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Jehovah
MUCH OF THE Old Testament is devoted to describing the origins and
early history of the Hebrew people. According to the Bible, the
Hebrews descended from a clan which lived in the Sumerian city of Ur
around 2000 to 1500 B.C. The clan was befriended and ruled by a
personality named Jehovah. The Bible claims that Jehovah was God.
According to the Biblical narrative,
Jehovah encouraged the clan to
leave Ur and settle in Haran—a caravan center in northeastern
Mesopotamia. There, Jehovah later told the clan’s new patriarch,
Abraham, to lead his tribe on a migration towards Egypt. The tribe
complied, and over the ensuing generations it slowly made its way
through Canaan towards the Nile River. Starvation finally forced the
tribe to enter the Egyptian region of Goshen where the Hebrew sat
first lived well under the pharaoh, but upon the coming of a new
king to the Egyptian throne, the Hebrews were forced into slavery.
The Bible states that after four hundred years of servitude in Egypt,
the Hebrews were led on an exodus out of Egypt
by Moses under the watchful eye of Jehovah. By that time, the
Hebrews numbered in the hundreds of thousands. After a long trek and
many bloody battles, the Hebrew tribes returned to and conquered
Canaan, which was the “Promised Land” pledged to them centuries
earlier by Jehovah.
And so, according to the Bible, was born the Jewish religion.
Jehovah was clearly an important character in this Biblical story.
Who was he? Was Jehovah God, as the Bible alleges? Was he a myth, as
skeptics with a secular orientation would have us believe? Jehovah
appears to have been neither.
The name Jehovah comes from the Hebrew word “Yahweh,” meaning “he
that is” or “the self-evident.” This appellation conveys the idea
that the Biblical Jehovah was a pure spiritual being; a true Supreme
Being, if you will. But was he?
Old Testament descriptions of Jehovah have provided afield day for
UFO writers, and for good reason. Jehovah travelled through the sky
in what appears to have been a noisy, smoking aircraft.
A Biblical
description of Jehovah landing on a mountaintop describes him this
way:
. .. there were thunders and lightnings, and a
thick cloud upon the
mount, and the sound of the trumpet was exceedingly loud;* and all
of the people that were in the camp trembled.
* A trumpet-like sound accompanied many appearances of Jehovah.
And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God; and
they stood at the lower part of the mountain.
And Mount Sinai was altogether covered with smoke, because
the Lord
descended upon it in fire: and the smoke from the fire billowed
upwards like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked
greatly.
GENESIS 19:16-19
If an ancient Hebrew were to observe the rumbling, smoke, and flame
of a modern rocketship, the description would not have been much
different than this Biblical narrative of Jehovah. A later visit by
Jehovah contained the same phenomena:
And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the
noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people
saw it, they moved away and stood far off.
GENESIS 20:18
Lest it be assumed that these descriptions might be of
a volcano,
further sightings reveal that Jehovah was a moving object:
And the Lord travelled before them [the Hebrew tribes] by day in a
pillar of cloud, to lead them the way; by night in a pillar of fire,
to give them light; to go by day and night:
He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, or the pillar of
fire by night, from in front of the people.
EXODUS 13:21-22
Exodus 14:24, 40:34-38, and Numbers 19:1-23 contain identical
descriptions of Jehovah as he led the Hebrew tribes to the Promised
Land.
The ancient Hebrew eyewitnesses responsible for the above
descriptions were not able to get a closer look at Jehovah. The
Bible points out that no one was permitted to approach Jehovah’s
mountaintop landing sites except Moses and a few select leaders.
Jehovah had threatened to kill anyone else who tried. The early
Bible therefore contains only descriptions of Jehovah as
eyewitnesses saw him from a distance. It was not until much later
that one of the Bible’s most famous prophets, Ezekiel, was able to
get a closer look and describe Jehovah in greater detail.
Ezekiel’s description is probably the most often-quoted Biblical passage in UFO
literature.
Ezekiel’s detailed account of strange aerial objects has
created speculation of such intensity that even one Bible publisher,
Tyndale House, prefaced its introduction to the Book of Ezekiel with
the title, “Dry Bones and Flying Saucers?”.
At the risk of boring
some readers with yet another repetition of Ezekiel’s famous words,
I reproduce them here for the benefit of those who are not familiar
with them:
Now it occurred in my thirtieth year, in the fourth month, as I was
among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were
opened, and I saw visions of God.
And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great
cloud, and a fire flashed, causing a brightness about it, and out of
the midst of it gleamed something like a pale yellow metal.
Also out of the midst of it appeared four living creatures. And
this was their appearance: they had the likeness of men.
And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was
shaped like the sole of a calf s foot; and they sparkled like
burnished brass.
And they had human hands under their four-sided wings. Their wings
were joined together; and they did not turn when they went, they all
went straightforward.
As for the appearance of their faces, they had the face of a man,
and the face of a lion on the right side: and they had the face of an
ox on the left side: they also had the face of an eagle.
In amongst the living creatures glowed something like coals of fire
or lamps, which moved up and down between the creatures: and the
fire was bright, and from out of the fire flashed lightning.
And the living creatures ran and returned by flashes of lightning.
Now as I looked upon the living creatures, I saw four wheels upon
the ground, one by each of the living creatures, with their four
faces.
The appearance of the wheels and their composition was like the
color of shiny amber: and all four wheels had one likeness: and their
appearance and their composition was like a wheel in the middle of a
wheel.
And when the living creatures went, the wheels went with them: and
when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels
were lifted up.
And the appearance of the sky upon the heads of
the living creature
was reflected as the color of the terrible crystal stretched over
their heads above.
And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise
of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, like the din of an
army. When they stood still, they lowered their wings.
And there was a voice from the crystal
covering that was over their
heads when they stood and had let down their wings.
EZEKIEL 1:1-25
The voice told Ezekiel that it was the “Lord God.” (Ezekiel 2:4).
The first portion of Ezekiel’s vision resembles earlier Biblical
descriptions of Jehovah: a moving fiery object in the sky emitting
smoke. As the object moved closer, Ezekiel was able to observe that
the thing was made of metal. Out of the metal object emerged several
humanlike creatures, apparently wearing metal boots and
ornamented helmets. Their “wings” appeared to be retractable engines
which emitted a rumbling sound and helped the creatures to fly.
Their heads were covered by glass or something transparent that
reflected the sky above. They appeared to be in some sort of circular
vehicle or a vehicle with wheels.
We can safely conclude from the above passage that “Jehovah” was not
a Supreme Being. He appears to have been a succession of Custodial
management teams operating over a time span of many human
generations. To enforce human obedience, those teams used their
aircraft to perpetrate the lie that they were “God.”
The Custodial teams known as “Jehovah” helped the Brotherhood of the
Snake embark on a program of conquest to spread the new “one God”
religion. Moses, the man chosen to command the Hebrew tribes on
their exodus out of Egypt to the Promised Land, was a high-ranking
member of the Brotherhood. One hint of this fact comes from the
Bible itself in which we are told how Moses was raised as a child:
In which time Moses was born, and was exceedingly fair, and was
raised in his father’s house for three months:
And when he was cast out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up, and raised
him as her own son. And Moses became learned in all the wisdom of
the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.
THE ACTS 7:20-22
Egyptian historian and High Priest, Manetho (ca. 300 B.C.), states
that Moses had received much of his education in the Brotherhood
under Akhenaton, the very pharaoh who pioneered monotheism:
Moses, a son of the tribe of Levi [one of the
Hebrew tribes],
educated in Egypt and initiated at Heliopolis [an Egyptian city],
became a High Priest of the Brotherhood under the reign of Pharaoh
Amenhotep [Akhenaton]. He was elected by the Hebrews as their chief
and he adapted to the ideas of his people the science and philosophy
which he had obtained in the Egyptian mysteries; proofs of this are
to be found in the symbols, in the Initiations, and in his precepts
and commandments. . .. The dogma of an “only God” which he taught
was the Egyptian Brotherhood interpretation
and teaching of the Pharaoh who established the first
monotheistic religion known to man.‘ *
* This passage raises the question of when the Jewish exodus from
Egypt had occurred. If Moses was a High Priest of the Brotherhood
under Akhenaton, as Manetho states, but did not lead the exodus until
the reign of Rameses II, as many historians believe, then Moses must
have been an extremely old man at the time of the exodus. (Rameses
II did not rule until almost one hundred years after Akhenaton.) The
Bible, in Deuteronomy 34:7, states that Moses was 120 years old when
he died. Claims of such advanced age may be difficult to accept in
our modem day, but if it is true about Moses, then both Manetho and
modern scholars would be correct in their datings.
Strong evidence in support of Manetho’s statement is found in the
early teachings of Judaism, which were deeply mystical and utilized
many Brotherhood symbols. Many of those mystical teachings are still
taught today in the Jewish Cabala: a secret religious philosophy of
Jewish rabbis. The Cabala continues to utilize a complex array of
mystical symbols. Modern Israel’s national logo, the six-pointed
Star of David, has been a Brotherhood symbol for thousands of years.
Early human writers often portrayed mankind’s Custodial “Gods” as
bloodthirsty creatures prone to excessive violence. Sadly, those
lamentable qualities did not improve with Jehovah. During the trek
from Egypt to the Promised Land, Jehovah demanded unflagging
obedience from the Hebrews. Many humans rebelled and Jehovah reacted
with extreme cruelty. Jehovah reportedly killed up to 14,000 Hebrews
at a time for disobedience. He used a variety of killing methods,
such as spreading diseases, just as other Custodial “Gods” had done
earlier in Sumeria.
When the Hebrew armies reached Canaan, Jehovah displayed a genuinely
psychopathic bent. To establish the Hebrews in their new homeland,
Jehovah ordered the Hebrew armies to embark on a campaign of
genocide to depopulate all of the region’s existing cities and
towns. Under the new leadership of a man named Joshua, the first city
to fall in Jehovah’s seven-year holocaust
was Jericho. According to the Bible, the Hebrew army, numbering in
the tens of thousands, slaughtered everyone in Jericho except,
ironically, a prostitute because she had earlier betrayed her own
people by helping two Hebrew spies:
And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and
woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of
the sword.
JOSHUA 6:21
After that was accomplished:
.. . they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein: only
the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they
put into the treasury of the house of the Lord.
JOSHUA 6:24
The next target was Ai, a city with a population of 12,000
inhabitants. All of the citizens of Ai were butchered and the city
was burned to the ground. This savagery was perpetrated city after
city:
So Joshua killed all in the country of the hills, and of the south,
and of the valleys, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left
none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord
God of Israel commanded.
JOSHUA 10:40
The genocide was justified by saying that the victims were all
wicked. This could not have been the true reason because children
and animals were also slaughtered. It is hardly fair to massacre an
entire city for the crimes of a few; neither is it right to murder a
child for the crimes of its parents. The real crime, according to
the Bible, was that the natives of the region had become
disobedient. The more obedient Hebrews were therefore elected by
Jehovah to wipe out the natives and replace them.
There is some debate today about whether the Hebrew assimilation into
Canaan was as genocidal as portrayed in the Bible. Modern
archaeological digs into some of the battle sites named in the Bible
(such as Hazor, Lachish and Debir) have revealed evidence of violent
destruction during the time of Joshua. Other sites have yielded less
conclusive evidence. Many people understandably prefer to play down
the Biblical bloodshed as much as possible. To whatever degree the
Biblical story of the conquest of Canaan is true, it does tell us
something very important about genocide:
Genocide is often a tool for promoting rapid political or social
change by quickly replacing one group of people with another. For
this reason, genocide has emerged as a significant historical
phenomenon in connection with many Brotherhood efforts at bringing
about rapid political and social change.
People who are familiar with Jewish moral teachings may be surprised
at the brutal behavior ascribed to Jehovah and the Hebrews. The most
famous of the Jewish moral teachings are, of course, the Ten
Commandments, which were reportedly given to Moses by Jehovah during
the Hebrews’ trek to the Promised Land. After Moses’ death, Jehovah
and the armies of Israel clearly violated the Commandments in a big
way. Thou shalt not kill was transgressed when the Hebrews massacred
the inhabitants of Canaan.
The Hebrews ignored the commandment Thou shalt not steal when they robbed the dying cities of their
precious metals. They were no better about adhering to the
commandment Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house ... nor any
thing that is thy neighbor’s when they committed genocide to take
away the land of their neighbors. This behavior is puzzling because
many Biblical commandments do establish a decent code of conduct.
For example, the Hebrews were admonished never to cooperate with a
wrongdoer by giving false testimony. Another commandment stressed
the importance of individual responsibility in the face of group
pressure by stating,
“You shall not go along with a group in doing
evil.”
Tolerance for outsiders was made law with,
“You shall not vex
a stranger, nor oppress him... .”
Thieves were usually required to
pay restitution to their victims. How do we account for the
existence of such humane commandments in the face of such barbaric
behavior? *
* Not all Old Testament commandments
were humane by today’s standards. Freedom of worship was not
tolerated. Slavery was an accepted institution and Hebrew men were
allowed to sell their daughters into slavery. The eye-for-an-eye,
tooth-for-a-tooth form of punishment does not always result in
justice.
Part of the answer may lie in the words of
Manetho:
The wonders which Moses narrates as having
taken place upon the
Mountain of Sinai [the mountain upon which Jehovah reportedly gave
Moses many of the Commandments], are in part, a veiled account of
the Egyptian initiation which [Moses] transmitted to his people when
he established a branch of the Egyptian Brotherhood in his
country.... 2
If Manetho’s words are true, then
many of the Commandments may have
come from human sources within the Brotherhood rather than from
Custodial sources. This would indicate the continued presence of
genuine humanitarians within the Brotherhood despite Custodial
dominance. Moses himself appears to have been, at least to some
degree, such a humanitarian. The Bible describes Moses as a man of
moderation who frequently intervened on behalf of the Hebrews when
Jehovah was about to mete out a violent punishment. As we shall see
several times in this book, lingering humanitarian influences within
the Brotherhood have often come to the surface, but sadly, not enough
to entirely undo the corrupting influences.
Another puzzling aspect of the Biblical genocide story was the
behavior of the people being slaughtered. According to the Bible,
only one city surrendered. The rest chose to fight and be butchered.
When confronted with an overpowering Hebrew army, and perhaps even
a thundering “God” in the sky, is it not likely that more besieged
cities would surrender, or at least offer to vacate Canaan
peaceably?
The
Bible presents an interesting explanation of why that did not
happen:
There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel,
save the Hi-vites, the inhabitants of Gib-eon, all others they took
in battle.
For it was the Lord who hardened their hearts, that they would go
against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and
that they might find no favor, but that he might destroy them....
JOSHUA 11:19-20
The above passage states that Jehovah
had manipulated the victim
peoples into fighting the Hebrews so that the victims could be
destroyed. This is a stunning and important admission, for it would
imply that Jehovah or other Custodians dominated other cities in
the region and used their influence to manipulate people into
fighting the Hebrews. This would not have been the first time it
happened. The Bible reports similar manipulations in an earlier
episode. When the Hebrews were still slaves in Egypt, Jehovah had
instructed Moses to go to the pharaoh to ask that the Hebrew tribes
be freed. Jehovah, however, had influence over the pharaoh and Moses
had been warned in advance that Jehovah would cause the pharaoh to
say “no.”
According to the Bible, Jehovah had a definite reason for
manipulating the pharaoh in that fashion:
And the Lord said to Moses, Go to the Pharaoh: for I have hardened
his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might show my
powers before him:
And so that you may tell in the ears of your son,
and your son’s son,
what things I had brought about in Egypt, and my miracles which I
have done among them: that you may know that I am the Lord.
EXODUS 10:1-2
After hearing those words, Moses went to the pharaoh
a number of
times to renew his pleas for the Hebrews’ freedom. Each plea was
rejected and each rejection was followed by a calamity visited upon
the Egyptians by Jehovah. The calamities included vermin
infestations, plagues, boils on the skin caused by a fine dust
settling over the countryside, and finally the murder of each eldest
son in Egypt during a night known as the “Passover.” It was only
after the Passover that Jehovah stopped “hardening the heart” of the
pharaoh so that the Hebrew tribes could leave Egypt.
Many scholars would argue that Biblical references to Jehovah
“hardening the hearts” of Israel’s enemies merely expresses the
religious idea that all human thought and emotion come ultimately
from “God,” and therefore such writings should not be taken
literally. In this case, we should take the Bible seriously because
it has described a very real political phenomenon: two or more
parties being manipulated into conflict with one another by an
outside third party.
One of the most famous philosophers to discuss third-party
manipulation as a tool of social and political control was Niccolo
Machiavelli, the sixteenth century philosopher. Although Machiavelli
was not the first to write about these matters, his name has become
synonymous with unscrupulous political cunning.
Machiavelli authored several unsolicited “how-to” manuals for the
benefit of a local prince. Those writings have become literary
classics. In them, Machiavelli describes several of the techniques
used by various Italian rulers to maintain control over a
population. One method was to breed conflict.
In his treatise, The
Prince, Machiavelli wrote:
Some princes, so as to hold securely the the state,
have disarmed their subjects, others have kept their
subject towns distracted by factions [disputes] .. .3
Machiavelli cited a specific example:
Our forefathers, and those who were reckoned wise,
were accustomed to say that it was necessary to hold
Pistoia [an Italian city] by factions and Pisa by fortress;
and with this idea they fostered quarrels in some of their tributary
towns so as to keep possession of them the more easily.4
Human disunity was a valuable commodity to the princes because it
made the people less able to mount a challenge. Machiavelli
described the exact steps to be taken by anyone wishing to employ
this tool:
The way to set about this is to win the confidence of the city which
is disunited; and, so long as they do not come to blows, to act as
arbitrator between the parties, and, when they come to blows, to
give tardy support to the weaker party, both with a view to
keeping
them at it and wearing them out; and, again because stronger
measures would leave no room for any doubt that you were out to
subjugate them and make yourself their ruler.
When this scheme is
carried out, it will happen, as always, that the end you have in view
will be attained. The city of Pistoia, as I have said in another
discourse and apropos of another topic, was acquired by the
republic of Florence by just such an artifice; for it was divided and
the Florentines supported now one, now the other, party and,
without making themselves obnoxious to either, led them on until they
got sick of their turbulent way of living and in the end came to
throw themselves voluntarily into the arms of Florence.5
Despite the effectiveness of this technique,
Machiavelli advised
against using it because it can backfire on the perpetrator. The
success of the technique depends upon at least one of the manipulated
parties not being aware of the true source of the problem. If both
parties should discover that they are being manipulated into
hostilities by an outside third party, not only will those
hostilities usually cease, but the parties will, more often than not,
unite in a common dislike for the perpetrator. This phenomenon can be
observed on a personal level when two friends discover that a third
“friend” has been saying derogatory things about each one to the
other behind their backs. For the technique to be effective, the
perpetrator must remain hidden from view as the source of the
conflict.
To summarize the observations of Machiavelli, we find that breeding
conflict between people can be an effective tool for maintaining
social and political control over a populace. For the technique to
be effective, the instigator must do the following:
1 - Erect conflicts and “issues” which will cause people to fight
among themselves rather than against the perpetrator.
2 - Remain hidden from view as the true instigator of the conflicts.
3 - Lend support to all warring parties.
4
- Be viewed as the benevolent source which can solve the conflicts.
As noted earlier in the Tower of Babel story,
the Custodial “Gods”
wanted to keep mankind disunited and under Custodial control. To
accomplish this, the Biblical story of Jehovah indicates that
Custodians implemented the Machiavellian technique of creating
factionalism between human beings. The Bible states that Custodians
encouraged the factions they controlled to battle one another. All.
the while, the Custodians have proclaimed themselves the ”God” and
“angels” to whom people should turn in order to find a solution to
all of the warfare. This is the classic sequence straight out of
Machiavelli.
For such Machiavellian efforts to remain successful over a long
period of time, factionalism would need to be bred constantly and the
Custodians would need to remain permanently hidden from view as the
perpetrators. Both of these needs were met in the organizational
structure of the corrupted Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood was being
forged into a far-flung network of politically powerful secret
societies and religions which could successfully organize people
into competing factions; at the same time, Brotherhood traditions
of secrecy effectively disguised its organizational hierarchy.
This
secrecy became a screen behind which Custodians could hide at the top
of the Brotherhood hierarchy behind veils of myth and thereby obscure
their role as instigators of violent conflict between human beings.
In this fashion, the network of Brotherhood organizations became the
primary channel through which wars between human beings could
be secretly and continuously generated by the Custodial society,
thereby carrying out the Custodial intentions announced in the Tower
of Babel story. The Brotherhood also became the channel through which
Custodial institutions could be imposed upon the human race.
Wars serve another Custodial purpose revealed in the Bible. The Adam
and Eve story mentioned “God’s” intention to make physical survival
an all-consuming chore from birth until death. Wars help bring this
about because they absorb large-scale resources and offer little to
enhance life in return. Wars tear down and destroy what has already
been created—this makes a great deal of extra effort necessary just
to maintain a culture. The more a society engages in building war
machines and fighting wars, the more the people of that society will
find their lives consumed in tedium and repetitious toil because of
the parasitic and destructive nature of war. This is as true today
as it was in 1000 B.C.
It is easily observed that people will fight and quarrel without any
outside prompting. There is hardly a creature on Earth that does not
at some time in its life attack another. One clearly does not need a
manipulative third party for a dispute to arise between groups of
people. Third parties simply cause disputes and conflicts to be more
frequent, severe, and protracted. Spontaneous, uninfluenced fights
tend to be quick, awkward and centered around a single visible
dispute. The way to keep fighting artificially alive is to create
unresolvable “issues” which can only be settled by the complete
annihilation of one of the opponents, and then by helping the
opposing teams sustain their struggle against one another by
equalizing their fighting strengths.
To keep a whole race in a
constant state of strife, issues over which members of the race will
fight one another must be generated continuously, and fervent
warriors must be bred to fight for those causes. These are the
precise types of conflicts which have been created by the
Brotherhood network all the way up until today. These artificial
conflicts have embroiled the human race in the unrelieved morass of
wars which have so blighted human history.
Detecting Brotherhood involvement in human events is sometimes
tricky. The job is made easier by following the use of several of
the Brotherhood’s most important mystical symbols. Those symbols act
as colored threads weaving in and out of view by which we can trace
the role of the Brotherhood network in shaping history. One of the
most significant of the symbols is, curiously, an apron.
Back to Contents
Back to Jehovah
Melchizedek’s Apron
OF ALL THE Biblical kings, few are more colorful or legendary than
Solomon. Wealthy beyond imagination, wise beyond words, and a slave
driver unequalled, Solomon’s most famous accomplishment was the
construction of a magnificent complex of buildings, which included
an opulent temple reportedly made of the finest stone and
generously ornamented with gold. In the political sphere, Solomon
made
history by re-establishing long-severed ties between the Hebrews and
Egypt. Not only had Solomon become an advisor to Egyptian pharaoh, Shishak I, he also married the pharaoh’s daughter.
During the time he spent in Egypt, Solomon took instruction in the
Brotherhood. Upon returning to Palestine, Solomon erected his famous
temple to house the Brotherhood in his own country. Naturally,
Jehovah was the principle God of the new temple, although Solomon
permitted the adoration of other local Gods such as Baal, chief
male God of the Canaanites. Solomon’s temple was modeled after the
Brotherhood temple in El Amarna, except that Solomon omitted the
side structures which had caused the El Amarna temple to be shaped
like a cross.
Building Solomon’s temple was no small task. To carry out this architectural feat, Solomon brought in special guilds of
masons to design his buildings and to oversee their construction.
Those special guilds were already important institutions in Egypt,
and their origins are worth looking into.
Architecture is an important art that shapes the physical landscape
of a society. One can tell a great deal about the state of a
civilization by looking at the buildings it erects. For example,
Renaissance architecture imitated classical Roman architecture with
its grand and ornate designs, indicating a culture undergoing
intellectual and artistic ferment.
Modern architecture tends to be
efficient, but sterile and dehumanized, revealing a culture which
is very businesslike, but artistically stagnant. Architecture tells
us what class of people most influence a culture.* The Renaissance
was led by thinkers and artists; our modern era is being fashioned
by
efficiency-oriented business people.
In ancient Egypt, the engineers, draftsmen, and masons who worked on
the big architectural projects were accorded a special status. They
were organized into elite guilds sponsored by the Brotherhood in
Egypt. The guilds served a function roughly similar to that of a
trade union today. Because the guilds were Brotherhood
organizations, they used many Brotherhood ranks and titles. They
also practiced a mystical tradition.
Evidence of the existence of these special guilds was uncovered by
archaeologist Petrie during his expeditions to the Libyan desert in
1888 and 1889. In the ruins of a city built around 300 B.C., Dr.
Petrie’s expedition uncovered a number of papyrus records. One set
described a guild that held secret meetings around the year 2000 B.C.
The guild met to discuss working hours, wages, and rules for
daily labor. It convened in a chapel and provided relief to widows,
orphans, and workers in distress. The organizational duties
described in the papyri are very similar to those of “Warden” and
“Master” in a modern branch of the Brotherhood which evolved from
those guilds: Freemasonry.
Another reference to the guilds is found in the
Egyptian Book of the
Dead, a mystical work dating from about 1591
B.C. The Book of the Dead contains some of the philosophies
taught in the Egyptian Mystery Schools. It quotes the God
Thot saying
to another God, Osiris:
I am the great God in the divine boat;... I am a simple priest in
the underworld anointing [performing sacred rituals] in Abydos [an
Egyptian city], elevating to higher degrees of initiation;... I am
Grand Master of the craftsmen who set up the sacred arch for a
support.* 1
“Grand Master” is the most common title used by
Brotherhood
organizations to designate their top leaders. The above quote is
significant because it states that one of Egypt’s
Custodial “Gods,”
one who traveled about in a divine “boat,” was a top leader in one
of those ancient guilds. It also indicates that this “God” was
responsible for initiating people into the higher degrees of
mystical Brotherhood teachings. This is further testimony of the
direct role that Custodians were said to play in directing the
affairs of the corrupted Brotherhood.
It is interesting to note that the Book of the Dead also contains a
reference to the battle between the ruling Custodial “Gods” and the
“snake” (the original uncorrupted Brotherhood). In praises sung to
the Egyptian “Gods,” we read:
Thine enemy the Serpent hath been given over to the fire. The
Serpent-fiend Sebua hath fallen headlong, his forelegs are bound in
chains, and his hind legs hath Ra carried away from him. The Sons of
Revolt shall never more rise up.2
The Egyptians often portrayed their “Gods” with animal heads or
features as a way of symbolizing traits and personalities. In the
above quote, the Serpent is given four legs. The Serpent later came
to symbolize darkness, which the sun-God Ra “defeated” every morning
by bringing about the new day. Before that mythology was invented,
however, the Serpent was a literal enemy of the ruling “Gods.” Some
of the Serpent’s followers were known as the “Sons of Revolt,” who
were dedicated to destroying the chief Custodial “God” and
establishing in his place the dominance of the “Serpent” (the early
uncorrupted Brotherhood) on Earth.
After the defeat and corruption
of the “Serpent,” it appears that the “Sons of Revolt” turned around
and rebelled against the corrupted Brotherhood when the Brotherhood
began to send out conquerors from Egypt. It was not long, however,
before the revolutionary groups were reabsorbed back into the
corrupted Brotherhood organizations and began contributing to the
Brotherhood’s artificial conflicts, as we shall see later.
The Brotherhood’s masons’ guilds survived down through the centuries.
Guild members were often free men, even in feudal societies, and
were therefore frequently referred to as “free masons.” The guilds of
free masons eventually gave birth to the mystical practice known
today as “Freemasonry.” The mystical Freemasons became a major
Brotherhood offshoot that would take on great political importance
later in history.
As spiritual knowledge within the Brotherhood was being replaced in
ancient Egypt by incomprehensible allegories and symbols, costumes
became increasingly important because of their symbolic value. The
most visible and important piece of ceremonial garb in many
Brotherhood organizations, including Freemasonry, has long been the
apron.
The symbolic apron, which is worn at the waist like a kitchen apron,
provides a stunning visual link between the ancient Custodial “Gods”
and the Brotherhood network. Many Egyptian hieroglyphics depict
their extraterrestrial ”Gods” wearing aprons. The priests of ancient
Egypt wore similar aprons as a sign of their allegiance to the “Gods”
and as a badge of their authority. On display at the Egyptian Museum
in San Jose, California, is an ancient Egyptian statuette discovered
in a tomb in Abydos. The statuette depicts an Egyptian prince
holding his hands in a ritualistic posture that Dr. Lewis of the
Rosicrucian Order describes as ”familiar to all Rosicrucian lodge and
chapter members.”3
A prominent feature of the statuette is
the
triangular apron worn by the prince. The Egyptian Museum believes
that the statuette was carved as early as 3400 B.C., during
Egypt’s first dynasty. If this date is accurate, then the symbol of
the apron and one of its associated mystical rituals came from that
period of Egyptian history when the “Gods” were said to be so literal
that furnished homes were built and maintained for them.
The earliest ceremonial aprons appear to have been simple and
unadorned. As time went on, mystical symbols and other decorations
were added. Perhaps the most significant change to the apron occurred
during the reign of the powerful
Canaanite priest-king, Melchizedek, who had achieved a very high
status in the Bible. Melchizedek presided over an elite branch of
the Brotherhood named after him: the Melchizedek Priesthood.
Beginning around the year 2200 B.C., the Melchizedek Priesthood
began to make its ceremonial aprons out of white lambskin. White
lambskin was eventually adopted by the Freemasons who have used it
for their aprons ever since.
If the Custodial “Gods” and the Brotherhood had confined their
activities to the ancient Middle East and Egypt, the rest of human
history would have been much different and this book would never have
been written. Instead, the Brotherhood network was expanded
throughout the entire eastern hemisphere by aggressive missionaries
and conquerors. One of their targets became India.
Hinduism was about to be born.
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Gods and Aryans
INDIA: THAT LAND of mystery. It is a place where the spiritual arts
flourish and the material arts wane. It is a country where nearly
all life is held sacred, yet millions starve. To many people, the
nation of India and the religion of Hinduism seem almost
inseparable, as though they were created together and together they
may one day die. The Hindu religion is adhered to by nearly 85% of
India’s almost 800 million population, yet the India we have come to
know and most of the religion it practices today were not created in
India at all. The caste system, the majority of the Hindu Gods, the
Brahmin rituals, and the Sanskrit language were all brought in and
imposed on the Indian people by foreign invaders many centuries ago.
Somewhere between 1500 B.C. (the time of Thutmose in Egypt) and
1200 B.C. (the time of Moses), the Indian subcontinent was invaded
from the northwest by tribes of people known as “Aryans.” The Aryans
made themselves India’s new ruling class and forced the native
Indians into a servient status.
Precisely who the Aryans were and exactly where they came from is a
puzzle still debated today. Historians have generally used the word
“Aryan” to denote those peoples who spoke the Indo-European
languages, which include English, German, Latin, Greek, Russian,
Persian, and Sanskrit. “Aryan” also has a narrower racial meaning.
It has quite often been used to designate mankind’s non-Semitic
white-skinned race.
There are many theories about where Aryans first came from. A common
hypothesis is that Aryans originated in the steppes (plains) of
Russia. From there they may have migrated to Europe and down into
Mesopotamia. Others believe that the Aryans arose in Europe and
migrated eastward. Some theorists, occasionally for racist reasons,
claim that Aryans were the founders of the ancient
Mesopotamian civilizations and were therefore the world’s first
civilized peoples. This theory was promoted during the brutal
Nazi regime of Germany to bolster its “Aryan supremacy” idea. The
Nazis even claimed that Aryans were originally created by Godlike
superhumans from a different world. A similar belief was expressed
earlier in history.
When Spanish conqueror, Pizarro, invaded South
America in 1532, the South American natives referred to the Spanish
invaders as Viracochas, which meant “white masters.” Native legends
in South America told of a master race of huge white men who had come
from the heavens centuries before. According to the legends, those
“masters” had reigned over South American cities before disappearing
again with a promise of return. The South American natives
thought that the Spaniards were the returning Viracochas and so they
initially allowed the Spaniards to seize the Americans’ gold and
treasures without resistance.
Whatever the true origin of the Aryan race may or may not have been,
many religious and mystical beliefs have been expressed throughout
the world about the supposed superiority of the Aryan race over other
races. Such beliefs are sometimes labeled “Aryanism.” Aryanism is
the elevation of white-skinned Aryans over other races based on the
notion that Aryans are the “chosen” or “created” race of “God” (or
Custodial “Gods”), and Aryans are therefore - spiritually, socially
and genetically - superior to all other races. Considering the dismal
purpose for which mankind was reportedly created, Aryanism would
simply mean that Aryans were, at best, superior slaves. There is
little glory in that. Other races, however, such as the Japanese,
also possess similar legends of having been born of extraterrestrial
“Gods.”
Aryanism should be distinguished from simple pride in racial
heritage. It is natural for people to group together on the basis of
common heritage, interests, or aesthetics. Every such group tends to
have a certain amount of pride in the thing which holds them
together. This will be true of stamp collectors joining a philatelic
society or of black people participating in a black consciousness
group. People will band together on the basis of almost anything they
find mutually important or enjoyable.
There is no harm in people feeling pride in their racial heritage. The harm comes
when this pride turns into prejudice against those who do not share
the same traits. After all, skin color is ultimately superficial.
When we recognize individuals as spiritual beings, the bodies they
animate become no more important than the cars they drive. Despite
this, racial distinctions are one of the easiest ways to polarize
people into factions. Racism has been one of the most successful
tools used on Earth to keep humans disunited. The type of Aryanism
described above has contributed greatly to this polarization and has
done much to promote the nonstop racial conflicts which have plagued
mankind throughout history.
Not all Brotherhood organizations had an Aryan tradition. In the
many that did, being an Aryan was considered vital to spiritual
recovery. This belief hastened materialism by twisting the urge for
spiritual survival into yet another obsession with the body, this
time concerning skin color. The fact is, skin color appears to have
no bearing whatsoever upon one’s inherent spiritual qualities, or
upon one’s ability to achieve spiritual salvation.
* and conquerors. In India, the Aryan
conquerors established
The Aryans invaded India just before monotheism was created in the
Brotherhood, but at a time when the Brotherhood had already begun
sending out missionaries
a complex religious and feudal system known today as “Hinduism.”
Hinduism proved to be yet another branch of the Brotherhood network.
Some Brotherhood organizations in the Middle East and Egypt
maintained close ties with the Aryan leaders in India and frequently
sent students to be educated by them. Because of the Aryan invasion,
India became an important world center of Brotherhood
network activity and remains so today.
The Aryan leaders of India claimed obedience to the same type of
space age Custodial “Gods” found in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Many of
the humanlike “Gods” worshipped by the Aryans were called “Asura.”
Hymns and devotions to the Asura are found in a large collection of
Hindu writings known as the Vedas. Many Vedic descriptions of the Asura are intriguing. For example, the
Hymn to Vata, God of
wind, describes a “chariot” in which the God travels. This “chariot”
has a remarkable similarity to
Old Testament descriptions of
Jehovah.
The first four lines of the Hymn declare:
Now Vata’s chariot’s greatness!
Breaking goes it,
And thunderous is its noise.
To heaven it touches,
Makes light lurid [a red fiery glare], and whirls dust
upon the earth.’
The rest of the Hymn describes wind in a very literal and
recognizable manner. The four lines quoted above, however, seem to
describe a vehicle which travels rapidly into the sky, makes a
thunderous noise, emits a fiery light and causes dust to whirl on
the ground, i.e., a rocket or jet airplane.
Other remarkable translations of the Vedas have been published by
the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKC), a
worldwide Hindu sect founded in1965 by a retired Indian businessman
and devoted to the Hindu deity, Krishna. ISKC translations depict
ancient Hindu “Gods” and their human servant kings traveling in
spaceships, engaging in interplanetary warfare, and firing weapons
which emit powerful beams of light.
For example, in the Srimad
Bhagavatam, Sixth Canto, Part 3, we read:
One time while King Citraketu was travelling in outer space on a
brilliantly effulgent [shining] airplane given to him by Lord Vishnu
[the chief Hindu God], he saw Lord Siva [another Hindu God].. ..
The Srimad Bhagavatam tells of a “demon” race which had invaded
three planetary systems. Opposing the demons was the Hindu God Siva,
who possessed a powerful weapon that he fired at enemy airships from
his own:
The arrows released by Lord Siva appeared like fiery beams emanating
from the sun globe and covered the three residential airplanes,
which could then no longer be seen.2
If accurate, these and other translations of the Vedas give us
humanlike “Gods” centuries ago who cavorted in whizzing spaceships,
engaged in aerial dogfights, and possessed fatal beam weapons.
As in Mesopotamia and Egypt, many Hindu Gods were obvious
fabrications and the apparently real “Gods” had an enormous
mythology woven about them. Behind the blatant fictions, however, we
find important clues regarding the character of mankind’s Custodial
rulers.- Hindu writings indicate that people of diverse races and
personalities made up the Custodial society, just as they do human
society.
For example, some “Gods” were portrayed with
blue skin.
Others displayed a kinder and more benevolent attitude toward human
beings than others. By the time of the Aryan invasion, however, the
oppressive ones were clearly the dominant ones. This was evident in
the social system imposed on India by the Aryans. That system was
unmistakably designed to create human spiritual bondage. As
elsewhere, this bondage was partially accomplished by giving
spiritual truths a false twist. The result in India was a feudalistic
institution known as the “caste” system.
The Aryan caste system dictates that every person is born into the
social and occupational class (caste) of the father. An individual
may never leave that caste, regardless of the
individual’s talent or personality. Each stratum has its own trades,
customs, and rituals. Members of the lowest caste, who are known as
“outcasts” or “untouchables,” usually perform menial work and live
in abject poverty. Untouchables are shunned by the higher classes.
The highest castes are the rulers and Brahman priests.
During the
Aryan invasion, and for a long time thereafter, the highest castes
were composed of, naturally, the Aryans themselves. The caste system
is still practiced in India today, although it is no longer quite as
rigid as it once was and the plight of the untouchables has been
eased somewhat. In northern and some parts of western India, the
lighter-skinned Indians who descended from the original Aryan
invaders continue to dominate the upper castes.
Force and economic pressures were the initial tools used by the Aryan
invaders to preserve the caste system. By the 6th century B.C.,
distorted religious beliefs emerged as a third significant tool.
The Hindu religion contains the truth that a spiritual being does
not perish with the body. Hinduism teaches that upon the death of
the body, a spiritual being will usually search out and animate a
newly-born body. This process is often called “reincarnation” and
results in the phenomenon of so-called ”past lives.” Many people are
capable of recalling “past lives,” sometimes in remarkable detail.
Evidence accumulated from modern research into the phenomenon of
“past lives” indicates that highly random factors usually determine
which new body a spiritual being takes on. Such factors may include
a person’s location at the time of death and the proximity of new
bodies (pregnancies). Whether a person chooses a male or female
body may depend upon how happy she or he was in the life just ended.
Because of these variables, the taking of a new body by a spiritual
being is a largely random and unpredictable activity in which sheer
chance often plays a role. The Aryan religion distorted an
understanding of this simple process by teaching the erroneous idea
that rebirth (“reincarnation”) is governed by an unalterable
universal law which dictates that every rebirth is an
evolutionary step either toward or away from spiritual perfection and
liberation.
Each Hindu caste was said to be a step on this cosmic
staircase. If people behaved according to the laws and duties of
their caste, they were told that they would advance to the next
higher caste at their next rebirth. If they failed in their duties,
they would be born into a lower stratum. Spiritual perfection and
freedom were achieved only when a person finally reached the highest
caste: the Brahmans. Conversely, the caste into which a person was
born was considered an indication of that person’s
spiritual development, and that alone justified whatever treatment
the person received.
The purpose of such teachings is clear. The caste system was designed
to create a rigid feudalistic social order similar to the one created
in Egypt under the pharaohs, but carried to an even greater extreme
in India.
Hindu reincarnation beliefs accomplished two other Custodial aims.
Hinduism stressed that obedience was the principle ingredient
bringing about advancement to the next caste. At the same time,
Aryan beliefs discouraged people from making pragmatic attempts at
spiritual recovery. The myth of spiritual evolution through a caste
system hid the reality that spiritual recovery most probably comes
about in the same way that nearly all personal improvement occurs:
through personal conscious effort, not through the machinations of
a fictitious cosmic ladder.
Symbolism had a limited, yet important role in Hinduism. One of
Hinduism’s most important mystical emblems is the swastika—the
“broken cross” symbol which most people associate with Nazism. The
swastika is a very old emblem. It has appeared many times in
history, usually in connection with Brotherhood mysticism and
in
societies worshipping Custodial “Gods.”
While its exact origin is
unknown, the
swastika
appeared already in ancient Mesopotamia. Some
historians believe that the swastika may have also existed in India
before the Aryan invasion. This is possible because several pre-Aryan
cities of India were engaged in trade with other parts of the world,
including Mesopotamia. Whatever its origin may have been, after the
Aryans invaded India, the swastika became a prominent symbol of
Hinduism and Aryanism.
As for the swastika’s meaning, we discover that the swastika was a
symbol of good luck or good fortune. It is ironic, therefore, that
nearly every society using it has suffered rather calamitous
misfortune. An intriguing study of the swastika was published in 1901
in the Archaeological and Ethnological Papers of the Peabody Museum.
According to the author, Zelia Nuttall, the swastika was
probably related to stargazing. Ms. Nuttall points out that the
swastika has appeared in civilizations with a developed science
of astronomy and has been associated with calendar-making in some
ancient American civilizations. On page 18 of her article, the
author states:
The combined midnight positions of the Ursa Major or Minor [two
constellations visible from Earth, usually called the “Big Dipper”
and “Little Dipper,” respectively], at the four divisions of the
year, yielded symmetrical swastikas, the forms of which were
identical with the different types of swastika or cross-symbols ...
which have come down to us from remote antiquity. ...
Because of the swastika’s frequent association with
Custodial
“Gods,” it may have begun as a symbol representing the home
civilization of Earth’s Custodial masters somewhere within the Big
or Little Dipper.
Hinduism is a curious religion in many ways. It tends to absorb and
incorporate almost any new religious ideas imposed upon it, but
without throwing away the old ideas. For this reason, the Hinduism
of today is actually a mishmash of several major religions which
had swept through India in the past, such as the Aryan religion
which still predominates, and Buddhism and Mohammedism which both
arrived later. There is evidence that a tradition of wisdom existed
in India long before the Aryan invasion and that that tradition also
constitutes a portion of the Vedas.
The Aryans’ violent Gods, strange mystical practices, and oppressive
feudalism did not go unchallenged. In the Biblical story of Adam and
Eve, we noted the attempt of early Homo sapiens to obtain the
knowledge they needed to escape their enslavement. In the seventh
century B.C., another attempt was made. A popular nonviolent
movement emerged in India to challenge the Aryan system. This
movement was one of the few major efforts by human beings to replace
Custodial religions with practical methods designed to bring about
spiritual freedom.
The leaders of the new movement wanted to replace
garbled mysticism and blind faith with a realistic approach to
spiritual recovery rooted in tested principles, much like the
approach used by the original uncorrupted Brotherhood. For lack of a
better term, I will refer to this pragmatic type of religion as
“maverick” * religion.
* The term “maverick” comes from America’s Old West. It denoted any
grazing animal, such as a cow or horse, which did not have an
owner’s brand. The word itself comes from Texas cattle owner Samuel
Maverick (1803-1870) who refused to brand his calves. Those
unbranded animals were dubbed “Mavericks” and any found roaming
loose were considered owned by no one. From this came the definition
we are familiar with today: a maverick is a person or organization
not “owned” or “branded” by anyone, but who acts in an independent
manner, usually in a break from established convention.
Maverick religions are those which have
broken from Custodial dogma and have attempted a practical
or scientific approach to spiritual salvation. Although no maverick
religion in the past brought about wide-scale spiritual recovery,
they nonetheless kept the hope alive while perhaps pointing out a
few of the steps needed to get there.
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