PART TWENTY-ONE: Read It Before It Is Banned By The US Government

Editor's note: All notations will be cited when this series of articles have concluded. The information is based on research contained in Tom Horn's upcoming new book:

APOLLYON RISING 2012
The Lost Symbol Found And The Final Mystery Of The Great Seal Revealed
A Terrifying And Prophetic Cipher, Hidden From The World By The U.S. Government For Over 200 Years Is Here

COULD MODERN SCIENCE PLAY A ROLE IN THE COMING OF APOLLO?

“Stoop not down, therefore, Unto the Darkly Shining World, Where the ABSU lies in Dark Waters, And CUTHALU sleeps and dreams, Stoop not down, therefore, For an Abyss lies beneath the World, Reached by a descending Ladder, That hath Seven Steps, Reached by a descending Pathway, That hath Seven Gates, And therein is established, The Throne, Of an Evil and Fatal Force. For from the Cavities of the World, Leaps forth the Evil Demon, The Evil God, The Evil Genius, The Evil Ensnarer, The Evil Phantom, The Evil Devil, The Evil Larvae, Showing no true Signs, Unto mortal Man. AND THE DEAD WILL RISE AND SMELL THE INCENSE!”—The Babylonian Creation Epic: Enuma Elish (Magian Version) V

In recombinant DNA technology, a “transgenic” organism is created when the genetic structure of one specie is altered by the transfer of a gene or genes from another. Given that molecular biologists classify the functions of genes within native species but are unsure in many cases how a gene’s coding might react from one species to another, not only could the genetic structure of the modified animal and its offspring be changed in physical appearance as a result of transgenics, but its evolutionary development, sensory modalities, disease propensity, personality, behavior traits and more.

Many readers will be astonished to learn that in spite of these unknowns, such transgenic tinkering is already taking place in most parts of the world including the United States, Britain, and Australia, where animal eggs are being used to create hybrid human embryos from which stem cell lines can be produced for medical research. On March 9, 2009, President Barack Obama signed an executive order providing federal funding to expand this type embryonic research in the United States. Not counting synthetic biology, where entirely new forms of life are being brewed, there is no limit to the number of human-animal concoctions currently under development in laboratories around the world. A team at Newcastle and Durham universities in the UK recently announced plans to create “hybrid rabbit and human embryos, as well as other ‘chimera’ embryos mixing human and cow genes.” The same researchers more alarmingly have already managed to reanimate tissue “from dead human cells in another breakthrough which was heralded as a way of overcoming ethical dilemmas over using living embryos for medical research.” [1] In the United States, similar studies led Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University’s Institute of Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine in California to create mice with partly human brains, causing some ethicists to raise the issue of “humanized animals” in the future that could become “self aware” as a result of genetic modification. Even former President of the United States, George W. Bush in his January 31st, 2006 State of the Union Address called for legislation to “prohibit…. creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos.” His words fell on deaf ears, and now “the chimera, or combination of species, is a subject of serious discussion in certain scientific circles,” writes senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, Joseph Infranco. “We are well beyond the science fiction of H.G. Wells’ tormented hybrids in The Island of Doctor Moreau; we are in a time where scientists are seriously contemplating the creation of human-animal hybrids.” [2]

Not everybody shares Infranco’s concerns. A radical, international, intellectual, and quickly growing cultural movement known as “Transhumanism” supports the use of new sciences including genetic modification to enhance human mental and physical abilities and aptitudes so that “human beings will eventually be transformed into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label ‘posthuman.’” [3]

I have personally debated leading transhumanist, Dr. James Hughes on his weekly syndicated talk show, Changesurfer Radio. Hughes is Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and teaches at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut. He is also the author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future, a sort of Bible for transhumanist values. Dr. Hughes joins a growing body of academics, bioethicists and sociologists who support “large-scale genetic and neurological engineering of ourselves….[a] new chapter in evolution [as] the result of accelerating developments in the fields of genomics, stem-cell research, genetic enhancement, germ-line engineering, neuro-pharmacology, artificial intelligence, robotics, pattern recognition technologies, and nanotechnology…. at the intersection of science and religion [which has begun to question] what it means to be human….” [4] While the transformation of man to posthuman is in its fledgling state, complete integration of the technological singularity necessary to replace existing Homo sapiens as the dominant life form on earth is approaching an exponential curve. National Geographic Magazine speculated in 2007 that within 10 years the first transhumans would walk the earth, and legendary writer Vernor Verge recently stated that we are entering a period in history when questions like “what is the meaning of life?” will be nothing more than an engineering question. “Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence,” he told H+ Magazine. “Shortly thereafter, the human era will be ended.” [5]

In preparation of the posthuman revolution, Case Law School in Cleveland was awarded a $773,000 grant in April 2006 from the National Institutes of Health to begin developing guidelines “for the use of human subjects in… the next frontier in medical technology – genetic enhancement.” Maxwell Mehlman, Arthur E. Petersilge Professor of Law, director of the Law-Medicine Center at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, and professor of bioethics in the Case School of Medicine led the team of law professors, physicians, and bioethicists over the two-year project “to develop standards for tests on human subjects in research that involves the use of genetic technologies to enhance ‘normal’ individuals.” [6] Following this study, Mehlman began in 2009 offering university lectures such as “Directed Evolution: Public Policy and Human Enhancement” as well as “Transhumanism and the Future of Democracy” addressing the need for society to comprehend how emerging fields of science will, in approaching years, alter what it means to be human, and what this means to democracy, individual rights, free will, eugenics and equality. Other law schools including Stanford and Oxford have hosted similar “Human Enhancement and Technology” conferences where transhumanists, futurists, bioethicists and legal scholars have been busying themselves with the ethical, legal, and inevitable ramifications of posthumanity.

As the Director of the Future of Humanity Institute and a Professor of Philosophy at Oxford University, Nick Bostrom (nickbostrom.com) is another leading advocate of transhumanism who, like the Watchers before him, envisions re-manufacturing humans with animals, plants and other synthetic life forms through the use of modern sciences. When describing the benefits of man-with-beast combinations in his online thesis Transhumanist Values, Bostrom cites how animals have “sonar, magnetic orientation, or sensors for electricity and vibration” among other extra-human abilities. He goes on to include how the range of sensory modalities for transhumans would not be limited to those among animals, and that there is “no fundamental block to adding say a capacity to see infrared radiation or to perceive radio signals and perhaps to add some kind of telepathic sense by augmenting our brains….” [7]

Bostrom is correct in that the animal kingdom has levels of perception beyond human. Some animals can ‘sense’ earthquakes and ‘smell’ tumors. Others, like dogs, can hear sounds as high as 40,000 Hz and dolphins can hear even higher. It is also known that at least some animals—like Nimrod may have been able to do once he became Gibbori—see wavelengths beyond normal human capacity. Incidentally, what Bostrom may also understand and anticipate is that, according to the biblical story of Balaam’s donkey, certain animals see into the spirit world. At Arizona State University where the Templeton Foundation is currently funding a series of lectures titled, Facing the Challenges of Transhumanism: Religion, Science, Technology [8], transhumanism is specifically viewed as possibly effecting supernatural transformation, not just physical. Called “the next epoch in human evolution,” some of the lecturers at ASU believe radical alteration of Homo sapiens could open a door to unseen intelligence. Consequently, ASU launched another study in 2009 to explore communication with “entities.” Called the SOPHIA project (after the Greek goddess), the express purpose of the study is to verify communication “with Deceased People, Spirit Guides, Angels, Other-Worldly Entities / Extraterrestrials, and / or a Universal Intelligence / God.” [9]

Imagine what this could mean if government laboratories with unlimited budgets working beyond congressional review were to decode the gene functions that lead animals to have preternatural capabilities of sense, smell, and sight, and then blended them with Homo sapiens. Among other things, the ultimate psychotronic weapon could be created for use against entire populations—genetically engineered ‘Nephilim agents’ that appear to be human but who hypothetically see and even interact with invisible forces.

While the former chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, Leon Kass does not elaborate on the same type issues, he provided a status report on how real and how frightening the dangers of such biotechnology could imminently be in the hands of transhumanists. In the introduction to his book Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenges of Bioethics, Kass warned:

“Human nature itself lies on the operating table, ready for alteration, for eugenic and psychic ‘enhancement,’ for wholesale redesign. In leading laboratories, academic and industrial, new creators are confidently amassing their powers and quietly honing their skills, while on the street their evangelists are zealously prophesying a posthuman future. For anyone who cares about preserving our humanity, the time has come for paying attention.” [10]

The warning by Kass of the potential hazards of emerging technologies coupled with transhumanist aspirations is not an overreaction. One law school in the UK where CSI students are taught crime scene investigation is already discussing the need to add classes in the future devoted to analyzing crime scenes committed by posthumans. The requirement for such specially trained law enforcement personnel will arise due to part-human part-animal beings possessing behavior patterns not consistent with present day profiling or forensics understanding. Add to this other unknowns such as “memory transference” (an entirely new field of study showing that complex behavior patterns and even memories can be transferred from donors of large human organs to their recipients) and the potential for tomorrow’s human-animal chimera issues multiply. How would the memories, behavior patterns or instincts let’s say of a wolf effect the mind of a human? That such unprecedented questions will have to be dealt with sooner than later has already been illustrated in animal-to-animal experiments, including those conducted by Evan Balaban at McGill University in Montreal where sections of brain from embryonic quails were transplanted into the brains of chickens, and the resultant chickens exhibited head bobs and vocal trills unique to quail. [11] The implication from this field of study alone suggest transhumans will likely bare unintended behavior and appetite disorders that could literally produce lycanthropes (werewolves) and other nightmarish Nephilim traits.

But As troubling as those thoughts are, even this contemplation could be just the tip of the iceberg, as we will see in the next entry.

PART TWENTY: Read It Before It Is Banned By The US Government

Editor's note: All notations will be cited when this series of articles have concluded. The information is based on research contained in Tom Horn's upcoming new book:

APOLLYON RISING 2012
The Lost Symbol Found And The Final Mystery Of The Great Seal Revealed
A Terrifying And Prophetic Cipher, Hidden From The World By The U.S. Government For Over 200 Years Is Here

[NOTE: We have been informed from several soldiers and have confirmed that this blog site is now being banned, as predicted, on some government computers and military bases]

AN ALTERNATIVE REASON FOR WHY THE WATCHERS BLENDED DNA

While I believe the theory of DNA corruption as an intended method for halting the coming of Christ has merit, an alternative or additional reason for why the Watchers may have blended living organisms exists. This theory is original with me insofar as I know and grew from my need to incorporate the voluminous historical texts, which described this peculiar history, into a consistent account.

To harmonize the ancient records, I came to believe that the overriding motive for whatever the Watchers were doing with the DNA of various species had to be understood within the context of their foremost goal, which was to leave their plane of existence and to enter ours (Jude 6; 2 Pet 2:4). My challenge then became to answer the question of how blending various species would satisfy this goal or provide the Watchers with a method of departure from ‘high heaven’ and incarnation into man’s ‘habitation.’ While I will not take time here to explain every detail (a 5-hour CD set called As It Was In The Days Of Noah: The Return Of The Nephilim that covers this and related material is available from SurvivorMall.com), I eventually hypothesized that the Watchers had to blend species in the way they did in order to create a soul-less or spirit-less body into which they could extend themselves. The rationale is that every creature as it existed originally had its beginning in God, who ordered each creature to reproduce “after its own kind.” The phrase, “after its own kind” verifies what kind of spirit can enter into an intelligent being at conception. When the sperm of a dog meets ovum of a dog and life of a dog is formed, at the first spark of life the spirit or personality of a dog enters that embryo and it grows to become a dog in spirit and form. The spirit of a man does not enter it, in the same way that a man is not born with the spirit of a horse or cow. This creature/spirit integrity is part of the Divine Order and would have kept the Watchers, who wanted to incarnate within the human realm (not just ‘possess’ creatures), from displacing the spirits of humans or animals and replacing them with their own. How did they overcome this problem? Like scientists are doing today, it appears based on the ancient records that they blended existing DNA of several living creatures and made something that neither the spirit of man or beast would enter at conception, for it was neither man nor beast. As the quarterly online travel guide Mysterious World in their 2003 feature Giants in the Earth noted, “The Nephilim were genetically manufactured beings created from the genetic material of various pre-existing animal species… the fallen angels did not personally interbreed with the daughters of men, but used their godlike intellect to delve into the secrets of YHWH’s Creation and manipulate it to their own purposes. And the key to creating or recreating man, as we have (re)discovered in the twentieth century, is the human genome — DNA.” This manipulation of living tissue by the fallen angels led to an unusual body made up of human, animal, and plant genetics known as Nephilim, an ‘earth born’ facsimile or ‘fit extension’ into which they could incarnate. What’s more, the long history of demonological phenomenon related to manipulation of biological matter suggests that versions of this curious activity have been ongoing ever since.

Former college professor and BBC correspondent (and my dear friend whose celebrated book I was privileged to put back in print), Dr. I.D.E. Thomas in The Omega Conspiracy, chronicled the burgeoning of so-called ‘alien abduction’ activity and tied it to end-time prophecy concerning the return of the Nephilim. Documentation by ‘abductees’ worldwide and the stories of DNA harvesting by ‘aliens’ reminded him of the history of biological misuse by the Watchers, and led Thomas to conclude that the identity of the Watchers and whoever the alien entities are, were somehow connected. Dr. Thomas told me personally that the special desire by these unknown agents for human and animal molecular matter “would explain why animals have been killed, mutilated, and stolen by the aliens in UFO flap areas.” Respected UFO researcher, Dr. Jacques F. Vallée raised similar questions.

“In order to materialize and take definite form, these entities seem to require a source of energy…a living thing…a human medium…. Our sciences have not reached a point where they can offer us any kind of working hypothesis for this process. But we can speculate that these beings need living energy which they can reconstruct into physical form. Perhaps that is why dogs and animals tend to vanish in flap areas. Perhaps the living cells of those animals are somehow used by the ultraterrestrials to create forms which we can see and sense with our limited perceptions.” [1]

Like Thomas, Vallée connected this activity with the legendary acts of the Watchers.

“Are we dealing…with a parallel universe, another dimension, where there are…races only semi-human, so that in order to maintain contact with us, they need cross-breeding with men and woman of our planet? Is this the origin of the many tales and legends where genetics play a great role: . . . the fairy tales involving human midwives and changelings, the sexual overtones of the flying saucer reports, the Biblical stories of intermarriage between the Lord’s angels and terrestrial women, whose offspring were giants?” [2]

Whether or not there is a connection between the ancient power behind the Watcher narrative and the modern ‘alien abduction’ activity documented by Vallée and others involving biological harvesting from humans and animals, records from antiquity include mysterious possibilities regarding the ability of the Watcher’s deceased offspring to return to ‘physical form’ at particular moments in time. The relationship between the Rephaim—the giant occupants of Canaan (of which Og, King of Bashan whose bed was 18 feet long belonged)—and the Nephilim becomes important here, as the Rephaim were associated by the ancients with the ‘shades of the dead’ including Nephilim in Sheol. The meaning of the word Rephaim is especially germane, as it carries with it the idea ‘to heal’ or to be ‘healed’ as in a ‘resurrection’ from the place of the dead, Sheol-Hades.

In the Ras Shamra texts, the Rephaim were described as demigods who worshipped the Amorite god Ba’al, the ruler of the underworld. When Rephaim died, their spirits went into the underworld where they joined Ba’al’s acolyte assembly of lesser gods, kings, heroes, and rulers. These beings had the power to return from the dead through reincarnation into bodily form as Nephilim. As Mysterious World in Giants in the Earth also included, “…the Rephaim giants were specifically noted by Moses as being the return of the antediluvian Nephilim, that the Rephaim were in fact the reincarnations of the demonic spirits of the Nephilim giants who had been destroyed in the Flood.” A surprise to many Bible students would be to learn that the prophet Isaiah may have considered this Amorite dogma factual, and that he tied the power of these beings to the King of Babylon and Lucifer himself. After prophesying against the Babylonian leader, Isaiah says in parallel to Rephaim theology:

“Hell [Sheol-Hades] from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead [Rapha, Raphaim] for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. And they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?” Isaiah 14:9-10

Immediately following this statement, Isaiah looked beyond the Rephaim at who their Ba’al actually was, identifying him in verse 12, saying, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!”

Other places in the Bible such as Job 26:5 may agree with the idea of a Luciferian power that can, under some circumstances, return Rephaim from the underworld to physical bodies known as Nephilim. “Dead things are formed from under the waters…” Job says. The dead in this text are Rapha (Rephaim) and the phrase “are formed” is from “Chuwl,” meaning to twist or whirl as in a double helix coil or genetic manufacturing. The startling implication of this and similar texts is that beneath the surface of earth, agents of darkness wait the moment of their return. Before the end of this series, we shall consider several ancient documents and scriptures that seem to forecast such a terrifying event for the end-times.

A BIBLICAL EXAMPLE OF NEPHILIM RESURRECTION?

If indeed the activity of Watchers was the use of biotechnology to produce exotic bodies of flesh for beings that have the ability under extraordinary circumstances to reincarnate after physical death, would the method of their returning from the grave likewise be an advanced form of science? I believe this could be the case, and the Bible may actually provide a record of this occurring. The story is doubly important to our series and the Apollyon Rising 2012 book I hope to have out by November, because it centers around Nimrod, the original character who later was mythologized as the god prophesied by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament and by the Occult Elite in the Great Seal of the United States as the ancient spirit that will return to earth to rule the Novus Ordo Seclorum—Apollo/Osiris. Earlier we pointed out how Apollo is reanimated on earth in the end times when “the Beast” ascends from the Bottomless Pit and goes “into perdition” (into Apolia, Apollo. See Rev 17:8). The story of Nimrod (Gilgamesh/Apollo/Osiris) in the book of Genesis may illustrate how this could happen through genetic influence or even a retrovirus (of demonic design?) that integrates with a host’s genome and rewrites the living specimen’s DNA, thus making it a ‘fit extension’ for infection by the entity. In Genesis 10:8 it says about Nimrod:

“And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.”

There are three sections in this unprecedented verse that indicate something very peculiar may have happened to Nimrod. First, note where the text says, “he began to be.” In Hebrew this is Chalal and means to “become profaned, defiled, polluted or desecrated ritually, sexually or genetically.” Second, this verse tells us exactly what Nimrod began to be—”a mighty one” (Gibbowr, Gibborim), one of the offspring of Nephilim. Notwithstanding some of the writing on the Gibborim that my good friend Michael Heiser has done, Reed says in the Cambridge University book Fallen angels and the history of Judaism and Christianity, “The Nephilim of Gen 6:4 are always… grouped together with the Gibborim as the progeny of the Watchers and human women.” [3]. And the third part of this text says the change to Nimrod started while he was on “earth.” Therefore in modern language this text could accurately be translated to say:

“And Nimrod began to change genetically, becoming a Gibborim, the offspring of Watchers on earth.”

To understand how as a mature, living specimen, Nimrod could have “began to be a Gibborim,” it is helpful to imagine this in terms of biology, as we know it. For instance not long ago, I “began to be” a diabetic. Because of poor choices of food, diet and exercise, my doctor tells me that I triggered a genetic inherent and that it began changing me in powerful, metabolic ways. This change is so powerful that today I have to take drugs to keep it from killing me. Yet just because I had the heritable disease-related genotype that can lead to diabetes, this did not mean necessarily that I would develop the medical condition. It is entirely possible to be a carrier of a genetic mutation that increases the risk of developing a particular disease, without ever actually becoming afflicted with the disorder in the course of a lifetime. Due to my earlier lifestyle or maybe even certain environmental conditions I was unaware of, the gene mutation involved in the action of insulin “turned on” and I “began to be” a diabetic.

I’ve often wondered if the record of Nimrod where it says he “began to be” a “Gibborim” indicated something similar about his genetics, DNA, or bloodline that “turned on” as a result of his decisions, triggering a change in him from one type being to another. It is also a possibility, I suppose, that Nimrod became afflicted with a retrovirus that integrated with his genome and, in essence, “rewrote” his genetic makeup, fashioning him into a “fit extension” for an under-worldly spirit. When I asked Sharon Gilbert, author of The Armageddon Strain whose formal education includes molecular biology and genetics if she thought this was possible, she said, “Absolutely, Tom. Retroviruses essentially inject single-stranded RNA strands into somatic (body) cells during ‘infection’. These ssRNA strands access nucleotide pools in the host cell and form a double-stranded DNA copy. This dsDNA can then incorporate itself into the host chromosome using a viral enzyme called ‘integrase.’ The new ‘fake gene’ then orders the cell to make more mRNA copies of the original virus RNA. These then travel out of the cell and infect the next cell, and so on.”

Perhaps this type genetic re-writing is implied in Genesis 10:8 when it says, “And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one [Gibborim] in the earth.”

In addition to such scientific deduction, another reason I believe this story is suspicious is because of what Nimrod did immediately following Genesis chapter 10. As soon as he “began to be a mighty one” in the earth, one chapter later he set out to build a tower whose top would “reach unto heaven” (Gen 11:4). This was the infamous Tower of Babel, and Nimrod was designing it so that the top of it would extend into Shamayim (heaven), the abode of God. Works including The Jewish Encyclopedia confirm several historical records that Nimrod, whom they establish was also identified by various ancient cultures alternatively as Osiris, Orion, Apollo, and Gilgamesh, built the Tower of Babel in an attempt to ascend into the presence of God. Jehovah himself came down and said of the tower’s design, “nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do” (Gen 11:6). In other words, according to the Lord, Nimrod would have accomplished what he “imagined” to do—to build a tower whose top would reach into the abode of God. That this section of scripture could be viewed as a secondary support for the concept of Nimrod having become “revived Watcher offspring” is thus supported by Nimrod seeming to abruptly be aware of where and how tall to build a tower so that the top of it would penetrate the dwelling place of God. Were his eyes suddenly opened to realities that are outside man’s normal mode of perception? As he became Gibborim, he would have taken on Watchers propensities, which, as angels, could see into the supernatural realm including where heaven is located and possibly where to enter it. Even the name Babylon implies this, meaning the “Gate of God” or gateway to God. That there could be sacred locations where those beings that can see into the supernatural realm could literally walk up onto a high place and enter heaven is not as far fetched as it sounds. Numerous records including from the Bible appear to substantiate the idea that heaven could be attained on high towers or mountainous locations. Consider Moses meeting with God on Sinai, Jesus returning atop the Mount of Olives, the 200 Watchers that “descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon” (Enoch, 6:6) and other examples including Jacob’s ladder. This could also explain why, in the deep recesses of our psyche, people tend to believe they can draw closer to God when going up onto mountains.

In addition to the possibility of suddenly seeing into the supernatural realm as a result of integration with fallen angels, if Nimrod was genetically modified according to the original Watcher formula, he would have inherited animal characteristics within his new material makeup, and animals, like angels, seem to perceive ‘domains’ humans cannot. This includes obvious things such as wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, but perhaps something more substantial as well, like the spirit realm. This is important to keep in mind as we consider in the next entries how the move by modern scientists to revive Watcher technology and to blend humans with animals could set in motion the return of Nephilim and the coming of Apollo.

PART NINETEEN: Read It Before It Is Banned By The US Government

Editor's note: All notations will be cited when this series of articles have concluded. The information is based on research contained in Tom Horn's upcoming new book:

APOLLYON RISING 2012
The Lost Symbol Found And The Final Mystery Of The Great Seal Revealed
A Terrifying And Prophetic Cipher, Hidden From The World By The U.S. Government For Over 200 Years Is Here

THE LUCIFERIAN SCIENCE OF DEITY RESURRECTION

“Osiris will rise in splendor from the dead and rule the world through those sages and philosophers in whom wisdom has become incarnate.”—Manly P. Hall, 33rd Degree Freemason

“The World will soon come to us for its Sovereigns and Pontiffs. We shall constitute the equilibrium of the Universe, and be rulers over the Masters of the World.” Albert Pike, Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite Freemasonry

“I am Yesterday and I am Today; and I have the power to be born a second time.” Statement of Osiris from the Egyptian Book of the Dead

To understand how the pagan god of death and destruction so cleverly hidden in the Great Seal of the United States could fulfill the Sibyl’s conjure and return with “the life of gods” with “Heroes and gods commingling,” we gaze into the distant past, when the forbidden science was initially used, and to the powerful beings that first developed it and that may be planning to use it again.

As far back as the beginning of time and within every major culture of the ancient world, the astonishingly consistent story is told of ‘gods’ that descended from heaven and materialized in bodies of flesh. From Rome, to Greece, and before that to Egypt, Persia, Assyria, Babylonia and Sumer, the earliest records of civilization tell of the era when powerful beings known to the Hebrews as Watchers and in the Book of Genesis as the Benei Ha-Elohim (Sons of God), mingled themselves with humans, giving birth to part-celestial, part-terrestrial hybrids known as Nephilim. The Bible says this happened when men began to increase on earth and daughters were born to them. When the Sons of God saw the women’s beauty, they took wives from among them to sire their unusual offspring. In Genesis 6:4 we read the following account:

“There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”

When this scripture is compared with other ancient texts including Enoch, Jubilees, Baruch, Genesis Apocryphon, Philo, Josephus, Jasher and so on, it unfolds to some that the giants of the Old Testament, such as Goliath, were the part-human part-animal part-angelic offspring of a supernatural interruption into the divine order and natural evolution of the species. The Apocryphal Book of Enoch gives a name to the angels involved in this cosmic conspiracy, calling them Watchers. We read:

And I Enoch was blessing the Lord of majesty and the King of the ages, and lo! the Watchers called me—Enoch the scribe—and said to me: ‘Enoch, thou scribe of righteousness, go, declare to the Watchers of the heaven who have left the high heaven, the holy eternal place, and have defiled themselves with women, and have done as the children of earth do, and have taken unto themselves wives: “Ye have wrought great destruction on the earth: And ye shall have no peace nor forgiveness of sin: and inasmuch as they delight themselves in their children [the Nephilim], The murder of their beloved ones shall they see, and over the destruction of their children shall they lament, and shall make supplication unto eternity, but mercy and peace shall ye not attain” (1 Enoch 10:3-8).

According to Enoch, two hundred of these powerful angels departed ‘high heaven’ and used women (among other things) to extend their progeny into mankind’s plane of existence. The Interlinear Hebrew Bible has an interesting interpretation of Genesis 6:2 in this regard. Where the King James Bible says, “the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they [were] fair,” the IHN interprets this as, “The benei Elohim saw the daughters of Adam, that they were fit extensions.”

The term “fit extensions” seems applicable when the whole of the ancient record is understood to mean that the Watchers wanted to leave their proper sphere of existence in order to enter earth’s three-dimensional reality. They viewed women—or at least their genetic material—as part of the formula for accomplishing this task. Departing the proper habitation that God had assigned them was grievous to the Lord and led to divine penalization. Jude described it this way: The “angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6).

Besides Apocryphal, Pseudepigraphic, and Jewish traditions related to the legend of the Watchers and the “Mighty Men” born of their union with humans, mythologized accounts tell the stories of ‘gods’ using humans to produce heroes or demigods (half-gods). When the ancient Greek version of the Hebrew Old Testament (the LXX or Septuagint) was made, the word “Nephilim”—referring to the part-human offspring of the Watchers—was translated “gegenes,” a word implying “earth born.” This same terminology was used to describe the Greek Titans and other legendary heroes of partly celestial and partly terrestrial origin, such as Hercules, born of Zeus and the mortal Alcmena, Achilles, the Trojan hero son of Thetis and Peleus, and Gilgamesh, the two-thirds god and one-third human child of Lugalbanda and Ninsun. These demigods were likewise accompanied in texts and idol representation by half-animal and half-human creatures like Centaurs (the part-human part-horse offspring of Apollo’s son, Centaurus), Chimera’s, Furies, Satyrs, Gorgons, Nymphs, Minotaurs and other genetic aberrations. Historian Andrew Tomas believes these mythological records are “thought-fossils depicting the story of vanished cultures in symbols and allegories,” or, as Stephen Quayle in his book Genesis 6 Giants explains: “The collective memories in the form of myths, fables and fairy tales from various cultures and ages of mankind are overwhelming evidence that the Nephilim existed.” All of this indicates that the Watchers not only modified human DNA during the construction of Nephilim, but animals as well, a point the Book of Enoch supports, saying in the 7th chapter that the fallen angels “sinned” against animals as well as humans. Other books such as Jubilees add that this interspecies mingling eventually resulted in mutations among normal humans and animals whose “flesh” (genetic makeup) was “corrupted” by the activity, presumably through crossbreeding (see 5:1-5; 7:21-25). Even the Old Testament contains reference to the genetic mutations that developed among humans following this time frame, including ‘men’ of unusual size, physical strength, six fingers, six toes, animal appetite for blood and even lion-like features (2 Sam 21:20; 23:20). J. R. Church makes an interesting point that since this activity was satanic in nature, it refers to the ‘seed of the serpent’ that was at enmity with Christ. “The concept of a reptilian race continues throughout the Bible as a metaphoric symbol of the devil,” he wrote in his Prophecy in the News Magazine, February 2009. “Later Scriptures add the term ‘dragon,’ with the implication that these other-worldly creatures were designed with the DNA code of a reptilian race.” J.R. goes on to state how some of these satanic creatures were depicted as “bat-like gargoyles, or winged dragons” in ancient art and that we should not be surprised that “a humanoid-type reptilian race could cohabit with human women and produce a race of giants.”

But of all the ancient records, the most telling extra-biblical script is from the book of Jasher, a mostly forgotten text referred to in the Bible in Joshua 10:13 and Second Samuel 1:18. Jasher records the familiar story of the fall of the Watchers then adds an exceptional detail that none of the other texts are as unequivocal about, something that can only be understood in modern language to mean advanced biotechnology, genetic engineering or ‘transgenic modification’ of species. After the Watchers had instructed humans “in the secrets of heaven,” note what Jasher says occurred:

“[Then] the sons of men [began teaching] the mixture of animals of one species with the other, in order therewith to provoke the Lord” (Jasher 4:18).

The phrase “the mixture of animals of one species with the other” does not mean Watchers had taught men hybridization, as this would not have “provoked the Lord.” God made like-animals of different breeds capable of reproducing. For example horses can propagate with other mammals of the Equidae classification (the taxonomic ‘horse family’) including donkeys and zebras. It would not have “provoked the Lord” for this type animal breeding to have taken place, as God himself made the animals able to do this.

If, on the other hand, the Watchers were crossing species boundaries by mixing incompatible animals “of one species with the other” such as a horse with a human (a Centaur), this would have been a different matter and may cast light on the numerous ancient stories of mythical beings of variant-species manufacturing that fits perfectly within the records of what the Watchers were accomplishing. Understandably, this kind of chimera-making would have “provoked the Lord” and raises the serious question of why the Watchers would have risked eternal damnation by ‘tinkering’ with God’s creation in this way. Yahweh placed boundaries between the species and strictly ordered that “each kind” reproduce only after its “own kind.” Was the motive of the Watchers to break these rules simply the desire to rebel, to assault God’s creative genius through biologically altering what He had made? Or was something of deeper significance behind the activity?

Some believe the corruption of antediluvian DNA by Watchers was an effort to cut off the birth line of the Messiah. This theory posits that Satan understood the protoevangelium—the promise in Genesis ३:15 that a savior would be born, the seed of the woman, and that He would destroy the fallen angel’s power. Satan’s followers therefore intermingled with the human race in a conspiracy to stop the birth of Christ according to this line of thought. If human DNA could be universally corrupted or ‘demonized’ they reasoned, no savior would be born and mankind would be lost forever. Those who support this theory believe this is why God Ordered a pure human bloodline to be maintained and for His followers not to intermarry with the other nations. When men breached this command and the mutated DNA began rapidly spreading among humans and animals, God instructed Noah to build an ark and to prepare for a flood that would destroy every living thing. That God had to send such a universal fiat like the flood illustrates how widespread the altered DNA eventually became. In fact, the Bible says in Genesis 6:9 that only Noah, and therefore by extension his children, were found ‘perfect’ in their generation. The Hebrew word for ‘perfect’ in this case is Tamiym and means ‘without blemish’ or ‘healthy,’ the same word used in Leviticus to describe an unblemished sacrificial lamb. The meaning was not that Noah was morally perfect, but that his physical makeup—his DNA—had not been contaminated with Nephilim descent, as apparently the rest of the world had become. In order to preserve mankind as He had made them, God destroyed all but Noah’s family in the flood. The ancient records including those of the Bible appear to agree with this theology, consistently describing the cause of the Flood as happening in response to “all flesh” having become “corrupted, both man and beast.”

While I believe this theory has merit, I want to propose an alternative or additional reasoning for this activity in the next entry.

PART EIGHTEEN: Read It Before It Is Banned By The US Government

Editor's note: All notations will be cited when this series of articles have concluded. The information is based on research contained in Tom Horn's upcoming new book:

APOLLYON RISING 2012
The Lost Symbol Found And The Final Mystery Of The Great Seal Revealed
A Terrifying And Prophetic Cipher, Hidden From The World By The U.S. Government For Over 200 Years Is Here

DIONYSUS: THE PSYCHOTIC ASPECT OF THE DEMON APOLLO/OSIRIS

Around the first century BC, historians began using the term ‘Osiris-Dionysus’ to commonly refer to dying-and-resurrecting deities, often part-human and born of ‘virgins’ that were worshipped in the years before the emergence of Jesus Christ. In the 5th century BC, Herodotus spoke in particular of the syncretic relationship between Osiris and Dionysus, the thirteenth god of the Greeks. By adding Dionysus to what we have already written about Osiris and Apollo, one can imagine a kind of demonic trinity—a single spirit represented in three manifestations, each of which illustrate a different side of the entity’s makeup. While as Osiris, this spirit is the god of death and the underworld, and as Apollo he is an oracular sun deity and destroyer demon, as Dionysus he is superficially depicted as the inventor of wine, abandon, and revelry, a description that seems inadequate in that it refers only to the basic elements of intoxication and enthusiasm, which was used of the Bacchae (the female participants of the Dionystic mysteries; also known as Maenads and Bacchantes) in their rituals to experience Dionysus, the intoxicating god of unbridled human desire.

Ancient followers of Dionysus believed he was the presence that is otherwise defined as the craving within man that longs to “let itself go” and to “give itself over” to baser earthly desires. What a Christian might resist as the lustful wants of the carnal man, the followers of Dionysus embraced as the incarnate power that would, in the next life, liberate the souls of mankind from the constraints of this present world and from the customs which sought to define respectability through a person’s obedience to moral law. Until that day arrive, the worshippers of Dionysus attempted to bring themselves into union with the god through a ritual casting off of the bonds of sexual denial and primal constraint by seeking to attain a higher state of ecstasy. The uninhibited rituals of ecstasy (Greek for “outside the body”) was believed to bring the followers of Dionysus into a supernatural condition that enabled them to escape the temporary limitations of the body and mind and to achieve a state of enthousiasmos, or, outside the body and “inside the god.” In this sense Dionysus represented a dichotomy within the Greek religion, as the primary maxim of the Greek culture was one of moderation, or, “nothing too extreme.” But Dionysus embodied the absolute extreme in that he sought to inflame the forbidden passions of human desire. Interestingly, and most students of psychology will understand, this gave Dionysus a stronger allure among the Greeks who otherwise tried in so many ways to suppress and control the wild and secret lusts of the human heart. Dionysus resisted every such effort, and, according to myth, visited a terrible madness upon those who tried to deny him free expression. This Dionystic idea of mental disease resulting from the suppression of secret inner desires, especially aberrant sexual desires, was later reflected in the atheistic teachings of Sigmund Freud. Freudianism might therefore be called the grandchild of the cult of Dionysus. Conversely, the person who gave himself over to the will of Dionysus was rewarded with unlimited psychological and physical delights. These mythical systems of mental punishments and physical rewards based on resistance and/or submission to Dionysus, were both symbolically and literally illustrated in the cult rituals of the Bacchae, as the Bacchae women (married and unmarried Greek women had the “right” to participate in the mysteries of Dionysus) migrated in frenzied hillside groups, dressed transvestite in fawn skins and accompanied by screaming, music, dancing, and licentious behavior. When, for instance, a baby animal was too young and lacking in instinct to sense the danger and run away from the revelers, it was picked up and suckled by nursing mothers who participated in the hillside rituals. On the other hand, when older animals sought to escape the marauding Bacchae, they were considered “resistant” to the will of Dionysus and were torn apart and eaten alive as a part of the fevered ritual. Human participants were sometimes subjected to the same orgiastic cruelty, as the rule of the cult was “anything goes,” including beastiality, etc. Later versions of the ritual (Bacchanalia) expanded to include pedophilia and male revelers, and perversions of sexual behavior were often worse between men than they were between men and women. Any creature that dared to resist such perversion of Dionysus was subjected to sparagmos (“torn apart’) and omophagia (“consumed raw”).

In B.C. 410, Euripides wrote of the bloody rituals of the Bacchae in his famous play, The Bacchantes:

the Bacchantes....with hands that bore no weapon of steel, attacked our cattle as they browsed. Then wouldst thou have seen Agave mastering some sleek lowing calf, while others rent the heifers limb from limb. Before thy eyes there would have been hurling of ribs and hoofs this way and that, and strips of flesh, all blood be-dabbled, dripped as they hung from the pine branches. Wild bulls, that glared but now with rage along their horns, found themselves tripped up, dragged down to earth by countless maidens hands. [5]

Euripedes went on to describe how Pentheus, the King of Thebes, was torn apart and eaten alive by his own mother as, according to the play, she fell under the spell of Dionysus.

Tearing apart and eating alive of a sacrificial victim may refer to the earliest history of the cult of Dionysus. An ancient and violent cult ritual existing since the dawn of paganism stipulated that, by eating alive, or by drinking the blood, of an enemy or an animal, a person might somehow capture the essence or “soul-strength” of the victim. The earliest Norwegian huntsmen believed in this idea, and drank the blood of bears in an effort to capture their physical strength. East African Masai warriors also practiced omophagia and sought to gain the strength of the wild by drinking the blood of lions. Human victims were treated in this way by Arabs before Mohammed, and head-hunters of the East Indies practiced omophagia in an effort to capture the essence of their enemies.

Today, omophagia is practiced by certain Voodoo sects as well as by cult Satanists, possibly illustrating an ongoing effort on the part of Satan to distort the Original Revelation of God, as eating human flesh and drinking human blood to “become one” with the devoured is a demonization of the Eucharist or Holy Communion. While the goal of the Satanist is to profane the Holy, sparagmos and omophagia, as practiced by the followers of Dionysus, was neither an attempt at sacrilege or of transubstantiation (as in the Catholic Eucharist), nor of consubstantiation (as in the Lutheran communion), nor yet of a symbolic ordinance (as in evangelical circles), all of which have as a common goal elevating the worshipper into sacramental communion with God. The goal of the Bacchae was the opposite—the frenzied dance; the thunderous song; the licentious behavior; the tearing apart and eating alive; all were efforts on the part of the Bacchae to capture the essence of the god (Dionysus) and to bring him down into incarnated rage within man. The idea was not one of Holy Communion, but of possession by the spirit of Dionysus. When one recalls the horrific rituals of the followers of Dionysus, it’s easy to believe demonic possession actually occurred. A Christian should find this idea plausible, and, it would seem, so did the Hebrews.

The Hebrew people considered Hades (the Greek god of the underworld) to be equal with Hell and/or the Devil, and many ancient writers likewise saw no difference between Hades (in this sense the Devil) and Dionysus. Euripedes echoed this sentiment in the Hecuba, and referred to the followers of Dionysus as the “Bacchants of Hades.” In Syracuse, Dionysus was known as Dionysus Morychos (“the dark one”) a fiendish creature; roughly equivalent to the biblical Satan, who wore goatskins and dwelt in the regions of the underworld. In the scholarly book, Dionysus Myth And Cult, Walter F. Otto connected Dionysus with the prince of the underworld. He wrote:

The similarity and relationship which Dionysus has with the prince of the underworld (and this is revealed by a large number of comparisons) is not only confirmed by an authority of the first rank, but he says the two deities are actually the same. Heraclitus says, “...Hades and Dionysus, for whom they go mad and rage, are one and the same.” [6]

Some Hebrews considered the magic (witchcraft) of the Bacchae to be the best evidence of Dionysus’ Satanic connection, and, while most of the details are no longer available because Dionysus was a mystery god and his rituals were revealed to the initiated only, the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel made an important statement about the “magic bands” (kesatot) of the Bacchae, which, as in the omophagia, were used to capture (magically imprison) the souls of men. We read, “Wherefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold I am against your pillows [kesatot, “magic bands”] wherewith ye there hunt the souls to make them fly, and I will tear them from your arms and will let the souls go, even the souls that ye hunt to make them fly” (Ez. 13:20). The kesatot was a magic arm band used in connection with a container called the kiste. Wherever the kiste is inscribed on sarcophagi and on Bacchic scenes, it is depicted as a sacred vessel (a soul prison?) with a snake peering through an open lid. How the magic worked and in what way a soul was imprisoned is still a mystery. Pan, the half-man/half-goat god (later relegated to devildom) is sometimes pictured kicking the lid open and letting the snake (soul?) out. Such loose snakes were then depicted as being enslaved around the limbs, and bound in the hair, of the Bacchae women. Whatever this imagery of Pan, the serpents, the imprisoned souls, and the magic Kesatot and Kiste actually represented, a noteworthy verification of the magical properties represented by them is discussed in the scholarly book Scripture and Other Artifacts by Phillip King and Michael David:

In the closing verses of Ezekiel 13 the prophet turns his attention to magic practices whose details remain obscure. Two key terms are kesatot and mispabot…. The kesatot are “sewn” on the arms, while the mispabot are made “on the head of every height” (?), which has been understood to mean “on the heads of persons of every height” [including those of great height; giants, offspring of the Watchers]…

In modern times archaeological discoveries and texts from Babylonia in particular have shed further light on what might be involved: G. A. Cooke cited Hellenistic figurines from Tell Sandahannah (Mareshah) in Palestine with wire twisted around their arms and ankles… and a magical text from Babylonia that speaks of white and black wool being bound to a person or to someones bed…. J. Herrmann [notes] that both words can be related to Akkadian verbs, kasu and sapabu, which mean respectively “to bind” and “to loose”…. Herrmann also drew attention to texts in which these verbs were used in a specifically magical sense…. This indicates that, whatever the objects were, their function was to act as “binders” and “loosers” in a magical sense, in other words as means of attack and defense in sorcery. [7]

The text in Ezekiel is believed to specifically refer to Dionysian or Bacchanalian magic, which is important in the context of this blog series when combined with a related two-part “binding” and “loosing” question from God in Job 38:31: “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?” The first part of God’s challenge to Job here involves the star cluster Pleides, which in mythology represented the Seven Sisters or teachers of the infant Dionysus, the very priestesses of whom used the kesatot and kiste to magically “bind” those souls that Ezekiel said God would “loose.” The second part of God’s proposition to Job is equally meaningful, “Can you… loose the bands of Orion?” Studies in recent years have made intriguing findings that suggest the Giza Plateau—which according to Zahi Hawass (current Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities), was known to ancient Egyptians as the “House of Osiris, Lord of the Underground Tunnels”—was designed to reflect the constellation Orion. The three pyramids of Giza do appear to be laid out in a pattern reflecting the three stars of Orion, which is none other than the heavenly representation of Osiris.

In Greek mythology, the god Orion (Osiris) fell in love with Apollo’s sister, Diana (Artemis). Apollo did not like this arrangement and tricked Diana into shooting an arrow into Orion’s head. When she saw what she had done, Diana placed the dead Osiris among the stars and transformed him into the constellation Orion. Thereafter, Orion was thought to be the “Soul of Osiris.”

Earlier history connects the constellation Orion to the Sumerian legend of Gilgamesh, identified in the Bible as Nimrod—the giant “mighty hunter” before the Lord—a fantastic personality who in later mythology was also called Osiris and Apollo. If Job 38:31 is therefore interpreted according to these ancient astrological and mythological renderings, it would have God asking Job if he could bind the magic bands (kesatot?) of Osiris-Dionysus or loose the bindings (mispabot?) of the Mighty Hunter, the giant Orion/Gilgamesh/Nimrod/Osiris/Apollo. What is potentially more explosive is the deep possible implication from this text that not only can God do this—that is, loose the forces bound at Giza and the constellation Orion—but that, when the correct time comes, He will.

When the star systems Pleides and Orion are compared to Henry Wallace’s letter to Nicholas Roerich in which he said, “Dear Guru, I have been thinking of you holding the casket—the sacred most precious casket. And I have thought of the New Country going forward to meet the seven stars under the sign of the three stars,” the mystery may unfold that Wallace was referring to the Pleides and Orion specifically and to the deity, and earthly location, they represent. This is an excellent possibility, as these star systems—the seven stars of the Pleides and the three stars of Orion—relate to one another in mythology as well as in the Bible. Further, both star systems represent the god encoded in the Great Seal, the central fascination of Wallace and Roosevelt. The Pleides points to Apollo-Dionysus while the Orion system points to the Soul of Osiris in heaven and, on earth, to his speculative tomb location in Giza. If Wallace was referring to these star systems by his cryptic phrase “going forward to meet the seven stars under the sign of the three stars,” Roerich and Wallace may have believed the New Country (America as the New Atlantis) was destined to meet Apollo-Dionysus under the sign of the three stars (on the Giza Plateau), where the most precious casket or ‘coffin’ of Osiris-Apollo-Dionysus held the material remains of the god.

Belief that these gods—or more accurately the single entity represented by these many names—would return to rule the earth one day, is not limited to Masonic mystics or the divine manifestation from the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 2:3). The return of these gods “to an active and outward position as rulers of mankind is predicted in the Asclepius,” notes Peter Goodgame, “which is predicted to come after the long period of spiritual decline in Egypt.”

The prophecy Goodgame refers to from the ancient Asclepius says: “Those gods who rule the earth will be restored, and they will be installed in a city at the furthest threshold of Egypt, which will be founded towards the setting sun and to which all human kind will hasten by land and by sea.”

Goodgame notes the physical whereabouts of the “city” in this prophecy is the Giza Plateau, as located by Garth Fowden in his book, The Egyptian Hermes.

“… in answer to Asclepius enquiry where these gods are at the moment, Trismegistus replies (at Ascl. 27): ‘In a very great city, in the mountains of Libya (in monte Libyco)’, by which is meant the edge of the desert plateau to the west of the Nile valley. A subsequent reference (Ascl. 37) to the temple and tomb of Asclepius (Imhotep) in monte Libyae establishes that the allusion at Ascl. 27 is to the ancient and holy Memphite necropolis, which lay on the desert jabal to the west of Memphis itself.”

“The ‘mountains of Libya,’” Goodgame concludes, “is simply a reference to the plateau that rises above the desert on the west bank of the Nile, west of the ancient city of Memphis. In other words, according to this Hermetic prediction, when the Kosmokrators are ‘restored’ they will be ‘installed in a city’ on or near the Giza Plateau.” [8]

Will the ancient super-man Apollo-Osiris rise from a hidden tomb at the Giza Plateau, as Goodgame believes may be the case? If so, the Asclepius could have been more than a pagan prophecy. It may have been a record pointing to where the body of the ‘god’ was stored in times past. Do the occult masters already know this, and is this why an unfinished pyramid adorns the Great Seal of the United States, over which the portentous eye of Apollo-Osiris glares from the ancient past? Has DNA been recovered from Giza that is needed for the return of this god? Will a forbidden ‘science’ that once allowed incarnation and ‘deity’ status to powerful fallen beings be restored in this modern age? Prophecy may suggest exactly this, and for the immediate future.

PART SEVENTEEN: Read It Before It Is Banned By The US Government

Editor's note: All notations will be cited when this series of articles have concluded. The information is based on research contained in Tom Horn's upcoming new book:

APOLLYON RISING 2012
The Lost Symbol Found And The Final Mystery Of The Great Seal Revealed
A Terrifying And Prophetic Cipher, Hidden From The World By The U.S. Government For Over 200 Years Is Here

FROM ANCIENT EGYPT TO GREECE: TIS THINE OWN APOLLO REIGNS

According to the Greeks, the greatest outcome of the love affair between Zeus and Leto was the birth of the most beloved of the oracle gods—Apollo. More than any other god in ancient history, Apollo represented the passion for prophetic inquiry among the nations. Though mostly associated with classical Greece, scholars agree that Apollo existed before the Olympian pantheon and some even claim that this entity was first known as Apollo by the Hyperboreans—an ancient and legendary people to the north. Herodotus came to this conclusion and recorded how the Hyperboreans continued in worship of Apollo even after his induction into the Greek pantheon, making an annual pilgrimage to the land of Delos where they participtated in the famous Greek festivals of Apollo. Lycia—a small country in southwest Turkey—also had an early connection with Apollo, where he was known as Lykeios, which some have joined to the Greek Lykos or ‘wolf’, thus making one of his ancient titles, “the wolf slayer.”

Apollo, with his twin sister Artemis, was said by the Greeks to have been born in the land of Delos—the children of Zeus (Jupiter) and of the Titaness Leto. While an important oracle existed there and played a role in the festivals of the god, it was the famous oracle at Delphi that became the celebrated mouthpiece of the Olympian. Located on the mainland of Greece, the omphalos of Delphi (the stone which the Greeks believed marked the center of the earth) can still be found among the ruins of Apollo’s Delphic temple. So important was Apollo’s oracle at Delphi that wherever Hellenism existed, its citizens and kings, including some from as far away as Spain, ordered their lives, colonies, and wars, by its sacred communications. It was here that the Olympian gods spoke to mortal men through the use of a priesthood, which interpreted the trance-induced utterances of the Pythoness or Pythia. She was a middle-aged woman who sat on a copper-and-gold tripod, or, much earlier, on the “rock of the sibyl” (medium), and crouched over a fire while inhaling the smoke of burning laurel leaves, barley, marijuana, and oil, until a sufficient intoxication for her prophecies had been produced. While the use of the laurel leaves may have referred to the nymph Daphne (Greek for laurel), who escaped from Apollo’s sexual intentions by transforming herself into a laurel tree, the leaves also served the practical purpose of supplying the necessary amounts of hydrocyanic acid and complex alkaloids which, when combined with hemp, created powerful hallucinogenic visions. An alternative version of the Oracle myth claims that the Pythia sat over a fissure breathing in magic vapors that rose up from a deep crevice within the earth. The vapors “became magic” as they were mingled with the “smells” of the rotting carcass of the dragon Python, which had been slain and thrown down into the crevice by Apollo as a youth. In either case, it was under the influence of such ‘forces’ that the Pythia prophesied in an unfamiliar voice thought to be that of Apollo himself. During the pythian trance the medium’s personality often changed, becoming melancholic, defiant, or even animal-like, exhibiting a psychosis that may have been the source of the werewolf myth, or lycanthropy, as the Pythia reacted to an encounter with Apollo/Lykeios—the wolf god. Delphic “women of python” prophesied in this way for nearly a thousand years and were considered to be a vital part of the pagan order and local economy of every Hellenistic community. This adds to the mystery of adoption of the Pythians and Sibyls by certain quarters of Christianity as “vessels of truth.” These women, whose lives were dedicated to channeling from frenzied lips the messages of gods and goddesses, turn up especially in Catholic art, from altars to illustrated books and even upon the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, where five Sibyls join the Old Testament prophets in places of sacred honor. The Cumaean Sibyl (also known as Amalthaea), whose prophecy about the return of the god Apollo is encoded in the Great Seal of the United States, was the oldest of the Sibyls and the seer of the Underworld who in the Aeneid gave Aeneas a tour of the infernal region.

Whether by trickery or occult power, the prophecies of the Sibyls were sometimes amazingly accurate. The Greek historian, Herodotus (considered the father of history), recorded an interesting example of this. Croesus, the king of Lydia, had expressed doubt regarding the accuracy of Apollo’s Oracle at Delphi. To test the oracle, Croesus sent messengers to inquire of the Pythian prophetess as to what he, the king, was doing on a certain day. The priestess surprised the king’s messengers by visualizing the question, and by formulating the answer, before they arrived. A portion of the historian’s account says:

...the moment that the Lydians (the messengers of Croesus) entered the sanctuary, and before they put their questions, the Pythoness thus answered them in hexameter verse: “…Lo! on my sense there striketh the smell of a shell-covered tortoise, Boiling now on a fire, with the flesh of a lamb, in a cauldron. Brass is the vessel below, and brass the cover above it.” These words the Lydians wrote down at the mouth of the Pythoness as she prophesied, and then set off on their return to Sardis....[when] Croesus undid the rolls....[he] instantly made an act of adoration... declaring that the Delphic was the only really oracular shrine.... For on the departure of his messengers he had set himself to think what was most impossible for any one to conceive of his doing, and then, waiting till the day agreed on came, he acted as he had determined. He took a tortoise and a lamb, and cutting them in pieces with his own hands, boiled them together in a brazen cauldron, covered over with a lid which was also of brass (Herodotus, book 1: 47).

Another interesting example of spiritual insight by an Apollonian Sibyl is found in the New Testament Book of Acts. Here the demonic resource that energized the Sibyls is revealed.

And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination [of python, a seeress of Delphi] met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying: The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas… And brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city. (Acts 16:16-20)

The story in Acts is interesting because it illustrates the level of culture and economy that had been built around the oracle worship of Apollo. It cost the average Athenian more than two days’ wages for an oracular inquiry, and the average cost to a lawmaker or military official seeking important State information was charged at ten times that rate. This is why, in some ways, the action of the woman in the book of Acts is difficult to understand. She undoubtedly grasped the damage Paul’s preaching could do to her industry. Furthermore, the Pythia of Delphi had a historically unfriendly relationship with the Jews and was considered a pawn of demonic power. Quoting again from my first book Spiritual Warfare—The Invisible Invasion, we read:

Delphi with its surrounding area, in which the famous oracle ordained and approved the worship of Asclepius, was earlier known by the name Pytho, a chief city of Phocis. In Greek mythology, Python—the namesake of the city of Pytho—was the great serpent who dwelt in the mountains of Parnassus… In Acts 16:16, the demonic woman who troubled Paul was possessed with a spirit of divination. In Greek this means a spirit of python (a seeress of Delphi, a pythoness)...[and] reflects...the accepted Jewish belief...that the worship of Asclepius [Apollo’s son] and other such idolatries were, as Paul would later articulate in 1 Corinthians 10:20, the worship of demons. [3]

It could be said that the Pythia of Acts 16 simply prophesied the inevitable. That is, the spirit that possessed her knew the time of Apollo’s reign was over for the moment, and that the spread of Christianity would lead to the demise of the Delphic oracle. This is possible as demons are sometimes aware of changing dispensations (compare the pleas of the demons in Matthew 8:29, “...What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?”). The last recorded utterance of the oracle at Delphi seems to indicate the spirit of the Olympians understood this. From Man, Myth & Magic, we read:

Apollo....delivered his last oracle in the year 362 AD, to the physician of the Emperor Julian, the Byzantine ruler who tried to restore paganism after Christianity had become the official religion of the Byzantine Empire. ‘Tell the King,’ said the oracle, ‘that the curiously built temple has fallen to the ground, that bright Apollo no longer has a roof over his head, or prophetic laurel, or babbling spring. Yes, even the murmuring water has dried up.’ [4]

As the oracle at Delphi slowly diminished, the entity Apollo secured his final and most durable ancient characterization through the influence of his favorite son—Asclepius. Beginning at Thessaly and spreading throughout the whole of Asia Minor, the cult of Asclepius—the Greek god of healing and anti-christ archetype—became the chief competitor of early Christianity. Asclepius was even believed by many pagan converts of Christianity to be a living presence who possessed the power of healing. Major shrines were erected to Asclepius at Epidaurus and at Pergamum, and for a long time he enjoyed a strong cult following in Rome where he was known as Aesculapius. Usually depicted in Greek and Roman art carrying a snake wound around a pole, Asclepius was often accompanied by Telesphoros, the Greek god of convalescence. He was credited with healing a variety of incurable diseases, including raising a man from the dead, a miracle which later caused Hades to complain to Zeus who responded by killing Asclepius with a thunderbolt. When Apollo argued that his son had done nothing worthy of death, Zeus repented and restored Asclepius to life; immortalizing him as the god of medicine.

In the next entry we will add to this the psychotic aspect of the demon Apollo/Osiris in the expression of Dionysus.