#babylonian esotericism

[mirandamckenni1]

The Magic of the Aramaic Incantation Bowls + the Origins of Lilith The ~2500 known Aramaic Incantation Bowls represent one of the largest collections of ancient magical literature. These bowls were used to repel demonic power, malevolent sorcery and the rampages of disease. Composed in various dialects of Aramaic, the bowls are a treasure of magical wisdom providing us insight into demonology and even the origins and first depictions of Lilith! Consider Supporting Esoterica! Patreon - https://ift.tt/IbzZC3s Merch - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoydhtfFSk1fZXNRnkGnneQ/store New to Studying Esotericism? Check out my Reading Guide here - https://ift.tt/8NW4yC9 Rare Occult Books - https://ift.tt/20vHj9Z Recommended Readings: Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur - https://amzn.to/4cjCdUA https://ift.tt/Icj1EBC Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity - https://amzn.to/3VYVzZG Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity - https://amzn.to/4bqvRkZ Corpus of the Aramaic Incantation Bowls - https://amzn.to/3L0OeSU A Corpus of Syriac Incantation Bowls: Syriac Magical Texts from Late-Antique Mesopotamia Aramaic Incantation Bowls in Museum Collections Volume One: The Frau Professor Hilprecht Collection of Babylonian Antiquities, Jena, etc Aramaic Bowl Spells: Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Bowls Volume One Aramaic Magic Bowls in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyI9m50ODB4

[didanawisgi]

Shiva’s eternal dance of destruction and creation

[thatwhichdoesnotsuffer]

'Please, kind Grandfather, tell me. Is it really possible that all the intentions and efforts of those Babylonian learned beings have come to nothing, and that of all those fragments of knowledge then known on the Earth, nothing whatever has reached the contemporary three-brained beings?' To this question of his grandson, Beelzebub replied: 'Indeed, my boy, to the great sorrow of everything existing in the Universe, scarcely anything has survived from the results of their labors, and hence nothing has been inherited by your contemporary favorites.'

Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson by G. I. Gurdjieff

[svenson777]

TIAMAT Altar Banner Cloth 24" x 24"

[divinum-pacis]

Middle Eastern Neopaganism

Semitic Neopaganism, or Middle Eastern Neopaganism is a group of religions based on or reviving the religions of the ancient Near East, particularly the old traditions of the Semitic peoples, including the pre-Semitic Sumerian elements of Mesopotamian religion.

Semitic Neopaganism is both ethnic and non-ethnic in nature, in that there are ethnically Semite groups of people recovering their ancient polytheistic cults (particularly among the Jews, the Assyrians, the Lebanese, and Crypto-Pagans across the predominantly Muslim populations), and non-Semite people adopting Semitic Pagan worship. The Semitic Neopagan religions are divided into Levantine, Arabian and Mesopotamian movements. Forms of Witchcraft religions inspired by the Semitic milieu, such as Jewitchery, may also be enclosed within the Semitic Neopagan movement. These Witchcraft groups are particularly influenced by Jewish feminism, focusing on the goddess cults of the Israelites.

Levantine Neopaganism

The rebirth of the ancient polytheistic practices of the Levant or Canaan, including Phoenicia and the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the Canaanite religions, has antecedents in the Palestinian Jewish cultural movement of Canaanism of the 1930s. The notion of historical Israelite or Jewish polytheism has been popularized in the 1960s by Raphael Patai in The Hebrew Goddess, focusing on the cult of female goddesses such as the cult of Asherah in the Temple of Solomon.

During the 1970s growth of Neopaganism in the United States, a number of minor Canaanite or Israelite oriented groups emerged, mostly containing syncretistic elements from Western esotericism. Thus, Ordo Templi Astartes (OTA) merged Hermetic elements taken from rituals of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn with Phoenician, general Canaanite and Israelite themes.

The most notable contemporary Levantine Neopagan group is known as Am Ha Aretz (lit. "People of the Land", a rabbinical term for uneducated and religiously unobservant Jews), "AmHA" for short, based in Israel. This group grew out of Ohavei Falcha, "Lovers of the Soil", a movement founded in the late 19th century.

Elie Sheva, according to her own testimony an "elected leader of AmHA" reportedly founded an American branch of the group, known as "Primitive Hebrew Assembly". Natib Qadish ("Sacred Path") is another American group active primarily among non-Jewish people. There are Pagan communities in Lebanon.

Mesopotamian Neopaganism

Sumerian Paganism, sometimes termed as 'Kaldanism' (from Arabic Kaldan, the term for Chaldea) defines those groups recovering ancient Mesopotamian religions, hence the blending of pre-Semitic Sumerian and Semitic Akkadian-Assyrian cults of Babylonian religion. There are ethnic attempts to revive the worship of the god Ashur within the nationalistic movement of the Assyrian people. Besides, non-ethnic Mesopotamian/Iraqi groups of followers have sprung up: Temple of Sumer (Sumerian), Temple of Inanna and Dumuzi (Sumerian), Order of Elder Light (Sumerian), Enkites and Anuites.

Arabian Neopaganism: Wathanism

Wathanism (Arabic Wathaniyya; literally "ethnic+ism") is the term used in the Arabic-speaking world in reference to pre-Islamic, non-Christian and non-Jewish Arabian indigenous religions. It is the Arabic equivalent of "Paganism". It primarily consists of tiny online groups, such as Ma'abed of Al-‘Uzzá, and Wathan.

[Source]

[krae-syndikatet-blog]

LA-based Noysky Projects and the Cph-based Syndicate of Creatures in Collaboration:

Empedocles' Ghost – an exhibition about exploring science and mysticism's forgotten relationship

On view: July 4-11, 2019

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 4, 5-8 pm at KRÆ Syndikatet (Warehouse9), Copenhagen

Live performances: Sunday, July 7, 4-8 pm

Artist talk and performance: Monday, July 8, 5-8 pm

Curated by Sean Noyce

Artists: Naja Ryd Ankarfeldt and Elena Lundquist Ortíz (DK), Michael Carter (US), Jenalee Harmon (US), Alexander Holm (DK), Larry and Debby Kline (US), Sean Noyce (US), Camilla Reyman (DK), Samuel Scharf (US), Katya Usvitsky (US), and Melissa Walter (US) (see below for more on the participating artists)

Performers: Alexander Holm & Mads Kristian Frøslev (DK), Mycelium (DK), Morblod (DK), and Family Underground (DK)

Empedocles' Ghost

“The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” — Albert Einstein

KRÆ syndikatet and Noysky Projects presents Empedocles’ Ghost, a week-long exhibition and series of performances featuring works that explore the relationship between science and mysticism. Empedocles’ Ghost is a collaboration between artist-run galleries KRÆ syndikatet of Copenhagen and Noysky Projects of Los Angeles. Empedocles’ Ghost is Noysky Projects’ first off-site, international exhibition, which opens at Warehouse9 in Copenhagen.

Scholars have ruminated on the connection between science and spirituality for thousands of years, applying folk pedagogy to explain the complexity of the world. The Greek philosopher Empedocles was one of the first to formalize this concept, stating that the foundation for all matter consisted of earth, wind, fire, and water. Respectively, Buddhist, Egyptian, Babylonian, Hindu, and Chinese scholars also drew connections with the four elements, emphasizing the universal nature of this concept.

But with the widespread implementation of the scientific method, science and religion separated, leaving folk practices like alchemy and esotericism to decline precipitously. The fallout from this schism has fostered the rise of literalism, pitting the definitive logic of science against the ascribed doctrine of religion.

Many of the works in Empedocles’ Ghost reconnect the fields of knowledge with that which is mysterious: Melissa Walter mines from her work as an illustrator for NASA, referencing near-fictional concepts like string theory, dark matter, and gravitational lensing, while Michael Carter’s interactive sculpture based on the methods of the ancient Egyptian harpedonaptai (“rope stretcher”) aligns the earth-bound viewer to the celestial bodies with great precision.

Some link the technology of today with the supernatural: Sean Noyce’s video projection renders data visualizations from sound frequencies of an ancient Greek funeral song, while Jenalee Harmon’s laminated transparent sequential photographs are an ode to time, space, speed, and technology of the Futurists that subtly allude to the hidden entities behind those forces.

Others reference Empedocles’ contribution to science and philosophy: Debby and Larry Kline’s large format pen and ink drawings of the four elements contain the visual language of illuminated manuscripts, while Samuel Scharf’s sculpture alludes to Empedocles’ himself, who was said to have committed suicide by throwing himself into Mount Etna; Scharf playfully invites viewers to toss a period-styled sandal into a ring of cobblestones, loosely referencing the active volcano.

About the artists

Sean Noyce’s Funeral Procession merges the technology of today with the mysticism and rituals of antiquity. Sampling a modern recreation of an ancient Greek funeral song, Noyce stretches the recording over 100 times so that the audible moments are abstracted to haunting drones and chimes. The recording is then imputed into a program that Noyce has written, rendering visualizations from those sound frequencies. The video projection references the fleeting moment when the spirit leaves the body as it travels between the transitory plane between the living and the dead.

Debby and Larry Kline’s The Alchemist is part of a large-scale installation devoted to the living cycle of trash. The main character is both ancient and modern. His garb is based on Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD) jade burial suits. Through a contemporary translation, he has become a sleek superhero, emblematic of industry. The Alchemist shapes our world by creating value added products from raw or recycled materials, though his tendency towards overproduction is often to our detriment. We have created many drawings detailing his journey. The drawings in this exhibition are based on the alchemical principles of the four elements (earth, air, water, and fire).

Samuel Scharf’s sculpture alludes to the ancient Greek philosopher, Empedocles, who was credited as one of the first to theorize that all matter consisted of the classical four elements of earth, air, water, and fire. Empedocles was said to have committed suicide by throwing himself into Mount Etna so that the people would believe his body had vanished and he had turned into an immortal god. Scharf playfully invites viewers to toss a period-styled sandal into a ring of cobblestones, loosely referencing that dramatic moment at the volcano.

Michael Carter’s Solar Alignment reconnects the viewer to the hidden forces, properties, and geometries that bind the universe. Not unlike a neolithic earthwork, Carter’s interactive sculpture positions the earth-bound viewer with the sun using technology of the ancient Egyptian harpedonaptai (“rope stretchers”). As the viewer grounds themselves near the square patch of soil at the corner of the Euclidean triangle, they are positioned in alignment with path of the sun, represented as a golden disc perched high up in the gallery. Solar Alignment stresses the importance of hidden affinities and shared experiences that affect us on a deep, visceral way, and have inspired higher thinking for several millennia.

Jenalee Harmon’s photographs represent the liminal space between two distinct moments in time: the one that has just passed and the one that is yet to come. Meticulously produced and staged, her works are inspired by the theatrics of performers, magicians, illusionists, and trick photographers of 20th century cinema. Harmon’s sequential photographs exemplify a world in constant motion — an ode to time, space, and speed of the Futurists, machine learning and technology of artificial intelligence, and the mystery and intrigue of the supernatural.

Melissa Walter visually explores concepts concerning astronomy and astrophysical theories. Walter has worked as a graphic designer and science illustrator for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and as a team member of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Her experience has inspired her to visually articulate wonders of the Universe, such as black holes, supernovas, neutron stars, dark matter and more recently, dark energy. Walter’s use of sound, dramatic optics and lighting within her sculptural installations embed a transcendent quality to the experience of her work while infusing cosmic energy into ordinary materials such as ink and paper. She translates and materializes the intangible knowledge of the Universe into an aesthetic physical reality for a personal experience.

Camilla Reyman work within the fields of abstract painting, sculpture and installation art. She investigate the thought of consciousness being as a kind of matter and that matter might have agency of its own.  Camilla prefer working with materials made by non-humans: plants, silk, dirt, bees wax, organic pigment etc, and sees her works as collaborations where her artistic intentions and the materials themselves create the final outcome on equal terms.

I am interested in how materiality has been perceived through out human history: how it is surrounds us in everyday objects, how it has been and is used in shamanic practices and how it is researched in science and dissolved in quantum physics.

Alexander Holm GiVa1G is a wooden usb drive amulet holding a number of files documenting an exploration of hollow oak trees collected in the southern forests of Norway in summer 2017. The drive includes sound, images and video, aswell as 1 hour of music based on these files. The material were collected in company with biologist Ross Wetherbee, and are originally thought to serve the Norwegian University of Life Sciences's research on the fading numbers of hollow oaks in Norway and the impact they have on local biodiversity as well as our time's global mass extinction. The files on the amulet captures a specific process, which goes as follows: When an oak tree is 2-3 hundred years old a goat horned beetle eats halfway trough the tree into the core of the trunk to eat it’s marrow. The beetle carries a virus that infects the tree to let it die slowly over the following 4-9 hundred years as a hollow grows inside it. As time passes the hollow hosts an increasingly huge number of plant and insect species which only exist in the conditions of the tree. The files points towards a specific time and place: Scandinavia around 1st millennium. Covered in forest — “Trees Of Life”. Norns sitting at the foot of Yggdrasil spinning the fade of humanity. A dragon slowly eating the roots. A squirrel bringing messages from the dragon to an eagle. The eagle sits in the crown watching over middle earth. On it’s beak sits a hawk waving its wings, pushing the winds. Somewhere else four deers are resting, eating off the crowns leaves.

Nymphaea/Åkande by Daughters of the 12th house (Naja Ryde Ankarfeldt & Elena Lundqvist Ortíz) Growing from a society that sees the human as outside, beyond or above nature, we initiated an exploration of the nature that is closest to us: our own bodies and the space surrounding. By very concretely placing our bodies directly on paper as templates and tracing the outlines of our limbs in different postures. Through the union and crystallization of our two practices and bodies, a new body emerges, that appears as an inversion of the Vitruvian Man. Rather than reproducing the narrative of anthropocentrism, and the white male human form as the measure of all things, Nymphaea re-figures the human as always entangled with other species. Using this method we want to craft another story of the human. The work is influenced by spiritual practices in a secularized society, in an attempt to re-integrate spiritual and material worlds. The project is part of an ongoing research and collaboration, where we use tarot and astrology, and more concretely investigating the 12th house, which represents the mystical and unknown dimensions of life. Initiating our collaboration we drew the tarot card “Philosopher of Stones”, more commonly known as “Page of Pentacles”, as a guide for our composite energy. The card renders a human in a lotus position that is also used as template for Nymphaea.

Katya Usvitsky’s sculpture explores concepts of birth, growth and decay through the process of alchemy. Using women’s pantyhose as her primary material — a vestige from Victorian-era corsets and garter belts that constrict the female body — Usvitsky allows the materials to blossom, infusing her sculpture with energy that give the materials a new life, outwardly reminiscent of biological processes including cell division, mutation, and replication. The mysterious transmutation of the piece can be observed in the bell jar, as the piece is on the verge of becoming too large for its vessel.

Schedule of Events

Thursday, July 4, 5-8 pm: Opening reception Sunday, July 7, 4-8 pm: Performances by Morblod (‘Motherblood’); Alexander Holm /Sensorisk verden; and Family Underground Monday, July 8, 5-8 pm: Performance by Mycelium; Talk about the forgotten relation between science and mysticism, lead by curator and artist Sean Noyce (US); art-theorist Astrid Wang (DK); and participating artists Camilla Reyman (DK), Katya Usvitsky (US), and Melissa Walter (US). Thursday, July 11: Closing reception

  Location

KRÆ syndikatet: Halmtorvet 11B, 1700 Copenhagen V Walking directions from Central Station: Head northwest on Reventlowsgade toward Istedgade; turn left onto Istedgade; turn left onto Helgolandsgade; at the roundabout, take the 3rd exit onto Halmtorvet; Turn left; Turn right; Turn left at Onkel Dannys Pl. Copenhagen V

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Hovedbaneg%C3%A5rden+(Reventlowsgade),+Gammel+Kongevej,+K%C3%B8benhavn+V/WAREHOUSE9,+Halmtorvet+11A,+1700+K%C3%B8benhavn/@55.6711786,12.5595428,16.86z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x4652530cdf75ad83:0x8cd0951af261077e!2m2!1d12.5633991!2d55.6727713!1m5!1m1!1s0x4652537317cadaf9:0x506feac8da5b78f1!2m2!1d12.5609999!2d55.6694788!3e2

[didanawisgi]

Eye made from Lapis lazuli (shell)

Period:Early Dynastic IIIa, ca. 2600–2500 B.C. Mesopotamia, Nippur, Sumerian.

[didanawisgi]

“An investigation into the real historical figure of King David and the real location of the Temple of Solomon • Identifies King David as Pharaoh Tuthmosis III of the 18th Dynasty and David’s son Solomon as Pharaoh Amenhotep, Tuthmosis’s successor • Shows how the Temple of Solomon described in the Bible corresponds with the Mortuary Temple of Luxor in Egypt • Explains how David was not a descendant of Isaac but his father and how biblical narrators changed the original story of Abraham and Isaac to hide his Egyptian identity During the last two centuries, thousands of ancient documents from different sites in the Middle East have been uncovered. However, no archaeological discovery speaks of King David or Solomon, his son and successor, directly or in directly. Was King David a real person or a legend like King Arthur? Proposing that David was a genuine historical figure, Ahmed Osman explores how his identity may be radically different than what is described in religious texts. Drawing on recent archaeological, historical, and biblical evidence from Egypt, Osman shows that David lived in Thebes, Egypt, rather than Jerusalem; that he lived five centuries earlier than previously thought, during the 15th rather than the 10th century B.C.; and that David was not a descendant of Isaac but was, in fact, Isaac’s father. The author also reveals David’s true Egyptian identity: Pharaoh Tuthmosis III of the 18th Dynasty. Confirming evidence from rabbinic literature that indicates Isaac was not Abraham’s son, despite the version provided in Genesis, Osman demonstrates how biblical narrators replaced David with Abraham the Hebrew to hide the Egyptian identity of Isaac’s father. He shows how Egyptian historical and archaeological sources depict figures that match David’s and Solomon’s known characteristics in many ways, including accounts of a great empire between the Euphrates and the Nile that corresponds with David’s empire as described in the Bible. Extending his research further, the author shows that King Solomon, King David’s son, corresponds in reality to Pharaoh Amenhotep, successor of Tuthmosis III, the pharaoh who stands out in the dynastic history of Egypt not only for his peaceful reign but also as the builder of the Temple of Luxor and the famed Mortuary Temple at Luxor, which matches the biblical descriptions of Solomon’s Temple. Unveiling the real history behind the biblical story of King David, Osman reveals that the great ancestor of the Israelites was, in fact, Egyptian.”

[didanawisgi]

An impression of Babylonian seal showing goddess Ishtar carrying a staff with the six-pointed star c. 1894 BC

[didanawisgi]

On the lower part of the vertical arm of the Cross, as well as at its center, we find the Hexagram once again. The so-called Seal of Solomon.

“The next image shows an ancient fabric mandala used by priests for meditations; it illustrates the achievement of the evolutional journey of man through the activation of the two energies, Shiva and Shakti and through the joining of all Centers; therefore the work accomplished, from the basal Center to the Center of the head of the Initiate, with the ‘restoration of the (divine) Order’ in the Chaos of physical matter.

The Brother Mason should reflect upon the analogy between the image of this ancient mandala and the philosophical Map of the Temple of Ezekiel passed on by the Rose & Cross Hermetism (see reference). Both documents refer to the realization of the same Work in the Humankind.” -  Athos A. Altomonte

[didanawisgi]

One of the first representations of the Buddha, 1st-2nd century CE, Gandhara, Pakistan: Standing Buddha (Tokyo National Museum).

“Under the Indo-Greeks and then the Kushans, the interaction of Greek and Buddhist culture flourished in the area of Gandhara, in today’s northern Pakistan, before spreading further into India, influencing the art of Mathura, and then the Hindu art of the Gupta empire, which was to extend to the rest of South-East Asia. The influence of Greco-Buddhist art also spread northward towards Central Asia, strongly affecting the art of the Tarim Basin, and ultimately the arts of China, Korea, and Japan.”

[didanawisgi]

They taught that the spiritual nature was attached to the material form at certain points, symbolized by the "nails" of the crucifixion; but by three alchemical initiations which took place in the spiritual world, in the true Temple of the Rose Cross, they were able to "draw" these nails and permit the divine nature of man to come down from its cross. They concealed the processes by which this was accomplished under three alchemical metaphoric expressions: "The Casting of the Molten Sea," "The Making of the Rose Diamond," and "The Achieving of the Philosopher's Stone."

Manly P. Hall, The Fraternity of the Rose Cross, in THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF ALL AGES

[didanawisgi]

“This [doctrine] declares that the fundamental nature of mind is utterly pure and primordially in the state of buddhahood. It is the absolute buddha. It has never changed from beginningless time. Its essence is wisdom and compassion that is inconceivably profound and vast.” - from Three Turnings of the Dharma Wheel

[didanawisgi]

SUMERIA “In the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin are presented several cylinder seals, dated to c.2500 BCE, decorated with celestial symbols showing stars with six, seven, eight and more points. These stars appear there in an astrological context or in an astronomical context. Among them there is a circle surrounded by six triangles, which are like the Sat-kona.”

[didanawisgi]

Great Stupa at Sanchi, North Gate

[didanawisgi]

Nergal: The Lion Headed Cock God of Babylonian Hell (Earth) by Moe

“Nergal is the Hero God of War and the Underworld – ie: Babylonia, Earth, Hell, Land of the Dead and what we can just call today – Modernity.

Nergal had presided over the affairs of humans as one of the agents of punishment with his main instruments being that of magick, war, and pestilence. He was also King of the Spirits of the Air who was almost always accompanied by his female consort Ereskigal and many warrior demons as his legions.

The God Nergal was said to be an Idol of the Samaritan Hebrews who we also know under the names of the Kush, Cuthah, Cuthites, Cushite, and Cutheans. Nergal is mentioned in 2 Kings xvii, and the Babylonian Talmudic treatise Sanhedrin (fol. 63, p. 2) which states that the men of Kuth made Nergal their god.

“And what was it? A cock.”

Based on these historical descriptions, we know that Nergal was said to be worshipped in the form of a Cock (Rooster), or a man with the head of a Cock. But he is also found depicted as a “Man-Lion” with the body of a man and head of a lion.

In one of the oldest depictions of Nergal, we also see the symbols like the horns on his head, scorpion, battle ax, Great Mother and the Hellhound Cerberus – the three-headed ‘Demon-Dog’.

The rites of the Scorpion are the Mysteries of the Apocalypse.

Here is an ancient relief carving of Nergal dating to approximately the first or second century AD.

The immortal Idols used to represent Nergal, the Cock (Rooster) and a man with a Lion’s Head are actually two of the most important symbols that you will find in all of history.

These same said symbols are also prominently symbolized in the Abrahamic religions of the exoteric world and also the esoteric being that of Ancient Gnosticism which gave rise to modern Freemasonry. For example, we have Yaldabaoth who in Nag Hammadi is described as the Chief Archon created by the Goddess Sophia in the “form of a lion-faced serpent, with its eyes were like lightning fires which flash.

Let me remind some of you Christians that our Lord was also symbolized as a  Cock in the Scripture or I should say the “Holy Cock.”  As I had written before, the English word cock or rooster in Latin is gallus or gallinaceous which refers to a “rooster or cockerel” (male chicken) and the term gallīna is used for a “hen” (female chicken).

This is why one of the surnames for Jesus was “Jesus the Galilean from Gallillee” and his Apostles like Simon was also surnamed “Peter the Galilean.”

Also, let us not forget the chief symbol for the Tribe of the Lord – Judah is the lion.

This is may be why Jesus is surnamed the Galilean (Cock/Rooster) from Gallillee (River Galli) and the Prince of the Apostles like Simon the Samaritan who was surnamed Peter was a Galilean as well. (Matthew 26:69; John 7:41)...”

Source: https://gnosticwarrior.com/nergal.html