All Things Must Pass

The lioness-headed goddess Sekhmet of Ancient Egypt, mighty Odin of the Vikings, the amorous Zeus of Ancient Greece seeking mortal women to seduce: we now think of these gods and goddesses as the deities of mythology, and the surviving stories in which they feature as mythological tales. But all of these deities, and all of their stories, were once a part of living, breathing religions. All of these deities once were worshipped and believed in as surely, and with as much passion and conviction, as those deities of the religions which are with us today.

Zeus and Danae: Incarcerated in a tower of bronze, Danae is visited by Zeus in the form of a shower of gold. The result of this encounter is the hero Perseus, whose story lives on, even though the once-great Zeus has become a figure of mythology.

It is only through the lens of time that we view these beliefs as ‘mythology’, because as vibrant religions they have with passing time, and for various reasons of history, become a spent force. This being so, then by logical extension it must follow that if the religions of the past have for us turned into mythology, then the religions of today must be the mythologies of the future. Does this thought make you howl in protest? Do you believe that your religion will be eternal? In history, there is no such thing. Ra, the creator sun god of dynastic Egypt, was worshipped as a principal deity for almost three thousand years before he too had his day.

A god also rises and sets.

Christianity has now been with us as a practicing religion for two thousand years. Will it still be here in that same form a thousand years from now, in the year 3013? How about 4013 – or even 8013? The year 8013 (for convenience and clarity I’m assuming the Common Era calendar) is more remote from our own time than our own time is from the building of ancient Babylon. I’m not making bets on anything six thousand years into the future – but I am prepared to make reasonable assumptions. And reasonable assumptions tell us that all things must pass.

The Roman Forum: The present contains the ruins of the past, and the future will contain the ruins of the present.

The historian Edward Gibbon sat down among the ruins of the once-great Forum in the city of Rome and, overwhelmed by the finality of this great truth, and surrounded by the echoing remains of temples and roofless columns, conceived his plan to write his multi-volume classic on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Empires are in a sense the secular versions of religions – although it is true enough that empires and religions are at times inextricably intertwined.  The Holy Roman Empire (which the ever-philosophical Voltaire dryly described as being neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire) carried its religious convictions to the New World, there to lay waste the then-existing indigenous pre-Columbian cultures in a frenzy of conversion by conquest.

Burnt by the fires of a new faith: Of the thousands of Pre-Columbian sacred books that were destroyed during the 16th-century Spanish conquest of the New World, the damaged Codex Borgia is one of less than ten to survive.

The three great religions of today known as the Religions of the Book – Christianity, Judaism and Islam – are all monotheistic. From within those religions there is probably a tendency to view the belief in a single omnipotent deity as a progression beyond the primitive polytheistic religions of the past, with their head-spinning diversity of gods, goddesses and semi-divine heroes and heroines. Monotheism is therefore perhaps viewed as an evolution beyond such ancient mindsets, as being  ‘the way to go’. But Hinduism makes a nonsense of such an idea – and Hinduism, with its rich pantheon of gods and goddesses, is still well-and-truly with us after some four thousand years. And Taoism, dating from the same era as the beginnings of Judaism in the Near East, and with no gods to its name, has successfully put down new roots in the West – as has Buddhism. The message from history is clear: one supreme god, or many, or even none, have no bearing on the staying power of a belief.

Wise Ganesha: With his distinctive broken tusk, the Hindu elephant god is widely worshipped as the remover of obstacles from the paths of the faithful, and as the patron of the arts and sciences.

Voltaire (yes, Voltaire again!) said that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Atheist cultures, which by default seem to be politically atheist, merely replace the gods of religion with gods of political and revolutionary heroism. Towering bronze and stone statues of ‘the great helmsman’ Mao and other communist luminaries, some as massive as the statue of Christ which watches over the city of Rio, and as sterile as the vast and soulless city squares in which they stand, serve as substitutes for the missing supernatural deities of other countries. Inspiring and consoling their subjects from the lofty heights of apotheosis, these mortals are revered in a way that is only nominally secular. 

Chairman Mao: New gods rush in to fill the vacuum left by those banished by politically atheist regimes.

But if, as it seems history wishes to demonstrate to us, all religions sooner or later pass into mythology, is there any belief anywhere which has gone the distance? Yes, there is. Cave art and other Paleolithic artifacts depict forms of fertility, hunting and other visionary rituals. Shamanism, and its practices and beliefs, stretches back some thirty five thousand years into our distant past. It has consistently been a part of the heritage of human spirituality, and is still with us today, both in indigenous communities and in a new urban renewal.

Ancient ceremonies: Hunting, fertility and other rituals strove to tip the balance of fortune in the favour of those who practiced them.

The names of the protagonists in these shamanic stories may shift with the telling, but their roles remain consistent. The hero (often-enough setting out on a quest of some kind), the heroine, the mischievous trickster, the spirits who need to be kept on the right side of:  such stories have been told for as many millennia as human culture has had language. And such stories can be instructive, or explanatory of the natural order of things, or just plain entertaining. Shamanism never actually passed into myth. It just kept right on going.

The year 8013: New rituals for a new world in which as-yet unborn heroes will create mythologies for a future even more remote from their own times, and our gods will have become their mythologies.

Given its staying-power, perhaps in our distant future a form of neo-shamanism will endure, and humans may themselves appear as creatures of myth: future Valkyries, harpies and sphinxes against which unknown heroes will pit themselves: new rituals for a new world which will have become unrecognisable to us. Or maybe – just maybe – the human species will have outgrown its need for religion as such, and spirituality and secularism will have blended seamlessly into one indistinguishable whole, and all that is around us will be infused with a startling new magic.

Hawkwood  

Images:

ZEUS & DANAE: Incarcerated in a bronze tower, the mortal woman Danae was visited by Zeus in the form of a shower of gold. The result of this amorous encounter was the hero Perseus, who went on to slay the gorgon and rescue the fair princess Andromeda from a terrifying sea monster. If you would like to read and see more about the story of Perseus and Andromeda, you are welcome to visit the post on my other blog Beautiful, Naked and Chained to a Rock. Original artwork © David Bergen Studio, all rights reserved.

A GOD ALSO RISES AND SETS:  A pendant in gold, carnelian and lapis lazuli from the tomb of Tutankhamen. Enfolded by the wings of the rising sun, the scarab beetle pushes the sun’s disc into the heavens at dawn. Adapted from a photo at the online Global Egyptian Museum.

THE ROMAN FORUM: The overgrown ruins of the Forum as they appeared in the 1920’s, with the columns of the temples of Vesta and Castor. The forces of the Christian Visigoth King Alaric overran Rome to enter the Forum in 410 CE, putting a definitive end to over four centuries of Roman domination. The quote paraphrases that of the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki: “Only one thing is certain: the future will contain the ruins of the present.”

BURNT BY THE FIRES OF A NEW FAITH: Image adapted from the facsimile edition of the Codex Borgia restored by Gizele Díaz and Alan Rodgers, issued by Dover Publications. This particular page has been fire damaged as shown, and depicts the sun god Tonatiuh (lower left) and Tláloc, the god of rain and storms (lower right), with the central frieze showing signs for the various days. Although almost all such codices were burnt in huge bonfires by the Spanish priests who accompanied the conquistadores, a handful were kept for curiosity value. Please see my post The Stone from Satan's Crown for another story of the Conquest.

WISE GANESHA: The symbol on his forehead is known as a tilaka. Ganesha has a human body, and is sometimes depicted holding his broken-off tusk in one hand. Yes, I realise that this is actually an African, not an Indian elephant, but its broken tusk made an irresistible reference for my painting. Original photographer unknown.

CHAIRMAN MAO: The apparent need which the human mind has for a deity of some description is dramatically expressed in the statuary of Communist public places. If this need is abolished, it merely pops up in a disguised form. Statue of Mao Zedong adapted from a photo by Andreas Schreiber. In the background is the national emblem of the People’s Republic of China, with the title of Mao’s famed 'little red book’ of quotations superimposed.

ANCIENT CEREMONIES: A hunting ritual presided over by a shaman taking place in the famed cave of Lascaux, as imagined by that master of such scenes, Zdeněk Burian. The Lascaux cave paintings in the Dordogne region of France have been dated to some 17,300 years ago. Now closed to the public for conservation reasons, the climate of the cave – and the limited number of scientists who are allowed access – is strictly controlled.

8013: NEW RITUALS FOR A NEW WORLD: DNA and electron sequencing from the world of science combine with occult and other symbols in an imagined future in which these two worlds merge to become indistinguishable from each other. Original artwork © David Bergen Studio, all rights reserved. 

The Pope and the Astrologer

What would the astrologer Tommaso Campanella have made of his own star chart, I wonder? The capricious stars must have looked down at his life and decided for their own inscrutable reasons that this was one mortal that they would take for a wild ride.

With his life straddling the 16th-17th-centuries, the Dominican friar from southern Italy began an enthusiastic career of heresy by writing a book which advocated the idea that all things were infused with a sensory awareness. This idea we now call animism – the belief that all things in nature are animated with a spirit. For its time and place, this progressive and un-scriptural idea inevitably put the Dominican on a collision course with the Inquisition, and he was confined to a monastery for several years.

Unbowed, the newly-released Campanella again busied himself with his astrological charts, and predicted the coming of the Age of the Spirit at the turn of the new century – a sort of 17th-century dawning of the Age of Aquarius. This, as he saw it, would usher in an era of equality, communal property, and – perhaps for good egalitarian measures – shared-around partners: more than enough reasons to send the Inquisitors’ officials once again scurrying to his door.  This time his incarceration involved torture. Stretched upon the rack, he made a full and formal confession of his heretical ways, and was duly sentenced to death.

But Fate was not yet done with the friar, and neither was the wayward friar done with life. Fuelled by fires of madness that perhaps were only half-feigned, he set his cell ablaze. Evidently the ruse worked, for his sentence was then commuted to life imprisonment. After twenty seven years of incarceration by the Inquisition, which included several further sessions of gruelling torture, Campanella was unexpectedly released. His astonishing benefactor was none other than the pope himself – Pope Urban VIII.

History often-enough contrives narratives and twists of plot that novelists would reject as too outrageously improbable to use – so what remarkable crossroads in the stars brought these two contrary characters together? Having already dragged the papal treasury into a sea of debt by redistributing the papal funds through nepotism on a near-industrial scale, apparently the pope would privately amuse himself by casting the horoscopes of his cardinals – and predicting their deaths in the stars.

Apparently hearing of these decidedly [1]un-Christian activities (which would have been enough to frog-march a lesser personage in front of the [2]Inquisition), other astrologers then cast their own horoscopes to predict the pope’s own death. Understandably rattled, the pope decided that he needed the aid of a big-gun astrologer – and Tommaso Campanella was the man for the job. From prison to the pope’s chambers – a reversal of fortune no novelist would dare invent. But there was the heretic friar, crippled with the injuries sustained by past torture, it’s true, but nevertheless now in favour with – and at the service of – the most powerful man in Christendom.

These two most unlikely of allies set to work with a will. Adverse stellar influences were held at bay by sealing off the pope’s chamber ‘from outside air’, and then sprinkling the room with ‘aromatic substances’. Laurel, myrtle, rosemary and cypress were burned. Purifying white silk cloths were draped over the walls, and seven candles and torches were lit to represent the seven astrological planets. The benign influences of the planets Jupiter and Venus were invoked with the aid of various stones, plants and colours, and the sessions would culminate in playing sweet music and imbibing ‘astrologically distilled liquors’. It sounds more to me like a good time was had by both parties concerned. And – at least to the pope’s satisfaction – these distinctly un-Christian rituals seemed to do the trick. He lived on for another sixteen years, until 1644, passing on the massive incurred debts to his successor, Innocent X.

And Tommaso Campanella? Out of favour once more, our friar fled to France, where he was taken under the wing of Cardinal Richelieu – who two centuries later would himself become a fictionalized (and villainized) character in Alexandre Dumas’ classic tale of adventure and intrigue The Three Musketeers. For the friar, real life had been all-too real enough, and he would quietly live out his remaining days in a French monastery, perhaps at night to gaze up and wink at the stars, as they would wink back at him.

Hawkwood

Notes:

[1] Deuteronomy 18:10 lists divination under ‘forbidden pagan practices’. Mosaic law prescribed the penalty of death by stoning for any fortune-telling activities, which therefore technically included Pope Urban VIII as a transgressor. Presumably His Holiness was familiar with this passage of scripture, but considered himself exempt from God’s Law.

[2] There was a whole subplot going on parallel to this story, which involved Galileo’s revolutionary idea at the time about the earth actually revolving around the sun, and with Campanella courageously writing a tract in defense of Galileo’s heretical theory. But I figured that the events related in this post would be enough excitement for you for one day.

Sources:

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh: The Elixir and the Stone.

D.P. Walker: Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella.

Frances A. Yates: Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition.

Top image: Adapted from a 1643 medallion of Urban VIII (a year before the pope’s death) with an additional frame of zodiac horoscope signs (Creative Commons photo of medallion by Sailko) . Second image: Portrait of Tommaso Campanella by Francesco Cozza, featuring a 17th-century square horoscope. Third image: Portrait of Urban VIII by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, featuring astrological signs for the seals of the planets Jupiter (left) and Venus, from Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy.

Ley Lines: Patterns of the Ancient Earth

In a recent interview I heard a parapsychologist remark that the existence of ley lines was unverifiable because they could only be determined by dowsing, which method (as he claimed) being paranormal, is itself unverifiable. What the parapsychologist seemed not to be aware of is that ley lines can readily be plotted on any good [1]map, using equipment no more ‘paranormal’ than an ordinary pencil and ruler. In Europe such landscape features as megalithic stone circles, hilltop churches and other such ancient sites can be connected with each other in straight lines, often over considerable distances. Why churches? Because these often were built upon the foundations of pagan monuments which the new faith destroyed.

Ley lines can be found in many locations around the world. In our contemporary era they were first brought to light by Englishman Alfred Watkins, who published a [2]book of his findings in 1925. Watkins discovered that lines on the landscape - sometimes invisible, sometimes forming straight trackways - connected many places whose antiquity suggested that he was dealing with a body of ancient knowledge whose meaning and purpose had since been lost.

Watkins' research established that the lines went far beyond anything that might have been due to chance, and sometimes extended for hundreds of miles between stone circles, Bronze Age burial sites, and churches, hilltop and otherwise. Many Roman roads, renowned for their arrow-straightness, actually follow these tracks, and it is these roads which can provide further clues to the leys’ whereabouts.

But what purpose do these lines serve? Clearly they had significance for those who marked their presence. Ideas as to what this purpose might have been vary from ancient survey lines to connections with underground water sources. There have even been suggestions that UFO's seem to make use of them, following leys in their paths of flight.

The author Tom Graves took the [3]idea to the next level and proposed a similar purpose to the meridian lines used in the curative practice of acupuncture. This theory suggested that the stone megaliths buried upright in the earth functioned as 'needles' in the same way that acupuncture needles are said to stimulate the flow of the body's subtle energy, with the ley lines marking out the paths of energy between them. In this way, the energy of the Earth itself could be refreshed and revitalized.

While preparing this post, the inevitable question for me was: sitting at my computer here in Holland, could I actually locate and plot a ley line of my own? Could I, just by using available data from the Internet, discover a ley line at any given location in the world? I opted for several locations which I knew by reputation to be locations of alleged paranormal activity, all of them within the two neighboring states of Indiana and Ohio. Evansville in southern Indiana is home to the Willard Library, with its famed [4]ghostly Grey Lady and other assorted entities. Across the State line in Ohio, Oxford is known for the [5]Oxford Light – a disembodied luminous entity which pursues terrified drivers along a specific stretch of road at night. Nearby Wright Patterson Air Force Base just outside Dayton is notorious for its supernatural occurrences and mysterious manifestations.

Three points on a map with clear paranormal connections. But do they make a ruler-straight line? Staggeringly, they do! A line drawn from Evansville to Dayton (a distance on the ground of over two hundred miles) passes directly through the Oxford location (my map, below). And when the line is extended it passes southeast of Cleveland. Why is this significant? Because this area is a known ‘hot spot’ for various unexplained phenomena up to and including [6]UFO sightings.

Could I correlate more data? From independent sources I collected data for UFO sightings and similar aerial phenomena, and also for the distribution of Native American mounds and related sites – the New World equivalent of European megalithic monuments. Lastly, from the data base of the [7]Bigfoot Field Researchers’ Organization I added all the reported sightings of that particular cryptid across both states. Remember: all of these sets of data were gleaned from sources independent of each other. I then converted each data set to a separate layer and superimposed them upon my map. Significantly, all data sets clustered at the hot spot southeast of Cleveland – the only place on the map where this happened. And surprisingly enough, Bigfoot seems to favour the area immediately north and east of Evansville – although over the border in Ohio the hairy horror appears to have made the whole state his own.

Of course I realize that other locations of significance which involve haunt and other alleged paranormal phenomena might cluster along this line. I’m just dealing with the material that is known to me. And on the basis of such material the evidence for an Indiana-Ohio ley line is persuasive, and does tend to suggest that such phenomena seem to be ‘aware’ of a ley line’s presence, and are attracted to it, perhaps as some form of energy source which they utilise to materialise in our reality. But which reality do they call home?

Hawkwood

Notes:

[1] In Britain, the hugely-detailed Ordnance Survey maps are excellent for this purpose.

[2] Alfred Watkins: The Old Straight Track.

[3] Tom Graves: Needles of Stone.

[4] Webcams of the library’s interior are installed and can be viewed at: 
http://www.willardghost.com/index.php?content=home 
http://web.courierpress.com/libraryghost/broadcast.html

Some years ago I was involved with a group that kept an eye on these cams. Some of the stuff that the cams captured was truly bizarre, and these phenomena – and on-the-spot investigations by specific groups – have led some investigators to speculate that the Willard Library is not so much ‘haunted’ as it is a portal for other realities. Our group witnessed various anomalies, including a pair of bizarre disembodied legs wearing white sneakers that walked around often enough to be captured on camera various times, and one inexplicable something about the size of a child that used to crawl over the floor which we simply called the GCT (right) - the Grey Crawling Thing! And most - but certainly not all - of this was at night, after the library had closed its doors to visitors.

[5] There are a number of videos on YouTube uploaded by those who have experienced the Oxford Light phenomenon. Heck, you know the search terms.

[6] UFO: unidentified flying object. It’s a poor term, because it assumes an act of flying for something that might be doing something entirely different. I prefer the term ‘unidentified aerial phenomenon’, which comfortably includes such mysterious and poorly-understood (but nevertheless natural) phenomena as ball lightning. My own vivid experience in a remote region of Australia I would consider to belong to this category.

[7] The BFRO dedicatedly maintains a comprehensive data base of sightings and other reports (tracks, vocalizations, etc.) of the Bigfoot phenomenon in all U.S. states. My own stance on Bigfoot has for years unwaveringly categorized the phenomenon as at least partially, if not wholly, paranormal. http://www.bfro.net/  

Sources:

John Michell’s The New View Over Atlantis has further information about ley lines in general, as of course does the Tom Graves title mentioned above. B. Ann Slate and Alan Berry’s Bigfoot is still for me the best book ever on the cryptid, and definitely recommended for those stalwarts who remain convinced either that it (A) doesn’t exist, or (B) is simply an unknown flesh-and-blood creature.

Top picture: I stood in the middle of a bleak and freezing January field in Yorkshire, northern England, to get this shot. The winter sun had climbed as high as it was going to get, and the way in which it reflected off the ice on the frozen track was a gift. The picture of the Calanais Standing Stones, Isle Of Lewis, is adapted from macdonnellofleinster.org.

666: The Number of the Beast

“Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” Oh, how much dread this brief phrase has invoked! The phrase, from the New Testament’s [1]Book of Revelation, has provided fertile source material for [2]artists, assorted metal bands and horror blockbuster scriptwriters, and has been the source of much speculation by serious scholastic opinion at one end of the spectrum and doomsday conspiracy theorists at the other.

The number has even generated its very own medically-recognized phobia with the Scrabble-defying name of hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia (no, I don’t know how to pronounce it either), which has resulted in such startling urban changes as U.S. Highway 666 being renamed Highway 491 for that specific reason.

When fear gains the upper hand then chaos reigns, and common sense goes straight out the window. But as often as not, fear is not a rational thing, and just how irrational our fear of the ‘beast’ and the number 666 really is can be realized with a better understanding of the true meaning behind the phrase. The first clue is right there in the phrase’s opening words: “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding…”. With these words we are given the clear signal that this phrase is not intended as some ghastly portent, but as containing concealed ‘wisdom’, if only we can unlock the puzzle and gain access to that inner knowledge. We are specifically told that we will need understanding – insight – to solve the puzzle, or as Jesus himself says [3]elsewhere: it is the sort of knowledge intended ‘for those who have ears to hear’.

We are further told that 666 is ‘the number of a man’. But which man? Based upon [4]gematria, candidates ranging from the [5]suitably bestial Roman emperor Nero to the [6]Pontiff and even Mohammed have been put forward. So we have a two-part puzzle to solve: the identity of this ‘man’, and why his number totals that mysterious 666. But there is another factor: we need to remember that we are reading what is in reality a translation from the Greek original. Did the author of Revelation really mean a ‘beast’? The word in English is immediately scary and emotive, suggesting all manner of misshapen horrors lurking in the shadows. But the word used in the original Greek is Θηρίον (thērion), which suggests something wild, primal and untamed. And such a force need be neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’, but merely impartial – as neutral as an unleashed thunderstorm which, for all its display of awesome power, simply ‘is’. So our lurking beast is already looking a touch more friendly and less sinister. But what about that most notorious of numbers?

In the ancient world the sun and moon were thought of as planetary ‘spheres’ together with the other then-known [7]planets, and each of these seven spheres were assigned their own seals and [8]magic squares. And it is the magic square of the sun that provides the key to unlock our puzzle. For adding all the numbers together in the sun’s magic square produces (as you probably have now guessed) the total of 666. So it is the [9]sun which must have some special connection with this number. And surely the sun fits the job description of thērion – not a beast, but an untamed (and untameable) force of splendor and power.

But the phrase is not an isolated number. About the ‘man’, it ends: ‘and his number is 666’, which in its original Greek yields the gematria value of 2368. And this number in Greek letters spells out: Ιησούς Χριστός – ‘Jesus Christ’. I am aware that to many, the realization that the ‘man’ alluded to in this notorious passage turns out to be Jesus himself will probably either provoke an outraged rejection, or require them to sit down quietly for awhile to catch their breath. But that the number values of the text in its original Greek yield this actual name is surely beyond all coincidence. And the only way we can make sense of these findings is to press on deeper into Gnostic beliefs.

The spiritual vision of the Gnostics involved the belief that all that is visible to us in our material existence – including the life-giving sun – has a higher equivalent in the spirit. So there is a ‘spiritual’ sun beyond the actual sun – the ‘666 sun’ – which we see in the heavens, just as there is a true Christ – the Christ of the Holy Spirit – beyond the man – the son – who appeared on earth. What the phrase is telling us is that we need to seek beyond the material world – beyond what we see and experience with our senses – to reach the greater mysteries of the spirit which lie behind these outward appearances.

I cannot deny that a part of me rather regrets raining on the parade of all those growling goth metal bands and horror scriptwriters, but I would sooner press on to the heart of a mystery, wherever it might lead. And where this particular mystery leads is to realize that what this notorious phrase in the Book of Revelation describes is anything but the creature of bestial evil which our own [10]misreading of the phrase has created. It is rather a message of grace and hope, and its messenger is our own life-giving sun.

Hawkwood

Notes:

[1] The Book of Revelation 13:18

[2] Ah, mea culpa! It provided one of the key sequences for my own REVELATIONS video. Please see my post Hawkwood and Divine Retribution.

[3] This phrase is usually repeated in scriptural texts as a way of signaling that a statement has both an everyday ‘story’ meaning and a hidden spiritual message intended for an inner circle of followers.

[4] Gematria: the system of attributing numerical values to written letters in those alphabets which have no numbers. This would include both Hebrew and the Greek in which scriptural texts were written. Names and phrases then yield a numerical total which can have a further esoteric significance.

[5] Known for his persecutions of those belonging to the new faith (at this early date the term ‘Christianity’ and its doctrines had not yet been defined), Nero was said to have lit the grounds of his villa with their crucified and burning bodies. A stroke of ruthless political maneuvering also had him arranging and carrying out his mother’s murder. Desolate at the death of his first wife, he had a freed slave castrated and then married him, apparently because the slave bore an uncanny resemblance to his late wife. Facing ultimate revolt, he decided on suicide, but balked when the moment came and instead ordered his private secretary to murder him. Nero was just thirty years old when he died, which for history was probably not a day too soon.

[6] Yes, I’m aware of all the conspiracy theory websites and assorted YouTube videos which claim ‘proof’ for the alleged link between the Papal office and the beast of Revelation. But none of them as far as I am aware make the connection that were this to be so, then it would establish a pro-Gnostic, if not an actual Gnostic author for Revelation. In an increasingly hostile orthodox environment, and with their own faith coming under threat from the Church of Rome, the Gnostics would have had good reason to encode the identity of the perceived threat into scripture. As this post summarizes, I personally consider the truth to lie elsewhere, and in more positive directions – although this in itself still makes a pro-Gnostic stance for the Revelation author both likely and plausible, It is tempting to speculate about other encoded information in the text, perhaps in the form of gematria. The mere fact that there are no less than twenty one separate sets of sevens mentioned (seven candlesticks, seven seals, seven plagues, etc.) must at least give pause for thought.

[7] Outwards from the earth, the planetary spheres were believed to be: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, with beyond these seven, the sphere of the stars, and beyond the stars, the realms of the different orders of angels. 

[8] Magic squares are figures set out in a grid whose numbers create the same totals when added along all the vertical, horizontal and two principal diagonal columns. Each planet is ascribed its own magic square, and one – the magic square of Jupiter – has been adapted from the writings of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (who resurrected these figures from antiquity) by the artist Albrecht Dürer, who incorporated it into his famous masterpiece engraving known as Melencolia 1 (left). Agrippa gave his three-volume work the title Occult Philosophy – although the word ‘occult’ did not then carry our own contemporary overtones, but was used in the sense of describing ‘hidden knowledge’. The relevant page of Agrippa’s text can be viewed here: Occult Philosophy, Book 2, chapter xxii. Of the tables of the Planets, their vertues, forms, and what Divine names, Intelligencies, and Spirits are set over them.

[9] That these pre-Christian teachings of Pythagoras and Plato exist in canonical scripture is already established by the story in John’s gospel (John 21: 10-11) of the miraculous catch of 153 fishes in the net (please see my post: Vesica Piscis: The Tale of a Fish), and there are other examples which I would like to cover in future posts. I can only imagine that these examples of pre-Christian Gnosticism survived the 3rd-4th-century purges of such material to make it into the canon simply because the uncomprehending orthodox editors failed to realize their significance. But there they are in any Bible – and there is the encrypted reference to the sun in the Book of Revelation.

[10] An idea, once it has taken root, can be more resilient and more powerful than the truth. Few examples which I can think of illustrate this point so tellingly as the way in which the literal reading of the ‘number of the beast’ phrase has embedded itself in our culture. And how ironic is it that it is Gnostic insight – the very beliefs which were so ruthlessly rooted out by the early Church Fathers – which transforms this seemingly-dark phrase into a message of hope.  

Sources:

John Michell: The Dimensions of Paradise: Sacred Geometry, Ancient Science, and the Heavenly Order on Earth. The gematria calculations in this post are those of Michell’s in this title. A considerably more detailed exposition of these conclusions can be found in his book than is given here.

David Fideler: Jesus Christ, Sun of God: ancient Cosmology and Early Christian Symbolism.

Nero sesturtius coin, 54-55 CE, from: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com.
Melencolia 1, engraving by Albrecht Dürer, 1514, in the British Museum, with other original prints housed in various museums around the world. 666 'beast' and all other graphics by Hawkwood, ©David Bergen Studio. 

"Behold This Woman"

As a woman, you should dress plainly and modestly. You should not braid your hair. You should not wear jewellery, and certainly not costly gold and pearls. You should remain silent, and learn submissively. You are not allowed to teach, neither must you question nor rise above the authority of a man. And do not forget: you must keep silent. Why must you do these things? Because it was Adam who was created first, and because it was Eve who was deceived by the serpent and transgressed.

No, the little manifesto of all-brakes-off male chauvinist piggery with which I began this post is certainly not my own. You can read it for yourself in the New Testament’s 1 Timothy, 2:9-14. Its anti-female stance has served the Church well ever since it was written in the 2nd-century, and it has been seen as a licence to keep women in a second-class citizen role with a scriptural seal of approval. This passage on which so much Church policy rests appears in one of the letters of Paul, and among more free-thinking minds it has earned that particular saint the dubious reputation of being a grade-A [1]misogynist. 

There is just one problem. It seems that the letter in which this passage appears is not by Paul at all. The three letters 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus, bear Paul’s name. But for various reasons, partly to do with discrepancies of language, dating and theme, a majority of scholastic opinion now considers these [2]three letters to be written, as it were, under a falsified signature.

Now consider this: a global corporate business has as strict company policy a blanket ban on women holding any positions of authority within the company. Here in the European Union that company would have its ass hauled into court so fast that its feet wouldn’t even touch the ground. And it would lose the case, because the EU is very specific in its directives about ensuring gender equality in the workplace. Now for ‘global corporate business’ read ‘Catholic Church’, and my point is made. Apparently it is because our society invests religion with respect by default, whether that respect is [3]deserved or not, that the Church can with [4]impunity get away with practicing discrimination against women on a global scale, and in so doing, is placing itself – literally – beyond the law.

“We declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.” The concluding [5]statement of the Apostolic Letter by John Paul II, May 22, 1994, entitled: “To the bishops of the Catholic Church on reserving priestly ordination to men alone.” The specific justification given in the letter – that Jesus chose only men as disciples – is a scriptural fallacy which it has become expedient for the Church to perpetuate.

Clearly on this example alone the law is a two-tiered structure: one for the Church, and another for the rest of us. Within the Catholic hierarchy the [6]glass ceiling is already reached at the lowly level of the mother superior of a local convent. Higher than that… forget it. Women within the Anglican community fare somewhat better, with Australia having recently appointed its [7]first female bishop. But as recently as November of last year, the Synod of the Church of England voted against the appointment of women as bishops.

This flagrant sexual discrimination which is both sanctioned and practiced by orthodox Christianity is tragic and demeaning for more than the reason of the obvious deep injustice to women. It is a brand of sexual prejudice which goes directly counter to the original egalitarian example of Jesus. Orthodoxy, in winning the 3rd-4th-century battle as the ‘official’ form of Christianity, ciphered away the original status of women’s spiritual equality which they had known in Gnostic communities. Female disciples were consigned to the background of history, and the sympathetically Gnostic Paul was redesigned by orthodoxy as both anti-Gnostic and anti-feminine with the aid of letters written in his name.

On the walls of a grotto in Ephesus, Turkey, is a mural depicting Paul with his companion Thecla. The way in which the two figures are portrayed indicates that, rather than being a mere disciple of Paul, Thecla shared [8]equal status as a wise teacher. It appears that Paul and his female companion wished to be a conscious mirror of the original Jesus-Mary Magdalene model. This does not imply a relationship in the way in which we might now view it, but was intended to reflect the greater cosmic harmonies of Spirit and Soul. Other Gnostics formed couples for the same reason, as did alchemists of later centuries: men and women who worked together at a transformation of the Self. Such partnerships of gender equality were therefore seen, not as ‘earthly’ relationships, but as mystic unions both in their nature and their objective.

Although the lower half of the Ephesus mural has been lost, what remains of the figure of Paul is in reasonable condition. But the figure of [9]Thecla who stands next to him has been vandalized at some time in antiquity: her eyes and her upraised hand have been gouged away. Blinded and mute, this defaced portrayal of a woman still communicates with us from out of her wounded silence.  

Hawkwood     

Notes:  

[1] Misogynist: a man who despises women. 

[2] Although not the only letters of Paul to have a suspect authorship, these specific three seem to be from the same hand. But if not Paul’s, then whose hand is it? One possible candidate is Bishop Polycarp, who apparently provided the role model for Bishop Irenaeus, a name not unknown on this blog as the editor of the four gospels which made it into the canon (my post The Gospel According to Somebody). And how suspect is it that 1 Timothy ends with a specific warning against following Gnostics and their beliefs, when that also happened to be Irenaeus’ favourite hobby horse? Add to this the fact that Paul himself expressed pro-Gnostic beliefs – and might even have been a Gnostic – and that these three letters could well have turned up (perhaps a little too conveniently?) around the time that Irenaeus was busy writing his massive anti-Gnostic work Against Heresies, then this would date the three letters to a period decades after Paul wrote those letters now accepted as authentic.

[3] Please see my post Respect. Catholic priests can be, and are, excommunicated even for just supporting the ordaining of women priests. Father Roy Bourgeois (right) was excommunicated after over 40 years of service to his church for speaking out against the injustice of this issue. The official papal stance is that the issue is beyond discussion (Apostolic letter of Pope John Paul II, 22 May, 1994). The phrasing of the letter - that the judgement will be 'definitively held' - ensures that the ruling is intended to be enforced in perpetuity, and that the Catholic Church will not allow the ordination of women as priests, not now, not ever. Oh, if only the Catholic hierarchy would show itself willing to punish its morally corrupt pedophile priests with the same robust vigor.

[4] Although it uses the euro currency, Vatican City State is not a member of the European Union and preserves its independent status; a status that clearly works to its advantage in such issues.

[5] This concluding phrase of the Apostolic Letter deserves close scrutiny. The adamant statement that the Church has "no authority whatsoever" is actually a subtly assumed negative. Think about it: the Church is in this sense not bound by civic law, and can - and does - assume whatever authority it chooses to invest itself with. If it decides that it has the authority to excommunicate someone (see note 3 above) then it does so. If the Vatican wanted to have the authority to invest women then it would grant itself that authority. So for the Church to claim that it has "no authority" to invest women is a pretense. Thus did Pilate wash his hands.

[6] The phrase 'glass ceiling' is taken to mean the invisible barrier which women encounter in organizations that thwart their further promotion upwards through management hierarchy.

[7] Bishop Kay Goldsworthy, appointed bishop of Perth in May, 2008. Anglican communities in New Zealand, Africa, the United States and Canada also have appointed women bishops.

[8] The author John Dominic Crossan points out that figures in a mural of this date (c.5th-6th-century), when depicted of the same height, as here, indicate equal social status, and the raised right hand denotes both teaching and leadership status – as would have been the norm for women in Gnostic communities. One Christian apologist assertion which I have come across attempts to explain this away with the claim that the woman is actually Thecla's mother: a strange claim to make when the name 'THECLA' (left) has been written alongside the figure.

[9] The Church has made Thecla a saint, but how many who already are familiar with Paul are as familiar with Thecla? And even the now-familiar Paul is the official Church version, which is not who Paul actually was in life, as this post indicates. Please see my post Anthony of the Desert: Life as Fiction for another example of the Church reinventing someone’s life to drive its own agenda. The events of Thecla's life are interwoven with legend. Condemned to be burned, she was saved by the timely intervention of a furious storm. On a later occasion, having fought off a nobleman who was attempting to rape her, she was herself charged with assault and condemned to be torn apart by lions. Again miraculous forces appeared to save her when the female beasts protected her from the aggressive males. No such miracles saved Polycarp. He was burned at the stake for refusing to make an offering to the Roman Emperor. This portrayal of Thecla (right) was painted by Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson in 1891. To read Thecla's story, please see my post Thecla: A Woman between Rain and Fire.

Sources:

Elaine Pagels: The Gnostic Paul.

John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed: The Search for Paul.

Top image: “Behold This Woman”, published here under the terms of my Creative Commons Licence, original artwork created for this post by the ©David Bergen Studio, all rights reserved. Adapted from Emilio Franceschi's 19th-century bronze sculpture Eulalia Christiana in Rome's National Gallery of Modern Art. For those who would like to know more about Eulalia, the story of her defiant and tragic martyrdom is recounted on my other blog in the post The Sheltering Snow.


Stop Press added July 17, 2014: A year and a half after I wrote this post, this week has brought the news that the General Synod of the Church of England has voted by a majority of 351 to 72 (with a further 10 abstentions) to accept women as bishops, and so finally bringing it into line with other Anglican communities in the U.S., Canada, Africa and Australasia. The news is both welcome and shocking: welcome, because the approval is so many years overdue. But it is shocking and shameful that the question of whether or not women have equal rights before God is even an issue in the 21st-century. In an age which contains female Anglican bishops, female rabbis and female imams, the Catholic church shows every sign of continuing to hold on to its unrivaled position at the top of the religious male chauvinist piggery chart. What would Jesus say?

Vesica Piscis: The Tale of a Fish

This is the tale of a fish. This particular fish can be found swimming in the most unlikely and unexpected seas, and its territory is expansive enough to cover radically differing beliefs and worldviews. So you will realise that one thing that this fish is very good at doing is surviving. In our own 21st-century world, it frequently can be seen swimming happily along in traffic on the [1]bumper of many a car whose occupants choose to signal their allegiance to the Christian faith. It’s use as a Christian symbol is usually assumed to date back to the beginnings of that religion, and for adherents of that faith is perhaps second only to the Christian cross in symbolic significance.

The truth, as generally happens, is something different. The Christian fish stems from an anagram in Greek – the language of the Gospel texts – formed from the first letters of the phrase ‘Jesus Christ of God, Son, Savior’, which spell out the word ‘ICTHYS’, meaning ‘fish’. While this appropriately references various passages in scripture, and the written word in Greek was used by followers of the new faith, the actual use of the stylised fish symbol is absent. So the story that it was used as a secret sign among early Christians seems to be no more than that. Instead, an eight-spoked wheel was used (below), sometimes with the letters written within the spokes of the wheel. Surprisingly, the first use of the currently-familiar Christian fish formed from a double arc seems to date, not from a historical source, but from its appearance in a mid 20th-century [2]Hollywood Biblical epic, and it has gained in popularity since then.

Clearly the way in which this stylised fish is drawn must have come from somewhere. The prototype of all the various current bumper sticker and key ring fishes can be traced back to a diagram which has been known since antiquity as the Vesica piscis (literally: ‘vessel of the fish’). Formed simply-enough from two circles which overlap at their centers, this basic diagram can be expanded upon in a number of intriguing ways. In the diagram below left, a line is drawn between the centers of the two east-west larger circles (which contain six-sided hexagons). The sizes of the two smaller north-south circles are determined by this same line, but this time containing the line not six times but five, making a polygon. And now, out of the overlapping area of the two smaller circles… the fish emerges! Voila!

This involved-looking diagram can be drawn with nothing more fancy than a basic pair of compasses and a straight edge of some kind – simple tools and methods whose use has been known for millennia. Just how far back in time we can push things is seen in the image below. This time, we enclose a second Vesica piscis within the first, bounded by the overlap. Simply by using the north-south points of overlap as the apex and base, we now join the dots to construct a triangle – which, having an exact base [3]angle of 51°51', is a perfect match for the angle of slope of the Great Pyramid of Giza! And where the two inner dotted lines meet the intersecting circles, another triangle with an exact base angle of 60° is formed – which in turn gives the exact proportions of each of the pyramid’s four sides. If there is one thing that plays no role in all which the Great Pyramid involves, it is chance.

If we view the overlapping area of the Vesica piscis on it own, we now have a shape known as the [4]mandorla. The mandorla is truly ubiquitous, and can be seen in both Islamic and Christian illuminated manuscripts (below), and even in the cards of the Tarot (below center, which at its corners repeats the same four evangelical symbols seen in its Christian neighbour). As part of the Vesica piscis its form is found in [5]architecture, on Masonic symbols, and on secular city crests, and designed variations also can be seen on company logos such as those of CBS and Gucci. The Vesica piscis and its mandorla clearly are forms which speaks powerfully to the human mind.

To come to a deeper understanding of the Vesica piscis and its power, we need to reach beyond those beliefs which burden themselves with sin and guilt, and the way in which they regard the human body as something intrinsically shameful. The traditional carved figure known as a Sheela na gig (below, left), which seems to be Celtic in origin, shows a little goggle-eyed female displaying her open vulva. The vulva is in the form of a mandorla, and her goggle eyes echo this form. Over a hundred of these figures are found in churches and castles throughout Ireland, and a few scattered examples are still to be seen in England, although most were defaced by prudish minds in the intervening centuries. The meaning of these little figures is disputed, although they were possibly associated with birth and fertility, or to ward off evil. The goddess [6]Isis-Aphrodite, an early Egyptian-Greek hybrid deity (below, right), seems to radiate the secret harmonics of the Vesica piscis in her proportions.

Enclosing the mandorla of the pentagon (the same mandorla used for the ‘fish’) within the mandorla of the Vesica piscis (below) reveals a form which mirrors the female [7]vulva. The word used in Sanskrit is yoni, which is interpreted as meaning the source of life: of a divine passage, in the sense of being a passage of the soul from spirit to matter. From the yoni emerges new life – a powerful symbol for the spirit of the feminine, for the cosmic goddess, and for the journey from the womb which we all have made to come into this world.

Returning to the scriptural setting with which I began this post, in the [8]Gospel of John we read how the risen Christ asks Simon-Peter to bring his net bursting with ‘great fishes’. In what seems to be a curiously-precise detail, the Gospel tells us that there were exactly ‘an hundred and fifty and three’. Why is the specific number of the catch given? It seems irrelevant alongside the greater message of the story. But seemingly-irrelevant details often conceal greater truths within them. The number 153 relates directly to the Gnostic mystery schools and to [9]Pythagorean teachings, and the proportion known from that time as the [10]‘Measure of the Fish’.

As with Pythagoras’ famed [11]theorem, the proportions of the mandorla within the Vesica piscis are constant, and always can be measured as 265 units high by, yes… 153 units wide (that is: the length of the fish’s body). These figures express the square root of three – for millennia regarded as the sacred Trinity. All these ideas pre-date the Gospels by centuries. The Church fathers thought to expunge these secret teachings completely from scripture. The fact is that such Gnostic knowledge is so deeply embedded in scriptural texts that the only way to eradicate it completely, as the frenzied zeal of the [12]early Church fathers strived so hard to do, would be to scrap the whole Bible and start again from scratch. And this mystic number 153 apparently flew under the radar of the uncomprehending early Gospel editors to land in the orthodox canon, and in the words of Jesus himself, to be read, interpreted and understood in a mystic sacred language ‘for those with ears to hear’.

One person who apparently has ears to hear is the author Margaret Starbird. She has calculated that the numerical value of the Greek letters which spell out η Μαγδαληνή (the Magdalene) also total exactly 153 (also remembering that the lingual root of the name Mary means ‘the Sea’). This system of ascribing numerical values to letters was known as gematria: a logical practice in written languages (such as Hebrew and Greek) which had no numbers. The true role of the Magdalene is a subject which I’ll leave for another post, but Dan Brown aside, she clearly was someone considerably more than the simplistic redeemed scarlet woman, as orthodoxy would have us believe. And the true worth of the disciples’ [13]catch was clearly something more significant than the going market value of fish, otherwise stipulating such a specific number would serve no purpose.

The Vesica piscis is itself so deeply embedded in world culture that at times it appears to become a door, with the two circles representing the worlds of matter and spirit, and their mandorla becoming an opening between these, creating a portal between different realities or dimensions (above). And perhaps, having read this post, you will never see that bumper sticker fish in quite the same way again!

Hawkwood

PLEASE NOTE:

If you would like to read and see more about the Yoni and the Chalice Well and their associations with the Vesica piscis, you are welcome to visit the post on Emma's blog: The Goddess in the Well.

Notes:

[1] The now-familiar bumper sticker whose stylised form has its origins in the sacred geometry of the pre-Christian Gnostic mystery schools and in the vulva of the cosmic goddess. This sticker (left) is in the exact same proportions as the female labia of the yoni and the fish mandorla shown in my above images.

[2] Incredibly, the earliest example which I have been able to trace of the stylised fish symbol being used as a secret sign by early Christians is not a historical source, but one that was used in the 1951 Hollywood Biblical epic Quo Vadis?, in a scene (right) in which Deborah Kerr as the pagan-to-Christian convert Lygia draws the symbol in the sand. It is both startling and sobering to realize that the whole Christian bumper sticker tradition apparently began as the idea of a Hollywood scriptwriter!

[3] This angle is quoted from the text of John Michell’s book The View Over Atlantis. Other sources give the angle either as 51°50' or 52°, but chapter 2 of Michell’s book explains why the correct angle is so critical. It is difficult to over-estimate the insights which this book offers. I still have the now rather worn paperback edition which I bought thirty five years ago, and it has influenced my thinking ever since. A revised edition titled The New View Over Atlantis is currently available. Mind-bending stuff.

[4] From the Italian, meaning ‘almond’.

[5] The famous chalice well cover in the gardens below Glastonbury Abbey has done much to raise contemporary awareness of the Vesica piscis. It was designed in 1919 by Frederick Bligh Bond, and copies are now widely seen on jewellery (right) and other items. The Vesica piscis is utilized in various other philosophies and beliefs, such as the Jewish Kabbalah’s Sephirot, or Tree of Life, and the overlapping Vesica piscis circles comprising the figure known as the Flower of Life, seen in the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. 

[6] Please see my post The Emperor and the Eye of Horus for more about Isis-Aphrodite and other hybrid gods and goddesses.

[7] To be clear: I am here comparing the form of the yoni with the two mandorlas of my text. The Sanskrit yoni actually has its own symbols, of which the one here (left) is a widely-used example. It could be my over-heated imagination, but does anyone else notice its (presumably coincidental) resemblance to a certain popular spaceship? J

[8] John 21:10-11. This appearance of Jesus is his fifth appearance after the resurrection.

[9] We now tend to think of Pythagoras of Samos, who lived several centuries before the events of the Gospels, primarily as a mathematician. But in his day he was seen as a profound sage and mystic. His ideas, both spiritual, philosophical and intellectual, have impacted Western thought ever since. It is possible that the term philosophy, meaning ‘lover of Sophia’ (Wisdom personified as the goddess) was actually coined by Pythagoras. The word philosophy as well has subtly changed it meaning through the ages. In ancient times it was a worldview, a way of life in which the striving after a true perception of things could lead to an experience of the divine.

[10] The number 153 in the Measure of the Fish is therefore the exact length (right) of the fish’s body. Remember: this is the identical fish which appears above on the Christian bumper sticker, whose source lies in an ancient pagan past stemming from the Gnostic mystery schools.

[11] As every schoolboy can (or should be able to) quote: ‘The square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides’.   When constructed using the Vesica piscis, it gives the perfect proportions of 3:4:5 (left), and is known as the Sacred Triangle. This triangle and its measurements, as with so much that is associated with the Vesica piscis, can among other places be found not only in the proportions of the Great Pyramid, but also in the ground plans of Stonehenge and Glastonbury Abbey.

[12] Please see my posts The Gospel According to Somebody and The New Church.

[13] Of the various commentaries which I have read about the Gospel’s inclusion of this number, none mentions the apparently overlooked fact that, for a haul which the Gospel describes as so great that it was surprising that the fishermen’s net did not burst from the weight, one hundred and fifty three fish is hardly a large quantity. The number of fish caught does not match the description of the haul which, if we were not given the number, we would assume to be a catch of several hundred. The specific number given must therefore be for reasons other than mere description. And the net did not break, because it was - and is - the unbroken net of life (above), and of the cosmos itself. Like the Buddhist Indra’s Net, each pearl of water at the intersection of the weave perfectly reflects the completeness of all the other parts of the net. The net is an image of the Gnostic ‘many in One’. A net which remains mysteriously intact, the inclusion of the specific number 153, are both examples of secret Gnostic knowledge 'hidden in plain sight' in orthodox scripture. 

Sources:

John Michell: The View Over Atlantis.

Margaret Starbird: Magdalene’s Lost Legacy: Symbolic Numbers and the Sacred Union in Christianity.

David R. Fideler: Jesus Christ, Sun of God: Ancient Cosmology and Early Christian Symbolism.

Fishermen's boat on Lake Tiberius, Galilee, from U.S. Historical Archive. Dead Sea scroll: Great Isaiah scroll from the Shrine of the Book Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Sheela na gig: replica of the original from a church in Kilpeck, Herefordshire, England. Isis-Aphrodite: a Roman statue from Egypt, 2nd-3rd-centuries, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Tarot card: Arcanum 21: The World, from the Marseille Tarot, reissued in 1930 by Paul Marteau from an earlier 18th-century deck, facsimile edition published by ©U.S. Games Systems. Millennium Falcon spaceship from Star Wars by Lucasfilms. Quo Vadis? film still from M.G.M. Photo of the bust of Pythagoras from the Science Photo Library, with the background of a Greek manuscript on Pythagorean calculations from the Vatican Library. Portrait of Mary Magdalene by Bernadino Luini, with the background of a fragment of the Gospel of Mary in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and a rosette from the 18th-century Order of the Magdalene engraved by Hugh Clark. Portal entity created with Chaoscope and Mehdi software. Thanks to my wife for the use of her chalice well pendant! All graphics and other artwork © Hawkwood.