The Origin
Of
Our Belief In God
by Erik Langkjer
Part II: The Sun Hero
7. Baalbek-Heliopolis
We have seen how the two world pillars in the Jemdet Nasr cult huts were guarded by young calves, and that the bull-man was the guardian of the world-pillars. This idea helps us to understand the image of Jupiter Heliopolitanus: he is pictured as the world pillar guarded by the two calves. A German expedition digging in the water pools at Aîn el-Goug (1901-2) brought to light several small figurines in lead. One of them[1] shows very clearly Jupiter H. as the enormous pillar towering high over the roof of the temple and guarded by the calves. When Macrobius and Lucian (de dea 5) says that his cult image came from Heliopolis in Egypt by way of Assyria, it can not be true. It is typically Syrian. The polos of the god is broken but is seen clearly in the next picture. It seems to have the shape of an open lotus (Hajjar,fig.110,232,234,313), or is adorned with a lotus as a third eye over the forehead of the god (fig.302). A slab with a kalathos/polos as the holy symbol is shown by H.Seyrig (SYRIA36,1959 fig.1,p.39) it certainly has the shape of a flower. Jupiter H. was a sun god seen with the whip of the chariot-driver in his hand.
Like the sun he had completed his journey from the far west (Egypt) to the rise in the east (Assyria), but in a strange way the journey in the course of the sun was also a journey upwards to raised kundalini, reaching the lotus of 1000 petals over the head of the god. One of the lead figures is rather blurred, but acc to Hajjar it shows, inside the temple gate, a vast stump of a pillar with the snake coiling around it, the world pillar with the ascending kundalini-power. Now we are able to solve the mystery of the Saturn-Aion cult figure found in the temples belonging to the mysteries of Mithras. He has the same pillar-like appearance as the cult image in Baalbek, but has a snake coiling around his body (mostly 7 coils can be counted), rising to put its head on the forehead of the god (the god is shown with a lion´s head), exactly where the "third eye" is thought to be situated.
It is written by Philo that El Cronos in Byblos, after "travelling through (peri-iôn) the world" (I,10,32) after the end of his life, was divinized as the planet Saturn (I,10,44). The same could be said about Mithras. After killing the bull (a parallel to El Cronos murdering the high god, Uranos) he travels in the chariot of Sol/the sun, and finally reaches the place of Saturn. Perhaps he even becomes Saturn, for the snake often seen travelling along with Mithras is the kundalini-snake coiling up the body of Saturn. The travel in the sun´s course is also the mystical journey upwards along the world pillar to vision and heaven. As Resheph in Byblos finally becomes the obelisk, the model of the world pillar, so Mithras finally becomes one with Saturn, and Jupiter H., after travelling from west to east becomes the world pillar, becomes macro-anthropos.
As the name of the town suggests, Jupiter Heliopolitanus is a sun god. But the sun god is only one of the many busts adorning his Ephod. He is, in his completed state, the pillar of fire, mystical light; as seen from the picture below, he is the union of Sol & Luna and the old god, Saturn and 5 flowers, perhaps representing the 5 planets. He has a globular ball of light, not only on his forehead, but also in the kalathos.
1. 2.
1.pict.: Bronze from Graz (A.B.Cook,I,p.572).
2.pict.: Fragm. of marble statuette (Hajjar, fig.209): Jupiter H. as the union of the seven lights, 5 planets & sun & moon. We have also shown some examples of Saturn Aion: Note that he has the same double pair of wings, "two as if fluttering and two as if relaxed" as El Cronos acc to Philo (I,10,36).
3. 4. 5.
3.pict.: From Ostia, now in the Vatican Mus. Drawn by G.Zoega.
4.pict.: Relief from Rome, Aion fig.56, in Lex.Icon.
5.pict.: Relief from Ostia, SYRIA 27.1950,fig.2.
In the last picture the snake is coiling round the body of the god, but the stress in not laid on its ascent to the third eye, but on its drinking from an ecstasy giving drink.
The final proof of our thesis that the geographical journey in the course of the sun was identical with the ecstatic journey upwards by raising the kundalini-power is this picture of Triptolemos ("the triple warrior" – we have often seen this symbol, the triple sun hero) in his chariot drawn by the double snake, found near Byblos[2]. The chariot has the shape of the crescent moon. Acc to the myth at Eleusis, Triptolemos was given the chariot to travel all over the world to teach the nations the art of agriculture.
Another picture of Aion (silver from Parabiago, D.Levi,"Aion", Hesperia 13,1944,p.287 fig.12f.) shows the snake coiling up an obelisk as the symbol of the world pillar, but the staff in the hand of the god is similar to the staff held by the god Aion above and probably another symbol of the worldpillar.
Juppiter Heliopolitanus/Baalbek is a Syrian sun god, but much more than that: he is the personified world pillar also seen as the ladder to the mystical light, the unity of all lights. Many heavenly stars and heavenly bodies (the sun with golden hair, the crescent moon with the morning and evening star on its horns) are here coming together to form a center covered with the pattern of the mystical quadrangle.
His servant Mercury is pictured so naked that his androgyny is very clearly seen. The pictures are some of the small figures of lead found near thetemple.
A sarcophagus found in a sepulchral chamber at Amathus on Cyprus shows 4 chariots guided by a pair of Dioscuric horse-men. They are the morning- and evening star leading the travel in the sun's course to the top of heaven or paradise. Notice the piloi-caps the characteristic head-wear of the divine twins. Eternal life is reached by joining the sun's movement. Daily it dies/sinks in the sea in the far West but is eternally reborn/renewed during its nightly journey.
But the journey to heaven is closely connected to a union of male with female. At one end of the coffin 4 stark naked goddesses, at the other 4 men pictured as Bes, the male hunter, in Cyprus also known as Pygmalion. The men put their hands on their loins a gesture close to indecency and parallel to the women puffing up their breasts. The journey to heaven is seen in the archaic way as the ecstatic union of the male and the female god.
[1] Y.Hajjar, La Triade d´Héliopolis-Baalbek I, 1977, p.121,II, fig.109
[2] F.Lenormant, "Triptolème en Syrie". Gazette Archeol. 1878, IV,pp.97-100
Disclaimer:
Some material presented will contain links, quotes, ideologies, etc., the contents of which should be understood to first, in their whole, reflect the views or opinions of their editors, and second, are used in my personal research as "fair use" sources only, and not espousement one way or the other. Researching for 'truth' leads one all over the place...a piece here, a piece there. As a researcher, I hunt, gather and disassemble resources, trying to put all the pieces into a coherent and logical whole. I encourage you to do the same. And please remember, these pages are only my effort to collect all the pieces I can find and see if they properly fit into the 'reality aggregate'.
Personal Position:
I've come to realize that 'truth' boils down to what we 'believe' the facts we've gathered point to. We only 'know' what we've 'experienced' firsthand. Everything else - what we read, what we watch, what we hear - is what someone else's gathered facts point to and 'they' 'believe' is 'truth', so that 'truth' seems to change in direct proportion to newly gathered facts divided by applied plausibility. Though I believe there is 'truth', until someone representing the celestial realm visibly appears and presents the heavenly records of Facts And Lies In The Order They Happened, I can't know for sure exactly what "the whole truth' on any given subject is, and what applies to me applies to everyone. Until then I'll continue to ask, "what does The Urantia Book say on the subject?"
~Gail Bird Allen
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Urantia Book, 44:0.11 - The Celestial Artisans
Never in your long ascendancy will you lose the power to recognize your associates of former existences. Always, as you ascend inward in the scale of life, will you retain the ability to recognize and fraternize with the fellow beings of your previous and lower levels of experience. Each new translation or resurrection will add one more group of spirit beings to your vision range without in the least depriving you of the ability to recognize your friends and fellows of former estates.
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Princess Bride 1987 Wallace Shawn (Vizzini) and Mandy Patinkin (Inigo Montoya)
Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. -
Urantia Book, 117:4.14 - The Finite God
And here is mystery: The more closely man approaches God through love, the greater the reality -- actuality -- of that man. The more man withdraws from God, the more nearly he approaches nonreality -- cessation of existence. When man consecrates his will to the doing of the Father's will, when man gives God all that he has, then does God make that man more than he is.
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Urantia Book, 167:7.4 - The Talk About Angels
"And do you not remember that I said to you once before that, if you had your spiritual eyes anointed, you would then see the heavens opened and behold the angels of God ascending and descending? It is by the ministry of the angels that one world may be kept in touch with other worlds, for have I not repeatedly told you that I have other sheep not of this fold?"
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Urantia Book, Foreword - 0:12.12 - The Trinities
But we know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience—God-consciousness.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.3 - The Mystery Of God
When you are through down here, when your course has been run in temporary form on earth, when your trial trip in the flesh is finished, when the dust that composes the mortal tabernacle "returns to the earth whence it came"; then, it is revealed, the indwelling "Spirit shall return to God who gave it." There sojourns within each moral being of this planet a fragment of God, a part and parcel of divinity. It is not yet yours by right of possession, but it is designedly intended to be one with you if you survive the mortal existence.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.1 - The Mystery Of God
And the greatest of all the unfathomable mysteries of God is the phenomenon of the divine indwelling of mortal minds. The manner in which the Universal Father sojourns with the creatures of time is the most profound of all universe mysteries; the divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery of mysteries.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.6 - The Mystery Of God
To every spirit being and to every mortal creature in every sphere and on every world of the universe of universes, the Universal Father reveals all of his gracious and divine self that can be discerned or comprehended by such spirit beings and by such mortal creatures. God is no respecter of persons, either spiritual or material. The divine presence which any child of the universe enjoys at any given moment is limited only by the capacity of such a creature to receive and to discern the spirit actualities of the supermaterial world.
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Urantia Book, 11:0.1 - The Eternal Isle Of Paradise
Paradise is the eternal center of the universe of universes and the abiding place of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and their divine co-ordinates and associates. This central Isle is the most gigantic organized body of cosmic reality in all the master universe. Paradise is a material sphere as well as a spiritual abode. All of the intelligent creation of the Universal Father is domiciled on material abodes; hence must the absolute controlling center also be material, literal. And again it should be reiterated that spirit things and spiritual beings are real.
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Urantia Book, 50:6.4 - Planetary Culture
Culture presupposes quality of mind; culture cannot be enhanced unless mind is elevated. Superior intellect will seek a noble culture and find some way to attain such a goal. Inferior minds will spurn the highest culture even when presented to them ready-made.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.6 - True And False Liberty
True liberty is the associate of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration. True liberty is the fruit of self-control; false liberty, the assumption of self-assertion. Self-control leads to altruistic service; self-admiration tends towards the exploitation of others for the selfish aggrandizement of such a mistaken individual as is willing to sacrifice righteous attainment for the sake of possessing unjust power over his fellow beings.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.9 - True And False Liberty
How dare the self-willed creature encroach upon the rights of his fellows in the name of personal liberty when the Supreme Rulers of the universe stand back in merciful respect for these prerogatives of will and potentials of personality! No being, in the exercise of his supposed personal liberty, has a right to deprive any other being of those privileges of existence conferred by the Creators and duly respected by all their loyal associates, subordinates, and subjects.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.8 - True And False Liberty
There is no error greater than that species of self-deception which leads intelligent beings to crave the exercise of power over other beings for the purpose of depriving these persons of their natural liberties. The golden rule of human fairness cries out against all such fraud, unfairness, selfishness, and unrighteousness.