Saturday, August 28, 2010

PART 8 -- Forbidden Gates: How Genetics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Biology, Nanotechnology, & Human Enhancement Herald the Dawn of Techno-Dimensional Spiritual Warfare

Editor's note: All notations will be cited in the final report. The information is based on research contained in Tom and Nita Horn's upcoming new book:




SATAN’S JURISDICTION

There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan. —C. S. Lewis

During our formative years in ministry, few people more profoundly influenced our theology and practical Christianity than pastor and theologian Dr. Robert Cornwall. Bob—or simply “Cornwall,” as his friends knew him—had a photographic memory, and in order to pay his way through Bible college as a young man, he had gotten a job proofreading books for a publisher of scholarly works. As a result of maintaining this job for years and having an uncanny propensity for recalling facts, Cornwall retained the majority of material he read and became one of the most well informed and brilliant thinkers we ever had the privilege of knowing or being mentored under. Cornwall was also a great storyteller and could thrill audiences at churches and in conferences by weaving details of true-life events with deep theological propositions. A particular story that raised profound spiritual-warfare implications revolved around one of the first churches he pastored as a young minister in a sleepy little town near the Oregon coast. As described by Cornwall himself at Redwood Family Camp meeting in the 1970s, he had barely settled into leadership at the church when strange things began to happen for which he had no explanation. Objects in the building seemed to move around on their own, especially overnight when the building was supposed to be unoccupied. He would hear the piano playing and go into the sanctuary to find nobody there. Doors would slam, pews would be discovered positioned backward against the wall, and his notes would disappear—then reappear. Members of the church reported similar phenomena, and Cornwall eventually learned that the activity had been going on for years.

One night, hours after he had gone home to bed, Cornwall’s telephone rang and the police chief was on the other end of the line. He wanted to know what kind of party Cornwall was sponsoring at the church.

“What do you mean, a party?” Cornwall asked.

“Neighbors are calling. They say it’s so loud they can’t sleep. We thought maybe the youth group was having an overnight event that was getting out of hand.”

Assuring the officer that nobody was supposed to be in the building, Cornwall agreed to meet him at the church. On arrival, they noticed the lights inside the auditorium were going off and on, the piano was banging loudly, and what sounded like shouting of some kind could be heard throughout the edifice. The officer drew his sidearm while Cornwall unlocked the front door. As they pushed the entrance open, all activity inside the facility abruptly ceased. The lights were still on, but the noises had suddenly gone silent. Cornwall moved through the building with the officer and found every entryway locked, with no signs of break in. This experience was documented in the police report—which, at the time, Cornwall was happy to let us confirm with the chief along with other unexplained events.

Together with his board members and ministry leaders, Cornwall began a series of special prayers over the building in what today some might call a “cleansing” ceremony to purge the house of worship of malevolent spirits mimicking trickster ghosts or poltergeists (German poltern, “to rumble or make a noise,” and geist, meaning “spirit”—invisible entities that manifest by creating noises or by moving objects around). But the results of these prayers were mixed, and Cornwall could not understand why. Whenever members of the church were inside the building and prayed, the phenomenon stopped. As soon as they would leave the facility, it would start up again. This went on sporadically for some time, until one day the chief—now a member of the church—called Cornwall and asked if he could meet him downtown at the police department, saying he had found something important and wanted the pastor to see it. Arriving on schedule, Cornwall was handed an envelope that contained a copy of the original deed to the church property and other interesting documents. One of these records was very enlightening. It revealed that the structure—which was nearly one hundred years old and had been boarded up for over a decade before the organization Cornwall was a member of purchased it and turned it into a church—had originally been constructed by an occult group as a meeting place for their “order.” It had been dedicated as a residence “for spirits of Lucifer as they move to and fro upon the earth.”

Cornwall was shocked. Legalese existing within the building’s first title and deed provided lodging for satanic spirits. Equally disturbing, the experiences at the church suggested demons were operating under some legal claim to be there.

As soon as possible, a new church was erected across the street from the old one, and subsequently the original building was torn down and an asphalt parking lot was poured over the plot of land on which it had sat for nearly a century. From that day forward, all paranormal activity on the property ceased, and a powerful and important theological proposition was born in Cornwall’s mind—that under certain conditions, Satan and his spirits have legal rights to property and people.

While some may step back at this point and ask what comparable authority over earth Satan continues to hold following the redemptive work of Christ, most scholars agree that until the Second Coming of Jesus and the final judgment of men and angels, this planet remains under limited jurisdiction of Satan as “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and under the influence of “the rulers of the darkness of this world” (Ephesians 6:12). During this time, contracts and covenants with such spirits allowing access or entry into one’s property or life do not have to be officially recorded as in the story of Cornwall’s church above. They can be oral or assumed agreements, not to mention “adverse possession,” or what laymen call “squatter’s rights.” In the physical world, this is when a person openly uses somebody else’s property without permission over such a long period that eventually the “squatter” gains legal claim to the land, due to the original owner not taking legal action against him or her. These are ancient statutory principles that pertain equally to material and spiritual dynamics. They imply that wherever activity favorable to malevolent spirits occurs by consent, is tolerated, or action is not taken to force the “squatter” to cease and desist, footholds and even personal rights can be surrendered to hostile forces over people and locations.

In our 1998 book, Spiritual Warfare: The Invisible Invasion (free with the new Forbidden Gates book), we documented how, throughout history, entire geographies became strongholds of demonic activity as a result of what governments and citizens were willing to tolerate in foreign, domestic, public, and social policies. Specifically, we cited biblical examples such as the city of Pergamum, which Scripture identified as having become a seat of satanic influence (Revelation 2:12–13). More recent examples would include the history of Nazi Germany and similar cases. This phenomenon—territorial demonization—also occurs on a small scale, wherever space or property (real property including land, personal property as in possessions, commercial property, public property, and even intellectual property) is provided for purposes hostile to moral or biblical law.

As an example, many years ago as young Christians, we walked through a local mall during the Christmas season and came upon a New Age bookstore conducting a grand opening. In a derisive tone, I said to my wife, “Can you believe the lack of intelligence of some people?” I strolled casually into the store, snatched a book from the shelf, and began offering sarcastic commentary as I read from its pages. I could tell my wife was uncomfortable with what I was doing, so I placed the book back on the shelf and proceeded out of the store. Suddenly, a dull sensation hit the pit of my stomach and shot upward through my chest into my cranium. My head started spinning, powerful nausea took hold, my hands began to shake, and I could tell I was about to collapse. It was literally as if something invisible had jumped on me and was injecting rapidly spreading poison throughout my body. Feigning interest in sales items, I moved away from the shoppers and began praying under my breath, asking for forgiveness for my smart attitude, for my lack of caution, and for my lack of concern for the lost. I prayed for deliverance from evil and for healing of my body and mind. After more than an hour of such intercession, I was finally restored. As a young preacher, I discovered a valuable lesson that day: The princes of this world are powerful and territorial, and we should enter spaces that have been dedicated to them only with the proper attitude and when guided by the Lord.

Even then, experiences with exorcism many years later taught us that Satan’s jurisdiction and legal rights to property and people are extrapolated to an entirely different level when the phenomenology involves inner space as opposed to external, physical territory. This is because “habitable space” and spatial occupancy—the amount of substance (or demons, in this case) that can fit into a specific area—are different between material and spiritual dimensions. A unique argument, one that has existed since the Middle Ages and highlights this concept, involves the question of how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, illustrating that even the ancients pondered advanced physics, space-time, quantum gravity densities, relativity theory, and hyperdimensional materiality (though the ancients knew nothing of these terms), allowing for different maximal density of “beings” within what otherwise appears in the physical world to be the same “space.” Dr. Anders Sandberg, in the research paper, “Quantum Gravity Treatment of the Angel Density Problem” for the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, actually derived a number for the density of angels at critical mass that could fit on the head of a pin. He arrived at 8.6766*10exp49 angels (3.8807*10exp-34 kg), thus theoretically fixing through physics how an entire legion of demons (forty-two hundred to fifty-two hundred spirits, plus auxiliaries) in the fifth chapter of the New Testament book of Mark could possess the inner space of a single man.



An important question related to this mysterious relationship between people surrendering inner and external territory to evil spirits—and the boundaries of that association—involves the difference between those who are deceived into unwittingly giving place to the devil and thus become “demonized,” and those who knowingly form alliances with evil supernaturalism. The contrast between these types of persons may be defined in the most frequent New Testament expressions used to refer to demonic possession: 1) daimonizomai, meaning “to be demonized”; and 2) echon daimonion, which means “having a demon,” and can actually denote a person who possesses the demon, not the other way around. In the Bible, this might describe persons like Saul, who sought out a woman possessed by a “familiar spirit” to summon the deceased Samuel, even though he knew God’s commandment not to allow such practices in Israel (1 Samuel 28), and possibly Judas Iscariot, into whom “Satan entered” (Luke 22:3) as a result of his decision to do what his heart may have told him was betrayal of God. In echon daimonion, it is therefore one of the premises that territory can be surrendered to evil spirits by persons actually reaching out to and “taking hold of the demon” through willingly choosing to do what they otherwise know is satanic. That some people are not only aware of this marriage with evil, but they energetically nurture it, is difficult for most of us to understand—yet the reality exists and is growing. An example of one such person was brought to us for treatment decades ago while we were still involved with exorcism. It involved a young woman who was released from a mental institution to spend a week under the care of her family, and her family, who sought help from the church because they believed her condition was the result of diabolical possession. Having been approached by a relative of the girl, we were told how, over time, she had become withdrawn and eventually delusional. She began hearing voices and held lengthy conversations with what appeared to be empty rooms. Finally, her condition became so detached from physical reality that she had to be placed in a psychiatric facility. As time went on and her condition worsened, prayer for her by her family was met with hostility and then outright violence, and her parents were desperate for help. After consulting with our group, an agreement was reached to have the young woman brought in for evaluation. We requested privacy and asked that a limited number of family members be present. Her caregiver agreed, and the story of the girl and what happened that week remains private. What we can say is that hers was the only case ever examined by our group in which the rare determination was made that while this person was truly possessed, exorcism was not an option. The simple reason was (the reader would understand if the unthinkable facts could be published) that she actually wanted the demons. They had a right to be there.

Interestingly, some years later, we were back in the same city and noticed that our host pastor looked tired. We asked him if it had been a busy week, and he proceeded to tell us about an exorcism he had participated in a few days earlier. As he recounted the story of a certain possessed woman and how the church had fasted and prayed for a week, followed by seventeen hours during which a select group of ministers in a private room drove multiple demons from her, we realized he was talking about the girl from the institution. We remained quiet as he repeated the exhausting story, telling of the many personalities and voices they encountered during the drawn-out ritual. He claimed that when the last spirit finally came out of her, she sat up and for the first time appeared lucid. When they asked her if she wanted to accept Jesus as Savior, she began cursing and crying, complaining that he and the others had made her friends go away. Through chest-heaving sobs, she began calling out to unknown persons by name. As she did, the pastor said he felt something move across the room into her. Her eyes rolled back, and once again she lost control of her faculties. The exorcism ended.

While the experience above is a glaring illustration of one aspect of echon daimonion, in which a person seeks out and “possesses the demon,” over the years when on those few occasions we witnessed what was considered authentic possession (as opposed to most cases evaluated as psychological or biological issues), it was typically daimonizomai, wherein the individual did not want to be under the spirit’s influence.


WATCH THE TRAILER! WARNING: NOT FOR THE WEAK!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

PART SEVEN -- Forbidden Gates: How Genetics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Biology, Nanotechnology, & Human Enhancement Herald the Dawn of Techno-Dimensional Spiritual Warfare

Editor's note: All notations will be cited in the final report. The information is based on research contained in Tom and Nita Horn's upcoming new book:





SECRETS OF THE SIBYLS

In addition to the kind of spiritualism mentioned in the previous entry as sweeping most quarters of institutionalized Christianity today, expressions of neo-paganism in the larger public square now range from self-help organizations working with corporations to offer symposiums to their employees to produce positive harmony, prosperity, and overall business success to other, not-so-subtle forms of paganism such as practiced by Wicca and the women’s spirituality movement, in which more than six hundred thousand women nationwide participate in the invocation of ancient earth goddesses. Retail stores in faddish malls are springing up across the United States to meet the need for replica idols of the popular female deities, and marketing occult paraphernalia used in venerating the goddesses (crystals, candles, books of spells, etc.) has become a multimillion dollar industry. Dimly lit "occult" bookstores that once inhabited shabby old buildings have been replaced with trendy New Age shops located in the most fashionable strip malls in the nicest areas of town. One such store, Necromance, resides at stylish Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, where business is booming with sales of human fingers on a leather cord, necklaces of human teeth, bone beads, and human skulls including tiny fetal ones. While store owners are generally New Agers or practicing witches, Necromance and similar businesses are attentively supported by a growing population of churchgoers, neo-pagans, politicians, Hollywood entertainers, and teachers of the arcane rites. Not long ago, one such witch claimed to be a temple prostitute of the goddess Astarte and performed sequential gate-opening magic sex with 251 men at the University of Southern California.

Today, adherents of such mysticism boldly ask, "If God is our Father, then who is our Mother?" Then they happily answer, "Earth!" Not surprisingly, the worship of the earth’s "spirit" as a goddess mother has been revived as a central feature of contemporary religious phenomena. In 2010, Earth Day was celebrated by coordinating millions of people worldwide into a universal effort aimed at saving "our endangered Mother Earth." Christian leaders signed "Green Pledges" and Wiccan witches performed arcane rituals in honor of the hoary spirit Gaia. Interest in such contraptions as the sweat lodge—a device used by several ancient religions as an apparatus whereby one reenters the womb of the Earth Mother—was emphasized as a primitive yet effective method for furrowing a womblike gateway into the surface of the earth to make contact with the underworld spirit. This method of communing with Gaia, as practiced by various religions and New Age devotees, includes sitting in a semicircle around heated stones inside the lodge and entering into a mystical state of consciousness. As with the DMT churches (mentioned by Dr. Bennett in a previous entry) who use psychoactive drugs to open gateways into the mind, the altered mental condition in the sweat lodge is accomplished through hypnotic repetitive chanting, drumming, and breathing the fumes of stimulants such as peyote. Spirit animals, called "power animals," are invited to guide the soul through the underworld journey or "vision quest," and participants are encouraged to "dance their animal" for revelations and healing of the body and mind. Such animal dancing is accomplished by allowing the spirit of the creature to enter and take control of the participant. Dr. Leslie Gray—a noted university instructor and female shaman—employs such uses of "animal dancing" in the psychiatric (shamanic) treatment of her patients. She described the positive results of animal dancing in the case of one insecure young woman, saying, "I [laid] down on the ground next to her and put us both into an altered state of consciousness via a tape of drumming. I came back from my ‘journey’ and blew the spirit of a mountain lion into [her]. I then instructed her to go out into nature and dance her animal... [and when she did] she no longer felt afraid of people." [1]

Uses of animal imagery and other nature elements in the worship of the Great Earth Mother is by design. Modern pagans, drawing on Eastern philosophies and the occult, believe that, unlike the "evil human race," these elements are at one with Gaia. According to them, if it were not for male-dominated, Styrofoam-producing, beef-eating, gas-guzzling human beings, the earth would be a better place. Natural earth-centered resources such as animals, crystals, and even colors are thus the products of choice for the students of earth-centered spirituality. Light blue is the color of Mother Earth’s sky, so candles of light blue are burned to acquire her magic tranquility or understanding. Red candles are burned for strength or sexual love, and green candles for financial assistance. Instruments like magic wands are also made of Mother Earth’s natural supply, usually of willow, oak, or fruit tree branches. Magic potions employed during esbats (earth celebrations held during the new and full moons) also contain the earth’s natural byproducts, including clover, olive oil, grape juice, garlic cloves, and rosebuds. Special ceremonies using the earth samples are conducted at the crossing of three earth paths (the triple-path haunt of Hecate) and dedicated to the Mother Earth goddesses—Gaia, Demeter, Persephone, Isis, Aphrodite, Hathor, Hera, Diana, Athene, and Hecate. The authors of the book this series is based on personally witnessed officially sponsored Assemblies of God youth camps in Oregon where children were taken into the woods and taught to use tree branches, pebbles, and other natural products to outline magic prayer trails, with participants moving through the labyrinths to specific mystical areas where they would then stop and meditate to "connect with the spirit." (The occult significance of this symbolism in youth camps is dangerously meaningful, as navigating such labyrinths began in mythology with the story of Queen Pasiphae and her amorous affair with a sacrificial bull. The union resulted in the birth of the transgenic Minotaur, a creature that lived in a labyrinth where every year boys and girls were sent to be sacrificed.) While in ancient times such rituals were gender-inclusive, they were designed specifically to elevate the goddess or female divinity, which consequently also defined the "oracles" or mouthpieces and gatekeepers of even the most powerful male gods in antiquity, including Apollo, the ancient spirit the Scriptures say will rise to inhabit the Antichrist in the end times.

Located on the mainland of Greece, the omphalos of Delphi (the stone 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 her sacred communications. Here the Olympian god spoke through a gateway to mortal men using a female priesthood, which interpreted the trance-induced utterances of the pythoness or pythia, a middle-aged woman who sat on a copper-and-gold tripod or, much earlier, on the "rock of the sibyl" (medium). Crouching over a fire while inhaling the smoke of burning laurel leaves, barley, marijuana, and oil, a magical intoxication (pharmakeia) for her prophecies opened spirit gates through which powerful hallucinogenic manifestations could emerge. Under the influence of these forces, the pythia prophesied in an unfamiliar voice thought to be that of Apollo himself. During the trance, the medium’s personality often changed, becoming melancholic, defiant, or even animal-like, a psychosis that may have been the source of the werewolf myth, or lycanthropy, as the pythia became possessed by 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 demon 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 on the Great Seal of the United States (the exposé on this is in our book Apollyon Rising 2012), 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 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 anyone 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) [2]


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 lawmakers or military officials seeking important state information was charged at ten times that rate.

But now, as the old saying goes, "everything old is new again," and across the world a staggering amount of revenue is flowing once more into oracle divining for the purpose of breaching supernatural gateways. Through pharmakeia, grimoires, talismans, magic diagrams, sibylline channeling, and scores of other methods, adherents of new spirituality are actively seeking contact with the powers on the other side just as they did in days of old.

One of the most curious forms of oracular activity in use by modern soothsayers is the psychomanteum—a simple, yet eerie, idea. A chair placed in front of a large mirror in a dark room serves as the oracle. Once positioned on the chair, the occupant stares into the mirror and waits for contact with ghosts or other entities. In ancient times, a psychomanteum-like mirror system for communicating with "spirits" was employed by primitive Greeks in gloomy underground caverns called "halls of visions." Standing in front of a shining metal surface or cauldron, ancients saw and spoke with apparitions. The Sumerians, Egyptians, and Romans employed similar oracles of polished crystal, brass mirrors, and pools of water, and some argue that the apostle Paul was referring to mirror oracles when he said, "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known" (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Revived as an oracle during the 1990s in the book Reunions, more than 50 percent of the three hundred users of the psychomanteum in a study by Raymond Moody claimed to have been contacted by a deceased "relative" or "friend" on the first try. People interviewed by Mr. Moody included physicians, teachers, housewives, business owners, and law enforcement officials. One witness, an accountant who grieved over his departed mother a year after her death, testified of his experience with the psychomanteum:

There is no doubt that the person I saw in the mirror was my mother! I don’t know where she came from but I am convinced that what I saw was the real person. She was looking out at me from the mirror.... I could tell she was in her late seventies, about the same age as... when she died. However, she looked happier and healthier than she had at the end of her life. Her lips didn’t move, but she spoke to me and I clearly heard what she had to say. She said, "I’m fine," and smiled.... I stayed as relaxed as I could and just looked at her.... Then I decided to talk to her. I said, "It’s good to see you again." "It’s good to see you too," she replied. That was it. She simply disappeared. [3]

Although the Bible warns against opening such gateways to "familiar spirits" or consulting mediums and sibyls, the revival of ancient oracles and the experiences being drawn from them are especially seductive curiosities for followers of modern religion. A quick glance through the most current popular television programs illustrates a great deal about the public’s interest in this field: Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters International, Ghost Hunters Academy, Ghost Whisperer, Paranormal State, Psychic Kids: Paranormal Children, Animal Planet’s The Haunted, and more. Sociologists understand public demand for such viewing is evidence of pop culture’s preferred spirituality, an informal consensus toward a post-New Testament theological condition. As such, it is reasonable to see how modern culture may rapidly be approaching the culmination of Apollo’s novus ordo seclorum—the prophecy on the Great Seal of the United States that forecasts the granddaddy of all spirit-gate transmigrations, an advent prophesied in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 and Revelation 17:8 in which the destroyer demon Apollo (Apoleia: Apollyon) rises through underworld gates in the last days to confront the world that sought it.

 

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Saturday, August 21, 2010

PART 6 -- Forbidden Gates: How Genetics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Biology, Nanotechnology, & Human Enhancement Herald the Dawn of Techno-Dimensional Spiritual Warfare

Editor's note: All notations will be cited in the final report. The information is based on research contained in Tom and Nita Horn's upcoming new book:



AUGMENTED BY HUMAN BELIEF, RITUAL AND SACRIFICE

As described in the last entry by Dr. Michael Bennett, opening supernatural gateways that exist inside the earth, the heavens, and the mind using altered mental states induced by psychoactive drugs is but one of several "spirit-gate" mechanisms. New Age esotericists like Robert Hieronimus—one of the world’s foremost authorities on the symbolism of the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States (of which we have written extensively in Apollyon Rising 2012)—view the circular design and symbolism on the Great Seal to be an "initiatory mandala" that can unconsciously invoke contact with the spirit world.

Mandalas, from the Hindu term for "circle," are concentric diagrams, such as is familiar in Tantrism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, having ritual and spiritual use for "focusing" or trance-inducing aspirants and adepts who seek mystical oneness with the cosmos or deeper levels of the unconscious mind. Related to the design of the Great Seal, Hieronimus, as an occultist, views the geometric patterns as representing a type of mandala or microcosm embodying the cosmic or metaphysical divine powers at work in the secret destiny of America, including the god or universal forces represented in the diagram that herald a coming new age of gods and demigods.

Occultists often use mandalas based on the concept of a "protective circle" or variation, which they believe allow certain doorways into the supernatural to be opened or closed, and entities compelled accordingly, as in the magical, five-pointed pentagram circle. This is similar to an initiatory mandala used in Hindu and Buddhist Tantrism, in which deities are represented by specific locations in the diagram. In Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, scholar Mircea Eliade explains the importance of this part of the mandala design:


At the periphery of the construction there are four cardinal doors, defended by terrifying images called "guardians of the doors." Their role is twofold. On the one hand, the guardians defend consciousness from the disintegrating forces of the unconscious; on the other, they have an offensive mission—in order to lay hold upon the fluid and mysterious world of the unconscious, consciousness must carry the struggle into the enemy’s camp and hence assume the violent and terrible aspect appropriate to the forces to be combated. Indeed, even the divinities inside the mandala sometimes have a terrifying appearance; they are the gods whom man will encounter after death, in the state of bardo. The guardians of the doors and the terrible divinities emphasize the initiatory character of entrance into a mandala.… The typical initiatory ordeal is the "struggle with a monster"…both spiritual (against evil spirits and demons, forces of chaos) and material (against enemies)…who [attempt] to return "forms" to the amorphous state from which they originated. [4]


What makes this interesting is that the arcane symbols and mottoes of the Great Seal represent—as admitted by Masonry’s greatest historians, mystics, and philosophers—gods that were known in ancient times alternatively as saviors or demons, creators and destroyers: spirits that seek entry into the conscious and unconscious world.

Even more subtle is how synergy can be created between immaterial entities and humans who wittingly or unwittingly cooperate to advance occult politics in secular or religious government. Demonologists agree that powerful, nonhuman energies can emanate from such parity and, once released, take on a mind of their own. In our book mentioned above (Apollyon Rising 2012) we documented how Gary Lachman, in writing about the Masonic involvement in the French Revolution, made an extraordinary and important observation about immaterial destructive forces—which had unseen plans of their own—released from behind their gates as a result of occult politics:


Cazotte himself was aware of the dangerous energies unleashed by the Revolution.… Although Gazotte didn’t use the term, he would no doubt have agreed that, whatever started it, the Revolution soon took on a life of its own, coming under the power of an egregore, Greek for "watcher," a kind of immaterial entity that is created by and presides over a human activity or collective. According to the anonymous author of the fascinating Meditations on the Tarot, there are no "good" egregores, only "negative" ones.… True or not, egregores can nevertheless be "engendered by the collective will and imagination of nations." As Joscelyn Godwin points out, "An egregore is augmented by human belief, ritual, and especially by sacrifice. If it is sufficiently nourished by such energies, the egregore can take on a life of its own and appear to be an independent, personal divinity, with a limited power on behalf of its devotees and an unlimited appetite for their future devotion." If, as some esotericists believe, human conflicts are the result of spiritual forces for spiritual ends, and these forces are not all "good," then collective catastrophes like the French Revolution take on a different significance. [5]


The point that there are no "good" egregores, only "negative" ones, offers a disturbing challenge when attempting to determine under what conditions some people actually seek connection with evil supernaturalism. The morality play Faust and the adjective Faustian describe persons who surrender moral integrity or "sell their souls to the devil" to achieve power through access to the evil ones. History is replete with tyrants who struck Faustian deals and who seemed to know deep down that while they might gain short-term material benefits from connecting with the devil, eventually he would come to collect and that they would have to bear the consequences of their actions. This is especially true where occult politics generate collateral misery among blameless bystanders. It is widely held by esotericists that the Nazis were just such an example, and that their actions were the material results of the occult forces or invisible hierarchies they put themselves in league with. During the ascendancy of Nazi Germany, Hermann Rauschning, the governor of Danzig, described how Hitler "wakes up in the night screaming and in convulsions. He calls for help, and appears to be half paralyzed. He is seized with a panic that makes him tremble until the bed shakes. He utters confused and unintelligible sounds, gasping, as if on the point of suffocation." Rauschning then recited a strange episode in which Hitler (who was possessed by the devil himself according to the Vatican’s chief exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth) was visited by an invisible being, something Hitler was utterly terrified of and seemed to know would be coming for him for what he had done to innocent victims:


Hitler was standing up in his room, swaying and looking all around him as if he were lost. "It’s he, it’s he," he groaned, "he’s come for me!" His lips were white; he was sweating profusely. Suddenly he uttered a string of meaningless figures, then words and scraps of sentences. It was terrifying. He used strange expressions strung together in bizarre disorder. Then he relapsed again into silence, but his lips still continued to move. He was then given a friction and something to drink. Then suddenly he screamed: "There! There! Over in the corner! He is there!"—all the time stamping with his feet and shouting. To quieten him he was assured that nothing extraordinary had happened, and finally he gradually calmed down. After that he slept for a long time and became normal again." [6]


Despite such terrifying accounts, a growing number of individuals around the world are being drawn by curiosity to push open spiritual gates in order to make contact with this other side. This inlcudes a generation of "Christians" and other religious persons who have systematically challenged and then abandoned fundamental precepts of New Testament theology, giving birth to new forms of secularized spirituality fueled by human potential and an amorphous mixture of Buddhism, pantheistic Christianity, and occult traditions. Many of the most popular doctrines celebrated in churches today cleverly conceal this ancient carnival of pagan mystical occultism by wrapping it in prosperity theology, self-help messages, goddess-centered environmental theology, and dominionism and the elevation of man. Instead of living by faith, as defined in Scriptures centered in the person of Jesus Christ and expressed through personal sacrifice and transformation, emergent church leaders allure congregants with seductive messages of thrilling material benefits that historically were shown to be keys to opening gateways to, and forming pacts with, Faustian forces. Nowhere is evidence of these activities more puzzling than when manifested in what at one time was considered mainstream evangelical churches. A decade ago, as new necromantic channelers calling themselves pastors and priests began rising to prominence inside major denominations, Samantha Smith was so shocked by how quickly orthodox theology was being surrendered to paganism inside weekly church services that she spent an entire year investigating the phenomenon before reporting to the Eagle Forum:


I became strongly concerned... after observing a "service" at a south Denver Vineyard church... [a woman] stood in the middle of a group of people who ran their hands over her body (within an inch or so of the clothing), then kept swooshing some invisible thing toward her heart area. Saddened, I walked toward the door, where a church member said, "You should come back on Sunday night. That’s when they levitate."... [Another group] in Seattle... sit[s] in circles, clucking, flapping their tucked arms, and visualizing themselves hatching the "Man Child Company," a heretical Manifested Sons of God concept. In Kansas City, men and women lay on the floor with their knees up and legs spread apart, trying to birth the same thing. I tape-recorded a group of Episcopalians howling at the moon, like wolves—giving a "Howl-le-lu-ia Chorus" for Earth Day. It gets worse. There are reports of "holy vomiting" (séance ectoplasm?) and of Christians becoming demonized by being "slain in the spirit." How can this be? [7]


Similar to Samantha, we were taken off-guard a few years ago when speaking at a large Assemblies of God church whose pastor later became a district official. Following the morning service, the pastor asked if we would meet with the director of his intercessory prayer group to answer a question that as pastor he had been unable to determine. The staff member, who was told by the pastor that we were experts in demonology, wanted to know what we thought about him and other members of the "intercessory prayer group" experiencing temporary possession by evil spirits. Because we were taken aback by his question and thought we had misunderstood, we ask him to clarify, and he repeated that evil spirits were "hanging on the walls in the auditorium" and "coming out of people" before going into the prayer room to possess the prayer warriors in order to speak through their vocal chords during Sunday morning church services. The staff member seemed proud that this was happening, as if he and those under him were somehow "special" because of the hidden evil spirits’ activity. At once confused by why the senior pastor had not already corrected this group, we explained to the director how Jews and Christians are forbidden to communicate with evil spirits, let alone allow them to speak through their vocal chords. We showed him several places where Scripture says to cease the activity, including how Michael the archangel did not discourse with the devil, but simply said, "The Lord rebuke thee" (Jude 9). Instead of receiving our instruction, the young man’s countenance suddenly changed, his eyes glazed over, and a religious sneer covered his face, as if he (or something in him) considered us pathetic and unenlightened souls who could not appreciate the exceptional relationship he and his church had with supernatural entities. Later that week, we emailed the pastor to share our surprise that a man in his position would be confused over how wrong this activity was and how the environment was conducive to ancient paganism, spirit channeling, and at least a dozen other heretical activities. Some years afterward, while having dinner in the home of that district’s state superintendent, we told our host what was going on in one of his churches. He demanded to know where and by whom, stating that in no uncertain terms, "That pastor’s credentials will be taken away immediately!" We chose not to disclose that he had already invited the man to take executive leadership inside the state office.

 

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

PART 5: Forbidden Gates - How Genetics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Biology, Nanotechnology, & Human Enhancement Herald the Dawn of Techno-Dimensional Spiritual Warfare

Editor's note: All notations will be cited in the final report. The information is based on research contained in Tom and Nita Horn's upcoming new book:




DEEPER TRUTH ABOUT UNDERWORLD 'DEITIES'

While much is still unknown about the mysteries of Demeter, the basis of her popularity was almost certainly rooted in her divinity as a mother-earth goddess. Demeter (De or Da "earth", and meter "mother") actually means "earth mother." The worship of the earth's "spirit" as a mother, and the incarnation of the earth's fertility forces within specific goddesses, was one of the oldest and most widespread forms of paganism recorded in antiquity. Whether it was Inanna of the Sumerians, Ishtar of the Babylonians, or Fortuna of the Romans, every civilization had a sect of religion based on the embodiment of the earth's spirit as a mother-goddess. The Egyptians worshipped Hathor in this way, as did the Chinese, Shingmoo. The Germans worshipped Hertha as the great Mother Earth, and in Greece, the queen of the Olympian goddesses and wife of Zeus was Hera; the benevolent earth mother. Before her was Gaia (Gaea, the Greek creator-mother earth) and beneath her were many other Greek earth spirits, including Demeter, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hecate, and so on.

The principle idea was, and evidently still is among New Age devotees, that the earth possesses or is a living entity. The ancient and universally accepted idea that the "living earth" was also a fertile mother was conceptualized in different ways and in various goddess myths and images throughout the ancient world. In The Golden Asse, by second century Roman philosopher Lucius Apuleius, evidence reveals that the spirit of the earth was perceived as a feminine force, and that such force incarnated itself at various times, and to different people, within the goddess mothers. More important, devotion to this deity would have spiritual warfare benefits for binding underworld demons in order to prevent them from passing through gateways and appearing to men. Note how Lucius prays to the earth spirit:
O blessed Queene of Heaven, whether thou be the Dame Ceres [Demeter] which art the original and motherly source of all fruitful things in earth, who after the finding of thy daughter Proserpina [Persephone], through thy great joy which thou diddest presently conceive, madest barraine and unfruitful ground to be plowed and sowne, and now thou inhabitest in the land of Eleusie [Eleusis]; or whether thou be the celestiall Venus....[or] horrible Proserpina...thou hast the power to stoppe and put away the invasion of the hags and ghoasts which appeare unto men, and to keep them downe in the closures [gated cells] of the earth; thou which nourishest all the fruits of the world by thy vigor and force; with whatsoever name is or fashion it is lawful to call upon thee, I pray thee, to end my great travaile... [emphasis added]
The earth spirit responds to Lucius:

Behold Lucius I am come, thy weeping and prayers hath mooved me to succour thee. I am she that is the natural mother of all things, mistresse and governesse of all the elements, the initial progeny of worlds, chiefe of powers divine, Queene of heaven, the principall of the Gods celestiall, the light of the goddesses: at my will the planets of the ayre [air], the wholesome winds of the Seas, and the silence of hell be disposed; my name, my divinity is adored throughout all the world in divers manners, in variable customes and in many names, for the Phrygians call me the mother of the Gods: the Athenians, Minerva: the Cyprians, Venus: the Candians, Diana: the Sicilians, Proserpina: the Eleusians, Ceres: some Juno, other Bellona, other Hecate: and principally the aethiopians...Queene Isis. [2]
One could assume, based on such texts, that a single spiritual source (or realm) energized the many goddess myths. Likewise, in the ancient Hymn, To Earth The Mother Of All, Homer illustrates how the earth-spirit could migrate from its inner-world habitation to become involved in the affairs and lives of nations. Through Homer's dedication to the earth we discover how far-reaching and universal this possibility was thought to be:
I will sing of well founded Earth, mother of all, eldest of all beings. She feeds all creatures that are in the world, all that go upon the goodly land, and all that are in the paths of the seas, and all that fly: all these are fed by her store. Through you, O queen, men are blessed in their children and blessed in their harvests, and to you it belongs to give means of life to mortal men and to take it away. Happy is the man whom you delight to honour! He hath all things abundantly: his fruitful land is laden with corn, his pastures are covered with cattle, and his house is filled with good things. Such men rule orderly in their cities of fair women: great riches and wealth follow them: their sons exult with ever-fresh delight, and their daughters in flower-laden bands play and skip merrily over the soft flowers of the field. Thus it is with those whom you honour O holy goddess, bountiful spirit. Hail, mother of the gods, wife of starry Heaven; freely bestow upon me for this my song substance that cheers the heart! And now I will remember you and another song also. [3]

From these and other ancient records it is obvious that the earth was more than an agricultural or herbaceous facility to the pagans. She was the "eldest of all beings" who manifested herself within the popular idols of the mother goddesses and who could loose or bind the powers held in her underworld.

Like ancient Greeks, Christian theologians affirm that the physical earth contains spiritual forces behind gateways. In the Book of Revelation, chapter nine and verse fourteen, we read of "the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates." In Job 26:5, we find "Dead things are formed from under the waters." The literal Hebrew translation says, "The Rafa (fallen angels) are made to writhe from beneath the waters." The belief by Greeks that these beings and regions were under the control of a supernatural "gatekeeper" associated with Hades is both fascinating and enlightening when compared to the previously mentioned words of Christ in Matt. 16.17-18: "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona [son of Jonah] . . . thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell [emphasis added] shall not prevail against it." In the Old Testament, Jonah 2:6 tells of Jonah going down to the bottom of the sea into a "city of gates" (Hebrew B@riyach, a fortress in the earth, a prison) from which God delivered him. There is no doubt about where Jonah was, as he prayed to God out of the belly of hell—the underworld prison of the dead. This unique text in Matthew connecting the rock upon which the Church would be built, the name of Jonah, and the gates of hell is not coincidence. Christ made the same connection to hell’s gateway, Jonah, and his mission for the Church again in Matt. 12.40: "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Additional biblical references indicate the earth is a kind of holding tank, or prison, where God has bound certain fallen entities (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6). That such fallen spirits seek to communicate with, or participate in, the affairs of humanity, is defined in Scripture. The Hebrew people were aware that such spirits could seek to move from their habitation into ours ( Deut. 18:11), and when the woman of Endor communicated with the same, they ascended up from "out of the earth" (1 Sam. 28:13). Based on such scriptures, the dynamic or energy behind the earth-goddess-spirits is real, and according to Christian doctrine, identical with the legions of fallen spiritual forces bound within the earth and that seek association with men. Such conclusions can be made because of the obvious and physical location of the biblical demons within the body of the earth and also because of the nature of the manifestations, or attributes, of the goddesses. As previously noted, the myths and rituals behind the earth-goddess-mothers, Demeter, Persephone, and Hecate were openly connected with the evil spirits of the underworld.

When A Demonic Gatekeeper Pretends To Be 'Mother Earth'

Hecate, the Titan earth-mother of the wizards and witches who helped Demeter after Hades abducted and raped her daughter Persephone, illustrates perhaps better than any other goddess the connection between the earth goddesses, gateways, and the realm of evil supernaturalism. As the daughter of Perses and Asteria, Hecate (Hekate) was the only of the Titans to remain free under Zeus. She was the mother of the wizard, Circe, and of the witch, Medea, and was considered to be the underworld sorceress of all that is demonic. This was because Hecate characterized the unknown night-terrors that roamed the abandoned and desolate highways. She was often depicted as a young maiden with three faces, each pointing in a different direction, a role in which she was the earth-spirit that haunted wherever three paths joined. As the "goddess of three forms" she was Luna (the moon) in heaven, Diana (Artemis) on earth, and Hecate in the underworld. At times of evil magic, she appeared with hideous serpents—spreading demons, encouraging criminal activity, and revealing enigmatic secrets to the crones. At other times she roamed the night with the souls of the dead, visible only to dogs, who howled as she approached. When the moon was covered in darkness, and the hell-hounds accompanied her to the path-beaten crossways, Hecate came suddenly upon the food offerings and dead bodies of murders and suicides that had been left for her by the fear-stricken common-folk. Her hounds bayed, the ghost-torches lit up the night, and the river nymphs shrieked as she carried away the mangled souls of the suicides into the underworld caverns of Thanatos (Death), where the shrills of such damned-ones were known to occupy her presence. In our novel, The Ahriman Gate, we provided a fictionalized account of Hecate in this role:


Around the would-be assassins, through the oak boughs, dark shadows began to accumulate. The demon of death, now calling itself Hecate, a black and powerful heathen goddess who enjoyed such fear in antiquity, led countless gleaming torches toward the confused, trembling souls. Horrible snakes wound about her head as hellish dogs and owl-shaped strigae emerged from the gloom and surrounded the killers. The men's eyes darted wildly as their fingers grasped frantically for a weapon. Beneath them, cold, bony fingers cracked through the ground, clasping their corrupted souls, jerking them down in a merciless earthen rend. Their senses, suddenly vivid beyond reason, filled with a burning sensation of sulfur as they burst into unquenchable fire. The mother they had so reverently obeyed during life couldn't and wouldn't help them now. What authority Gaia possessed was against these two anyway. Like Hecate, whose blood red eyes bulged now with murderous delight, Gaia felt only satisfaction as the doomed spirits screamed their way into the eternal torments of Thanatos and Hell. [4]


Because her devotees practiced such magic wherever three paths joined, Hecate became known to the Romans as Trivia ( tri "three," and via "roads"). Offerings were also made to her wherever evil or murderous activity occurred, as such areas were believed to be magnets of malevolent spirits, something like "haunted houses," and if one wanted to get along with the resident apparitions they needed to make oblations to the ruler of their darkness—Hecate. The acceptance of the oblations was announced by Hecate's familiar (the night owl), and the spooky sound of the creature was perceived as a good omen by those who gathered on the eve of the full moon. Statues of the goddess bearing the triple-face of a dog, a snake, and a horse, overshadowed the dark rituals when they were performed at the crossing of three roads. At midnight, Hecate's devotees would leave the food offerings at the intersection for the goddess ('Hecate's Supper'), and, once deposited, quickly exit without turning around or looking back. Sometimes the offerings consisted of honey cakes and chicken hearts, while at other times, puppies, honey, and female black lambs were slaughtered for the goddess and her strigae—vicious owl-like affiliates of Hecate who flew through the night feeding on the bodies of unattended babies. During the day the strigae appeared as simple old women, which folklore may account for the history of flying witches. The same strigae hid amidst the leaves of the trees during the annual festival of Hecate (held on August 13), when Hecate’s followers offered up the highest praise of the goddess. Hecate’s devotees celebrated such festivals near Lake Averna in Campania where the sacred willow groves of the goddess stood, and they communed with the nature spirits and summoned the souls of the dead from the mouths of nearby caves. It was here that Hecate was known as Hecate-Chthonia ("Hecate of the earth"), a depiction in which she most clearly embodied the earth-mother-spirit which conversed through the cave-stones and sacred willow trees. Elsewhere Hecate was known as Hecate-Propolos, "the one who leads," as in the underworld guide of Persephone and of those who inhabit graveyards, and as Hecate-Phosphoros, "the light bearer," her most sacred title and one which recalls another powerful underworld spirit, Satan, whose original name was Lucifer ("the light bearer"). But it was her role as Hecate-Propylaia, "the one before the gate" where true believers most sought out (or feared) her power. In this manifestation, Hecate was believed to not only control entrances at homes and temples to nefarious evils, but spirit-traversing gateways that could be opened by her into the human mind through the use of psychoactive drugs, a practice employed throughout Greek paganism as well as by shamans of other cultures but condemned in the scriptures (Gal. 5:20; Rev. 9:21; 18:23) as pharmakeia—the administering of drugs for sorcery or magical arts in connection with demonic contact.

During research for our new non-fiction book Forbidden Gates, Dr. J. Michael Bennett pointed out in an email that a revival of this ancient practice is currently back in vogue. His comments raise serious questions about the Greek "myths" mentioned above and modern spiritual warfare.
Tom and Nita, the drug known as DMT, which is naturally produced in the pineal gland and is present in wild plants found in places like the Amazon basin has been used for millennia by aboriginal shamans and medicine men to contact the spirit world and to receive information from entities there. It has recently come in "vogue" to experiment with DMT; in fact, "DMT churches" are springing up across America, which center on the ritual intake of the "theurgic" (i.e., psychoactive drug used for ritual purposes) substance to have transcendent contact with spirit intelligences. This chemical is naturally produced by the pineal gland in the brain, which is located behind the forehead. The pineal gland is called the "third eye" by biologists and spiritual teachers, because it has biological elements that are common with the retina of the eye, and in fact are even used as part of parietal sensory organs in other animals. Philosopher and theologian Rene Decartes understood it to be the physical portal to the spirit world, and occult writer H. P. Lovecraft wrote a famous work called "From Beyond" about a portal device that stimulated the human pineal gland in order to make contact with malevolent spirits. A National Geographic journalist wrote about her ingestion of DMT via the traditional Ayahuasca tea delivery means within the Amazon jungle, as part of a sacred circle of fellow participants. She described falling into an abyss, being summoned by doomed souls who pleaded for release (and she was described as a non-religious person by nature). She then encountered three sinister thrones in an infernal region, and heard threatening voices who told her she could not leave and that there was "no hope." She was "rescued" by her fellow participants, as it is common for adjoining DMT partakers to see the same apparitions, such as serpents enveloping them. Most importantly, psychologist Dr. Rick Strassman conducted a formal clinical study of DMT ingestion under the auspices of the University of New Mexico, which he detailed in his book "DMT: The Spirit Molecule". He found, under controlled clinical conditions, that subjects had these experiences within seconds of ingesting DMT, which almost universally mimicked what are described elsewhere as "alien abduction events" (note that these subjects were screened to be those who were not familiar with stories of UFOs or did not believe in them). The entities they encountered were typically described as traditional "greys", reptilian or insect-like. The contacts usually involved medical and reproductive experiments conducted by the entities on the subjects, described as violent rape episodes. When subjects were willing to try an additional experience, they reported that the entities acknowledged their prior disappearance with no sensation of "time loss." The episodes were so traumatic to the subjects, that a support group was later formed to help them deal with the emotional trauma of the experiences.
I believe the possibility exists that the pineal gland could indeed serve as a means of interacting with the spirit world. According to ancient records, fallen angels taught early humans many things including the use of plants and natural materials in ritual ceremonies for the practice of alchemy and sorcery, and this may include the use of certain wild plants as a source of concentrated DMT to "overload" the neutralizing effects of a chemical in our stomach that under normal circumstances nullifies the effects of DMT. It should also be noted how the Bible mentions the forehead, the region of the pineal gland, in the New Testament book of Revelation in the context of the forces of God or Satan "sealing" their followers there to protect them from the effects of the other. For example, God seals his 144,000 in the forehead and subsequently they are the only ones not subject to dark angelic torment from the beings that exit the Abyss. Conversely, Satan, through the Beast, "seals" the foreheads of his followers with his "mark" and as a result they are forever doomed to his servitude and judgment. Finally, God seals the foreheads of all who enter into the New Jerusalem, with his own name for eternity.
Another theurgic (or at least psycho-active) substance that was used in ancient days that has experienced a modern revival was the alcoholic-based drug "absinthe". This unique, distinctive distilled liquid of pale green color was known in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as the "green fairy". Although its consumption almost became an obsession across Europe and more mystical cosmopolitan centers in America like New Orleans, it was most closely associated with the bohemian artistic culture thriving at the time. It was a favorite of eclectic artists such as the painter Salvador Dali, and writer Oscar Wilde, due to its reliable propensity to facilitate their contact directly with their inspirational spirit "muses". Occult magician Aleister Crowley was so devoted to absinthe for its spiritual invocation capabilities that he wrote his famous lengthy poem, "The Green Goddess" in its honor. It was the only alcoholic beverage banned across Europe (as well as North America) because the diagnosed "absinthism" addiction and effects were deemed much worse than regular alcohol. The curious matter about absinthe is that it is distilled from the wormwood plant, which has the official name of Artemis absinthium. "Artemis" was a Greek and Roman goddess that was (a) considered a "huntress", (b) associated with fire and keys, and (c) the sister of Apollo. She was associated with the goddess Hecate, who was known as a "luminal" god that controlled the access to portals in the spirit world.

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Saturday, August 14, 2010

PART FOUR: Forbidden Gates: How Genetics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Biology, Nanotechnology, & Human Enhancement Herald the Dawn of Techno-Dimensional Spiritual Warfare

Editor's note: All notations will be cited in the final report. The information is based on research contained in Tom and Nita Horn's upcoming new book:


OPEN SESAME!


There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call "The Twilight Zone." Rod Serling

In 1918, famed occultist Aleister Crowley in attempting to discover how those evil emissaries discussed in the last entry could be extended from their kosmos into man's reality undertook to create a magical vortex that would span the gap between the world of the seen and the unseen. Crowley's ritual was called the Amalantrah Working and according to his records became successful when a presence manifested itself through the rift. He called this being "Lam" and drew a portrait of it. The startling image, detailed over ninety years ago, bears powerful similarity with "alien greys" of modern pop culture.

Nearly three decades after the Amalantrah Working, rocket scientist and cofounder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Jack Parsons and his pal L. Ron Hubbard (Church of Scientology founder) conducted a second ritual called the "Babylon Working" in an attempt to reopen Crowley's gateway. These men were not looking for Lam. They wanted to incarnate the Whore of Babylon—a demon child or gibborim—through a portal during ritual sex. Parsons wrote that the ceremony was successful and that at one point a brownish/yellow light came through the doorway and something invisible struck him, knocking a candle out of his hand.

It is interesting to note that following Crowley's magic portal (which allegedly produced the alien-looking Lam) and Hubbard and Parson's Babylon Working ritual, Crowley died in 1947—the same year as the Roswell crash and the same year Kenneth Arnold saw his flying saucers and sightings of "aliens" increased around the world. Some believe this is evidence that a demonic portal was indeed breached by these men. While we probably will never know if something truly supernatural happened with Crowley and Parsons, early Christians, as well as Hebrews, Assyrians, Greeks and other ancient cultures believed such dimensional gateways exist and can be opened between the material world and those entities discussed in part 3 of this series. Because physical doorways and windows on buildings were "mirrors" of the unseen gateways and were therefore vulnerable to entry by supernaturalism, those not interested in making contact with evil spirits placed magic gargoyles on their temples, churches, and castles to scare off and protect from harmful spirits, witches, and other malign influences seeking to manifest. For instance, one of the most widely-used symbols by Greeks on their buildings was the terrifying Gorgon (such as Medusa), a horrifying female creature whose hair was made of venomous snakes and whose gaze could turn men to stone. To close the doorway to evil spirits in Babylon and Assyria, colossal enchanted creatures built under elaborate ceremonies and blessed by names of good omens flanked the palace entries and towering gates of cities while extra precaution was provided through winged figures holding magic devices cleverly concealed beneath the entryway floors. It was also important in ancient times to defend ones personal property and private residence against fiendish undesirables, therefore apotropaic (an adjective meaning "to ward off evil") devices were placed in home doorways, windows, fireplaces and chimneys, while charms, bracelets, and talismans were worn upon the body to protect the individual themselves.

The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel made an interesting statement about such "magic bracelets" (kesatot), which were worn upon the body and somehow bound spirits. 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" (Ezekiel 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, it is depicted as a vessel with a snake peering through an open lid. How the magic worked and in what way a spirit was bound or loosed is a mystery, but a noteworthy verification of the magical properties represented by these utilities is discussed in the scholarly work 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"…

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. [1]

For people not familiar with the terms "binding" and "loosing," these staple words in spiritual warfare imply that certain influences can and should be "bound"—i.e. binding demons so that they cannot effect our minds, bodies, homes—while beneficial influences like good angels ought to be "loosed" (more on this in the final section).

Early religions and schools of mystery went into great detail about who and what was to be bound and loosed, including the advantages of how and why to do it. Beyond malevolent spirits in general, certain powerful entities that could suddenly "emerge" into man's reality were to be especially feared and avoided. These included Asmodai or Samael (the angel of death), Lilith, the mother of Ahriman and the queen of demons, Seir, a prince of hell with twenty-six legions of demons that could appear any place on earth, and thousands of others.

In Matthew 16: 17-19, Jesus directly tied the binding of such supernaturalism to the work of the ministry and the enduring power of his Church. To Peter he said, "upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

This deeply meaningful verse indicates something very important about gateways and openings, binding and loosing, who is to be bound, and the subsequent connection between this activity and the powers of heaven and earth. Note where Jesus says, "the gates of hell shall not prevail" against his Church. Putting the word "hell" in context here is very important because while the Greek word transliterated "Hades" was later confused with death and the grave (Thanatos [also see Rev. 1.18]), at the time Jesus chose to use this word he was possibly referring to the person of Hades or Pluto, the god of the lower regions, and Orcus, the nether world and realm of the dead. Why Jesus may have made reference to a Greek deity, combining it with the subjects of binding, loosing, gates, and spiritual warfare is important. The mythos of Hades and his connection to other deities and their ability to migrate between the spirit and physical world was dominant at the time of Christ, as his disciples would have been well versed, and Jesus may have intended for his followers to immediately connect the truth behind the struggle these living enemies represent to the children of God. Both the Old and New Testament make it clear that behind such pagan gods as Hades exists genuine personal evil that seeks to connect with and mislead mankind.

In Greek mythology, the correlation between Hades and the references of Jesus can be illuminated in the famous metaphor of the abduction and rape of Persephone (Proserpina), and of Demeter's (Persephone's mother) actions in searching for her daughter.

The myth claimed that Hades—the dark god of the underworld—fell in love with beautiful Persephone. One day as she plucked flowers in a grassy meadow, Hades swooped down in his chariot and dragged her down into the underworld, where he forced her to become his bride. Above ground, Demeter was distraught by her daughter's disappearance, and searched the earth in vain to find her. With the help of Helios and Hecate, Demeter finally discovered the truth of what happened, and, in her fury, demanded that Hades release her daughter. When Hades refused, Demeter sent a horrific famine upon the earth. Plants dried up; seeds refused to sprout, and the gods began to suffer from a lack of sacrifices. Finally, Zeus dispatched Hermes to intercede with the lord of the underworld, and, after a great debate, Hades agreed to release Persephone if she would eat a pomegranate seed. What Persephone did not understand was that, by eating the seed in the mystical location of the underworld, a sort of divine symmetry was created that bonded her with Hades. This ensured that the goddess would automatically return to the underworld for a third part of each year (in the winter), during which time the seeds of the ground would not grow. Persephone thus became the upperworld goddess of youth and happiness, and the underworld queen of the dead; a dual role that depicted her as both good and evil. On earth she was the goddess of the young and the friend of the nymphs who appeared in the blooming of the spring flowers (symbolizing her annual return from Hades), and in the underworld she was the dreaded wife of Hades and the queen of the darkness who controlled the fates of deceased men. The reenactment of such myth—the abduction and rape of Persephone—was central to the famous rituals of the Thesmophoria, and, as such, key to interpreting the bits of information known about it.

The festival of the Thesmophoria—sometimes called the Eleusinian Mysteries—lasted between three and ten days. Each day of the festival had a different name and included specific rituals. A highlight of the festival was a procession from Athens to Eleusis which was led by a crowd of children known as ephebi. The ephebi assisted in carrying the hiera (sacred objects), and in pulling a statue of Dionysus as a boy (Iacchos), and finally in the ceremonial cleansing of the initiates (candidates of the mystery religion) in the sea. Upon arriving at Eleusis the women organized the first day of the celebration (anodos) by building temporary shelters and electing the leaders of the camp. On the second day (nesteia) they initiated the Greater Mysteries which, according to myth, produced the cult's magical requests (a fertile harvest). Such mysteries included a parody of the abduction and rape of Persephone, and the positioning of the female devotees upon the ground weeping (in the role of Demeter for her daughter) and fasting for the return of Persephone (the return of spring). The setting upon the ground and fasting was also intended to mystically transfer the "energies" of the women into the ground, and thus into the fall seeds. Not surprisingly, the festival was held during the time of the fall planting so as to nearly guarantee a positive response to the cult's magic. On the fifth day of the festival the participants drank a special grain mixture called kykeon (a symbol of Persephone) in an attempt to assimilate the spirit of the goddess. About this same time certain women called "antleriai" were cleansed in the sea and then sent down into the mountainside trenches to recover the sacrificial piglets and various other sacred objects that had been thrown down into the hillside canyons several days earlier. The sacred objects included dough replicas of snakes and genitalia, which were burned with the piglets and a grain-seed-mixture as an offering to Demeter. While several mystical representations can be made of the symbolism, and the dough replicas are obviously fertility representations, pigs blood was sacred to the gods and thus the piglets are key to understanding the ritual. Greeks venerated pigs because of their uncanny ability to find, and unearth, underground items (roots, etc). Some scholars conclude from this that the ritual casting of the pigs "into the deep" was a form of imitative magic based on the underworld myth of Persephone and Hades. Casting the piglets into the deep canyon trenches, and fetching them back out again, represented the descent of Persephone into the underworld and her subsequent ascension back up to the surface of the earth. The piglets in the trenches may have also served the practical purpose of supplying a host (body) for Persephone to hide in until the antleriai women could assist her (by retrieving the piglets) in her annual escape from the underworld. Burning the piglets later that night would, according to an ancient religious idea that fire passes the soul through a gateway from one location to another, free the spirit of Persephone into the upperworld (compare the children sacrificed to Baal who "passed through the fire" from the physical world into the spiritual in 2 Kings 23:10).

The New Testament informs us that such pagan rituals were the worship of demons. "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice," said Paul, "they sacrifice to devils..." (1 Corinthians 10:20). This makes one wonder if a connection between the ritual casting of the piglets down into the deep canyon trenches (representing a descent into hell), and the biblical story of the Gadarene demoniac, existed:

In Luke, chapter Eight, we read:


And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes....And when he [Jesus] went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils....When he [the demoniac] saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, "What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I beseech thee, torment me not"....And Jesus asked him, saying, "What is thy name?" And he said, "Legion:" because many devils were entered into him. And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep [emphasis added]. And there was there an herd of swine [emphasis added] feeding on the mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them. Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea [emphasis added], and were choked. (Luke 8:26-33)

The word deep in this text is Abussos (the Abyss), and refers to the underworld Bottomless Pit. Since the principle elements of the sea, the swine, and the deep were employed; and since the Abyss (part of the underworld) was central to the narrative; and further since the cult rituals of the Thesmophoria were well known throughout Asia Minor and were considered by the Hebrews to be activity of the devil (the inhabitants of Hades were known as 'Demeter's people,' and Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, was Perserphone's underworld guide during the rituals); one could easily surmise that Jesus was mocking the Thesmophoria. It's possible that Jesus was revealing, to his followers and to the neighboring communities, that such rituals of Dionysus and of Demeter were, in fact, the consort of devils. It may be a stretch to suggest an interpretation of the biblical story in this way, but clearly the similarities and historical proximities are startling, especially since the demons requested entry into the swine. Why would demons make such a plea? There are two possible connections with the Thesmophoria: 1) the demons believed that by entering the swine they could escape the underworld deep (as in the magical Persephone escape ritual described above); and 2) Jesus, by granting the request of the devils, was illustrating that the Thesmophoria ritual of casting the piglets into the deep was inherently demonic. Obviously there are other possible interpretations of the narrative in Luke chapter eight, but since this is the only record of Jesus granting the petition of demons, it seems reasonable that a powerful social commentary about spiritual warfare was made by the Master.

But there is deeper truth about these underworld deities, which we will "dig" into in the next entry...

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