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Cover Art, Walter Bruneel
Issue 4: Lammas, August, 2011
1.
2. Baphomet
3. Desposyni: Descendants of Christ
4. The Merovingian Mythos
5. The Serpent God: Amun Re
6. Image-Streaming: Surfing the Imaginal7. The Egyptian Grail Quest, by Philip Coppens
8. Dragon's Tongue: The Tongue of Truth
2. Baphomet
3. Desposyni: Descendants of Christ
4. The Merovingian Mythos
5. The Serpent God: Amun Re
6. Image-Streaming: Surfing the Imaginal7. The Egyptian Grail Quest, by Philip Coppens
8. Dragon's Tongue: The Tongue of Truth
Lammas
August 1 is Lammas Day (loaf-mass day), the festival of the wheat harvest, and is the first harvest festival of the year. On this day it was customary to bring to church a loaf made from the new crop. In many parts of England, tenants were bound to present freshly harvested wheat to their landlords on or before the first day of August. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where it is referred to regularly, it is called "the feast of first fruits". The blessing of new fruits was performed annually in both the Eastern and Western Churches on the first or the sixth of August (the latter being the feast of the Transfiguration of Christ). The Sacramentary of Pope Gregory I (died 604) specifies the sixth.In mediæval times the feast was known as the "Gule of August", but the meaning of "gule" is unclear. Ronald Hutton suggests that it may be an Anglicisation of Gŵyl Awst, the Welsh name for August 1 meaning "feast of August", but this is perhaps an overly-complicated extraction. Most etymological dictionaries give it an origin similar to gullet; from O.Fr. goulet, dim. of goule "throat, neck," from L. gula "throat,". One can see why Hutton feels differently as this Welsh derivation would point to a pre-Christian origin for Lammas among the Anglo-Saxons and a link to the Gaelic festival of Lughnasadh.
August 1 is Lammas Day (loaf-mass day), the festival of the wheat harvest, and is the first harvest festival of the year. On this day it was customary to bring to church a loaf made from the new crop. In many parts of England, tenants were bound to present freshly harvested wheat to their landlords on or before the first day of August. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where it is referred to regularly, it is called "the feast of first fruits". The blessing of new fruits was performed annually in both the Eastern and Western Churches on the first or the sixth of August (the latter being the feast of the Transfiguration of Christ). The Sacramentary of Pope Gregory I (died 604) specifies the sixth.In mediæval times the feast was known as the "Gule of August", but the meaning of "gule" is unclear. Ronald Hutton suggests that it may be an Anglicisation of Gŵyl Awst, the Welsh name for August 1 meaning "feast of August", but this is perhaps an overly-complicated extraction. Most etymological dictionaries give it an origin similar to gullet; from O.Fr. goulet, dim. of goule "throat, neck," from L. gula "throat,". One can see why Hutton feels differently as this Welsh derivation would point to a pre-Christian origin for Lammas among the Anglo-Saxons and a link to the Gaelic festival of Lughnasadh.
Baphomet
Baphomet
by Mark Amaru Pinkham
Within many Left Hand sects, their esteemed and honored patron, Lucifer (aka the Destructive Twin), has been personified as Baphomet. Baphomet, meaning the "Baptism of Wisdom," is the embodiment of the alchemical force that baptizes with "fire" and transforms a person into a divine being full of gnostic wisdom.
Baphomet is depicted as androgynous because the alchemical force her personifies is the union of the polarity. His androgyny is evident in his female breasts that compliment his male phallus, as well as his two hands, one pointing upwards to Heaven and the waxing moon, and the other pointing downwards to Earth and the waning moon.
His androgyny is also tattooed upon his arms as the words solve and coagula, which denote the two polar opposite alchemical processes of dissolution and solidifying. Baphomet's seemingly dark and destructive nature also reveals him to be the androgynous alchemical force. As this androgynous force, which is also known in the Tantric tradition as Kundalini or the Serpent Power, Baphomet alchemically destroys everything within a person that keeps him or her from realizing the inner, Divine Self. This includes toxic blockages in their physical, emotional and mental bodies, as well as their ego and limited concepts of reality.
The above representation was drawn by Eliphas Levi in the 19th century and is based upon similar images that were once venerated by the Knights Templar. Apparently the Templars began worshipping an image of Baphomet during their alchemical studies with the Sufis in the Middle East. The Sufis, in their turn, had received the image and its associated alchemical properties from Dhul-Nun al-Misri, a Sufi mystic from Egypt, who had acquired his knowledge of Baphomet in Mendes, as well as other cities where alchemy was practiced in his native country (the figure above is based upon the Goat of Mendes). Along with his vast alchemical wisdom received from translating the hieroglyphs and the ancient papyrus scrolls of Egypt, Dhul-Nun brought Baphomet to his Sufi brethren in the Middle East and was henceforth regarded by them as the founder of Islamic alchemy.
Baphomet, as the Goat of Mendes, was exalted to a great deity by the Pharaoh Raneb of the Second Dynasty, who according to Manetho, the later historian of Heliopolis, was the first to initiate the worship of the Dragon-Goat of Mendes in Egypt.Having apparently arrived in Egypt via missionaries from Atlantis, where the Goat God represented the alchemical fire in nature, the early form of Baphomet was, according to Herodutus, one of the first eight gods of Khemit.
This spell is from Chapter 24 of the Papyrus of Ani, the "Chapter of Gaining Power."
Nuk Tem-Khepera kheper t'esef her uart mut-f.
Ertau unsu en ami Nu, behennu en amiu t'at'at.
Ask temt-na heka pen entef, kher se entef kher-f, betenu er thesem, khak er sut.
A anen makhent ent Ra!
Rut aqi-k em mehit em khent-ek er Se-mesert em neter-khert.
Ask temt-na heka pen em bu neb enti-f, kher se entef kher-f, betenu er thesem, khak er sut.
Arit kheperu em ertu mut em qemam-tu neteru em sekeru.
Erta-entu mut seref en neteru.
Ask erta-na heka apen kher enti-f betenu er thesem, khak er sut, khak er sut.
Translation: "I am the uncreated god. Before me the dwellers in chaos are dogs, their chiefs merely wolves. I gather the power from every place, from every person, faster than light itself. Hail to he in the heavens who is strong even before the terror of the darkness. He gathers the power from every place, from every person, faster than light itself.
He restores the giver of life. He creates the gods from silence alone and comforts them.
He bestows upon me this power from every place, faster than the shadow follows the light."
Nuk Tem-Khepera kheper t'esef her uart mut-f.
Ertau unsu en ami Nu, behennu en amiu t'at'at.
Ask temt-na heka pen entef, kher se entef kher-f, betenu er thesem, khak er sut.
A anen makhent ent Ra!
Rut aqi-k em mehit em khent-ek er Se-mesert em neter-khert.
Ask temt-na heka pen em bu neb enti-f, kher se entef kher-f, betenu er thesem, khak er sut.
Arit kheperu em ertu mut em qemam-tu neteru em sekeru.
Erta-entu mut seref en neteru.
Ask erta-na heka apen kher enti-f betenu er thesem, khak er sut, khak er sut.
Translation: "I am the uncreated god. Before me the dwellers in chaos are dogs, their chiefs merely wolves. I gather the power from every place, from every person, faster than light itself. Hail to he in the heavens who is strong even before the terror of the darkness. He gathers the power from every place, from every person, faster than light itself.
He restores the giver of life. He creates the gods from silence alone and comforts them.
He bestows upon me this power from every place, faster than the shadow follows the light."
With the Left Hand on My Forehead
& the Right Hand On My Heart...
Just as "crypto-Jews" were forced to convert yet continued to practice, "crypto-Dragons" have consciously and unconsciously carried their living heritage within and spontaneously enacted certain rites.
Do you Believe in the Mental Law of Cause & Effect? If so, here are those Words like the ten commandments, shall "NOT" Steal, Kill, Cheat, Lie, Covet. The Univesre itself response to them without hearing "No/Not/Never". Those Negative Things always Coming True because We kept thinking about them that We don't want unless We can Change Our Thoughts for Positive Things We Need. Instead of those Negative Words, Try the Positive words like:
1. I,..(Your Full Name).., have the Oaths to the Cosmic Forces!
2. I,......., Intellectually Educate Myself & Others through Authenticity!
3. I,......., Respect & Help the Natural Environments around & within Me!
4. I,......., Respect & Help Other People/Races as long as They Respect Me Equally!
5. I,......., Respect, Help & Honor My Family as Long as They are Treating Me as Equal!
6. I,......., Mercifully Spare and/or Defend Only Innocents!
7. I,......., have Fair Love & Fidelity for the Safe Community!
8. I,......., better to Recieve by Earning, and also Better to Give!
9. I,......., Bare True Witnesses as an Honest Person all the Time!
10. I,......., have Virtuous Desires in My Own Image & with Others!
Epilogue: I,......., Respect, Help, Love, Govern, Defend & Honour Myself for Who I am, as long as I have Good Freedom & Moral Enlightenment!
3.Desposyni - Descendants of Christ
Messiah, Magdaline Legacy, Gardner
The term Desposyni (from the Greek δεσπόσυνοι, plural of δεσπόσυνος, meaning "of or belonging to the master or lord" refers to blood relatives of Jesus. The term was coined by Sextus Julius Africanus, a writer of the early 3rd century. Scholars argue that Jesus' relatives held positions of special honor in the Early Christian Church. Christians of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox traditions, as well as most Anglicans and some followers of Lutheranism, reject the idea that Jesus had blood siblings, as their churches hold the doctrine of the Virgin Mary's Perpetual Virginity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desposyni
The closely related word (despotes) meaning lord, master, or ship owner is commonly used of God, human slave-masters, and of Jesus in the reading Luke 13:25 found in Papyrus 75, in Jude 1:4, and possibly in 2nd Peter 2:1.
In Ebionite belief, the desposyni included his mother Mary, his father Joseph, his unnamed sisters, and his brothers James the Just, Joses, Simon and Jude; in modern mainstream Christian belief, Mary is counted as a blood relative, Joseph only as a foster father and the rest as half brothers or cousins.
If Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, a controversial belief which was held by the Gnostic sects, and which is indirectly corroborated by the apocryphal Gospel of Philip, their child or children would have been the most revered among the desposyni.
According to author Malachi Martin, every early community of Judean followers of Jesus, whether it was Nazarene or Ebionite, was governed by a desposynos as a patriarch, and each of them carried one of the names traditional in Jesus' family but no one was ever named after him.
As some asserted their descent from both king David and the high priest Aaron, all male desposyni could have laid claim to both the throne and the office of high priest of Jerusalem.
However, the Roman occupation of Palestine, with the collaboration of the Judean establishment, made any attempt by a desposynos to rise to or seize political and religious power impossible or limited in scope.
Historical Accounts
Hegesippus (c.110-c.180) wrote five books of Commentaries on the Acts of the Church. They are now lost, but a few fragments are quoted by Eusebius in Historia Ecclesiae, 3.20. Among them is the following relation, ascribed to the reign of Domitian (81-96):
"...There still survived of the kindred of the Lord the grandsons of Judas, who according to the flesh was called his brother. These were informed against, as belonging to the family of David, and Evocatus brought them before Domitian Caesar: for that emperor dreaded the advent of Christ, as Herod had done."
So he asked them whether they were of the family of David; and they confessed they were. Next he asked them what property they had, or how much money they possessed. They both replied that they had only 9000 denaria between them, each of them owning half that sum; but even this they said they did not possess in cash, but as the estimated value of some land, consisting of thirty-nine plethra only, out of which they had to pay the dues, and that they supported themselves by their own labour. And then they began to hold out their hands, exhibiting, as proof of their manual labour, the roughness of their skin, and the corns raised on their hands by constant work."
Being then asked concerning Christ and His kingdom, what was its nature, and when and where it was to appear, they returned answer that it was not of this world, nor of the earth, but belonging to the sphere of heaven and angels, and would make its appearance at the end of time, when He shall come in glory, and judge living and dead, and render to every one according to the course of his life."
Thereupon Domitian passed no condemnation upon them, but treated them with contempt, as too mean for notice, and let them go free. At the same time he issued a command, and put a stop to the persecution against the Church."
When they were released they became leaders of the churches, as was natural in the case of those who were at once martyrs and of the kindred of the Lord. And, after the establishment of peace to the Church, their lives were prolonged to the reign of Trajan."
In "The Ecclesiastical History", Eusebius records an account by Julianus Africanus recorded the following concerning the family:
"...For the relatives of our Lord according to the flesh, whether with the desire of boasting or simply wishing to state the fact, in either case truly, have banded down the following account...But as there had been kept in the archives up to that time the genealogies of the Hebrews as well as of those who traced their lineage back to proselytes, such as Achior the Ammonite and Ruth the Moabitess, and to those who were mingled with the Israelites and came out of Egypt with them, Herod, inasmuch as the lineage of the Israelites contributed nothing to his advantage, and since he was goaded with the consciousness of his own ignoble extraction, burned all the genealogical records, thinking that he might appear of noble origin if no one else were able, from the public registers, to trace back his lineage to the patriarchs or proselytes and to those mingled with them, who were called Georae."
"...A few of the careful, however, having obtained private records of their own, either by remembering the names or by getting them in some other way from the registers, pride themselves on preserving the memory of their noble extraction. Among these are those already mentioned, called Desposyni, on account of their connection with the family of the Saviour.
Coming from Nazara and Cochaba, villages of Judea, into other parts of the world, they drew the aforesaid genealogy from memory and from the book of daily records as faithfully as possible. [Eusebius, History Section 1, Chapter 7]
The Desposyni and the Pope
The controversial Irish priest Malachi Martin noted in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church" that:
"...A meeting between Sylvester (Pope Silvester I) and the Jewish Christian leaders took place in 318....The vital interview was not, as far as we know, recorded, but the issues were very well known, and it is probable the Joses, the oldest of the Christian Jews, spoke on behalf of the desposyni and the rest."
"...That most hallowed name, desposyni, had been respected by all believers in the first century and a half of Christian history. The word literally meant, in Greek, "belonging to the Lord." It was reserved uniquely for Jesus' blood relatives. Every part of the ancient Jewish Christian church had always been governed by a desposynos, and each of them carried one of the names traditional in Jesus' family---Zachary, Joseph, John, James, Joses, Simeon, Matthias, and so on. But no one was ever called Jesus.
Neither Sylvester nor any of the thirty-two popes before him, nor those succeeding him, ever emphasized that there were at least three well-known and authentic lines of legitimate blood descent from Jesus' own family... "
"...The Desposyni demanded that Sylvester, who now had Roman patronage, revoke his confirmation of the authority of the Greek Christian bishops at Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Ephesus, and in Alexandria, and to name desposynos bishops to take their place. They asked that the practice of sending cash to Jerusalem as the mother church be resumed...
These blood relatives of Christ demanded the reintroduction of the Law, which included the Sabbath and the Holy Day system of Feasts and New Moons of the Bible. Sylvester dismissed their claims and said that, from now on, the mother church was in Rome and he insisted they accept the Greek bishops to lead them."
"...This was the last known dialogue with the Sabbath-keeping church in the east led by the disciples who were descended from blood relatives of Jesus the Messiah."
Extended Family
Other known relatives of Jesus include Simeon, the second bishop of Jerusalem, who was the son of Joseph's brother Clopas (mentioned by Eusebius, H.E. 3.11,32), and three Nestorian bishops of Seleucia on the Tigris in the 3rd century according to the 13th-century Syrian historian, Gregory Barhebraeus.
http://www.thenazareneway.com/desposyni.htm
The term Desposyni (from the Greek δεσπόσυνοι, plural of δεσπόσυνος, meaning "of or belonging to the master or lord" refers to blood relatives of Jesus. The term was coined by Sextus Julius Africanus, a writer of the early 3rd century. Scholars argue that Jesus' relatives held positions of special honor in the Early Christian Church. Christians of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox traditions, as well as most Anglicans and some followers of Lutheranism, reject the idea that Jesus had blood siblings, as their churches hold the doctrine of the Virgin Mary's Perpetual Virginity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desposyni
The closely related word (despotes) meaning lord, master, or ship owner is commonly used of God, human slave-masters, and of Jesus in the reading Luke 13:25 found in Papyrus 75, in Jude 1:4, and possibly in 2nd Peter 2:1.
In Ebionite belief, the desposyni included his mother Mary, his father Joseph, his unnamed sisters, and his brothers James the Just, Joses, Simon and Jude; in modern mainstream Christian belief, Mary is counted as a blood relative, Joseph only as a foster father and the rest as half brothers or cousins.
If Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, a controversial belief which was held by the Gnostic sects, and which is indirectly corroborated by the apocryphal Gospel of Philip, their child or children would have been the most revered among the desposyni.
According to author Malachi Martin, every early community of Judean followers of Jesus, whether it was Nazarene or Ebionite, was governed by a desposynos as a patriarch, and each of them carried one of the names traditional in Jesus' family but no one was ever named after him.
As some asserted their descent from both king David and the high priest Aaron, all male desposyni could have laid claim to both the throne and the office of high priest of Jerusalem.
However, the Roman occupation of Palestine, with the collaboration of the Judean establishment, made any attempt by a desposynos to rise to or seize political and religious power impossible or limited in scope.
Historical Accounts
Hegesippus (c.110-c.180) wrote five books of Commentaries on the Acts of the Church. They are now lost, but a few fragments are quoted by Eusebius in Historia Ecclesiae, 3.20. Among them is the following relation, ascribed to the reign of Domitian (81-96):
"...There still survived of the kindred of the Lord the grandsons of Judas, who according to the flesh was called his brother. These were informed against, as belonging to the family of David, and Evocatus brought them before Domitian Caesar: for that emperor dreaded the advent of Christ, as Herod had done."
So he asked them whether they were of the family of David; and they confessed they were. Next he asked them what property they had, or how much money they possessed. They both replied that they had only 9000 denaria between them, each of them owning half that sum; but even this they said they did not possess in cash, but as the estimated value of some land, consisting of thirty-nine plethra only, out of which they had to pay the dues, and that they supported themselves by their own labour. And then they began to hold out their hands, exhibiting, as proof of their manual labour, the roughness of their skin, and the corns raised on their hands by constant work."
Being then asked concerning Christ and His kingdom, what was its nature, and when and where it was to appear, they returned answer that it was not of this world, nor of the earth, but belonging to the sphere of heaven and angels, and would make its appearance at the end of time, when He shall come in glory, and judge living and dead, and render to every one according to the course of his life."
Thereupon Domitian passed no condemnation upon them, but treated them with contempt, as too mean for notice, and let them go free. At the same time he issued a command, and put a stop to the persecution against the Church."
When they were released they became leaders of the churches, as was natural in the case of those who were at once martyrs and of the kindred of the Lord. And, after the establishment of peace to the Church, their lives were prolonged to the reign of Trajan."
In "The Ecclesiastical History", Eusebius records an account by Julianus Africanus recorded the following concerning the family:
"...For the relatives of our Lord according to the flesh, whether with the desire of boasting or simply wishing to state the fact, in either case truly, have banded down the following account...But as there had been kept in the archives up to that time the genealogies of the Hebrews as well as of those who traced their lineage back to proselytes, such as Achior the Ammonite and Ruth the Moabitess, and to those who were mingled with the Israelites and came out of Egypt with them, Herod, inasmuch as the lineage of the Israelites contributed nothing to his advantage, and since he was goaded with the consciousness of his own ignoble extraction, burned all the genealogical records, thinking that he might appear of noble origin if no one else were able, from the public registers, to trace back his lineage to the patriarchs or proselytes and to those mingled with them, who were called Georae."
"...A few of the careful, however, having obtained private records of their own, either by remembering the names or by getting them in some other way from the registers, pride themselves on preserving the memory of their noble extraction. Among these are those already mentioned, called Desposyni, on account of their connection with the family of the Saviour.
Coming from Nazara and Cochaba, villages of Judea, into other parts of the world, they drew the aforesaid genealogy from memory and from the book of daily records as faithfully as possible. [Eusebius, History Section 1, Chapter 7]
The Desposyni and the Pope
The controversial Irish priest Malachi Martin noted in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church" that:
"...A meeting between Sylvester (Pope Silvester I) and the Jewish Christian leaders took place in 318....The vital interview was not, as far as we know, recorded, but the issues were very well known, and it is probable the Joses, the oldest of the Christian Jews, spoke on behalf of the desposyni and the rest."
"...That most hallowed name, desposyni, had been respected by all believers in the first century and a half of Christian history. The word literally meant, in Greek, "belonging to the Lord." It was reserved uniquely for Jesus' blood relatives. Every part of the ancient Jewish Christian church had always been governed by a desposynos, and each of them carried one of the names traditional in Jesus' family---Zachary, Joseph, John, James, Joses, Simeon, Matthias, and so on. But no one was ever called Jesus.
Neither Sylvester nor any of the thirty-two popes before him, nor those succeeding him, ever emphasized that there were at least three well-known and authentic lines of legitimate blood descent from Jesus' own family... "
"...The Desposyni demanded that Sylvester, who now had Roman patronage, revoke his confirmation of the authority of the Greek Christian bishops at Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Ephesus, and in Alexandria, and to name desposynos bishops to take their place. They asked that the practice of sending cash to Jerusalem as the mother church be resumed...
These blood relatives of Christ demanded the reintroduction of the Law, which included the Sabbath and the Holy Day system of Feasts and New Moons of the Bible. Sylvester dismissed their claims and said that, from now on, the mother church was in Rome and he insisted they accept the Greek bishops to lead them."
"...This was the last known dialogue with the Sabbath-keeping church in the east led by the disciples who were descended from blood relatives of Jesus the Messiah."
Extended Family
Other known relatives of Jesus include Simeon, the second bishop of Jerusalem, who was the son of Joseph's brother Clopas (mentioned by Eusebius, H.E. 3.11,32), and three Nestorian bishops of Seleucia on the Tigris in the 3rd century according to the 13th-century Syrian historian, Gregory Barhebraeus.
http://www.thenazareneway.com/desposyni.htm
4. The Merovingian Mythos
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/merovingians/merovingios_07.htm
THE MEROVINGIAN MYTHOS AND ITS ROOTS
IN THE ANCIENT KINGDOM OF ATLANTIS
by Tracy R. Twyman, Oct, 2004
http://quintessentialpublications.com/twyman/
The Frankish King Dagobert II, and the Merovingian dynasty from which he came, have been romantically mythologized in the annals of both local legend and modern mystical pseudo-history, but few have understood the true meaning and origins of their alluring mystery.
The mystique that surrounds them includes attributions of saintliness, magical powers (derived from their long hair), and even divine origin, because of their supposed descent from the one and only Jesus Christ. However, the importance of the divine ancestry of the Merovingians, and the antiquity from whence it comes, has never to this author’s knowledge been fully explored by any writer or historian.
However, I have uncovered mountains of evidence which indicates that the origins of the Merovingian race, and the mystery that surrounds them, lies ultimately with a race of beings, “Nephilim” or fallen angels, who created mankind as we know it today. It also originated with a civilization, far more ancient than recorded history, from which came all of the major arts and sciences that are basic to civilizations everywhere. As I intend to show, all of the myths and symbolism that are associated with this dynasty can, in fact, be traced back to this earlier civilization. It is known, in some cultures, as Atlantis, although there are many names for it, and it is the birthplace of agriculture, astronomy, mathematics, metallurgy, navigation, architecture, language, writing, and religion. It was also the source of the first government on Earth - monarchy. And the first kings on Earth were the gods.
Their race was known by various names. In Assyria, the Annodoti. In Sumeria, the Anunnaki. In Druidic lore, the Tuatha de Danaan. In Judeo-Christian scriptures, they are called the Nephilim, “the Sons of God”, or the Watchers. They are described as having attachments such as wings, horns, and even fish scales, but from the depictions it is clear that these are costumes worn for their symbolic value, for these symbols indicated divine power and royal blood. The gods themselves had their own monarchy, with laws of succession similar to our own, and they built a global empire upon the Earth, with great cities, temples, monuments, and mighty nations established on several continents. Man was separate from the gods, like a domesticated animal, and there was a great cultural taboo amongst the gods against sharing any of their sacred information with humanity, even things such as writing and mathematics. These gods ruled directly over Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley, and their rule is recorded in the histories of all three civilizations.
This global monarchy was the crowning glory of the ages, and the period of their rule came to be called “ the Golden Age”, or as the Egyptians called it, “the First Time”, when the gods watched over man directly, like a shepherd does his flock. In fact, they were often called “the Shepherd Kings.” One of the symbols of this world monarchy was an eye hovering over a throne, and this eye now adorns our American dollar bill, presented as the missing capstone of the Great Pyramid of Giza, underneath which are written the words “New World Order.” Clearly this New World Order is the global monarchy that or Founding Fathers (not a Democrat among them) intended for this nation to participate in all along, symbolized by a pyramid as a representation of the ideal and perfectly ordered authoritarian empire.
During the Golden Age of the gods, a new king’s ascendance to the global throne would be celebrated by the sacrifice of a horse, an animal sacred to Poseidon, one of the Atlantean god-kings and Lord of the Seas.(1) In fact there is an amusing story about how King Sargon’s rebellious son Sagara tried to prevent his father’s assumption to the world throne from being solidified by stealing his sacrificial horse. The horse was not recovered until years later, and Sagara, along with the “sons of Sagara”, i.e., those members of his family who had assisted him, were forced to dig their own mass grave. This grave was oddly called “the Ocean.”
It was a rebellion such as this that led to the downfall of the entire glorious empire. At some point, it is told, some of the gods broke rank. This is again recorded in just about every culture on Earth that has a written history or oral tradition. Some of the gods, finding human females most appealing, intermarried with them, breaking a major taboo within their own culture, and creating a race of human/god hybrids. Some of these offspring are described as taking the form of giants, dragons, and sea monsters, while others are said to have borne a normal human countenance, with the exception of their shimmering white skin and their extremely long life spans.
This is the bloodline that brought us Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, King David, Jesus Christ, and many others - in other words, the “Grail bloodline.” Legend has it that these beings taught mankind their secrets, including the above-mentioned arts of civilization, as well as a secret spiritual doctrine that only certain elect humans (their blood descendants) would be allowed to possess. They created ritualistic mystery schools and secret societies to pass this doctrine down through the generations.
However, these actions (the interbreeding with and sharing of secrets with humans) incurred the wrath of the Most High God, and a number of other gods who were disgusted by this interracial breeding. This sparked the massive and devastating battle of the gods that has come down to us in the legend of the “war in Heaven.” Then, in order to cleanse the Earth’s surface of the curse of humanity, they covered it with a flood. Interestingly, this flood is mentioned in the legends of almost every ancient culture on Earth, and the cause is always the same. Often the waters are described as having come from inside the Earth.
“The Fountains of the deep were opened”, it is said. “Suddenly enormous volumes of water issued from the Earth.” Water was “projected from the mountain like a water spout.”
The Earth began to rumble, and Atlantis, fair nation of the gods, sunk beneath the salty green waves. As we shall see, this is analogous to part of the “war in Heaven” story when the “rebellious” angels or gods were punished by being cast down “into the bowels of the Earth” - a very significant location.
To be certain, some of the Atlanteans managed to survive, and many books have been written about the Atlantean origin of the Egyptian, Sumerian, Indo-Aryan, and native South American civilizations (bringing into question the validity of the term “Native American”). Little, however, has been written about those who escaped into Western Europe, except for a passing reference in Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, in which he writes:
“The Gauls [meaning the French] possessed traditions upon the subject of Atlantis which were collected by the Roman historian Timagenes, who lived in the first century before Christ. He represents that three distinct people dwelt in Gaul:
1. the indigenous population, which I suppose to be Mongoloids, who had long dwelt in Europe
2. the invaders from a distant land, which I understand to be Atlantis
3. the Aryan Gaul”
That the Merovingian bloodline came from elsewhere is clear because of the legend that surrounds their founder, King Meroveus, who is said to have been the spawn of a “Quinotaur” (a sea monster), who raped his mother when she went out to swim in the ocean. Now it becomes obvious why he is called “Meroveus”, because in French, the word “mer” means sea. And in some traditions, Atlantis was called Meru, or Maru.(2) For these gods, navigation above all was important to them, for it was their sea power that maintained their military might and their successful mercantile trade.(3) The Atlanteans were associated with the sea and were often depicted as mermen, or sea monsters, with scales, fins, and horns. They were variously associated with a number of important animals, whose symbolism they held sacred: horses, bulls, goats, rams, lions, fish, serpents, dragons, even cats and dogs. All of these things relate back to the sea imagery with which these gods were associated.
Now lets go back to the Quinotaur, which some have named as being synonymous with Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea and, according to Plato, one of the famous kings of Atlantis. Others have seen it as being emblematic of the fish symbol that Christ is associated with, thus indicating that he was in fact the origin of the Merovingian bloodline. However, the roots of this Quinotaur myth are far more ancient. The word itself can be broken down etymologically to reveal its meaning. The last syllable, “taur”, means “bull.” The first syllable “Quin”, or “Kin”, comes from the same root as “king”, as well as the Biblical name of Cain, whom many have named as the primordial father of the Grail family.(4) The idea of the “King of the World” taking the form of a sea-bull was a recurring them in many ancient cultures, most notably in ancient Mesopotamia. In fact it originated with that dynasty of kings who reigned over the antediluvian world and who were all associated with the sea, as well as this divine animal imagery.
These kings included Sargon, Menes, and Narmar. Their historical reality morphed into the legends we have in many cultures of gods said to have come out of the sea at various times and to teach mankind the basic arts of civilization. They were known by various names, such as Enki, Dagon, Oannes, or Marduk (Merodach). They were depicted as half-man and half-fish, half-goat and half-fish, or half-bull and half-fish, but as I have said, in many of these depictions it is clear that this affect was achieved merely by the wearing of costumes, and that these god-kings were using this archetypal imagery to deify themselves in the minds of their subjects.
Dagon was depicted with a fish on his head, the lips protruding upward, making what were referred to as “horns.” This may be the origin for the custom (common in the ancient world) of affixing horns to the crown of a king. It has also been historically acknowledged as the origin of the miter worn by the Catholic Pope.(5) The Christian Church has always been associated with fish. Christ himself took on that imagery, as did John the Baptist, and the early Christians used the fish sign of the “Ichthys” to designate themselves. From the name “Oannes” we get the words “Uranus” and “Ouranos”, but also supposedly “Jonah”, “Janus”, and “John.” Perhaps we finally now understand why the Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion assume the symbolic name of “John” upon taking office.
The syllable “dag” merely means “fish”, which makes it interesting to note that the Dogon tribe of Africa, who have long baffled astronomers with their advanced knowledge of the faraway star-system from which they say their gods came, claim that these gods were “fish-men.” We may wonder if the words “dag” and “dog” are not etymologically related, especially since the star from whence these fish-men supposedly came is named Sirius, “the Dog Star.”
From Dagon comes our word “dragon”, as well as the biblical figure of Leviathan, “the Lord of the Deep”, a title also applied to Dagon. In fact, many of these Atlantean god-kings received the titles “the Lord of the Waters”, “The Lord of the Deep”, or “the Lord of the Abyss”, which appear to have been passed down from father to son, along with the throne of the global kingdom. These kings were specifically associated with the Flood of Noah, which, as I have mentioned, destroyed their global kingdom, and was somehow linked to their disastrous breeding experiment with the human race that lead to the “Grail bloodline.”
For this they were consigned to the “Abyss” or the underworld, which is why these gods were known as the lords of both.
In addition, Enki was known as the “Lord of the Earth”, and it is because of this “amphibious” nature of their progenitor, who reigned over both land and sea, that the Merovingians are associated with frogs. But this “Lord of the Earth” title is significant, for this is a title also given to Satan. It has been acknowledged elsewhere that Enki, as the “fish-goat man”, is the prototype for the Zodiac sign of Capricorn, which is itself recognized as the prototype for the modern conception of Satan or Lucifer. Furthermore, a well-known and pivotal episode in Enki’s career was his fight against his brother Enlil over the succession of the global throne. Enki eventually slew Enlil, something that is recorded in the Egyptian myth of Set murdering Osiris, and perhaps in the Biblical story of Cain murdering Abel. The connection between Enki and Enlil and Cain and Abel can be further proven by the fact that Enki and Enlil were the son of Anu (in some Sumerian legends, the first god-king on Earth), whereas Cain and Abel were the sons of the first man, called “Adamu” in Sumerian legends. “Adamu” and “Anu” appear to be etymologically related.
This family feud erupted into a long and overdrawn battle between the gods, who were split into two factions over the issue. These appear to be the same two factions who were at odds over the mating of gods and men to create the Grail bloodline. Those who supported Enki/Satan and Cain were clearly the ones who were inclined to breed with mankind, perhaps in an attempt to create a hybrid race that could assist them in retaining the throne for Cain. But they were overpowered. After they lost the “war in Heaven”, they were cast into the Abyss (according to legend, now the realm of Satan), and the Earth was flooded so as to rid it of their offspring.
Yet according to the legends, those gods who had created the hybrid race contacted one of their most favored descendants (called Uta-Napishtim in the Sumerian legends, or Noah in the Jewish), helping him to rescue himself and his family, preserving the seed of hybrid humanity. (6) We see remnants of this in the Vedic legends of the Flood, in which the Noah figure, here called “Manu”, is warned about the Flood by a horned fish (who turns out to be the Hindu god Vishnu in disguise). The fish tells Manu to build a ship, and then tie its tip to his horn. He then proceeds to tow Manu’s ship to safety upon a high mountain. So clearly Vishnu is connected to Enki, Dagon, and Oannes, and clearly he is the same one who saved Noah from the Flood. Yet this very deed became attributed, in the Old Testament, to the same god, Jehovah, who had purportedly caused the Flood to begin with. In fact the word Jehovah, or “Jah” is said to have evolved from the name of another Sumerian sea god-king, Ea, “the Lord of the Flood.”
Likewise, Leviathan is responsible, according to some references, for “vomiting out the waters of the Flood.” This occurs at the Apocalypse in the Revelation of St. John the Divine as well. Leviathan, like many of these sea gods, was the Lord of the Abyss, and these waters were believed to be holding the Earth up from underneath, in the regions of Hell. Yet “Leviathan” is almost surely etymologically related to the Jewish name “Levi”, and therefore to the “tribe of Levi”, the priestly caste of the Jews that formed part of Christ’s lineage.
This dual current, being associated with both the heavenly and the infernal, with both Jesus and Jehovah, as well as Satan and Lucifer, is something that is consistently found throughout the history of the Merovingian dynasty, as well as all of the other Grail families, and the entire Grail story itself. It is at the heart of the secret spiritual doctrine symbolized by the Grail. This symbolism hits you immediately when you walk through the door of the church at Rennes-le-Chateau, France, and see those opposing statues of the demon Asmodeus and Jesus Christ staring at the same black and white chequered floor, which itself symbolizes the balance of good and evil. This principle is further elucidated by the words placed over the doorway,
“This place is terrible, but it is the House of God and the Gateway to Heaven.”
This phrase turns up in two significant places. One is in the Bible, when Jacob has his vision of the ladder leading to Heaven, with angels ascending and descending. The other is in The Book of Enoch, when Enoch is taken for a tour of Hell. The existence of this phrase at the entrance to the church, coupled with the images that meet you immediately therein, render the meaning obvious. For Berenger Sauniere, who arranged these strange decorations, this Church represented some kind of metaphysical gateway between Heaven and Hell.
For this reason, the double-barred Cross of Lorraine, symbolizing this duality, has come to be associated with the Merovingians. In a now famous poem by Charles Peguy, is it stated:
“The arms of Jesus are the Cross of Lorraine,
Both the blood in the artery and the blood in the vein,
Both the source of grace and the clear fountaine;
The arms of Satan are the Cross of Lorraine,
And the same artery and the same vein,
And the same blood and the troubled fountaine.”
The reference to Satan and Jesus sharing the same blood is very important. A tradition exists, one which finds support among The Book of Enoch and many others, that Jesus and Satan are brothers, both sons of the Most High God, and they both sat next to his throne in Heaven, on the right and left sides, respectively, prior to Satan’s rebellion and the War in Heaven. This may be just another version of the persistent and primordial “Cain and Abel” story. It makes sense that Satan should be a direct son of God, since he is described as God’s “most beloved angel” and “the brightest star in Heaven.”(7)
However, this symbol is far older than the modern conceptions of Christ and Satan, or Lucifer. This symbol can be traced back to the hieroglyphs of ancient Sumer, where it was pronounced “Khat”, “Kad”, and sometimes even “Kod.” This was another title for the kings who were known as gods of the sea, and the word “Khatti” became associated with this entire race. Their region’s capitol was called “Amarru” - “the Land to the West” (like Meru, the alternate term for Atlantis).
This land was symbolized by a lion, which may explain the origin of the word “cat”, as well as why the lion is now a symbol of royalty. Furthermore, the word “cad” or “cod” has also become associated with fish and sea creatures in the Indo-European language system.(8) I would argue that this was at the root of the word “Cathari” (the heretics associated with the Holy Grail who occupied the Languedoc region of France that the Merovingians ruled over), as well as Adam Kadmon, the Primordial Man of alchemy, and “Caduceus”, the winged staff of Mercury. It is also the root for the name of the Mesopotamian kingdom of “Akkadia”, which itself has morphed into “Arcadia”, the Greek concept of Paradise. This further morphs into “acacia”, the traditional Masonic “sprig of hope” and symbol of resurrection after death.
Perhaps this sheds further light on the phrase “Et in Arcadia Ego”, which pops up more than once in association with the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau and the Merovingians. This phrase was illustrated by Nicolas Poussin with the scene of a tomb, a human skull, and three shepherds. The tomb and skull clearly represent death, while the Sprig of Acacia implied by the word “Arcadia” translates to “resurrection from death.” The shepherds, furthermore, represent the divine kingship of the Atlantean gods and the Grail bloodline, for these god-monarchs were also known as the “Shepherd Kings” (a title, notably, taken up by Jesus as well). This indicates that it is the global monarchy of these Atlantean gods that shall rise again from the tomb, perhaps through the Merovingian bloodline.
This archetype of the fallen king who shall one day return, or the kingdom that disappears, only to rise again in a new, golden age, is a very common one, and one that I have shown in another article to be integral to the Grail legend. It was also one used quite effectively by the last of the Merovingian kings who effectively held the throne of the Austrasian Empire - this magazine’s mascot, Dagobert II. Dagobert’s entire life, as historically recorded, is mythological and archetypal. His name betrays the divine origins of his bloodline. “Dagobert” comes, of course, from Dagon. Now the word “bert”, as the author L.A. Waddell has shown, has its roots in the word “bara”, or “para“, or Anglicized, “pharaoh”, a “priest-king of the temple (or house).” So Dagobert’s name literally means “Priest-King of the House of Dagon.” Interestingly, a rarely-found but nonetheless authentic variation on Dagobert’s name was “Dragobert”, emphasizing his lineage from the beast of the deep waters, the dragon Leviathan.
Dagobert made use of the myth of the returning king early on in life. His father had been assassinated when he was five years old, and young Dagobert was kidnapped by then Palace Mayor Grimoald, who tried to put his own son on the throne. He was saved from death, but an elaborate ruse was laid out to make people think otherwise. Even his own mother believed he was dead, and allowed his father’s assassins to take over, placing Grimoald’s son on the throne. Dagobert was exiled to Ireland, where he lay in wait for the opportunity to reclaim his father’s throne. This opportunity showed itself in the year 671, when he married Giselle de Razes, daughter of the count of Razes and niece of the king of the Visigoths, allying the Merovingian house with the Visigothic royal house. This had the potential for creating a united empire that would have covered most of what is now modern France.
This marriage was celebrated at the Church of St. Madeleine in Rhedae, the same spot where Sauniere’s Church of St. Madeleine at Rennes-le-Chateau now rests. There is an existing rumor that Dagobert found something there, a clue which lead him to a treasure buried in the nearby Montsegur, and this treasure financed what was about to come. This was the re-conquest of the Aquitaine and the throne of the Frankish kingdom. As Baigent, et. al write in Holy Blood, Holy Grail,
“At once he set about asserting and consolidating his authority, taming the anarchy that prevailed throughout Austrasia and reestablishing order.”
The fallen king had risen from his ashes, born anew as Dagobert II, and had come to once more establish firm rule and equilibrium in his country. The similarities to the Parzival/Grail story don’t even need to be repeated.
Sadly, Dagobert II would himself play the role of the fallen king just a few years later, in 679, and the circumstances were decidedly strange. You see, since the time of King Clovis I, the Merovingian kings had been under a pact with the Vatican, in which they had pledged their allegiance to the Mother Church in exchange for Papal backing of the their united empire of Austrasia. They would forever hold the title of “New Constantine”, a title that would later morph into “Holy Roman Emperor.” But that “allegiance” on the part of the Merovingians towards the Church began to wear thin after a while. Obviously, given their infernal and divine origin, their spiritual bent was slightly different from that of organized Christianity.
In addition, as direct descendants of the historical Christ himself, they would have possessed access to the secret teachings of Christ, no doubt shockingly different from the ones promoted by the Church, and reflecting more of the “secret doctrine” of the rebellious gods that I have talked about in this article. Any public knowledge of this or the blood relationship between Christ and the Merovingians would have been disastrous for the Church. Christ would therefore be a man, with antecedents and descendants, instead of the “son of God, born of a virgin” concept promoted by the Church. Seeing in Dagobert a potential threat, the Roman church entered into a conspiracy with Palace Mayor Pepin the Fat.
On December 23, while on a hunting trip, Dagobert was lanced through the left eye by his own godson, supposedly on Pepin’s orders. There are many aspects to this event that appear to be mythologically significant. For one thing, it took place in the “ Forest of Woevres”, long held sacred, and host to annual sacrificial bear hunts for the Goddess Diana. Indeed, the murder may have taken place on such a hunt. This was near the royal Merovingian residence at Stenay, a town that used to be called “Satanicum.” We must also consider the date itself, which was almost precisely at the beginning of the astrological period of Capricorn. As I have mentioned, Capricorn is based on Enki, and is thus connected to the Quinotaur that spawned the Merovingian bloodline. It is also close to the Winter Solstice, the shortest day in the year, when the Sun was said to “die”, mythologically, and turn black, descending into the underworld.
This “black” period of the Sun is associated with the god Kronos or Saturn, another horned sea-god, ruler of the underworld, and king of Atlantis who figures repeatedly in this Grail/Rennes-le-Chateau mystery.(9) Secondly, the murder is said to take place at midday, which, as I have mentioned in another article, is an extremely significant moment in time for mystery schools of the secret doctrine, like Freemasonry. The parchments found by Berenger Sauniere and the related poem, Le Serpent Rouge makes a special mention of it. This is when the Sun is highest in the sky. The fact that Dagobert’s murder was committed by a family member is significant too. This is similar to the “Dolorous Stroke” that wounds the Fisher King in the Grail story, something which also took place at midday and was inflicted by the king’s own brother. In this story, the brother who wounds the Fisher King is known as the “Dark Lord”, and during the fight he is wounded in the left eye, precisely as Dagobert was wounded.
The same thing happened to Horus in Egyptian mythology, fighting his uncle, Set. The “Left Eye of Horus” came to symbolize the hidden knowledge of the gods, just as the “left hand path” does today. Dagobert’s death appears to follow the same patterns as many other fallen kings or murdered gods whose death must be avenged. It is meant to symbolize the concept of the lost or fallen kingdom the same way the Dolorous Stroke does in the Grail story.
Clearly, Dagobert’s death meant the end for the Merovingian kingdom. All subsequent Merovingian kings were essentially powerless, and they were officially thought to have died out with Dagobert’s grandson, Childeric III. 49 years later, Charles Martel’s grandson, Charlemagne was anointed Holy Roman Emperor. But in 872, almost 200 years after his death, Dagobert was canonized as a Saint, and the date of his death, December 23, became “St. Dagobert’s Day.”
Write Baigent, et. al.:
“The reason for Dagobert’s canonization remains unclear. According to one source it was because his relics were believed to have preserved the vicinity of Stenay against Viking raids - though this explanation begs the question, for it is not clear why the relics should have possessed such powers is the first place. Ecclesiastical authorities seem embarrassingly ignorant on the matter. They admit that Dagobert, for some reason, became the object of a fully fledged cult... But they seem utterly at a loss as to why he should have been so exalted. It is possible, of course that the Church felt guilty about its role in the king’s death.”
Guilty, or afraid? For surely they knew that this “Priest-King of the House of Dagon”, with his divine lineage, so beloved by his people that they worship him like a god 200 years later, would of course be avenged for his treacherous murder. Surely they knew, as most Dagobert’s Revenge readers know, that the Merovingian bloodline didn’t die out, surviving through his son Sigisbert, and continues to jockey for the throne of France to this very day through the actions of various royal bloodlines throughout Europe. Surely they knew that this kingdom would rise again, and that the lost king would return someday. The seeds of his return have already been planted.
France is united into the political mass that Dagobert had envisioned it to be when he united Austrasia, and the “Holy Roman Empire”, which the Merovingian kings were clearly attempting to form with the help of the Vatican, has now become a reality in the form of the European Union. During WWII and immediately afterwards, the Priory of Sion, that secret order dedicated to the Merovingian agenda, openly campaigned for a United States of Europe. They even proposed a flag, consisting of stars in a circle, which is identical to the flag used by the European Union today.(10) Furthermore, the world empire of the Atlantean kings who spawned the Merovingians is more complete now than it has ever been since the gods left the earth during the Deluge. The United Nations, a feeble example, will surely give way at some point to a united world government strong enough and glorious enough to be called an empire. The fallen kingdom of the gods is clearly returning, and the new Golden Age is upon us. If this author’s hunch is correct, this is, indeed, a glorious time to be alive.
Endnotes:
(1) Recall that Merovingian King Clovis was buried with a severed horse’s head.
(2) It is also the name of the famous “world mountain” of Eastern tradition.
(3) Note that “mer” is also the origin of the word “mercantile.”
(4) Cain’s name has been said to be the origin of the word “king”
(5) Now we understand why, in the post-mortem photo of Berenger Sauniere lying on his death bed, this small parish priest is seen next to a bishop’s miter.
(6) Uta-Napishtim contains the Sumerian and Egyptian word for fish, “pish”, and perhaps we can see why some authors have claimed that the character of Noah is in fact based on Oannes, Dagon, or Enki as well.
(7) The Book of Enoch refers to the Watchers, or Nephilim, as “stars”, with various “watchtowers” in the houses of the Zodiac. Bear in mind that the ancients saw the sky above as a giant “sea”, the waters of which were kept at bay by the “Firmament of Heaven” - that is, until the Flood.
(8) At this writing, a large sea serpent 20 meters long has just been discovered off the coast of Canada named “Cadborosaurus Willsi”, nicknamed “Caddy.”
(9) Kronos or Saturn is the inspiration for the figures of Capricorn and the Judeo-Christian Satan.
(10) This flag was shown carried by a divine white horse, a symbol of Poseidon and world monarchy.
THE MEROVINGIAN MYTHOS AND ITS ROOTS
IN THE ANCIENT KINGDOM OF ATLANTIS
by Tracy R. Twyman, Oct, 2004
http://quintessentialpublications.com/twyman/
The Frankish King Dagobert II, and the Merovingian dynasty from which he came, have been romantically mythologized in the annals of both local legend and modern mystical pseudo-history, but few have understood the true meaning and origins of their alluring mystery.
The mystique that surrounds them includes attributions of saintliness, magical powers (derived from their long hair), and even divine origin, because of their supposed descent from the one and only Jesus Christ. However, the importance of the divine ancestry of the Merovingians, and the antiquity from whence it comes, has never to this author’s knowledge been fully explored by any writer or historian.
However, I have uncovered mountains of evidence which indicates that the origins of the Merovingian race, and the mystery that surrounds them, lies ultimately with a race of beings, “Nephilim” or fallen angels, who created mankind as we know it today. It also originated with a civilization, far more ancient than recorded history, from which came all of the major arts and sciences that are basic to civilizations everywhere. As I intend to show, all of the myths and symbolism that are associated with this dynasty can, in fact, be traced back to this earlier civilization. It is known, in some cultures, as Atlantis, although there are many names for it, and it is the birthplace of agriculture, astronomy, mathematics, metallurgy, navigation, architecture, language, writing, and religion. It was also the source of the first government on Earth - monarchy. And the first kings on Earth were the gods.
Their race was known by various names. In Assyria, the Annodoti. In Sumeria, the Anunnaki. In Druidic lore, the Tuatha de Danaan. In Judeo-Christian scriptures, they are called the Nephilim, “the Sons of God”, or the Watchers. They are described as having attachments such as wings, horns, and even fish scales, but from the depictions it is clear that these are costumes worn for their symbolic value, for these symbols indicated divine power and royal blood. The gods themselves had their own monarchy, with laws of succession similar to our own, and they built a global empire upon the Earth, with great cities, temples, monuments, and mighty nations established on several continents. Man was separate from the gods, like a domesticated animal, and there was a great cultural taboo amongst the gods against sharing any of their sacred information with humanity, even things such as writing and mathematics. These gods ruled directly over Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley, and their rule is recorded in the histories of all three civilizations.
This global monarchy was the crowning glory of the ages, and the period of their rule came to be called “ the Golden Age”, or as the Egyptians called it, “the First Time”, when the gods watched over man directly, like a shepherd does his flock. In fact, they were often called “the Shepherd Kings.” One of the symbols of this world monarchy was an eye hovering over a throne, and this eye now adorns our American dollar bill, presented as the missing capstone of the Great Pyramid of Giza, underneath which are written the words “New World Order.” Clearly this New World Order is the global monarchy that or Founding Fathers (not a Democrat among them) intended for this nation to participate in all along, symbolized by a pyramid as a representation of the ideal and perfectly ordered authoritarian empire.
During the Golden Age of the gods, a new king’s ascendance to the global throne would be celebrated by the sacrifice of a horse, an animal sacred to Poseidon, one of the Atlantean god-kings and Lord of the Seas.(1) In fact there is an amusing story about how King Sargon’s rebellious son Sagara tried to prevent his father’s assumption to the world throne from being solidified by stealing his sacrificial horse. The horse was not recovered until years later, and Sagara, along with the “sons of Sagara”, i.e., those members of his family who had assisted him, were forced to dig their own mass grave. This grave was oddly called “the Ocean.”
It was a rebellion such as this that led to the downfall of the entire glorious empire. At some point, it is told, some of the gods broke rank. This is again recorded in just about every culture on Earth that has a written history or oral tradition. Some of the gods, finding human females most appealing, intermarried with them, breaking a major taboo within their own culture, and creating a race of human/god hybrids. Some of these offspring are described as taking the form of giants, dragons, and sea monsters, while others are said to have borne a normal human countenance, with the exception of their shimmering white skin and their extremely long life spans.
This is the bloodline that brought us Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, King David, Jesus Christ, and many others - in other words, the “Grail bloodline.” Legend has it that these beings taught mankind their secrets, including the above-mentioned arts of civilization, as well as a secret spiritual doctrine that only certain elect humans (their blood descendants) would be allowed to possess. They created ritualistic mystery schools and secret societies to pass this doctrine down through the generations.
However, these actions (the interbreeding with and sharing of secrets with humans) incurred the wrath of the Most High God, and a number of other gods who were disgusted by this interracial breeding. This sparked the massive and devastating battle of the gods that has come down to us in the legend of the “war in Heaven.” Then, in order to cleanse the Earth’s surface of the curse of humanity, they covered it with a flood. Interestingly, this flood is mentioned in the legends of almost every ancient culture on Earth, and the cause is always the same. Often the waters are described as having come from inside the Earth.
“The Fountains of the deep were opened”, it is said. “Suddenly enormous volumes of water issued from the Earth.” Water was “projected from the mountain like a water spout.”
The Earth began to rumble, and Atlantis, fair nation of the gods, sunk beneath the salty green waves. As we shall see, this is analogous to part of the “war in Heaven” story when the “rebellious” angels or gods were punished by being cast down “into the bowels of the Earth” - a very significant location.
To be certain, some of the Atlanteans managed to survive, and many books have been written about the Atlantean origin of the Egyptian, Sumerian, Indo-Aryan, and native South American civilizations (bringing into question the validity of the term “Native American”). Little, however, has been written about those who escaped into Western Europe, except for a passing reference in Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, in which he writes:
“The Gauls [meaning the French] possessed traditions upon the subject of Atlantis which were collected by the Roman historian Timagenes, who lived in the first century before Christ. He represents that three distinct people dwelt in Gaul:
1. the indigenous population, which I suppose to be Mongoloids, who had long dwelt in Europe
2. the invaders from a distant land, which I understand to be Atlantis
3. the Aryan Gaul”
That the Merovingian bloodline came from elsewhere is clear because of the legend that surrounds their founder, King Meroveus, who is said to have been the spawn of a “Quinotaur” (a sea monster), who raped his mother when she went out to swim in the ocean. Now it becomes obvious why he is called “Meroveus”, because in French, the word “mer” means sea. And in some traditions, Atlantis was called Meru, or Maru.(2) For these gods, navigation above all was important to them, for it was their sea power that maintained their military might and their successful mercantile trade.(3) The Atlanteans were associated with the sea and were often depicted as mermen, or sea monsters, with scales, fins, and horns. They were variously associated with a number of important animals, whose symbolism they held sacred: horses, bulls, goats, rams, lions, fish, serpents, dragons, even cats and dogs. All of these things relate back to the sea imagery with which these gods were associated.
Now lets go back to the Quinotaur, which some have named as being synonymous with Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea and, according to Plato, one of the famous kings of Atlantis. Others have seen it as being emblematic of the fish symbol that Christ is associated with, thus indicating that he was in fact the origin of the Merovingian bloodline. However, the roots of this Quinotaur myth are far more ancient. The word itself can be broken down etymologically to reveal its meaning. The last syllable, “taur”, means “bull.” The first syllable “Quin”, or “Kin”, comes from the same root as “king”, as well as the Biblical name of Cain, whom many have named as the primordial father of the Grail family.(4) The idea of the “King of the World” taking the form of a sea-bull was a recurring them in many ancient cultures, most notably in ancient Mesopotamia. In fact it originated with that dynasty of kings who reigned over the antediluvian world and who were all associated with the sea, as well as this divine animal imagery.
These kings included Sargon, Menes, and Narmar. Their historical reality morphed into the legends we have in many cultures of gods said to have come out of the sea at various times and to teach mankind the basic arts of civilization. They were known by various names, such as Enki, Dagon, Oannes, or Marduk (Merodach). They were depicted as half-man and half-fish, half-goat and half-fish, or half-bull and half-fish, but as I have said, in many of these depictions it is clear that this affect was achieved merely by the wearing of costumes, and that these god-kings were using this archetypal imagery to deify themselves in the minds of their subjects.
Dagon was depicted with a fish on his head, the lips protruding upward, making what were referred to as “horns.” This may be the origin for the custom (common in the ancient world) of affixing horns to the crown of a king. It has also been historically acknowledged as the origin of the miter worn by the Catholic Pope.(5) The Christian Church has always been associated with fish. Christ himself took on that imagery, as did John the Baptist, and the early Christians used the fish sign of the “Ichthys” to designate themselves. From the name “Oannes” we get the words “Uranus” and “Ouranos”, but also supposedly “Jonah”, “Janus”, and “John.” Perhaps we finally now understand why the Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion assume the symbolic name of “John” upon taking office.
The syllable “dag” merely means “fish”, which makes it interesting to note that the Dogon tribe of Africa, who have long baffled astronomers with their advanced knowledge of the faraway star-system from which they say their gods came, claim that these gods were “fish-men.” We may wonder if the words “dag” and “dog” are not etymologically related, especially since the star from whence these fish-men supposedly came is named Sirius, “the Dog Star.”
From Dagon comes our word “dragon”, as well as the biblical figure of Leviathan, “the Lord of the Deep”, a title also applied to Dagon. In fact, many of these Atlantean god-kings received the titles “the Lord of the Waters”, “The Lord of the Deep”, or “the Lord of the Abyss”, which appear to have been passed down from father to son, along with the throne of the global kingdom. These kings were specifically associated with the Flood of Noah, which, as I have mentioned, destroyed their global kingdom, and was somehow linked to their disastrous breeding experiment with the human race that lead to the “Grail bloodline.”
For this they were consigned to the “Abyss” or the underworld, which is why these gods were known as the lords of both.
In addition, Enki was known as the “Lord of the Earth”, and it is because of this “amphibious” nature of their progenitor, who reigned over both land and sea, that the Merovingians are associated with frogs. But this “Lord of the Earth” title is significant, for this is a title also given to Satan. It has been acknowledged elsewhere that Enki, as the “fish-goat man”, is the prototype for the Zodiac sign of Capricorn, which is itself recognized as the prototype for the modern conception of Satan or Lucifer. Furthermore, a well-known and pivotal episode in Enki’s career was his fight against his brother Enlil over the succession of the global throne. Enki eventually slew Enlil, something that is recorded in the Egyptian myth of Set murdering Osiris, and perhaps in the Biblical story of Cain murdering Abel. The connection between Enki and Enlil and Cain and Abel can be further proven by the fact that Enki and Enlil were the son of Anu (in some Sumerian legends, the first god-king on Earth), whereas Cain and Abel were the sons of the first man, called “Adamu” in Sumerian legends. “Adamu” and “Anu” appear to be etymologically related.
This family feud erupted into a long and overdrawn battle between the gods, who were split into two factions over the issue. These appear to be the same two factions who were at odds over the mating of gods and men to create the Grail bloodline. Those who supported Enki/Satan and Cain were clearly the ones who were inclined to breed with mankind, perhaps in an attempt to create a hybrid race that could assist them in retaining the throne for Cain. But they were overpowered. After they lost the “war in Heaven”, they were cast into the Abyss (according to legend, now the realm of Satan), and the Earth was flooded so as to rid it of their offspring.
Yet according to the legends, those gods who had created the hybrid race contacted one of their most favored descendants (called Uta-Napishtim in the Sumerian legends, or Noah in the Jewish), helping him to rescue himself and his family, preserving the seed of hybrid humanity. (6) We see remnants of this in the Vedic legends of the Flood, in which the Noah figure, here called “Manu”, is warned about the Flood by a horned fish (who turns out to be the Hindu god Vishnu in disguise). The fish tells Manu to build a ship, and then tie its tip to his horn. He then proceeds to tow Manu’s ship to safety upon a high mountain. So clearly Vishnu is connected to Enki, Dagon, and Oannes, and clearly he is the same one who saved Noah from the Flood. Yet this very deed became attributed, in the Old Testament, to the same god, Jehovah, who had purportedly caused the Flood to begin with. In fact the word Jehovah, or “Jah” is said to have evolved from the name of another Sumerian sea god-king, Ea, “the Lord of the Flood.”
Likewise, Leviathan is responsible, according to some references, for “vomiting out the waters of the Flood.” This occurs at the Apocalypse in the Revelation of St. John the Divine as well. Leviathan, like many of these sea gods, was the Lord of the Abyss, and these waters were believed to be holding the Earth up from underneath, in the regions of Hell. Yet “Leviathan” is almost surely etymologically related to the Jewish name “Levi”, and therefore to the “tribe of Levi”, the priestly caste of the Jews that formed part of Christ’s lineage.
This dual current, being associated with both the heavenly and the infernal, with both Jesus and Jehovah, as well as Satan and Lucifer, is something that is consistently found throughout the history of the Merovingian dynasty, as well as all of the other Grail families, and the entire Grail story itself. It is at the heart of the secret spiritual doctrine symbolized by the Grail. This symbolism hits you immediately when you walk through the door of the church at Rennes-le-Chateau, France, and see those opposing statues of the demon Asmodeus and Jesus Christ staring at the same black and white chequered floor, which itself symbolizes the balance of good and evil. This principle is further elucidated by the words placed over the doorway,
“This place is terrible, but it is the House of God and the Gateway to Heaven.”
This phrase turns up in two significant places. One is in the Bible, when Jacob has his vision of the ladder leading to Heaven, with angels ascending and descending. The other is in The Book of Enoch, when Enoch is taken for a tour of Hell. The existence of this phrase at the entrance to the church, coupled with the images that meet you immediately therein, render the meaning obvious. For Berenger Sauniere, who arranged these strange decorations, this Church represented some kind of metaphysical gateway between Heaven and Hell.
For this reason, the double-barred Cross of Lorraine, symbolizing this duality, has come to be associated with the Merovingians. In a now famous poem by Charles Peguy, is it stated:
“The arms of Jesus are the Cross of Lorraine,
Both the blood in the artery and the blood in the vein,
Both the source of grace and the clear fountaine;
The arms of Satan are the Cross of Lorraine,
And the same artery and the same vein,
And the same blood and the troubled fountaine.”
The reference to Satan and Jesus sharing the same blood is very important. A tradition exists, one which finds support among The Book of Enoch and many others, that Jesus and Satan are brothers, both sons of the Most High God, and they both sat next to his throne in Heaven, on the right and left sides, respectively, prior to Satan’s rebellion and the War in Heaven. This may be just another version of the persistent and primordial “Cain and Abel” story. It makes sense that Satan should be a direct son of God, since he is described as God’s “most beloved angel” and “the brightest star in Heaven.”(7)
However, this symbol is far older than the modern conceptions of Christ and Satan, or Lucifer. This symbol can be traced back to the hieroglyphs of ancient Sumer, where it was pronounced “Khat”, “Kad”, and sometimes even “Kod.” This was another title for the kings who were known as gods of the sea, and the word “Khatti” became associated with this entire race. Their region’s capitol was called “Amarru” - “the Land to the West” (like Meru, the alternate term for Atlantis).
This land was symbolized by a lion, which may explain the origin of the word “cat”, as well as why the lion is now a symbol of royalty. Furthermore, the word “cad” or “cod” has also become associated with fish and sea creatures in the Indo-European language system.(8) I would argue that this was at the root of the word “Cathari” (the heretics associated with the Holy Grail who occupied the Languedoc region of France that the Merovingians ruled over), as well as Adam Kadmon, the Primordial Man of alchemy, and “Caduceus”, the winged staff of Mercury. It is also the root for the name of the Mesopotamian kingdom of “Akkadia”, which itself has morphed into “Arcadia”, the Greek concept of Paradise. This further morphs into “acacia”, the traditional Masonic “sprig of hope” and symbol of resurrection after death.
Perhaps this sheds further light on the phrase “Et in Arcadia Ego”, which pops up more than once in association with the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau and the Merovingians. This phrase was illustrated by Nicolas Poussin with the scene of a tomb, a human skull, and three shepherds. The tomb and skull clearly represent death, while the Sprig of Acacia implied by the word “Arcadia” translates to “resurrection from death.” The shepherds, furthermore, represent the divine kingship of the Atlantean gods and the Grail bloodline, for these god-monarchs were also known as the “Shepherd Kings” (a title, notably, taken up by Jesus as well). This indicates that it is the global monarchy of these Atlantean gods that shall rise again from the tomb, perhaps through the Merovingian bloodline.
This archetype of the fallen king who shall one day return, or the kingdom that disappears, only to rise again in a new, golden age, is a very common one, and one that I have shown in another article to be integral to the Grail legend. It was also one used quite effectively by the last of the Merovingian kings who effectively held the throne of the Austrasian Empire - this magazine’s mascot, Dagobert II. Dagobert’s entire life, as historically recorded, is mythological and archetypal. His name betrays the divine origins of his bloodline. “Dagobert” comes, of course, from Dagon. Now the word “bert”, as the author L.A. Waddell has shown, has its roots in the word “bara”, or “para“, or Anglicized, “pharaoh”, a “priest-king of the temple (or house).” So Dagobert’s name literally means “Priest-King of the House of Dagon.” Interestingly, a rarely-found but nonetheless authentic variation on Dagobert’s name was “Dragobert”, emphasizing his lineage from the beast of the deep waters, the dragon Leviathan.
Dagobert made use of the myth of the returning king early on in life. His father had been assassinated when he was five years old, and young Dagobert was kidnapped by then Palace Mayor Grimoald, who tried to put his own son on the throne. He was saved from death, but an elaborate ruse was laid out to make people think otherwise. Even his own mother believed he was dead, and allowed his father’s assassins to take over, placing Grimoald’s son on the throne. Dagobert was exiled to Ireland, where he lay in wait for the opportunity to reclaim his father’s throne. This opportunity showed itself in the year 671, when he married Giselle de Razes, daughter of the count of Razes and niece of the king of the Visigoths, allying the Merovingian house with the Visigothic royal house. This had the potential for creating a united empire that would have covered most of what is now modern France.
This marriage was celebrated at the Church of St. Madeleine in Rhedae, the same spot where Sauniere’s Church of St. Madeleine at Rennes-le-Chateau now rests. There is an existing rumor that Dagobert found something there, a clue which lead him to a treasure buried in the nearby Montsegur, and this treasure financed what was about to come. This was the re-conquest of the Aquitaine and the throne of the Frankish kingdom. As Baigent, et. al write in Holy Blood, Holy Grail,
“At once he set about asserting and consolidating his authority, taming the anarchy that prevailed throughout Austrasia and reestablishing order.”
The fallen king had risen from his ashes, born anew as Dagobert II, and had come to once more establish firm rule and equilibrium in his country. The similarities to the Parzival/Grail story don’t even need to be repeated.
Sadly, Dagobert II would himself play the role of the fallen king just a few years later, in 679, and the circumstances were decidedly strange. You see, since the time of King Clovis I, the Merovingian kings had been under a pact with the Vatican, in which they had pledged their allegiance to the Mother Church in exchange for Papal backing of the their united empire of Austrasia. They would forever hold the title of “New Constantine”, a title that would later morph into “Holy Roman Emperor.” But that “allegiance” on the part of the Merovingians towards the Church began to wear thin after a while. Obviously, given their infernal and divine origin, their spiritual bent was slightly different from that of organized Christianity.
In addition, as direct descendants of the historical Christ himself, they would have possessed access to the secret teachings of Christ, no doubt shockingly different from the ones promoted by the Church, and reflecting more of the “secret doctrine” of the rebellious gods that I have talked about in this article. Any public knowledge of this or the blood relationship between Christ and the Merovingians would have been disastrous for the Church. Christ would therefore be a man, with antecedents and descendants, instead of the “son of God, born of a virgin” concept promoted by the Church. Seeing in Dagobert a potential threat, the Roman church entered into a conspiracy with Palace Mayor Pepin the Fat.
On December 23, while on a hunting trip, Dagobert was lanced through the left eye by his own godson, supposedly on Pepin’s orders. There are many aspects to this event that appear to be mythologically significant. For one thing, it took place in the “ Forest of Woevres”, long held sacred, and host to annual sacrificial bear hunts for the Goddess Diana. Indeed, the murder may have taken place on such a hunt. This was near the royal Merovingian residence at Stenay, a town that used to be called “Satanicum.” We must also consider the date itself, which was almost precisely at the beginning of the astrological period of Capricorn. As I have mentioned, Capricorn is based on Enki, and is thus connected to the Quinotaur that spawned the Merovingian bloodline. It is also close to the Winter Solstice, the shortest day in the year, when the Sun was said to “die”, mythologically, and turn black, descending into the underworld.
This “black” period of the Sun is associated with the god Kronos or Saturn, another horned sea-god, ruler of the underworld, and king of Atlantis who figures repeatedly in this Grail/Rennes-le-Chateau mystery.(9) Secondly, the murder is said to take place at midday, which, as I have mentioned in another article, is an extremely significant moment in time for mystery schools of the secret doctrine, like Freemasonry. The parchments found by Berenger Sauniere and the related poem, Le Serpent Rouge makes a special mention of it. This is when the Sun is highest in the sky. The fact that Dagobert’s murder was committed by a family member is significant too. This is similar to the “Dolorous Stroke” that wounds the Fisher King in the Grail story, something which also took place at midday and was inflicted by the king’s own brother. In this story, the brother who wounds the Fisher King is known as the “Dark Lord”, and during the fight he is wounded in the left eye, precisely as Dagobert was wounded.
The same thing happened to Horus in Egyptian mythology, fighting his uncle, Set. The “Left Eye of Horus” came to symbolize the hidden knowledge of the gods, just as the “left hand path” does today. Dagobert’s death appears to follow the same patterns as many other fallen kings or murdered gods whose death must be avenged. It is meant to symbolize the concept of the lost or fallen kingdom the same way the Dolorous Stroke does in the Grail story.
Clearly, Dagobert’s death meant the end for the Merovingian kingdom. All subsequent Merovingian kings were essentially powerless, and they were officially thought to have died out with Dagobert’s grandson, Childeric III. 49 years later, Charles Martel’s grandson, Charlemagne was anointed Holy Roman Emperor. But in 872, almost 200 years after his death, Dagobert was canonized as a Saint, and the date of his death, December 23, became “St. Dagobert’s Day.”
Write Baigent, et. al.:
“The reason for Dagobert’s canonization remains unclear. According to one source it was because his relics were believed to have preserved the vicinity of Stenay against Viking raids - though this explanation begs the question, for it is not clear why the relics should have possessed such powers is the first place. Ecclesiastical authorities seem embarrassingly ignorant on the matter. They admit that Dagobert, for some reason, became the object of a fully fledged cult... But they seem utterly at a loss as to why he should have been so exalted. It is possible, of course that the Church felt guilty about its role in the king’s death.”
Guilty, or afraid? For surely they knew that this “Priest-King of the House of Dagon”, with his divine lineage, so beloved by his people that they worship him like a god 200 years later, would of course be avenged for his treacherous murder. Surely they knew, as most Dagobert’s Revenge readers know, that the Merovingian bloodline didn’t die out, surviving through his son Sigisbert, and continues to jockey for the throne of France to this very day through the actions of various royal bloodlines throughout Europe. Surely they knew that this kingdom would rise again, and that the lost king would return someday. The seeds of his return have already been planted.
France is united into the political mass that Dagobert had envisioned it to be when he united Austrasia, and the “Holy Roman Empire”, which the Merovingian kings were clearly attempting to form with the help of the Vatican, has now become a reality in the form of the European Union. During WWII and immediately afterwards, the Priory of Sion, that secret order dedicated to the Merovingian agenda, openly campaigned for a United States of Europe. They even proposed a flag, consisting of stars in a circle, which is identical to the flag used by the European Union today.(10) Furthermore, the world empire of the Atlantean kings who spawned the Merovingians is more complete now than it has ever been since the gods left the earth during the Deluge. The United Nations, a feeble example, will surely give way at some point to a united world government strong enough and glorious enough to be called an empire. The fallen kingdom of the gods is clearly returning, and the new Golden Age is upon us. If this author’s hunch is correct, this is, indeed, a glorious time to be alive.
Endnotes:
(1) Recall that Merovingian King Clovis was buried with a severed horse’s head.
(2) It is also the name of the famous “world mountain” of Eastern tradition.
(3) Note that “mer” is also the origin of the word “mercantile.”
(4) Cain’s name has been said to be the origin of the word “king”
(5) Now we understand why, in the post-mortem photo of Berenger Sauniere lying on his death bed, this small parish priest is seen next to a bishop’s miter.
(6) Uta-Napishtim contains the Sumerian and Egyptian word for fish, “pish”, and perhaps we can see why some authors have claimed that the character of Noah is in fact based on Oannes, Dagon, or Enki as well.
(7) The Book of Enoch refers to the Watchers, or Nephilim, as “stars”, with various “watchtowers” in the houses of the Zodiac. Bear in mind that the ancients saw the sky above as a giant “sea”, the waters of which were kept at bay by the “Firmament of Heaven” - that is, until the Flood.
(8) At this writing, a large sea serpent 20 meters long has just been discovered off the coast of Canada named “Cadborosaurus Willsi”, nicknamed “Caddy.”
(9) Kronos or Saturn is the inspiration for the figures of Capricorn and the Judeo-Christian Satan.
(10) This flag was shown carried by a divine white horse, a symbol of Poseidon and world monarchy.
5. The Serpent God Amun Re
The Serpent God Amun Re
Regenerated himself by becoming a snake and shedding his skin.
http://www.burlingtonnews.net/redhairedmummiesamunre.html
Amun- Re (Amen, Amon) - The Pyramid Text from the Old Kingdom (5th Dynasty, Unas - line 558) show him to be a primeval deity and a symbol of creative force. Most of his prestige came after replacing the war god Montu when he became the principle god of Thebes during Egypt's New Kingdom. By the 25th Dynasty, Amun-Re was " King of the Gods", chief god of the Nubian Kingdom of Napata and by the Ptolemic, or Greek period, he was regarded as the Egyptian equivalent of Zeus. Amun-Re grew so important spiritually and politically, the other gods became mere symbols of his power, or manifestations of Amun-Re. In essence, he became the one and only supreme deity.
He was one of the eight Heh gods of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, where his original consort was Amaunet (Ament). His worship may have originated at Hermopolis, but another possibility was that he functioned early on as a less prominent god at Thebes, where he eventually flourished. The Nubians, however, believed that he originated at Gebel Barkal, located in the modern north of the Sudan.
With the expulsion of the Hyksos rulers of Egypt (middle of the 16th Dynasty) , Amun's growth was accelerated due to the vindication of both Egyptian power and Amun-Re as a protector of both the Egyptian state and the Monarchy. At that time, temples were built and dedicated to Amun throughout Egypt, including the Luxor Temple and the Great Temple at Karnak. His importance during this and later periods is evidenced by the grander and extravagance of these temples. They were enlarged and enriched over the centuries by rulers of Egypt who were eager to express their devotion to Amun-Re.
The Thebes Triad - Origination of the Trinity -
In fact, his growth to that of a national god mirrored the growth of Thebes in importance. This growth was accelerated when Amenemhet I took control of
the thrown at Thebes, and founded the 12th Dynasty. However, the apex of his worship probably occurred during the New Kingdom onward at Thebes, where the important Opet festival was dedicated to Amun. During the Opet Festival, the statue of Amun was conveyed by boat from the temple of Karnak to Luxor in order to celebrate Amun's marriage to Mut in his aspect of Ka-mut-ef (literally, "bull of his mother"). In this capacity, Amun was recognized for his procreative function. Together, Amun and Mut conceived their son, Khonsu, a moon god, to create of the Thebes Triad.
The sacred animal of Amun was originally the Goose, and like Geb, he was sometimes known as the "Great Cackler". Later, Amun was more closely associated with the Ram, a symbol of fertility. At various times he also appears as a man with the head of a frog, the head of a uraeus, the head of a crocodile, or as an ape. However, when depicted as a king, he wears the crown of two plumes, a symbol borrowed from Min, and often sits on a throne. In this form, he is one of nine deities who compose the company of gods of Amen-Ra. In the Greek period (and somewhat earlier, in order to ascribe many attributes to Amun-Re, he was sometimes depicted in bronze with the bearded head of a man, the body of a beetle with the wings of a hawk, the legs of a man and the toes and claws of a lion. He was further provided with four hands and arms and four wings.
The worship surrounding Amun, and later, Amun-Re represented one of ancient Egypt's most complex theologies. In his most mature form, Amun-Re became a hidden, secret god. In fact, his name (Imn), or at least the name by which the ancient Egyptians called him, means "the hidden one" or "the secret one" (though there has been speculation that his name is derived from the Libyan word for water, aman. However, modern context seems to negate this possibility). In reality, however, and according to mythology, both his name and physical appearance were unknown, thus indicating his unknowable essence.
Stated differently, Amun was unknown because he represented absolute holiness, and in this regard, he was different then any other Egyptian deity. So holy was he that he remained independent of the created universe. He was associated with the air as an invisible force, which facilitated his growth as a supreme deity. He was the Egyptian creator deity par excellence, and according to Egyptian myth, was self-created. It was believed that he could regenerate himself by becoming a snake and shedding his skin. At the same time, he remained apart from creation, totally different from it, and fully independent from it.
However, while hidden, the addition to his name of "Re" revealed the god to humanity. Re was the common Egyptian term for the sun, thus making him visible. Hence, the name Amun-Re combined within himself the two opposites of divinity, the hidden and the revealed. As Amun, he was secret, hidden and mysterious, but as Re, he was visible and revealed. In some respects, this even relates to his association with Ma'at, the Egyptian concept of order and balance, and reflects back upon the ancient Egyptian's concepts of duality.
The secret, or hidden attribute of Amun enabled him to be easily synchronized and associated with other deities. At Thebes, Amun was first identified with Montu, but soon replaced him as the city's protector. His association with Re grew in importance when Amenemhet I moved the capital of Egypt to Itjtawy at the apex of the Nile Delta, where the relationship was probably expedient both theologically and politically. However, this association with Re actually grew as Thebes itself gained importance. Soon, Amun was identified with other gods as well, taking on the names (among
others) Amun-Re-Atum, Amun-Re-Montu, Amun-Re-Horakhty and Min-Amun. However, it should be noted that with all of
this synchronization, Amun was not absorbed to create a a new god. Instead, there was a unity of divine power with
these other gods.
Amun-Re was associated with the Egyptian monarchy, and theoretically, rather than threatening the pharaoh's power, the throne was supported by Amun-Re. The ancient theology made Amun-Re the physical father of the king. Hence, the Pharaoh and Amun-Re enjoyed a symbiotic relationship, with the king deriving power from Amun-Re. In return, the king supported the temples and the worship of Amun. In theory, Amun-Re could even take the form of the king in order to impregnate the chief royal wife with the successor to the throne (first documented during the reign of Hatshepsut during the New Kingdom). Furthermore, according to official state theology during the New Kingdom, Egypt was actually ruled by Amun-Re through the pharaohs,
with the god revealing his will through oracles.
In reality, the god did in fact threaten the monarchy, for the cult of Amun-Re became so powerful that its priesthood grew
very large and influential, and at one point, priests of the deity actually came to rule Egypt (during the 21st Dynasty). At
other times, Amun-Re created difficulties for the king, such as in the case of Akhenaten, who sought to change the basic
structure of Egyptian religion. In this instance, Amun-Re eventually proved more powerful then the king, for though
Akhenaten desperately tried to change the nature of Egyptian religion, for such efforts he himself became the scorn of
later pharaohs. After Akhenaten's reign, Egyptian religion almost immediately reverted back to its prior form and to the
worship of Amun-Re.
Regenerated himself by becoming a snake and shedding his skin.
http://www.burlingtonnews.net/redhairedmummiesamunre.html
Amun- Re (Amen, Amon) - The Pyramid Text from the Old Kingdom (5th Dynasty, Unas - line 558) show him to be a primeval deity and a symbol of creative force. Most of his prestige came after replacing the war god Montu when he became the principle god of Thebes during Egypt's New Kingdom. By the 25th Dynasty, Amun-Re was " King of the Gods", chief god of the Nubian Kingdom of Napata and by the Ptolemic, or Greek period, he was regarded as the Egyptian equivalent of Zeus. Amun-Re grew so important spiritually and politically, the other gods became mere symbols of his power, or manifestations of Amun-Re. In essence, he became the one and only supreme deity.
He was one of the eight Heh gods of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, where his original consort was Amaunet (Ament). His worship may have originated at Hermopolis, but another possibility was that he functioned early on as a less prominent god at Thebes, where he eventually flourished. The Nubians, however, believed that he originated at Gebel Barkal, located in the modern north of the Sudan.
With the expulsion of the Hyksos rulers of Egypt (middle of the 16th Dynasty) , Amun's growth was accelerated due to the vindication of both Egyptian power and Amun-Re as a protector of both the Egyptian state and the Monarchy. At that time, temples were built and dedicated to Amun throughout Egypt, including the Luxor Temple and the Great Temple at Karnak. His importance during this and later periods is evidenced by the grander and extravagance of these temples. They were enlarged and enriched over the centuries by rulers of Egypt who were eager to express their devotion to Amun-Re.
The Thebes Triad - Origination of the Trinity -
In fact, his growth to that of a national god mirrored the growth of Thebes in importance. This growth was accelerated when Amenemhet I took control of
the thrown at Thebes, and founded the 12th Dynasty. However, the apex of his worship probably occurred during the New Kingdom onward at Thebes, where the important Opet festival was dedicated to Amun. During the Opet Festival, the statue of Amun was conveyed by boat from the temple of Karnak to Luxor in order to celebrate Amun's marriage to Mut in his aspect of Ka-mut-ef (literally, "bull of his mother"). In this capacity, Amun was recognized for his procreative function. Together, Amun and Mut conceived their son, Khonsu, a moon god, to create of the Thebes Triad.
The sacred animal of Amun was originally the Goose, and like Geb, he was sometimes known as the "Great Cackler". Later, Amun was more closely associated with the Ram, a symbol of fertility. At various times he also appears as a man with the head of a frog, the head of a uraeus, the head of a crocodile, or as an ape. However, when depicted as a king, he wears the crown of two plumes, a symbol borrowed from Min, and often sits on a throne. In this form, he is one of nine deities who compose the company of gods of Amen-Ra. In the Greek period (and somewhat earlier, in order to ascribe many attributes to Amun-Re, he was sometimes depicted in bronze with the bearded head of a man, the body of a beetle with the wings of a hawk, the legs of a man and the toes and claws of a lion. He was further provided with four hands and arms and four wings.
The worship surrounding Amun, and later, Amun-Re represented one of ancient Egypt's most complex theologies. In his most mature form, Amun-Re became a hidden, secret god. In fact, his name (Imn), or at least the name by which the ancient Egyptians called him, means "the hidden one" or "the secret one" (though there has been speculation that his name is derived from the Libyan word for water, aman. However, modern context seems to negate this possibility). In reality, however, and according to mythology, both his name and physical appearance were unknown, thus indicating his unknowable essence.
Stated differently, Amun was unknown because he represented absolute holiness, and in this regard, he was different then any other Egyptian deity. So holy was he that he remained independent of the created universe. He was associated with the air as an invisible force, which facilitated his growth as a supreme deity. He was the Egyptian creator deity par excellence, and according to Egyptian myth, was self-created. It was believed that he could regenerate himself by becoming a snake and shedding his skin. At the same time, he remained apart from creation, totally different from it, and fully independent from it.
However, while hidden, the addition to his name of "Re" revealed the god to humanity. Re was the common Egyptian term for the sun, thus making him visible. Hence, the name Amun-Re combined within himself the two opposites of divinity, the hidden and the revealed. As Amun, he was secret, hidden and mysterious, but as Re, he was visible and revealed. In some respects, this even relates to his association with Ma'at, the Egyptian concept of order and balance, and reflects back upon the ancient Egyptian's concepts of duality.
The secret, or hidden attribute of Amun enabled him to be easily synchronized and associated with other deities. At Thebes, Amun was first identified with Montu, but soon replaced him as the city's protector. His association with Re grew in importance when Amenemhet I moved the capital of Egypt to Itjtawy at the apex of the Nile Delta, where the relationship was probably expedient both theologically and politically. However, this association with Re actually grew as Thebes itself gained importance. Soon, Amun was identified with other gods as well, taking on the names (among
others) Amun-Re-Atum, Amun-Re-Montu, Amun-Re-Horakhty and Min-Amun. However, it should be noted that with all of
this synchronization, Amun was not absorbed to create a a new god. Instead, there was a unity of divine power with
these other gods.
Amun-Re was associated with the Egyptian monarchy, and theoretically, rather than threatening the pharaoh's power, the throne was supported by Amun-Re. The ancient theology made Amun-Re the physical father of the king. Hence, the Pharaoh and Amun-Re enjoyed a symbiotic relationship, with the king deriving power from Amun-Re. In return, the king supported the temples and the worship of Amun. In theory, Amun-Re could even take the form of the king in order to impregnate the chief royal wife with the successor to the throne (first documented during the reign of Hatshepsut during the New Kingdom). Furthermore, according to official state theology during the New Kingdom, Egypt was actually ruled by Amun-Re through the pharaohs,
with the god revealing his will through oracles.
In reality, the god did in fact threaten the monarchy, for the cult of Amun-Re became so powerful that its priesthood grew
very large and influential, and at one point, priests of the deity actually came to rule Egypt (during the 21st Dynasty). At
other times, Amun-Re created difficulties for the king, such as in the case of Akhenaten, who sought to change the basic
structure of Egyptian religion. In this instance, Amun-Re eventually proved more powerful then the king, for though
Akhenaten desperately tried to change the nature of Egyptian religion, for such efforts he himself became the scorn of
later pharaohs. After Akhenaten's reign, Egyptian religion almost immediately reverted back to its prior form and to the
worship of Amun-Re.
References:
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amun-re.htm
Title Author Date Publisher Reference Number
Ancient Gods Speak, The: A Guide to Egyptian Religion Redford, Donald B. 2002 Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-515401-0
Atlas of Ancient Egypt Baines, John; Malek, Jaromir 1980 Les Livres De France None Stated
Egyptian Religion Morenz, Siegfried 1973 Cornell University Press ISBN 0-8014-8029-9
Gods of the Egyptians, The (Studies in Egyptian Mythology) Budge, E. A. Wallis 1969 Dover Publications, Inc. ISBN 486-22056-7
History of Ancient Egypt, A Grimal, Nicolas 1988 Blackwell None Stated
Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, The Shaw, Ian 2000 Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-815034-2
Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity, The McManners, John 1992 Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-285259-0
Valley of the Kings Weeks, Kent R. 2001 Friedman/Fairfax ISBN 1-5866-3295-7
DID YOU KNOW ....
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amun-re.htm
Title Author Date Publisher Reference Number
Ancient Gods Speak, The: A Guide to Egyptian Religion Redford, Donald B. 2002 Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-515401-0
Atlas of Ancient Egypt Baines, John; Malek, Jaromir 1980 Les Livres De France None Stated
Egyptian Religion Morenz, Siegfried 1973 Cornell University Press ISBN 0-8014-8029-9
Gods of the Egyptians, The (Studies in Egyptian Mythology) Budge, E. A. Wallis 1969 Dover Publications, Inc. ISBN 486-22056-7
History of Ancient Egypt, A Grimal, Nicolas 1988 Blackwell None Stated
Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, The Shaw, Ian 2000 Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-815034-2
Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity, The McManners, John 1992 Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-285259-0
Valley of the Kings Weeks, Kent R. 2001 Friedman/Fairfax ISBN 1-5866-3295-7
DID YOU KNOW ....
- The mummy of the wife of King Tutankhamen has auburn hair.
- A mummy with red hair, red mustache and red beard was found
- Red-haired mummies were found in the crocodile-caverns of Aboufaida.
- The book HISTORY OF EGYPTIAN MUMMIES mentions a mummy with reddish-brown hair.
- The mummies of Rameses II and Prince Yuaa have fine silky yellow hair.
- The mummy of another pharaoh, Thothmes II, has light chestnut-colored hair.
- An article in a leading British anthropological journal states that many mummies have dark reddish-brownhair. Professor Vacher De Lapouge described a blond mummy found at Al Amrah, which he says has the face and skull measurements of a typical Gaul or Saxon.
- A blond mummy was found at Kawamil along with many chestnut-colored ones.
- Chestnut-haired mummies have been found at Silsileh.
- The mummy of Queen Tiy has "wavy brown hair."
- Unfortunately, only the mummies of a very few pharaohs have survived to the 20th century, but a large proportion of these
are blond.
- The Egyptians have left us many paintings and statues of blondes and redheads. Amenhotep III's tomb painting shows him as having light red hair. Also, his features are quite caucasian
- A farm scene from around 2000 B.C. in the tomb of the nobleman Meketre shows redheads.
- An Egyptian scribe named Kay at Sakkarah around 2500 B.C. has blue eyes.
- The tomb of Menna (18th Dynasty) at West Thebes shows blond girls.
- The god Horus is usually depicted as white. He is very white in the Papyrus Book of the Dead of Lady Cheritwebeshet (21st Dynasty), found in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
- A very striking painting of a yellow-haired man hunting from a chariot can be found in the tomb of Userhet, Royal Scribe of Amenophis II. The yellow-haired man is Userhet. The same tomb has paintings of blond soldiers. The tomb of Menna also has a wall painting showing a blond man supervising two dark-haired workers scooping grain.
- The Funerary stele (inscribed stone slab)of Priest Remi clearly shows him as having red hair,
- The eye of Horus, the so-called Wedjat Eye. is always blue.
- A very attractive painting is found on the wall of a private tomb in West Thebes from the 18th Dynasty. The two deceased parents are white people with black hair. Mourning them are two pretty fair-skinned girls with light blond hair and their red-haired older brother.
- Queen Thi is painted as having a rosy complexion, blue eyes and blond hair. She was co-ruler with her husband Amenhotep III and it has been said of their rule. "The reign of Amenhotep III was the culminating point in Egyptian history, for never again, in spite of the exalted effort of the Ramessides, did Egypt occupy so exalted a place among the nations of the world as she had in his time."
- Amenhotep III looks northern European in his statues.
- Paintings of people with red hair and blue eyes were found at the tomb of Bagt in Beni Hassan. Many other tombs at Beni Hassan have paintings of individuals with blond and red hair as well as blue eyes.
- Paintings of blonds and redheads have been found among the tombs at Thebes.
- Blond hair and blue eyes were painted at the tomb of Pharaoh Menphtah in the valley of the Kings.
- Paintings from the Third Dynasty show native Egyptians with red hair and blue eyes. They are shepherds, workers and bricklayers.
- A blond woman was painted at the tomb of Djeser-ka-ra-seneb in Thebes.
- A model of a ship from about 2500 B.C. is manned by five blond sailors.
- The god Nuit was painted as white and blond.
- A painting at the tomb of Meresankh III at Giza, from about 2485 B.C., shows white skin and red hair.
- Two statues from about 2570 B.C., found in the tombs at Medum, show Prince Rahotep and his wife Nofret. He has light
green stones for eyes. She has violet-blue stones.
- A painting from Iteti's tomb at Saqqara shows a very Nordic-looking man with blond hair.
- Grafton Smith mentions the distinctly red hair of the 18th Dynasty mummy Henutmehet.
- Harvard Professor Carleton Coon, in his book THE RACES OF EUROPE, tells us that "many of the officials, courtiers, and priests, representing the upper class of Egyptian society but not the royalty, looked strikingly like modern Europeans, especially long-headed ones." (Note: Nordics are long-headed.) Long-headed Europeans are most common in Britain, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and northern Germany.
- Time-Life books put out a volume called RAMESES II THE GREAT. It has a good picture of the blond mummy of Rameses II. Another picture can be found in the book X-RAYING THE PHARAOHS, especially the picture on the jacket cover. It shows his yellow hair.
- A book called CHRONICLE OF THE PHARAOHS was recently published showing paintings, sculptures and mummies of 189 pharaohs and leading personalities of Ancient Egypt. Of these, 102 appear European, 13 look Black, and the rest are hard to classify. All nine mummies look like our Europeans.
- The very first pharaoh, Narmer, also known as Menes, looks very Caucasion
- The same can be said for Khufu's cousin Hemon, who designed the Great Pyramid of Giza, with help from Imhotep. A computer-generated reconstruction of the face of the Sphinx shows a European-looking face. It was once painted sunburned red. The Egyptians often painted upper class men as red and upper class women as white; this is because the men became sun-burned or tanned while outside under the burning Egyptian sun. The women, however, usually stayed inside.
- In 1902, E. A. Wallis Budge, the renowned Egyptologist, described the pre-dynastic Egyptians thus:
- "The predynastic Egyptians, that is to say, that stratum of them which was indigenous to North Africa, belonged to a white or light-skinned race with fair hair, who in many particulars resembled the Libyans, who in later historical times lived very near the western bank of the Nile." [E. A. W. Budge, Egypt in the Neolithic and Archaic Periods (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Trübner, 1902), p. 49.]
- Later, in the same book, Budge referred to a pre-dynastic statuette that: "has eyes inlaid with lapis-lazuli, by which we are probably intended to understand that the woman here represented had blue eyes." [Ibid., p. 51.]
- In 1925, the Oxford don L. H. Dudley Buxton, wrote the following concerning ancient Egyptian crania:
- "Among the ancient crania from the Thebaid in the collection in the Department of Human Anatomy in Oxford, there are specimens which must unhesitatingly be considered to be those of Nordic type. [L. H. D. Buxton, The Peoples of Asia (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Trübner, 1925), p. 50.]
- The Scottish physical anthropologist Robert Gayre has written, that in his considered opinion:
- "Ancient Egypt, for instance, was essentially a penetration of Caucasoid racial elements into Africa . . . This civilisation grew out of the settlement of Mediterraneans, Armenoids, even Nordics, and Atlantics in North Africa . . ." [R. Gayre of Gayre, Miscellaneous Racial Studies, 1943-1972 (Edinburgh: Armorial, 1972), p. 85.]
- When English archaeologist Howard Carter excavated the tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922, he discovered in the Treasury a small wooden sarcophagus. Within it lay a memento of Tutankhamen's beloved grandmother, Queen Tiye: "a curl of her auburn hair." [C. Desroches-Noblecourt, Tutankhamen: Life and Death of a Pharaoh (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972), p. 65.] (See mummy picture)
- Queen Tiye (18th Dynasty), was the daughter of Thuya, a Priestess of the God Amun. Thuya's mummy, which was found in 1905, has long, red-blonde hair. Examinations of Tiye's mummy proved that she bore a striking resemblance to her mother. [B. Adams, Egyptian Mummies (Aylesbury: Shire Publications, 1988), p. 39.] (See mummy picture)
- A painting of the mother of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (18th Dynasty), reveals that she had blonde hair, blue eyes and a rosy complexion. [W. Sieglin, Die blonden Haare der indogermanischen Völker des Altertums (Munich: J. F. Lehmanns Verlag, 1935), p. 132.]
- Princess Ranofri, a daughter of Pharaoh Tuthmosis III (18th Dynasty), is depicted as a blonde in a wall painting that was recorded in the 19th century, by the Italian Egyptologist Ippolito Rosellini. [Ibid., p. 132.]
- In 1929 archaeologists discovered the mummy of fifty year-old Queen Meryet-Amun (another daughter of Tuthmosis III); the mummy has wavy, light-brown hair. [R. B. Partridge, Faces of Pharaohs (London: Rubicon Press, 1994), p. 91.]
- American Egyptologist Donald P. Ryan excavated tomb KV 60, in the Valley of the Kings, during the course of 1989. Inside, he found the mummy of a royal female, which he believes to be the long-lost remains of the great Queen Hatshepsut (18th Dynasty). Ryan describes the mummy as follows:
- "The mummy was mostly unwrapped and on its back. Strands of reddish-blond hair lay on the floor beneath the bald head." [Ibid., p. 87.]
- Manetho, a Graeco-Egyptian priest who flourished in the 3rd century BC, wrote in his Egyptian History, that the last ruler of the 6th Dynasty was a woman by the name of Queen Nitocris. He has this to say about her:
- "There was a queen Nitocris, braver than all the men of her time, the most beautiful of all the women, blonde-haired with rosy cheeks. By her, it is said, the third pyramid was reared, with the aspect of a mountain." [W. G. Waddell, Manetho (London: William Heinemann, 1980), p. 57.]
- According to the Graeco-Roman authors Pliny the Elder, Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, the Third Pyramid was built by a woman named Rhodopis. When translated from the original Greek, her name means "rosy-cheeked". [G. A. Wainwright, The Sky-Religion in Egypt (Cambridge: University Press, 1938), p. 42.]
- We may also note that a tomb painting recorded by the German Egyptologist C. R. Lepsius in the 1840s, depicts a blonde.
Oil Painting by Robert Pope
6. Image Streaming -- Surfing the Imaginal
IMAGE STREAMING:
A Soulful Exploration of the Creative Mindfield
Part I: Imagination, Part II: Creativity
by Iona Miller, O.A.K., 3-2004
Summary: The image stream or imaginal process is our primary experience and permeates and conditions all facets of human life. We tend to take the background noise of the constant imaginal flux of the stream of consciousness for granted. We rarely focus our conscious awareness on this imaginal wellspring, but sometimes it intrudes on consciousness during our gaps in awareness – day dreaming, fantasies, reverie, lacunae, inspiration, discovery. This slipstream of emergent dynamic imagery is often the subject of psychotherapy and the source of creativity and visionary art. It is the voice of our Muse, our genius, if we but listen instinctively and respond to the initiatory call.
Exploration of the soul or mindfield is possible through imagination. The dynamic mindscape underlies our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Imagination is both a realm or domain of experience and a human faculty. Images come in from the outside through our senses, and are also produced autonomously from the unconscious as a perpetual multisensory narrative of experience, immediate though often metaphorical in nature. Meaningful signals or mental forms emerge from the amorphous background.
Creative genius can express a momentary fusion or sustained connection with the unconscious fount of creativity that is then expressed and manifested in some form, dynamic or concrete. Researchers are discovering the neurobiology of the creative process, including latent inhibition, sleep patterns, temperament, neuropeptides, limbic system and nondominant hemisphere function. Chaos theory shows how unpredictable forces such as creativity manifest in self-organization within constraint.
The world is but a canvas to the imagination. ~ Henry David Thoreau
The world of imagination is the world of eternity. ~ William Blake
Of the essence of things, of absolute being, we know nothing. But we experience various effects: from ‘outside’ by way of the senses, from ‘inside’ by way of imagination. ~ C.G. Jung (CW 7, 355)
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. ~ A.A. Milne
Getting swamped by new information that you have difficulty handling may predispose you to a mental disorder, but if you have high intelligence and a good working memory, you are more likely to be able to combine bits of new information in creative ways. ~Shelly Carson, Harvard psychologist
Keywords: Imagination, nature of creativity, creative process, image, imaginal, unpredictability, latent inhibition, sleep cycles, serotonin, dopamine, limbic system, ANS, nondominant hemisphere, synesthesia, conceptual space, visionary art, Jung, archetypal psychology, dreams, chaos theory, conceptual space.
PART I: IMAGINATION
Introduction
We live fully immersed in an invisible vortex of pure hyperinformation, an autonomous stream of imagery, originating both internally and externally. It is primordial Chaos, the timeless, infinite sea of universal consciousness from which all structure arises. Images come in from outside through our senses, and are generated internally by unconscious dynamics as an immediate multisensory narrative of experience, often metaphorical in nature.
For metaphor to elicit nuance it must be fresh, not dead; it must shock the mind into wonder by opening up a gap, an abyss, a void. The patterning principle transcends and contains all forms. Imagery is the natural expression of the pregnant void urgently fleshing itself out to the fullest extent. These images are not ‘ours’, but arise from the primordial mindfield.
This image stream, full of unborn information, is the subject of psychotherapy and the source of creativity and visionary art. Imagery is an expression of unconscious processing and conversely helps us penetrate unconscious processes. The images metaphorically reflect the core of our being, the place we have made for ourselves in the world. They offer deeper insight into our truth, a way of exploring internal and external hindrances to flow and unbroken wholeness.
Creative genius can express a momentary or sustained connection with this unconscious fount of creativity that is then manifested in some form, dynamic or concrete. During flux, many futures exist. Images penetrate and permeate latent networks operating outside the bounds of awareness.
The probabilities of evolutionary transformation emerge from total potential as pluralistic chaos erupts into awareness as motivation. In the creative process, one path is amplified and chosen. Its essence is evolutionary, following nature’s lead, based on intensification of consciousness. It takes clarity in science and art to see what no one else has ever imagined.
Art, like science, is a vocation or calling, a path toward truth and self-realization, for both maker and spectator. Revolutionary art and visionary physics are both investigations into the nature of reality, and the organization of our perceptions. Gauguin said, “There are only two kinds of artists -- revolutionaries and plagarists.” Revolutionary work marks a transition in a civilization’s worldview. Arguably, today that marriage of art and science is embodied in new media: digital and electronic arts.
Art helps us remember who we truly are, who we will become. Information is infused by resonance through direct experience, evoking creative ideas, feelings, and motivated behavior. Interactive art functions in a similar way as dynamic experience. It unpredictably seduces and surprises, shattering pre-existent notions.
Imagery unfolds as self-revealing visual or multisensory narrative. It attracts – even commands -- our attention, consciously and unconsciously. It invites entrainment through ‘recognition’, providing the energy for follow through in the creative process. We are stimulated, emotionally charged or enflammed, and respond to it intentionally, even compulsively. It drives us.
When we believe in and follow that impulse, what was pure potential crystallizes waves of psychophysical energy and becomes manifest. Each image emerges from the creative context that links all events, real and imaginal – the underlying destructured phenomenal field – the meaningful void of the transcendent imagination.
Venture in the Slipstream
Arieti (1967:337) tells us that "the creative process consists of an unconscious animation of the archetype." This animation consists in a transformation of the fearsome aspects of archetype and dream into creative fantasy in the waking world (Gowan, 1975).
Some of us are more acutely aware of the imaginal, more open to the reflective instinct. The perpetual stream of consciousness is undergird by a dynamic flux of multisensory imagery, which springs from the creative fountain within us all. We imagine rather than perceive images. Images are a dynamic meld of multimodal textures. Imagination itself has an intermediary status between the physical and conceptual level of spirit.
Morphing images are the only reality we apprehend directly. When we look at fantasy images we see the face of instinctual libido staring back at us. Fantasy is an imaginal activity that is the flow of psychic energy. Image and meaning are identical, embodied perpetually in the dynamically shifting image stream. The entire image conveys its own mood and meaning instinctually and does not require analysis or interpretation.
Images only relate indirectly to external reality. An image carries its own inherent meaning which is sort of a ‘condensed expression of the psychic situation as a whole.’ Further, ‘the image is an expression of the unconscious as well as the conscious situation of the moment,’ according to Jung.
Images are self-revelatory. Imagination is a direct expression of psychic life. Imagination flows forth from the imaginal field continually, self-organizing its multisensory narrative and conditioning our experiences. In fact, this imaginal dimension is our experience. Everything we perceive of ourselves, others and world is filtered through it.
Psyche is a cornucopia of emergent imagery, spewing forth from the primal fount of creativity, ever born anew with each and every moment. ‘Images’ are soul, in that it is impossible to experience soul, except through the imagination. Multisensory images are distinguished from symbols as they are particularized by a specific context, mood, and scene. Symbols converge in the subtle net or matrix of dynamic imagery.
Imagination has a discrete redemptive and regenerative power. Exploration of the soul is possible through imagination. Soul, or imagination, is both a realm or domain of experience and a human faculty. Imagination embodies the power of transformation. It can be accessed through obvious imagery, such as dreams, vision and other sensory analogs, or viewed directly in artistic inspiration, psychophysical symptoms, behavior patterns, emotional patterns, mental concepts, and spiritual beliefs.
The realm of soul joins those of matter and spirit by functioning as connective mediatrix. McConeghey (2003) taps into the ancient notion that "perceiving is breathing," to break through the constrictions of usual art "training," freeing the uniqueness of one’s own vision and the soul’s joy in making. The soul is always "seeing" and making images, and images are a natural function of the psyche’s eye. Images are thus the very breath of life and necessary for a vital soul.
Ancient philosophers and Jungians call this personified image making faculty the Anima Mundi or World Soul. Soul, or the imaginal realm, is the ‘Mother of all possibilities.’
‘The hiddeness and invisibility of an image lies not in the fact that it contains something apart from its appearance, but in its ‘multiple ambiguity of meanings.’ The sensual qualities of an image – form, color, texture – are not copied from objects and they replace reality as in visions or hallucinations. To put it paradoxically, images are real precisely because they do not correspond to anything in the so-called outer or objective world of our ordinary experience...hallucination (whether physical or psychedelic) pertains to perceptions, whereas images pertain to imagination.’ (Avens).
Jung stated bluntly that fantasy or imagination is reality. But he meant it on a deeper, far more fundamental level than simple daydreaming. At the most basic level of psychic reality are fantasy images. These images are the primary activity of consciousness. This ongoing fantasy activity, a vital process that Jung states cannot be explained as mere ‘reflex action to sensory stimuli’, is a continuously creative act – through fantasy “the psyche creates reality every day.” (CW 6, 78).
Images are not contained in the psyche, but are the psyche. We needn’t go to sleep to experience the stream of consciousness emerging from this intermediary world, which lies between the senses and the transpersonal spiritual world. ‘Dreaming out loud’, artists are able to make this living stream palpable, tangible. Imagination is tied to the world of sense awareness, both in the sense of perceptual ability and sense of significance.
Into the Mystic We can experience this aboriginal level of awareness through mythical and artistic imagination, which means watching images in the psyche’s mirror. What is required for this development is the artform of ‘being fully attentive and at the same time relaxed.’ Reverie is conducive to irrational awareness and noticing what comes before us in the inner theatre.
Images ‘mean what they are and are what they mean.’ They embody meaning in the most immediate sense. Their meaning exists only in their creation while they are created or emergent. Dreams are not the only images we perceive. Dreaming continues while we are awake.
The stream of imagery is ceaseless. An image includes mood, context, and scene pervading the whole body with experience. Scent, touch, and taste, as well as auditory and visual aspects constitute the image. An image commands the immediacy of attention.
‘…An image does not have to contain any symbols or motifs that usually are considered archetypal. An image does not have to be shocking, freakish, or sick to work. An image does not have to be emotion literalized (“I felt frightened”). There do not have to be big affects or explicit emotional words to make one feel the mood in an image or its emotional weight. Emotion as mood, as textural feel, is given with every image. None of the overt implications of an image have to be literally evident, because through precisely portraying the patterns, as Jung said, the implications emerge.’ (Hillman,1977).
James Hillman calls the unfathomable depth of the image love. Love for the image is an Aphroditic or erotic function. We needn’t worry about ‘inner’ vs. ‘outer’ nor other mental distinctions, which come after-the-fact.
What we need, and what many artists bring to their work, is a form of love for images, which consists of watchful attention or sustained attention – a way of honoring and entering that flow, field or domain. Through this attention or love for images, we connect with the impersonal dimension of life, which is the source of dreams, myths, tales, art, and religious beliefs and rituals.
‘One could also say that images possess the character of necessity and inexorability because, instead of reflecting another reality, they signify and image themselves; they are necessarily what they appear to be. Image is psyche. To maintain, therefore, with Jung that human reality is primarily psychic and that the image is the primordial and immediate presentation of this reality, means that…they are shaped presences of necessity.’ (Avens:45-6).
‘Imaginal’ is an adjective, sometimes used to refer to the imaginal realm rather than using the noun. Again, the soul is the imaginal realm. So that which is imaginal partakes of the nature and quality of the soul by manifesting as image. An image begins to make sense as we intuit its significance. Images ‘make sense’ and literally become sensory. They make psyche matter.
Hillman maintains that the imaginal brings a sense of distrust or shame in its wake, but that “the real shame is that there is fantasy at all, because the revelation of the imaginal is the revelations of the uncontrollable, spontaneous, spirit, an immortal or divine part of the soul, the memoria Dei…The revelation of fantasies exposes the divine, which implies that our fantasies are alien because they are not ours. They arise from the transpersonal background.”
Hillman feels that images are not eternal but present an eternal quality because all parts in an image are happening at once. Images function in nonlinear sacred time, not on a logical narrative time line. Therefore, there is no question of “this happened, and then that happened.” Actually, all parts are going on simultaneously. For example, while looking at a painting, your eye may scan different parts at different times, but the entire scene is displayed continually – a gestalt.
Further, he suggests the actual words of the image to grasp its significance. He says, “Synesthesia is how imagination images.” So imagination is a process of cross sensory blending. An image becomes not what we see, but the way we see it. Imagination can therefore be defined more closely as the subtle sensing of the prepositional relations among events – dynamic connectivity, or complexity.
We experience fantasies as part of our conscious life. The unconscious is simply “unawareness of the all-pervasive presence of the imaginal in our so-called conscious life…The numinosity of the unconscious is due solely to its radically imaginal character which must remain invisible to our day-light consciousness.”
Experience of the transpersonal quality of the imaginal realm comes through a clear awareness of the immediacy of being, i.e. the momentary constellations of archetypal images, which are undeniably real. We are not real if we deny our dependence on psychic reality, which we experience as images. When considering the imaginal realm of the soul, we are our images.
Imagination is another word for soul, that middle ground where life and meaning merge. According to Avens “the function of imagination is to make palpable the fact that matter in its subjective (expressive) aspect is spirit, and the spirit, regarded objectively, is the material world.” Imagination is the realm of sacred psychology, which approaches the gods through imagining and personifying, rather than through explicit ritual, prayer, and sacrifice of a religious orientation. Likewise, the artist relies on the former process for inspiration.
Imaginal thinking is an experience of patterns or configurational wholes, which provides direct experience of our oneness with outer reality. Imagination is the primary reality, with a non-verbal logic of its own. Naomi Goldenberg, (213-4) says, “The task then becomes one of awareness of soul through its own expressions – through its language of metaphor. Once imagination is recognized as the realm of soul, we need imaginal inroads.”
A Soulful Exploration of the Creative Mindfield
Part I: Imagination, Part II: Creativity
by Iona Miller, O.A.K., 3-2004
Summary: The image stream or imaginal process is our primary experience and permeates and conditions all facets of human life. We tend to take the background noise of the constant imaginal flux of the stream of consciousness for granted. We rarely focus our conscious awareness on this imaginal wellspring, but sometimes it intrudes on consciousness during our gaps in awareness – day dreaming, fantasies, reverie, lacunae, inspiration, discovery. This slipstream of emergent dynamic imagery is often the subject of psychotherapy and the source of creativity and visionary art. It is the voice of our Muse, our genius, if we but listen instinctively and respond to the initiatory call.
Exploration of the soul or mindfield is possible through imagination. The dynamic mindscape underlies our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Imagination is both a realm or domain of experience and a human faculty. Images come in from the outside through our senses, and are also produced autonomously from the unconscious as a perpetual multisensory narrative of experience, immediate though often metaphorical in nature. Meaningful signals or mental forms emerge from the amorphous background.
Creative genius can express a momentary fusion or sustained connection with the unconscious fount of creativity that is then expressed and manifested in some form, dynamic or concrete. Researchers are discovering the neurobiology of the creative process, including latent inhibition, sleep patterns, temperament, neuropeptides, limbic system and nondominant hemisphere function. Chaos theory shows how unpredictable forces such as creativity manifest in self-organization within constraint.
The world is but a canvas to the imagination. ~ Henry David Thoreau
The world of imagination is the world of eternity. ~ William Blake
Of the essence of things, of absolute being, we know nothing. But we experience various effects: from ‘outside’ by way of the senses, from ‘inside’ by way of imagination. ~ C.G. Jung (CW 7, 355)
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. ~ A.A. Milne
Getting swamped by new information that you have difficulty handling may predispose you to a mental disorder, but if you have high intelligence and a good working memory, you are more likely to be able to combine bits of new information in creative ways. ~Shelly Carson, Harvard psychologist
Keywords: Imagination, nature of creativity, creative process, image, imaginal, unpredictability, latent inhibition, sleep cycles, serotonin, dopamine, limbic system, ANS, nondominant hemisphere, synesthesia, conceptual space, visionary art, Jung, archetypal psychology, dreams, chaos theory, conceptual space.
PART I: IMAGINATION
Introduction
We live fully immersed in an invisible vortex of pure hyperinformation, an autonomous stream of imagery, originating both internally and externally. It is primordial Chaos, the timeless, infinite sea of universal consciousness from which all structure arises. Images come in from outside through our senses, and are generated internally by unconscious dynamics as an immediate multisensory narrative of experience, often metaphorical in nature.
For metaphor to elicit nuance it must be fresh, not dead; it must shock the mind into wonder by opening up a gap, an abyss, a void. The patterning principle transcends and contains all forms. Imagery is the natural expression of the pregnant void urgently fleshing itself out to the fullest extent. These images are not ‘ours’, but arise from the primordial mindfield.
This image stream, full of unborn information, is the subject of psychotherapy and the source of creativity and visionary art. Imagery is an expression of unconscious processing and conversely helps us penetrate unconscious processes. The images metaphorically reflect the core of our being, the place we have made for ourselves in the world. They offer deeper insight into our truth, a way of exploring internal and external hindrances to flow and unbroken wholeness.
Creative genius can express a momentary or sustained connection with this unconscious fount of creativity that is then manifested in some form, dynamic or concrete. During flux, many futures exist. Images penetrate and permeate latent networks operating outside the bounds of awareness.
The probabilities of evolutionary transformation emerge from total potential as pluralistic chaos erupts into awareness as motivation. In the creative process, one path is amplified and chosen. Its essence is evolutionary, following nature’s lead, based on intensification of consciousness. It takes clarity in science and art to see what no one else has ever imagined.
Art, like science, is a vocation or calling, a path toward truth and self-realization, for both maker and spectator. Revolutionary art and visionary physics are both investigations into the nature of reality, and the organization of our perceptions. Gauguin said, “There are only two kinds of artists -- revolutionaries and plagarists.” Revolutionary work marks a transition in a civilization’s worldview. Arguably, today that marriage of art and science is embodied in new media: digital and electronic arts.
Art helps us remember who we truly are, who we will become. Information is infused by resonance through direct experience, evoking creative ideas, feelings, and motivated behavior. Interactive art functions in a similar way as dynamic experience. It unpredictably seduces and surprises, shattering pre-existent notions.
Imagery unfolds as self-revealing visual or multisensory narrative. It attracts – even commands -- our attention, consciously and unconsciously. It invites entrainment through ‘recognition’, providing the energy for follow through in the creative process. We are stimulated, emotionally charged or enflammed, and respond to it intentionally, even compulsively. It drives us.
When we believe in and follow that impulse, what was pure potential crystallizes waves of psychophysical energy and becomes manifest. Each image emerges from the creative context that links all events, real and imaginal – the underlying destructured phenomenal field – the meaningful void of the transcendent imagination.
Venture in the Slipstream
Arieti (1967:337) tells us that "the creative process consists of an unconscious animation of the archetype." This animation consists in a transformation of the fearsome aspects of archetype and dream into creative fantasy in the waking world (Gowan, 1975).
Some of us are more acutely aware of the imaginal, more open to the reflective instinct. The perpetual stream of consciousness is undergird by a dynamic flux of multisensory imagery, which springs from the creative fountain within us all. We imagine rather than perceive images. Images are a dynamic meld of multimodal textures. Imagination itself has an intermediary status between the physical and conceptual level of spirit.
Morphing images are the only reality we apprehend directly. When we look at fantasy images we see the face of instinctual libido staring back at us. Fantasy is an imaginal activity that is the flow of psychic energy. Image and meaning are identical, embodied perpetually in the dynamically shifting image stream. The entire image conveys its own mood and meaning instinctually and does not require analysis or interpretation.
Images only relate indirectly to external reality. An image carries its own inherent meaning which is sort of a ‘condensed expression of the psychic situation as a whole.’ Further, ‘the image is an expression of the unconscious as well as the conscious situation of the moment,’ according to Jung.
Images are self-revelatory. Imagination is a direct expression of psychic life. Imagination flows forth from the imaginal field continually, self-organizing its multisensory narrative and conditioning our experiences. In fact, this imaginal dimension is our experience. Everything we perceive of ourselves, others and world is filtered through it.
Psyche is a cornucopia of emergent imagery, spewing forth from the primal fount of creativity, ever born anew with each and every moment. ‘Images’ are soul, in that it is impossible to experience soul, except through the imagination. Multisensory images are distinguished from symbols as they are particularized by a specific context, mood, and scene. Symbols converge in the subtle net or matrix of dynamic imagery.
Imagination has a discrete redemptive and regenerative power. Exploration of the soul is possible through imagination. Soul, or imagination, is both a realm or domain of experience and a human faculty. Imagination embodies the power of transformation. It can be accessed through obvious imagery, such as dreams, vision and other sensory analogs, or viewed directly in artistic inspiration, psychophysical symptoms, behavior patterns, emotional patterns, mental concepts, and spiritual beliefs.
The realm of soul joins those of matter and spirit by functioning as connective mediatrix. McConeghey (2003) taps into the ancient notion that "perceiving is breathing," to break through the constrictions of usual art "training," freeing the uniqueness of one’s own vision and the soul’s joy in making. The soul is always "seeing" and making images, and images are a natural function of the psyche’s eye. Images are thus the very breath of life and necessary for a vital soul.
Ancient philosophers and Jungians call this personified image making faculty the Anima Mundi or World Soul. Soul, or the imaginal realm, is the ‘Mother of all possibilities.’
‘The hiddeness and invisibility of an image lies not in the fact that it contains something apart from its appearance, but in its ‘multiple ambiguity of meanings.’ The sensual qualities of an image – form, color, texture – are not copied from objects and they replace reality as in visions or hallucinations. To put it paradoxically, images are real precisely because they do not correspond to anything in the so-called outer or objective world of our ordinary experience...hallucination (whether physical or psychedelic) pertains to perceptions, whereas images pertain to imagination.’ (Avens).
Jung stated bluntly that fantasy or imagination is reality. But he meant it on a deeper, far more fundamental level than simple daydreaming. At the most basic level of psychic reality are fantasy images. These images are the primary activity of consciousness. This ongoing fantasy activity, a vital process that Jung states cannot be explained as mere ‘reflex action to sensory stimuli’, is a continuously creative act – through fantasy “the psyche creates reality every day.” (CW 6, 78).
Images are not contained in the psyche, but are the psyche. We needn’t go to sleep to experience the stream of consciousness emerging from this intermediary world, which lies between the senses and the transpersonal spiritual world. ‘Dreaming out loud’, artists are able to make this living stream palpable, tangible. Imagination is tied to the world of sense awareness, both in the sense of perceptual ability and sense of significance.
Into the Mystic We can experience this aboriginal level of awareness through mythical and artistic imagination, which means watching images in the psyche’s mirror. What is required for this development is the artform of ‘being fully attentive and at the same time relaxed.’ Reverie is conducive to irrational awareness and noticing what comes before us in the inner theatre.
Images ‘mean what they are and are what they mean.’ They embody meaning in the most immediate sense. Their meaning exists only in their creation while they are created or emergent. Dreams are not the only images we perceive. Dreaming continues while we are awake.
The stream of imagery is ceaseless. An image includes mood, context, and scene pervading the whole body with experience. Scent, touch, and taste, as well as auditory and visual aspects constitute the image. An image commands the immediacy of attention.
‘…An image does not have to contain any symbols or motifs that usually are considered archetypal. An image does not have to be shocking, freakish, or sick to work. An image does not have to be emotion literalized (“I felt frightened”). There do not have to be big affects or explicit emotional words to make one feel the mood in an image or its emotional weight. Emotion as mood, as textural feel, is given with every image. None of the overt implications of an image have to be literally evident, because through precisely portraying the patterns, as Jung said, the implications emerge.’ (Hillman,1977).
James Hillman calls the unfathomable depth of the image love. Love for the image is an Aphroditic or erotic function. We needn’t worry about ‘inner’ vs. ‘outer’ nor other mental distinctions, which come after-the-fact.
What we need, and what many artists bring to their work, is a form of love for images, which consists of watchful attention or sustained attention – a way of honoring and entering that flow, field or domain. Through this attention or love for images, we connect with the impersonal dimension of life, which is the source of dreams, myths, tales, art, and religious beliefs and rituals.
‘One could also say that images possess the character of necessity and inexorability because, instead of reflecting another reality, they signify and image themselves; they are necessarily what they appear to be. Image is psyche. To maintain, therefore, with Jung that human reality is primarily psychic and that the image is the primordial and immediate presentation of this reality, means that…they are shaped presences of necessity.’ (Avens:45-6).
‘Imaginal’ is an adjective, sometimes used to refer to the imaginal realm rather than using the noun. Again, the soul is the imaginal realm. So that which is imaginal partakes of the nature and quality of the soul by manifesting as image. An image begins to make sense as we intuit its significance. Images ‘make sense’ and literally become sensory. They make psyche matter.
Hillman maintains that the imaginal brings a sense of distrust or shame in its wake, but that “the real shame is that there is fantasy at all, because the revelation of the imaginal is the revelations of the uncontrollable, spontaneous, spirit, an immortal or divine part of the soul, the memoria Dei…The revelation of fantasies exposes the divine, which implies that our fantasies are alien because they are not ours. They arise from the transpersonal background.”
Hillman feels that images are not eternal but present an eternal quality because all parts in an image are happening at once. Images function in nonlinear sacred time, not on a logical narrative time line. Therefore, there is no question of “this happened, and then that happened.” Actually, all parts are going on simultaneously. For example, while looking at a painting, your eye may scan different parts at different times, but the entire scene is displayed continually – a gestalt.
Further, he suggests the actual words of the image to grasp its significance. He says, “Synesthesia is how imagination images.” So imagination is a process of cross sensory blending. An image becomes not what we see, but the way we see it. Imagination can therefore be defined more closely as the subtle sensing of the prepositional relations among events – dynamic connectivity, or complexity.
We experience fantasies as part of our conscious life. The unconscious is simply “unawareness of the all-pervasive presence of the imaginal in our so-called conscious life…The numinosity of the unconscious is due solely to its radically imaginal character which must remain invisible to our day-light consciousness.”
Experience of the transpersonal quality of the imaginal realm comes through a clear awareness of the immediacy of being, i.e. the momentary constellations of archetypal images, which are undeniably real. We are not real if we deny our dependence on psychic reality, which we experience as images. When considering the imaginal realm of the soul, we are our images.
Imagination is another word for soul, that middle ground where life and meaning merge. According to Avens “the function of imagination is to make palpable the fact that matter in its subjective (expressive) aspect is spirit, and the spirit, regarded objectively, is the material world.” Imagination is the realm of sacred psychology, which approaches the gods through imagining and personifying, rather than through explicit ritual, prayer, and sacrifice of a religious orientation. Likewise, the artist relies on the former process for inspiration.
Imaginal thinking is an experience of patterns or configurational wholes, which provides direct experience of our oneness with outer reality. Imagination is the primary reality, with a non-verbal logic of its own. Naomi Goldenberg, (213-4) says, “The task then becomes one of awareness of soul through its own expressions – through its language of metaphor. Once imagination is recognized as the realm of soul, we need imaginal inroads.”
7. The Egyptian Grail Quest
http://www.philipcoppens.com/sog_art1.html
The Book of Thoth: the original and true Grail?
by Philip Coppens
We all know the story that the very name “alchemy” is supposed to be derived from the land of Egypt: “Al-Khemit”. Egypt itself was a symbol of alchemy, the outcome of a transformative substance: the Egyptian soil, deposited by the Nile, allowing farmers to grow their crops and feed the nation. No wonder that the Nile was considered to be at the origin of all life; for the ancient Egyptians, it was.
We also know how our modern chemistry is derived from medieval alchemical practices. It seems that what was held as science were those aspects of alchemy that were clearly and without any doubt repeatable and demonstrable.
What is less known, is that at the very heart of ancient Egypt, at the centre of their knowledge, was “the Book of Thoth”, one of the first, if not the first, “alchemical manuals”. This “body of knowledge”, for a book, such as the Corpus Hermeticum, was literally seen as a “body” of the god, whether Hermes or his Egyptian equivalent Thoth, consisted of two parts. Part one was a manual containing magic for the heavens, the earth, etc. Part two was a manual to attain knowledge of immortality [Ref. Triangular Book of St. Germain-io] – and perhaps the latter may not have been radically different from the so-called Book of the Dead, which was all about attaining immortality. The Book was nothing more than a set of instructions, which is what magic is all about.
The heart of the cult of Thoth was Hermopolis. Hermopolis was located on the west bank of the Nile, about midway between Thebes and Memphis, across the Nile from Akhetaten, the new Egyptian capital founded by the rebel pharaoh Akhenaten. The Ancient Egyptian name of the city, Khmun, means the “8-town”, after the group of eight deities (Ogdoad) who represented the world before creation. The name Khmun, of course, is close to Khem; or should we read “alchemy” as al-Khmun?
Thoth’s cult, like all others, championed its own creation myth. On the Island of Flame, four elements had come into being at the same time. Together with the unnamed creator, they were the Great Five – the Fifth Element. The Pyramid Texts said that “the Waters spoke to Infinity, Nothingness, Nowhere, and Darkness” and creation began. The four became eight – male and female. Out of the union of the eight came the primeval egg and out of the egg came the light of the sun. Already, with its emphasis on the four elements (Earth, Water, Fire, Air) and its numerical sequence of multiplication, we are very close to the core of medieval alchemy.
In a Ptolemaic papyrus, we read how Thoth wrote the book with his own hand and in it was all the magic in the world. “If you read the first page, you will enchant the sky, the earth, the abyss, the mountain, and the sea: you will understand the language of birds in the air, and you will know what the creeping things in the earth are saying, and you will see the fishes from the darkest depths of the sea.” Such promises are clearly linked to shamanic powers and as the Egyptian civilisation developed out of a native shamanic culture, we should not at all be surprised. “If you read the other page, even though you are dead and in the world of ghosts, you could come back to the earth in the form you once had. And besides this, you will see the sun shining in the sky with the full moon and the stars, and you will behold the great shapes of the gods.” Amen.
A Book of Thoth has recently been found, written in demotic and dated to the later stage of Egypt’s existence. It contains a conversation between Thoth, Osiris and a student. By its very presentation, it is clearly inspired by the Greek Ptolemaic civilisation that ruled Egypt from the 3rd century BC onwards, as such dialogues (or trialogues) were a Greek obsession. In it, Thoth imparts information on the netherworld, ethics, the sacred geography of Egypt, the secret language and the mysteries.
As several scholars continue to not accept that the ancient Egyptians had mystery schools (which would make them a noticeable exception on the ancient world map), the text has been labelled largely “Greek” in nature – even though it is written in the Egyptian language. Interestingly, in one instance, the name of Thoth is qualified by the triple adjective “wer”, meaning “great” and thus equating him with Hermes Trismegistus – thrice great.
The Book of Thoth was said to contain all the knowledge of the universe. As a consequence, it was a very prized possession. The priests of Thoth must have been in a very privileged position, as no doubt many considered them to have access to precious knowledge.
It is therefore not surprising that in ancient Egypt, there were many stories of people going in search of the book, trying to unlock its power and its knowledge. Most often, the protagonists of these tales were princes – a setting very similar to the medieval Grail legends, in which the protagonist is Perceval, a cousin to the king. Indeed, one could argue that there are several parallels between the legends of Perceval and his quest for the Grail and the Egyptian princes’ quest for the Book of Thoth.
One such Egyptian legend has it that an old priest had told prince Naneferkaptah that there was an iron box on the bottom of the river Nile. Inside was another coffer, of copper, containing a series of further boxes, until finally a golden one, containing the Book of Thoth. The boxes were guarded by serpents and scorpions and thus presented a veritable challenge for anyone going in search of it. Furthermore, we note how the sequence of metals (iron, copper, gold) mimic key imagery that is found in medieval alchemical literature.
The rest of the story can best be described as an Egyptian – and thus original – version of Perceval’s Grail quest. The prince left in search of the book, battling his way towards his goal. Using magical spells and rituals, he kept on defeating the serpent, to finally find the book.
In fact, dare we say that this Egyptian rendition clarifies some of the unspoken attraction of the Grail? In Parzival, the Grail is considered to be the panacea of all things, but Wolfram von Eschenbach, its authors, is scarce on details as to what the possession of the Grail allowed. In ancient Egyptian sources, what the Book of Thoth accomplished was carefully written down.
After reading the first saying, prince Naneferkaptah was able to speak the language of the animals, the birds and the fish. After the second saying, the gods of the sun, moon and stars appeared to him in their true form. Naneferkaptah was clearly on his way to becoming all-knowing. And if we were to project this onto a shamanic setting, we would argue that each of these steps is still reflected in the shaman’s path to mastery of this world and the beyond. Like the tribal shamans, the prince had a prize to pay for this knowledge. Unfortunately, this Grail quest ended in failure.
After a series of tests, the prince drowned himself in the Nile and was buried, together with his precious book. Thus, it showed that knowledge of “everything” was not only a difficult quest, once found, it was for many impossible to continue living with the power and knowledge, opting for suicide – but at the same time informing the reader that if he or she so wanted to, he could himself go in search of the body of prince Naneferkaptah, where he would find the Book of Thoth, and could partake of its knowledge. Should we see certain parallels with the tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz?
The Egyptian series of “Grail quest stories” does not end here. Like Wolfram von Eschenbach would inspire others to continue writing about the Grail quest, such as The Younger Titurel, so would this Egyptian story inspire other accounts. One of these was Setne Khamwas, son of Ramses II, who also wanted to find the Book of Thoth. (It is assumed this Setne character was often used to feature in allegorical stories, for if all factual, he was the original Indiana Jones!) He discovered the tomb of the prince, but was stopped by the spirit of the prince when he tried to remove the book. They decided to settle the contest with a game of chess. Setne lost three matches and was almost totally buried in sand, but due to magical spells and amulets given to him by his father, he was able to release himself and eventually leave with the Book.
Setne kept the book in his possession and organised readings from it, even though his father Ramses II did not approve. Then, one day, Setne was blinded by the sight of an astonishingly beautiful woman. He murdered his children and gave away his possession to be able to spend just one single night with her. But when that night came, he saw her disappear as if she was a phantom. Setne was dazed and confused and when Ramses found him in this state, he convinced his son to return the book. It was clear that Setne was not ready to partake in the knowledge – and the events that could befall him. When Setne agreed, he immediately realised that the entire incident about this beautiful woman and the murder of his children had been a dream, but still decided to return the book to the tomb of Naneferkaptah, resealing the tomb – where once again it would remain in wait for those who felt drawn to this knowledge.
The actual story finishes as such – taking it up when Setne reaches the site where he needs to bury the book into the tomb of Naneferkaptah: “A house had been built on the spot, at the edge of Waset, and Setne bought the house to pull it down. When the house was demolished by Pharaoh's soldiers, Setne had the men dig beneath it. Soon they came to a rock-cut tomb, deep in the earth. Inside the tomb lay the bodies of Ahura and Merab. The old man suddenly transformed, and he turned into the ka of Naneferkaptah and faded from sight. Setna then took the bodies back, and buried them with great ceremony in Naneferkaptah’s tomb.
Then at Pharaoh's command they heaped sand over the low stone shrine where the entrance to the tomb was hidden; and before long a sandstorm turned it into a great mound, and then levelled it out so that never again could anyone find a trace of the tomb where Naneferkaptah lay with Ahura and Merab and the Book of Thoth, waiting for the Day of Awakening when Osiris shall return to rule over the earth.” The story also has remarkable parallels to both Christianity and its Apocalypse, underlining that there is seldom anything new under the sun.
Both stories are warnings, in which both princes are like Perceval’s character in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s story: fools. They feel that they are both of sufficient nobility and capability to find, read and keep the Book of Thoth. In the case of Perceval, there are repeated references that he feels himself more than worthy to be a member of the Grail Brotherhood, as there are few better knights than he. But on his first test, Perceval fails. The same fate befalls Setne, though in both instances, it is not fatal, as is the case of Naneferkaptah. In all cases, it are human shortcomings that will end the seeker’s quest – though Perceval will have another opportunity, when he has realised his earlier mistakes; he is given a second chance, and then succeeds.
Both Wolfram’s account and the Egyptian stories also show that though many feel called to belong to the Grail and have this knowledge, in truth – says Wolfram – the Grail itself calls by name those whom it feels will serve. This is underlined in the Egyptian accounts, which are clearly Grail quests performed by princes who were not ready, and thus failed…
The story of the Fisher King, another key ingredient of the Grail stories, is that of the ruler of the land, who is maimed by an evil opponent. This results in his inability to reproduce, whereby Perceval is looked upon not only as the initiate that will heal the king, but also will become his successor.
Why this king is nicknamed “Fisher King” has been the centre of great speculation. To some, it is merely a reference to Jesus, a fisherman, whereby the fish was a symbol of the early Christian church. To others, it is nothing more than the fact that Perceval first meets the king when he is fishing and only later does he realise that the fisherman is actually the king.
This is a piecemeal approach, rather than taking the story as a whole. When we do the latter, it is clear that this story resembles the myth of the death and resurrection of Osiris, the most famous of all maimed divine rulers. In that Egyptian account – which had a close relationship with the Book of Thoth, for the story of Osiris’ resurrection was interpreted as the “evidence” that part two of the book of Thoth “worked” – we have the ruler of Egypt, the god Osiris, invited to a banquet – a ceremonial meal, not unlike the meal that is held inside the Grail Castle.
During the meal, Osiris is murdered by his evil brother Seth – from which derives the name Satan. Osiris’ body is scattered across Egypt, but through love (of his wife Isis) and magic (the core of the Book of Thoth), he is reassembled again. However, the fish of the Nile have eaten his penis. Isis thus has to fashion a wooden phallus, to produce – to even more magic – offspring.
The story has many parallels with the Grail legend: a king impossible to reproduce, one who is called “Fisher King”, the other where fishes have been responsible for the problem. The search for a successor, Perceval and Horus, who will guarantee the succession of divine – enlightened – rule over the country is also there. With so many parallels, it becomes clear that the image of the Fisher King also has its origins in ancient Egypt. And the question which deity and divine king has a specific affinity with fish would have solved the problem of the origin of the name of Fisher King.
Weston, without referencing Osiris, commented on the Grail account: “I hold that we have solid grounds for the belief that the story postulates a close connection between the vitality of a certain king, and the prosperity of his kingdom; the forces of the ruler being weakened or destroyed, by wound, sickness, old age, or death, the land becomes Waste, and the task of the hero is that of restoration.”
It is clear that when we look at Perceval, we are merely creating new characters in a story that was known and formed the backbone of the Egyptian religion. In short, the origins of the Grail can be traced back to Egypt… The Grail is Egyptian.
The Book of Thoth: the original and true Grail?
by Philip Coppens
We all know the story that the very name “alchemy” is supposed to be derived from the land of Egypt: “Al-Khemit”. Egypt itself was a symbol of alchemy, the outcome of a transformative substance: the Egyptian soil, deposited by the Nile, allowing farmers to grow their crops and feed the nation. No wonder that the Nile was considered to be at the origin of all life; for the ancient Egyptians, it was.
We also know how our modern chemistry is derived from medieval alchemical practices. It seems that what was held as science were those aspects of alchemy that were clearly and without any doubt repeatable and demonstrable.
What is less known, is that at the very heart of ancient Egypt, at the centre of their knowledge, was “the Book of Thoth”, one of the first, if not the first, “alchemical manuals”. This “body of knowledge”, for a book, such as the Corpus Hermeticum, was literally seen as a “body” of the god, whether Hermes or his Egyptian equivalent Thoth, consisted of two parts. Part one was a manual containing magic for the heavens, the earth, etc. Part two was a manual to attain knowledge of immortality [Ref. Triangular Book of St. Germain-io] – and perhaps the latter may not have been radically different from the so-called Book of the Dead, which was all about attaining immortality. The Book was nothing more than a set of instructions, which is what magic is all about.
The heart of the cult of Thoth was Hermopolis. Hermopolis was located on the west bank of the Nile, about midway between Thebes and Memphis, across the Nile from Akhetaten, the new Egyptian capital founded by the rebel pharaoh Akhenaten. The Ancient Egyptian name of the city, Khmun, means the “8-town”, after the group of eight deities (Ogdoad) who represented the world before creation. The name Khmun, of course, is close to Khem; or should we read “alchemy” as al-Khmun?
Thoth’s cult, like all others, championed its own creation myth. On the Island of Flame, four elements had come into being at the same time. Together with the unnamed creator, they were the Great Five – the Fifth Element. The Pyramid Texts said that “the Waters spoke to Infinity, Nothingness, Nowhere, and Darkness” and creation began. The four became eight – male and female. Out of the union of the eight came the primeval egg and out of the egg came the light of the sun. Already, with its emphasis on the four elements (Earth, Water, Fire, Air) and its numerical sequence of multiplication, we are very close to the core of medieval alchemy.
In a Ptolemaic papyrus, we read how Thoth wrote the book with his own hand and in it was all the magic in the world. “If you read the first page, you will enchant the sky, the earth, the abyss, the mountain, and the sea: you will understand the language of birds in the air, and you will know what the creeping things in the earth are saying, and you will see the fishes from the darkest depths of the sea.” Such promises are clearly linked to shamanic powers and as the Egyptian civilisation developed out of a native shamanic culture, we should not at all be surprised. “If you read the other page, even though you are dead and in the world of ghosts, you could come back to the earth in the form you once had. And besides this, you will see the sun shining in the sky with the full moon and the stars, and you will behold the great shapes of the gods.” Amen.
A Book of Thoth has recently been found, written in demotic and dated to the later stage of Egypt’s existence. It contains a conversation between Thoth, Osiris and a student. By its very presentation, it is clearly inspired by the Greek Ptolemaic civilisation that ruled Egypt from the 3rd century BC onwards, as such dialogues (or trialogues) were a Greek obsession. In it, Thoth imparts information on the netherworld, ethics, the sacred geography of Egypt, the secret language and the mysteries.
As several scholars continue to not accept that the ancient Egyptians had mystery schools (which would make them a noticeable exception on the ancient world map), the text has been labelled largely “Greek” in nature – even though it is written in the Egyptian language. Interestingly, in one instance, the name of Thoth is qualified by the triple adjective “wer”, meaning “great” and thus equating him with Hermes Trismegistus – thrice great.
The Book of Thoth was said to contain all the knowledge of the universe. As a consequence, it was a very prized possession. The priests of Thoth must have been in a very privileged position, as no doubt many considered them to have access to precious knowledge.
It is therefore not surprising that in ancient Egypt, there were many stories of people going in search of the book, trying to unlock its power and its knowledge. Most often, the protagonists of these tales were princes – a setting very similar to the medieval Grail legends, in which the protagonist is Perceval, a cousin to the king. Indeed, one could argue that there are several parallels between the legends of Perceval and his quest for the Grail and the Egyptian princes’ quest for the Book of Thoth.
One such Egyptian legend has it that an old priest had told prince Naneferkaptah that there was an iron box on the bottom of the river Nile. Inside was another coffer, of copper, containing a series of further boxes, until finally a golden one, containing the Book of Thoth. The boxes were guarded by serpents and scorpions and thus presented a veritable challenge for anyone going in search of it. Furthermore, we note how the sequence of metals (iron, copper, gold) mimic key imagery that is found in medieval alchemical literature.
The rest of the story can best be described as an Egyptian – and thus original – version of Perceval’s Grail quest. The prince left in search of the book, battling his way towards his goal. Using magical spells and rituals, he kept on defeating the serpent, to finally find the book.
In fact, dare we say that this Egyptian rendition clarifies some of the unspoken attraction of the Grail? In Parzival, the Grail is considered to be the panacea of all things, but Wolfram von Eschenbach, its authors, is scarce on details as to what the possession of the Grail allowed. In ancient Egyptian sources, what the Book of Thoth accomplished was carefully written down.
After reading the first saying, prince Naneferkaptah was able to speak the language of the animals, the birds and the fish. After the second saying, the gods of the sun, moon and stars appeared to him in their true form. Naneferkaptah was clearly on his way to becoming all-knowing. And if we were to project this onto a shamanic setting, we would argue that each of these steps is still reflected in the shaman’s path to mastery of this world and the beyond. Like the tribal shamans, the prince had a prize to pay for this knowledge. Unfortunately, this Grail quest ended in failure.
After a series of tests, the prince drowned himself in the Nile and was buried, together with his precious book. Thus, it showed that knowledge of “everything” was not only a difficult quest, once found, it was for many impossible to continue living with the power and knowledge, opting for suicide – but at the same time informing the reader that if he or she so wanted to, he could himself go in search of the body of prince Naneferkaptah, where he would find the Book of Thoth, and could partake of its knowledge. Should we see certain parallels with the tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz?
The Egyptian series of “Grail quest stories” does not end here. Like Wolfram von Eschenbach would inspire others to continue writing about the Grail quest, such as The Younger Titurel, so would this Egyptian story inspire other accounts. One of these was Setne Khamwas, son of Ramses II, who also wanted to find the Book of Thoth. (It is assumed this Setne character was often used to feature in allegorical stories, for if all factual, he was the original Indiana Jones!) He discovered the tomb of the prince, but was stopped by the spirit of the prince when he tried to remove the book. They decided to settle the contest with a game of chess. Setne lost three matches and was almost totally buried in sand, but due to magical spells and amulets given to him by his father, he was able to release himself and eventually leave with the Book.
Setne kept the book in his possession and organised readings from it, even though his father Ramses II did not approve. Then, one day, Setne was blinded by the sight of an astonishingly beautiful woman. He murdered his children and gave away his possession to be able to spend just one single night with her. But when that night came, he saw her disappear as if she was a phantom. Setne was dazed and confused and when Ramses found him in this state, he convinced his son to return the book. It was clear that Setne was not ready to partake in the knowledge – and the events that could befall him. When Setne agreed, he immediately realised that the entire incident about this beautiful woman and the murder of his children had been a dream, but still decided to return the book to the tomb of Naneferkaptah, resealing the tomb – where once again it would remain in wait for those who felt drawn to this knowledge.
The actual story finishes as such – taking it up when Setne reaches the site where he needs to bury the book into the tomb of Naneferkaptah: “A house had been built on the spot, at the edge of Waset, and Setne bought the house to pull it down. When the house was demolished by Pharaoh's soldiers, Setne had the men dig beneath it. Soon they came to a rock-cut tomb, deep in the earth. Inside the tomb lay the bodies of Ahura and Merab. The old man suddenly transformed, and he turned into the ka of Naneferkaptah and faded from sight. Setna then took the bodies back, and buried them with great ceremony in Naneferkaptah’s tomb.
Then at Pharaoh's command they heaped sand over the low stone shrine where the entrance to the tomb was hidden; and before long a sandstorm turned it into a great mound, and then levelled it out so that never again could anyone find a trace of the tomb where Naneferkaptah lay with Ahura and Merab and the Book of Thoth, waiting for the Day of Awakening when Osiris shall return to rule over the earth.” The story also has remarkable parallels to both Christianity and its Apocalypse, underlining that there is seldom anything new under the sun.
Both stories are warnings, in which both princes are like Perceval’s character in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s story: fools. They feel that they are both of sufficient nobility and capability to find, read and keep the Book of Thoth. In the case of Perceval, there are repeated references that he feels himself more than worthy to be a member of the Grail Brotherhood, as there are few better knights than he. But on his first test, Perceval fails. The same fate befalls Setne, though in both instances, it is not fatal, as is the case of Naneferkaptah. In all cases, it are human shortcomings that will end the seeker’s quest – though Perceval will have another opportunity, when he has realised his earlier mistakes; he is given a second chance, and then succeeds.
Both Wolfram’s account and the Egyptian stories also show that though many feel called to belong to the Grail and have this knowledge, in truth – says Wolfram – the Grail itself calls by name those whom it feels will serve. This is underlined in the Egyptian accounts, which are clearly Grail quests performed by princes who were not ready, and thus failed…
The story of the Fisher King, another key ingredient of the Grail stories, is that of the ruler of the land, who is maimed by an evil opponent. This results in his inability to reproduce, whereby Perceval is looked upon not only as the initiate that will heal the king, but also will become his successor.
Why this king is nicknamed “Fisher King” has been the centre of great speculation. To some, it is merely a reference to Jesus, a fisherman, whereby the fish was a symbol of the early Christian church. To others, it is nothing more than the fact that Perceval first meets the king when he is fishing and only later does he realise that the fisherman is actually the king.
This is a piecemeal approach, rather than taking the story as a whole. When we do the latter, it is clear that this story resembles the myth of the death and resurrection of Osiris, the most famous of all maimed divine rulers. In that Egyptian account – which had a close relationship with the Book of Thoth, for the story of Osiris’ resurrection was interpreted as the “evidence” that part two of the book of Thoth “worked” – we have the ruler of Egypt, the god Osiris, invited to a banquet – a ceremonial meal, not unlike the meal that is held inside the Grail Castle.
During the meal, Osiris is murdered by his evil brother Seth – from which derives the name Satan. Osiris’ body is scattered across Egypt, but through love (of his wife Isis) and magic (the core of the Book of Thoth), he is reassembled again. However, the fish of the Nile have eaten his penis. Isis thus has to fashion a wooden phallus, to produce – to even more magic – offspring.
The story has many parallels with the Grail legend: a king impossible to reproduce, one who is called “Fisher King”, the other where fishes have been responsible for the problem. The search for a successor, Perceval and Horus, who will guarantee the succession of divine – enlightened – rule over the country is also there. With so many parallels, it becomes clear that the image of the Fisher King also has its origins in ancient Egypt. And the question which deity and divine king has a specific affinity with fish would have solved the problem of the origin of the name of Fisher King.
Weston, without referencing Osiris, commented on the Grail account: “I hold that we have solid grounds for the belief that the story postulates a close connection between the vitality of a certain king, and the prosperity of his kingdom; the forces of the ruler being weakened or destroyed, by wound, sickness, old age, or death, the land becomes Waste, and the task of the hero is that of restoration.”
It is clear that when we look at Perceval, we are merely creating new characters in a story that was known and formed the backbone of the Egyptian religion. In short, the origins of the Grail can be traced back to Egypt… The Grail is Egyptian.
8. "DRAGON'S TONGUE": The Tongue of Truth
by Iona Miller, 2011
Tongue's Tale; Tongue's Proof
Historic Truth + Mythic Truth = Whole Truth
"I am still the "Dragon Prime", "The Dzshadadsziya" of this age, the "First Dragon Prince". The only benefit I have in my favour, in that respect, is that my writings come not from books, but from meditation, from seeing deeply into the genetic memory of my species. Any old bollocks that arises from these meditations, the reflective exercises, I write down. And then I wait before publishing. A couple of weeks later, as if by magic, corroborative confirmation inevitably arrives in the form of academic sources. Then I publish. When I publish, I donate all the monies to charity. ALL OF US ARE DRAGONS. ALL OF US CARRY WITHIN OUR BLOOD THE TRUTH. we must simply take off the water wings and swim unaided. We are no longer children in the deep end of the swimming pool. All of us have the gift of truth flowing through our veins. Grab that analogy and soar above the incapacities that have been drummed into you." --NDV
Dragons are mythmakers. Myths and fairy tales not only encode existential truths, they encode and mask the ebb and flow of history. History may be written by the victors, but tales are of the people, loved and cherished for their folk wisdom, logical impossibilities, and existential exemplars.
There is a relationship between folklore and consciousness. Mythic reality influences us as much as our physical environment. Important mythological themes include the shaman's journey, the food of immortal life, the food of occult knowledge, the fate of the disembodied soul, communication with the dead and plant-deities.
Healing, divination and prophecy often revolve around mythological golden apples and other elixirs, barks, root, leaves, and ambrosias that have their origins in real "talking" plants, that actually do impart occult knowledge. But sacred or magic plants are not the only supernatural way to perform a "reality check" in the quest for Truth. The "Dragon's Tongue" is a truth-teller from folklore, called the "tongue proof".
The Dragon families are historically related to the over-arching notion of Truth, as shown in the de Vere motto: "Vero Nil Verius." It can be translated as "Nothing truer than truth" or alternately "Truth nothing but the truth." Authenticity and legitimacy are based on factual history and the power of sacred history. The nature of Truth is organic. Let the truth be our wisdom for the proclamation of Truth is fearless.
Truthiness
Because banality exists, Mystery becomes possible. But it requires the flow of Solutio and the embodiment of Coagulatio to penetrate and inhabit our mundane psychobiological reality. If things don't coagulate our "inconceivable potential", there is no insight. Mystery reworks the matrix of inattention, making its emergent treasures important to the conscious self.
The Imaginal has a Truth all its own -- its own logic and illumined lunacy. Freedom comes with liberation from the gravity of literalism, a call from dry literalism into the imagistically rich inner world. Literalism slams the door on Mystery and hardens the heart to the imaginal with singleness of meaning. It freezes the action of a story like the Medusa, confining it to one mundane inerpretation while slaying all other dimensions or hermeneutic process. Rather than choosing one fixed version of reality, we want to immerse ourselves in the vortex of imaginal flow -- the living stream of consciousness. The facts of our existence are the idols of the ego until they are enlivened by psyche.
All stories carry multiple levels of embedded meanings that interpenetrate and inform one another. New myths permeate culture, fomenting change and opening new conceptual territory for exploration. The "new myth" seems to be one of "guiding fictions," even "healing fictions." All narratives are by necessity partly true -- the relative truth of a particular point of view. Truth comes in symbolic form, not literal but metaphorical -- a light in the darkness of Mystery. It is not the images that fail us but our approach to them. When we regard things differently it awakens our spirit. Insight is a function of flow. Higher wisdom is deeper wisdom of our core inspirations and stories. Fiction cannot be proved wrong.
In psychic reality, the realm of soul, we find a multiplicity of answers to all major, archetypal, sorts of question -- relative answers. The open approach resacralizes and re-enchants our being. Each archetypal perspective has its way of self-knowing. In alchemy the multi-state paradigm is known as multiplicatio, which touches all points of the soul, all channels of images. According to James Hillman, it is “spirit’s self-knowledge in the mirror of the soul, soul’s recognition of its spirits.” The voice of many collective experiences rings clear from our depths, helping us enjoy the best of our embodiment.
Truth Values
Multivalence more accurately reflects the complex dynamics of consciousness. As in the case of fractal generation, solutions are not found in terms of this or that, but in terms of degrees of fractional transformation, relationships. Fuzzy philosophy is based on acceptance of degrees of truth, the “grayness” of most propositions (truth values), the fractional solutions of fuzzy logic. The essence of fuzzy logic describes the whole in the part.
Human consciousness is a self-referential system which embodies this principle of a connection between logic and chaos, in holistic (“whole brain”) awareness. Free of the gravitational valley of corpo-reality, consciousness can soar unfettered. When consciousness flows into an “escape-time plot,” we experience the boundary-dissolving transcendence of cosmic consciousness.
Other synonyms are gray logic, cloudy logic, and continuous logic. Diffuse logic takes the edge of extremism off left-hemisphere thinking. Fuzzy philosophy reflects the fusion of cultural inputs in society and thought. It is an androgynous consciousness, rooted in the interpenetration of masculine and feminine principles, melding the qualities of both hemispheres of brain functioning into a holistic continuum of perspectives.
Multivalent experience requires participation -- the game is afoot. Fuzzy logic transcends paradox, eliminating probability, asserting that paradoxes of self-reference are half-truths, fuzzy contradictions. The yin-yang equation holds where this equals not-this. It is the midpoint of a reference "truth line" from zero to one. Even in physics the truth of statements is a matter of degree. We can look to myth and tale to illumine the multidimensional nature of Truth and Truth-telling.
A Grimm Tale
Sibling rivalry and deceit is as old as the struggles of Enki and Enlil, and the relentless attempts of the later to blame, defame and malign the former. Enlil blamed Enki for The Flood, and turned Lucifer the Light Bearer into Satan, the arch-demon. "Demonizing" is thus an archetypal form not only of sibling rivalry but of grabbing the power of another for oneself by turning the tables with public perception. In other words, it is the original negative propaganda campaign. And Dragon footprints and archetypal familial struggle are all over it.
The nascent Catholic Church wielded it against the Dragon families from its inception to the counterfeiting of the falsely so-called Donationof Constantine, which allegedly gave them the power to annoint divine rulers. They instituted a propaganda campaign and murderous retailation against all things dragon. Instead of being honored, the dragon became a monstrous demon of destruction and evil -- the very embodimentof evil incarnate.
So, when these themes appear, we can presume they have a historical, as well as imaginal referent, designed to sway and control the minds, thoughts and behaviors of the audience. After the Bibical tale of Cain and Abel which echoes Mesopotamian tales of Enki and Enlil, the easiest general access to this narrative complex of dragon tales and sibling rivalry is by the Grimms’ tale number 60, “The Two Brothers,” one of the longest and most elaborate tales in the collection and clearly the result of many inputs and much editing. Our focus is on this mix of dragon-slaying and sibling narratives that take us deeper into the question of what “tale-typing” can do.
The "Two Brothers" recapitulates the story of the Archetypal Twins. These stories boil down to the adventures of a single hero or of two (or three) brothers going forth into the world to make their fortunes -- a typical hero's Call to Adventure. After they’ve split up to go separate ways (leaving, in tales where no sibling betrayal is involved, tokens – swords or knives in a tree, pieces of cloth – as indicators of their states of well-being), the “hero” brother, after acquiring a mix of animal allies, talismans, the blessings of older women etc., finds a city draped in black. It is under siege by a dragon extracting human tributes, mostly in the form of females of royal lineage to ward off predations by the dragon or to continue the dragon’s release of a necessary resource (usually water) or hoarded gold.
Spurred by the king’s promise of the princess in marriage and with the help of his allies, he kills the dragon, cuts out the tongue, puts it in his pocket (an echo of Perseus’ wallet) and goes on his way, presumably for more exercises of power, and of course to give the second half of the tale the time to develop.
The other brother (or brothers), coming on the dead dragon, decides to pretend to the killing and drags the corpse back
to the King for the reward. On the eve of the wedding, the true dragon slayer arrives, makes various kinds of dramatic entrances to the palace and flourishes the tongue to prove his deed and claim the prize.
Tongue Proof
In versions where the hero has no brothers or where his brothers remain loyal to him (and indeed rescue him from a betrayal after the killing), the impostor is usually the coachman who has been delivering maidens to the dragon and his fate is, most often, dismemberment. Indisputably, however, and in almost all cases, the narrative pivot of the tale is the “tongue proof”: instead of dragging the carcass of a mythical beast around to prove a lie and make a fraudulent claim to power, the true slayer travels light. He overthrows, by means of the truth-telling power in the portable speaking organ, pretenders and liars to collect his due for unburdening the city from a terrorist parasite.
The 'Dragon Slayer' is the “older” tale, a rescue plot originating in areas of France with regional distributions and variations. The 'Two Brothers' is a combined tale of sibling rivalry and cooperation leaps out, i.e., the ubiquitous tale of the severed dragon’s tongue, what Stith Thompson called “the tongue proof.” The tongue symbol becomes, through the action of the narrative, a metonym, independent of its body of origin, speaking now to an event, able to identify “what actually happened,” to identify the “true” performance of the “historical” act -- the Tongue of Truth.
Comparative mythology and our narrative expectations reduce our possible appreciation of all tales’ capacities for giving apparently easily recognizable symbolic entities (like dragons and their tongues) yet broader, more unpredictable and less easily contained options and scope for action, for narrating complexions of relationships that are new. Symbolic forms can figure, what variant and recombinant figurations they can (and have) put into motion in both historical and yet-to-come times.
The tongue-proof is a motif subtype. While there are, undeniably, tale types about dragon slayers and siblings or servants who are or are not treacherous, the narrative hook of these stories is often in the surprising display of a proof of the slaying and of the treacheries and opportunities for loyalty surrounding such a slaying. There are, despite their ubiquity, no tale or motif types called “The Dragon.”
Dragons do not appear, in the typological paradigm, as narrative actors but as symbols of primordial enmity and evil. They are revolting, monstrous entities whose emotion-arousing presence alone accounts for the narrated action. Jacob Grimm tell us that “Dragons are hated . . . Therefore heroes make war upon them.” What dragons actually do is perceived from this perspective as secondary, as the merely natural expression of their innately evil natures and it is this latter that matters. Dragon figures devolved from complex ancient and classical narrative appearances as both benevolent, assisting and guardian figures as well as predatory, earth scorching and sacrifice extorting monstrosities to become a modern European conception, one that emerges out of a surge in high-medieval Christian piety that is grounded in part in the Johannine apocalyptic tradition as well as in a Christianized rewriting of the Perseus myth.
Dragons, as satanic incarnations, were now slain in symbolic narratives by saintly knights defending, against the Chaos of a cosmos without grace, the islands of the saved. This simultaneous reduction in dragons’ variability and their exclusive identification with a primordial evil arrayed against the city of the king together make up a repressive move by which evil becomes a kind of mythic-theological naturalization of social actions.
In WHEN WOMEN HELD THE DRAGON’S TONGUE and other essays in Historical Anthropology (2007), Hermann Rebel suggests:
Thanks in part to the efforts of the typologists and comparativists, dragons’ historically ascertainable identifications with evil and pure enmity can be seen as moments of ideological regression, when evil acts are displaced, by means of a mythic beast-actor, into a “natural” universe untouched by divine scrutiny. This perspective shift screens out what are in fact worldly betrayals, crimes, extortions, enslavements, the careless and empowered cruelties that some inflict on others for the primacy of profit, which altogether offer, whether they occur in the intimacy of families or on a geographic scale, a taste of chaos, but one that is always of a socially and morally willed and not a natural variety
.If we regard folk tale dragons through a historical researcher’s eyes in a manner that observes what appears to a reader’s “sense” as plainly evident as possible – that is, phenomenologically – then they are in no case reducible to a mere symbolic presence marked by catalogues of frightening attributes and dastardly demands. Forgetting for the moment that dragons have also never completely stopped lurking in the symbolic narrative universe as protectors, soothsayers, guardians, teachers of language, multipliers of bridewealth and dowry gold, we can also assert that even in narratives that exclusively figure dragons as evil-projecting enemies, they are still not ever mere symbolic agents of Chaos.
Dragons are rather, in almost all their appearances, purposefully rational agents, bargaining unilaterally from a position of great power to destroy. Putting it another way, they can be described as classically criminal tribute takers extorting protection insurance against the violence they can unleash. In Ludwig Bechstein’s mid-nineteenth century collection of German tales the word “tribute” actually appears to describe the dragon’s demands. In tandem with that course of
action, dragons also appear as violent hoarders of wealth- and life-sustaining resources (treasure and water figure most often) , exchanging them dearly for human-sacrificial tributes while cloaking their predations inside pretexts of guardianship.
But whose characterizations are these anyway? They seem to combine the themes of the defeated Dragon nation with the malifications of medeival encounters with comet-debris that gave dragons their ominous overtones. Thus, dragons became associated with themes of shortage, crop failure, and 'The Wasteland', in general. The results of such catastropes seem to have been confabulated with the diaspora of the Dragon clan, adding another layer to their historical "demonization".
Dragons play specific roles in folk tales, they converse and bargain with victims and heroes, have their own plans, in short, act in consequential ways that differ from story to story, from telling to telling. “The Dragon” is never just a symbol but is, rather, a figure, an active figuration, a trope around which specific actions turn and turn out very differently in different tellings. Far from being merely symbolic of evil or chaos, dragons rather threaten with chaos those who do not knuckle under their power.
Current misrecognitions of them as just an evil presence point rather to a culturally refigured repression in the present of the folkloric recognition of such calculated, predatory exercises of power to withhold resources or to threaten with destruction unless demands are met. In the timeline of European dragon tales’ narrative transformations, this shift in consciousness mirrors very precisely the threats posed to the rural subject population by regional and imperial aristocracies acting under evolved conditions of corporatist princely absolutisms and marshalling their tribute resources for a state of perpetual war, for a perpetual terrorist ransoming of everyday life.
How Did the Dragon Lose its Voice?
A part of this historically evolving and still ongoing misrecognition of what dragons might figure historically is, as noted a moment ago, that the narrative turn surrounding the “tongue proof” is more or less pushed out of the picture by tale
typologists and advocates of a single foundation for all tales. The fact that this motif survives and even flourishes without scholarly comment in the very folk tales both parties place at a foundational location in “the tradition,” encourages us to look more deeply into this curiously troubled reading (or the absence of a reading) of “dragon’s tongue” figurations. The loss of figural complexity that we find in the medieval and subsequent representations of dragons as a merely satanic presence was most pronounced in the loss from sight of the dragon-serpent’s capacity for language.
Elaine Pagels has shown us a prefiguration of that loss when she reveals how threatening the language of the
Serpent-in-Paradise could be to early Christians who might be tempted by ophidian rhetorical powers to be “insubordinate . . . to the community ethics that the bishops sought to impose” or to question God’s anthropomorphic failings in his dealings with Adam and Eve, or, Augustine’s fear, to delude themselves that they were free. The
tongue, the speaking organ of the dragon-serpent is a metonymic token of the ambiguous rhetorical gifts of the creature, offering “resistant” responses, a frustration to all who sought certainty, immobile truths, ontological transcendence, power.
Dragons also offered a way out of the limits of just one language. Heroes who ate parts of dragons acquired a capacity for understanding the languages of birds and beasts. They thus knew what was being said in the languages of those everywherepresent, all-seeing creatures, unacknowledged and “unseen” spies who hear and see and talk, among or to themselves, about things outside of ordinary human senses.
It is worth noting that while this capacity of dragon-serpents as helpers continually disappears in scripted mythologies and theologies, it is in the folk tale fragments and local legends told especially among those who bear the greater weight of the social edifice, that respect survives for the gifts that dragons (often appearing in such instances in “reduced” forms as a small white-silver or red-gold snake) can bestow. By contrast, scholars have noted that in the Beowulf epic the dragon never speaks.
Moreover, there are tales where dragons’ oppression is marked by the silencing of the oppressed. Perhaps it is not surprising that especially the oral-narrative practitioners should retain dragons capable of teaching heros and heroines how to speak in multiple tongues. Respect for speaking across species boundaries and thereby attaining allies and helpers (making the serpents’ gift multi-dimensional, infinitely fungible) arises in this specific regard. It creates a necessary search for languages adequate to difficult, possibly no-win choices and tasks, to the testing of a realized desire, to an effective resistance against exploitive and abusive surroundings that remain officially unspeakable, to escapes from the institutionalized self- and other destructive repetitions often mandated by mythic acting out.
Arguably, it is dragon’s tongue tales that especially manifest popular stories’ rebellion against oppressive myths.
Moreover, it is frequently women who are the agents transmitting the dragoncapacity of speech to men, often with dire effects in the process of translation. We have already noted Elaine Pagels’ reconstruction of the dividing of minds among early Christians over the history of what transpired in Eden between Eve and the serpent and between Eve and Adam, to record the active repression mounted against Eve’s “rational” and potentially resistant gift.
Long before, the earth serpent Python had spoken from deep in the caves below Delphi through the priestess Pythia, its ambiguous oracular words also resistant to obvious or “realist” readings as it confounded many into inadequate understandings and often disastrous misreadings with attendant failures. The Pythia appears again to speak to the mother of the Norse hero, Waldemar, the leader of the Danes’ Wild Hunt.
Odin, himself riding the violent winds that are the Wild Hunt and known in his dual-serpent form as Ofnir and Svafnir, was also the inventor of songs and ritual-magical markings, of how to shape desire by means of language into realizable forms that he then taught to his daughter, the giantess Saga, his drinking gossip and confidante who became in turn the teacher of human singers and wordsmiths. And it is the shaping power of words in particular that we find among the ominous capacities of the Norns.
One could regard it as an aspect of the analytical realism of folk tales that that shaping power, the power of the tongue, is only rarely represented as effectively in the grasp of women as it appears to be in the myths. While there are, to be sure, tales where female dragons (Feen, fays) guard treasure, where they wreak revenge on their dragon brothers’ slayers. In one precious tale there is a reversal in the power relationship in the form of a princess who keeps a miniature dragon locked in a box to produce a dowry treasure that grows as the dragon grows until a suitor defeats him and claims both bride and treasure.
There are women who induce their dragon husbands (waking them by plucking out golden feathers and getting them to speak in their half-sleep) to divulge healing secrets that are then passed on to the hero from the human world. Kurt Ranke reproduces a version of “Ivan Cowson” in which the tongue of a dragon-mother is first nailed down to hold her for the subsequent killing.
But women do not produce the dragon’s tongue at the critical juncture where proof of the slaying triumphs over the false pretenders laboring with carcasses or tongueless, and therefore “empty,” dead dragons’ heads. The closest women come is in the not inconsiderable number of tales where it is the rescued princess – sometimes it is an old crone – that cuts out the tongue and, sometimes, wraps it in her kerchief or shawl before she gives it to the slayer who later produces not only the “speaking part” that proves his claim to the act but also simultaneously produces a proof of the victim-witness who was present.
Standing somewhat aside, finally, from tongue proof figurations – and yet also echoing them in the figure of a speaking fragment nailed to a wall in a dark passage that the heroine must go through every day, a fragment speaking only to her – is the head of the magical horse Falada who consoles the bride-turned-goose girl, displaced by an impostor, with a daily reminder of the mother’s blessed ignorance of her daughter’s dire fate.
In Heinz Rölleke’s curious reading of this latter tale, Falada’s head recalls Lower Saxon and Westphalian horses’ heads carved on gables to ward off demons and the girl’s experience becomes in his hands simply a kind of purgatory, a due punishment for her inability to curb her desires (for water!) earlier in the tale. This seems worse than questionable when we note that carved gable horses warding off demons in Lower Saxony have no discernibly significant connection to this story’s unfolding, and their presence in a tale told by a Hessian village tailor’s wife (Dorothea Viehmann) is in any case problematic.
We will have cause to examine more closely the victim-blaming and sexist trope about emotionally incontinent women in Rölleke’s (and others’) readings in the next section, but for the moment we suggest that his reading as a whole seems inadequate to what actually happens in the tale. Among a number of problems, we need only to point to Rölleke’s complete discounting of the fact that it is the declassée princess’ daily exchange of words with the horse’s head that informs the king’s investigation and becomes a proof in the overturning of the false bride’s reach for power and of her unsuccessful efforts to forestall by murder the speaking horse’s capacity to bear witness. In terms of the argument being advanced here, it is the betrayed bride’s active preserving of the still-talking head of the murdered horse early in her period of servitude that furnishes the “tongue proof” against the crime and restores equity.
This is a war of conceptual syles that appears to be going on by means of tales told within and between different social formations at all social levels, even into its present, one-sided form in the guise of folklore studies. Alan Dundes’ introduction of the idea of multiple “folk groups” was on the mark, up to a point, when he argued that “Marxist theory erred in limiting folk to the lower classes, to the oppressed. According to strict Marxist theory, folklore is the weapon of class protest.”
He is partially right to see this as “error,” but it is so not merely because “there is also rightwing folklore expressing the ideology of groups of a conservative political philosophy.”40 He in effect assents in the purportedly “Marxist” attribution of a protest function for folk tales told by and to “the oppressed” perceived as “the lower classes” and it is this latter that is the point that, from our perspective, needs to be disputed.
The colligations, bricolages, stringings-together of many mythic-magical figurations and fragments in narratives exposing and speaking to the life of unseen actions and processes that altogether constitute so-called folk tales are obviously much more than mere “protest;” they are a rhetorical resistance, a taking on in terms of language and concept-construction the mythic force of arguments and narratives sustaining fraudulent and often violently abusive claims to power not only between but also within social classes.
They are to some extent temporary, ad hoc assemblages, whose parts were long ago severed from the mythic corpus to become free figurations, metonyms capable of moving, dissolving out of and reassembling in focused allegorical articulations, across time, through successive (or contiguous) moments of critical recognition, working at the many levels and conjunctures of historical social formations.
The authoritarian and frozen logics and grammars in the mythographies of “rulers” are thereby confronted with the active rhetorical duplexities and improbabilities of “fairy tales”. "Little stories,” contain potent and independently speaking mythic fragments de-constructed and reconstrued in the hands of experienced and, at every social level, subaltern story tellers, capable of addressing more satisfactorily historical moments not in the reach of or even visible to the ruling, myth-laden discourses.
Historians can reveal (or recognize) their own desired relationship to power through the kinds of narrative historicities and utilities they imagine for tales told by various kinds of “folk.”
It is in this light that the “tongue proof” is worth one more look. In itself it “proves” by its very appearances that folk tales are not reducible to paradigmatic arrangements of merely symbolic “elements.” Although it happens that in many
narratives the moment when the tongue is held aloft is just a “moment of truth” when liars and pretenders to inheritance stand exposed, this does not mean the tongue is just one of several such symbols representing a naive notion of truth.
Folk tales are rich with many tokens of “proof:” rings dropped into the bottom of a cup, ring-fingers that when
hacked off bounce to the place where the horrified (girl-)witness is hiding, red-hot iron shoes or glass slippers that do or do not fit etc. A case in point may be found in the Grimms’ own version of the “Two Brothers /Dragon Slayer” tale complex where the tongue proof appears in this fashion as one of numerous instances of different kinds of tokens of proof.
The Grimms’ version of this tale is one of the longest texts in their entire collection and one might even consider it a “literary fairy tale,” a Kunstmärchen, because it is clearly their own construction, their narrative bricolage derived from many sources whose most persistent figure throughout is a display of many possible kinds of proof-tokens and of what they can prove.
Dragon’s tongues are not, however, simply one more kind or type of “proof object” like rings, necklaces, kerchiefs, glass slippers, teeth and the like. “Liars should have no tongues,” says the Grimms’ huntsman and brings us to the point of recognizing different qualities of appearance that tongue proofs can make in different stories. They are not always symbolic of establishing truth. Sometimes the tongue proof, even though “present” and thereby held “in reserve” in the hero’s pocket, does not need to be produced when a witness, e.g., the princess, simply speaks the truth or asserts her love for the hero; sometimes when it is tendered as proof it is not believed.
And sometimes, according to one rather cynical, bottom-line, twist in a tale collected by the nineteenth century Norwegian folklorist Jörgen Moe,43 which holds that even though it is the impostor who has the tongue, it is the hero who has the treasure and it is the treasure that works as the superior proof. In some tellings the hero does not even cut out the whole tongue when the tip of the tongue can serve. And frequently, when the impostor had the insight to sever the tongue, it is the hero’s previous foresight in cutting off the tip of the tongue that trumps the imposture at the critical juncture.
A speaking part of the speaking part refuting the lie of the latter is a figural sophistication frequently foundbeing a one-dimensional symbolic object, the dragon’s tongue, in its presences and absences and in its own occasional dissolution into fragments, can perform a number of different roles in different emplotments, can figure turns of narrative in which lying and truth-telling are intermingled and no outcome is automatically linked to a symbolic
fixture of speech.
The “tongue proof” can but does not necessarily speak to a “truth” in a tale; nor is it a part of a mere protest against imposture, injustice, and lying. Rather than protest, it resists by performing multiple roles for different kinds of contestations and in the hands of different kinds of “actors” and of different narrators.
Recontextualization
Dundes was right to reject aligning “folk tales” with a “folk” that was automatically “the lower class” or, as Darnton would have it, “the peasants” who “tell tales” while “workers revolt.” Not only can tales be a kind of revolt but, as Dundes’ perception implies certain kinds of tale or emplotments and figures are not automatically to be correlated sociologically and do not “represent” easily identified “identities.”
Historical understanding is better served by looking at specifically “locatable” tales as a means to get at of what kinds of “social consciousness” prevailed at certain historical times and places and, in particular, of what kind of consciousness was capable of producing such counter-fictions to disturb, in their time, efforts to reabsorb tales by and into a perpetually self-renewing mythosconstruction going on among would-be hegemons operating, to be sure, at all social levels.
Rather than consign folk tales to a “lower” or “primitive” level of human experience and thereby discount their value both collectively and as individual tellings, the task is rather to regain an open-ended sense of the intellectual dimensions of all historical experience, including experiences among those who “tell tales,” not according to sociological or narrative sub-types but according to discursive formations capable ofcutting across “types,” “classes,” “groups,” “cultures,” “mentalités.”
This means to go beyond limiting lower class narrative expression to mere protest but crediting it with analytical and forensic capacities; it also means developing an “empathy” perspective beyond claiming merely a removal of folk tales from “low culture” or women’s hands into male-dominated and purportedly “high culture” efforts to manipulate the subaltern into behaviors acceptable to some sort of imprecisely conceptualized “bourgeois” modernity. If this latter effort was indeed part of the historical process (as it might well have been – for some) and is to be credited analytically, we can not proceed by grossly distorting historical dimensions of this possibly active but far from understood embourgeoisement.
Moreover, by effectually returning tales to mythological-typological structurations, this approach threatens to re-bury the critical, counter-fictional possibilities of the genre in culture-and-personality and social control paradigms whose analytical failures and power-serving qualities are by now only too evident.
Not only do we lose our ability to perceive the weight popular narrative might have carried as a critical-conceptual and communicative form inside historical processes, but we lose touch with specific historical story-telling traditions and with their tellers as members of dispersed and yet interrelated and evolving groups of “organic” intellectuals with different, and in themselves changing, tasks for what appear to be the same or similar stories.
http://www.marefa.org/images/5/5b/Rebel_when_women.pdf
Tongue's Tale; Tongue's Proof
Historic Truth + Mythic Truth = Whole Truth
"I am still the "Dragon Prime", "The Dzshadadsziya" of this age, the "First Dragon Prince". The only benefit I have in my favour, in that respect, is that my writings come not from books, but from meditation, from seeing deeply into the genetic memory of my species. Any old bollocks that arises from these meditations, the reflective exercises, I write down. And then I wait before publishing. A couple of weeks later, as if by magic, corroborative confirmation inevitably arrives in the form of academic sources. Then I publish. When I publish, I donate all the monies to charity. ALL OF US ARE DRAGONS. ALL OF US CARRY WITHIN OUR BLOOD THE TRUTH. we must simply take off the water wings and swim unaided. We are no longer children in the deep end of the swimming pool. All of us have the gift of truth flowing through our veins. Grab that analogy and soar above the incapacities that have been drummed into you." --NDV
Dragons are mythmakers. Myths and fairy tales not only encode existential truths, they encode and mask the ebb and flow of history. History may be written by the victors, but tales are of the people, loved and cherished for their folk wisdom, logical impossibilities, and existential exemplars.
There is a relationship between folklore and consciousness. Mythic reality influences us as much as our physical environment. Important mythological themes include the shaman's journey, the food of immortal life, the food of occult knowledge, the fate of the disembodied soul, communication with the dead and plant-deities.
Healing, divination and prophecy often revolve around mythological golden apples and other elixirs, barks, root, leaves, and ambrosias that have their origins in real "talking" plants, that actually do impart occult knowledge. But sacred or magic plants are not the only supernatural way to perform a "reality check" in the quest for Truth. The "Dragon's Tongue" is a truth-teller from folklore, called the "tongue proof".
The Dragon families are historically related to the over-arching notion of Truth, as shown in the de Vere motto: "Vero Nil Verius." It can be translated as "Nothing truer than truth" or alternately "Truth nothing but the truth." Authenticity and legitimacy are based on factual history and the power of sacred history. The nature of Truth is organic. Let the truth be our wisdom for the proclamation of Truth is fearless.
Truthiness
Because banality exists, Mystery becomes possible. But it requires the flow of Solutio and the embodiment of Coagulatio to penetrate and inhabit our mundane psychobiological reality. If things don't coagulate our "inconceivable potential", there is no insight. Mystery reworks the matrix of inattention, making its emergent treasures important to the conscious self.
The Imaginal has a Truth all its own -- its own logic and illumined lunacy. Freedom comes with liberation from the gravity of literalism, a call from dry literalism into the imagistically rich inner world. Literalism slams the door on Mystery and hardens the heart to the imaginal with singleness of meaning. It freezes the action of a story like the Medusa, confining it to one mundane inerpretation while slaying all other dimensions or hermeneutic process. Rather than choosing one fixed version of reality, we want to immerse ourselves in the vortex of imaginal flow -- the living stream of consciousness. The facts of our existence are the idols of the ego until they are enlivened by psyche.
All stories carry multiple levels of embedded meanings that interpenetrate and inform one another. New myths permeate culture, fomenting change and opening new conceptual territory for exploration. The "new myth" seems to be one of "guiding fictions," even "healing fictions." All narratives are by necessity partly true -- the relative truth of a particular point of view. Truth comes in symbolic form, not literal but metaphorical -- a light in the darkness of Mystery. It is not the images that fail us but our approach to them. When we regard things differently it awakens our spirit. Insight is a function of flow. Higher wisdom is deeper wisdom of our core inspirations and stories. Fiction cannot be proved wrong.
In psychic reality, the realm of soul, we find a multiplicity of answers to all major, archetypal, sorts of question -- relative answers. The open approach resacralizes and re-enchants our being. Each archetypal perspective has its way of self-knowing. In alchemy the multi-state paradigm is known as multiplicatio, which touches all points of the soul, all channels of images. According to James Hillman, it is “spirit’s self-knowledge in the mirror of the soul, soul’s recognition of its spirits.” The voice of many collective experiences rings clear from our depths, helping us enjoy the best of our embodiment.
Truth Values
Multivalence more accurately reflects the complex dynamics of consciousness. As in the case of fractal generation, solutions are not found in terms of this or that, but in terms of degrees of fractional transformation, relationships. Fuzzy philosophy is based on acceptance of degrees of truth, the “grayness” of most propositions (truth values), the fractional solutions of fuzzy logic. The essence of fuzzy logic describes the whole in the part.
Human consciousness is a self-referential system which embodies this principle of a connection between logic and chaos, in holistic (“whole brain”) awareness. Free of the gravitational valley of corpo-reality, consciousness can soar unfettered. When consciousness flows into an “escape-time plot,” we experience the boundary-dissolving transcendence of cosmic consciousness.
Other synonyms are gray logic, cloudy logic, and continuous logic. Diffuse logic takes the edge of extremism off left-hemisphere thinking. Fuzzy philosophy reflects the fusion of cultural inputs in society and thought. It is an androgynous consciousness, rooted in the interpenetration of masculine and feminine principles, melding the qualities of both hemispheres of brain functioning into a holistic continuum of perspectives.
Multivalent experience requires participation -- the game is afoot. Fuzzy logic transcends paradox, eliminating probability, asserting that paradoxes of self-reference are half-truths, fuzzy contradictions. The yin-yang equation holds where this equals not-this. It is the midpoint of a reference "truth line" from zero to one. Even in physics the truth of statements is a matter of degree. We can look to myth and tale to illumine the multidimensional nature of Truth and Truth-telling.
A Grimm Tale
Sibling rivalry and deceit is as old as the struggles of Enki and Enlil, and the relentless attempts of the later to blame, defame and malign the former. Enlil blamed Enki for The Flood, and turned Lucifer the Light Bearer into Satan, the arch-demon. "Demonizing" is thus an archetypal form not only of sibling rivalry but of grabbing the power of another for oneself by turning the tables with public perception. In other words, it is the original negative propaganda campaign. And Dragon footprints and archetypal familial struggle are all over it.
The nascent Catholic Church wielded it against the Dragon families from its inception to the counterfeiting of the falsely so-called Donationof Constantine, which allegedly gave them the power to annoint divine rulers. They instituted a propaganda campaign and murderous retailation against all things dragon. Instead of being honored, the dragon became a monstrous demon of destruction and evil -- the very embodimentof evil incarnate.
So, when these themes appear, we can presume they have a historical, as well as imaginal referent, designed to sway and control the minds, thoughts and behaviors of the audience. After the Bibical tale of Cain and Abel which echoes Mesopotamian tales of Enki and Enlil, the easiest general access to this narrative complex of dragon tales and sibling rivalry is by the Grimms’ tale number 60, “The Two Brothers,” one of the longest and most elaborate tales in the collection and clearly the result of many inputs and much editing. Our focus is on this mix of dragon-slaying and sibling narratives that take us deeper into the question of what “tale-typing” can do.
The "Two Brothers" recapitulates the story of the Archetypal Twins. These stories boil down to the adventures of a single hero or of two (or three) brothers going forth into the world to make their fortunes -- a typical hero's Call to Adventure. After they’ve split up to go separate ways (leaving, in tales where no sibling betrayal is involved, tokens – swords or knives in a tree, pieces of cloth – as indicators of their states of well-being), the “hero” brother, after acquiring a mix of animal allies, talismans, the blessings of older women etc., finds a city draped in black. It is under siege by a dragon extracting human tributes, mostly in the form of females of royal lineage to ward off predations by the dragon or to continue the dragon’s release of a necessary resource (usually water) or hoarded gold.
Spurred by the king’s promise of the princess in marriage and with the help of his allies, he kills the dragon, cuts out the tongue, puts it in his pocket (an echo of Perseus’ wallet) and goes on his way, presumably for more exercises of power, and of course to give the second half of the tale the time to develop.
The other brother (or brothers), coming on the dead dragon, decides to pretend to the killing and drags the corpse back
to the King for the reward. On the eve of the wedding, the true dragon slayer arrives, makes various kinds of dramatic entrances to the palace and flourishes the tongue to prove his deed and claim the prize.
Tongue Proof
In versions where the hero has no brothers or where his brothers remain loyal to him (and indeed rescue him from a betrayal after the killing), the impostor is usually the coachman who has been delivering maidens to the dragon and his fate is, most often, dismemberment. Indisputably, however, and in almost all cases, the narrative pivot of the tale is the “tongue proof”: instead of dragging the carcass of a mythical beast around to prove a lie and make a fraudulent claim to power, the true slayer travels light. He overthrows, by means of the truth-telling power in the portable speaking organ, pretenders and liars to collect his due for unburdening the city from a terrorist parasite.
The 'Dragon Slayer' is the “older” tale, a rescue plot originating in areas of France with regional distributions and variations. The 'Two Brothers' is a combined tale of sibling rivalry and cooperation leaps out, i.e., the ubiquitous tale of the severed dragon’s tongue, what Stith Thompson called “the tongue proof.” The tongue symbol becomes, through the action of the narrative, a metonym, independent of its body of origin, speaking now to an event, able to identify “what actually happened,” to identify the “true” performance of the “historical” act -- the Tongue of Truth.
Comparative mythology and our narrative expectations reduce our possible appreciation of all tales’ capacities for giving apparently easily recognizable symbolic entities (like dragons and their tongues) yet broader, more unpredictable and less easily contained options and scope for action, for narrating complexions of relationships that are new. Symbolic forms can figure, what variant and recombinant figurations they can (and have) put into motion in both historical and yet-to-come times.
The tongue-proof is a motif subtype. While there are, undeniably, tale types about dragon slayers and siblings or servants who are or are not treacherous, the narrative hook of these stories is often in the surprising display of a proof of the slaying and of the treacheries and opportunities for loyalty surrounding such a slaying. There are, despite their ubiquity, no tale or motif types called “The Dragon.”
Dragons do not appear, in the typological paradigm, as narrative actors but as symbols of primordial enmity and evil. They are revolting, monstrous entities whose emotion-arousing presence alone accounts for the narrated action. Jacob Grimm tell us that “Dragons are hated . . . Therefore heroes make war upon them.” What dragons actually do is perceived from this perspective as secondary, as the merely natural expression of their innately evil natures and it is this latter that matters. Dragon figures devolved from complex ancient and classical narrative appearances as both benevolent, assisting and guardian figures as well as predatory, earth scorching and sacrifice extorting monstrosities to become a modern European conception, one that emerges out of a surge in high-medieval Christian piety that is grounded in part in the Johannine apocalyptic tradition as well as in a Christianized rewriting of the Perseus myth.
Dragons, as satanic incarnations, were now slain in symbolic narratives by saintly knights defending, against the Chaos of a cosmos without grace, the islands of the saved. This simultaneous reduction in dragons’ variability and their exclusive identification with a primordial evil arrayed against the city of the king together make up a repressive move by which evil becomes a kind of mythic-theological naturalization of social actions.
In WHEN WOMEN HELD THE DRAGON’S TONGUE and other essays in Historical Anthropology (2007), Hermann Rebel suggests:
Thanks in part to the efforts of the typologists and comparativists, dragons’ historically ascertainable identifications with evil and pure enmity can be seen as moments of ideological regression, when evil acts are displaced, by means of a mythic beast-actor, into a “natural” universe untouched by divine scrutiny. This perspective shift screens out what are in fact worldly betrayals, crimes, extortions, enslavements, the careless and empowered cruelties that some inflict on others for the primacy of profit, which altogether offer, whether they occur in the intimacy of families or on a geographic scale, a taste of chaos, but one that is always of a socially and morally willed and not a natural variety
.If we regard folk tale dragons through a historical researcher’s eyes in a manner that observes what appears to a reader’s “sense” as plainly evident as possible – that is, phenomenologically – then they are in no case reducible to a mere symbolic presence marked by catalogues of frightening attributes and dastardly demands. Forgetting for the moment that dragons have also never completely stopped lurking in the symbolic narrative universe as protectors, soothsayers, guardians, teachers of language, multipliers of bridewealth and dowry gold, we can also assert that even in narratives that exclusively figure dragons as evil-projecting enemies, they are still not ever mere symbolic agents of Chaos.
Dragons are rather, in almost all their appearances, purposefully rational agents, bargaining unilaterally from a position of great power to destroy. Putting it another way, they can be described as classically criminal tribute takers extorting protection insurance against the violence they can unleash. In Ludwig Bechstein’s mid-nineteenth century collection of German tales the word “tribute” actually appears to describe the dragon’s demands. In tandem with that course of
action, dragons also appear as violent hoarders of wealth- and life-sustaining resources (treasure and water figure most often) , exchanging them dearly for human-sacrificial tributes while cloaking their predations inside pretexts of guardianship.
But whose characterizations are these anyway? They seem to combine the themes of the defeated Dragon nation with the malifications of medeival encounters with comet-debris that gave dragons their ominous overtones. Thus, dragons became associated with themes of shortage, crop failure, and 'The Wasteland', in general. The results of such catastropes seem to have been confabulated with the diaspora of the Dragon clan, adding another layer to their historical "demonization".
Dragons play specific roles in folk tales, they converse and bargain with victims and heroes, have their own plans, in short, act in consequential ways that differ from story to story, from telling to telling. “The Dragon” is never just a symbol but is, rather, a figure, an active figuration, a trope around which specific actions turn and turn out very differently in different tellings. Far from being merely symbolic of evil or chaos, dragons rather threaten with chaos those who do not knuckle under their power.
Current misrecognitions of them as just an evil presence point rather to a culturally refigured repression in the present of the folkloric recognition of such calculated, predatory exercises of power to withhold resources or to threaten with destruction unless demands are met. In the timeline of European dragon tales’ narrative transformations, this shift in consciousness mirrors very precisely the threats posed to the rural subject population by regional and imperial aristocracies acting under evolved conditions of corporatist princely absolutisms and marshalling their tribute resources for a state of perpetual war, for a perpetual terrorist ransoming of everyday life.
How Did the Dragon Lose its Voice?
A part of this historically evolving and still ongoing misrecognition of what dragons might figure historically is, as noted a moment ago, that the narrative turn surrounding the “tongue proof” is more or less pushed out of the picture by tale
typologists and advocates of a single foundation for all tales. The fact that this motif survives and even flourishes without scholarly comment in the very folk tales both parties place at a foundational location in “the tradition,” encourages us to look more deeply into this curiously troubled reading (or the absence of a reading) of “dragon’s tongue” figurations. The loss of figural complexity that we find in the medieval and subsequent representations of dragons as a merely satanic presence was most pronounced in the loss from sight of the dragon-serpent’s capacity for language.
Elaine Pagels has shown us a prefiguration of that loss when she reveals how threatening the language of the
Serpent-in-Paradise could be to early Christians who might be tempted by ophidian rhetorical powers to be “insubordinate . . . to the community ethics that the bishops sought to impose” or to question God’s anthropomorphic failings in his dealings with Adam and Eve, or, Augustine’s fear, to delude themselves that they were free. The
tongue, the speaking organ of the dragon-serpent is a metonymic token of the ambiguous rhetorical gifts of the creature, offering “resistant” responses, a frustration to all who sought certainty, immobile truths, ontological transcendence, power.
Dragons also offered a way out of the limits of just one language. Heroes who ate parts of dragons acquired a capacity for understanding the languages of birds and beasts. They thus knew what was being said in the languages of those everywherepresent, all-seeing creatures, unacknowledged and “unseen” spies who hear and see and talk, among or to themselves, about things outside of ordinary human senses.
It is worth noting that while this capacity of dragon-serpents as helpers continually disappears in scripted mythologies and theologies, it is in the folk tale fragments and local legends told especially among those who bear the greater weight of the social edifice, that respect survives for the gifts that dragons (often appearing in such instances in “reduced” forms as a small white-silver or red-gold snake) can bestow. By contrast, scholars have noted that in the Beowulf epic the dragon never speaks.
Moreover, there are tales where dragons’ oppression is marked by the silencing of the oppressed. Perhaps it is not surprising that especially the oral-narrative practitioners should retain dragons capable of teaching heros and heroines how to speak in multiple tongues. Respect for speaking across species boundaries and thereby attaining allies and helpers (making the serpents’ gift multi-dimensional, infinitely fungible) arises in this specific regard. It creates a necessary search for languages adequate to difficult, possibly no-win choices and tasks, to the testing of a realized desire, to an effective resistance against exploitive and abusive surroundings that remain officially unspeakable, to escapes from the institutionalized self- and other destructive repetitions often mandated by mythic acting out.
Arguably, it is dragon’s tongue tales that especially manifest popular stories’ rebellion against oppressive myths.
Moreover, it is frequently women who are the agents transmitting the dragoncapacity of speech to men, often with dire effects in the process of translation. We have already noted Elaine Pagels’ reconstruction of the dividing of minds among early Christians over the history of what transpired in Eden between Eve and the serpent and between Eve and Adam, to record the active repression mounted against Eve’s “rational” and potentially resistant gift.
Long before, the earth serpent Python had spoken from deep in the caves below Delphi through the priestess Pythia, its ambiguous oracular words also resistant to obvious or “realist” readings as it confounded many into inadequate understandings and often disastrous misreadings with attendant failures. The Pythia appears again to speak to the mother of the Norse hero, Waldemar, the leader of the Danes’ Wild Hunt.
Odin, himself riding the violent winds that are the Wild Hunt and known in his dual-serpent form as Ofnir and Svafnir, was also the inventor of songs and ritual-magical markings, of how to shape desire by means of language into realizable forms that he then taught to his daughter, the giantess Saga, his drinking gossip and confidante who became in turn the teacher of human singers and wordsmiths. And it is the shaping power of words in particular that we find among the ominous capacities of the Norns.
One could regard it as an aspect of the analytical realism of folk tales that that shaping power, the power of the tongue, is only rarely represented as effectively in the grasp of women as it appears to be in the myths. While there are, to be sure, tales where female dragons (Feen, fays) guard treasure, where they wreak revenge on their dragon brothers’ slayers. In one precious tale there is a reversal in the power relationship in the form of a princess who keeps a miniature dragon locked in a box to produce a dowry treasure that grows as the dragon grows until a suitor defeats him and claims both bride and treasure.
There are women who induce their dragon husbands (waking them by plucking out golden feathers and getting them to speak in their half-sleep) to divulge healing secrets that are then passed on to the hero from the human world. Kurt Ranke reproduces a version of “Ivan Cowson” in which the tongue of a dragon-mother is first nailed down to hold her for the subsequent killing.
But women do not produce the dragon’s tongue at the critical juncture where proof of the slaying triumphs over the false pretenders laboring with carcasses or tongueless, and therefore “empty,” dead dragons’ heads. The closest women come is in the not inconsiderable number of tales where it is the rescued princess – sometimes it is an old crone – that cuts out the tongue and, sometimes, wraps it in her kerchief or shawl before she gives it to the slayer who later produces not only the “speaking part” that proves his claim to the act but also simultaneously produces a proof of the victim-witness who was present.
Standing somewhat aside, finally, from tongue proof figurations – and yet also echoing them in the figure of a speaking fragment nailed to a wall in a dark passage that the heroine must go through every day, a fragment speaking only to her – is the head of the magical horse Falada who consoles the bride-turned-goose girl, displaced by an impostor, with a daily reminder of the mother’s blessed ignorance of her daughter’s dire fate.
In Heinz Rölleke’s curious reading of this latter tale, Falada’s head recalls Lower Saxon and Westphalian horses’ heads carved on gables to ward off demons and the girl’s experience becomes in his hands simply a kind of purgatory, a due punishment for her inability to curb her desires (for water!) earlier in the tale. This seems worse than questionable when we note that carved gable horses warding off demons in Lower Saxony have no discernibly significant connection to this story’s unfolding, and their presence in a tale told by a Hessian village tailor’s wife (Dorothea Viehmann) is in any case problematic.
We will have cause to examine more closely the victim-blaming and sexist trope about emotionally incontinent women in Rölleke’s (and others’) readings in the next section, but for the moment we suggest that his reading as a whole seems inadequate to what actually happens in the tale. Among a number of problems, we need only to point to Rölleke’s complete discounting of the fact that it is the declassée princess’ daily exchange of words with the horse’s head that informs the king’s investigation and becomes a proof in the overturning of the false bride’s reach for power and of her unsuccessful efforts to forestall by murder the speaking horse’s capacity to bear witness. In terms of the argument being advanced here, it is the betrayed bride’s active preserving of the still-talking head of the murdered horse early in her period of servitude that furnishes the “tongue proof” against the crime and restores equity.
This is a war of conceptual syles that appears to be going on by means of tales told within and between different social formations at all social levels, even into its present, one-sided form in the guise of folklore studies. Alan Dundes’ introduction of the idea of multiple “folk groups” was on the mark, up to a point, when he argued that “Marxist theory erred in limiting folk to the lower classes, to the oppressed. According to strict Marxist theory, folklore is the weapon of class protest.”
He is partially right to see this as “error,” but it is so not merely because “there is also rightwing folklore expressing the ideology of groups of a conservative political philosophy.”40 He in effect assents in the purportedly “Marxist” attribution of a protest function for folk tales told by and to “the oppressed” perceived as “the lower classes” and it is this latter that is the point that, from our perspective, needs to be disputed.
The colligations, bricolages, stringings-together of many mythic-magical figurations and fragments in narratives exposing and speaking to the life of unseen actions and processes that altogether constitute so-called folk tales are obviously much more than mere “protest;” they are a rhetorical resistance, a taking on in terms of language and concept-construction the mythic force of arguments and narratives sustaining fraudulent and often violently abusive claims to power not only between but also within social classes.
They are to some extent temporary, ad hoc assemblages, whose parts were long ago severed from the mythic corpus to become free figurations, metonyms capable of moving, dissolving out of and reassembling in focused allegorical articulations, across time, through successive (or contiguous) moments of critical recognition, working at the many levels and conjunctures of historical social formations.
The authoritarian and frozen logics and grammars in the mythographies of “rulers” are thereby confronted with the active rhetorical duplexities and improbabilities of “fairy tales”. "Little stories,” contain potent and independently speaking mythic fragments de-constructed and reconstrued in the hands of experienced and, at every social level, subaltern story tellers, capable of addressing more satisfactorily historical moments not in the reach of or even visible to the ruling, myth-laden discourses.
Historians can reveal (or recognize) their own desired relationship to power through the kinds of narrative historicities and utilities they imagine for tales told by various kinds of “folk.”
It is in this light that the “tongue proof” is worth one more look. In itself it “proves” by its very appearances that folk tales are not reducible to paradigmatic arrangements of merely symbolic “elements.” Although it happens that in many
narratives the moment when the tongue is held aloft is just a “moment of truth” when liars and pretenders to inheritance stand exposed, this does not mean the tongue is just one of several such symbols representing a naive notion of truth.
Folk tales are rich with many tokens of “proof:” rings dropped into the bottom of a cup, ring-fingers that when
hacked off bounce to the place where the horrified (girl-)witness is hiding, red-hot iron shoes or glass slippers that do or do not fit etc. A case in point may be found in the Grimms’ own version of the “Two Brothers /Dragon Slayer” tale complex where the tongue proof appears in this fashion as one of numerous instances of different kinds of tokens of proof.
The Grimms’ version of this tale is one of the longest texts in their entire collection and one might even consider it a “literary fairy tale,” a Kunstmärchen, because it is clearly their own construction, their narrative bricolage derived from many sources whose most persistent figure throughout is a display of many possible kinds of proof-tokens and of what they can prove.
Dragon’s tongues are not, however, simply one more kind or type of “proof object” like rings, necklaces, kerchiefs, glass slippers, teeth and the like. “Liars should have no tongues,” says the Grimms’ huntsman and brings us to the point of recognizing different qualities of appearance that tongue proofs can make in different stories. They are not always symbolic of establishing truth. Sometimes the tongue proof, even though “present” and thereby held “in reserve” in the hero’s pocket, does not need to be produced when a witness, e.g., the princess, simply speaks the truth or asserts her love for the hero; sometimes when it is tendered as proof it is not believed.
And sometimes, according to one rather cynical, bottom-line, twist in a tale collected by the nineteenth century Norwegian folklorist Jörgen Moe,43 which holds that even though it is the impostor who has the tongue, it is the hero who has the treasure and it is the treasure that works as the superior proof. In some tellings the hero does not even cut out the whole tongue when the tip of the tongue can serve. And frequently, when the impostor had the insight to sever the tongue, it is the hero’s previous foresight in cutting off the tip of the tongue that trumps the imposture at the critical juncture.
A speaking part of the speaking part refuting the lie of the latter is a figural sophistication frequently foundbeing a one-dimensional symbolic object, the dragon’s tongue, in its presences and absences and in its own occasional dissolution into fragments, can perform a number of different roles in different emplotments, can figure turns of narrative in which lying and truth-telling are intermingled and no outcome is automatically linked to a symbolic
fixture of speech.
The “tongue proof” can but does not necessarily speak to a “truth” in a tale; nor is it a part of a mere protest against imposture, injustice, and lying. Rather than protest, it resists by performing multiple roles for different kinds of contestations and in the hands of different kinds of “actors” and of different narrators.
Recontextualization
Dundes was right to reject aligning “folk tales” with a “folk” that was automatically “the lower class” or, as Darnton would have it, “the peasants” who “tell tales” while “workers revolt.” Not only can tales be a kind of revolt but, as Dundes’ perception implies certain kinds of tale or emplotments and figures are not automatically to be correlated sociologically and do not “represent” easily identified “identities.”
Historical understanding is better served by looking at specifically “locatable” tales as a means to get at of what kinds of “social consciousness” prevailed at certain historical times and places and, in particular, of what kind of consciousness was capable of producing such counter-fictions to disturb, in their time, efforts to reabsorb tales by and into a perpetually self-renewing mythosconstruction going on among would-be hegemons operating, to be sure, at all social levels.
Rather than consign folk tales to a “lower” or “primitive” level of human experience and thereby discount their value both collectively and as individual tellings, the task is rather to regain an open-ended sense of the intellectual dimensions of all historical experience, including experiences among those who “tell tales,” not according to sociological or narrative sub-types but according to discursive formations capable ofcutting across “types,” “classes,” “groups,” “cultures,” “mentalités.”
This means to go beyond limiting lower class narrative expression to mere protest but crediting it with analytical and forensic capacities; it also means developing an “empathy” perspective beyond claiming merely a removal of folk tales from “low culture” or women’s hands into male-dominated and purportedly “high culture” efforts to manipulate the subaltern into behaviors acceptable to some sort of imprecisely conceptualized “bourgeois” modernity. If this latter effort was indeed part of the historical process (as it might well have been – for some) and is to be credited analytically, we can not proceed by grossly distorting historical dimensions of this possibly active but far from understood embourgeoisement.
Moreover, by effectually returning tales to mythological-typological structurations, this approach threatens to re-bury the critical, counter-fictional possibilities of the genre in culture-and-personality and social control paradigms whose analytical failures and power-serving qualities are by now only too evident.
Not only do we lose our ability to perceive the weight popular narrative might have carried as a critical-conceptual and communicative form inside historical processes, but we lose touch with specific historical story-telling traditions and with their tellers as members of dispersed and yet interrelated and evolving groups of “organic” intellectuals with different, and in themselves changing, tasks for what appear to be the same or similar stories.
http://www.marefa.org/images/5/5b/Rebel_when_women.pdf
The Dragon Master Correspondence Course
The Dragon Master Correspondence Course is a distillation of all facets of the Dragon and Dragon Court Mysteries beginning with Lucifer-Sanat Kumara and the First Dragon Court in Central Asia. When you have completed the Course you will receive an IRDC Dragon Master Certificate.
The Dragon Master Course includes these 11 lessons:
Lesson 1: Dragon History: Who were the ancient Dragon Masters? Where did they come from?
Lesson 2: The Primal Dragon and Creator of the Universe
Lesson 3: The Goddess Tradition and the Left Hand Path
Lesson 4: The Ancient Worldwide Dragon Culture
Lesson 5: The History of Dragon Courts around the World
Lesson 6: The Dragon Force and the Path of Alchemy
Lesson 7: The Dragon Wisdom and the Path to Gnosis
Lesson 8: The World Grid: Dragon Lines and Dragon Lairs
Lesson 9: Dragon Healing: Using the Dragon Force for Healing
Lesson 10: Dragon Magic
Lesson 11: Are you a Dragon? The characteristics of a Dragon & Course Completion
To Purchase the IRDC Dragon Master Course:
http://store.gnostictemplars.org/product_info.php?products_id=76
Note: 20% of the proceeds from this course go to IRDC charities.
The Dragon Master Correspondence Course is a distillation of all facets of the Dragon and Dragon Court Mysteries beginning with Lucifer-Sanat Kumara and the First Dragon Court in Central Asia. When you have completed the Course you will receive an IRDC Dragon Master Certificate.
The Dragon Master Course includes these 11 lessons:
Lesson 1: Dragon History: Who were the ancient Dragon Masters? Where did they come from?
Lesson 2: The Primal Dragon and Creator of the Universe
Lesson 3: The Goddess Tradition and the Left Hand Path
Lesson 4: The Ancient Worldwide Dragon Culture
Lesson 5: The History of Dragon Courts around the World
Lesson 6: The Dragon Force and the Path of Alchemy
Lesson 7: The Dragon Wisdom and the Path to Gnosis
Lesson 8: The World Grid: Dragon Lines and Dragon Lairs
Lesson 9: Dragon Healing: Using the Dragon Force for Healing
Lesson 10: Dragon Magic
Lesson 11: Are you a Dragon? The characteristics of a Dragon & Course Completion
To Purchase the IRDC Dragon Master Course:
http://store.gnostictemplars.org/product_info.php?products_id=76
Note: 20% of the proceeds from this course go to IRDC charities.
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For Educational Purposes Only
Iona Miller, Editor
For Educational Purposes Only
Iona Miller, Editor