Well I’m happy to announce my life is returning to normal –well, as normal as the life of someone who spends so much time with demons and hanging around in cemeteries can be. I had to take some time off due to a ridiculous amount of work, schooling, and spiritual dedication. Twelve hour school days plus five hours of spiritual work a day means not a lot of time for anything else. I survived; I’m not noticeably insane from it, so it is time to continue. I have real posts in the wings to put up, and book reviews, but let’s just start with a Wednesday Webshare.
There is an utterly fascinating and informative pamphlet pdf Notes on Death and Dying for Vajrayana Practitioners. It contains sections that are basically dying and Bardos of dying, death, and rebirth 101; what the signs of death are, how to help those who are dying, etc. The section that interests me the most (and was why it was pointed at me) was about the legal and practical side of properly dying according to Vajrayana ideals. Death in Vajrayana can occurs days after death in Western understanding, what are the laws and practicalities of leaving a “dead” body undisturbed for a few days until the signs of death begin to show themselves, or can you donate organs while dying properly (which is what I was looking for). Anyways fascinating opinions and information on it, it’s specifically in regard to the laws of Dallas County, Texas, but gives some ideas and some of the hows to go about collecting the proper information.
With 2012 looming closer are you curious what the Mayans actually said about it? I’ll give you a hint: it begins with an F and ends with an Uck All. A great interview with an archaeologist (re: someone who actually has researched this area) about 2012 and how even what seems to be legitimately coming from the modern Mayans is essentially newage backwash. I’m not surprised but it’s great to see, especially the reasoning on why some supposed descendents of the Maya are talking about it now. Tara Hefler is looking to make a visual compendium of the 72 spirits of the Goetia as imagined by modern artists. It is time those wood carvings got an update and I wasn’t a fan of art in the Crowley’s Illustrated Goetia. Like me you can wait for the project to be finished, or if you’re an artist yourself some of the demons still need to be adopted and illustrated if you want to try your tentacle at that.
The New Alexandrian Library recently received paintings of the four archangels by Dion Fortune, gifts from Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki. Awesome artwork, and a great gift.
I’m a taphophile, it’s no secret. In my childhood while my friends’ parents were taking them to Florida or amusement parks or ski weekends or just the C.N. Tower, my mother and her mother would take me to cemeteries all across the province. I grew up spending a lot of time in cemeteries, so it isn’t surprising that I love them and just happen to end up part of a spiritual tradition that requires me to do a lot of my work in cemeteries. While it is an American site I’ve loved following The Cemetery Traveler since I came across it. It essentially just chronicles the journeys of one person through cemeteries, their thoughts and experiences. Fans of dead people and cemeteries should definitely follow it.
Also there is a video on those Jordan Lead Codices. While a lot of the information wasn’t new to me as I’ve been following this personally and academically it was nice to see some of it put down visually.
Easter Monday, time for a Judeo-Christian post I think. This is mainly more links and connecting data, but I have a few relevant articles off on the wings I thought I’d bring together.
Over at Remnant of Giants a post just went live “How Do You Know When You’re Having Sex with a Fallen Angel: Some Handy Hints from a Biblical Scholar“. The site is a mix of funny responses to relevant events and scholarly study related to the Biblical and extra-Biblical giants, and occasionally more generic Biblical/extra-Biblical study. As a fan of the Enochic literature (meaning related to the Book of Enoch, not Enochian in the Dee-Kelly sense) I find it is both an entertaining and informative site.
Of course there are a few mistakes. With number one, the Angels you could sleep with, humanoid ones, didn’t have wings Biblically it was the non-humanoid Angels that had wings. I’m actually writing a personal article on that now which may or may not make it up here in the future. Number two, should have stuck with naming fallen angels, Metatron (either one of them) is an odd choice of name for a fallen angel to assume. Other than that, it is a handy (silly) guide, of course I’d rather use guides not to avoid but to pursue, but to each their own.
The University of Wyoming shared the news that the trial/investigation of the James Ossuary box may finally be wrapping up. It’s only been about a decade. In fact since then the box has dropped off most people’s radar. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it is an ossuary box that is about 2000 years old (that part isn’t questioned) which reads “Ya’akov bar-Yosef akhui diYeshua.” For those without their Aramaic 101, that translates as “Jacob, son of Joseph, brother of Joshua.” Or when rendered out of Aramaic into Biblical English “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” So apparently we have the bone box of James, Jesus’s younger brother. But so far most of the evidence points to it being a fraud. “Ya’akov bar-Yosef” is generally believed to be authentic, but the bit about Jesus looks like it may be a modern addition, the trial is trying to figure out how modern, as some experts say it is more recent than the box, but still from the first millennium.
Speaking of Biblical forgeries it looks like Indiana Jones’s David Elkington’s codices are not standing up will to investigation. Rather than link to any individual story I want to link to this great resource here which is both a collection of relevant links and articles and a pretty solid analysis of the flaws of the codices. Included at the bottom of the article, the very last link is a collection of all the images of the codices that have been released, for those of us who like to take a look for ourselves. Just a sidenote since I brought it up the first time I posted about it, this man actually has degrees, a BA in Near Eastern Studies and a Masters in Jewish studies, and is working on more. Credentials aren’t the end-all be-all, but by Baal they’re useful.
Now in the spirit of Easter Monday, I’m off to buy discount chocolate.
Oh, and a hoax…
Going with the flow. I have two posts that I wanted to put up this week, but I’m going to hold back because there is something I want to address.
Copper and lead books tell the most contemporaneous account of Christ’s life!
Or so they say. This story has been getting spread about the internet the last week or so. I’ve seen it pop-up several places, everywhere from magick blogs to the facebook page of a friend who is a Catholic priest and very excited about this. So I decided to put aside some time this afternoon and rant and analyze this.
So if you don’t want to read the link above, let me summarize it. A British couple are currently hiding out in Gloucestershire (but don’t tell the Jordanian hitmen) after recovering a collection 70 books believed to contain an early account of Christ’s life written sometime in the first century by early Christians who fled to Jordan in the 70s.
A lot of people are getting into this story, but there a lot of little problems with it that add up to bigger questions. I’ll start with a reading of the news story before I expand my discussion. Yes, I could just link all the data and other people doing the work, but part of my issue with this is that anyone can pick up some of the concerns with the text with reading and googling.
First thing I noticed is the couple are described as archaeologists and David, the hero of the story is also an author. Yet there are no credentials. Granted this could be an oversight, but in pretty much any news story when you mention an expert you put their credentials, where they studied, where they work, what they degrees are, etc. Every expert the Elkingtons consulted within the article have their credentials mentioned yet the Elkingtons are left blank. Where did they study, what is their area of focus, and who is sponsoring this dig? Why is he sometimes called Dr. but often not? Archaeologists, despite the media image of Croft and Jones, don’t fund their own digs, they don’t decide to pack up, go to some random dirt pile and start digging. No, a museum, university, or government branch has a location site, permissions, equipment and hires people to excavate and analyze the findings. The article mentions none of this, and quite frankly if this were real what museum or university wouldn’t fight to get that information included in the press release that they just uncovered the real story of Christ? Suspicious point.
David (who gets all the press, despite the idea that it is a husband/wife team) is also an author. Of what? Well two books, first is In the Name of the Gods, a book about Templars and an energy-sound-spirit connection, and an upcoming book based on how awesomely exciting and dangerous his current quest for these early Christian books have been (this will link up to Feather later). Not only is he writing a book on it, because it is so much like Indiana Jones (his own admission) but Robert Watts, producer of Raiders of the Lost Ark has contacted them about making it into a movie. Amazing how this story is just coming to light and already a book deal and a movie proposal. Don’t worry folks, it gets more suspicious. (Also the constant reference by Elkington to how much like a movie it is seems odd. The researcher was like Ms. Marple, the owner is like a mafia boss, then he’s like Gollum…) But suspicious point two.
The books are written in ancient Hebrew, a fact we’ll touch more on later, which is odd. Aramaic was more commonly used (and probably Jesus’s mother tongue) though Hebrew and Greek were both widely used in that area and time frame in different circumstances.
The article lacks anything primary. All the research that is done is relayed by David, not cross-referenced to the experts; he’s talking for them, they’re often unnamed, who tested the metals? So that’s the issues with the news story just as it is, time to go down the rabbit hole?
Dr. David (or Paul?) Elkington. An archaeologist, author, real-life Indiana Jones, curious where did he study and get his credentials? Turns out he studied as an artist at the Bath Academy of Arts. Nothing against artists, trained or otherwise, but I prefer my archaeologists making ground breaking discoveries to have some relevant degree in history or archaeology. So not an archaeologist, historian, or anyone qualified for such a dig. Suspicious points abound.
When investigating the source of the books, where they were found and by who, two stories emerge, sometimes on the same website or paper. Five years ago they were uncovered in a flash flood in Jordan, or they were uncovered in a flash flood and in the Jordanian trucker’s family for a hundred years. New stories once you branch past the telegraph (which I’m dealing with because it was the first I came across and the most widespread) don’t always agree. The language it is written in is is often mentioned as Hebrew as well as an unidentified Phoenician language, and then rare occasions in Greek. The name of the man who owns the books changes, not drastically, but enough to be suspicious, then again David Elkington is sometimes Paul Elkington, so many everyone on this adventure have multiple names. Whether there were found in Jordan or Egypt changes. The story shifts more than the sand it was apparently buried under. Now just because news papers disagree on stories doesn’t mean they’re wrong, but it does start to make the story questionable as we have to wonder why are these mistakes present, why aren’t they corrected? 5 years, 100 years, big difference. Jordan, Egypt, big difference. Hebrew, Greek, Unidentified, big difference.
Now one Peter Thonemann, MA, DPhil, lecturer on Ancient History at Wadham and Keble Colleges (look credentials!) was an expert that Elkington asked to help with the translation of the texts a year ago, yet he isn’t mentioned in the news articles generally for some reason. He translated the Greek on the cover (wait, wasn’t this written in Hebrew, or an unidentified Phoenician language?) and came up with an odd sentence fragment that made no sense, but mentioning a name Abgar. A bit of research on Thonemann’s behalf turned up not just the name Abgar, but the entire fragmented sentence on the cover of the book. What profound Judeo-Christian source did he uncover? A Roman tombstone for Abgar from Madaba Jordan c. 108 CE and on display in the Archeological Museum in Amman. Thonemann let Elkington know this, but Elkington, with the academic insight of his art degree, went public anyways.
What makes the story more amusing is that the books were previously discovered/released by Robert Feather as an early Qabalistic text with the location of the treasures of the Temple of Solomon. At that time there were only more then 20, now the number is 70. At that time the Israel Antiquities Authority said they are useless and a hoax because they contain a horrible mishmash of languages, images, and sentence fragments that really don’t match up. Letter soup that is grouped together to look intriguing until you start translation. This was denounced as a hoax, and then a month later with a much better back story Elkington arises with the same documents.
The only thing lending any credibility to this is that apparently the corrosion on the metal dates back about 2000 years (but again not properly cited who did this research, sometimes it was an “initial” test, other times seems more of a proper study) and the fact that the Jordanian government apparently wants them back.
Recently some more data came to my attention while writing this as Ananael posted on it in the process of my editing, and a friend knowing what I was doing sent a link.
The image of Jesus on the codex is considered currently to be Helios, but there is also a theory that it is The Mona Lisa of Galilee. I’m not totally convinced by this, but it makes an interesting case, and if all the data from the author is right it means this forgery is less than 30 years old.
From Ananael’s post there is a link showing how the letters themselves show the age of the books is wrong as some of them are from a form of Aramaic that is from the second and third century it also contains so far to my knowledge the only article so far pointing out that Elkington doesn’t have credentials to be involved with this sort of thing.
When I saw the title of the article I was curious, after reading it I was suspicious after some googling I realized it is a hoax. I can’t say by who or for what end, but all signs point to hoax.
Some good reading for those wanting more information on this: Heavy metal secrets from a Mid-East cave
Well I’m happy to announce my life is returning to normal –well, as normal as the life of someone who spends so much time with demons and hanging around in cemeteries can be. I had to take some time off due to a ridiculous amount of work, schooling, and spiritual dedication. Twelve hour school days plus five hours of spiritual work a day means not a lot of time for anything else. I survived; I’m not noticeably insane from it, so it is time to continue. I have real posts in the wings to put up, and book reviews, but let’s just start with a Wednesday Webshare.
Tara Hefler is looking to make a visual compendium of the 72 spirits of the Goetia as imagined by modern artists. It is time those wood carvings got an update and I wasn’t a fan of art in the Crowley’s Illustrated Goetia. Like me you can wait for the project to be finished, or if you’re an artist yourself some of the demons still need to be adopted and illustrated if you want to try your tentacle at that.