "son" of Zeus et al is a demi-god.

If we go out of our way to be nice, and theorize "Yhwh" is Hebrew for "Zeus", then Jesus is a demi-god -- or, he is mythological.

There are other instances:

You are born from two immortals.
It is woven into your destiny by the Morai (the fate goddesses).
By a series of labors or heroic deeds you win the favor of the gods and are welcomed to Olympus (such as Heracles)
You perform an act of extreme self sacrifice and are rewarded with immortality at death (such as Macaria)
You are so grossly wronged by an immortal that the only way to make it up to you is to grant you immortality AND you died a heroic death (such as Adonis and also Psyche and Iasion and Daphne)
You drink ambrosia (which will make you immortal) such as Psyche and Ganymede .
You find an herb that cures you of death or you develop such healing skills that you don’t age and die (such as Asclepius)
You fly to Olympus on Pegasus. (Bellerophon did fail at this attempt, but Pegasus made it and he’s now an immortal)

Gemini:


Castor and Pollux were half mortal, half gods, and took turns as to which one was in heaven and which one was in the underworld. That is sometimes interpreted as referring to the two hemispheres of the sky, which take turns because the heavens rotate.


Eos grants immortality to a mortal lover:

Eos (as Thesan) and Tithonus (as Tinthu or Tinthun) provided a pictorial motif inscribed or cast in low relief on the backs of Etruscan bronze hand-mirrors.



I would think this is profound, why is Herakles an international syncretic deity and is "Victory" "Immortality".

I don't really think talking about Psyche drinking Ambrosia has a mundane meaning.

Could you become the Pegasus Rider?



It seems to be the idea that Greek Immortality is not the same as Heaven, described this way by Getty:


Elysium (Greek legendary place)

Note: In Greek mythology, originally the paradise to which heroes on whom the gods conferred immortality were sent. It probably was retained from Minoan religion.


Possibly so, It is not certain where the name originates from, and, it is not necessarily an original idea, either. That seems unlikely. What we have is simply a collection of records based in an evolving mythology of the cosmos:

Hesiod refers to the “Isles of the Blest” in his didactic poem “Works and Days”:

“And they live untouched by sorrow in the islands of the blessed along the shore of deep-swirling Ocean, happy heroes for whom the grain-giving earth bears honey-sweet fruit flourishing thrice a year, far from the deathless gods, and Cronos rules over them.”

There are explanations of Zoe as Hades -- Dionysus, Hermes as a death guide like Sraosa or Shem, or Seth or Pusan, and that the scene of Hades was never elaborated like that of Hell, perhaps in dread of mentioning it. The idea of Elysium appears to have gained traction and importance, fairly well summarized in a graphic from Mythopia:


According to an ancient mystical tradition, known as Orphism, if you drank from the river of memory, (Mnemosyne), you would retain all your worldly memories, thus ending the transmigration of your soul. It is suggested they could then migrate to Elysium, where they would ‘rule among the other heroes.’

[IMG]https://miro.medium.com/v2/1*-bgIH56OfCuEgowtqOxobQ.jpeg][/IMG]





So, I suppose the church Fathers are asserting that Resurrection is the kind of Immortality that is a "permanent being", rather than the mind liberated from transmigration, as in the Orphic mysteries. But I already thought these "immortal beings" were "myths". I wasn't taking it literally. That perhaps is why the "Age of Heroes" is showing us it isn't happening any more. For the church statement to be true, it would have to mean that Herakles is walking around in an ordinary physical body and has been doing so all along. I don't think that's quite true, it would be superstitious. And what we find is the Mysteries were practiced, but we have not found anyone from the Hermetic era going around saying "I saw Herakles last week..." or that anyone believed something like that.


A chart like the above may show some accreted material, however, it is also using plenty of older sources such as the Titan who appears to be "Aries", Krios is ancestral to Python and:


...whose interest for Hesiod was as the father of Perses and grandfather of Hecate, for whom Hesiod was, according to West, an "enthusiastic evangelist".


He has another line of descent to Nike, and a third to:

The joining of Astraios with Eos, the Dawn, brought forth Eosphoros, Hesperus, Astraea, the other stars, and the winds.



Krios' connection with the south is found both in his name and family connections:-he is "the Ram," the constellation Aries, whose springtime rising in the south marked the start of the Greek year...



But this last part does not sound accurate because it was a lunar calendar:

These pagan customs were passed on to ancient Greece directly from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon.

Before this contact, ancient Greeks were not known to celebrate the New Year other than marking the “sickle of the new moon” upon recognizing the visible new moon as the beginning of each new month.

They practiced this custom in honor of Selene, Apollon Noumenios, Hestia and the other household gods, also known as noumenia.

It has the literal meaning of "new moon", i. e., "day one" of the visible crescent. The dark moon however is involved, since, according to Plutarch, these two days were sacred for Hekate and Agathodaimon:


It was celebrated by a public ritual on the Acropolis and by private offerings of frankincense, flower garlands, wine, and barley cakes placed on home altars and household shrines to Hekate and Hermes, which had been freshly cleaned the day before as part of the Deipnon.


This aspect is more universal; people attended the lunar cycles with slightly different rites and languages, yet the behavior, intention, and experience would be coherent to one another.

There would be more variability in "calendar corrections" and the marking of a "new year" or any other certain festivals. For example:


...in Athens, the new year typically began in midsummer with the first new moon after the summer solstice, marking the start of the month Hekatombaion. This was also the time of the Panathenaia festival, honoring Athena with grand processions, sacrifices, and athletic games.


So you did this in various ways month to month; there would have been multiple independent calendars without regard to anyone marking "the year" on Jan. 1 or any other way.

It was said that the Greek Zodiac was primarily different from Babylonian by replacing "Hired Man" with "Aries".

Could the ram have represented the constellation Aries before any question of the new year, yes, with Hermes, Helle, and the son of Helios. It's the Golden Ram, which flies. It's complex and most likely suggestive towards the origins of the mythology.


The Mul.apin originally had a Pleiadean Equinox, and then:

The earliest identifiable reference to Aries as a distinct constellation comes from the boundary stones that date from 1350 to 1000 BC. On several boundary stones, a zodiacal ram figure is distinct from the other characters. The shift in identification from the constellation as the Agrarian Worker to the Ram likely occurred in later Babylonian tradition because of its growing association with Dumuzi the Shepherd. By the time the MUL.APIN was created—in 1000 BC—modern Aries was identified with both Dumuzi's ram and a hired labourer. The exact timing of this shift is difficult to determine due to the lack of images of Aries or other ram figures.

There are at least eighteen interpretive schools on the Golden Fleece, obviously, it is very broad in its implications. If it was me, I would understand my national history better as a complex fulmination of obvious and not-so-obvious factors that could only be symbolized in approximation. I would think of it as a lifetime challenge to come anywhere close to understanding it. I would be suspicious of anyone trying to say a guy walked off a hill with a rule book. Because I am not Greek, it has less personal bearing, but remains a valid subject, especially because of seeing Greece as an adjunct. Quite similarly to Sanskrit, it is a continuously-used language with significant developments, forcing us to select from the better and worse usages.

One could easily say Aries is representative of the beginning of classical Greece, just not by way of observing the exact moment it became the equinox. And when this happened, it was not a ram.


The plot of the Ram involves taking the throne of Boeotia and Aeolia, which are foreign dialects:






Homer and Hesiod used Ionic; the story gives us the current name for the Hellespont.

So there is good reason to say this story had not been told before a certain time. Then it is associated with those Greeks called in the east, Yona and Yavana.


They don't have all the details of the world. Minos is not known to be a real person and unattested prior to Homer. If he were real, he would have been Mycenean. From them, there is reference to several familiar Greek deities except for a lacuna of Apollo and Aphrodite.


Minoa and Yaz are both named for something at the end, or after or possibly not even a part of their origin.

Most of the Minoan goods have been looted; there is for example a Syrian Seal. And there is a slightly post-Thera ca. 1,400 B. C. E. coffin:


The Agia Triadha Sarcophagus is a superb example of a larnax, though made of stone coated in plaster. It is beautifully painted with scenes of the dead person’s funeral along the sides, and scenes of Elysium, or the way to Elysium, on the ends; smiling goddesses in plumed head-dresses ride along in a chariot drawn by a griffin on one end, and by a goat on the other, presumably ready to convey the human soul to Elysium, to live ever after with the gods.



That's the image -- "Elysium" is not specifically written there. But "Coffin Text" is the going literature of the time, and it is based on a map, that this thing is supposed to be a psychopomp of experience while transitioning to the beyond.

A plausible continuity from Egypt through Crete to Greece is suggested in the symbol of the underworld ferrymen, the Homeric Phaeacians or Phaiakis:


...the Egyptian afterlife constitutes a denial of physical death. Nilsson observes
that this is precisely the conception which informs the Greek Elysium, and one which is
otherwise quite alien to Greek thought.

Note that the famous thirteenth century Minoan
larnax from Episkopi, discussed by Vermeule ibid, 67-8, would seem to represent a
voyage to the beyond on board a chariot-like ship with more than one occupant, be they
passengers, crew or both.




If we allow some speculation on Cretan objects and imagery:

The Bull God was the Sun God, and he was also the Earth-shaker. In the tablets he was called Poteidan, sometimes King Poseidon, Lord of the Earth. He could appear in several different forms and have several identities, and it seems that other deities had the same ability. At least one deity manifested in the form of a bird. The Agia Triadha sarcophagus shows birds perched on double-axes, indicating the presence of a deity. The clay model of a priestess in a swing, also from Agia Triadha, shows birds perched on the swing-posts, as if the act of meditative swinging itself had induced the epiphany (Figure 42). Several small terracotta birds were found with goddess idols in a shrine at Agia Triadha. The goddess figurine from the Late Dove Goddess Sanctuary at Knossos shows a bird alighting on the goddess’s head; perhaps what we are being shown is the ecstatic moment in a religious ceremony when the sequence of ritual acts reached its climax, and the priestess herself was transformed into the goddess.

The birds are generally referred to as doves in the modern literature, but as Nilsson points out there is often little evidence of species.

It is possible that there was a connection between the idea of bird epiphanies and the sacred tree cult; birds descending from the heavens as messengers or transformations of deities were seen to alight in trees, which conferred sanctity on the trees as the act suggested that the gods themselves had chosen the trees as their shrines. A clay tree with seven clay birds perching on it is clearly a ritual presentation of the idea. In this way, the Minoans may have seen the enshrined trees as divinely appointed trysting places where gods and mortal men and women might meet.

The human epiphanies are rather easier for us to understand. Some religious images show a god or goddess hovering in the air: this may imply a connection with bird epiphanies. A gold ring, now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, shows a priestess dancing and another woman apparently worshipping or dreaming as she reclines in a trance against some boulders.

There are many images of religious ceremonies which show epiphanies of a goddess. Often she is a small figure appearing, as if in the distance, behind or above a group of ecstatically dancing priestesses. Sometimes the goddess appears in the midst of the priestesses, manifesting as one of their number. We should visualize a common form of religious ceremony in which a group of priestesses sang, danced, chanted, and performed sacrifices and other rituals, as a preamble to a climactic event in which the leading priestess - the one Mark Cameron (1987) called the ‘ goddess-impersonator’ - actually became the goddess.

There is an image of a shrine boat goddess:







The artifact has been lost.

Music appears important, in the overall milieu that mystic art was the decorative theme everywhere in Crete,

It's difficult to pretend to give additional details beyond the general picture, but there is no reason to assert that no one took Elysium seriously enough to attempt a meditative communion to it. The importance is, if they made this choice, it would start working. They say there is no night, quite similar to the Indian belief where it *does* tell us to meditate thusly. The Orphic Hymns may have been some of the highest development of this, and, it appears they were important to Aramaeans until the church took over.

It would appear to be important to Rome for Peter to be exalted, and that they attempt to doctrinally claim Antioch by his "founding presence", combined with a fabrication about Paul. The church of James was crushed, the one of Thomas did not survive its infancy, and so it seems to me there was a concerted effort of scribalism to project a succession where there was not one. This is so they can form theological dogma of a kind that would generally be uninteresting.

Rome had the weakness of believing in "divine favoritism", i. e. such as "victory", the implication being if the emperor failed, the "old gods must have been defeated". Christianity, in turn, was portable, didn't ask for much, and ran like a marketing campaign. So we have to suggest there may have been more to "paganism" than "sacrifice x get y", which is more like superstition. Or, if you thought it was really difficult to get into Heaven, and someone comes along and says this is easy, you'd probably try it. However this explains the Gnostic texts very well. The appeal of the subject matter is not necessarily coming from any church. Since there visibly were Marcionite churches, and, these deal with the same focus on immanence, then, yes, it makes sense that someone might have found this more interesting than what they had been taught. None of this dynamic supports the unusual theological claims.

Serapis was perhaps immanent enough, and Orpheus is slightly detailed. I am not one to Restore the Mysteries in an objective form. But unlike Egyptian, the Greek language is living, and we may ask of it why Biblical Greek is a perjury. The church Fathers harp on Greek immortality, or the Unknown God, as if on the one hand they are trying to copy it, and we come out with regurgitated daimons and an attempted borrowing of the epithet of Cyrus the Great. And eventually we get to this Edessa rumor which is really about the first head of state to convert to Christianity, a Nabathean Arab. But he is intentionally conflated with his predecessor in a highly unrealistic manner, and this is why we should think Peter and Paul started it all through Antioch.

It might be effective if you sanitize all the evidence, which Nag Hammadi disproves.

Or, if it actually followed the first interesting lesson from the Gospel of Luke.

The material is subject to too much tampering with too much plausible motive for thoughtcrafting, followed by too strict of an enforcement.

We could say "Thomasene" and perhaps "Johanine" literature represent a "spoken tradition", in which case the Synoptics do as well. Yet only these last would need revision for purposes of marketing. The first can only run on the strengths of their own merit. Because they lack biographical information, then, they would not be selected for purposes of authority. This is achieved in final form in a Greek with multiple issues, and of course when translated into new languages, those issues vanish and you seem to have something brand new. That is why English is the least-plausible way to teach this material.

On the other hand, while esoterics may be difficult in any language, it is all drawn from imagery and mundane experience, and the universal motion of energy or spirit unfettered by any particular teaching or explanation, things that are all simply facts of nature.



Minoan Cat and Bird:

[shaberon]

Tyche, Typhon, and Antioch; Tapa Shotor



I don't expect Greek is going to have much useful information from before its time. It can, however, chart the course of itself and the attempt to syncretize, which may be difficult and imperfect, but at least it runs in the way of not being monolatrous.

It is of interest because it would have been contemporary with that native European tradition, Druidry, whereas it is only Greek that has survived.

Concerning the written era, we have criticized the Myceneans for beginning capitalistic oligarchy, and for some reason they lack Apollo and Aphrodite, who prevent the degradation of Hector's body. They are Trojan deities.


It may be noted that Hesiod mentions the demi-gods consecutively sent to Troy and Elysium. This has parallel implications that perhaps Aeneas or Saturn were demi-gods, or that Troy is part of Greece.

She is the proximal cause of the Trojan War; different things are said about Aprodite:

One huge difference comes with the birth of Aphrodite. In Hesiod's Theogony, who was writing but a generation after Homer, the birth of Aphrodite was a primeval affair; she rose from the foam that was made when Uranus' testicles fell into the sea after Cronus cut them off. This is likely a nod to one of her titles: Aphrodite Urania.

However, in the Iliad she is clearly pictured as the daughter of Zeus, who mentions that her mother is Dione. There is no room for Uranus and a sea-foam birth here. Hesiod, if he knows Homer at all, gets this myth from elsewhere (if he didn't invent it).

The Iliad only covers a few days of a ten-year war, and then, a book is dedicated to a single individual, Odysseus, who has a magical return home through trials by Poseidon.

It does not seem unlikely the Myceneans may have had a dread of Poseidon, he may have been considered as inadequately revered in Crete and hence doing something super angry. And so now we may be seeing Odysseus return to a natural Greece bereft of the Mycenean system and restoring the Bronze Age Collapse with, e. g., Trojan deities. The character of Greek mythology is delivered sequentially in the legends of Orpheus and the Golden Fleece, Musaeus possibly his son or disciple, then Homer and Hesiod.

It gets interesting if it makes me think about the human being as something other than an animal body that quits moving some day.

It seems to do so through Elysium, which is non-Greek or, so far, a term of unknown origin. Now it is being applied with an interface towards whatever the Olympians really are. On this journey, Odysseus winds up encountering mental ships:

Tell me also your country, nation, and city, that our ships may shape their purpose accordingly and take you there. For the Phaeacians have no pilots; their vessels have no rudders as those of other nations have, but the ships themselves understand what it is that we are thinking about and want; they know all the cities and countries in the whole world, and can traverse the sea just as well even when it is covered with mist and cloud, so that there is no danger of being wrecked or coming to any harm.

There are, I would think, spiritual ideas in there, that ought to be carefully considered. And because it may be unclear and the typical person has too much of a "supernatural" view, around three hundred years later, the origin of science is Apeiron and Dike:

For Anaxagoras, the initial apeiron had begun to rotate rapidly under the control of a godlike Nous (Mind), and the great speed of the rotation caused the universe to break up into many fragments. Since all individual things had originated from the same apeiron, all things must contain parts of all other things. This explains how one object can be transformed into another, since each thing already contains all other things in germ.

It's a middle ground. It's not too much like a cartoon character where some deity snaps its fingers and a miracle or favor is done, according to whim, caprice, like a superstition. It's also not random matter in a mechanistic fashion giving us a meaningless display of phenomena. There is some type of superior material but it still has a mental quality.

This "atomism" was a part of Greco-Buddhism, it is a signature mark, and has not faded. The kind that got started in Greece vanished until it was revived by Nicholas Hill 1601 based on Lucretius. The vision that "scientific matter" still has to do with the energy of life itself is seen in Science, Arts, Care of the Soul:


Lucretius’ entire first
book attests to the analogy between biological phenomena and cosmology: this evidently was the most remarkable contribution of atomism
according to the ancients.

The direct association of the concept of the atom with that of seed,
and the use of embryological analogies to explain cosmological phenomena, give precise hints concerning the reception of Democritus’
doctrine in antiquity. The most revealing example is perhaps to be
found in the first book of Lucretius’ De rerum natura. It can be said
that Lucretius, following Epicurus and atomism, recognizes no other
meaning of the terms and concepts of biology than that of a more
adequate description and understanding of the origin and ‘physiological’ processes of the universe. His work opens, right from the first lines
after the proemial Hymn to Venus, with a precise parallel between the
elementary cosmic particles and the seeds of animal and human generation, which is described by means of terms and phenomena typical of biology, concepts like the one of genitalia corpora and semina rerum
(I 58f.), or the genitali / concilio of lines 182f., and the evocative sequence
creet, auctet alatque of I 56. Lucretius wants to demonstrate not only that
nothing is generated from nothing, but also that things can only be produced by particular seeds.


It's not meant to sever itself from the deities or daimons, but to make it more realistic as the explanation, observance, and experience of nature.


In a less organized manner, the corresponding principles are scattered in prior myth through the divine relation to mortals, Pneuma and Menos.

In this case, it refers to something outside onesself, the deity's spirit-breath, entering and affecting one's body and mind in a wrathful or ecstatic manner.

Yes, of course this is the operative principle of Theurgy coming out of the neo-Platonic era. At the very least, we might conclude some people were up to something that altered mundane consciousness. Something is going on other than the simple benefits of hearing a liturgy.

In the very thorough Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth:


Psuche (usually transcribed as psyche): soul; breath of life, lifestuff; Homer distinguishes between a free soul as a soul of the dead,
corresponding with psuche (and still regarded as an eidolon), and body souls,
corresponding with thumos, noos and menos: following the Egyptian
theological patterns, the Pythagoreans constituted the psuche as the
reflection of unchanging and immortal principles; from Plato onwards,
psuchai are no longer regarded as eidola, phantoms or doubles of the body,
but rather the human body is viewed as the perishable simulacrum of an
immaterial and immortal soul; there are different degrees of soul (or
different souls): therefore anything that is alive has a soul...


Everything is alive (hylozoism), so, there is soul and divinity as reality available through experience, and the philosophers complain that people are unable to or choose not to open this door. Instead, the darkness of Hades is cast by ignorance. So, yes, at the basis, they seem to distinguish a spiritual up-and-down.


The eidola have this older, basic meaning, which of course continues and could still be used for "ghost" at any time. It is starting from the Atomistic school shortly after "apeiron" that we find a more specific use.

Here are the "two sides" according to Poetry as Initiation:


On Eidola or on Providence, Περὶ εἰδώλων ἢ περὶ προνοίης

On What Is in Hades, Περὶ τῶν ἐν Ἅιδου


Hades is somewhat unspeakable, because it is the ignorance and darkness of failing to connect with divinity.

This is, verily, the foundation of science:

It was clear from the first fragmentary publication of 1964 (or rather 1965) that this is mainly a commentary on the theogony of Orpheus, based on the philosophy of Anaxagoras and Diogenes of Apollonia—in other words, it is Presocratic.

We may recall the sentence of Heraclitus B 1, the invective against normal people who “prove to be inexperienced while they do experience” reality as Heraclitus is going to describe it. Evidently, for Heraclitus “the Divine” is there, perhaps everywhere; everything is full of gods, according to the saying of Thales...

“The incantation of the magoi can make daimones who stand in the way to change place; daimones are in the way…”

mágoi have the power to clear the way toward the gods of some blockade wrought by daimones.


More special is the theory of Democritus that phantoms, eidola, are produced constantly; they spontaneously separate themselves from existing things, they move around, they make us see things, but also have certain effects beyond what enters the eye. Eidola is a word for the souls of the dead in Homer; in pictures these eidola appear as tiny winged humans; but for Democritus eidola are not confined to Hades: they are present everywhere, in all kinds of shapes.

Democritus declared that such eidola “dive into the bodies through the pores, that they come up and produce appearances in sleep” (A 77); they thus become visible, or audible, they even indicate future events (B 166). So here we have the activities of dream, and at the same time the hypothesis of the reality of the objects which appear in dream. Note there is no place for fantasy in the atomistic system; even visions and spirits do not come from nothing, they must somehow be the effect of eonta. It is also possible, Democritus says, that humans, full of envy, send out eidola tinged with evil, who then will affect those who have become the object of envy, and “they will procure trouble and damage for both body and mind” (A 77). He was praying, Democritus said, “to meet with well-sorted [eúloncha] eidola” (B 166).

He perhaps could be described as an eccentric spiritual pilgrim c.460 BC – c.370 BC.

The "eidola" are now our psychological images of perception, in whatever state or form.

This understanding is used in metaphysics and yoga as I know it. Maybe is is a full 1/3 of the doctrine. I am not sure, but the ability to discuss and use the meaning intended here is critical. Again, it is to say that which is perceived, is not truly anything external, because we are emanating our own ray that grabs the external ray and thus eidola are perceived.


This is the same in a modern Neuroscience department as per L Triarhou 2015:

He had postulated that eidola, small images of external objects, were transmitted by atomic movements to the sense organs and from these to sensation. Such images bear an uncanny resemblance to what neurophysiologists call representations.

Such a visual image in the pupil results from effluences (aporrhoae) both from the seen object and from the observer; the two meet and form a solid impression (entyposis) in the air, which then enters the pupil. Opposite of the centripetal emanation, from the object of vision to the eye, another emanation is conceived, centrifugal, simultaneous with or preceding the act of vision, from the eye to the object. Such a suggestion was in all likelihood made by Empedocles, and it was embraced by Democritus, Plato, and the Stoic philosophers. It is still used allegorically today in the expression: to throw a glance.

Democritus is the earliest philosopher in whose writings we find an attempt at a detailed theory of color vision. According to him, color is a purely subjective thing...

K Rudolph 2020 on his pioneering of Vision and Color.



One can see something similar percolate into Zoroastrianism.

Ahriman or Zurvan are *not* the Avestan Cosmogony, and so one should stick with the mantric one first.

Yasna 32 resembles Hesiod's Ages, where the Vidvedad does not, so this later Ahriman-based literature is questionable. According to this, the purpose of the Trojan War was to rid the earth from the weight of too many heroes, who go to the realm ruled by Cronos.

If a handle is to be gotten on it at all, Denkard Book Four is built from the principle of Plato:


the hot-moist (garm-xwēd)


and it has a doctrine of emanations comparable to that of Plotinus. Its own words describe mutual respect between Iranians and Roman Senecas, the Greek philosophers fīlāsōfā, the Indian sages dānāg ī hindōg.


It sounds unusual because it modifies the Greek idea by demoting cold and dry, and universalizing hot-moist which in Greece only produced Fire. What is being articulated is more like the Vyuha and other stories of multiple suns or multiple tiers of reality:

All philosophical cosmogonical accounts, analogous to the passage considered above, are founded on the sequence of Being, the Movement of Being, and Actualization of Being (see BŪDAG). The third form, the vital principles (zindagān), designating the frawahr and soul, are not emanated from the substantial form and the firmament, but dispensed (baxt ēstēnd) directly in consequence of the miraculous act of the Creator, a purely dogmatic assertion.

Budag is a calque on "genesis".



The ancient formula is Tvastr produces Brahmanaspati, who produces a Deva Creation, which makes a Hiranyastupa/Purusha/Material Creation, and this is more or less still here underlying the philosophy, along with a "living materialism" like that of the Atomists:

Matter moves in space (wāy, gyāg) but is controlled by the firmament (rah, spihr, spās; Dēnkard, p. 207, tr., p. 201).


In the syncretic philosophical system of the Dēnkard, Book 3, the prime mover is the Creator Ōhrmazd, and in the Book 4, under the influence of Peripateticism, the Supreme Cause (čimānāg), a novel formation distinct from čimīg (causative).

He is spiritual as well as material (stī); his essence is the soul, the infinite light (anagr rošnīh), the quiddity of which is the hot-moist (garm-xwēd); and his form/garment is the material light (gētīg rošnīh), i.e., brāh (brilliance) and bām (beam), emanated from the infinite light (Dēnkard, p. 43, tr., p. 62).



According to the Dēnkard (p. 120, tr., p. 125; Shaki, 1970, pp. 278-81) the primal substance (tōhmagān tōhmag, lit. seed of seeds), the hot-moist, is developed directly through the creative activity of the Creator (dādār) in association with the power and instrumentality of the firmament (pad rah ōj ud abzārīh). The hot-moist, which is also called substratum (mādag), is the first stage of emanation called Being (bawišn). It is not potential but actual, the Aristotelian substantial form (adēsīdag stī or dēsag mādag). The participation of the firmament (rah, lit. wheel) in cosmogonical process, and its supposed influence on natural phenomena, presupposes the creative power of the cosmic intermediaries.


From Being develops the first form called the Movement of Being (bawišn rawišnīh), which is characterized by the four elements (zahagān “lit. generators”; see ELEMENTS), proclaimed to be the last pure (i.e., ahuric) substances (abdom mādag pālūdag) in cosmogonical hierarchy. From the Movement of Being, the four elements, develops the second form called Actualization of Being (bawišn astišnīh) characterized by the four complexions (ristagān; Shaki, 1973, pp. 136-40; idem, 1975, pp. 52-4), i.e., hot-dry, hot-moist, cold-dry, cold-moist. Thus the complexions are, of necessity, the first mixed principles of the material world and, according to the Dēnkard (p. 121), also those of the living creatures (4 ristagān āmēzišn ī zindagān; see BŪDAG; Shaki, 1973, p. 138). The third form, the congeneric frawahr and soul, were dispensed through the marvelous act of the Creator, integrating the material existence (hamēnīdār ī stī), specifically man, cattle, and other good living creatures that have been dispensed in individual bodies, endowed with form (dēsagōmand ī abdom baxt ēstēnd ō kerbān kerbān). In this text the theological concept, in regard to the creative impulse of the Creator, is stressed throughout the cosmogonical process.

Is it at least compatible to the point we just raised with Democritus, probably so:

(Is there any transmission of Light from one to another? The answer to which is that) the God of Existence is the best leader (of the world temporal and spiritual) and He is capable of imparting His own Light to another.

Those that are dwellers in Hell have been mentioned as (inmates) of Darkness, not of Light.

And so we are trying to look at this as an intellectual update rather than a scriptural alteration. Zurvan at least has the plausibility of being an Avestan scriptural entity, graftable to Apeiron.


Part of the point is that if we look at the basis of a "syncretic deity", then, original Avestan Verethragna is going to tell us a lot about why victory has an inner meaning.

Let's make everything more obvious.


Here's the close connection. I lost something. It was destroyed by the Taliban around 1992. From surviving photos, there is a description of Tapa Shotor Buddha, Herakles, and Tyche.


It's a scene of Buddha preaching his first Sermon in Benares, as found in Afghanistan with Greek companions.

Herakles is Vajrapani, and nearby is Alexander the Great, who often has the Ram Horns of Ammun-Ra.

The article has a long end section explaining the Greek educational system, that physical education with exercises and particularly combative sports was essential.

In our view, inertia or inactivity is a form of Ignorance, and so yes, this is in common, and yes, this is what spreads as martial arts schools. Korybantes are a class (or fraternities) of armored mystai or initiates who "may not be understood by others".



Along with myth and statuary, this is how Herakles was understood everywhere:

Herakles
then appears as a model of strength and physical achievement, but he had also the meaning of inner
virtue, endurance, rigor, and austerity of the mind.
Because of his physical strength, Herakles was the main god of the palestra,
together with
Hermes and Eros. However, for the athletes he was the primordial model, and this was not only because
of his physical force.

Greek wrestling (pale,
Greek: πάλη), boxing (pygmachia, Greek: πυγμαχία), and pankration (Greek: παγκράτιον) among the
Parthian and Kushana aristocracy, continued and was an imperative aspect of their education, as
important as literature; thus the Buddhist warrior caste of the Kushana was involved in Greek sports
with Hellenistic referents, and Herakles was the main one.

On the Indian frontier, he absorbs a novel and unique appearance, that suggests fusing himself to the syncretism:

At
Tapa Shotor, he is holding the vajra (Sanskrit: वज्र), instead of his traditional club as in Greece and the
rest of the Hellenistic world, afterward also in Rome.

Fravashi is also identical with the Hellenic concept
of the god Agathodemon (Greek: ἀγαθὸς δαίμων), or a sort of “guardian angel,” attaching itself to the
individual’s body at birth and leaving at its death. In its original form Agathodemon had the function of
personal servant of Zeus Soter (Zeus Savior), and here, represented next to the goddess Tyche agathe
“Good fortune” (Greek: Τύχη Ἀγαθή), his spouse, it is clearly a Greek mythological representation in Tapa
Shotor, with Indian correspondent elements around the new Buddha “Savior” replacing Zeus Soter.
Tyche in the Kushana period will also be known as Ardoksho (Bactrian: Αρδοχϸο).


Herakles/Vajrapani is, however, always shown surviving the death of the Buddha in Gandhara art representations.

Huntington on Pharro and Ardoksho iconography. Indian Lakshmi pre-dates the Kushans, and it is more likely her basis is Avestan Ashi (such as in Ard Yasht).



Drawing from a legend from Xenophon about Herakles choosing Virtue, he is like a nascent Buddha because of a:

...similar achievement, that is, the conquest of oneself by fighting desires, fears, and other uncontrolled
states of mind

This shows the close relationship of Greek combat sports and a warlike aristocracy in elements
of the Parthian and Kushana populations. According to Thomas Scanlon’s table concerning the
Olympic winners of the late Roman Empire (181–385 AD), 55 percent came from Asia, 8 percent came
from northern and central Greece, 7 percent came from the Peloponnese (Achaia), 28 percent came
from Egypt and North Africa, and 1 percent came from Crete. Greek athletics was practiced in central
and southern India as well during Roman times, among the remnants of “Romans” in the Deccan
plateau and in southern India.

So the "pagans" were banned from the Olympics in 393.

After the Persian Sassanian invasion of Central Asia, Greco-Bactrians seem still to have been
living in communities in the Badakhshan mountains.

.


Both of these cultural shapers, i. e. Greco-Bactrian and Kushan, establish themselves in Badakhshan in a way unparalleled by others.

Around Tapa Shotor in East Afghanistan, Hadda yielded some 23,000 artifacts when excavated in the 1900s, including probably the oldest Indian manuscript; the region was taken by Chandragupta Maurya, and these Buddhist sites were probably established by Kushan King Huvishka ca. 155 - 187. Several others were probably built through the 300s. It now seems to have been the "center" of Greco-Buddhist art.


Herakles and Tyche:







Buddha with Erotes:






Erotes are from the retinue of Aphrodite. In the cult of Aphrodite in Anatolia, iconographic images of the goddess with three Erotes symbolized the three realms over which she had dominion: the Earth, sky, and water.

Again, with Hesiod, Eros is primordial, and the above comes from his later "rebirth" through Aphrodite and Ares.

There is this fusion around the Orphic Egg:

Given an egg as the beginning of a cosmogony, and it was almost inevitable that there should emerge from the egg a bird-god, a winged thing, a source of life, more articulate than the egg yet near akin to it in potency. The art-form for this winged thing was also ready to hand. Eros is but a specialized form of the Ker; the Erotes are Keres of life, and like the Keres take the form of winged Eidola. In essence as in art-form, Keres and Erotes are near akin. The Keres, it has already been seen, are little winged bacilli, fructifying or death -bringing; but the Keres developed mainly on the dark side; they went downwards, death wards; the Erotes, instinct with a new spirit, went upwards, lifewards.

Older, similar figures are usually Souls of Charon. ""Ker" is Violent Death.

Related to the Death Shroud:


In seventh-century clay tablets, these images, which in Homer
are able to fly, are depicted as birds or Sphinges.

These winged eidola can also be
weighed – just like the fate of heroes, which we have
seen can be measured according to the wool required to
make one shroud. Just as clothing established the
appearance (eidos) of the living so these shrouds seem
to lend the shades of the dead their own post-mortal
appearance. Indeed, the widely used ancient metaphor
of the « garment of the soul » appears to confirm this
function of the shroud.


Winged Psychai are evident from the Mycenean period; and what seems to happen around the 300s B. C. E. is that the eidola are represented more realistically -- no wings, a normal human figure as you walk to Hades. The art style changes approximately around the time that eidola is given a "scientific" meaning.




Although old for a Buddha, the figure is almost certainly showing resonance with Aphrodite. Death is found elsewhere. From an underground meditation chamber:






It's important, since "death is only a change of state" is merely a fact, and here we face the difficulty of dealing with impermanence. Because this configuration shows a lot of meditation dedicated to the subject, then were are able to say there is more philosophy developed in this vein. This leads to a form of practice that we have little awareness of from other sources.

It would be similar to Greece, in that we would follow the Moon or lunar calendar to determine the days suited for different activities.

And because we are looking at the relics of monasteries, we might tend to make the equation Buddhism = Monasticism, which is only partially correct. It must, perforce, be some kind of organization that is able to solicit patrons and hence promote any preservation of its things. Because that stops happening with the Huns and Turks that sweep through here, we go on to massive cave monuments within India itself. We find text deities such as Mayuri and texts that are based in Agricultural Magic, that is, the Bhutadamara, Vajratunda, and Pratisara especially. Those are still set in a kind of universal folk almanac, along with the meditations on Paradise and Five Elements that are comparable with the Greeks, and it would be mainly from there going forward that the intricate Indian esoteric systems render themselves.

The Chinese got the Mahayana that was transmitted through here.

In context, unless it is a retreat center, most likely any Buddhist monastery would be a sign of a local following. That is to say, lay people. And certainly the point of some early Indian Sutras is "this means that someone like me can do this". And so when someone goes off in the desert or the mountains and has a revelation, some sort of vision, rather than coming back and issuing something "by decree", we are going to filter it with a peer-review process. So we are looking to make a process whereby the most refined spiritual perception of any seeer is transferable to "household religion". This goes on for centuries after the height of the Parthian-themed syncretism blew away.


It is like the ubiquity of combat halls:

Palaestrae functioned both independently and as a part of public gymnasia; a palaestra could exist without a gymnasium, but no gymnasium existed without a palaestra.


Yes, that is primarily masculinized, is male education and training.

I have rarely seen anything that would indicate combat was ever a normal form of women's upbringing.

That's one of those things I'm not sure a great deal of effort should be expended to change it. I can't see any reason to disallow it totally, and on the other hand, it may be better if they don't experience things I have, not just this but other ways we are kind of on separate tracks.

It is entirely likely the College of Music pre-dates any of these Greek records; it doesn't need Babylonian Astrology, but it does seem to draw from a relative minority of candidates compared to fighting.


Indians party in Greek togas:






Female disciple:








It seems to me that a combination of Denkard Book Four with the Heraklian "palaestra" system is the baseline where Buddhism is perhaps "common" with the worldly advancements of the time. Again, we are talking about things like the "style" of Olympic games and "equivalents" of Athenian Gymnasium, as replicated in "Greco-Bactria". This was the Pax Kushana, which was withdrawn to India.


There is no need to lament terribly, on the apparently overly-masculinized training system of Herakles, since the female divinity represented is also quite a "syncretic system". When Europe is mostly Catholicized, she is the Wheel of Fortune in the Tarot. And it turns out that she is relatively "recent", that is, moved into public focus in the post-Alexandrian age. In so doing, she is replacing the superstition of crediting events to the "will of the Olympians" and looking more into natural cause and effect, even if still unknown. Especially on the issue of social order.


Tyche is depictable as Agathodaimon and Virgo and:

Cities venerated their own Tychai, specific iconic versions of the original Tyche. This practice was continued in the iconography of Roman art, even into the Christian period, often as sets of the greatest cities of the empire.

Tyche was further absorbed into the Parthian Empire, who frequently depicted Tyche in their coins, as well as in imagery bestowing legitimacy to Parthian kings.

In Greco-Roman and medieval art, Tyche was depicted as wearing a mural crown, and carrying a cornucopia (horn of plenty), an emblematic gubernaculum (ship's rudder), and the wheel of fortune, or she may stand on the wheel, presiding over the entire circle of fate.

The mural crown's significance is that it identifies her as the goddess of the city, and in the case of Sparta her mural crown depicted a part of their foundation myth of their city.[17][19] The mural crown is often used by archeologists and historians to identify a figure in art as Tyche.

The association with Virgo is parallel to Dike -- Justice. Her iconography makes her virtually indistinguishable from Demeter -- Ceres.



Tyche passes the diadem to Volosges I:




...by the time of Vologases I (51 AD), the only Greek imagery used on coins was the goddess Tyche, who continued to be represented on Parthian coins for the next 200 years.


She is passing the Avestan Glory, which begins with a complicated xw- that most others change to an "f":

Pre-Christian Georgian kings of the Pharnavazid dynasty were divinely assigned kxwarrah and its loss usually led to the monarch's imminent death or overthrow in Georgian kingship. Many of the monarchs had names based on this etymological root like Pharnavaz, Pharnajom and Pharasmanes.

In Buddhism, Sogdian farn and Khotanese pharra signified a "position of a Buddha," that is, with "dignity" or "high position." This meaning subsequently passed into Tocharian.

tyche basileos, fortuna regia, the saving grace (luck) of fortune of a king; and probably also the royal farrah in the tyche of the various Hellenistic rulers of the Seleucid and Arsacid periods as well as of the Kushan kings.

This is interesting, because xwarena is a thoroughly scriptural entity, operated by a "new" universal deity.

In Khotan:


The oldest loanwords in Khotanese are Zoroastrian technical terms that have been
adapted to a different religious environment. The best known are urmaysde 'sun' <
*ahura-mazdah (nom. sg.), cf. Avestan ahuro mazda, Old Persian auramazda, and
ssandriimatfl-, which is the Khotanese equivalent of the name of the Avestan female Holy
Immortal SPenta- armaiti- but is used to designate the Buddhist goddess of fortune,
Sanskrit SrI. To this layer of borrowing may also belong the much disputed word pharra­
'splendour', the Khotanese counterpart of Old Persian farnah-.


As with Hara Bezaiti, it may be pre-Zoroastrian. It appears the Sogdians are heavily Zoroastrian, with Khotan being more responsive to Buddhism. Perhaps they only knew "proto-Iranian mythology" and amalgamated the vocabulary. It is a narrow proposition, however, since almost anywhere it might be spoken in these times would have reason to at least know it is Zoroastrian.


Realistically, Tyche changes the meaning somewhat.

From "fiery illumination", it seems to have been Hellenized:


The meaning “(good) fortune,” certainly a secondary etymological development, is well documented in various translations of the term in non-Iranian languages, even though they carry a vast range of nuances and specific meanings: Aramaic gd; Greek tychē; Sanskrit lakṣmī, śrī...


That is questionable, the implication it is "good" would be ideal, or our attempt.

Eutychia with Nemesis the adjustor who points accusingly at Helen of Troy:





understood long after the Trojan War:

Seneca, Troades 734 ff :
"As for Troy's throne, let Fortuna (Fortune) bear that whithersoe'er she will."




Tyche was on a "first run" of Parthian coins ca. 120 B. C. E., in evidently a "pure Hellenistic" manner; she returns around 70 B. C. in "Parthian glory" and seems to be the same all the way to Commagene. In the other direction, she of course takes the Crown of Isis, or her Knotted Dress.

There is a Herakles and Tyche 200s Phhrygian.

Perhaps some of the most painstaking symbolism is crafted into this Gold Roman Egyptian:

The bodies of two snakes intertwine to form a Herakles knot, the centerpiece of this bracelet. The snake on the left represents Agathodaimon, and the cobra on the right Thermouthis, two agrarian/fertility deities associated with Serapis and Isis, respectively. On the platform between them stand two goddesses, Isis-Tyche (or Isis-Fortuna), a deity closely associated with Alexandria, and the nude Aphrodite.





Tyche is very close to the founding goddess of Antioch. She is major in at least four of the to-be Orthodox dioceses.

One can see in the bracelet the total karma from the Trojan War to the time of Jesus.


As for such a Knot:

The knot was originally created by two intertwined ropes, and it actually originated as a healing charm in Ancient Egypt, however it is mostly known for its use in Ancient Greece and Rome to be a protective amulet that was incorporated into the protective girdles of the brides; this being ceremonially untied by the groom.

via adaption:

The ancient Greeks believed Heracles himself used it to complete one of his Twelve Labors. His Ninth Labor was to retrieve the girdle of Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons. In one version of the myth, the girdle was tied with the Heracles knot, and his knowledge of the knot allowed him to untie it and obtain the girdle, further cementing its association with the hero and his legendary exploits.

Curiously, the Greek word for knot can also be translated as spell or charm. The Heracles knot was believed by some to possess magical properties that provided protection and strength. It was commonly used in amulets and jewelry to ward off evil spirits and bring good fortune to the wearer. The knot’s association with Heracles, a figure of legendary strength, made it a powerful symbol of protection.

from other gold jewelry:

The Herakles knot on this sumptuous armband is enriched with floral decoration and inlaid with garnets, emeralds, and enamel. According to the Roman writer Pliny, the decorative device of the Herakles knot could cure wounds, and its popularity in Hellenistic jewelry suggests that it was thought to have the power to avert evil.

She was popularized by 500 B. C. E.:

The goddess was not one of the twelve Olympians, yet her powers exceeded theirs. As a result, gods and mortals alike gave her a wide berth. Her powers surpassed Zeus’, yet today, she is largely forgotten.



The thing about Tyche is she is not endearing, she does not do favors for you, she is aloof and has an indifferent personality.

The way we might ask how a deity like this is "blind" is parallel to the point that the new Atomism or "science" is intended as the measurable objectivity that is only a component between divine thought and organic living bodies. Nothing is supposed to be unbalanced or removed. If we admit we only partially know some causes and effects, then, we simply do not understand Tyche very much. The goodness of her can only be made.


One would only focus on the myth of her to a certain extent, since the point of the myth is just some allegory and character, and then the more important thing is how it is employed and experienced by people, e. g. as songs, offerings, and meditations.

It makes sense to me that it would take a few centuries after Hesiod and Homer for this to simmer, and around the time of the Atomists, Herakles and Tyche erupt over most of the known world. And we see, that, between the Greek philosophers, the explanation shifts around as to whether it is Water that is more paramount, or Fire, or Air was also used; and so the Zoroastrians are their own twist of a detailed doctrine on the Elements:

The Dēnkard (ed. Madan, pt. I, p. 278) on the worldly function of Wāy the Good (Wāy ī weh), which has a counterpart in Wāy the Evil (Wāy ī wattar), states: “That which quickens the world and is the breath-soul of the living things is the divine (*abargar, lit. ‘supreme being’), . . . fiery-wind which vivifies the body of man—” a concept evidently induced by the Greek psyche “breath.”

Well, they have what is necessary to get any good answers.

The way they overhaul the Greek explanation is quite obvious:

A unique syncretic text of the Dēnkard dealing with the creation of the world presents in corrupt forms two Middle Persian terms for primal principles adapted from the corresponding terms in Greek. Blending traditional tenets with Neo-Platonic doctrine, the passage recounts that the creator first fashions from the Endless Light the all-embracing form of fire (āsrō-kerp), which emanates two instruments of equal creative powers: the Spirit of the Power of the Soul (mēnōg ī waxš nērōg) and the Spirit of the Power of Nature (mēnōg ī čihr nērōg). The two hypostases conjointly fashion the essence of the cosmic substance, the most subtle very self of matter (dāramagtom gētīg grīw), whose name in Avestan is dust (*gard) and in the language of the world (i.e., Greek), “*chaos.” From this amorphous dust (chaos) then develops stwwkwn, which seems to be a corrupt Greek, stoicheîon (element), analogous with the Arabic term osṭoqos. After the stages of formation and expansion, with the participation of the Spirit of the Power of the Soul, the firmament (spihr) develops. From the firmament arises Being par excellence, the hot-moist, the form and essence of air (garm-xwēd wādōmand). With the assistance of the Spirit of the Power of the Soul, the firmament emanates the substratum of the elements (tōhmagān tōhmag, lit. “seed of seeds,” corresponding to the Greek húlē), from which derive the elements (zahagān), as the first substance of Being (bawišn; Dēnkard I, pp. 349-50; Shaki, 1970, pp. 283-86; idem, 1984, pp. 100-102).

The closest correspondence that was suggested to us:

In order that the supernal infinite light should pass into material principle a gradual transformation of its divine essence into material being was postulated. Of interest is the striking similarity between the emanatistic doctrine of Plotinus, metaphorically described as light from the sun, and his god assimilated to light above light, with the light hierarchy of our account.

I don't know if it's true, but I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case, with no reason to doubt it offhand.

Plotinus is one of the first examples of making a choice, that is, he saw and did not like the majority of public philosophers in Alexandria. Finally he was riveted to Ammonius Saccas. Later he tried to enter Persia and India, following a Roman general who was defeated, so that did not work. His most ardent follower was Porphyry who disputed Christianity. The Denkard is more likely following a later re-distribution out of Harran.

I think we have shown the same thing is the definition of the Avesta and the Veda; it is just unclear, as if it were concealed, but again these are rites that would have depended on a greater mythology. And because they are the same, at least with regard to Tvastr and Waters, it makes sense there were spoken stories, that we do not believe there was any record of. The ones we know are later, changed, and different. I doubt there would be anything wrong with giving answers to philosophy and science if one finds it supported by the material. Therefor we don't find an exact copy of Plotinus.


It is this alliterative:

Tyche of Antioch by Eutychides (who also made Herakles of Sparta)


The city was effectively founded as a dynastic capital by Seleucis Nicator around 300 B. C. E., this work being directly commissioned for it. It only exists in numerous copies; and is thought to be the base model for many neighbors. So it is called the best-known work of Seleucid art. Described as "colossal" but lost.

In coinage, her iconography additionally includes Palm Frond, Ram, and Shrine.

She is found with Severus Alexander.


This now makes it a little weirder about the Antiocene Christianity thing. The retro-fitted story about the "converted king" leaves a bad taste. Also, it helps explain what appears to be redaction on the figures of Peter and Paul. I don't trust the New Testament. I think it may have some authentic Jesus sayings, and, maybe, some portion of the biography being roughly correct. I don't think the theology is part of it. I can understand if perhaps he dwelt on a "portable" divine communion. He might have shown a practice that was neither Jewish nor Mandean. It may be better explained with a Therapeutae youth.

James perished and Thomas was not there, and so it still seems to be Mark who might have been able to anchor a "residence" of disciples. It is telling that Clement and Origen were suspicious of a couple generations of Alexandrian Fathers. The way it triangulates with Rome and Antioch is unsettling.

Originally there seem to be Nemesis and Tyche of Smyrna ca. 500 B. C. E.:

According to the author, “depictions of two identical woman figures side by side are encountered in the Minoan and Mycenaean ages. The existence of these representations of a religious meaning goes back as far as the early Anatolian cultures at Çatalhöyük. Reflections of the Great Mother, who is depicted on Hittite seals as a pair together with lions, are observable in the depictions of a pair of Cybeles which are frequently encountered in the Greek world.” On the other hand, paired cult images are quite widespread around Anatolia, Syria and Greece; early information concerning them is encountered around Cappadocia. Apparently, paired cultic images are of Asian origin, though not original to Smyrna. That one encounters these depictions in different geographies indicates that the pair of Nemeseis does not form the basis of the cult at Smyrna. This situation becomes clearer with the occasional occurrence of a single Nemesis upon coins.

At Smyrna she may be this local:

In other Greek myths Nemesis, not Leda, is the actual mother of Helen of Troy and that Leda merely found the resulting egg from the mating of Zeus and [winged] Nemesis (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3.127; Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 33. 4 in his description of Rhamnous’ Nemesis Temple although Pausanias is not alone in naming Okeanos as the father of Nemesis). Although this deity was also at times perceived as a duality to be begin with (Nemesis-Tyche), it also makes some sense that Smyrna would have a dual deity – one kindly, one implacable – for this balancing role especially since some suggest there was a Nemesis for both the old city of Smyrna and the new one. At least one other suggestion about Nemesis is that she was not even Greek but Anatolian and originating here around Smyrna.

Tyche emerges from a nebulous phrase by Hesiod and has no story, and is easily popularized because she is really Syrian:


A third type
of Tyche is the Amazon and is the result of merging with the local warrior goddess Astarte. This
type occurs throughout the Near East, not just in Syria. The Amazon stands dressed in military
garb with one breast exposed. She has one foot raised and resting on an object, usually the stern
of a ship.


Hesiod was simply referring to someone:


The oldest example of an
image with a mural crown is an Akkadian depiction of a seated goddess on a royal seal from
2225 BCE. The goddess is not identified but the seal belonged to princess Tutanapsum, daughter
of the Akkadian king Naramsin.

Crown-wearing goddesses include the Akkadian Ishtar; the Aramaean Atargatis; the
Anatolian Cybele; the Syrian Dea Syria; the Greek Ge, Oikoumene, Artemis, and Aphrodite; as
well as the Roman Magna Mater. I am unaware of any gods being depicted wearing the crown.

There were three goddesses in Syria with whom Tyche was commonly merged:
Atargatis, Cybele and Astarte.


The seal is really just the Princess:


Never before has there been evidence that a member of the Akkadian royal family other than the king was given divine status.


On p. 73, the servant plays a Lyre.

Or it is some unknown form of Hook from an article on similar Priestesses, Mari, etc.

It may not be the specific Roman "mural" crown, but, it may be an attempt to bring obscure deities to light by offering them animation from outside of the Greek mainland.



It is somewhat similar to "Waters" in the way Tyche is in the family of Tethys sister of Krios:

Hesiod, Theogony 346 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.) :

"Tethys bore to Okeanos (Oceanus) the swirling Potamoi (Rivers) . . . She [Tethys] brought forth also a race apart of daughters, who with lord Apollon and the Rivers have the young in their keeping all over the earth, since this right from Zeus is given them. They are Peitho . . . Kalypso (Calypso), Eudora and Tykhe (Tyche) [in a list of names] . . . Now these are the eldest of the daughters who were born to Tethys and Okeanos, but there are many others beside these."

She's...an ocean?


The rivers are brothers, beginning:


Neilos (Nile)...


with the sisters ending:


...and Styx, who among them all has the greatest eminence.


They were originally Fresh Water:


Nephelai (Cloud-Nymphs), Aurai (Breeze-Nymphs), Naiades (Spring and Fountain Nymphs), Leimonides (Pasture Nymphs), and Anthousai (Flower Nymphs)


Only in later years did they become briny, when it was seen the Atlantic and Indian Oceans appeared to be the "world-encircling river". Several original nymphs appear to have land connotations, such as Europa, Asia, Rhodes, Corinth. Tyche is a part of those, and their parents are more or less Creation:


"[Homer portrays Okeanos (Oceanus) and Tethys as the primordial gods of creation--Tethys in this sense is Thesis (Creation) :] The ends of the generous earth on a visit to Okeanos, whence the gods have risen, and Tethys our mother."


In the later Orphic hymns:


The third principle after the two was engendered by these--Ge (Earth) and Hydros (Water), that is--and was a Drakon (Dragon-Serpent) with extra heads growing upon it of a bull and a lion, and a god's countenance in the middle; it had wings upon its shoulders, and its name was Khronos (Chronos, Unaging Time) and also Herakles.


Her historical evolution has long been recognized:

Pausanias, Description of Greece 4. 30. 4 - 6 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) :

"The people of Pharia [in Messenia] possess also a temple of Tykhe (Tyche) and an ancient image. Homer is the first whom I know to have mentioned Tykhe in his poems. He did so in the Hymn to Demeter, where he enumerates the daughters of Okeanos (Oceanus), telling how they played with Kore (Core) [Persephone] the daughter of Demeter, and making Tykhe one of them. The lines are : ‘We all in a lovely meadow, Leukippe, Phaino, Electre and Ianthe, Melobosis and Tykhe and Okyrhoe with a face like a flower.’

He said nothing further about this goddess being the mightiest of gods in human affairs and displaying greatest strength, as in the Iliad he represented Athena and Enyo as supreme in war, and Artemis feared in childbirth, and Aphrodite heeding the affairs of marriage. But he makes no other mention of Tykhe. Bouplaos (Buplaus) a skilful temple-architect and carver of images, who made the statue of Tykhe at Smyrna, was the first whom we know to have represented her with the heavenly sphere upon her head and carrying in one hand the horn of Amaltheia, as the Greeks call it, representing her functions to this extent. The poems of Pindar later contained references to Tykhe, and it is he who called her Supporter of the City."

Hesiod does not appear to mention the Antiocene river, even considering its possible alternate names, Arantu, Alimas, and Typhon. Rather, it appears when Tyche disappears in a later version by Pseudo-Hyginus:


Of the same descent Rivers: Strymon, Nile, Euprhates, Tanais, Indus, Cephisus, Ismenus, Axenus, Achelous, Simois, Inachus, Alpheus, Thermodoon, Scamandrus, Tigris, Maeandrus, Orontes.



Hesiod has the Hermos River of Smyrna, and actually Indos is the southern-most river of Anatolia.



According to Pliny:

The same as the river Calbis of Strabo and Mela, at present the Dalamon Tchy, Quingi or Taas, having its sources in Mount Cadmus above Cibyra. It was said to have derived its name from an Indian, who had been thrown into it from an elephant.

Virtually the same thing was said about "Orontes", even though it appears derived from the Assyrian term, and is already assigned as a son of Tethys. Even if these "sayings" are mere rumors, it makes two Indians in one line believed to have met their demise in rivers, or, moreover, the river of Antioch. The "Indos" River is in the mysterious region Caria which is the origin for the term Barbarian perhaps because they spoke Luwian. They may be more widely famous as the Sea People, and associated with Aphrodite and similar cults.

In the Greek epic poem Dionysiaca (circa 400 CE), the river is said to have been named after Orontes, an Indian military leader who killed himself and fell into the river after losing to Dionysus in single combat.

While this late epic discusses some rather extraordinary things, among them is introducing Indians to grape wine.

The relevant conflict area is Bithynia where:


it was also called Olbia

It is related to a class of Naiad, or, for Astakos:

The town of Astakos is built at the foot of Mount Veloutsa (Dikorfo), at the cove of the homonymous bay. It took its name from the mythical Astakos who was the son of Poseidon and Olivia. The word today means “lobster” in Greek, but it has nothing to do with the tasty crustaceans.

The first inhabitants of Astakos and the lands further in (Xiromeri) were Kares and Leleges.

Alright. It probably is Carian, or Luwian or "Indo-European" speaking. Indians discovering grape wine here is very questionable:


The viticulture in India has a long history, dating back to the time of the Indus Valley civilization when grapevines were believed to have been introduced from Persia.


Like most cultures, they had rice and millet alcohol and so forth, and so yes the grape was an introduction, that most likely took place in the Bronze Age. The conflict however is also claiming to transfer mythological "Nicea" into the name of a new settlement by Dionysus.


At the time of the Trojan War, the area around Lake Askania was Phrygian.

There was an older town in mainland Greece of Locrian Nicea.

Even if we cannot be sure when it was founded and named, one can be confident that it was so, before the Askanian settlement was re-named to Nicea in 301 B. C. E..

The Dionysiac history by Nonnus is, well, preposterous.

It's kind of a delirious Alexandran fantasy. It's about taking over India where he was turned back. It would be true that later Greco-Bactrian excursions broke further in than he did, which, perhaps might be inspirational towards Nonnus.

Typhon and then "a distinguished man".

Cumulatively:

...the river has been named with many other names since the 9th century BC, the Assyrians called the river “Arantu”, where the Egyptians named it (Araunti) some sources indicate that this name holds a Syriac origin which is derived from “Arnf” (means Lioness).

While “Alimas” (a water Goddess) is another name for the river launched by the Arameans.

The name “Arantu” later has become “Orontes” in Greek, and the Macedonian settlers named it “Axius” (a Macedonian River God) resulting that the Arabic name “Asi” to be derived from it.

Also the arabic word “Asi” (means rebel) can be useful in describing the river because it runs from the south to the north in contrast to the direction of all other rivers in the region.

There is a weaker argument "Arantu" is Armenian and Median of a later date. By far the most significant use of the name is:


Egyptian jrnt (Arantu/Araunti, “Orontes; river flowing by Qadesh”) attested at least from the period of Ramesses II.



Because Qadesh is recorded as far back as by Mari, and, it develops into the largest and best-documented battles of the ancient world, primarily between the Egyptians and the Hittites, which goes on for generations. Then we get the most complete ancient peace treaty which *does* show the presence of a Sanskrit village somewhere nearby.

After those issues were settled, it was finally obliterated by the Sea Peoples. And so you have something very major that gets demolished right around the time of Troy, and, it is not that far from Troy, and, the Greeks just seem to call it Typhon. Later it is a battle between Assyria and Aram Damascus in 853 B. C. E.. There is a certain move of Tyche to found Antioch, and, a later one for the invention of a church.

Considering the Egyptians were simply reporting the local name of a river:

The meaning of which is contested with connections to: Akkadian 𒀀𒊏𒀭𒌓 (arantu, “a type of grass; fennel”), perhaps in connection to the region around the city of Ugarit, the ruins today being known as رَأْس شَمْرَة (raʔs šamra, “Headland or Cape Fennel”).

Also connected to Akkadian 𒀀𒊏𒀭𒁺 (araddu, arantu, “wild ass; stubborn”), possibly related to the modern name for the river الْعَاصِي (al-ʕāṣī, “rebel, stubbornly in error, refusing to be corrected”) so-called for its flowing south to the north unlike the rest of the rivers in the region.

Disputably from Old Persian *Arvantah; compare Avestan auruuaṇt̰-, “swift”.

Qadesh became part of the Qatna Kingdom established before 1,770 B. C. E.:


...it traded with regions as far away as the Baltic and Afghanistan.


And what this represents is a rupture in Amorite societies. Qatna was favorable to the Levant and opposed to Yamhad, which as we found, had taken over Aleppo and ruled a notable area, until it literally seems to be extinguished out of existence.

The Avestan suggestion is of course recognizable in Sanskrit:


Arvant (अर्वन्त्).—running, quick. [masculine] a courser, horse, charioteer.


and of course it would be a predictable name. And so yes, of course, we think that India inspired a huge amount of music and the art of seals and so forth that is found throughout this saga, and then it is much like they jumped in a river and drowned. Almost certainly before the Greeks were involved. None of the etymologies fit a human name. However the missing arc covers the mastery of war, from the Hittites, to the Mitanni, to the Assyrians. The Greek sphere does not seem to realize any of their historical knowledge. Correspondingly, we think there was a somewhat underground transmission of Luwian Apollo and perhaps Aphrodite to the Greeks, which, like the Carians, may be a bit of a holdover from "Minoan" culture.

Minos and Orontes both sort of show the Greeks were disconnected from what we would consider objective history. Troy, by almost any standards of reckoning, pales in comparison to the Egyptian and Sea Peoples' campaigns.

Tyche, on the other hand, shows the spread of Greece from the former Trojan region into Syria. She has the same meaning as the extant local deities, but that does not give her a Greek encyclopedia of their epochs. If I accept her as an adjunct of Buddhism, then, I add the remainder. Oddly it rewinds to something about India.

I, personally, don't find any connection to Anatolian "Indo-European" languages by being familiar with "Indo-Iranic", yet with Greek there is.

That's fine. Buddha interacted with Herakles and Tyche, nothing Abrahamic. It seems to be an eastern reflection of a pre-Buddhist Indian influence in Syria. This focus gives itself, we have no need to guess.

[shaberon]

RIP Fergus the Great 2015-2025


You were one of my bestest friends ever.

I thought you were a toy. I was washing dishes and looked back and seen some cute thing that was small, being held up and not moving, and figured you were an item.

A minute later when I heard those hoofs -- he's not a toy, he's real!

Insta-love.

You took me through those hard times when it was me that wanted to die. You became my reason to live. It was easy! You were really good at it.

The reason this is a problem is because of what happened to your little pygmy friend first. We didn't know what was wrong with him. I feel like I killed him just like I killed you.

It's the sad truth that you cannot give goat feed to goats. It's fatal. The bag however does not say this. Nothing does. It's sanitized from all the marketing. You have to hear it from other sad people who lost their pet goats the same way.

Because you were bigger, it took a little longer to catch up, but after the first treatment, the vet informed us that your system would continue to produce stones even after stopping feed.

That was true and you had a surgery and a couple other things that kept you going about another two years. Except for that problem, you were basically fine, and should have naturally lived about five more. I'm glad we saved you from the chopping block, and I'm sorry that naive handling messed you up permanently. I will go to the Animal Realm and you can be my Master, or just my parent.

Ignorance was reinforced by capitalistic labeling habits that assume you are going to "harvest" the animal in a relatively brief time.

That's both my dear little friends it hurt.

Mr. Fergus the Greatest of All Times, you are amazing and I treasure the times we had more than anything.

[shaberon]

RIP Pucci the Dog 2022 - 2025


We found you in a box on the side of the road. Someone thought you were worthless. We changed that.

You had a good time, nothing ever really went wrong with you, and when I left earlier, everything was fine.

When I got back, our chihuahua was positively trembling, and I was worried something might be wrong with him. A few minutes later, I got the news; you made a bad choice called playing in the road.

Well, we moved here from a place that was in a curve where people drive too fast, and we lost two dogs thanks to them.

This was the same. Our driveway goes out into a curve and no one respects it. They fly through and almost smash me driving a car. And so there you were. And that's why I don't see you any more.

Again, I simply consider this capitalistic behavior, driving too fast on our roads that have dogs and everything else in them. It was a perfectly clear day. There's no excuse. You're supposed to slow down for curves and hills. This isn't a race.

And on top of that, what gets me out of three times is that no one stops to say anything. They don't even tape "I'm sorry" on the mailbox.

My little friend, I miss you, and it is because we are compelled to work that I can't supervise safety at all times. I was really looking forward to that hopping nose in a ball of fuzz. Instead we bid you find peace in another form. Love to the Pucci always.

[Bill Ryan]

Bumping this so that more readers might not miss shaberon's two posts above.

[Harmony]

Dear Shaberon, I'm sorry your little dog has left this realm in such a way. Our dear pets seem part of our very heart and that is why it hurts so much. When you meet again, may you somehow "know" your both together until then

Posted by shaberon (here)
RIP Pucci the Dog 2022 - 2025


We found you in a box on the side of the road. Someone thought you were worthless. We changed that.

You had a good time, nothing ever really went wrong with you, and when I left earlier, everything was fine.

When I got back, our chihuahua was positively trembling, and I was worried something might be wrong with him. A few minutes later, I got the news; you made a bad choice called playing in the road.

Well, we moved here from a place that was in a curve where people drive too fast, and we lost two dogs thanks to them.

This was the same. Our driveway goes out into a curve and no one respects it. They fly through and almost smash me driving a car. And so there you were. And that's why I don't see you any more.

Again, I simply consider this capitalistic behavior, driving too fast on our roads that have dogs and everything else in them. It was a perfectly clear day. There's no excuse. You're supposed to slow down for curves and hills. This isn't a race.

And on top of that, what gets me out of three times is that no one stops to say anything. They don't even tape "I'm sorry" on the mailbox.

My little friend, I miss you, and it is because we are compelled to work that I can't supervise safety at all times. I was really looking forward to that hopping nose in a ball of fuzz. Instead we bid you find peace in another form. Love to the Pucci always.

[shaberon]

This is a reminder for an article I would like to remember that otherwise might be buried.

It's a publicly-accessible government document from Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs:


Report:

Violation of human rights by the USA, 2024


It is interesting because, referring to it, I posted a few times "it is like reading this forum". That is, the topics are 80% or greater similarity to the majority of our topics, and, the irony is that it is the view of a government, and that government is not a western one.

I'm not saying it's perfect or that I endorse every single detail. My criticism would be it starts with domestic gun violence and runs up to Zionism. So, I would have crafted it a little different, but only slightly.

It is too large to transcribe the whole thing, but, it is not massive book size, either; just enough to focus the attention. Not really a bad litmus test to see where we stand.

[shaberon]

I posted a link for a large report that is very telling; now, it is, so to speak, "going public".


We have started a few times with folks on here who were going to explain to us the value of "the west", but, they never came up with anything. I'm trying to be nice, and, in this thread, I have posted certain contributions that I would say are of lasting value, but I have yet to find an ethos that exists to begin with, or, that is worth retaining for a single minute.

There is a strong chance there was such a thing at the time of the Druids, but, we may notice this has been utterly destroyed with the possibility of attestation in a few Gaulish fragments. I wish they had more, but we have not turned up a "Mari" or "Harappa" type library. So this is speculative.


Anyway, to try and justify it now, it will be a little more difficult because the challenge has entered the limelight.


These are a few excerpts from this discussion:

We and the West conference: Start of an intellectual movement

Iran’s “We and the West” conference brought together international scholars to launch a new intellectual push challenging Western domination and promoting solidarity among independent nations.


1. Although the title “We and the West” at first glance evokes the historical challenges of Iran and the West, in a comprehensive view, it encompasses all countries that have been exposed to the harm and harassment of Western domination.

2. After the victory, the Islamic Revolution of Iran, with an independent approach, did not accept the continuation of the domination of the superpowers of the West and the East, and with the guidance of the leaders of the Revolution, it began the most important anti-colonial and anti-domination movement as a phenomenon in the international system. In the meantime, Ayatollah Khamenei repeatedly analyzed and explained the nature of Western civilization and culture and the hegemonic approaches of America and Europe, and presented a way to confront the colonial and hegemonic methods of the West. For this reason, his opinions and thoughts were chosen as the main source of studies for the "We and the West" conference and were the title of this gathering.

4. The unparalleled reception of this conference by scientific and academic centers of various countries and the presentation of more than 450 scientific articles and 65 brainstorming sessions around the world indicate the pioneering efforts of the world's intellectual elements to create a global scientific movement to combat Western domination.

It is as if by holding this conference, the hatred of the world's intellectuals for five hundred years of crimes, massacres, slavery, and plunder of the European and American domination against the oppressed people of the world was broken, and these intellectual elements came to the stage with their pens and expressions to disgrace the West. While wishing God strength to the organizers of the conference, we should appreciate this public welcome and plan more determinedly than in the past for the dynamism of this intellectual movement that will be effective in the emergence of the future world order.

That's...who knows how many people that have gone there voluntarily to participate...it's not eleventh-hour propaganda dropped from an airplane.


A few more excerpts on this matter of re-stating the obvious:

The inherent difference between Iran and the United States

Ayatollah Khamenei’s latest remarks underscore a fundamental point that has shaped four decades of bilateral tension: the divide between Iran and the US is not a negotiable political dispute but a clash of worldviews.

On the one hand, there is the American worldview, which is based on humanism and unlimited human freedom; a view that, in practice, leads to the primacy of power. Within this framework, any means are justifiable to maintain dominance and interests; from war and occupation of countries to the killing of innocent people, genocide, violation of human rights, and interference in the internal affairs of nations. This is the same spirit of arrogance with which America considers itself the "axis of the world" and recognizes no boundaries of morality and humanity in achieving its goals.

One of the most prominent manifestations of this inherent difference is the issue of the Zionist regime. In order to preserve this fake and occupying regime, the US considers any crime permissible; from supporting weapons and nuclear weapons to turning a blind eye to the killing of the Palestinian people and aggression against countries in the region. The US sees its survival in the continuation of the artificial life of this regime. While the Islamic Republic of Iran fundamentally does not accept the legitimacy of the Israel and considers it a cancerous tumor in the heart of the Islamic world that was created by force and occupation of the lands of Palestine, Syria and Lebanon.

For this reason, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution considered the condition for cooperation with the United States to be that the United States cease supporting the Zionist regime, end its crimes, and refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, including Iran; in fact, it should abandon its spirit of arrogance in order to provide a basis for cooperation between Iran and the United States. Of course, this is not possible in the short term and is subject to fundamental changes that must be made in the structure and nature of the American political system; the same point that the Leader of the Revolution clearly pointed out.

The Leader’s words are a reminder once again of the fact that Iran's difference with the United States is not a difference between two governments, but rather a confrontation between two fronts; the front of power and domination versus the front of human dignity and independence.

It's a deep dig to make any kind of verbal comeback from; I don't think it can be done.

[shaberon]

This clarifies something that was perhaps posted with too many other details.

I may have buried the main point of Baudry 2005 by placing it in the context of journalism and the CIA. I don't think he is knowledgeable about "secret societies", but for the actual French politics, yes.

Broadly speaking, it is the ideological root of modern Fascism:



Synarchism is an oligarchical reaction to the limited success of the
historical Peace of Westphalia of 1648, that is, the unique American
Revolution. As arch-synarchist, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre put it, in his
{Mission des Souverains}, synarchy was created against « the monument of
immorality and of iniquity of 1648: the general Government of ruse and of
force. »

It is precisely to prevent the American system influence on Europe
that Saint Yves d'Alveydre wrote his infamous book, {Mission des
Souverains}. In the preface of his book, Saint Yves stated that even "{Before
calling upon government cabinets to act, we must first call upon the great
force of public opinion, the only lever capable of elevating Europe out of the
bloody rut which led it to America.}" That "bloody rut", as he called it, was
the Peace of Westphalia.


...the primary obstacle to the New World Order
of the Synarchy was the heritage of the principle of the Peace of Westphalia,
the {Advantage of the other}, and its institutional application in the form of
the constitutional Republic of the United States of America, since 1789. It
was the task of Saint-Yves to eliminate the very idea that the "government of
the people, by the people, and for the people" cannot secure the {general
welfare} of the people and its posterity, and thus, the American form of self
government must be replaced by a Theocratic-Imperial form of oligarchy,
which has control over the economic wealth of the planet through central
bankers.


This is clearly the first Synarchist version of the Pan- European Union
of Coudenhove Kalergi, which represents the elimination of sovereign
nations states to a supranational entity that would be run by central bankers
centered in City-Communes, and their obedient technocrats in each city.


Alright. We are not talking about a political party, or any specific organization, but an idea that had not yet been placed in such a cut-and-dried form. In France it was happening -- the saga of Napoleon is quite sobering -- but this it the how-to of manifesting it as One World Empire.

To an extent, some of his political views might at first impression seem intelligent, or wholesome, or normal, but then there is a virulent turn on Westphalia. Under examination, the supporting facts he uses to make this judgment are not correct. The case has been colorized and regurgitated as a specific strategy or political platform. That's the important part -- it's been taken as absolute.

I did not realize, along with this, he was a rabid Zionist:


Saint Yves is not ambiguous at all on the question of Islam. In the
{Mission des souverains} he warned about the necessity of its exclusion. He
wrote: "I have indicated the measures to be taken with respect to Islam:" said
Saint Yves," there are very different other ones that the Council of Churches
would have to adopt vis-à-vis Israel. This last one, entangled, but not
regularly associated with all of the works of Christianity, having no armed
political body in opposition to it, like Islam has, should not, without
dangerous iniquity, be treated like the Social State of the Muslims."

Saint Yves argues that there must absolutely be a new alliance between the
Christian nations of Europe and Israel against Islam, even if people object
that it was "the people of Jerusalem who crucified Jesus." (p. 449)

Saint-Yves wrote: "In summation: Israel is a major (player) rallied in
fact to the Empire of Civilization; Islam in a minor (player) armed against
that Empire. We must open to the first the assurance and regular enjoyment
of its right; we must tie the second, willingly or by force, to the Christian
peace everywhere across Africa and Asia."

There is no ambiguity here. It is clear that for Saint-Yves d'Alveydre,
the enemy of Judeo-Christianity is Islam, and then further down the road,
Russia and China. What this Synarchy {Mission des souverains} represents,
in fact, is a united front of Judeo-Christianity aimed at taking over by
assimilation or by destruction, the other great religions of the world.


He has demanded the transfer of Palestine to "Europe", which was delivered by the House of Saud. He has advocated the cause on an existential level right before the advent of Herzl.

At the time, there was not only...no Israel...there was no "Judeo-Christianity". Here is the reaction to the Synarchy by Pym 1926, revealing their belief in Jesus:



...he was trained and initiated
for the purpose of completing the teach
ing of Moses and spreading it among the
non-Jewish populations. In Saint Yves'
eyes, Judaism and Christianity must unite
to form what he calls Judeo-Christianity,
expressly for the establishment of this law,
which necessarily overthrows all the mod
ern political and social systems.


He hasn't proposed an "upgrade", it's a radical change to the status quo. No one ever heard of this. It's like a New Mosaic Law where Christianity is a sub-sect. This is very important to him. The work is filled with things that sound almost theosophical, but, are unbearable, about a secret government in Agartha. It's very lofty. The "theocracy" is unknown, self-appointed and self-perpetuating, functioning as an ultimate authority. And then, to the outside observer:


The date at which the books were
written, for in the Mission des Souverains
Saint Yves outlines the plan for the Per
manent World Court, and, more interest
ing yet, in the Mission des Juifs, almost
exactly that of the League of Nations.
These two are to form the structure of
the superstate he advocates, whose basis
is the Mosaic tradition.


When this organization is working, the
reconstruction of ancient African and
Asiatic nations may be undertaken, the
rebuilding of Jerusalem, with the help of
all the Judeo-Christian peoples, and the
reconstruction of the Jewish kingdom,
which shall extend to the mouth of the
Euphrates...


It's not a "settlement", it's Greater Israel. This is in reaction to his books published in the 1880s. In this guy's biography, he was relatively poor until marrying a Countess and could work his way to publishing. What seems odd is that he wrote the books in the 1860s (when Bismark would have fit the central role) and that means he was only about twenty writing propaganda up to about a thousand pages.

It is correct there were vague, nebulous statements about Jewish -- Christian rapprochement such as Disraeli 1849 and perhaps a few others in the 1860s, but nothing is like the force delivered in these "Mission" books. It is weird how they churn something that is basically not true, and return Zionism and Fascism as we have them, by having created them in this light.

These are new, invented ideas that are in no way relevant to the previous course of human development. And, just to insure the spread, upon publication:


Following this he
was visited by a strange Hindu, described
as a "pandit-guru," the literal translation
of which would be "priest-professor," who
told him that his book had been read with
much satisfaction in India and who
stayed with him for some time to "complete
his initiation".

Whether there is anything to be said
for the implications of the term "Judeo
Christianity," and the claim that Jesus
intended to complete and spread the Mo
saic teachings, is also a question. Cer
tainly no justification for such a state
ment can be found either in the words
of Christ or in his teachings. If, as is
often claimed, he was a member of the
Essenian sect, then his teaching was, if
Benan's statement regarding the Essenes
has any foundation, of Buddhist origin.
Undoubtedly, wherever it was most novel
to the Jews, it approached very closely to
the doctrines of Buddha, a fact of which
the Sermon on the Mount affords the
most striking example.


The last part is mostly true within the sayings themselves. That would have been a more useful pursuit of the 1880s.


The subject becomes troublesome when looked at in any other way. It is easy to get lost in slogans and platitudes. If Victor Hugo said "United States of Europe", in 1848 the United States still had its Westphalian reputation. Who didn't want a "united Europe"? That's why people were leaving for America. To an extent, Synarchy is listenable -- but when you reveal specific platforms -- "Judeo-Christianity", "Israel of Europe", etc., then this is not a desirable response.

Simply tracing "Martinism" is inadequate; for example, it was not Masonic, then Masonic degrees were required for its initiations, and then Victor Blanchard removed the Masonic requirement.


That's of course the type of details I posted this into.

It's really a more basic lesson on the English language.

Capitalism was similar -- coined in a newspaper editorial, later adapted by its adherents -- except that is a description of something observed.

Judeo-Christian is unobserved -- is used as a cause for a type of crusade.


We are not using Fascism in the narrow sense of any single country or party, but, rather, of Capitalism and Judeo-Christianity.

Even as a non-Christian, it is easy to see why the latter is a misnomer. The primary role of the religion is to convert Jews. According to St-Yves, it is really a Jewish law and Jesus is merely bait for getting you hooked in it; he's not saying "for Jesus so respected his Jewish background...", it is a Platonic declaration, an axiom, that it truly is something Mosaic which Jesus and even the Chinese are subsidiary to.




Additional details are provided by New Dawn 2011 on the hidden hand:

For a time in the 1880s and 90s Saint-Yves’ ideas were seriously discussed in political circles in France and elsewhere in Europe. In 1886 he formed the Syndicate of the Professional and Economic Press to promote synarchy to political and business leaders. Several members of the French Parliament joined, including government minister François Césaire Demahy – later a founder of the influential nationalist movement Action Française – and Paul Deschanel, who became President of France in 1920. Saint-Yves was made a chévalier of the Légion d’honneur in 1893.

The result of its devotees is the same as Fascism:

The ‘European project’ began on 9 May 1950 with French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman’s announcement that France and West Germany had agreed to co-ordinate their coal and steel industries. Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg took up his offer to join in, leading seven years later to the Treaty of Rome that established the European Economic Community (EEC).

The ‘Schuman Declaration’ was the result of intrigue, trickery and subterfuge by Monnet, his most audacious trick being to get French and West German governments to set up a supranational organisation to co-ordinate their industries without realising exactly what they had signed up to. This radical new concept, of an organisation with control over individual nations’ industries but with its own, outside autonomy, laid the foundation for all that came after. Unsurprisingly, Monnet became president of the new body, called – with a chillingly Orwellian tone – the High Authority. Shuman became the first president of the European Parliament in 1958.

The re-cycling of this through Ukraine and Israel is sheerly cynical.

I find it all quite sad and seriously mis-informed.


When I reflect this off Orthodoxy, those schismatic clashes are not present. This whole problem is a western European creation starting with Rome. They didn't start this fire nor throw grease on it, and so, although I don't really agree with their theology, this is how much it means to me in terms of how I comport myself:


You must not abuse non-Buddhists.


I simply don't care. It's fine, and it's none of my business. I'm not going to harass anyone about it. Because I know, at least for them, there is a set way to be, and it means basically the same thing, we have an agreement.

Moreover, aside from not getting drunk:


He will not kill living beings, and he will not take what has
not been given. He will not say untrue things nor approach another man's
wife.


Even though I've only had interactions with a small number of Muslims, the possibility of even telling a "small" lie troubles them greatly. It's something that should concern us. This kind of integrity is not common in America. Those things mentioned would in the Bible qualify as Trespass. This usage would have been common in the Westphalian and early American times, but the language and its application have been steered away to something else.


However if you are a Fascist, the deal is off. The following is taken from Prevention of All Evil Destinies:

The wise one should definitely slay those who are subverted in the teaching
of Buddha, harmful to the Three Jewels and the rest, and intent on abusing
the teacher. The mantrin by means of the mantras should destroy the avaricious
ones, who do not possess the Dharma, who are attached to sin, and who
always do harm to living beings. Taking the wealth of the avaricious ones
he should give it to those who live in destitution. For the purpose of
honouring his teacher, likewise for accomplishing the pledge, for use in the
sadhana, and for worshipping the sons of the Buddhas, if he thinks in this
manner then he is justfied in taking the wealth from the avaricious ones.
The one who delights in acting for the benefit of living beings is permitted
to speak deceitfully in order to protect those of the pledge, his teacher's
possessions and the life of living beings. The one who knows the mantras may
resort to someone else's woman for the sake of his sädhana, for delighting
the Buddhas and for protecting the pledge. Abiding in the place of Vajrasattva,
whether one does everything, whether one enjoys everything, one is successful
without being in fault; so how much the more if one is imbued with compassion.

The first line turns out to be bizarrely similar to Orthodoxy. They forbid you to make a false representation of Christ. The first violator is Rome. And so this provides the basis for the expression Anti-Christ. That would certainly include the Jesus of Moses or whatever you would call that made-up thing. For me, it would be an issue usually with Maitreya, such as by Alice Bailey and Ahmadiyya. If I would say HPB was wrong in a few spots, she has not made a representation. Similarly, if I have an interest in First Scriptural Teaching Jesus, I haven't represented anything. The "movements" we are talking about definitely do use religious figures as motivations you will fight to the death for (or go along with such things lackadaisically).

I don't hold any doctrine about race, religion, or politics. Only a moral imperative. There are many in the world similar enough that passages like the above quotation are superfluous; unfortunately, the conventional reality is quite heavy with acts of a Synarchist nature which we are dedicated against. Resisting is not really of Buddhist origin, because the minor amount of political views that can be found in the Rg Veda are to forcefully dispense justice upon the violent and not so much just "thieves" but "greedy unscrupulous traders"; understanding that harm can be done even if a crime is not obvious or apparent, e. g. "legalized theft".

The teaching is not my motive, it just happens to agree with me.

What happened with what we went through the Revolution for, mostly does not.

[shaberon]

This is going through why we talk about things like Satan, or Judeo-Christianity, and why there are assumptions about shared values, or much of anything in common.

There are a lot of agendas being run through here. The proponents tend to lock up. That shows that it isn't really standing on any legs.


Through the Ukraine and Israel threads, we've long since revealed an identity crisis of the west, which has made itself well-known to those on the receiving end, and remains largely denied by itself.


When we reach the point where the current administration tells persons of my opinion to leave the country, the discussion would seem to be over without beginning. The difficulty is that I and others are closer to the Iranian view:

Ayatollah Khamenei’s latest remarks underscore a fundamental point that has shaped four decades of bilateral tension: the divide between Iran and the US is not a negotiable political dispute but a clash of worldviews.

That may just as well describe our existence as citizens, we are in a non-negotiable clash with an "American worldview". It's not mine. Because my heritage is American before anyone ever heard of these ideas, I would add "It's not American, either".

Pushing aggression towards the other countries is groundless and unjustifiable. Or, supremacy no matter the guise. I may contend I like superior forms of training, but that's all it is, not any kind of nationalism or othering of any particular kind of person. A huge division remains on whether Palestine belongs to an Occupation.



Things are posted that are supposed to make us anxious, or worried about something, and it doesn't work and it's not what I am doing. Certainly from this side of things, all that is just seen as Conventional Reality which is not even the point of life.


I may be doing something very different than expected, as seen from Alex Wayman on Primitive 1968:

...archaic times had no monopoly on savagery and butchery, as one great progressed nation of today has demonstrated with latest efficiency in cruelty. Unless the hearts of men will change, every nation can explode in colossal horror from the subterranean depths of sex and nutrition.

It was a time with a demonstration of cruelty and this sad-but-true ongoingness. And what he is doing is explaining "another state of being":

...the yogins do become ‘primitive’ through meditative attainment; but when they talk about it later to their disciples, they return to the complexity and conventional symbols of their particular culture.

Besides, all mankind reduces to an identical denominator of ‘primitive’ by sex and nutrition. Thus the word ‘primitive’ can be properly applied to a state of being and to a type of indulgence but is misapplied to a society of persons.

For our purposes, the ‘state-of-being’ sort of ‘primitive’ is in point. Our foregoing allusion to three levels of ecstasy is a formulation in psychological terms, and it is this very ecstasy which Eliade takes to be the essential feature of shamanism...

If these Buddhist yogins could achieve such ‘non-discursive ecstasies,’ it should be apparent that while the terminology is Buddhistic, the experiences themselves belong to humanity, the potentiality of human beings. But, in fact, it is the experience of certain members of the human community, distinguished by their intensity of religious experience, and, as explained by Eliade, “is preceded by the experience of the initiatory death” of vulgar sense perception.

I was in the post-Vietnam "recovery" era, and I assure you there was such a thing. There was a widespread mentality against violence, against overseas interventions, and so on, and for a while we shifted into a grassroots type of economy. There was something palpable and real in those times. It held out until the late 80s when the intervention with Iraq was stupid and wrong. It's just been a nosedive since then.

And so for a while, Wayman's horror went away, and there was all kinds of shamanism and yoga, and although the CIA was doing spook stuff, it didn't matter; for the most part, we temporarily experienced an era that had at least some humanism and healing going on. I've never seen anything like it again.


Now, as many people in regions where liberal democracy makes its spread come to find out, it causes a loss and lack of culture. You get these bland and mass-produced foods and so forth. Something actually goes missing without those grassroots entrepreneurs. That's not what I call progress.


Effectively, Buddhism is urbanizing and primitive at once. After a certain point of the day, we want to shut off the overflow of Words and complex thought and activity, clean our senses and "revert" to something pristine. Our understanding would be this is not prevalent unless one is into something "shamanic"; that usually nothing is done other than to perpetuate "modern or complex" behavior; I have to guess because I can only imagine what that might be like.


I'm not sure I can substantially communicate with anyone who never extricates themselves from intellect.


We find ourselves in the compromising position, that, despite our preferences, our tax base has been used to export the largest scale of violence the world has ever seen, while, domestically, it strings us along under a type of soft kill, which is reflected in various ways by thousands of posts here on Avalon.


When this happens, we go into the glitter of fairy dust, a Land of Oz, and a nearly complete loss of comprehension.

For example, I can come to terms with Orthodoxy and Islam and there are no psychological issues past this point. However, others mostly lack an ability to associate themselves with any such "safe harbor". You don't really know what's behind something and often there is an agenda based off a word or certain words we are about to learn.


We have the premise, that, around 1776, there was a certain awareness and alarm about Money Power, but then in the modern times from around 1900 something has been inverted and spread around in an Orwellian shroud of despair. In many ways, the use of language itself has been re-written. I had posted something on the Royal Society steering the course of science and education, which crashed into the difficulty of how we go about inventing and using the English language.



With St-Yves, we found that certain words were invented in the 1880s. It turns out that Judeo-Christian is the one which has stuck. This means the supremacy of Jewish Law; it means that Jesus and Christianity are nothing but a door into it; and similarly, Mosaic-initiatic priests even regulated ancient China. This doctrine forms the basis for the geo-political strategy that "Islam must be contained" and that there must be a United Europe that seizes Palestine and establishes Israel. The related term Synarchy is less well-known but certainly refers to an international business syndicate using technocrats to administer vassalized countries under a financial system, which was not in existence then.


Enigmatically, the massive Mission works that define this plot do not come from some fancy new major design board, but, are claimed by their author to have been composed around twenty years previously. So we might consider it is closer to the Britain of Palmerston and Disraeli, and co-intel around the Suez Canal, or the Wahhab reforms based on Shirk that underpin the House of Saud, the "deliverer of the goods" as it were. And perhaps it is more like St-Yves wrote a British Empire of Europe and Palestine.

His context was rather that Bismark embodied Material culture, rule by force, whereas his contention was for "Spiritual" culture -- rule by Authority -- words I guess -- which is primarily and centrally Jewish, and other religions may "play a part" in it. British strategy was that unified Germany was a threat in the economic sense because of the industrial capacity contained in that unification. We get the Entente and two World Wars until Germany is bottled in a much larger system that subordinates and regulates it, and it remains essentially stagnant to this day.


How and when did he formulate this rather precise vision out of something that reeks of Cromwell and Palmerston? St-Yves was "initiated into" but his views are not the same as those of Fabre d'Olivet. He would have had limited opportunity to write encyclopedic volumes:


At the end of his two years Saint Yves
returned to college, whence he passed to
the Naval School at Brest. He seems not
to have found himself in complete agree
ment with the Second Empire, for in
1864, when he was but twenty-two, he
joined the group of revolutionaries who
lived in such vocal retirement on the
Island of Jersey. There he remained un
til 1870, when, war breaking out, he put
aside all other considerations and joined
the army.


The Naval School is a ship in Brittany and it is simply too rigorous for you to do anything other than...naval school. It is possible he got out around 1861 or 2 when he claims to have done the writing, although, so far, there is a bit of a grey area until he is known to reside on one of the world's leading Grey Areas which perhaps even smells like the Huguenots.

Beyond describing the plausible environment where the Missions came to be, I am unaware of anything else from the 1860s or thereabouts that will show us such a plain and compelling point being made. After the date of publication, there is a rapid and devoted reaction. The legwork of Reverend Blackstone in the United States was pure Zionism, whereas St-Yves is a more insidious Zio-Fascism or Judeo-Christianity. He knows he is trying to erase something present in Europe and replace it with something new and artificial. If it had its precedent in Westphalia, it seemed to mostly be working in the Austria of Franz Josef -- this too basically disintegrated and mostly forgotten. This is very strongly the main motive of these books.


A brief question of Jersey shows substantial Huguenot settlement from 1685 - 1815 and then:

...following the 1848 year of revolutions in Europe, the leaders of many of the European uprisings sought refuge in London, only for many Germans, French, Polish, Hungarian and other leaders to be moved on to Jersey.

Once they arrived there, they formed Les Procrits - 'the proscribed'. A collection of thinkers, mainly of social democratic orientation, they still attracted the attention of the European countries from which they had come, and most especially France. As a result of the several hundred-strong community, some were forced to move on - but only to Guernsey, where they were allowed to finally settle. Victor Hugo was one of those who was forced to move in that way.

That said, many remained in exile in Jersey, and the community persisted for a long time, even getting its own graveyard. It's a part of Jersey's history that is hardly known now.

It's exceedingly fertile with everything, perhaps only comparable to Amsterdam. It's not like a single chapter of something out of the French Revolution. This is every opinion in Europe packed on an island. We perhaps could sympathize with some of them up to 1848, and, moving forward, it could be said that an American-style revolution is forbidden, and almost everything going forward is a communist platform meaning the abolishment of monarchy. One of the few exceptions is Garibaldi restoring the Bourbon Victor Emmanuel. But the future is mostly British-backed by Mazzinists. It seems to me St-Yves is giving voice to something that was already manifesting in Jersey.

Even on a tactical level, American meant Moderate, because what was attacked was the British military and government assets. The French Revolution began with a lot of Moderates, but, as we have seen, twisted into something populated by radicals or extremists -- henceforward Mazzinists as per Propaganda of the Deed (Pisacane 1857). The equation reduces to acts of violence for the sole purpose of overthrowing monarchies. It is perhaps more complex with individual ideas and motives, but the throughput takes that final path.







Something else that erupted its way into discussions of the times was Satan or satanism. This has its type of catalyzing moment as well. I searched Avalon to see if anyone is on to this. It was mentioned in a stray quote over ten years ago:


"Crowley had told Viereck in 1915 that he wanted to help Germany in order "to exploit the stupidity of the British public."


And there is another early thread quoting Levenda on the Thule Society:

Crowley had gone to live in New York during WWI after being rejected for military service by the British government, and began writing "pro-German propaganda" for a magazine called The Fatherland, published by George Viereck. Crowley took over as editor. He later claimed that he had really been working for British Intelligence, because "his articles were so outlandish that the journal was reduced to absurdity, a caricature of serious political discussion, which would help the British cause more than harm it.

Crowley contradicts himself, and, the second part sounds like an attempt to save face, but, maybe it is true. Who knows.

Considering the implications, the most direct descent of St-Yves's mentality is into Thule Gesellschaft.



What is more curious or what makes it sound like we are completely oblivious is that this character Viereck was in fact so influential, he needed no introduction in a New York Times article from May 18, 1934, about 20,000 American Nazi sympathizers.

What really bothered Americans of the time was Bolsheviks, with a secondary following of communists and "those Jews supportive of it".

The noise in New York rose out of a Jewish boycott of Germany.


If everyone at the time knew Vierek:

Viereck founded two publications, The International (of which the notorious poet and occultist Aleister Crowley was a contributing editor for a time) and The Fatherland, which argued the German cause during World War I. Viereck became a well-known supporter of Nazism. In 1933, Viereck again met with Hitler, now Germany's leader, in Berlin, and in 1934, he gave a speech to twenty thousand "Friends of the New Germany" at New York's Madison Square Garden, in which he compared Hitler to Franklin D. Roosevelt and told his audience to sympathize with Nazism without being antisemites. His Jewish friends denounced him as "George Swastika Viereck", but he continued to promote Nazism.

The German Americans were rather doing sieg heil Roosevelt.

It should be apparent, by this time, Italy and Germany are militarized by Britain and the U. S., because it is working as a big Steel Cartel, which is the Synarchy itself, or transnational corporatism.

Enter Nikola Tesla:

Another point of interest, is that Viereck’s rise to fame in the realm of American poetry was made possible largely through the work of Robert Underwood Johnson, editor of The Century Magazine.

At the time, Johnson was the only publisher willing to publish poems that embraced satanism, and this didn’t just win Viereck notoriety, but also introduced him to the highest echelons of the deep state, including Theodore Roosevelt himself for whom Viereck even campaigned in 1908.

The photo below features Underwood Johnson and Tesla at Tesla’s New York lab in 1894.

It is hard to have a freer press than to write about satanism, but, on the other hand, what are they actually doing. If you were cutting-edge at this time, you would probably conclude American Nazi Satanism was normal, except you haven't seen the original European draft that says this is a servant of Judaism. That part would be missing, and you wouldn't know how the "Bolshevik enemy" was really this. Instead, you'd be interested in good business for Rockefeller.

Here comes a bit of mental or psychological influence:

Robert Underwood Johnson was also a close intimate of American conservationist John Muir and both men served as nature conservation advisors to Teddy Roosevelt before, during and after his presidency. Both Muir and Johnson co-founded the Sierra Club in 1892 and in 1908 launched the White House Conference on Conservation which used the model of British conservation policies in India during the 19th century to remove vast areas of the American west coast from all human development under the image of ‘protecting nature’.

By now, it shouldn’t surprise you to know that Robert Underwood Johnson and John Muir had both been intimate friends of Nikola Tesla since at least 1894, and were frequent guests at Tesla’s lavish parties held throughout their lives.

Even the pedophile rapist Stanford White (architect of the rich and famous) was a regular attendee to Tesla’s galas and was commissioned to design the building connected to Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Long Island tower. After White was murdered by the husband of a woman he raped at the age of 16, Tesla was the only friend who attended his funeral.

As shouldn’t be surprising, all of the Americans mentioned above (including Teddy Roosevelt) were also promoters of spiritualism, channeling, eugenics, and theosophy.


In 1911, Nikola Tesla, already then being hailed by the Underwood-Johnson/Hearst press agencies as a “modern prophet” delivered an interview to the New York Herald on the topic of flying machines where the great prophet of future technologies was asked about the future of the newly developed aeroplanes. His answer– It’ll never work.

Instead, Tesla self-promoted his own mysterious technology that promised to fly passengers through the sky without propellers, wings or even using fuel, in objects the size of kitchen stoves.

The timing for Tesla’s rejection of the possibility of airplanes was a bit strange, since in 1910 American illusionist (and enemy of the occult underground) Harry Houdini became the first pilot to fly a plane across a continent (Australia) and the excitement about humanity’s aviation future was in full swing.

He's against "scientific progress"? Knew for certain that airplanes would just "fall out of the sky"? Well, if that's not enough, here comes another drubbing of the brain:

In the wake of H.G. Wells’ famous War of the Worlds published in 1898, a wave of “Martian mania” spread across the western world with channelers, mediums and psychics professing to have received communications from higher entities from outer space.

Tesla may or may not have believed he received psychic communication with aliens (his assistant Arthur Matthews testifies that he did), but he certainly believed that he was receiving messages from Martians via wireless receivers that he had developed in Long Island and Colorado as early as 1898 financed by JP Morgan.

In a February 1921 interview with the Albany Telegram, Tesla said:

“I have a deep conviction…that highly intelligent beings exist on Mars. I believe they have reached a mechanical stage of civilization much more advanced than ours. However, it is quite likely that all racial distinctions and ideals have been extinguished there and life has become simply a desperate struggle for existence. The population may have been reduced to a few highly specialized individuals.

Twenty-two years ago, while experimenting in Colorado with a wireless power plant, I obtained extraordinary experimental evidence of the existence of life on Mars. I had perfected a wireless receiver of extraordinary sensitiveness, far beyond anything known, and I caught signals which I interpreted as meaning 1 – 2 – 3 – 4. I believe the Martians used numbers for communication because numbers are universal.”

Tesla had a very specific notion of the type of aliens that had evolved on Mars, and followed the exact same line of reasoning popularized by H.G. Wells who had detailed alien life as a more advanced expression of humanity.

This characterization of aliens as the outcome of Darwinist forces of natural selection beyond current humans is the driving force of transhumanism– a term popularized by Thomas Huxley’s grandson Sir Julian Huxley in 1957.

Writing in his his 1957 New Bottles for New Wine, Julian Huxley said:

“I believe in transhumanism: once there are enough people who can truly say that, the human species will be on the threshold of a new kind of existence, as different from ours as ours is from that of Peking man. It will at last be consciously fulfilling its real destiny.”

As we will soon come to see in part 9 of this series, both Nikola Tesla and H.G. Wells were both equally influenced by… Thomas Huxley, and especially leading figures of Huxley’s X Club.

Martians and so forth were an overnight success through free press, a type of subject we would say simply was not present before at this nuts-and-bolts level.

Beyond claims of communicating with Martians, the need for eugenics and the impossibility of commercial airplanes, there was very little that Tesla did not assert loud prophecies about throughout his long life ranging far outside of his field of expertise.

Extending his super-human insight into the causes of wars, Tesla’s brilliance is once again shown to be slightly over-rated when he asserted that human beings, or intentions (see: ‘conspiracies’) can never be the cause of wars. The truly wise man, exclaims Tesla, knows that the cause of all wars is found in the mind-less mechanics of the solar system:

“A war can never be caused by arbitrary acts of man. It is invariably the more or less direct result of cosmic disturbance in which the sun is chiefly concerned. In many international conflicts of historical record which were precipitated by famine, pestilence or terrestrial catastrophes the direct dependence of the sun is unmistakable.”

Anyone reading Kaiser Wilhelm’s letters to his cousin Czar Nicholas II in the lead up to WWI would easily discover that the first world war was carefully orchestrated by leading strategists of the British Empire (just as the Balkans War, Sino-Russian War of 1904, the Opium Wars, Crimean War and U.S. Civil War). The evidence demonstrating these facts are available to anyone capable of using their powers of reason, and yet somehow the great penetrating genius of Tesla was incapable of fathoming how human agendas could cause wars?

Perhaps, Tesla’s inability to recognize the human agency causing wars may have something to do with his close friendship with many members of the leading occult agencies who were orchestrating global wars?


Kaiser Wilhelm wrote despairingly in August 1914: “England, Russia, and France have agreed among themselves… to take the Austro-Serbian conflict for an excuse for waging a war of extermination against us… That is the real naked situation slowly and cleverly set going by Edward VII and… finally brought to a conclusion by George V… So the famous encirclement of Germany has finally become a fact, despite every effort of our politicians and diplomats to prevent it. The net has been suddenly thrown over our head, and England sneeringly reaps the most brilliant success of her persistently prosecuted purely anti-German world policy against which we have proved ourselves helpless, while she twists the noose of our political and economic destruction out of our fidelity to Austria, as we squirm isolated in the net. A great achievement, which arouses the admiration even of him who is to be destroyed as its result! Edward VII is stronger after his death than am I who am still alive!”

So, yes, that is very obfuscating, to re-package British Imperialism as "cosmic forces".

Alice Bailey is a re-iteration of this; if her claims that a "small handful of adepts" were behind the formation of the United Nations, this would include Kermit Roosevelt and others who moved "Nazi Argentina" into the "world community". That was what was necessary to make sure it got started.

This was done in tandem with the phrase "collective security agreement".

NATO is then the direct outcome of repeating this "collective security agreement".

If anyone can't see through that to find coldly-calculated Fascist intentions taking over the world, you may be unreachable.


Our modern things such as "Capitalism" and "Transhumanism" were spun from works of fiction, and voluntarily applied by some, much like the "Martians".

That simply contributes to an artificial, invented language, out of touch with everything except its own echo chamber.

You can't really use English to "think around" it, because English is only devised to fulfill certain agendas.

The school of Linguistics started in Germany to see if anything like Genesis would be true, and, it is mostly a loss, and when you are no longer attributing Abraham with the same kind of reality, your understanding of things works differently.

None of this could have happened if people were not taking various stances on Abrahamism so seriously.

Europe got Confucius and then it got Zoroaster and the Upanishads and we have come out with a way to be able to communicate less. Too much development, none of the basics. Again much like the Iranian response to AI. That way you're not getting diseased by it.

Our reprise to St-Yves is that yes, the world is kind of divided into quadrants around Badakhshan, which is physical, and rather than culture vs. culture, it was a unit as far back as 6,000 B. C. E., from which we would find Zoroaster going west and how it changed over time. No, of course nothing he says is real. It may manufacture belief and lead to a geo-political crisis, which, again, most regretfully, is driven by "supra-national corporatism".

[shaberon]

St-Yves is a case where the actual texts cannot be found online and they were never printed in English.

That is why someone like Pierre Baudry is able to give us information we basically don't have. We don't have to agree 100% with everything he says in order to consider that Synarchy was alive and well in men's minds from the point where the "steered narrative" called the twentieth century began. It can almost be read right off the pages of these Missions books, as if it was all just an idea by one person.


I don't want to bowdlerize everything by jumping into a sea of mush. That is to say, no, the British government was by no means manipulating or directing the band of revolutionaries holed up in Jersey:

An irritated Palmerston ordered Love to remove the signatories, commenting that “The Question now is whether these Islands belong to us or to Victor Hugo”.

Hugo is a bit goofy when photographed there in June 1860. The gathering was nearly viewed as a Coup d'Etat:

The return to Jersey most emblematic of the expulsions’ ephemerality was probably Hugo’s visit in 1860. That year, Harney invited him to speak at a meeting in St Helier in support of Garibaldi’s expedition to Italy.

Neither were multiple revolutions of one stripe, as in Exiles from European Revolutions:

...the oft-mentioned ‘Party of Revolution’ was a fiction of the political emigration which simply dissolved as soon as the émigrés made use of the opportunities which arose to return home. However, the fiction of a ‘homogeneous party of emigration’, as seen from the outside, was not entirely without consequences, for the idea of political parties and internationalism both have roots in it.

Perhaps the greatest difference of opinion is found here:

...his participation with Mazzini in the Roman Republic of 1849 seems a mere episode. In fact, Garibaldi’s return to Italy – initially, in 1854, to the island of Caprera, north of Sardinia, and then, in May 1859, alongside Piedmont’s troops – was made possible by the fact that he turned towards Camillo Cavour’s politics, and away from the strict republicanism of Mazzini and the 1849 Roman Republic.

Garibaldi is one of the few who was "down on earth":

The case of Garibaldi demonstrates how a genuine republican radicalism was able to combine with a modern national movement which aimed less for the glory of a demonstrative individual action, republican virtue, or a Europe of free peoples than for the social modernisation and a lasting position of power for its own nation in competition with other nation-states. A gulf remains between the impulse towards Italian unification among the volunteer corps and the imposition of the Italian state ‘from above’, which is what happened.

So we would think he was ultimately unsuccessful, or, his movement suborned and re-written by northern Italian industrialists.


I am trying to be as careful as possible to trace intellectual history, that is, where did an idea appear and how did it move and affect events.

So far it is a dry run on St-Yves. He said things that would have been brand new to the public in the 1880s, but he already had these ideas, from a background that traces to Jersey of the 1860s. But nothing corresponds to it. The island was dominated by continental exiles, not British Zionists. To be sure, the Zionist impulse was not new, but the outright declaration by him is leaps and bounds beyond anything conceivable.

Westphalia lacked a mechanism or institution -- however its "collective security" is what came to the aid of Austria in the last Turkish incursion.



What makes St-Yves so aberrant is that most of the revolutionaries were heavily concerned with Peace. Westphalia basically has one inherent enemy -- the Pope -- because he does not submit to these temporal authorities. The Missions could perhaps be read as the Pope is a Jew who lives underground. The Peace had no method of enforcement, but, the idea was the body of practically all subsequent discussion:


Saint-Pierre may have been influenced by the Quaker William Penn's
booklet, Essays Towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe (1693), in which
Penn put forward the idea of a federation of European States (including Russia
and Turkey) as a peace maintenance mechanism. Saint' Pierre advocated a fed~
eration of European/Christian States based on the post-Utrecht status quo. He
saw the proposed federal structure as a way to prevent international and inter~
nal armed conflict. Disputes would be resolved by peaceful means, i.e., by arbi~
tration or judicial process within the framework of a permanent assembly of
State representatives.


What tends to happen in practice, is that the Peace is not real, there is belligerence and conquest. However in literature the ideas remain very important. Things are all about tweaking it, fixing it, improving it; and so if there is plenty of room for criticism, no one can be found bashing its very existence. So when the review tells us that the allegations leveled in the Missions are out-of-touch, inaccurate, or simply untrue, this makes sense. There was nothing in reality and no dispute.


Without going into a viperish attack on the Treaties, we find that in 1830, the narrative was steered to a different emphasis:



Under the leadership of Lord Palmerston, a process of crisis management was initiated...

The important thing,
from a historical point of view, is the observation that conference diplomacy as
a phenomenon was there to stay. The fact that this diplomacy, if not preven,
tive, at least was crisis management oriented, is of relevance for the history of
the law of collective security.

...international negotiations were
not concerned with normative blueprints in order to forestall aggression and
other uses of force; rather, they were concerned with crisis management after
the outbreak of war. This is true for the 1841 Turkish Straits Agreement (con'
cluded between the five Great Powers and Turkey), the 1850 London Peace
Agreement after the first Schleswig,Holstein War (between Prussia and
Denmark), the 1856 Peace Conference of Paris after the Crimean War, the
1878 Congress of Berlin after the Russian~Turkish War, and the 1897 Great
Power mediation after the Greek~Turkish War




This is apparatus without any mode of enforcement:


in 1867, Victor Hugo and Giuseppe Garibaldi founded the first peace~oriented NGO
-Ligue de la Paix et de la Liberte-in Geneva. In the aftermath of the judicial
settlement of the Alabama Claims, international lawyers became active and
founded two peace~oriented organisations of their own in 1873: first, the
Institut de Droit International in Gent; and thereafter the Association for the
Reform and Codification of the Law of Nations (later International Law Asso~
ciation) in Brussels.

In 1888, the Interparliamentary Union was founded in order to unite parlia~
mentarians in a struggle against war...


All this private activity may have influenced individual
statesmen, politicians and diplomats, but it did not result in any normative pro~
posals sponsored by governments.


This kind of paper cannot really answer for that. One has to consider what was happening in the universities, which were not hotbeds of the free-thinkers but rather victims of vested interests such as the Pope and the Dead Souls. "Countries" changed but little, continuing aggressive behavior, because that is how the people and businesses mostly are, whereas peace is sort of a topic of the philosophers. If you make random accusations at something that at least has been a "normal discussion" for over a century, no one would listen to you, except someone who shares that value, that the government is there to help you commit an aggressive act. The Pope expects it to. That is why these Missions also have a Jesuitical air.



St-Yves has so many startling and astounding things to say, most readers find where he is not opaque, he is unbelievable:

In The Secret Doctrine (I, 471), Blavatsky labels Saint-Yves as a "French pseudo-Occultist," deriding his idea, expressed in La mission des juifs, that the Kali Yuga was a Golden Age and not, as most would have it, an age of darkness. Moreoever, in an early issue of the Theosophical journal Lucifer, an anonymous review (attributed to HPB) of a work by Papus contends that Saint-Yves is wrong in the degree of importance he attributes to the Jews in esoteric history (Blavatsky, Collected Writings, IX, 46).

After his major publications from around 1886, he legitimately learned Sanskrit from a multi-lingual figure who:

Here and there he inserted criticisms of foreign Sanskritists, particularly British ones, who thought that they understood the language perfectly. At one point he quote a passage on how foolish it is to take the Hindu and Hebrew Flood legends literally.

He retracted the book he wrote subsequent to this:

Nor does a Buddhist of the Pure Land School situate the Western Paradise of Ambitabha on the map of the world. Saint-Yves, on the contrary, was a literalist. Mission de l’Inde was not intended as an allegorical or symbolic work, on the lines of esoteric fantasies like the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz. He had no gift for fiction: all his other writing is deadly serious, and this one, however bizarre, is presented as a factual report.

He promotes these stone cold slap-in-the-face "facts" and then claims his government will be primarily governed by science.

It is really run by science, although it is definitely centered on Jesus.

As we have seen, the theory of Relativity is Jesuitically ideal, because finally Dead Souls Science proves God.


Now, in the 1860s, it appears correct that Mme Faurer procured to him a trove of d'Olivet's work. Mining this out of a review that is in French, it is exactly here where he defines himself as Judeo-Christianity and Synarchy are mine, above and beyond "pagan and Aristotelian" d'Olivet.

He believes Mission of India is (or contains) an answer to one of A. P. Sinnett's Mahatma letters.

There is a quite long and friendly response to him from French agriculture on 6 Mars, 1888. In that, yes, I think if you stick to some of the attractive and populist things he says, and especially if you want Jesus or maybe the Pope at the center of an Empire, then there is enough to keep you busy. If you just kind of read him as a "philosophe" with a few general maxims, then, yes, you could make something of it.

The second strongest influence on him besides Hebrew was the Rite of Strict Observance, which has been ascertained as contaminated by Jesuit Freemasonry with Templar doctrines.


He has concocted a Papal Roman Empire that gives Greater Israel a free ticket, to the detriment of the Arabs, only.

He's not an experienced statesman, he's not a guy in office who's about to do it, he's a guy trying to worm his way into the aristocracy and plant these ideas.

He does reach the point of attempting to host meetings:


Syndicat de la presse économique et professionnelle


which we are able to find one bulletin advertisement on universal suffrage.

France does not have it; it is the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which are two different classes. As to the vote, it is only a popularity contest, not something that verifies truth, like a court tries arguments, it does not establish justice.


It's the deadpan seriousness that impacts me, as egregious as Pococke's India in Greece. We can't really say St-Yves "orchestrated" anything, and, the point is the publicity of these new ideas intersecting the known actors of the time. His Sanskrit authority may have been an Albanian who invented an alphabet, but some of these ideas stuck in certain places:

French writer and former Vichy collaborator Robert Charroux wrote on Agartha, as did esoteric fascist Miguel Serrano, who portrayed Agartha and Shambhala as the reestablishment of Hyperborea.

Serrano certainly shows these ideas were in full force during World War Two. Again, it is less important if he became popular in the 1970s and may have been criticized this way or that, since the point is that it must have ballooned massively between St-Yves and at least some of the Nazis. You could say that it is modified, in the sense that the center is not Christ but the Fuhrer, and perhaps they did not read Mission des Juifs. They may not be doing what he intended, but they are using a big part of his toolkit. That's probably because they are mostly using Mission of India, which St-Yves personally recalled and it was published posthumously around 1910.

It's weird because nobody believes the things St-Yves says, they are fanatical about a handful of his underlying ideas, whether Israel, or a secret initiatic government, or rubbishing the Peace of Westphalia. It might be Messianic Judaism if there were Polish adherents on Jersey.


Considering the slightly earlier Messiah Sabbatai was from Turkey, a military bid for Zion is not new:

Shlomo Molcho (1500–1532) and David Reubeni (1490–c. 1535) negotiated with Emperor Charles V (1500–1558) to create a Jewish army to help the Christians fight the Ottoman Empire and regain the Holy Land. Jacob Frank had had similar ambitions when he offered Emperor Joseph II military aid against the Turks in 1786.

The Prague texts are a great source of theological concepts of the last stage of the Frankist movement. Their main author, Löw Enoch von Hönigsberg (1770–1828), was a Jewish Haskalah thinker and preacher. In his work, it can be seen that he welcomes the political limitations on religious powers and the resistance against long-privileged social classes of his time. He rejoices over the demise of the old empires, which began to crumble under the weight of the French Revolution and following the Napoleonic Wars. The preacher assures his listeners that there is no need to fear the revolution, as it is a ‘sign of the times’ that encourages hope for the imminent arrival of the messiah (Wessely 1845, 142–145).

Those are of course Jewish offers, not a European telling another European about an ultimate principle requiring this effort.


naturally:

Eve Frank ruled over the community until her death in 1816. Afterward, the movement gradually disintegrated as a formal sect, but many of its ideological patterns persisted through intermarriage, elite networking, and secret societies. Scholars such as Gershom Scholem and Pawel Maciejko have suggested that Frankist descendants may have assimilated into Masonic and esoteric Christian networks.

Polish emigrants were so many, politics was conducted outside the "country" from 1831 - 1870:

Stage II of the Great Emigration's history covers the period of late 1834 until the summer of 1837. The French authorities dispersed the emigres from the large depots to numerous smaller localities. Alongside Paris, Poitiers became soon another center of political life. Moreover, emigration centers in London and Brussels grew in importance, as were - albeit temporarily - those in Switzerland, Portsmouth, and on the Isle of Jersey.

The Polish Democratic Society's membership grew rapidly; in 1834, the Society moved its governing body to Poitiers and elected the First Centralization, i.e., the executive committee which worked out, in 1836, the Society's fundamental ideological and program document, the "Great Manifesto". A conviction that liberation of Poland was not readily forthcoming and that the fight for freedom should be based on national resources rather than on a pan-European revolution became firmly implanted in the minds of most emigres.

Isolated from all other movements were the Polish People's Assemblies in Portsmouth, the Humanin St. Helier on Jersey, and the Praga (since 1841 in London).

They openly use carbonari and a census-like roster of Jersey uses Masonic records and so this is a normal part of the background. It doesn't tell us of a post-Frankist Jesus-centric Judaism, which is unnecessary for St-Yves to magnify d'Olivet's "Hebrew primacy".

The current Martinists appear to ignore his blunt axioms, and seem taken up with the flowery and poetic use of "spiritual" terminology.


He ultimately argued the Kabala is Aryan and:

The need for Europe to unite into a single, synarchic state, Saint-Yves tells us, is prompted by the rise of Islam as a world power, which threatens a weak, fragmented, and materialist West. Only a strong, centralized, and renewed Christian government would be able to withstand the force growing in Muslim countries. More than a century ago, Saint-Yves seems to have predicted the very situation that, rightly or wrongly, many see facing the world today.

[shaberon]

To be fair, we might concede that St-Yves would not agree with how the Nazis and other factions using the name Synarchy were acting out his desire. So, no, it is not really one-to-one, it is just the fact there is hive mind behavior based in at least some of what he produced.


Although I cannot verify any "Messianic Judaism", there is a strong batch of Polish dirt, the guy's wife. What little mention of her is found in one area where, maybe a bit like the Nazi thing, he commits another faux pas:


One of the letters of Saint Yves was addressed to the reigning Tzar, Alexander III
whom he beseeched to act as a liberator by recognizing the hidden kingdom of
Agartha and rejecting colonialism while establishing cooperative relations with
Britain and hence renouncing the Great Game which characterized the foreign
policies of those two great powers in Asia. He particularly warned the Tzar against
invading Afghanistan which, he wrote, was critically linked with Agartha and could
hence not be successfully occupied.

Indeed, whether or not the Emperor paid any attention to that strange
letter, his policies led to a détente in the Great Game, and to the
formation of the Entente with France and the United Kingdom, in
contradiction with his father’s broadly philo-Germanic anti-British line.
Alexander ignored the bellicose entreaties of his generals, thereby
avoiding a looming conflict with the United Kingdom in central Asia
as he did not venture into Afghanistan.

It was hoped that the Franco-Anglo-Russian agreement could
pave the way for European peace by holding in check German
expansionism, although in fact it laid the ground for the First
World War between two antagonistic alliances. Saint Yves’s
intervention seems to have been in line with French national
policy which was to bring Russia and Great Britain together on
France’s side.



Right. This bizarre Russian about-face could only be considered one of the single worst things that ever happened. There, you walk into the British strategy, about preventing a strong united Germany.

So St-Yves is practically a reverse HPB. One of the first clues is that Blavatskayan Theosophy has nothing to do with politics really. Not like that. She occasionally criticizes things, but there is no advice to the reigning lords of Europe, or theocratical government plan, there is not even any Sufism although there is a lot of Zoroastrianism. And then he is on the receiving end because it is his wife who comes from a similar background to HPB:



A great beauty, fourteen years older than her new husband, she
belonged to a family of Russian Baltic nobility that had produced the famous Baroness
von Krudener, the mystical inspirer and guide of Tzar Alexander the First—he who
had defeated Napoleon in 1813—and she was also related to Countess Hanska,
the wife of Honore de Balzac, the illustrious French novelist, deeply involved in
esoteric research as well. She was known for her uncommon gifts as a medium and
rumoured to have been a mistress to Tzar Alexander II. The philosophical moorings
of her family were the occultist Oriental teachings transmitted within what was
loosely known as the ‘Northern School’, connected to the eighteenth century. Strict
Observance Templar Masonry of Freiherr Von Hundt...


Her mother's family was Polish and inhabited Kiev and Odessa and there are several powerful and influential members of House Rzewuski who are mostly Russian loyalists to Catherine II and Alexander II. This is nothing Jewish or Frankist. This is "Polish", by which they mean "not German".


In French, she is very well-known:

Elle était membre de l’ordre martiniste.

Maria Riznitch et Edouard Federovich Keller divorcèrent en 1876 à la suite du scandale des nombreuses liaisons de Maria.

Le 16 septembre 1877, elle épousa Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre à Westminster à Londres.

Maria Victoire "Ivanovna", née de Riznitch Rzewuska, Marquise de Saint-Yves d'Alveydre (1827-1895)

loved to travel around France and probably Poland and had several affairs with famous men openly. Nevertheless, she had four legitimate children, and when the last turned eighteen, this divorce happened. All we know is they "met and got married". Her sister was pen pals with Balzac for twenty years and they got married and he croaked in five months, like one of his own characters. So what are they doing in London, when, someone who was a lover of powerful people finds:


After joining the army and being wounded in battle during the 1870 war with
Prussia, the young student of Occultism wrote his first esoteric work entitled Le
Retour du Christ in 1874. He had by then joined the French Home Ministry, in
which he remained until his 1877 marriage to a prestigious Russian aristocrat.


The first is a response to Jehovah's Witnesses. What he immediately prints from his new station in 1877 is an essay Key to the Orient, where he suggests the Abrahamic faiths unite because they all derive from Gnosis in the Vedas.

That's not consistent with the Missions, so it may be possible he partly composed them in the 1860s, and continued once this marriage and title had established him.

Her father was Serbian.

Her character is such that she appears to be a huge believer in Archeometry, which is nifty, although maybe not literally true in the way it is given.

They don't seem to have violent or deadly intentions in any way, it is that they make serious decisions that work that way, via the modernizing mechanism of banks increasingly being in charge.

That's what made me recant from what we call "Green Nazism"; I figured even if I was "right" about some issue, that should not grant me the ability to use force somewhere around the world to make it so. Then I figured we decide what is "right" based on words, externally, without really being involved with an issue. This line of thinking is flawed.

That's because I had to scrape my way through all these western esoterists and this grand presentation of "It is so". For some reason, St-Yves is not among them, even though, compared to every single person on earth, he said more things that "came true" than anyone. Not by way of prediction, certainly not by warning, but actually recommending Zionism and the Entente and by giving Nazism a raison d'etre.

I could have been spared what all of them were saying about Jesus and Maitreya and the Mysteries and so forth, but they are all so fantastically promoted, HPB was the last one of them I studied. But she is saying just go back to the actual classical systems and study them. This has received the least possible focus of all things. Her father wan German. You can sense the momentum towards Russian -- German cooperation, i. e., the main thing that has been thwarted ever since.

I just don't want to cause mis-attributions, St-Yves is not the "founder" of Synarchy as per any such named organization, and Jacolliot had "invented" Agartha in 1873. His tone is para-revolutionary, or, he idealizes peace via judicial processes. That does not explain a diatribe against Westphalia or the fact that suggestions he put in print actually happened, and that Opus Dei describes the influence better than naming a few authors who quoted him.

[shaberon]

I try to keep scanning whether St-Yves "got it" from somewhere.


So far I have tried to consider that the 1860s could have formulated anything like a "Lodge secret" which had then suddenly "gone public" in the Missions books.

There's nothing to support that, and, we see this system defining itself as an ultra-metastasis beyond Fabre d'Olivet.


It seems to be as self-originated and as new as it could be, when belted out as eternal truth.


Outside of itself, when saying St-Yves first wrote in 1874 responding to Jehovah's Witnesses, this is because the Return of Jesus was taken extremely seriously, at least by some. He was born, or was already here and was Ethiopian or something, or, he was in spirit form, or, there was some kind of end days timeline, and so this idea ranged from literal to speculative and was making an impact on the French public. He didn't start this, but, note the idea.


In the 1870s he was serving around Paris in what could be called the Ministry of Police. Somehow, after this Jesus fever hit, within three years he meets and marries a Polish Countess in London. He is considered to have been personally charismatic, so, it may be understandable he captured her attention, and yet we would be left wondering why an eccentric aristocrat would be in the position of paying attention to an apparently mundane office clerk in the first place.

He immediately used her boon to publish a pamphlet, which suggests that Islam should tie itself into a global concord. For some reason, five years later in these very solid books, it has been adjudicated as a failure, unable or unwilling to assimilate, and therefor to be trounced and repelled.


If this stuff was written by an idealist who wanted to curtail violence, his works have the very flaw of the Westphalia he despises. He presumes that after following his advice, countries will demolish their armaments and voluntarily submit to a judiciary. This is naive. Yes, we would hope and wish for that to happen, but he has actually given reasons for it to never happen. He throws these into the middle of a profitable arms race. I think he may have been a bit out-of-touch to begin with.

He would have remained a nobody, if it were not for something that sounds like an arranged marriage, which at the very least was an unusual circumstance.

She was already a Countess, though divorced, and so I have no idea about her legal status with respect to Russia, but this title is not what was conveyed to St-Yves to give him an "order of nobility".


This is the reaction in New Delhi from de Gourdon 2010:


In the company of Marie-Victoire, Saint Yves was able not only to deepen and expand
his psychic research, but also to rise in status as he was made a Marquis of the Holy
See by Pope Leo XIII in 1880, an unlikely recognition for a man whose beliefs and
writings should have attracted the condemnation or at least the suspicion of the
Vatican. Truth is often stranger or less logical than fiction.



Okay. I don't know where he got that from, but, it contradicts the Wikipedia information:

In 1880, he was granted the title of Marquis of Alveydre by the government of San Marino.

And that is in a spiel where it is not clear what the source is.

The obvious response is what is Alveydre.

San Marino is tiny. As summarized from an Armory:
:

In the period 1861-1931 San Marino granted 69 titles of nobility.

This is how it was since 1861:

During the later phase of the Italian unification process in the 19th century, San Marino served as a refuge for many people persecuted because of their support for unification, including Giuseppe Garibaldi and his wife Anita. Garibaldi allowed San Marino to remain independent. San Marino and the Kingdom of Italy signed a Convention of Friendship in 1862.

Compared to the 1926 review from Pym:


As a necessary pre
liminary to his entry into that influential
circle which, to use the somewhat cryptic
words of his biographer, Charles Bartel
"it was so greatly to his interest to attain
the Countess purchased for him the papal
marquisate of Alveydre. To those sour
critics, among whom were probably some
of the more earnest of his ex-revolution
ary friends, who criticised this lapse from
pure democracy...


I think the San Marino comment is irrelevant, because it has always been independent, whether from Italy, or, although it is Catholic, the Pope. These are very different messages "granted by a government" or "purchased by wife", and this last extract is from 1926 and refers to a prior text.


From the view St-Yves was likely Papal:

...who is credited with being the founder of Synarchy because he was the first to write down its doctrines.

One can see how closely the post-Conciliar Popes have followed this programme through their promotion of ecumenism.


Enthusiasts included French minister François Césaire Demahy and Paul Deschanel who later became President of France.

There seems little doubt that Saint-Yves was in direct communication with demons and that the principles of Synarchy were directly inspired by hell. Certainly the consequences of a totalitarian state ruled by an unworthy elite seem consistent with their origin. Anything that lacked evidence, such as his ideas about race or the origins of the world were for Saint-Yves a product of the secret knowledge from the “wise ones.”

This means he had mostly likely joined the Black Nobility:

After the Kingdom of Italy annexed the Papal States and captured Rome in 1870, the new kingdom recognized the existing nobility in its new territory. The pope remained a self-described "prisoner in the Vatican", supported by the so-called "black nobility" of families who remained loyal to the papacy rather than the Italian monarchy.


According to Jasper Ridley, at the 1867 Congress of Peace in Geneva, Giuseppe Garibaldi referred to "that pestilential institution which is called the Papacy" and proposed giving "the final blow to the monster". This was a reflection of the bitterness that had been generated by the struggle against Pope Pius IX in 1849 and 1860.

That is why the Popes were "prisoners" from 1870 - 1929. None of those titles carried lands or legal privileges, so, it is uncertain what they "are", but, it was certain there was an American Papal Duke of this nature. And a lot of the ennoblement was increasingly outbound, beyond Italy. The total given to French people is about 530 from 1789 - 1931.


Marquisates: 23 hereditary and 20 life titles given


The best description of a landless title is probably a court title. It would give you the capability to "be someone" inside the Vatican.

We find, when this happens, St-Yves arrives at the position of telling the Pope what to do, around which time Leo XIII:

After the assassination of Alexander II, the pope sent a high ranking representative to the coronation of his successor, Alexander III, who was grateful and asked for all religious forces to unify. He asked the pope to ensure that his bishops abstain from political agitation. Relations improved further when Pope Leo XIII, because of Italian considerations, distanced the Vatican from the Rome-Vienna-Berlin alliance, and helped to facilitate a rapprochement between Paris and St. Petersburg.

paves the way for the Entente.

As a warm welcome, St-Yves then writes on Alexander III as the Pope of Russia.

By having troped Bismark as the "wrong kind of authority", this would be a reaction to the 1872 Jesuit ban:

Unlike these measures, the Jesuit Law was from the start part of a struggle against the Jesuits, who were seen as the spearhead of Ultramontanism. By acknowledging the supremacy of Papal authority, the Jesuits contested the secular authority of Germany's imperial chancellor, Otto von Bismarck.

The acts are soon repealed and Catholicism is very resilient, and Germany and elsewhere is ripe for the arrival of Clerical Fascism, which is akin to Opus Dei and simply has groups called Synarchists in it.


Among the Prisoner Popes:

Pope Pius IX excommunicated the Italian king Victor Emmanuel II.

Leo XIII welcomed the elevation of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg (the later Ferdinand I of Bulgaria) to Prince of Bulgaria in 1886. A fellow Catholic, whose wife was a member of the Italian House of Bourbon-Parma, the two had a lot in common. However, relations between the two degenerated when Ferdinand expressed his intention to allow his eldest son Crown Prince Boris (later Tsar Boris III) to convert to Orthodoxy, the majority religion of Bulgaria. Leo strongly condemned the action, and when Ferdinand went through with the conversion anyway, Leo excommunicated him.

It has been determined St-Yves gave strategies to three sovereigns:

In that spirit, he urged Victoria to conclude an agreement with Russia.

It's two ends of the Entente, triangulated by the Pope:


At the 1869
Council, the dogma of Papal Infallibility had been proclaimed so that the Pontiff had
assumed absolute authority on matters of faith and doctrine.

In that precarious context, the proposal made by the Marquis d’Alveydre was nothing
short of revolutionary. Quoting various theological texts and Church prophecies he
asked for his Missions to be studied in the Pontifical College and reiterated his
earlier suggestion, made in his Mission des Souverains (1882) for the Holy Father to
assume the role of spiritual leader of Europe as an heir of the esoteric divine wisdom
of Paradesa handed down to the Western World by Jesus Christ, thus recognizing
the Church’s filiation with Agartha that Saint Yves identified as Saint Paul’s Church
of the Protogones


Moreover, it could be surmised the:


1892 Encyclical Rerum Novarum


is a re-statement of the 1882 Mission of the Workers.

Is it a papal survival strategy? They re-launch hierarchies in Britain, and start one in India. The tone is less strict Catholic, and more ecumenical Christian, in keeping with a European alliance against Arabs.


We do not have these "letters of recommendation" in France. It's:


That considerable interest was aroused
by the "Mission des Juifs" seems indi
cated by the fact that about 1884 or 1885
Saint Yves was presented to the President
of the Republic by his friend, Senator
Milhet-Fontarabie.


Oh. So we just walk around the echelons of power in a crony system now.

Indicating social circles you can buy your way into, this friend first came to power in Madagascar and Reunion.

It was by recent invitation:


...during the reign of Queen Ranavalona I, three
Jesuits had already come into her kingdom without her knowing it. The first was Marc Finaz, a Jesuit
priest, who arrived in Antananarivo on June 13, 1855. He came as the secretary of a mining entrepreneur
Joseph Lambert, under the name of Mr. Hervier. The second and the third were Louis Jouen and Joseph
Webber, all Jesuit priests, who reached the suburb of Antananarivo on October 6, 1856. They came, as a
nurse and a pharmacist respectively, with a medical doctor, Milhet-Fontarabie.


From the Jesuit Yearbook:


At the beginning of October the next year,
Father Jouen who had replaced Father Cotain in
the office of Superior of the Mission, and Father
Webber, who had just finished his novitiate, also
managed to reach Antananarivo. By concealing
their true identity under the names of M. Duquesne and M. Joseph, they accompanied, as assistant
doctor and nurse, Dr. Milhet-Fontarabie, who had
been summoned from Reunion to save the brother
of the Prime Minister who was affected by cancer
of the face. Their stay, however, did not exceed
two years. In July 1857, after a plot against the
Queen, the small number of Europeans living in
the capital were expelled. For Madagascar the
Hour of the Good Tidings of eternal salvation had
not yet struck.


Milhet had been dealing with thousands of Indian emigrants streaming out of British India from around 1827. His background is mostly as Mayor of Reunion then becoming Senator of Reunion in Paris in the 1880s.

De Mahy also came from Reunion and was in power in Paris from 1870 - 1906.

Deschanel literally went to the LLG or Jesuit College of Clermont.


In France, de Mahy promoting Milhet is certainly a bloc:

Le décès d'Alexandre de La Serve, sénateur de La Réunion, en février 1882 et son soutien indéfectible au député républicain François Césaire de Mahy, qui devient ministre de l'Agriculture en 1882, lui valent une élection au Sénat français le 9 juillet 1882.

That is to say, in 1882 Milhet won a seat in the French Senate due to de Mahy and others, and St-Yves's publishing must have got Milhet into a bond of friendship they take to the President by or before 1885.

The Grevy Presidency is one of the most stable France ever had, 1879 - 1887. It is remarkable for intra-governmental conflict; i. e. there are those that say the office of President is a dead vestige of "Orleanists", or that the House should have unlimited power, or the Senate should limit the House.

The government in the sense of Parliament is in this gridlock until finally being blown away by the case of Jules Ferry:

Montrant un fort engagement pour l’expansion coloniale française, en particulier dans la péninsule indochinoise, il doit quitter la tête du gouvernement en 1885 en raison de l’affaire du Tonkin.

That is to say, since 1870 and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, many French say their nation was rotting away while Germany entered a "golden age". So there was a following loosely based around General Boulanger who had their own ideas how to politically revive France itself, combined with revanchist policies such as taking territory back from Germany, competing with it in the colonial sense and generally expanding colonialism. This was not the view of Grevy and most of the French. It came rushing to a head in 1885 because due to an "undeclared war with China", French forces took a huge loss in Vietnam. Within two days, Jules Ferry got up before Parliament and demanded 200 million Francs for naval and land forces.


Although the British public is soon to fall for this kind of con in the Boer War, at the time, Ferry was met by the largest ourburst ever known in the history of French government by both rival adversaries:

À gauche, l’un des partisans de Clemenceau, le radical Georges Périn, intervint : « Il y a trop longtemps que vous en vivez de cet honneur du drapeau, c'est assez. »

Clemenceau s’en prit au premier ministre : « Nous en avons complètement fini avec vous ! Nous ne vous écouterons plus jamais ! Nous n’allons pas débattre des affaires de la nation à nouveau avec vous ! » La Chambre éclata en applaudissements, et Clemenceau continua : « Nous ne vous reconnaissons plus ! Nous ne voulons pas vous reconnaitre ! » Nouvelle salve d’applaudissements : « Vous n’êtes plus des ministres ! Vous êtes tous accusés ! » — tonnerre d’applaudissement des députés de la gauche et la droite, et après une pause dramatique de Clemenceau — « de haute trahison ! Et si les principes de responsabilité et de justice existent encore en France, la loi va bientôt vous donner ce que vous méritez ! »

Later by about 20,000 people:


« À bas Ferry ! Jetez-le dans la Seine ! Mort au Tonkinois ! »


Considering that the contiguous border of France may remain an issue of contention, at least there was a general refusal of force projection.


Strangely, their classification of literature about Etats-Unis de Europe stops with Victor Hugo and appears blank until the 1920s.


Right after Grevy, one finds a Russian attache' to Paris 1888.

The Presidency of Carnot 1887 - 1894, in response to the relative poverty of France to the benefit of Germany:


En politique étrangère, il favorise la signature de l’alliance franco-russe avec l’empereur Alexandre III.


The Tsar, of course, does not like French republican politics at all, but after finding it necessary to reverse his country's alliances:

Les deux gouvernements signent en 1891 un accord politique proclamant leur entente et leur décision de se consulter en cas de menace sur la paix. Le 23 décembre 1891 est signée avec la manufacture d'armes de Châtellerault une commande de 500 000 fusils « Mossine-Nagant » (dérivé notamment du Lebel). Une convention militaire secrète est signée un an plus tard. L'Alliance franco-russe de 1893, à Paris, avec le président de la République française Sadi Carnot et son ministre de la Marine Henri Rieunier se poursuit avec le président Félix Faure en 1896 et continue jusqu'en 1917.

St-Yves made a hollow thing, that is, while probably really having a pro-peace intent, it only potentially exists within these grandiose pontifications he makes, if everyone had already decided to do that part. That this is a sign of poor mentality is seconded by the fact that, among any circles of esoterists, he is not used or even mentioned. What he says gains no traction; it's ineffective. It's the followers of certain political modes that use it. And so, i. e., it is only those core political doctrines that are viable, the ones that give countries an excuse to run as war machines, and not by "completing his work" and leading to peace.


The timing is virtually identical with what we called the "American Jesuit" of the 1890s, i. e. a changed strategy from doctrinaire Catholicism to "any weak, watered-down form of Jesus" for gathering the flock. This, of course, accounts for most of the "New Age" panoply of beliefs which are not quite visible prior to the "Missions".

Yes, this still seems to have to do with Jesuits "moving the headquarters to London". Russian Martinism is a later and different phenomenon than the French, and cannot itself be considered a "vehicle" of much of anything; the last Tsar and the Bolsheviks certainly not representing the Orthodox and perhaps slightly Rosicrucian national dialogue there. On the other hand, Alice Bailey -- in close proximity to the United Nations -- is practically a grand re-write of St-Yves and again para-Jesuitical with this "ecumenical Jesus" idea. Her plan is the same, through the last book Externalization of the Hierarchy, it is indeed a returned Jesus/glorified Pope as the authority of Europe or the world.

Again, if The Secret Doctrine was the most influential book in the world until the 1930s, it is exactly then, this Bailey shill replaces it, in a way that perhaps is not so common or popular, except that it is a vessel of thought at high levels of power.

The sense I personally got from most of that stuff was confused and fake. There are of course numerous "versions" perhaps more appealing to individuals, but, those have not entrenched themselves in New York and the CFR. I probably have a decade tied up in this "go fish" looking for the grand philosophy or synthesis that sub-stands this, and it's not there; all I currently recognize is the actual institutions of Buddhism which independently have made peace with, primarily, Russian Orthodoxy. That counts as cooperatrion, not a western European telling us how everything is the same and dictating our destiny to us.

[shaberon]

It looks like we will have a new thread about this in the going forward direction.


I have composed this one as the intellectual history of where we are today, having generally avoided the modern or ca. 1900 and forwards material because it mostly speaks for itself.


We generally don't like to rely on one sole authority, so, in questioning what Mr. Baudry says, I think he may have a distorted view on older Martinism or Freemasonry, and this is probably true of Schiller authors, because they are typically a form of basic Christians. That gives them a suspicious lens. But when it comes to the actual structures of France through Napoleon, and, the writings of St-Yves, then external review mostly corroborates what he says.


And then I find it is what we are experiencing at this very moment.

To the extent it could be argued of St-Yves "what he really said is" everyone will voluntarily relinquish their weapons and his system will work, he happened to pass the ideas to multiple sovereigns whose plans were nothing of the sort.

This means the three heads of state who formed the Entente, plus, he gave a rebirth strategy to the Pope, which is what was aspired to be extinguished by Garibaldi. Not the plan, the office itself, he clearly slated for extinction.


Moreover, you can find a total conflict in their strategies.

Garibaldi was completely against racism, and he spoke of a defensive strategy, saying you have to confine the Ottoman Empire to the Bosporous, or it keeps attacking Europe. That was part of his idea about a "federated Europe" or some kind of unity. St. Yves, on the other hand, proclaimed Muslims to be inferior and the Judeo-Christians must establish Greater Israel, and he penned this about twelve years before Theodore Herzl did.





Garibaldi changed from Mazzinist ideals of valor and virtue and instead re-installed Monarchy. His vision was not an Italian uber nation, but one that was competent, something that could compete in the expanding world market. But whose primary function was to take care of itself, not repeating Roman or Papal Empires.



A few remarks:

Historian A. J. P. Taylor called him "the only wholly admirable figure in modern history".

Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara stated: "The only hero the world has ever needed is called Giuseppe Garibaldi."

This is what he said to Germany in 1865 in hopes of its unification:

The progress of humanity seems to have come to a halt, and you with your superior intelligence will know why. The reason is that the world lacks a nation which possesses true leadership. Such leadership, of course, is required not to dominate other peoples, but to lead them along the path of duty, to lead them toward the brotherhood of nations where all the barriers erected by egoism will be destroyed. We need the kind of leadership which, in the true tradition of medieval chivalry, would devote itself to redressing wrongs, supporting the weak, sacrificing momentary gains and material advantage for the much finer and more satisfying achievement of relieving the suffering of our fellow men. We need a nation courageous enough to give us a lead in this direction. It would rally to its cause all those who are suffering wrong or who aspire to a better life, and all those who are now enduring foreign oppression. This role of world leadership, left vacant as things are today, might well be occupied by the German nation.

His basic problem:

Shouldn't a society (I mean a human society) in which the majority struggle for subsistence and the minority want to take the larger part of the product of the former through deceptions and violence but without hard work, arouse discontent and thoughts of revenge amongst those who suffer?

It is correct he had a hand in founding the first NGOs and international associations or peace movements.


His virulent anti-Papistry was what he was spreading in Masonry and supposed to be the new Italian fasces:

Once stripped of esoteric and ritual trimmings, which Garibaldi openly depreciated, Freemasonry was for him, especially after 1860, a meeting place and a means of organisation which he more than once tried to make use of to carry out his own political and cultural plans.

"The masonic organisation," wrote Mola, "was thought of by Garibaldi as a network able to unite the otherwise dispersed forces of the Italian renewal: from the inside, by forming new leaders able to look to the boundless horizons opened up by progress in the sciences (medicine, chemistry, physics, anthropology etc.) rather than become small minded through the petty struggles for power, and from the outside by placing those leaders in an intellectual circuit whose Pillars of Hercules, once Italy was unified, were a European federation, the formation of great ethnic-linguistic systems (Anglo Saxon, Latin, Slav etc.) and finally "worldwide"' unity of humanity kept together in a brotherly way by constructive ideals".

He was not unique in his opinion:

Garibaldi entered Freemasonry during his exile, taking advantage of the asylum which was offered by the lodges to political refugees of European countries governed by despotic regimes hostile to democratic or nationalistic movements.

Garibaldi then attended the masonic lodges of New York in 1850 and London in 1853-54, where he met several supporters of democratic internationalism, whose minds were open to making socialist thoughts their own and give Freemasonry a strong anti-papal stand.

And he was extremely temporarily successful, up to when he died, and very soon Italian nationalism bears little resemblance to what he said. In fact the founder of P2 comes from Garibaldi's Lodge. He died in 1882, right around when the Missions series comes out.

The legitimate repercussion against him is that the purpose of Masonry is not for his personal politics. But then we might ask is it really his or is it the Rough Ashlar that still needs hewing.

Besides, he said the same thing of *any and all* organizations, they should be workshops for this type of refinement. If it exists, it should be a think tank for improving the quality of life.

If what he meant by "Socialism" remains a little obscure, it was not the same as Mazzini nor that of the Fascists-to-be.

Arguably, NGO and peace work has been heavily steered off course by not being used as intended. Not necessarily the nineteenth-century ones that may still be around, but, newer ones that can even be intentional fakes.

Most of his intellectual heritage is considered to have passed to Bakunin anarchy. It is an interesting ideal but may have gone too far in its applicability.

In the philosophical spectrum, there are two underlying premises, Hobbes -- man is inherently evil, and Bakunin -- man is inherently good.

Our Fish Justice or Matsya Nyaya is between these, not stating either position, but saying man needs regulation in order to display moral behavior.

That is to say, you need some kind of structure, some kind of underlying system, something that is able to function and thereby provide opportunity for your better motivations. In order to do so, it must protect the little fish from the big fish, just like Garibaldi said. That's not what we have. My country doesn't redress wrongs it has done. His country was the first to join us in trans-national modern Fascism. America doesn't use that name because it doesn't have a ceremonial axe.


Generally speaking, "Anti-Papistry" is not any surprise in "Protestant" countries. That is what it means. In some way it "protests" the Pope. It does not do so by turning to the Religion of Jerusalem. Correspondingly it has its own issues. Therefor, where Schiller Institute is still working within "Protestantism", many of the rest of us are not. There's a completely different perspective when society is not made of a bunch of dogmatic religions making rules against each other.

Now, instead, at least here, it seems we have doctrinaire politics against each other.

I don't see the Garibaldian principles represented, I do see the St-Yves collusion as having taken place. And no good decisions really come out of it. It is hard to ever like, for example, anything our Federal government ever does. I can't remember anything about it. Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall, one of the few protections there ever was. By now the pyramid scheme is far worse.