RECAPITULATIONS, UPDATES, AND CONCLUSION
In this set of skeleton-key diagrams, one thing becomes apparent. Although not traced in as much detail as the material we are covering, both Judaism and Islam fit into this system. Even the Iranian, Indian, and Chinese religious and philosophical systems fit into this paradigm. But, what city isn't really on the map, save for the Coptic and Syriac versions of an unorthodox nature? Orthodox Christianity and all the systems which emerged as a result of it. From the Churches established by Peter, Paul and the rest of the Apostles, to the Catholic, and most of the Eastern Churches.
The Abyssinian and Coptic forms, and others in Mesopotamia that have survived, are exceptions. But, everything else, and all the various denominations, sects, cults, splinter groups, televangelists, mail order scams, etc., are completely off the board. You try and fit them in, and you too will find they don't fit. They cannot fit. Except through affiliations with Freemasonry, the R+C, Knights Templar, or the Roman State Religion; which though related is only AS related to our tradition AS Nazism can claim a relationship with Brahmanism, Buddhism, or Zoroastrianism.
Now, this is the point we have noticed scholars reach before, and they are presented with a choice.
1) They can proceed to discredit all traditions save their own, such as those who continue to hem and haw about how there is no such thing as an Isma'ili influence upon Western Society, especially upon Western Esotericism; or how there are no Builders in the Arabic past pre-dating Freemasons in 1717 London; they must all be Christian White Boys. Well gee whiz, fellahs, haven't you ever heard of the Nabateans? OR THE Ghassaniya, or the Saba-eans, from Saba, the real Sheba, and the land of the REAL DAMCAR!!!!!! But they always return to the bosom of their safety blanket form of original belief system.
2) They can go where the research takes them; or
3) they can cover up their tracks, and try to prove that it is not so, and that Joseph of Arimathea really did bring his Big Gulp to England with him, landing where, centuries later, thousands of diesel tourist buses pollute the environment because of the writers of these bogus legends, due to the damn tourists showing up just for the chance to see where the whole thing happened even if the true Sang Real tradition is more French than it ever was English.
At this point we are still convinced of the validity of choice number two. Indeed, there is a Christian Tradition, in the most 'Heathen' of traditions. Indeed, our heritage depends more upon Egypt, Syria, Samaria, Sumer, than it does on Bethlehem, or Jerusalem. The pure tradition, 'the origines', as Pike wrote so many pages back.
A mere one-thousand year period is missing, which would connect our present manifestation to the breakup of the Sumerian Empire circa 2000 BCE. It may just be that in Ethiopia and/or Egypt things were pretty stable until our ancestor-priests started migrating north and east. Or perhaps at that time, a certain amount of Divine Power was present in the Tribe of Benjamin, that in fact, the tribe of which the Israelites came from originally was the Banu Yamina.
These were the 'Apiru. (See our extract of Albright, in the chapter entitled The Wolf Tribe, in Book One.) Another Clan or Tribe within this group was that which the family of kings of the first Babylon Dynasty, including Semuanabi, Shem is my father, and Hammurabi. Perhaps a branch of the Banu-Yamina migrated south, to Ubar, to Saba, and became Sabaeans. Perhaps. Perhaps some of these migrated across the Red Sea to Ethiopia and settled there, intermarrying with both native and Egyptian overlords' families. This is all mere speculation, but judging the testimony we've read, and by viewing the evidence personally, or some of it that is, we have come to this conclusion. True, the Indo-European invasions occurred after the breakup of the Sumerian Empire, and some went to India and some went to Persia and some remained at home in Central Asia. Some to Asia Minor, Greece, the rest of Europe. Some went to Palestine too, undoubtedly.
But, the ideal place for a priesthood, a secret priesthood to go, is to a place that is not easily accessible. Just such a place is Ethiopia, and being part of Enki's territory, there would be less interference from rivals. And, when the time was right, the Order would expand. And, that is just exactly what they did.
While the sources we possess on the History and Doctrines of the Gnostics in general, and the Ophites in particular, may be outdated, for the most part, what recent material that we do possess, and that which we have consulted in Libraries confirms the thesis we have been developing and which we have laid out before you in the pages above. The latest archaeological discoveries and philological studies still support the testimony of the writers we have relied upon, even if it is popular in the age of revisionist history to debunk them. If anything, they change the story for the accepted 'traditions' (so-called) - religious as well as secular. Only the passing of time and the political circumstances of the day, happened to allow the slave religions and ideologies to remain dominant over humankind as long as they have. And, humankind, the majority of which has remained ignorant, wittingly or unwittingly, has allowed itself to be ruled by false belief systems, and slave creeds that helps its shepherds immensely. And, even though our work throughout the centuries has been responsible for setting the majority of these civilizations, cultures, religious groups, into motion, i.e., initiating them, tearing them down and transforming them all with something else; even though we have always pointed the way to humankind that shows it how to find itself: it for the most part has chosen to stay asleep and let itself be ruled by tyrants (religious and/or secular), that represent the demiurge in miniature, inside the inferior egos of Big Daddy's best sons.
They have done nothing but damn the entire human race.
It has found compliance with pretended mandatory laws necessary in order to feel safe. Party, sect, cult, team, brand-name, neighborhood watch family, neighborhood itself, it's all the same. It assumes it is free to choose, so it chooses to let its shepherds force the choice their own way, and outlaw those who can truly think for themselves, as we do!
Rather than awakening from the slumber of ignorance, through willed self-discipline, to discover one's essential self nature and recognize it, thereby achieving GNOSIS (or Liberation, in the Buddhist context), humankind is more interested in drinking more carbonated soda toxic waste chemical donuts, eating name brand toxins that expedite the decay process, producing more and more offspring, acquiring more and more possessions, polluting Mother Earth due to these same possessions (material, or offspring or pets), until the pursuit finally wears them down and they end up dying as the result of trying to hang on to it all, and then leave it to people who haven't earned it rather than giving it to those who HAVE! and then they can go through the afterlife ignorant of its import, and be forced to reincarnate, and start it all over again, like a ride at a theme park or a computer game.
A person would have to be brain-dead to miss the profundity of this system. And, contrary to Hippolytus' desires, he missed his goal. For this teaching too exists in the highest form of Tibetan Buddhism, not in the language of 2nd Century Gnosticism, but in the form of Buddhism we know as "Lamaism". It too has been threatened with extinction by the minions of Big Daddy. And, in the case of the Western Gnosis, it was revived in 1904 c.e., when Aleister Crowley received the Book of the Law, but failed to incarnate in very many places after his death, the most notable being the Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, which embodies a Living Tradition.
In the perfect ideal of Thelemic symbolism, again, (minus the rebellious teenager appellation given it by some), the formless, unknowable, vast ocean is NUIT, the Seed is HADIT, the Perfect is Ra-Hoor-Khuit, each and every Initiate (or self-Initiate, in our case). Also, the forms of Esoterica that exist today in Syria and the Lebanon, as well as in Kurdistan, also exhibit familiarity with this symbolism. We shall examine at length each of these, in the Case of the Druzes and the Nusairi, and as we get closer to the 20th Century, Thelema, in its more authentic aspects and bearers of tradition, will come under our close scrutiny.
As the second century of the Common Era approached, more and more sects sprang up. For the most part, they all derive from the same source. On the one hand, the Ophite Tradition (or Serpent Tribe) in Phrygia grafted itself onto movements that were coming together in Palestine. On the other hand, the Essene Community, embodying the basis of the Angel Cultus, which we are told today merely consisted of whacked out fanatics, Branch Davidians of their time, so as to marginalize their true importance, and save the Truth for ITS BEARERS to REVEAL. These produced several important currents as a result of their coming into being, intersecting, interacting, and then dispersing.
Some of these, such as the Ebionites, stayed close to the Jewish Traditions that formed the external or exoteric covering which the Qadosh Fathers used to veil the Secret Theology of the Ancients. These Ebionites gradually evolved into the Elkesaites, (who had their inner circle, known as the Sampsaeans, or Shimseans, who were the bearers of the Holy Blood, the Desposynii, and who formed the original basis of the Sheikh Shams cult within the Daisaniyya or Yezidis!!!) the Mandaeans, the Nusairi and other Angel-Cult groups. Others, such as the Dositheans, produced the Simonians, which begat the schools of Menander, Nicolaus, Cerinthus. The school of Menander begat the school of Basilides. Nicolaus begat the group which goes under various terms, but is well-known as the Barbelo-Gnostics, or Borborites (Boghdadiens). The Boghdadiens begat the Harranians, and the Harranians begat the (true) R+C eventually in Venice in 1458 c.e.
Basilides begat Valentinus, and Valentinus begat many a student and subsequent sect. Valentinus begat, among others, Ptolemy, and (it is said... and you know the kind of things THEY SAY!) --- Bar Daisan of Edessa. And Bar Daisan, it is WELL-KNOWN, begat the Daisaniyya. And the Daisaniyya begat the Dasni, or Yezidis. And the Daisaniyya also begat the Batiniyya, of Abdul ibn Maymun al'Qaddah, disciple of Daidan of Persia. And Abdul ibn Maymun al-Qaddah begat the Batiniyya, and the Batiniyya begat Hamdan Qarmat, and Hamdan Qarmat Begat the Qarmathians, and these led to the Fatimites, and the Fatimites led to the Druzes, and the Druzes, the Nusairi, the Order of the East, and the Yesidis all had a profound influence on our Templars, who were begat by God in the form of a Neptunian Quinotaur impregnating the wife of Chlodion, descendant of Benjamin.
Eventually the Rose + Croix Veritas would beget the Templars, and the Templars would beget the Freemasons, and the Freemasons would beget many offshoots and schismatic groups, as many as the Rosicrucians themselves; and these would lead to the Golden Dawn, and these to Crowley and Dion Fortune and Frater Achad and others, and these would lead to Meade Layne founding the Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, in 1947, the year of Roswell (if that ever really happened, thatis) and the year of Crowley's Death.
And somewhere down the pike, the Kabbalah traditions would beget Shabbetai Zevi, and he would beget the Donmeh, and the Donmeh would beget Jakob Frank, Blessed be he, and Frank would beget Dobrushka, and Dobrushka would help found the legitimate successor of the R+C (not the bogus fakes in San Jose who never possessed real parchment, but fake acid soaked paper) the Asiatic Brethren, and the Asiatic Brethren would become the Fratres Lucis, and the Fratres Lucis would be known as the real successor of the true Illuminati of Saint Adam Weishaupt, true Initiate of the 18th Century; and the Fratres Lucis would beget the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, and the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor would beget Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society, and Max Theon's Cosmic Movement, and Max Theon's Cosmic Movement would beget The Mother, and the Mother would beget Sri Aurobindo, and Sri Aurobindo still has disciples and successors even if he died thirty years ago.
Eventually the Borborites would end up in the areas where the Harranians (as Boghdadiens), and original Isma'ili groups emerged. This we find to be no coincidence. Syria figures prominently in our researches, and Syria is where the Crusaders and Templars became initiated into the 'Doctrines of John'. The parallels between the description of the Ophite system given above and in the Readings, and the Esoterica associated with R+C, Masonic, and Illuminati groups is clear, as is the relationship to the doctrines of the Nusairi, who exist in Latakia as the Alevis, and who, as we shall see, came from the most primitive of Christian groups.
From John Dart, The Jesus of Heresy and History:
"The early third-century church father Hippolytus said the Naassene Gnostics used a Gospel According to Thomas in which it said, 'He who seeks will find me in children from seven years onwards, for there I am found, who am hidden, in the fourteenth aeon.'
"Initial studies of Thomas could not help but notice other terms and ideas used by the Naassenes, as reported by Hippolytus. The simularities led William R. Schoedel in 1960 to say cautiously that the evidence lends support to the hypothesis that Thomas was either composed or thoroughly edited by the Naassene sect. Yet it is also possible that the Naassene sect was an outgrowth or a descendant of the group that made the peculiar additions to Thomas."
As we have seen, the Ophites are not merely a sect of Heretical Gnostics, but a tribe all their own, stretching from Ethiopia to Greece, Southern Europe to Mesopotamia.
The Serpent Tribe migrated all over the known world, bringing its customs, arts, traditions, culture and rites. In that most peculiar part of the world, Palestine, they existed behind the scenes, and gave birth to the sects from which Christianity sprang.
It is said, too, that the Templars were guilty of the Ophite heresy. We have already shown some of the groups which were in existence at the time of the Crusades, and which could have been in contact with the Crusaders.
There are a couple of groups we have yet to examine. One, the Druzes of the Lebanon, are figured in a couple of AASR Degrees, one which we recently examined, above; and the other being the 22° or Knight of the Royal Axe, or Prince Libanus. We have seen that in the Legenda for the 25° they are said to be descended from the Hivites, who were descended from the Cuthite/Ophite Tribe, as per Jennings' Ophiolatreia.
We shall see interesting connections when we analyze the 22°.
The other group is, of course, the Nusairi. We shall see the evolution
from the sects in the Decapolis and Hauran regions evolve into the Johannite
Tradition, and we shall see how this managed to preserve itself to this day.