black Magic & Ancient Mysteries
Most people accept that those in power can
sometimes do wrong, or that the system
we live under can at times be at fault. But for the most part, the society operates under the false trust that
when information about that corruption can be made available, it will. That is
because, when people think of
propaganda, they conceive of overt methods used in tyrannical societies such Nazi Germany, the former Soviet Union or
Communist China, with open calls for
patriotic devotion to the state and its policies. However, these methods have evidently lacked success, for
being recognized, even among their own
citizens, for their transparency. Unlike other tyrannies in the world, who produce propaganda through known state
organs, the West has adopted a far more
sophisticated method of propaganda, by hiding the system of manipulation behind an illusion of a “free
press.”
First of all, there is a base form of propaganda
prepared for the general masses, which is buried in popular forms of entertainment,
such as television, movies and
music. But there is also a more rarifie and
advanced form prepared for the intellectual class, who are induced into the
false vanity that they are better informed through a system of higher
education, or “higher indoctrination,” and high-brow publications such as
well-respected magazines and newspapers, like the New York Times, as well as
non-fiction books, and even documentaries.
The impression created is that these works are the production of an independent press and an intelligentsia
free to bore into the facts of history
to reveal the truth when scandal is deserving of exposure.
While condemnations of the state and the
corporate sector are often harshly
challenged by the popular press, certain types of criticisms previously denounced as “conspiracy theory” eventually
become accepted by the mainstream, but
only when they are supported by the loftiest academic credentials or the sheer
force of public outcry. These have included the analysis of corporate control of the media by Noam
Chomsky of MIT, or The Israel Lobbyand
US Foreign Policy by Mearsheimer and Walt of Harvard, who have now made it possible to
speak credibly of “Jewish influence”
without being automatically denounced as an anti-Semite. Sometimes, mass
protest allows widespread discontent to
overcome the pressures of the media to suppress
those truths, such as the Occupy Movement, which brought attention to
the rampant inequality inherent in Western capitalism.
However, although the only analyses of political
realities closest to the truth tend to
be produced by the Left, they nevertheless fail to adequately diagnose the true extent of the corruption, because they are confined
by a paradigm of Marxist or neo-Marxist
rhetoric. Ultimately, however, the greatest
impediment to understanding how the world really works is a naïveté that
fails to recognize the depths that certain devious men will resort to in the
pursuit of the enrichment of their own power. The possibility of networks of
individuals colluding to perpetrate evil is not even considered, but dismissed
outright as irrational “paranoia.” The label is of course a convenient one,
being an adhominemfallacy that employs ridicule to dismiss any suggestions of
conspiracy as not even remotely possible.
Conspiracies do exist, and always have, like
the plot to assassinate Caesar. Most cannot imagine how a group of individuals could
manage control of such a vast array of
resources. But that apparent complexity is merely an façade, resulting from a limited knowledge of how power
structures work. Rather, it is often possible
to demonstrate how that control is effected, the most popular example being Noam Chomky’s analysis of the media, or
what he has characterized as the “manufacture
of consent.” As Chomsky explained, to defend his analysis: “Any economist knows this: it’s not a conspiracy
theory to point [out] that… it’s just taken
for granted as an institutional fact. If someone were to say ‘Oh no, that’s
a conspiracy theory,’ people would
laugh.” He concluded:
For people to call [Chomsky’s media analysis]
“conspiracy theory” is part of the
effort to prevent an understanding of how the world works, in my view “conspiracy theory” has become the
intellectual equivalent of a four-letter
word: it’s something people say when they don’t want you to think about what’s really going on. 1
However, the truth is far stranger still, and
cannot be fully understood without
considering the substantial role played by the occult and secret
societies. Because of the largely
negative portrayal of religion in popular culture, there is a failure to understand the nature of true
religious experience, which is therefore
dismissed as irrational and ultimately worthless. However, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica’s article on
the topic, it has been recognized that there are two distinct types of
religious experience. The first
type, normally associated with orthodox religious traditions, derives from an
apprehension of the sublimity of God and
his attributes:
…specific experience such as wonder at The infinity of the cosmos, the
sense of awe and mystery in the presence of the sacred or holy, feeling of dependence on a divine power or an unseen
order, the sense of guilt and anxiety
accompanying belief in a divine judgment, or the feeling of peace that follows faith in divine forgiveness.
Some thinkers also point to a religious
aspect to the purpose of life and the destiny of the individual.
This type of
experience contrasts with mysticism, normally associated with heterodox approaches to religion or the
occult, which is “the explicitly mystical
sort of experience in which the aim is to pass beyond every form of articulation and to attain unity with the divine.”
So while the first is a purely rational, mysticism involves
some type of sensory experience. As such,
mystical
experiences derive from a mischaracterization of what constitutes the “divine.” Because God is normally perceived
to be beyond the physical realm, he is
often referred to as belonging to the “supernatural.” As a consequence, any experience that occurs without
a rational explanation can also be
misidentified as being “supernatural” as
well. In this way, various psycho-physical phenomena, or sometimes
altered states of consciousness, which
likely belong to some rational explanation yet to be provided, are mistakenly interpreted as “religious.”
While mystical tendencies remain an interest
merely on the fringe of popular culture,
they represents a hidden tradition that has combatted orthodox religious tradition for centuries, such
that, while unacknowledged by much of
academia or mainstream culture, it has profoundly shaped the course of Western civilization, and largely
shaped the prejudices that have led to
disillusionment with religion. Ultimately, we cannot properly understand history—and therefore, the world we live
in—without considering the substantial
role played by the occult and secret societies. But, of course, no subject is
quicker to attract scoffs and ridicule. Yet
again, this is no accident, as such ad hominemattacks merely protect the
most sensitive of secrets. Nevertheless,
while these were subjects that had been shied
away from by academia, for fear of being associated with cranks, as explained by historian Christopher McIntosh,
“the role of secret and semisecret societies in history is a theme that has
only recently come into its own as a
subject for serious historical inquiry. Its previous neglect by most professional historians was in part a reaction
against the lurid credulity with which
the subject has so often been treated in the past.”2 As a result, explained J. M. Roberts in his seminal The
Mytholog y of Secret Societies:
Because the historians passed by, the charlatan,
the axe-grinder and the paranoiac long had
the field to themselves…Intelligent
men have preferred to treat
secret societies as, until recently, they treated antiSemitism: as an
aberration whose roots lay in an irrationality which disqualified it for serious study.3
However, as is being discovered, these
subjects need to be considered not to affirm the fantasies
they are proffering, but to understand how these
beliefs, no matter how outlandish they
may have become at times, may nevertheless have
shaped the development of human civilization. As noted by Auguste
BoucheLeclerq, one of the foremos scholars of modern times, about the influences of astrology in history, which in former times
was often indistinguishable from the
study of astronomy: “One does not waste one’s time in studying how other people have wasted theirs.”
Fortunately, there have been an increasing number of efforts to elucidate the
formative role of the occult in history. Most
notable was Dame Frances Yates, whose exceptional scholarship has
singlehandedly managed to put aside any fears that it is not possible to study
the weird and bizarre without succumbing
to irrationality oneself. An important work
to follow was The Origins of
Freemasonry: Scotland’s Century, 1590 to 1710 by David Stevenson. There have been other significant recent studies, such as Mystical Sources of
German Romantic Philosophyby Ernst Benz, and
Hegel and the Hermetic
Traditionby Glenn Alexander Magee. But the most in-depth foray into the subject of late has been Marsha Keith
Schuchard’s tome, Restoring the Temple of
Vision: Cabalistic Freemasonry and Stuart Culture.
Essentially, to understand the collaboration
between Western intelligence agencies and
the networks of “Islamic” terror in the twentieth century, it is first necessary
to understand the deep history of the occult. Because, it involves not only [that’s right] the Freemasons, but encompasses an entire history
of occult knowledge and philosophy dating
back far into Antiquity. As every leading exponent of it will concede, the
origin of the Western occult tradition
is to be found in the Kabbalah, a heresy of Judaism. Although developed in Babylon in the sixth century BC,
the Jewish Kabbalah claims to be an esoteric tradition passed down
orally through the ages and traceable to
the ancient sages of the Bible , most
often Solomon and Moses. While it purports
to be a legitimate interpretation of the
Bible, it nevertheless betrays the
corruptive influences that long
plagued the Jewish community, in
the form of the ancient worship of the pagan
dying-god . The existence of the
recurring
motif of the dying-god, whose death and
then resurrection was celebrated annually, corresponding
to the Christian Easter, was first proposed by Sir James Frazer in The Golden Bough. As
with any theory that offers a single answer
for a broad sweep of questions, there were subsequent attempts to discredit it, because the several variations
of the dying-god didn’t follow a
strict prototype. However, the theory
has been recently rehabilitated by Tryggve N.
D. Mettinger, Professor of Hebrew
Bible at Lund University, Sweden, in a work entitled The Riddle of Resurrection—”Dying and
Rising Gods” in the Ancient Near East,
published in 2001. 4
Throughout the ancient Middle East, numerous versions of the dying-god were worshipped according to
different names depending on the culture. There
was Osiris in Egypt , Baal
in Palestine, Bel or Marduk in Babylon,
Mithras in Persia, and Dionysus ,
Apollo or Hercules among the
Greeks. Typically, the dying-god was associated with the Sun, and therefore
followed a pattern of myth that
corresponded to the four seasons. He was believed to “die” during the winter Solstice, after which he sojourned
in the Underworld, until he was resurrected
during the spring equinox. Two other festivals corresponded to the cycle, the summer solstice, and the fall
equinox.
The dying-god was symbolized by the constellation
of Orion, one of the most conspicuous constellation. Lying along
the celestial equator, it is visible from
practically anywhere on earth, in the beginning and end of the year. Therefore,
Orion is the subject of many ancient myths and legends, and seems to
have been considered the center of the universe. The Assyrian Adad, the Hurrian Teshub, the unnamed Hittite weather-god,
and the Canaanite Baal, all had similar
appearances and mythological themes identifying them with Orion. He was known to the Egyptians as Osiris.
Bel, the dying-god of the Babylonians,
was believed to have been the legendary founder of Babylon, the giant Nimrod, a descendant of Ham, referred
to in the Bible as “a mighty hunter
before the Lord,” which Jewish tradition identified with the constellation of Orion. Following Orion into the sky at or close to dawn is the
sky’s brightest star Sirius, sometimes
called the Dog Star because it’s part of the constellation Canis Major. The Egyptian calendar system was
based on the heliacal rising of Sirius that occurred
just before the annual flooding of the Nile during summer. The dog star
heralded the coming of the hot and dry days of July and August, hence the popular term “the dog days of
summer.” The dying-god was considered
one of a trinity, along with his father and
the goddess, who was his mother and sister at the same time. The goddess
was identified with Venus, whose rising
and setting closely attended that of the Sun,
so she was seen as his spouse, or representing the female aspect, where
they could be worshipped as a single
androgynous deity. Since the dying-god
and goddess were essentially regarded as
one, in addition to the Sun, the
dying-god also came to be identifi ed with Venus, whose original Latin name is Lucifer ,
and referred to in the Bible as
the “Son of the Dawn.”
While the notion of a devil is often mistakenly
perceived to be a uniquely Judeo-Christian tradition, a corresponding idea
developed in ancient pagan societies as
well. The notion of good and evil is not dependent on a monotheistic tradition.
Every language has a word expressing good in the sense of “desirable” and bad in the sense
“undesirable.” A sense of moral judgment
and a distinction of “right and wrong, good and bad” are cultural
universals. 5
The recognition of good and evil is formed
from the most basic logic, and is therefore
inherently intuitive to any human being. “Good” is to accept the equality of human beings, and therefore, to
adopt the Golden Rule, to “do unto others
as you would they unto you.” That is, to show compassion and respect to every human being, regardless of their
status, race or religion. “Evil” is nihilism,
which on the contrary, denies a moral order and instead subscribes to the belief of an inherent inequality among
humans and, therefore, not only to the
supremacy of some over others, but to the complete absence of any moral responsibility towards one’s supposed
inferiors. Consequently, as representing
the opposite of the good, the evil
dying-god is seen to typically represent such principles, even in pagan societies. To
justify the worship of the evil god alone,
the common motif found across the ancient Middle East proposes that, along with the Titans, the dying-god warred against the creator God and
usurped his place, and therefore came to
be worshipped as the true God in his stead.
As god of the Underworld, the dying-god was believed to rule over the souls of the dead who dwelt there. In
Christian tradition, these spirits have come
to be known as demons. Though the existence of such beings is entirely dismissed by the secularizing trends of
European science, numerous cultures throughout history have asserted their
existence under varying names, such as ghosts,
goblins, poltergeists, leprechauns, fairies, sprites and more recently, as extra-terrestrials. According to the Quran,however, these belong to a species of disembodied beings, known as Jinn , popularized
as “genies” in the tales of the Arabian
Nights. According to the Quran, these
Jinnare made not of matter, but in the language
of the seventh century, of “smokeless fire,”
perhaps referring to energy. They are said to be able to take human or animal
form, to possess human beings, and
capable of feats like travelling great distances instantaneously. But unlike angels, Jinnare
given free will, and the Quranis
said to have been revealed for them as
well as humans. According to the Quran,
the devil was one of these Jinnwho chose
to rebel but who was granted until the Day
of Judgment to do what he might to mislead mankind. The Quran also
describes how Solomon was given power over the Jinn, by which he was
able to build his magnificent Temple.
The
justification for the worship of
evil was developed in ancient
pagan cultures in a type of dualism whereby there was considered to be a god
who ruled over good and a god who ruled
over evil. Therefore, according to their
primitive dualism, or what is known as apotropaic magic, good sacrifices
were offered to the good god, while evil sacrifices were believed necessary to
offer to the dying-god , because of his power over evil
spirits, to protect oneself from his evil,
or to direct it against ones’ enemies. This involved the creation of talismans,
and various
other rituals commonly belonging to the
field of “ magic.” Magic is another phenomenon that has been dismissed by the
secularizing trends of the West.
However, magic, which forms the basis of
the ancient dying-god cult and the Western occult tradition that developed
from it, would likely rely on laws of nature
that have yet to be fully discerned, and/or would rely on the assistance of Jinn . Nevertheless, their employment of Jinnin
the performance of these phenomena are then
falsely considered by magicians to have a “supernatural” or even “divine” basis, often leading to the
arrogance that they themselves have become
like “gods.”
As Fraser pointed out, the dying-god mythology
was the basis of rites that could be categorized
as sympathetic or imitative magic.
Therefore, by imitating the mythologies
of the dying-god and goddess, the
ancient pagans thought they could
contribute to the fertility of the land. To mimic the “death” of the god,
a child was
sacrificed and its flesh eaten by the devotees, in order, it was thought, to ingest and become one with
the god. These practices were attended by rituals that involved intoxicants, music and dancing,
to rile the worshipper into a trance state,
whereby the he or she was thought to become possessed by the “god,” who spoke or performed miracles through him or
her. These rites also included sex rituals,
in particular a “sacred marriage,” to imitate the coupling of the Sun god and the goddess as Mother Nature, and to foster
the growth of crops.
As is typical of a rejection of conventional
morality, even in our time, the tendency
is to then regard what are normally repudiated as vices as “natural.” Celebrated is man’s animal nature. His
strongest drive, that of sex, comes to be
regarded as a religious impulse, and because it is equated with all
pro-creative activity of life, it is seen as the vital force of nature itself.
Consequently, the dyinggod was commonly
depicted and worshiped as a phallic pillar.
It is not reasonable to expect the average person
to sort through the vast amounts of
information alone to make sense of the truth from the lies and determine his responsibility. Throughout
history, human societies have resorted to
“wise men” or elders, who were trusted not only for their knowledge and wisdom, but also their integrity. In the
past, when religion was considered one
and the same with reality,
this role was fulfilled by priests, who
were not only expected to know
doctrine, but to be informed in worldly matters, in order to best interpret
it. Over time, this role became an office, and sought by less scrupulous men, who, seeking status, were neglectful of the
core principles, and mechanical in their fulfillment of their function. As
such, the religion became dogma, removed from any
direct relevance to its followers, serving
instead as a national culture. Many then become rightfully dismayed with
a religion that seems hypocritical, but
use the opportunity to question its value on the whole, instead of
reforming it. Before the same happened
to Christianity and Islam, the same
occurred to Judaism, where the
priesthood lost touch with the underlying message of social justice, instead becoming overly concerned
with details of theology and ritual.
There is a common misconception that the
validity of a religion is measured by the
moral quality of its followers. However, part of the message communicated by God through history is the sad truth of how
man becomes neglectful of his obligation,
and ungrateful of God’s enormous blessings. Therefore, the core story of the Bible and the Quranis that of numerous
messengers being sent to humanity after
they have gone astray from the original truth. For example, Isaiah, a prophet of the eighth century BC,
shares a revelation from God that chastises
the Jewish people for the very same:
The
multitude of your sacrifices—what
are they to me?” says the LORD. “I have
more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and
goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts?
Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your evil
assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and
your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in
prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands
are full of blood; wash and make
yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage
the oppressed. Defend the cause of the
fatherless, plead the case of the widow.
According to the Bible, after the Israelites
were led from Egypt by Moses, they were
commanded to conquer the land of the Canaanites in Palestine, which had been promised to their forefather
Abraham. They were clearly warned to refrain from the magical and spiritist
practices associated with the cult of the
dying god. According to Deuteronomy 18:9-10:
When you have come into the Land which the
Lord, your God, is giving you, you shall
not learn to imitate the abominations of the people there. Let there not be found among you anyone who
immolates his own son or daughter in the
fire, nor a fortune-teller,
soothsayer, charmer, diviner or
caster of spells, nor anyone who consults ghosts and spirits or seeks oracles form the dead. Anyone who does such
things is an abomination to the Lord.
As recounted in the Book of Exodus, when the Israelites
escaped persecution in Egypt , they first worshipped the
Golden Calf, which scholars recognize
to be the Apis Bull of the Egyptians, who is related to the dying-god Osiris . And, following their conquest of Palestine, though they were warned repeatedly
to the contrary, the Israelites
succumbed to the worship of the
dying-god of their Canaanite neighbors,
Baal and his sister-spouse Astarte.
The Israelites went so far as to pollute
the very Temple of Jerusalem itself with
the accouterments of this cult,
including worshipping “Asherah” poles, or phallic pillars. They even sacrifi ced their own children to a version of Baal known as
Moloch, who is the equivalent to
Kronos, or Saturn, representing the
darker aspect of the Sun god.
According to the Bible , because they refused to heed the
warnings of the many prophets sent to
reform them and return to the worship of the one God and to the obedience of the Ten Commandments, a prophecy was finally
fulfilled against them, whereby they were punished and sent into exile. First came
the Assyrians in 721 BC who conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel
after which the ten Tribes who had been living there were dispersed
to land of the Medes, in Iran and Armenia, and subsequently became known as the
“ Lost Tribes of Israel.” Then, beginning in 589 BC, came the
Babylonians led by Nebuchadnasser who
destroyed Jerusalem and took the
remaining population of the Kingdom of
Judah into captivity to Babylon, a
period known as the Exile.
The Exile was supposed to be acknowledged by
the Jews as prophecy fulfilled and
an annulment of God’s
promise to their forefather Abraham, known as the covenant, that they would
forever inherit the land of Zion in Palestine.
However, according to the Quran , a number
of the exiles refused to reform their
ways, but instead chose to apostatize, learning magic from the “satans.” As the Quran explains:
When a messenger was sent to them [the Jews] by God confirming the revelations
they had already received some of them
turned their backs as if they had no knowledge of it. They followed what the demons attributed to
the reign of Solomon. But Solomon did
not blaspheme, it was the satans who blasphemed, teaching men magic and such things as were revealed at Babylon to the angels Harut and Marut. But
neither of these taught anyone (such
things) without saying; “we are a trial, so do not blaspheme.” They learned from them the means
to sow discord between man and wife [love magic]. But they could not harm anyone except
by God’ s permission. And they learned
what harmed them, not what benefi ted them. And they knew that the purchasers
[of magic] would have no share in the
happiness of the hereafter. And vile was
the price for which they sold their souls, if they but knew.
Effectively, these apostate Jews developed a heresy of Judaism, by
retaining the worship of the dying-god and combining it with
Babylonian magic and astrology. Scholarly consensus has concluded
that astrology could not have been
developed earlier than the sixth century BC. And, considering the size and prominence
of the Jewish population living in Babylon in that century, it may be supposed that Jews themselves contributed to
many of these innovations. In fact, in
the Book of 2:48, Daniel is made chief
of the “wise men” of Babylon, that is of the Magi or Chaldeans. This cult would
then have formed the basis of what later came to be known as the Kabbalah , which purported to represent
an esoteric interpretation of the Bible . Then, in 538 BC, Babylon was conquered by the Persians, led by Cyrus the Great who
followed the religion of Zoroastrianism,
founded by Zoroaster. Cyrus
released the Jews from captivity after
which many returned to Palestine where they began work on building
the Second Temple of Jerusalem, to
replace the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE.
It was also at this time that the various
ancient texts of the Jews were
compiled and edited to form the Bible.
The common complaint about the Bible text is
either that it plagiarized stories from other cultures, or that many of
its accounts and commandments are
reprehensible. However, these aberrations can for the most part be
attributed to the corruptive influence of the Kabbalah. It is apparent from a
number of texts now in our possession that there are a great number of scribal errors, such as would undoubtedly
occur in any form of manuscript transmission.
However, according to Professor Ernst Würthwein in The Text of the Old Testament, the classic introduction
to textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible,
textual changes took place due to other causes as well. Namely, that
while some changes were accidental, others were deliberate. Würthwein explains:
First, the canonization of the Old Testament
books did not involve or imply a
standardized form of their text in our sense of the term. Prior to canonization, which may be dated about AD
100, their text was still fluid. This was because the scribes, who were theologically educated and interested, would
often write the texts from memory (a practice
that was later forbidden) and did not regard their work as
restricted to mechanical transcription.
They were permitted to make certain changes
in the wording if they did not distort the sense of the text, as they understood it. 6
It was in this manner that unorthodox ideas
appropriated in Babylon, the early
tenets of the Kabbalah, were introduced into the Bible. So while the Bible originally pertained to a monotheistic
tradition that enforced the worship of one God, and was opposed to the
polytheism of the pagans, as Frank Moore Cross has demonstrated in Canaanite
Myth and the Hebrew Epic, the God of the
Bible was cryptically identified
as a thunder-god, or Baal of the
Canaanites, who was at war with
the Sea Dragon, which became the Leviathan of the Bible. Numerous other motifs were interpolated
into the text, most notably astrological symbols, but which were left for
interpretation only by the initiated.
The first
developments of the Kabbalah within Judaism itself, however, did not appear until after the third century
BC. In order to trace the earliest developments of these tendencies, it is first necessary to turn to what appeared to be non-Jewish traditions. While
many Jews settled in Palestine
following the Exile, others spread
across the known world, particularly to Asia Minor, now Turkey, and to Greece and Egypt . Because much of the world
at that time was not aware of the
religion of the Jews, the early
Kabbalists among them were confused with
the renowned “ Chaldean Magi ” of Babylon, and were mistakenly regarded as students of Zoroaster, to whom they falsely
attributed their doctrines. But the cult
of these “ Magi” was a heretical version of that faith despised by orthodox Zoroastrians, with
elements identical to those later identified as part of the Kabbalah. These false Magi instead worshipped Mithras , a Persian
version of the ancient dying-god, and for whom they practiced mystery rites.7 It is from their various practices that is
derived our word for “ magic.”
Although Greece is regarded as the “cradle of
Western civilization,” and a shining
example of Aryan “genius,” according to the Greeks themselves, their ancestors were Phoenicians. It was not until the nineteenth
century, as Martin Bernal indicated in
Black Athena, when an Aryan model of
history was constructed, that this
evidence was denied. More recently, other leading scholars have revisited the Eurocentric
interpretation. As is being indicated, the primary aspects of ancient Greek culture were conveyed
from the areas of Syria and Palestine by
way of the Phoenicians who would have
included Jews. However, the Jews at that period were so immersed in
the worship of foreign gods that they
would have been essentially indistinguishable from the Phoenicians. The wide penetration of Near Eastern ideas into Greece
that resulted from this influx is what Walter Burkert has referred
to as the “Orientalizing Revolution.” As
noted by M. L. West, in The East Face of Helicon, Phoenician influence on Ancient Greece was such that, “Near Eastern influence
cannot be put down as a marginal phenomenon to be invoked
occasionally in explanation of isolated peculiarities. It was pervasive at many
levels and at most times.” 8
In classical times, the Greeks recognized
three great divisions among themselves:
Aeolian, Ionian, and Dorian. The Ionians were descended from Cadmus
and Danaus who were equated with the
colonizers named Hyksos, a dynasty of
foreign invaders who ruled a northern portion of Egypt, establishing themselves
at a
town called Abydos, but who were finally
expelled by the Egyptians in 1450 BC, and eventually settled
Palestine. Manetho, an Egyptian priest who lived around 250 BC, equated
the Hyksos with the Jews of the
Exodus.9
Heccataeus of Abdera, a Greek historian of
the fourth century BC, set out his view
that the traditions of the Egyptian expulsion of the Hyksos, the
Exodus of the Jews and that of
Danaus’ landing in Greece, were three parallel versions of the same story. Referring to the
Egyptians he says:
The natives of the land surmised that unless
they removed the foreigners their
troubles would never be resolved. At once, therefore, the aliens were driven from the country and
the most outstanding and active among
them branded together and, as some say, were cast ashore in Greece and certain other regions; their
teachers were notable men, among them
being Danaus and Cadmus. But the greater number were driven into what is now called Judea, which
is not far from Egypt and at that time
was utterly uninhabited. The colony was headed by a man called Moses.10 The
Dorians, who were said to have invaded Greece, were also believed to have been of Phoenician origin. The colonization of
the Dorians conforms with the general
upheavals that involved the dispersion of the Israelites.
Scholars therefore recognize that the invasion
of the Dorians may be connected with the devastation wrought by the
controversial Sea Peoples referred to
in Egyptian records, who also assaulted
most of Palestine, Asia Minor and Greece
in the twelfth century BC. The Danaans, descendants of Danaus, are usually identified with the Denyen Sea Peoples, as one of the twelve
tribes of Israelites, the tribe of Dan,
or the Danites. Yet, as Stager mentions:
Archaeologists agree that dramatic cultural
change affected not only parts of Canaan
but also much of the eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1200 BC). How
much of that change was brought about by
the migrations and/or invasions of newcomers to
Canaan, and specifically by invading Israelites, is
still an open question. 11
A number of sites counted among the conquests
of the Sea Peoples are identical with those known to have been accomplished
by the Israelites. As well, though such conquests are not recounted in the
Bible, the Jews were also commanded to conquer all the lands of
the Canaanites and their affiliated
peoples, which included the Hittites known to have inhabited most of Asia
Minor, or modern Turkey, and perhaps as
far as Greece. The Trojan War may thus
have been a conflict between the ancient
Israelites from the Tribe of Dan,
known to the Greeks as Danaans, or
Denyen Sea Peoples, against Hittites,
the native inhabitants of Asia Minor. In
the Iliad, Homer refers to the Greeks as Achaeans, who were related to the Danaans descendants of Danaus, who was believed to be the son of Egyptian king Belus ( Baal).
The ancient city of Troy was located in the
region known as the land of Troas, within which was also found, just
several kilometers to the north, the
city of Abydos, named after another city by the same name in Egypt, that had formerly been the
capital of the Hyksos.
The
Dorians were also known as Heraklids being a claim, not only of descent from
Hercules, but also to Phoenician
ancestors. The Phoenician origin of Hercules is relatively undisputed, he being
regarded as the equivalent of the Canaanite
Melqart, another name for Baal. Hercules is obviously related to the Bible hero Samson, a story evidently included
in the text through pagan or Kabbalistic influence. Samson and Hercules are both species of solar-heroes, identified with Orion, and derived
from the Babylonian figure Gilgamesh, of the famous epic, who also killed
an invincible lion and accomplished other great tasks. T. W. Doane, in Bible
Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions, has brought attention to the
similarities that existed between
Hercules and the story of Samson
in the Old Testament. The two heroes were already compared in antiquity by Eusebius, St. Augustine and
Filastrius. Samson, derived from Shamash, the Babylonian Sun-god, is the solar-hero
of the Bible, his name meaning
“belonging to the Sun.”12
Danaus’ brother was Agenor the king of Tyre,
who was the father of Cadmus, the
brother of Phoenix, from whom the Phoenicians
derive their name, and of Europa, from
whom the name of Europe is derived. It was
Cadmus who introduced the Phoenician letters which became the source of
the modern European alphabet, a name
derived from the first two Hebrew letters, alephand beth. The major Olympian gods and goddesses were
headed by Zeus who was a “thunder-god” typical to the ancient Near
East, such as Baal. Athena, goddess of war and patron of Athens, who presided over
fertility cults, was a replication of
the armed goddesses of the Near East, related etymologically to Anat of the
Canaanites, Anahita of the Persians, and Neith of the Egyptians. Apollo
was also a species of dying-god
identified by the Greeks with the Canaanite god Reshep.13 His lover Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, was the
equivalent of Astarte or
Ishtar of the Babylonians.14 Another Greek god of eastern origin was Adonis, mentioned by Hesiod as the son of
Phoenix. The name Adonis is believed to
be derived from the Semitic Adon, meaning “Lord,” where in the Old Testamentthe name Adonai, “my lord,” is
often used for Jehovah.
Knowledge of the Near Eastern origin of the
Greeks may have been on this basis for
why, sometime around 300 BC, Areios, King of
Sparta, wrote to Jerusalem: “To
Onias High Priest, greeting. A document has come to light which shows that the Spartans and Jews are kinsmen descended alike from Abraham.”15
Both books of Maccabees of the Apocry phamention
a link between the Spartans and Jews. Maccabees 2speaks of certain Jews “having embarked to go to the
Lacedaemonians (Spartans), in hope of finding protection there because of their
kinship.” In Maccabees 1, “It has been found in writing concerning the Spartans and the Jews that they are brethren and are of
the family of Abraham.” While the
dying-god cult penetrated heavily into Greece from the Near East during the Archaic
period, after the sixth century BC a new set of influences resulted from
the Magi, contributing to the emergence
of Greek philosophy.
Though it had been widely acknowledged for centuries,
the Greeks’ debt to the Magi was denied
in recent centuries in favour of constructing the Aryan model of history, which attempted to falsely
present the advent of philosophy as first
Western rejection of religion and the birth of secularism and empiricism. However, although called “Greek,” the
earliest philosophers, known as the PreSocratics, all emerged from cities in
Ionia, on the western coast of Asia Minor
or modern-day Turkey, which were then under Persian occupation and
where the Magi were widespread. More recently, the
extent of the influence of these Magi—or more precisely, the heretical pseudo-
Zoroastrian Magi—on Greek philosophy has
been brought to light by M. L. West and others, like Arnoldo Momigliano, E. M. Cornford, and especially
Franz Cumont.
The propagation of the Magi’s ideas in Greece produced the Mysteries of
Dionysus , or Orphism, which in
turn influenced Pythagoras, and through
him, Plato. Orphism was associated with literature
ascribed to the mythical poet Orpheus, a
type of dying-god who descended into Hades and returned. Orphics also revered
Persephone and Dionysus, or Bacchus,
who also descended to and from
Hades. In this capacity, Persephone and Dionysus are known as chthonic deities, through their association with the
Underworld, in contrast to the gods of
Olympia. The chthonic gods were always regarded as the source of evils,
and therefore chthonic
cults usually practiced propitiatory
ritual sacrifices, which often happened at nighttime. 17
Orpheus was said to have invented the Mysteries of
Dionysus. Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher of the sixth century BC, equated
the rites of Dionysus/ Bacchus with
those of the Magi, and commented: “if it were for Dionysus that
they hold processions and sing hymns to the shameful parts [phalli], it
would be a most shameless act; but Hades
and Dionysus are the same, in whose
honor they go mad and celebrate the
Bacchic rites,” 18 and of the “Nightwalkers, Magi, Bacchoi, Lenai, and the initiated,” all these
people he threatens with punishment after
death: “for the secret rites practiced among humans are celebrated in an unholy manner.” 19
Despite their association with the Magi, the
Jewish origin of these mysteries was
also recognized, where, in common with the Kabbalah, they were falsely attributed to Moses. Artapanus, a third
century BC Jewish philosopher, declared of
Moses that, “as a grown man he was called
Musaeus by the Greeks, and that Musaeus
was the teacher of Orpheus.”20
Aristobulus, another Jewish philosopher of the third century BC, also claimed
that Orpheus was a follower of Moses,
and quoted the following from an Orphic poem: “I will sing for those for
whom it is lawful, but you uninitiate,
close your doors, charged under the laws of the
Righteous one, for the Divine has legislated for all alike. But you, son
of the lightbearing moon, Musaeus
(Moses), listen, for I proclaim the Truth…”21
It was
Plato who framed the ambitions of all later occultists after him, the creation
of the Universal State, as outlined in The Repubic. Regrettably, Plato rejected the democratic ideal, and
instead held a pessimistic view of the human being, not regarding him capable
of participation in political affairs. Instead,
Plato formulated a proto-fascist ideology, which envisioned a world
ruled by an enlightened elite of
“philosopher-kings,” also prescribing the elimination of marriage and the family, compulsory
education, the use of eugenics by the state,
and the deceptive methods of propaganda, called “Noble Lies,” claiming, “Our rulers will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of
their subjects.”
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