Brotherhood of the Snake
OF ALL THE animals revered in ancient human societies, none were as
prominent or as important as the snake. The snake was the logo of a
group which had become very influential in early human societies of
both Hemispheres. That group was a disciplined Brotherhood dedicated
to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge and the attainment of
spiritual freedom. This
Brotherhood of the Snake (also known as the
“Brotherhood of the Serpent,” but which I will often refer to as
simply the “Brotherhood”) opposed the enslavement of spiritual
beings and, according to Egyptian writings, it sought to liberate
the human race from Custodial bondage.*
* Because Brotherhood teachings included physical healing through
spiritual means, the snake also came to symbolize physical healing.
Today the snake is featured on the logo of the American Medical
Association.
The Brotherhood also
imparted scientific knowledge and encouraged the high aesthetics that existed in
many ancient
societies. For these and other reasons, the snake had become a
venerated symbol to humans and, according to Egyptian and biblical
texts, an object of Custodial hatred. When we look to discover who
founded the Brotherhood, Mesopotamian texts point right back to
that rebellious “God,” Prince Ea. Ancient Mesopotamian tablets
relate that Ea and his father, Anu, possessed profound ethical and
spiritual knowledge. This was the same knowledge that was later
symbolized as trees in the Biblical Adam and Eve story.
In fact, the
Biblical tree symbol came from pre-Biblical Mesopotamian works, such
as one showing a snake wrapped around the trunk of a tree, identical
to later portrayals of the snake in Eden. From the tree in the
Mesopotamian depiction hang two pieces of fruit. To the right of the
tree is the half-moon symbol of Ea; to the left is the planet symbol
of Anu. The drawing indicates that Ea and Anu were associated with
the snake and its teachings. This connection is affirmed by other
Mesopotamian texts which describe Anu’s palace in the “heavens” as
being guarded by a God of the Tree of Truth and a God of the Tree
of Life.
In one instance, Ea reportedly sent a human to be educated in
that very knowledge:
Adapa [the name of an early man], thou art going
before Anu, the King; The road to Heaven thou wilt take.
When to Heaven thou has ascended, and hast
approached the gate of Anu, the “Bearer of Life” and
the “Grower of Truth” at the gate of Anu will be standing.1
We therefore find Ea designated as the reputed culprit who tried to
teach early man (Adam) the way to spiritual freedom. This suggests
that Ea intended his creation, Homo sapiens, to be suited for Earth
labor, but at some point he changed his mind about using spiritual
enslavement as a means. If Ea was a true historical personality as
the Sumerians claimed, then he was the probable leader of the
Brotherhood at its founding on Earth. The Brotherhood may have
adopted the
snake as its logo because Ea’s first home on Earth was said to have
been constructed by a serpent-infested swampland which Ea called
Snake Marsh. Another possible explanation for the snake logo is
offered by Mr. Sitchin who says that the biblical word for “snake”
is nahash, which comes from the root word NHSH, meaning “to
decipher, to find out.”
Despite all of their reported good intentions, the legendary Ea and
early Brotherhood clearly failed to free the human race. Ancient
Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and biblical texts relate that the “snake”
was quickly defeated by other Custodial factions. The Bible
informs us that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was overcome before
it was able to complete its mission and give Adam and Eve the “fruit”
from the second ”tree.” Ea (who was also symbolized as a snake) was
banished to Earth and was extensively villainized by his opponents
to ensure that he could never again secure a widespread
following among human beings.
Ea’s title was changed from “Prince
of Earth” to “Prince of Darkness.” He was labeled other horrible
epithets: Satan, the Devil, Evil Incarnate, Monarch of Hell,
Lord of
Vermin, Prince of Liars, and more. He was portrayed as the mortal
enemy of a Supreme Being and as the keeper of Hell. People were
taught that his only intentions were to spiritually enslave everyone
and that everything bad on Earth was caused by him. Humans were
encouraged to detect him in all of his future lives (“incarnations”)
and to destroy him and his creations whenever he was discovered.
All
beliefs and practices named after his various appellations
(“Satanism,” “Devil Worship,” etc.) were to be made so horrific and
degrading that no right-thinking person would (or should) have
anything to do with them. He and his followers were to be viewed by
human beings with nothing but the utmost loathing.
This is not to say that Ea was actually portrayed by ancient
Sumerians as a saint. He was not. He was described in Mesopotamian
texts with distinct character flaws. If Ea was a real person, then
he appears to have been a genius who could get things done, but who
was often careless about anticipating the consequences of how he
went about accomplishing his goals. By engineering a work race (Homo
sapiens), Ea wound up giving his enemies a powerful tool of
spiritual repression. Ea then appears to have compounded the blunder
by founding and/or empowering the early Snake Brotherhood which,
after its reported defeat, continued to remain a powerful force in
human affairs, but under the domination of the very Custodial
factions that Ea and the original Brotherhood were said to have
opposed.
History indicates that the Brotherhood was turned under its
new Custodial “Gods” into a chilling weapon of spiritual repression
and betrayal, despite the efforts of many sincere humanitarians to
bring about true spiritual reform through Brotherhood channels all
the way up until today. By reportedly creating a work race and the
Brotherhood of the Snake, the “God” Ea had helped build a trap for
billions of spiritual beings on Earth.
As we shall now begin to carefully document, the Brotherhood of the
Snake has been the world’s most effective tool for preserving
mankind’s status as a spiritually ignorant creature of toil
throughout all of history. During all of that time, and continuing
today, the Brotherhood and its network of organizations have
remained intimately tied to the UFO phenomenon. This corruption of
the Brotherhood, and the overwhelming effect it would have on human
society, was already apparent by the year 2000 B.C. in ancient
Egypt— the next stop on our journey.
Back to Contents
Back to Brotherhood of The Snake
The Pyramid Builders
PERHAPS THE MOST impressive and controversial relics to come out of
ancient times are the pyramids of Egypt. The remains of at least
seventy to eighty of those structures are scattered all along the
upper Nile region as silent reminders of a once powerful
civilization.
The largest and most famous Egyptian pyramid is the Pyramid of Cheops
(the “Great Pyramid”). It stands today beside several others on an
elevated plateau in Gizeh, Egypt. The dimensions of this pyramid are
impressive. It towers nearly five hundred feet high and covers
thirteen acres of land at its base. Built of stones weighing an
average of 2½ tons each, the entire structure is estimated to weigh
5,273,834 tons.
A remarkable characteristic which makes the Great Pyramid one of
the “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World” is
the precision of its construction. The stones of the pyramid were
cut so perfectly that a sheet of paper cannot be inserted between
the blocks in many places. This precision, coupled with the enormous
bulk of the structure, helps account for the pyramid’s long life and
durability. The pyramid was built to last.
Perhaps the greatest mystery surrounding the Great Pyramid was its
purpose. Most pyramids are thought to have been burial tombs.
History tells us that the Great Pyramid was employed for other
purposes, as well. For example, some of its inner chambers had been
used for mystical and religious rites. Yet a third and infinitely
more practical use can also be found:
The Great Pyramid is an excellent marker for aerial navigation.
The four sides of the Great Pyramid precisely face the four compass
points: north, south, east and west. The sides are directed so
exactly that the widest deviation is only one twelfth of a degree on
the east side. In addition, the Great Pyramid is situated less than
five miles south of the northern thirtieth parallel. The Great
Pyramid can therefore be used as a reference point for sectioning
the entire planet into a three-dimensional grid of 30-, 60-, and
90degree angles with the North Pole, South Pole, Equator and center
of the earth as reference points. This feature is especially useful
because the Great Pyramid is located at the center of the Earth’s
land masses. Knowing only the dimensions of the Earth and having a
method of calculating how far one has traveled, one can very
effectively navigate, especially by air, from the Great Pyramid to
any point on Earth using the 30-60-90 degree grids and the compass
directions indicated by the pyramid.
The only deviation comes from
the fact that the Earth is not a perfect sphere, but is slightly
flattened at the poles and widened at the Equator. However, this
deviation is so slight, amounting to only 26.7 miles (.0003367 or the
fraction1/298), that it is easily compensated for. Interestingly,
when the Great Pyramid was first built, it was even more valuable as
an aerial navigation marker than it is today because it had been
covered with a casing of fine white limestone.
The limestone blocks were carved so precisely that the pyramid
looked from a distance as though it had been hewn from a single white
rock. The limestone reflected the sun, making the pyramid visible
from a much greater distance.*
The unique characteristics of the pyramids at Gizeh raise
interesting questions about those monuments. Since they serve an
aerial navigation function so well, were they built at least
partially for that purpose? If they were, who could have possibly had
use for them in 2000 B.C.? A possible clue to the riddle may lie on
the moon.
On November 22, 1966, the Washington Post ran a front-page headline
proclaiming:
“Six Mysterious Statuesque Shadows Photographed on the
Moon by Orbiter.”
The Post story, which was picked up later by the
Los Angeles Times, described a lunar photograph snapped two days
earlier by
U.S. space probe Orbiter 2 as it passed twenty to thirty miles above
the moon’s surface.
The photograph seems to reveal six spires
arranged in a purposeful geometrical pattern inside a small portion
of the Sea of Tranquility. The pointedness of the lunar objects’
shadows indicates that they are all either cone - or pyramid-shaped.
Although the official NASA press release mentioned nothing unusual
about the photograph, other people found the picture remarkable.
Dr. William Blair of the Boeing Institute of Biotechnology stated:
"If the cuspids [cone-shaped spires] really were the result of some
geophysical event it would be natural to expect to see them
distributed at random. As a result, the triangulation would be
scalene [three unequal sides] or irregular, whereas those
concerning the lunar object lead to a basilary system, with
coordinate x, y, z to the right angle, six isosceles triangles
and two axes consisting of three points each."
“Most of the limestone is gone today. Except for a few blocks found
at the base of the Great Pyramid, the limestone casing had been
excavated away from the pyramids beginning in the first millennium
A.D."
In Argosy magazine, Soviet space engineer Alexander Abromov went a
step further by stating:
The distributiori of these lunar objects is similar to the plan of
the Egyptian pyramids constructed by Pharaohs Cheops, Chephren, and
Menkaura at Gizeh, near Cairo. The centers of the spires of this
lunar “abaka” [arrangement of pyramids] are arranged in precisely
the same way as the apices [tips] of the three great pyramids.2
Assuming Drs. Blair and Abromov have not grievously miscalculated, it
appears that some of the pyramids of Earth may be part of a
permanent marking system that extends to more than one planet of our
solar system. The system may even extend to Mars. Pyramid like
objects have been photographed on the Martian surface. Pictures
snapped by the U.S. Viking mission in 1976 show
the Martian region
of Cydonia to contain possible pyramid like objects and what appears to
be a huge sculpted face nearby staring skyward.
It is easy to argue
that the Martian pyramids and face are natural formations not unlike
some found on Earth; however, one, and possibly two, other “faces”
have been discovered elsewhere on Mars with strikingly similar
features, such as the “helmet,” cheek notches, and indentation above
the right eye.*
*For an interesting scientific evaluation of the Martian objects, I
recommend Unusual Martian Surface Features by Vincent DiPietro,
Greg Molenaar, and John Brandenburg. It is published by Mars
Research. Please see bibliography for address.
Perhaps equally interesting is the fact that one
pyramid in Cydonia has a side pointing due north towards the Martian
spin axis. Is this alignment chance, or is there a connection to the
Great Pyramid at Gizeh which is also aligned according to precise
compass directions?
It is, of course, possible that the objects on the moon and
Mars will prove to be rock formations after all. Available
photographs seem inadequate to establish the formations as
artificial. If they are artificial, it is clear from the photo
graphs that they have undergone a fair degree of erosion.
Only a closer look during future missions to the moon
and Mars will resolve the controversy. The objects are
certainly worth closer investigation because the moon has
hosted UFO phenomena for centuries, including inside the
Sea of Tranquility.3
Even if the Martian or lunar objects prove to be natural formations, that would not change the clearly artificial nature of Earth’s pyramids. This compels us to return
our focus to the pyramids of Egypt. For whom did the
ancient Egyptians say they were building their magnificent
structures?
Like the ancient Mesopotamians, the early ancient Egyptians claimed
to be living under the rule of humanlike extraterrestrial “Gods.”
The Egyptians wrote that their “Gods” traveled into the heavens in
flying “boats.” (These “boats” were later mythologized to explain
the movement of the sun.) The “Gods” of Egypt’s early period were
said to be literal flesh-and-blood creatures with the same needs for
food and shelter as human beings. Actual homes had been built for
them. Those homes were furnished with human servants who later
became Egypt’s first priests. According to renowned historian James
Henry Breasted, the earliest servants of the “Gods” were laymen who
performed their duties without ceremony or ritual. Their jobs
consisted simply of providing the “Gods” with,
“. . . those things
which formed the necessities and luxuries of an Egyptian of wealth
and rank at that time: plentiful food and drink, fine clothing, music
and dance.” *
Many people identify ancient Egyptian religion with the worship of
animals. This type of veneration was unknown during the early period
of the Egyptian civilization.
According to Professor Breasted:
An interesting compilation of unusual lunar phenomena is found in
NASA Technical Report R-277 entitled “Chronological Catalog of
Reported Lunar Events” by Barbara M. Middlehurst. It briefly lists
579 unusual lunar sightings considered to be reliable beginning in
the year 1540 and ending in 1967.
... the hawk, for example, was the sacred animal of the sun-God, and
as such a living hawk might have a place in the temple, where he was
fed and kindly treated, as any such pet might be; but he was not
worshipped, nor was he the object of an elaborate ritual as later.4
The records of
ancient Egypt have given us many clues as to who
might have had use for a permanent marking system to navigate various
planets of our solar system: the Custodial society. The first
pyramid of Egypt was designed by Imhotep, Prime Minister to Egyptian
king Zoser-Neterkhet. Imhotep was said to be the son of Egypt’s most
important Custodial “God” during his day: Ptah. Egyptian lore
written after Imhotep’s time adds that Imhotep had received the
pyramid design in a plan “which descended to him from heaven to the
north of Memphis [a city in ancient Egypt].” 5
The Great Pyramid at Gizeh, which was built several generations later during the “Age of
the Pyramids,” was constructed according to the methods established
by Imhotep. It was during the Age of the Pyramids, which began around
2760 B.C., that worship of the humanlike “Gods” reached its height;
more than 2000 Gods then existed. It was for their “Gods” that the
Egyptians had ultimately built their most important pyramids. The
many pyramids built after those at Gizeh are generally inferior and
are viewed as imitations.
Some theorists believe that the “ancient astronauts” of
Egypt had used their space age technology to lift stones
and to otherwise assist in the construction of the Gizeh
pyramids. This hypothesis is neither certain nor necessary
to sustain the “ancient astronaut” theory. Egyptian records
tend to support the idea that human labor had provided the
primary muscle for the pyramids’ construction. This would
have been in keeping with the Mesopotamian contention that
Homo sapiens had been created to be a labor pool for the
Custodial “Gods.”
It is hardly surprising that the pharaohs and priests who
acted on behalf of the “Gods” were often immensely
unpopular with the Egyptian people. The Old Kingdom (ca. 2685-2180
B.C.) was followed by a period of weakness and unrest. Even the
Great Pyramid of Cheops had been broken into by unhappy Egyptians.
According to historian Ahmed Fakhry:
The Egyptians so hated the builders of the pyramids that they threatened to enter these great tombs and destroy the mummies of the kings.6
Such intense loathing is certainly not surprising. In order to get
the great pyramids built, Egyptian society was made more repressive
in order to make human labor operate with greater machinelike
efficiency. Occupations became rigid so that it was difficult to
move from one type of job to another. Laymen ceased to serve the
“Gods”: an impenetrable priesthood was erected instead. Personal
happiness and achievement were sacrificed in the name of labor
productivity. Feudalism had arrived in Egypt.
As the pharaohs were busy helping to make slaves out of their fellow
humans, the “Gods” were making fools out of the pharaohs. Imhotep,
reputed son of the “God” Ptah, instituted the concept of the pharaoh
as “God-King.” This elitist title was little appreciated by most
Egyptians. As “God-Kings,” the pharaohs were made to think that they
were elevated above the toiling human multitudes. The pharaohs
were taught that if they cooperated with Custodial plans, they would
escape the human predicament by joining the “Gods”in the heavens.
There was just one catch.
The pharaohs would be allowed to escape Earth only after they had
died! Pharaohs were taught the silly idea that if they had their dead
bodies carefully preserved, the bodies would be brought back to life
and they could join the Custodial “Gods” in the heavens. Some
pharaohs, like Cheops, also buried large wooden boats near their
tombs. According to some scholars, the pharaohs believed that their
entombed boats (“solar barks”) would be magically exhumed and endowed
with the same power that caused
the “boats” of the “Gods” to fly. The pharaohs believed that they
would be whisked away after death in their magically-powered wooden
boats to the home of the “Gods” in the heavens.
Although Egyptian preservation techniques were quite good, it is
clear that the pharaohs’ minds were being filled with nonsense. The
wooden “solar barks” never flew. Few, if any, mummified bodies of
the great God-Kings reached the heavens. Instead, many mummies have
become macabre museum curiosities for the titillation of the human
multitudes that the pharaohs so fervently hoped to escape. Other
mummies suffered an even more humiliating fate: they were ground up
and used as an ingredient in medicines. Pulverized mummies also
became paint additives because of the preservatives used in the
mummification process.
The puzzle is why the pharaohs believed the cruel joke which had been
perpetrated on them. Some historians suggest that mummification was
an attempt to imitate the life-cycle of the butterfly. Others
believe that the pharaohs wanted to maintain their wealth and
position in their next lifetimes and therefore desired to be
resurrected in the same bodies. One UFO writer has suggested that
they were striving to duplicate body preservation techniques used
by Egypt’s technologically-advanced “Gods.” Ancient Egyptian records,
however, reveal an even more compelling reason why the pharaohs
mummified themselves: spiritual knowledge had been twisted.
Ancient Egyptians believed in a “soul,” or “serf,” as
an entity completely separate from the “person” (meaning “body”). Egyptians labeled one such spiritual entity
the “ka.” The Egyptians believed that the “ka,” not the
body, was one of the spiritual entities that constituted the
true person and that the body itself had no personality
or intelligence without a spiritual entity. This generally
enlightened view was given a false twist, however. The
Egyptians were made to believe that the spiritual well of the
“ka” after death depended upon the “ka” maintaining contact with a physical body.
According to historian Fakhry:
The Egyptian wanted his Ka to be able to recognize its body after
death and to be united with it; for this reason he felt that it was
very important to have his body preserved. This is why the Egyptians
mummified their bodies and excelled in embalmingthem.7
The pharaohs went even a step further. Mr. Fakhry explains:
The Egyptians also made statues and placed them in
tombs and temples to act as substitutes for the body
if it should perish.8
These practices had a devastating impact on spiritual understanding.
They caused people to wrongly equate spiritual wholeness with
spiritual attachment to human bodies (or to body substitutes). Such
teachings encouraged humans to accept the Custodial intention to
permanently join spiritual beings to Homo sapiens bodies. The
powerful human drives for spiritual integrity and immortality were
twisted into an obsessive quest to preserve bodies. Philosophies
of materialism were thereby hastened.
Materialism, by one of its
definitions, is the over preoccupation with things at the material
level and neglecting important aspects of ethical and spiritual
existence. This often leads to the second definition of
materialism: the belief that everything, including thought and
emotion, can be explained entirely by movements and changes in
physical matter. Although the Egyptians had not embraced the latter
definition as a philosophy of life, they had helped move the world
a step in that direction.
The derailment of spiritual knowledge in Egypt was caused by the
corruption of the Brotherhood of the Snake, to which the pharaohs
and priests belonged. As mentioned earlier, after its reported defeat
thousands of years ago by its Custodial enemies, the Brotherhood
continued to remain dominant in human affairs, but at the cost of
becoming a Custodial tool. To understand how the corrupted
Brotherhood began to distort spiritual truth and perpetuate
theological irrationality, we must first look at the early inner
workings of the Brotherhood and its method of teaching.
The original uncorrupted Brotherhood engaged in a pragmatic program
of spiritual education. The organization’s approach was scientific,
not mystical or ceremonial. The subject of the spirit was considered
to be as knowable as any other science. It seems that the
Brotherhood possessed a considerable body of accurate spiritual
data, but it had not succeeded in developing a complete route to
spiritual freedom prior to its defeat.
Brotherhood teachings were arranged as a step-by-step
process. A student was required to satisfactorily complete
one level of instruction before proceeding to the next one.
All pupils took oaths of secrecy in which they swore never
to reveal the teachings of a level to any person who had
not yet graduated up to that level. This style of instruction
was designed to ensure that a student did not prematurely
attempt difficult spiritual feats or become overwhelmed by
advanced level-information before he was ready for it,
in the same way that one does not take a student driver
on treacherous mountain roads before the student successfully navigates easier, but increasingly difficult, highways first.
Imparting spiritual knowledge in this fashion will be
effective as long as the levels are ultimately open to
everyone. When arbitrary or blanket restrictions are placed
on who may have access to the teachings, either through
overregulation, elitism, or by setting near-impossible conditions for admittance, the system of confidential step-by-step
levels changes from an educational tool into an instrument of
spiritual repression. The Brotherhood underwent just such a
change.
The teachings of the Brotherhood in ancient Egypt
were organized into an institution known as the “Mystery Schools.” The Schools furnished the pharaohs and
priests with most of their scientific, moral, and spiritual education. According to
Dr. H. Spencer Lewis,
founder of the Rosicrucian Order headquartered in San
Jose, California,* the first temple built for use by the Mystery
Schools was erected by Pharaoh Cheops.
* Rosicrucianism is one of the mystical systems which arose out of
Brotherhood teachings. Dr. Lewis’s Rosicrucian Order is called The
Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (“AMORC” for brevity). AMORC
was founded in the early 1900’s. It is best known today for the
popular Egyptian Museum it owns and operates in San Jose,
California.
There is another American Rosicrucian order headquartered in
Quaker-town, Pennsylvania. It is called the Fraternity of the Rosy
Cross, or The Rosicrucian Fraternity in America. The Rosicrucian
Fraternity in Quakertown does not recognize AMORC as a valid
Rosicrucian body. In the 1930’s and 1940’s, R. Swinburne Clymer,
Supreme Grand Master of the Rosicrucian Fraternity in Quakertown,
published a number of writings denouncing AMORC. Dr. Clymer and Dr.
Lewis have each claimed that his organization is the true
Rosicrucian system.
In this book, I have utilized the extensive historical research of
both Dr. Clymer and Dr. Lewis. When I cite either of them by name as
a source of historical information, I am not taking sides in their
controversy.
Inside those temple walls,
spiritual knowledge underwent the deterioration which caused
pharaohs to mummify their bodies and bury wooden boats. According to
old Egyptian lore, the distorted teachings of the Mystery Schools
were created by the “great teacher,” Ra, an important Custodial
“God.”
The Mystery Schools not only twisted spiritual knowledge, they
greatly restricted public access to any theological truths still
surviving. Only the pharaohs, priests, and a few others deemed
worthy were accepted into the Schools. Initiates were required to
take solemn vows never to reveal to any outsiders the “secret wisdom”
they were taught; students were threatened with dire consequences if
they broke the vow. These restrictions were reportedly established
to prevent misuse of high-level knowledge by those who might
degrade that knowledge or use it harmfully.
While this is a
legitimate reason to develop safeguards, the restrictions imposed by
the Mystery Schools went far beyond simple security. Entire social
and occupational groups were denied membership. The vast majority of
the human population had no hope of entering the Schools; their
access to any
surviving spiritual knowledge was therefore severely limited. The
Biblical “revolving sword” preventing access to the “tree of
knowledge” was being put into place by those who ran the Mystery
Schools.
The Mystery Schools caused spiritual knowledge to evaporate in
another way. The Schools forbade its members from physically
recording the Schools’ most advanced teachings. Initiates were
required to relay the information orally. There is no faster way to
lose knowledge than to forbid its being written down. No matter how
sincere and well-trained people may be, word-of-mouth will
invariably result in changes to the ideas being relayed. With a word
substituted here and a sentence omitted there, the semantic precision
needed to communicate an exact scientific principle will be lost.
This is one way that a functional science can quickly degrade into
an untenable superstition.
As time went on, the Brotherhood became so restrictive that it
excluded most of Egypt’s own priests from membership. This was
especially true during the reign of King Thutmose III, who ruled
about 1200 years after Cheops. Thutmose III is best known for his
military adventures which expanded the Egyptian empire to its
greatest size. According to Dr. Lewis, Thutmose III took the final
step of transforming the Brotherhood into a completely closed order.
He established rules and regulations reportedly still used by some
Brotherhood organizations today.
Changes in the Brotherhood continued. Less than one hundred years
after the reign of Thutmose III, his descendant, King Akhenaton
(Amenhotep IV), spent the last year of his 28-year life transforming
Brotherhood teachings into mystical symbols. Akhenaton's symbols were
intentionally designed to be incomprehensible to everyone except
those Brotherhood members who were taught the symbols’
secret meanings. The Brotherhood ostensibly created this new system
of visual images to be a universal “language” of spiritual
enlightenment transcending human languages, and to prevent misuse of
knowledge. In real fact, the intention was to create a secret code
designed to make spiritual knowledge unattainable to everyone
except those admitted into the increasingly elite Brotherhood, and
apparently to eventually
obliterate spiritual knowledge altogether. The translation
of spiritual data into bizarre and incomprehensible symbols has
brought about the spectacle of honest people trying to decode garbled
symbols in a quest for spiritual truths which can, and should be,
communicated in everyday language understandable by anyone.
Despite the obvious sincerity of Akhenaton, we discover that the
transformation of spiritual knowledge into a system of obscure
symbols has had a devastating impact on human society. As this manner
of relaying spiritual knowledge was disseminated throughout the
world by members of the Brotherhood, all knowledge of a spiritual
nature became misidentified with bizarre symbols and mystery.
This
misidentification is so strong today that almost all studies of the
spirit and spiritual phenomena are lumped into such disgraced
classifications as “occultism,” “spiritualism,” and witchcraft. The
attempt thousands of years ago to keep spiritual knowledge out of
the hands of the “profane” has almost entirely destroyed the
credibility and utility of that knowledge. Brotherhood symbolism was
another piece of the Biblical “revolving sword” blocking human access
to spiritual knowledge. It has left only the confusion, ignorance
and
superstition which have come to characterize so much of the field
today.
Akhenaton presided over another important development in the
Brotherhood. Although the young ruler had fared poorly as a political
leader, he achieved everlasting fame for his efforts to champion the
cause of monotheism, i.e., the worship of a “one only” God.
Monotheism was a Brotherhood teaching and many historians cite
Akhenaton as the first important historical figure to broadly
promulgate the concept.
To aid in the establishment of the Brotherhood’s new monotheism,
Akhenaton moved the capital of Egypt to the city of El Amarna. He also
relocated the main temple of the Brotherhood there. When the Egyptian
capital was moved back to its original situs, the Brotherhood
remained in El Amarna. This signaled an important break between
Egypt’s established priesthood, which resisted Akhenaton's
monotheism, and the highly exclusive Brotherhood which no longer
admitted most priests to membership.
The ancient Egyptian empire eventually decayed and vanished. The
Brotherhood of the Snake fared much better. It survived and expanded
by sending out from Egypt missionaries and conquerors who
established Brotherhood branches and offshoots throughout the
civilized world. These Brotherhood emissaries widely disseminated
the Brotherhood’s new “one God” religion and eventually made it the
dominant theology throughout the world.
In addition to launching “one God” theology, the Snake Brotherhood
created many of the symbols and regalia still used by some important
monotheistic religions today. For example, the Brotherhood temple in
El Amarna was constructed in the shape of a cross—a symbol later
adopted by the Brotherhood’s most famous offshoot: Christianity.
Some Brotherhood members in Egypt wore the same special outfits with a
“cord at the loin” and a covering for the head as later used by
Christian monks. The chief priest of the Egyptian temple wore the
same type of broad-sleeved gown used today by clergymen and choir
singers. The chief priest also shaved his head in a small round spot
at the top—an act later adopted by Christian friars.
Many theologians hail monotheism as an important religious
breakthrough. Worshipping a spiritual “one-only God” is indeed an
improvement over the idolization of stone statues and clumsy
animals. Unfortunately, Brotherhood monotheism still did not
represent a return to complete accuracy; it simply added new
distortions to whatever spiritual knowledge still remained.
Based upon what we are coming to know about the nature of the
spiritual being, we find that two false twists appear to lay in the
Brotherhood’s definition of a Supreme Being:
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Firstly, Brotherhood monotheisms, which include Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, teach that a
Supreme Being
was the creator of the physical universe and of the physical
life forms within the universe. In an upcoming chapter we
will discuss the likelihood that spiritual beings were born of
a Supreme Being of some sort, but physical creatures and
objects probably were not. As some other religions have
noted, if our universe is the product of spiritual activity,
then it appears that all individual spiritual beings within the
universe are responsible for its creation and/or perpetuation.
The scope of a Supreme Being would actually extend far
beyond the creation of a single universe.
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Secondly, a Supreme Being is usually portrayed as a spiritual being
capable of possibly unlimited thought, creativity, and ability. A
Supreme Being is said to be an entity which can make and unmake
universes. The big question is this:
Why must we be limited to only one such being?
Is there any reason not to suppose the existence of ten such beings?
Or a hundred? Or an almost infinite number? It appears that the
Brotherhood definition of a “one God” actually describes the native
potential of every spiritual being, including those spiritual beings
who animate human bodies on Earth. The true nature and capabilities
of every spiritual being would therefore be hidden by doctrines
which state that only a Supreme Being may enjoy pure
spiritual existence and unlimited spiritual potential. Brotherhood
monotheism would actually hinder human spiritual recovery and
prevent people from grasping the true, and probably much broader,
scope of a Supreme Being.*
* A fuller discussion of the possible nature of a Supreme Being and
its relationship to individual spiritual existence is presented in
Chapter 40.
Brotherhood monotheism was another piece of the Biblical “revolving
sword” to prevent access to spiritual knowledge. It also allowed
the Custodians to greatly elevate then-own status. As part of its
new monotheism, the Brotherhood began to teach the fiction that
members of the Custodial race were the physical manifestations of a
Supreme Being. In other words, Custodians started pretending that
they and their aircraft were the “one-only God.” History records
that they used extraordinary violence to make Homo sapiens believe
the falsehood. Few lies have had as devastating an impact on human
society, yet it became a prime mission of the corrupted Brotherhood,
from the time of Akhenaton the modern day, to make humans believe
that the Custodians and their aircraft were “God.”
The purpose of this fiction was to enforce human obedience and to maintain
Custodial control over the human population. In no case is this
clearer, or the results more visibly tragic, than in the Biblical
story of the ancient Hebrews and their “one God” named
Jehovah.
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