The Baphomet was regarded as a god by various groups and organizations such as the Knights Templar, most famously portrayed as a goat-headed deity, with a human body, harboring both male and female attributes, an androgen, representing perfect balance, a union of opposites, illustrating the old cryptic saying: "as above, so below".
Saturn (Chronos) is a god in ancient Roman religion, regarded as a god of generation, dissolution, plenty, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal, liberation, and of time. His reign was depicted as a Golden Age of plenty and peace. The Temple of Saturn housed the state treasury. In December, he was celebrated at the Saturnalia, a time of feasting, role reversals, free speech, gift-giving and revelry. Robert Sepehr is an author, producer and independent anthropologist.
Robert Sepehr is an author, producer and independent anthropologist
The ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail, a symbol of cyclical time, a continual renewal of life, death and rebirth, a widespread symbol of the "All-in-All", the totality of existence, infinity, and the cyclic nature of the cosmos.
In Gnosticism, this serpent symbolized eternity of the soul. The serpent was one of the earth-animals associated with the cult of Mithras, as well as the Magi. In Hinduism, Kundalini is a coiled serpent, the residual power of pure desire. "Kundalini" refers to the energy of yogic awakening, leading to altered states of higher consciousness.
Is mankind on the threshold of a new age of enlightenment? Or are we descending a dwindling spiral, doomed to repeat the lessons from history which we either forget or never seem to learn?
In pre-WWII Germany, the Vril Society used the swastika emblem to link Eastern and Western occultism. They advanced the idea of a subterranean matriarchal utopia ruled by a race of Aryan beings who had mastered a mysterious force called Vril. This breakaway civilization had survived the antediluvian cataclysms which ended the ice age, and passed on their guarded occult knowledge through initiation into sacred mystery schools. Vril was known to these mystics as a natural and abundant energy, having disseminated it's divine wisdom world wide under many names. The Chinese referred to it as "chi", the Hindu as "prana", and the Japanese as "reiki". Albert Pike said:
"There is in nature one most potent force, by means whereof a single man, who could possess himself of it, and should know how to direct it, could revolutionize and change the face of the world."
Helena Blavatski, the foundress of the Theosophical Society, described this Vril energy as an aether stream that could be transformed into a physical force. What are the Occult Secrets of Vril?
Most people have heard of Jesus Christ, considered the Messiah by Christians, and who lived 2000 years ago. But very few have ever heard of Sabbatai Zevi, who declared himself the Messiah in 1666. By proclaiming redemption was available through acts of sin, he amassed a following of over one million passionate believers, about half the world's Jewish population during the 17th century.
Although many Rabbis at the time considered him a heretic, his fame extended far and wide. Sabbatai's adherents planned to abolish many ritualistic observances, because, according to the Talmud, holy obligations would no longer apply in the Messianic time. Fasting days became days of feasting and rejoicing. Sabbateans encouraged and practiced sexual promiscuity, adultery, incest and religious orgies.
After Sabbati Zevi's death in 1676, his Kabbalist successor, Jacob Frank, expanded upon and continued his occult philosophy. Frankism, a religious movement of the 18th and 19th centuries, centered on his leadership, and his claim to be the reincarnation of the Messiah Sabbatai Zevi. He, like Zevi, would perform "strange acts" that violated traditional religious taboos, such as eating fats forbidden by Jewish dietary laws, ritual sacrifice, and promoting orgies and sexual immorality.
He often slept with his followers, as well as his own daughter, while preaching a doctrine that the best way to imitate God was to cross every boundary, transgress every taboo, and mix the sacred with the profane. Hebrew University of Jerusalem Professor Gershom Scholem called Jacob Frank, "one of the most frightening phenomena in the whole of Jewish history".
Frank would eventually enter into an alliance formed by Adam Weishaupt and Meyer Amshel Rothschild called the Order of the Illuminati. The objectives of this organization was to undermine the world's religions and power structures, in an effort to usher in a utopian era of global communism, which they would covertly rule by their hidden hand: the New World Order.
Using secret societies, such as the Freemasons, their agenda has played itself out over the centuries, staying true to the script. The Illuminati handle opposition by a near total control of the world's media, academic opinion leaders, politicians and financiers. Still considered nothing more than theory to many, more and more people wake up each day to the possibility that this is not just a theory, but a terrifying Satanic conspiracy.
Ziggurats ("to build on a raised area") were massive structures erected in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels. Ziggurats were built by the Sumerians, Babylonians, Elamites, Akkadians, and Assyrians, each part of a temple complex which included other buildings.
Sun-baked bricks made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the outside. The facings were often glazed in different colors and may have had astrological significance. Kings sometimes had their names engraved on these glazed bricks. The number of tiers ranged from two to seven; Herodotus describes shrines at the top.
Access to the shrine would have been by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a spiral ramp from base to summit. The Mesopotamian ziggurats were not places for public worship or ceremonies. They were believed to be dwelling places for the gods and each city had its own patron god/goddess.
Only priests were permitted on the ziggurat or in the rooms at its base, and it was their responsibility to care for the gods and attend to their needs. The priests were very powerful members of Sumerian society.
An example of a simple ziggurat is the White Temple of Uruk, in ancient Sumer. The ziggurat itself is the base on which the White Temple is set. Its purpose is to get the temple closer to the heavens, and provide access from the ground to it via steps.
The Mesopotamians believed that these pyramid temples connected heaven and earth. In fact, the ziggurat at Babylon was known as Etemenankia or "House of the Platform between Heaven and Earth".
One practical function of the ziggurats was a high place on which the priests could escape rising water that annually inundated lowlands and occasionally flooded for hundreds of miles. Another practical function of the ziggurat was for security. Since the shrine was accessible only by way of three stairways, a small number of guards could prevent non-priests from the shrine on top.
Each ziggurat was part of a temple complex that included a courtyard, storage rooms, bathrooms, and living quarters, around which a city was built. There are 32 known Mesopotamian ziggurats; Four in Iran, and the rest mostly in Iraq.
Image from the movie 300: Rise of an Empire
It has been suggested that the ziggurat was a symbolic representation of the primeval mound upon which the universe was thought to have been created. The temples of the Sumerians were believed to be a cosmic axis, a vertical bond between heaven and earth, and the earth and the underworld, and a horizontal bond between the lands. Built on seven levels the ziggurat represented seven heavens and planes of existence, the seven planets and the seven metals associated with them and their corresponding colors.
There is archeological evidence supporting a direct link between Mesopotamian ziggurats and the pyramids of Egypt.
From Egypt, it crossed the ocean to the pre-Colombian societies of Central and South America, which explains similarities between Mesopotamian ziggurats, Mesoamerican pyramids, and pyramids under or on islands of the Atlantic.
"My father gave me the heavens, gave me the earth,
I am Inanna!
Kingship he gave me, queenship he gave me, waging of battle and attack he gave me, the floodstorm he gave me, the hurricane he gave me!
The heavens he set as a crown upon my head, the earth he set as sandals on my feet, a holy robe he wrapped around my body, a holy scepter he placed in my hand.
The gods are sparrows, I am a falcon."
Inanna is among the most important deities and the most important goddess in the Mesopotamian pantheon. She is primarily known as the goddess of sexual love but is equally prominent as the goddess of warfare. In her celestial aspect, Inanna is the planet Venus, the morning and the evening star.
Ishtar is the East Semitic, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex. She is the counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna, and is the cognate for the goddess Astarte.
The Ishtar Gate was the eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon. It was constructed in about 575 BC by order of King Nebuchadnezzar. The roof and doors of the gate were of cedar, according to the dedication plaque.
Through the gate ran the Processional Way, which was lined with walls covered in lions (about 120 of them) on blue glazed bricks. She was associated with, and often shown in the company of, a lion.
Inanna figures in various myths and epics, including The Epic of Gilgamesh. She got Enki drunk and tricked him into bestowing many attributes and powers upon her. In the myth The Elevation of Inanna, Enki, An and Enlil all give their powers to Inanna, making her the Queen of the Universe.
Inanna is a femme fatale whose lovers always seem to come to grief. She is impatient, impetuous, and demanding. Gilgamesh risked death when he spurned her advances, comparing her to a back door that would let cold air into the house.
The original Dance of the Seven Veils was Inannaís descent into the Underworld, her sister Ereshkigalís realm, where she was gradually stripped naked as she passed through the seven gates. First went her crown, next earrings, then necklace, breast pins, belt of birthstones, then bracelets and finally her gown.
No acts of procreation took place on earth while Inanna was in the Underworld.
When she discovered that her only way out was in exchange for someone else, she betrayed Damuzi into taking her place. Inanna's time in the Underworld is a myth of the lunar cycle, Damuzi's a myth of the seasons.
