Musings On The Bible

Oh and the swastika was derived from the natives! Yeah I said that! :laughing like a schizoid!LOL: Actually I did not say that but a real schizoid did. And the wound deepens.........

Origins of Judaism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The origins of Judaism are split into two views - the "traditional" view and the "critical" view. The traditional view is that at its core, the Tanakh is an account of the Israelites' relationship with God from their earliest history until the building of the Second Temple (c. 535 BCE). Critical scholars reject the claim that sacred texts, including the Tanakh were dictated by God; some reject the claim that they were divinely inspired. Instead, they see these texts as authored by humans and meaningful in specific historical and cultural contexts.

Rabbinic tradition holds that the details and interpretation of the law, which are called the Oral Torah or oral law, were originally an unwritten tradition based upon what God told Moses on Mount Sinai. However, as the persecutions of the Jews increased and the details were in danger of being forgotten, these oral laws were recorded by Rabbi Judah haNasi (Judah the Prince) in the Mishnah, redacted circa 200 CE. The Talmud was a compilation of both the Mishnah and the Gemara, rabbinic commentaries redacted over the next three centuries. The Gemara originated in two major centers of Jewish scholarship, Palestine and Babylonia. Correspondingly, two bodies of analysis developed, and two works of Talmud were created. The older compilation is called the Jerusalem Talmud. It was compiled sometime during the fourth century in Israel. The Babylonian Talmud was compiled from discussions in the houses of study by the scholars Ravina I, Ravina II, and Rav Ashi by 500 C.E., although it continued to be edited later.

We've long known about Biblical textual references to Planet X, but is there more? Yes. Much more, thanks to dedicated Torah Code researchers in New York and Jerusalem.

The early results from this new body of work are stunning in their implications as they portend a catastrophic nuclear war and Planet X flyby.

Torah Code research is a 21st century Bible Code game changer, because it employs technology far more powerful than what was available to 20th century Bible Code researchers.

We've long known about Biblical textual references to Planet X, but is there more? Yes. Much more, thanks to dedicated Torah Code researchers in New York and Jerusalem.

The early results from this new body of work are stunning in their implications as they portend a catastrophic nuclear war and Planet X flyby.

Torah Code research is a 21st century Bible Code game changer, because it employs technology far more powerful than what was available to 20th century Bible Code researchers.

Simply put, the technological difference between Bible Code research technology and Torah Code research is as dramatic as two cans and a string vs. an Applie iPhone 3G. It's big!

Consequently, these new Torah Codes are calling out to us with urgent warnings. The year 2012 is when we'll know it's time to shut up, lock our tray tables in the upright position and assume the crash position.

In historical Babylonia the gods were conceived of in the form of man. Man was created in the image of God because the gods themselves were men. But the conception cannot be traced back further than the age when the Sumerians and Semites came into contact with one another. In pre-Semitic Sumer there are no anthropomorphic gods.

The majority of Sumerian deities belonged to a classification called the Anunna (“[offspring] of An”), whereas seven deities, including Enlil and Inanna, belonged to a group of “underworld” judges known as the Anunnaki (“[offspring] of An” + Ki).
* An as the full time god, equivalent to "heaven" - indeed, the word "an" in Sumerian means "sky" and his consort Ki, means "Earth".
* Enki in the south at the temple in Eridu. Enki was the god of beneficence, ruler of the freshwater depths beneath the earth, a healer and friend to humanity who was thought to have given us the arts and sciences, the industries and manners of civilization; the first law-book was considered his creation,
* Enlil, lord of the ghost-land, in the north at the temple of Nippur. His gifts to mankind were said to be the spells and incantations that the spirits of good or evil were compelled to obey,
* Inanna, the deification of Venus, the morning (eastern) and evening (western) star, at the temple (shared with An) at Uruk.
* The sun-god Utu at Sippar,
* the moon god Nanna at Ur.
uh hah the authors of the bible and koran and other ancient texts......

Demiurge

Gnosticism presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God and the demiurgic “creator” of the material. In contrast to Plato, several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being: his act of creation occurs in unconscious semblance of the divine model, and thus is fundamentally flawed, or else is formed with the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. Thus, in such systems, the Demiurge acts as a solution to the problem of evil.

Mythos

The Gnostic mythos describes the declination of aspects of the divine into human form. Sophia (Greek, literally meaning “wisdom”), the Demiurge’s mother and a partial aspect of the divine Pleroma or “Fullness,” desired to create something apart from the divine totality, and without the receipt of divine assent. In this abortive act of separate creation, she gave birth to the monstrous Demiurge and, being ashamed of her deed, wrapped him in a cloud and created a throne for him within it. The Demiurge, isolated, did not behold his mother, nor anyone else, and thus concluded that only he himself existed, being ignorant of the superior levels of reality that were his birth-place.

The Demiurge, having stolen a portion of power from his mother, sets about a work of creation in unconscious imitation of the superior Pleromatic realm: He frames the seven heavens, as well as all material and animal things, according to forms furnished by his mother; working however blindly, and ignorant even of the existence of the mother who is the source of all his energy. He is blind to all that is spiritual, but he is king over the other two provinces. The word dēmiourgos properly describes his relation to the material; he is the father of that which is animal like himself.

Thus Sophia’s power becomes enclosed within the material forms of humanity, themselves entrapped within the material universe: the goal of Gnostic movements was typically the awakening of this spark, which permitted a return by the subject to the superior, non-material realities which were its primal source.

And before his mansion he created a throne which was huge and was upon four-faced Chariot called "Cherubim" Now the Cherubim has eight shapes per each of the four corners, lion forms and calf forms and human forms and eagle forms, so that all the forms amount to sixty four forms - and he created seven Archon Angels that stand before it, he is the eighth and has authority. All the forms amount to seventy two. Furthermore from this Chariot the seventy two gods took shape so that they might rule over the seventy two languages of the peoples. And by that throne he created other serpent-like Angels called Seraphim, which praise him at all times (The Nag Hanmadi Library (Gnostic texts) Robinson, James M: Harper Collins 1990)

Angels

Psalms 82:1 describes a plurality of gods (ʔelōhim), which an older version in the Septuagint calls the “assembly of the gods,” although it does not indicate that these gods were co-actors in creation. Philo had inferred from the expression, "Let us make man," of Genesis that God had used other beings as assistants in the creation of man, and he explains in this way why man is capable of vice as well as virtue, ascribing the origin of the latter to God, of the former to His helpers in the work of creation.

The earliest Gnostic sects ascribe the work of creation to angels, some of them using the same passage in Genesis. So Irenaeus tells of the system of Simon Magus, of the system of Menander, of the system of Saturninus, in which the number of these angels is reckoned as seven, and of the system of Carpocrates. Again, in his report of the system of Basilides, we are told that our world was made by the angels who occupy the lowest heaven; but special mention is made of their chief, who is said to have been the God of the Jews, to have led that people out of the land of Egypt, and to have given them their law. The prophecies are ascribed not to the chief but to the other world-making angels.

The Latin translation, confirmed by Hippolytus, makes Irenaeus state that according to Cerinthus (who shows Ebionite influence), creation was made by a power quite separate from the Supreme God and ignorant of Him. Theodoret, who here copies Irenaeus, turns this into the plural number “powers,” and so Epiphanius represents Cerinthus as agreeing with Carpocrates in the doctrine that the world was made by angels.

Yaldabaoth

In the Ophite and Sethian systems, which have many affinities with that last mentioned, the making of the world is ascribed to a company of seven archons, whose names are given, but their chief, “Yaldabaoth,” comes into still greater prominence.

In the Apocryphon of John circa 120-180 AD, the Demiurge arrogantly declares that he has made the world by himself:

“Now the archon (ruler) who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas (“fool”), and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, ‘I am God and there is no other God beside me,’ for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come.”

He is Demiurge and maker of man, but as a ray of light from above enters the body of man and gives him a soul, Yaldabaoth is filled with envy; he tries to limit man's knowledge by forbidding him the fruit of knowledge in paradise. The Demiurge, fearing lest Jesus, whom he had intended as his Messiah, should spread the knowledge of the Supreme God, had him crucified by the Jews. At the consummation of all things all light will return to the Pleroma; but Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge, with the material world, will be cast into the lower depths.

In Pistis Sophia Yaldabaoth has already sunk from his high estate and resides in chaos, where, with his forty-nine demons, he tortures wicked souls in boiling rivers of pitch, and with other punishments. He is an archon with the face of a lion, half flame and half darkness.

Yaldabaoth is frequently called "the Lion-faced", leontoeides, with the body of a serpent. We are told also, that the Demiurge is of a fiery nature, the words of Moses being applied to him, “the Lord our God is a burning and consuming fire,” a text used also by Simon.

Under the name of “Nebro” (rebel), Yaldabaoth is called an angel in the apocryphal Gospel of Judas. He is first mentioned in “The Cosmos, Chaos, and the Underworld” as one of the twelve angels to come “into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld]”. He comes from heaven, his “face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood”. Nebro creates six angels in addition to the angel Saklas to be his assistants. These six in turn create another twelve angels “with each one receiving a portion in the heavens.”

Names

* The most probable derivation of the name “Yaldabaoth” is that given by Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler, “Son of Chaos,” from Hebrew yalda bahut, ילדא בהות.
* “Samael” literally means “Blind God” or “God of the Blind” in Aramaic (Syriac sæmʕa-ʔel). This being is considered not only blind, or ignorant of its own origins, but may in addition be evil; its name is also found in Judaica as the Angel of Death and in Christian demonology. This leads to a further comparison with Satan.
* Another alternative title for the Demiurge, “Saklas,” is Aramaic for “fool” (Syriac sækla “the foolish one”).

Marcion

According to Marcion, the title God was given to the Demiurge, who was to be sharply distinguished from the higher Good God. The former was díkaios, severely just, the latter agathós, or loving-kind; the former was the "god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4), the God of the Old Testament, the latter the true God of the New Testament. Christ, though in reality the Son of the Good God, pretended to be the Messiah of the Demiurge, the better to spread the truth concerning His heavenly Father. The true believer in Christ entered into God's kingdom, the unbeliever remained forever the slave of the Demiurge.

Valentinus

It is in the system of Valentinus that the name Dēmiourgos is used, which occurs nowhere in Irenaeus except in connexion with the Valentinian system; and we may reasonably conclude that it was Valentinus who adopted from Platonism the use of this word. When it is employed by other Gnostics it may be held either that it is not used in a technical sense, or that its use has been borrowed from Valentinus. But it is only the name that can be said to be specially Valentinian; the personage intended by it corresponds more or less closely with the Yaldabaoth of the Ophites, the great Archon of Basilides, the Elohim of Justinus, etc.

The Valentinian theory elaborates that from Achamoth (he káta sophía or lower wisdom) three kinds of substance take their origin, the spiritual (pneumatikoí), the animal (psychikoí) and the material (hylikoí). The Demiurge belongs to the second kind, as he was the offspring of a union of Achamoth with matter. And as Achamoth herself was only the daughter of Sophía the last of the thirty Aeons, the Demiurge was distant by many emanations from the Propatôr, or Supreme God.

The Demiurge in creating this world out of Chaos was unconsciously influenced for good by Jesus Soter; and the universe, to the surprise even of its Maker, became almost perfect. The Demiurge regretted even its slight imperfection, and as he thought himself the Supreme God, he attempted to remedy this by sending a Messiah. To this Messiah, however, was actually united Jesus the Saviour, Who redeemed men. These are either hylikoí, or pneumatikoí.

The first, or material men, will return to the grossness of matter and finally be consumed by fire; the second, or animal men, together with the Demiurge as their master, will enter a middle state, neither Pleroma nor hyle; the purely spiritual men will be completely freed from the influence of the Demiurge and together with the Saviour and Achamoth, his spouse, will enter the Pleroma divested of body (hyle) and soul (psyché). In this most common form of Gnosticism the Demiurge had an inferior though not intrinsically evil function in the universe as the head of the animal, or psychic world.

The devil

Opinions on the devil, and his relationship to the Demiurge, varied. The Ophites held that he and his demons constantly oppose and thwart the human race, as it was on their account the devil was cast down into this world. According to one variant of the Valentinian system, the Demiurge is besides the maker, out of the appropriate substance, of an order of spiritual beings, the devil, the prince of this world, and his angels. But the devil, as being a spirit of wickedness, is able to recognise the higher spiritual world, of which his maker the Demiurge, who is only animal, has no knowledge. The devil resides in this lower world, of which he is the prince, the Demiurge in the heavens; his mother Sophia in the middle region, above the heavens and below the Pleroma.

The Valentinian Heracleon interpreted the devil as the principle of evil, that of hyle (matter). As he writes in his commentary on John 4:21,

The mountain represents the Devil, or his world, since the Devil was one part of the whole of matter, but the world is the total mountain of evil, a deserted dwelling place of beasts, to which all who lived before the law and all Gentiles render worship. But Jerusalem represents the creation or the Creator whom the Jews worship. . . . You then who are spiritual should worship neither the creation nor the Craftsman, but the Father of Truth.

Catharism apparently inherited their idea of Satan as the creator of the evil world directly or indirectly from Gnosticism.

This vilification of the Creator was held to be inimical to Christianity by the early fathers of the church. In refuting the views of the Gnostics, Irenaeus observed that "Plato is proved to be more religious than these men, for he allowed that the same God was both just and good, having power over all things, and Himself executing judgment."

Neoplatonism and Gnosticism

Gnosticism attributed falsehood, fallen or evil, to the concept of Demiurge or Creator (see Zeus and Prometheus), though sometimes the creator is from a fallen, ignorant or lesser rather than evil perspective (in some Gnosticism traditions) such as that of Valentinius. The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus addressed within his works what he saw as un-Hellenic and blasphemous to the demiurge or creator of Plato.

Gnosticism's conception of the Demiurge was criticised by the Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus. Plotinus is noted as the founder of Neoplatonism (along with his teacher Ammonius Saccas), His criticism is contained in the ninth tractate of the second of the Enneads. Therein, Plotinus criticizes his opponents for their appropriation of ideas from Plato:

From Plato come their punishments, their rivers of the underworld and the changing from body to body; as for the plurality they assert in the Intellectual Realm—the Authentic Existent, the Intellectual-Principle, the Second Creator and the Soul—all this is taken over from the Timaeus. (Ennead 2.9.vi; emphasis added from A. H. Armstrong's introduction to Ennead 2.9)

Of note here is the remark concerning the second hypostasis or Creator and third hypostasis or World Soul within Plotnius. Plotinus criticizes his opponents for “all the novelties through which they seek to establish a philosophy of their own” which, he declares, “have been picked up outside of the truth”; they attempt to conceal rather than admit their indebtedness to ancient philosophy, which they have corrupted by their extraneous and misguided embellishments. Thus their understanding of the Demiurge is similarly flawed in comparison to Plato’s original intentions.

Whereas Plato's demiurge is good wishing good on his creation, gnosticism contends that the demiurge is not only the originator of evil but is evil as well. Hence the title of Plotinus' refutation "Enneads" The Second Ennead, Ninth Tractate - Against Those That Affirm the Creator of the Kosmos and the Kosmos Itself to be Evil: [Generally Quoted as "Against the Gnostics"]. Plotinus marks his arguments with the disconnect or great barrier that is created between the nous or mind's noumenon (see Heraclitus) and the material world (phenomenon) by believing the material world is evil.

The majority view tends to understand Plotinus’ opponents as being a Gnostic sect—certainly, (specifically Sethian) several such groups were present in Alexandria and elsewhere about the Mediterranean during Plotinus’ lifetime, and several of his criticisms bear specific similarity to Gnostic doctrine (Plotinus pointing to the gnostic doctrine of Sophia and her emission of the Demiurge is most notable among these similarities).

However, Christos Evangeliou has contended that Plotinus’ opponents might be better described as simply “Christian Gnostics”, arguing that several of Plotinus’ criticisms are as applicable to orthodox Christian doctrine as well. Also, considering the evidence from the time, Evangeliou felt the definition of the term “Gnostics” was unclear. Thus, though the former understanding certainly enjoys the greatest popularity, the identification of Plotinus’ opponents as Gnostic is not without some contention. Of note here is that while Plotinus' student Porphyry names Christianity specifically in Porphyry's own works, and Plotinus is to have been a known associate of the Christian Origen, none of Plotinus' works mention Christ or Christianity. Whereas Plotinus specifically addresses his target in the Enneads as the gnostics.

A. H. Armstrong identified the “Gnostics” that Plotinus was attacking as Jewish and Pagan in his introduction to the tract in his translation of the Enneads. Armstrong alluding to Gnosticism being a Hellenic philosophical heresy of sorts, which later engaged Christianity and Neoplatonism.

John D. Turner, professor of religious studies at the University of Nebraska and famed translator and editor of the Nag Hammadi library, stated that the text Plotinus and his students read was Sethian gnosticism which predates Christianity. It appears that Plotinus attempted to clarify how the philosophers of the academy had not arrived at the same conclusions (such as Dystheism or misotheism for the creator God as an answer to the problem of evil) as the targets of his criticism.

In late antiquity the term archon was used in Gnosticism to refer to several servants of the Demiurge, the "creator god" that stood between the human race and a transcendent God that could only be reached through gnosis. In this context they have the role of the angels and demons of the Old Testament. They give their name to the sect called Archontics.

The Hebdomad

A characteristic feature of the Gnostic conception of the universe is the role played in almost all Gnostic systems by the seven world-creating archons, known as the Hebdomad (ἑβδομάς). There are indeed certain exceptions; for instance, Basilides taught the existence of a "great archon" called Abrasax who presided over 365 archons (Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 24); in the Valentinian system, the Seven are in a manner replaced by the Aeons. These Seven, then, are in most systems semi-hostile powers, and are reckoned as the last and lowest emanations of the Godhead; below them—and frequently considered as derived from them—comes the world of the actually devilish powers.

The ancient astronomy taught that above the seven planetary spheres was an eighth, the sphere of the fixed stars. In the eighth sphere, these Gnostics taught, dwelt the mother to whom all these archons owed their origin, Sophia (Wisdom) or Barbelo. In the language of these sects the word Hebdomad not only denotes the seven archons, but is also a name of place, denoting the heavenly regions over which the seven archons presided; while Ogdoad denotes the supercelestial regions which lay above their control.

The Ophites accepted the existence of these seven archons (Origen, Contra Celsum, vi. 31; a nearly identical list is given in On the Origin of the World):

* Yaldabaoth, called also Saklas and Samael
o Saturn.
o Feminine name: Pronoia (Forethought) Sambathas, "week".
o Prophets: Moses, Joshua, Amos, Habakkuk.
o From Hebrew yalda bahut, "Child of Chaos"? The outermost who created the six others, and therefore the chief ruler and Demiurge par excellence. Called "the Lion-faced", leontoeides, similar to the Mithraic Leontocephaline.
* Iao
o Jupiter.
o Feminine name: Lordship.
o Prophets: Samuel, Nathan, Jonah, Micah.
o Perhaps from Yahu, Yahweh, but possibly also from the magic cry iao in the Mysteries.
* Sabaoth
o Mars.
o Feminine name: Deity.
o Prophets: Elijah, Joel, Zechariah.
o The Old Testament title God of Hosts was thought a proper name, hence Jupiter Sabbas (Yahweh Sabaoth).
* Astaphanos, or Astaphaios
o Venus.
o Feminine name: Sophia (Wisdom).
o Prophets: Esdras, Zephaniah.
o Astraphaios is beyond doubt the planet Venus, as there are gnostic gems with a female figure and the legend ASTAPHE, which name is also used in magic spells as the name of a goddess.
* Adonaios
o The Sun.
o Feminine name: Kingship.
o Prophets: Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel.
o From the Hebrew term for "the Lord", used of God; Adonis of the Syrians representing the Winter sun in the cosmic tragedy of Tammuz. In the Mandaean system Adonaios represents the Sun.
* Elaios, or Ailoaios, or sometimes Ailoein
o Mercury.
o Feminine name: Jealousy.
o Prophets: Tobias, Haggai.
o From Elohim, God (El).
* Horaios
o The Moon.
o Feminine name: Wealth.
o Prophets: Michaiah, Nahum.
o From Jaroah? or "light"? or Horus?

In the hellenized form of Gnosticism either all or some of these names are replaced by personified vices. Authadia (Authades), or Audacity, is the obvious description of Yaldabaoth, the presumptuous Demiurge, who is lion-faced as the Archon Authadia. Of the Archons Kakia, Zelos, Phthonos, Errinnys, Epithymia, the last obviously represents Venus. The number seven is obtained by placing a proarchon or chief archon at the head. That these names are only a disguise for the Sancta Hebdomas is clear, for Sophia, the mother of them, retains the name of Ogdoad, Octonatio. Occasionally one meets with the Archon Esaldaios, which is evidently the El Shaddai of the Bible, and he is described as the Archon "number four" (harithmo tetartos).

In the system of the Gnostics mentioned by Epiphanius we find, as the Seven Archons,

* Iao
* Saklas (the chief demon of Manichaeism)
* Seth
* David
* Eloiein
* Elilaios (probably connected with En-lil, the Bel of Nippur, the ancient god of Babylonia)
* Yaldabaoth (or no. 6 Yaldaboath, no. 7 Sabaoth)

The last book of the Pistis Sophia (or The Books of the Savior) contains the myth of the capture of the rebellious archons, whose leaders here appear as five in number.

* Paraplex
* Hekate
* Ariouth (females)
* Typhon
* Iachtanabas (males)

Mandaean Archons

Among the Mandaeans, we find a different and perhaps more primitive conception of the Seven, according to which they, together with their mother Namrus (Ruha) and their father (Ur), belong entirely to the world of darkness. They and their family are looked upon as captives of the god of light (Manda-d'hayye, Hibil-Ziva), who pardons them, sets them on chariots of light, and appoints them as rulers of the world.

Manichaean Archons

The Manicheans readily adopted the Gnostic usage; and their archons are invariably evil beings. It is related how the helper of the Primal Man, the spirit of life, captured the evil archons, and fastened them to the firmament, or according to another account, flayed them, and formed the firmament from their skin, and this conception is closely related to the other, though in this tradition the number (seven) of the archons is lost.

As planets

Irenaeus tells us: "Sanctam Hebdomadem VII stellas, quas dictunt planetas, esse volunt." It is safe, therefore, to take the above seven Gnostic names as designating the seven planetary divinities, the sun, moon and five planets. In the Mandaean system the Seven are introduced with the Babylonian names of the planets. The connexion of the Seven with the planets is also clearly established by the expositions of Celsus and Origen (Contra Celsum, vi. 2 2 seq.) and similarly by the above-cited passage in the Pistis Sophia, where the archons, who are here mentioned as five, are identified with the five planets (excluding the sun and moon).

In this, as in several other systems, the traces of the planetary seven have been obscured, but hardly in any have they become totally effaced. What tended most to obliterate the sevenfold distinction was the identification of the God of the Jews, the Lawgiver, with Yaldabaoth and his designation as World-creator, whereas formerly the seven planets together ruled the world. This confusion, however, was suggested by the very fact that at least five of the seven archons bore Old-Testament names for God—El Shaddai, Adonai, Elohim, Jehovah, Sabaoth.

Wilhelm Anz (Ursprung des Gnosticismus, 1897) has pointed out that Gnostic eschatology, consisting in the soul's struggle with hostile archons in its attempt to reach the Pleroma, is a close parallel of the soul's ascent, in Babylonian astrology, through the realms of the seven planets to Anu. The late Babylonian religion can definitely be indicated as the home of these ideas.[13] And if in the old sources it is only the first beginnings of this development that can be traced, we must assume that at a later period the Babylonian religion centred in the adoration of the seven planetary deities. Very instructive in this connexion is the later (Arabian) account of the religion of the Mesopotamian Sabians. The religion of the Sabians, evidently a later offshoot from the stock of the old Babylonian religion, actually consists in the cult of the seven planets.

In Zoroastrianism

The Bundahishn (iii. 25, v. z) is able to inform us that in the primeval strife of Satan against the light-world, seven hostile powers were captured and set as constellations in the heavens, where they are guarded by good star-powers and prevented from doing harm. Five of the evil powers are the planets, while here the sun and moon are of course not reckoned among the evil powers—for the obvious reason that in the Persian official religion they invariably appear as good divinities. It must be also noted that the Mithras mysteries, so closely connected with the Persian religion, are acquainted with this doctrine of the ascent of the soul through the planetary spheres (Origen, Contra Celsum, vi. 22).

In Judaism and Christianity

The N. T. several times mentions the "prince (ἄρχων) of the devils" (δαιμονίων), or "of the (this) world," or "of the power of the air;" but never uses the word absolutely in any cognate sense. In Leviticus (LXX.) Αρχων (once οἱ Ἄρχοντες, Leviticus 20:5) represents, or rather translates, Molech. The true biblical source of the usage however is Daniel 10:13-21 (six times Theodotion; once indistinctly LXX.), where the archon (שַׂ֣ר, "prince" A. V.) is the patron angel of a nation, Persia, Greece, or Israel; a name (Michael) being given in the last case only.

The Book of Enoch (vi. 3, 7; viii. 1) names 20 "archons of the" 200 "watcher" angels who sinned with the "daughters of men," as appears from one of the Greek fragments. The title is not indeed used absolutely (τ. ἀρχόντων αὺτῶν, Σεμιαζᾶς, ὁ ἄρχων αὐτῶν, bis: cf. ἱ πρώταρχος αὐτῶν Σ.), except perhaps once (πρῶτος Ἀζαὴλ ὁ δέκατος τῶν ἀρχόντων), where the Ethiopic has no corresponding words: but it has evidently almost become a true name, and may account for St. Jude's peculiar use of ἀρχή (Jude 1:6).

Christians soon followed the Jewish precedent. In the 2nd century the term appears in several writers alien to Gnosticism. The Epistle to Diognetus speaks of God sending to men "a minister or angel or archon," etc. Justin (Dial. 36) understands the command in Psalms 24:7-9 (ἄρατε πύλας οἱ ἄρχοντες ὑμῶν LXX.) to open the heavenly gates as addressed to "the archons appointed by God in the heavens." The first spurious set of Ignatian epistles enumerates "the heavenly beings and the glory of the angels and the archons visible and invisible" (Ad Smyrn. 6), and again "the heavenly beings and the angelic collocations and the archontic constitutions" (i. e. order of provinces and of functions), "things both visible and invisible" (Ad Trall. 5); the meaning being lost by the time of the interpolator, who in one case drops the word out, and in the other gives it a political sense. The Clementine Homilies adopt and extend (xi. 10, ἐν ᾅδῃ . . . ὁ ἐκεῖ καθεστὼς ἄρχων) the N. T. usage; and further call the two good and evil ("right and left") "powers," which control the destiny of each man, "rulers" (archons, vii. 3), though more commonly "leaders" (ἡγεμόνες).

• One New Age channeling cult, above all the rest, has had a huge - very disturbing influence on hundreds of thousands of devotees worldwide. Known as 'The Nine', its disciples include cutting edge scientists, multi-millionaire industrialists and leading politicians. This exclusive extract based on The Startgate Conspiracy by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince looks at the sinister origins of The Nine
  

If we possess the image of a thing, we possess half the thing. The image of the world is half the world. He who possesses the world but not its image possesses only half the world, since his soul is poor and has nothing. The wealth of the soul exists in images.42 He who possesses the image of the world, possesses half the world, even if his humanity is poor and owns nothing. But hunger makes the soul into a beast that devours the unbearable and is poisoned by it. My friends, it is wise to nourish the soul, otherwise you will breed dragons and devils in your heart.

If we possess the image of a thing, we possess half the thing. The image of the world is half the world. He who possesses the world but not its image possesses only half the world, since his soul is poor and has nothing. The wealth of the soul exists in images.42 He who possesses the image of the world, possesses half the world, even if his humanity is poor and owns nothing. But hunger makes the soul into a beast that devours the unbearable and is poisoned by it. My friends, it is wise to nourish the soul, otherwise you will breed dragons and devils in your heart.

it wise to nourish the soul

................This is why when we talk about Christ as the second aspect of this Trinity, we cannot talk about it as individuality, which is that mistake that Christianity commits in this day and age, since they think that the Master Jesus of Nazareth is the only Christ or better said, they think that Jesus is the only one that incarnated the Cosmic Christ. The Cosmic Christ is “these” (Eleh), Chokmah which is universal. In Hinduism, Christ is called Vishnu, who has many avatars (messengers). Notwithstanding, we acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth is the highest initiate among all of those that incarnated the Cosmic Christ, this is why he has the right to be called "Jesus Christ," which is a title, just as the Buddha Gauthama has the title of "Buddha" but he is not the only Buddha. "These” (Eleh) is what we have to understand when we talk about Christ. We the Gnostics, when we talk about Christ we always point the Cosmic Christ. And when we refer to Jesus the great initiate of 2,000 years ago, then we say Jesus of Nazareth, who we acknowledge is a great initiate, the representation of Christ in the Earth or the incarnation of “these” (Eleh) or better said the reincarnation of the Logos, because “these” (Eleh), the Cosmic Christ, was reincarnated or incarnated before. Jesus is one with the Cosmic Christ.

So “these” is Eleh, this is why when we read in the second chapter of Genesis “these are the generations of the heaven and the earth,” “these” (Eleh) is pointing at those elements, those archetypes or principles, models, that are in the universe which are the source of every single religion, not only on the planet Earth but in any planet of the universe. “These” (Eleh) principles take shape and develop in accordance to the group of people, accordance to the civilization, in accordance to the time; “these” (Eleh) are those spiritual principles which we also have within.

Now, “these” (Eleh), when we refer to them are the stars; this is why in Kabbalah Chokmah is related with the zodiac, the stars. Thus, when we refer to the stars, in synthesis we say the zodiac, which means the twelve constellations. In the Bible, these twelve constellations are called "the people of Israel," so when we say “these” (Eleh) are the stars related with the archetypes that in the Bible are called Israel. So, “Israel,” from this point of view, is not a group or race that exists in the physical world, “Israel” related to the archetypes, which as you see, are here (in the head) and everywhere because as we explained, Chokmah is universal.

Of course, if you read another book which is not the Hebrew Bible, but another religious book, you will find that these archetypes are named in different ways. If we are naming “Israel,” it is because this is how the Bible explains it. Therefore, when the Bible addresses “these” (Eleh) it refers directly to Israel, yet, it is not addressing any race in the physical world but those archetypes in the head (Li Rosh) that could be developed or that will be developed within any initiate; in other words, “these” (Eleh) "Israel" exists within everyone, within our head (Rosh). We will say in synthesis that “these” (Eleh) as archetypes are 144,000, symbolic forces that we have within the brain.

The word Israel (ישראל) is kabalistically modified as לי ראש, (li rosh ,“my head”). Revelation 7: 3, 4: ...we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed 144,000 of all the tribes of the children of Israel (li rosh ,“my head”).

144,000 angelic atoms exist within our brain. Those angelic atoms govern all the atoms in our human organism. – Kundalini Yoga by Samael Aun Weor

............
Thus, in order for the Logos, the word, which is Christ, to go inside of us, we have to know the mysteries of דעת Daath, knowledge, which as you see in the tree of life, Daath is a Sephirah placed beneath the first triangle, the Holy Trinity in Atziluth, namely, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. Thus, beneath this trinity you find Daath, which means knowledge, which is Gnosis in Greek. So, the Son, Christ, in the central pillar of the Tree of Life, is the one that has the knowledge, or the one who from Yesod through Tiphereth - which is the consciousness in the Tree of Life - has to work through knowledge, Daath.

This is how - when you study them - the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge are related with the forces of the Holy Trinity within you, because everybody has them. Thus, to cultivate these Three Primary Forces is precisely our objective.

There are three types of souls.

First, the soul who cannot hear her Innermost, Innermost means Spirit; again, a soul who cannot hear her own Monad, her own Spirit, her own God, or his own God. I refer to the soul always as her, she, because Kabbalistically the soul is always addressed as a feminine aspect, the soul that has been united with her beloved one, the Spirit, the Spirit is our God inside, our Angel. So, the soul who cannot hear the Innermost, she is a suffering soul who is conditioned to her mind and her vices. Remember that in the mind we have the den of defects or vices that we have within, the animal mind.

The second type is the soul who sometimes hears and sometimes does not, this soul suffers the pain of remorse, she has overcome some of her vices and has attained some victories, thus according to her future actions, she either will attain victory or defeat.

Now the third type is the soul who always hears her Innermost, thus she reigns over her own psychological world, or better said over her own psychosomatic world, which is precisely the whole work that we with our Spirit has to perform. So we as souls, we are the ones who have to perform this cult, this cultivation through our Innermost.

Now, when the influences of our Innermost reach our mind from the pineal gland, its flowing spiritual concentration calms the mind for meditation. Regrettably, the mental body is influenced by the exterior senses, whose impressions are usually transformed into desires, then the mind quickly withdraws from the innermost, falling into the world of Maya (illusions). This is why it is difficult for the innermost to manifest his Self through the mind. The mind is an instrument that we as souls have to utilize, yet, most of the time we are identified with it.

Let us see, the objectivity of the Spirit, his commands, his will, is sometimes received in the head through thoughts, which he puts there through those archetypes or elements in order to teach you. Unfortunately, the mind not only projects or receives the thoughts of our Monad, which are those thoughts that we call intuitive thoughts, but it also projects our own particular thoughts, as you know we are always projecting in the screen of the mind, a lot of thoughts, which are the outcome of the senses, because through the senses, we are receiving impressions, and usually those impressions are related with our life and we transform those impressions into desires. Desire means that sometimes we are pleased with those sensations, and we want to repeat them, because the mind likes them. Yes, when the mind likes those sensations, it wants to repeat them, that repetition is called desire; whereas, in the Being, the Innermost, there is no desire, but only willpower. Thus you find here, the two polarities of the same power, that utilize the same energy, willpower, Thelema - as it is called in Greek - is related to the Being, but desire is related to the animal nature, to our own particular animal nature. The mind is always in between, it can receive information; sometimes we receive information through the mind in images and thoughts, sometimes we don't pay attention, because sometimes we think that these intuitive thoughts are our own projections; these types of thoughts are related with nothing in the physical world, I mean nothing that we saw in the physical world, so it is always related with something abstract, symbolic, that we need to interpret. Usually our dreams, related with these types of things, are related with those types of images, which a very weird, bizarre dreams. Regretably, usually we always dream with desires, with projections of our sensual mind.

Thus, we find here, that our Innermost needs the atom of the Holy Spirit in the pineal gland in order to dominate the mind, the atom of the Holy Spirit receives the force of Kether, the Crown, in order to control the mind, it can dominate the central nervous system and others nervous systems, the strongest pineal gland we have, the better in order to control the mind. We fortify the atom of the Holy Spirit in the pineal gland with the solar and lunar atoms from our sexual fluids from Yesod. This is how we can dominate the central nervous system, which is the brain and the medulla, because that atom exercise his kingdom in the sexual organs, which is the creative force.
So we control the central nervous system and other nervous systems, if we fortify it with the solar and lunar atoms from our sexual fluids from Yesod. In other words, our sexual fluids, which are called semen, are nourished by the right cord and the left cord, the Sun and the Moon, the two polarities, Father, Mother, that descend from above and that are forming the solar and lunar atoms of our sexual fluids. If we learn how to transmute, how to liberate the creative powers of the lunar and solar forces of our sexual fluid, and rise them back through the two cords, which are precisely what we call the two witnesses or the two thieves that steal the solar and lunar energies and rise them up to the brain. Then, they fortify the atom of the Holy Spirit, and thus we control the mind. This is why we state that no fornicator can control the mind.

Now you understand why most of those people in Buddhism that want to control the mind, - remember that Buddhism centralizes itself in the mind, Buddha (the Innermost) controls the mind - are celibate, and perform a lot of exercises in to order to transmute the lunar and solar forces, in order to fortify their pineal gland, because from the pineal gland they exercise willpower, Thelema, in order to control their mind, which is the donkey, the mule that we have within.

Satan and Noah
Unfortunately, our sexual fluids are controlled by our own particular individual Satan. Satan in ourselves relates to the animal appetites, which are centralized there in the sexual organs, and as well in this solar plexus; Satan is related with our own animality. He is the root of our ego, the secret enemy that we created by the transgression of the law (Thou shalt not fornicate), which the right translation should be, “you shall not reach the orgasm or spasm of animals,” because through the orgasm you fortify the animal soul, that animal soul is called Nephesh, and Satan controls Nephesh. Remember that you have your own particular Satan, whose strength is also in the liver; Satan reflects the kingdom of the Father in the head, in the liver.

In the liver, or in that organ is created the impure blood. The impure blood is controlled by Satan as well. The liver relates to our own particular karma or the effects of our wrong deeds, whether good or bad. Thus, the opposite of the Holy Spirit, which is Binah in the pineal gland, is in the sex, where we find also the power of Satan. In the animals, irrational animals, Satan is also active, for instance in Greek myth Satan is called, Pan, the God of Fertility, Pan is just a force that multiply any animal species; it is sexual potency that acts through their blood. It is a natural force in animals and we are intellectual animals. So Satan has his force in the liver which is called the emotional inferior center, related with our inferior animal emotions. This is why when somebody is angry, they say that it is very bad for his health and his liver can become really ill, sick. Or when somebody drinks a lot of any type of alcohol, it will of course hurt his liver, since he is feeding his own particular individual Satan (Ego) that likes these types of things, as when a cat is eating catnip, same way. It is an animal pleasure. Drugs are animal pleasures, which Satan uses in order to work through in our own animality, through our own instinct.

Yet, if we want to enter into another level, the human kingdom, the human level, we have to control the animal nature in us, and that is a fight against Satan because Satan always defends the animal kingdom, since it is his own kingdom. Thus, Satan dominates our sexual animal system. Satan defends our animality and makes it his weapon against our Innermost. Therefore, our mind, inferior emotions and sex are under the dominion of Satan, the Ego, which also governs our instincts and senses.

Satan is called the king of the earth, people think “oh Satan, the king of the earth, is a spirit there outside controlling all of this humanity and all of this planet earth; the truth is that Satan controls our philosophical earth (physical body), thus, Satan is inside of all of us, inside of any animal, inside of any creature, any plant, Satan is that creative animal force that acts mechanically. But in us Satan is dangerous because we as animals received the intellect, and the intellect is a weapon of Satan in the mind, the animal mind that we have. Now you understand why you cannot do the will of your Inner God through your intellectual mind, neither through inferior emotions rooted in desire, the liver the opposite of God’s will, since in the liver we have our karma; we cannot do the will of God through sex either because it is under Satan’s domain. Nevertheless, we have to control sex in order to fortify the pineal gland and thus control the mind; this is how we can do God’s will.

Now, this duality, or these two nervous systems, the right and the left witnesses which are rooted in the gonads, have to be controlled by the heart center, because the only organ that can control the right and the left by obeying the law of our Inner God is the heart. The heart does God’s will through the blood, the heart purifies the impure blood; the heart is a very wise organ because in it is the Son of Man, the Nous atom which is also called Noah.

Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. – Genesis 6: 9

Thus, if we follow the Nous or Noah atom we will be out of this deluge, or universal flood of degeneration, in which we already are castaways.

So, the Son of Man, the Nous atom, is united with “El” God the Father in the heart, which we stated is represented in the letter Aleph of “El,” which is the air, the wind that we breathe. So when we breathe the air, the oxygen, this goes into the lungs; the heart takes the impure blood of the liver and pumps it into the lungs, and the lungs purify the blood with the oxygen with Aleph. Blood in Hebrew is דם Dam [Daleth Mem]. Thus, when you place א Aleph (air) in Dam [Daleth Mem], the blood, it becomes purified blood, then it is no longer DAM but אדם ADAM. So Adam is here in the heart, the human soul that has follow the law of God by controlling the two polarities, the right and the left, which in the Bible are the two polarities of the Tree of Knowledge called Good and Evil, Tob and Rah, the Sun and the Moon, which unfortunately are controlled by Satan’s whim in his own realm. So, we have to follow the heart because the heart receives the effluvia, the forces of Kether (breath) and Chokmah (blood), in the heart is the kingdom of Chokmah, the Son, the second aspect of the Trinity. Chokmah, Son is one with Kether, the Father, who enters as breath into the heart through the lungs.
The flowing of blood nourishes our sexual fluids, unfortunately, Satan dominates our sexual system during sexual arousal; Satan defends our animality and makes it his weapon against our Innermost, against our own Inner God. Our mind, inferior emotions and sex are under the dominion of Satan, the Ego, which also governs our instincts and senses.
This is why our Innermost has to penetrate into initiation through the Nous atom; this is why we said that in order to enter into the initiation we have to do it through our heart, because the Son of Man is Nous, Noah who through the blood penetrates into the will of יהוה God. Thus, if we want to accomplish with the rules of the will of God, which are the human rules in order to attain Self-realization, well, these rules are for humans and the only humanity that we have within is Nous within the heart, as you can see in Genesis 6: 5-8.

We do not have humanity in the head, since it is all animal, nor do we have it in the sex, since it is also animal. We have to transform our sexual animality into human sex, we have to transform our animal mind, into human mind, and this is a great process. And the only one that can do it is the Son of Man, in the heart, through the blood, which is the vehicle of the Spirit. So the Nous atom, the Son, governs the heart.

So יהוה Chokmah, Christ through the heart can control our mind, our instincts, and senses. The heart is the only organ in the body through which the Innermost can control the mind, emotion and sex. The three brains, mind, heart, and sex relate to the Three Primary Forces as we always explain. The Father relates to the head, the Son to the heart, and the Holy Spirit to the sex. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Three Primary Forces.

The will of our Innermost flows through our blood. Through it our innermost feeds our organism and the three nervous systems which can give life to our inner psychological world. Thus, in our physical body the blood is the vehicle of our innermost, through which he can mobilize our entire humanity. The Nous atom cyclically communicates the will of God through the heart; this is why meditation is the way through which the heart influences the mind, becoming the center of compassion and at the same time the organ of the intuitive thinker.

This is why we always emphasize meditation, because through it we can control the mind. When the mind is just centered in the internal worlds, the Nous atom of the heart can act can control it. .........

Flames wrote:

If we possess the image of a thing, we possess half the thing. The image of the world is half the world. He who possesses the world but not its image possesses only half the world, since his soul is poor and has nothing. The wealth of the soul exists in images.42 He who possesses the image of the world, possesses half the world, even if his humanity is poor and owns nothing. But hunger makes the soul into a beast that devours the unbearable and is poisoned by it. My friends, it is wise to nourish the soul, otherwise you will breed dragons and devils in your heart.

Oh my God! My mind is b-l-o-w-n! I'm going to have to sit on that one tonight. Thanks for sharing that PDF link of Jung's: Red Book with us, TG. I am going to have to prepare myself for that one!

But hunger makes the soul into a beast that devours the unbearable and is poisoned by it. My friends, it is wise to nourish the soul, otherwise you will breed dragons and devils in your heart.

“Another strange field of occult experience in which the hermaphrodite appears is the Tarot. That is a set of playing cards, such as were originally used by the gypsies. There are Spanish speciments, if I remember rightly, as old as the fifteenth century. These cards are really the origin of our pack of cards, in which the red and the black symbolize the opposites, and the division of four—clubs, spades, diamonds, and hearts—also belongs to the individuation symbolism. They are psychological images, symbols with which one plays, as the unconscious seems to play with its contents. They combine in certain ways, and the different combinations correspond to the playful development of events in the history of mankind. The original cards of the Tarot consist of the ordinary cards, the king , the queen, the knight, the ace, etc.,—only the figures are somewhat different—and besides, there are twenty-one cards upon which are symbols, or pictures of symbolical situations. For example, the symbol of the sun, or the symbol of the man hung up by the feet, or the tower struck by lightning, or the wheel of fortune, and so on. Those are sort of archetypal ideas, of a differentiated nature, which mingle with the ordinary constituents of the flow of the unconscious, and therefore it is applicable for an intuitive method that has the purpose of understanding the flow of life, possibly even predicting future events, at all events lending itself to the reading of the conditions of the present moment. It is in that way analogous to the I Ching, the Chinese divination method that allows at least a reading of the present condition. You see, man always felt the need of finding an access through the unconscious to the meaning of an actual condition, because there is a sort of correspondence or a likeness between the prevailing condition and the condition of the collective unconscious.
“Now in the Tarot there is a hermaphroditic figure called the diable. That would be in alchemy the gold. In other words, such an attempt as the union of opposites appears to the Christian mentality as devilish, something evil which is not allowed, something belonging to black magic.”

_Visions: Notes of the Seminar given in 1930-1934 by C. G. Jung_, edited by Claire Douglas. Vol. 2. (Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series XCIX, 1997), p. 923.

So, “Israel,” from this point of view, is not a group or race that exists in the physical world, “Israel” related to the archetypes, which as you see, are here (in the head) and everywhere

• So, “Israel,” from this point of view, is not a group or race that exists in the physical world, “Israel” related to the archetypes, which as you see, are here (in the head) and everywhere

Deuteronomy: "...And when the Lord your God delivers them to you and you defeat them, you must doom
them to destruction. Grant them no terms and give them no quarter. You shall tear down their altars, smash
their pillars, cut down their ˜sacred posts" and consign their images to the fire. You shall destroy all the
peoples that the Lord your God delivers to you, showing them no pity. The Lord your God will deliver them
up to you, throwing them into utter panic until they are wiped out. He will deliver their kings into your hand
and you shall obliterate their name from under the heavens."

The symbol of twins represents the Good and Evil, the Sons and Daughters of Darkness and the Sons and
Daughters of Light. The Twins are the Devas and Asuras of the Hindus and the Sons of Light and Sons of
Darkness of the Essenes. They are the personifications of the two races that fight for world dominance . This
war has been going on since the dawn of time. The War between the Lemurians and Atlantians was the
War of Armageddon found in the biblical Book of Revelation. This war mirrored the primordial battle fought
in the heavens.

Armageddon (Hebrew)means the same as Shambhala (in Sanskrit), "the Plains of Gathering". We today
speak of the ˜gathering"of like minds, mysteriously coming together for some unknown reason. Just as in
the past, the people of Light and Darkness are once again coming together for the great battle. As
prophesied , the armies of the world will gather, in the end of times, for "the war that is to end all wars". It
is this war that will close the Kali Yuga Cycle or Age.

Agents of a higher Intelligence banished the Elder Gods "to their own realm , sealing the gateway. The
Manhattan Project caused the seal to be dissolved. It is believed that these entities are presently preparing
for another attempt to come back into our Universe or Dimension. The Dark Forces are being drawn back
through the suffering of millions of poverty stricken and undernourished people of the world.

Now let us take a look at our mythology and written traditions.. It was during this time, that ‘Time Beganâ
€ - It was during the Age when Uranus gave place to Chronos and Atlas. Cronus (Saturn)was the son of
Uranus and Gaia - the youngest of the twelve Titans. (Saturn has 12 moons, the largest of which is Titan,
which held power for untold ages, until deposed by Zeus) He was at the Dawn of the Ages of Gods, the
Protector and Sower of the Seed. His wife and sister was the Titan, Rhea and their offspring were Demeter,
Hestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus.

According to Greek mythology, Uranus hid his children away in the bowels of the earth (Tartarus) as he was
aghast at the sight of them (afraid of their great strength and power). Enraged with the treatment of her
children by Uranus and not wanting to produce any further offspring from him, Gaia devised a plan to end
the passions of Uranus through castration. Her Son Cronus came to her call and with a sickle that Gaia had
provided him, severed the genitals from Uranus. From the blood that fell to the earth (Gaia) were born the
Erinyes (Furies), the Giants and also the Meliae (Nymphs of the manna ash trees). Now only the Erinyes
remain and will stay until the world is free of sin.

After Cronus had castrated Uranus, he and his wife, Rhea, took the thrown. Under their power, a time of
harmony and prosperity began, which became known as the ‘Golden Ageâ€. It was a time when it was
said that people lived without greed or violence, a time without toil or the need for laws.

Cronus knew, according to prophecy, that at a time would come that he would be overthrown by one of his
own children. To prevent this from happening he began to swallow his newborn, taking them at birth then
swallowing them whole, retaining them inside his own body where they could do him no harm.

Rhea did not like the thoughts of losing all her children, and with the help of Gaia she saved Zeus from this
fate. Rhea wrapped a stone in Zeus' swaddling clothes which Cronus took and immediately swallowed
thinking it was the child. Gaia and Rhea's plan worked well and the baby Zeus was taken to Crete, and
there, in a cave on Mount Dicte, the divine goat Amaltheia suckled and raised the infant Zeus.

As soon as Zeus had reached manhood, he planned to punish his father and seize the power from him. In
order to get the allies for the war with Cronus, he decided to release his brothers and sisters first. He asked
Metis, daughter of Oceanus, for help, and she gave Cronus a drug which made him vomit up the stone first
and then all the children he had swallowed: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and Poseidon. With his brothers
and sisters, Zeus attacked Cronus and the Titans. The war lasted ten years. Then, Gaea prophesied victory
to Zeus, if he took as allies those whom Cronus had locked in Tartarus. To do this Zeus came secretly to
Campe, the gaoleress of Tartarus, killed her, took her keys and released Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires
(Hundred-handed Ones). The Cyclopes then gave Zeus thunder and lightning; they gave Hades a magic
helmet which made the wearer of it invisible; and they gave Poseidon a trident. So, Hades put the helmet
on his head and, becoming invisible, managed to steal Cronus's weapons. While Poseidon was diverting his
attention by threatening with the trident, Zeus struck down with the thunderbolt. Cronus and the Titans
were defeated, and they were all (except Atlas) expelled from Heaven and locked up in Tartarus. Atlas, as
their war-leader was being ordered to carry the sky on his shoulders. Having won the war, the gods shared
the power among themselves. Zeus was given the Heaven and became the new ruler of the universe;
Poseidon was given the Sea, and Hades the Underworld. The era of the Olympians now began.

Soon, the gods had to start a new war, this time with the Giants. Namely, Gaea was full of rage because her
children were imprisoned in Tartarus. She wanted revenge and she persuaded Giants to attack gods. But
once again, the Olympians achieved a victory. The destruction of the Giants infuriated Gaea even more. To
Tartarus she bore her youngest son Typhon, the largest monster ever seen, who was the Zeus's final
challenge (see Typhon).

Zeus was a harsh and strict ruler. He considered humans lowly creatures and treated them as such. At this
time, man had been living in the depths of the dark caves of the earth and did not dare venture out. The
gods of Olympus decided to bring man back out of the caves of the earth, into the light. However, man was
without strength and means of defense, dependent of the gods for their very survival.
Prometheus, felt pity for mankind and wished to help . Prometheus stole some of the holy fire that
belonged to the gods and hid it in a hollow log. He then brought this fire to mankind, which they used to
survive.

The god Zeus was enraged at what Prometheus had done and punished him severely for it. Zeus sent
down Pandora to Epimetheus to be his wife, who carried with her a box of demons (from greed to spite) to
torture humanity After Pandora unleashed these demons, the remaining immortals on earth quickly
departed for Olympus. The last one to leave was the goddess of virtue and daughter of Zeus and Themis,
Astraea. (As legend goes, although she went to the heavens, she still hopes to return to earth, and she
watches from the sky every night to see when earth will be ready for her to return.)

He tied Prometheus with large chains onto the side of the Caucasus mountains. Every morning an eagle
would appear and eat the liver of Prometheus which would grow back at night. Prometheus could not die as
he was an immortal, and therefore was cursed by Zeus to undergo this torture forever. After many centuries
his torment finally came to end when the hero Heracles (Hercules) freed him.

Humanity prospered as a result of the kind action of Prometheus. Mankind managed to overcome all its'
fears and progressed rapidly. However, Mankind became disrespectful to the gods and Zeus decided it was
time to completely wipe them out, except for those that remained virtuous to him. He searched far and wide
and found only two people that he deemed virtuous. These two were Devkolionas the son of Prometheus
and his wife Pira. Zeus told Devkolionas to create an ark and enter it with his wife. After they were aboard,
, Zeus would create a flood which would destroy mankind. When the ark was complete and Devkolionas
and his wife entered, Zeus opened the gates of heaven and flooded the world. When the waters subsided
the ark came to rest on the great mountain of Parnassus. Devkolionas and his wife then came out and gave
glory and homage to the god Zeus for saving them and it from their union that mankind descended.