But as the virus has come under more and more scientific scrutiny, several disturbing facts have emerged. The most important is that viruses have a high degree of host specificity -- in other words, it is as if they were designed to attack man, and man alone. And since man is supposedly only a recent arrival on this planet, the virus too must be a recent phenomenon. But where did it come from?
As Mooney, [2] in "Gods Of Air and Darkness", noted: "Viruses have recently been synthesized in our modern research laboratories by recombining existing virus material, thus producing new strains not found in nature. Therefore it is not impossible that a highly advanced society in the past may have done a similar thing. This would connect closely with the reports of biological weapons in ancient documents."
PRODUCING DEADLY NEW FORMS
Going one step further, modern researchers are also experimenting with changing the structure of DNA, the basic building blocks of life, which contain the codes of identity in the genetics of the individual. Already new forms have been produced which could prove to be deadly, and would be a serious threat if uncontrolled, because they have the ability to reproduce themselves.
The virus is a little machine that accomplishes the very same thing, only in a specific manner: It contains a core of altered DNA material that it injects into the nucleus of a human cell, and the DNA in that cell is transformed to reproduce the virus form. As a result, the cell is reorganized to produce more viruses, not cells; and when the cell disintegrates, its mutated offspring spread to attack and inject themselves into other cells -- and the process begins again, only multiplied. Did someone in the unknown past design the virus as a biological weapon? If so, it presupposes a knowledge of genetic engineering that is not very far removed from our own.
The extent to which the ancients carried out their genetic studies may be hinted at in a new development taking place in modern research. In 1975, Dr. Nils Ringertz of the Swedish Institute for Medical Research and Genetics announced the successful crossing of genes of entirely different genera, to produce hybrid cells: His team had combined the genetic material of a man with a rat, a man with a chicken -- and even of a man with an insect! In each case, the cell produced began to multiply -- in other words, if it had been allowed to grow, each cell would have developed into the monstrosity created by the genetic combination, a "man-rat", a "man-chick", or a "man-insect".
Dr. Ringertz assured his colleagues that the purpose of his experiment was to produce the hybrid cells, and these were destroyed once they began to multiply, so that the monstrosities could not mature into living creatures. But the procedure he used was simple enough that it could be duplicated, in any genetic laboratory -- and one wonders if over the past few years, other researchers have gone ahead and secretly allowed such creatures to live and grow. Because the possible genetic combinations are limitless, the kinds of hybrid creatures that could be created is also endless. And if such creatures ever accidentally escaped . . . ?
SO WHAT'S NEW?
In imagining what kind of monstrosities might one day be loosed upon the world, there is the sudden realization that we have seen these combinations before -- in the artwork and mythology of practically every ancient civilization. There we find the mermaid (man-fish), centaur (man-horse), satyr (man-goat), harpy (man-bird), and the sphinx (man-lion). And there are other well-known combinations: pegasus (horse-bird), griffon (bird-lion), capricorn (goat-fish), and the gargoyle (ape-bird).
Berosus, the Graeco-Babylonian historian, records the memory of an age when such genetic "freaks" abounded in the world: "There once resided most hideous beings, which were produced of a two-fold principle (genetic hybridization?). Men appeared with two wings, some with four and with two faces. They had one body but two heads; the one of a man and the other of a woman. Other human figures were to be seen with the legs and horns of goats. Some had horses feet; others had the limbs of a horse behind, but before were fashioned like men. Bulls likewise had the heads of men; and dogs with four-fold bodies and tails of fishes. In short, there were creatures with the limbs of every species of animals. Add to these fishes, reptiles, serpents and other wonderful animals, which assumed each other's shape and countenance. Of all these were preserved delineations in the temple of Belus at Babylon."
The combinations described here are as many and varied as one could expect from rampant genetic hybridization. Were these mythic creatures, only the product of imagination, or were they the offspring of an ancient science unknown to us? The answer may be closer than we would like to think.
In our own civilization, research into the secrets of life is only decades old; but for other, forgotten civilizations of the distant past, the research may have extended over centuries -- perhaps even millenia. French biochemist Louis Pauwels, in "Morning of the Magicians", reports that studies have been made of powders, perfumes and scents preserved in prescription form in ancient and medieaval literature; and some of the results were very unexpected. Many of the powders were so complex that modern chemists are still unable to completely break down their molecular structure. Some perfumes, like musk, on the other hand, have formulas almost identical to DNA. What had these perfumes been used for? Were they information-carriers, that generated illusions and hallucinations for gaining power over crowds? Were they some form of "instant knowledge", whereby a student inhaled the appropriate scent to learn secrets imparted to him [4] on the cellular level? Here is an aspect of ancient wisdom we can only guess at, but which certainly needs investigation. As Pauwels noted, "Such an investigation would prove that the magicians of antiquity knew more about the psychological effects of perfumes than the best specialists of our times."
THE LULU CLONES OF SUMER
Perhaps the most startling revelations of the advanced nature of ancient research into the manipulation of the building blocks of life come to us from Sumerian inscriptions, dated between 4,000 and 5,000 years old. Several legends speak of a time when "god-men" ruled the world of prehistory; and in order to work the mines of the land of Apsu -- identified with southern Africa -- the Sumerian deities decided to create a Lulu, or primitive worker, who would do the actual digging and other hard labor. The god Enki was placed in charge of the task to "bring about the work of great wisdom", and he, with the Mother Goddess, Ninhursag, began to fashion the Lulu. The place where the creation took place was called the Bit Shimti -- the "house where the breath of life is breathed in".
Upon entering the house", Ninhursag first "washed her hands" as any lab worker would, and called to her lab assistants to prepare the first ingredient: "Mix the core of clay, from the depths of the Earth in Apsu -- and shape it into the form of a core; I have knowledgeable young gods, who will bring the clay to the right condition."
The Akkadian term for clay is Tit (molding clay); but in its earliest spelling, ti-it, it also meant "that which has life". In the Hebrew, Tit means "mud", with its synonym "bos" related to "bisa" (marsh) and "besa" (egg). These connotations, clay-marsh-egg, hint at stages of development in the creation of the cell. First, the substance began as a clay. In 1974, Dr. Graham Cairn-Smith of the University of Glasgow's Department of Chemistry, announced a new theory on the origins of life. Dr. Cairn-Smith was not satisfied that the first threads of nucleic organic material floating in the primaeval sea could have come together by chance, but must have needed a structural catalyst within which the threads formed into the first complex DNA patterns. Clay, he believes, was the ideal catalyst.
Clay has a crystalline structure that has the ability to retain and "print" a pattern upon new material. As Dr. Cairn-Smith noted: "Clay consists of stacks thin, interlocking plates containing aluminum and silicon atoms that can be arranged in random patterns. These patterns can undergo changes as new [5] clays 'print' near old layers. This is a system capable of development by natural selection, by trial and error -- the first stages necessary to produce molecules and arrangements of molecules that would eventually form the more complex systems of early life forms."
THE BLUEPRINT OF MAN
More recently, in 1977, Dr. James Lawless of NASA's Ames Research Center, together with Dr. Edward Edelson and Lewis Manning, of the American Chemical Society, succeeded in demonstrating that clay containing nickel will attract amino acids; and the concentrated amino acids will then link up to form chains similar to protein. Dr. Cairn-Smith stated, "In simple terms, clay therefore could have been the basis of life: the Blueprint of Man." (Which reminds us of Elihu to Job, 33:6, "I also am formed out of the clay." RHC)
The next stage of the "clay" development, according to the Hebrew-Akkadian word connotations, was that it became like a "marsh" -- that is, the clay material was mixed with simple organic material, as one find in marshland ooze. In the Sumerian texts, this is seen in the Mother Goddess Ninhursag's command that chemicals called "bitumens of Apsu" be used to "purify" or "impregnate" the clay. Bitumen is a petroleum substance made up of very complex hydrocarbon chains -- the basis of organic chemistry. What is described, in essence, is that organic chains were mixed in the clay, and the clay patterns began to "print" the chains into more complex structures, such as DNA.
That this shaping process was directed can be seen in the "young gods" or lab assistants shaping the clay into a specific mold, bringing it into the "right condition". Enki, the text states, further ordered the assistants to "bind upon the mixture the mold of the gods" -- or, carefully design the organic material into the genetic codes of a human-like creature. The result, in the last stage, was the formation of an egg or cell.
THE BREATH OF LIFE
The next major step, once a cell was produced, was to give the cell an "essence" or code of life. This was done by adding blood. The text reads: "I will prepare a solution. Let one god be bled… his blood. Let Ninhursag mix with the clay-egg."
(One would think, on reading Jochman's article on Sumerian Clones that the secret of making them had been blocked in Cuneiform script for 5,000 years, but Polish Rabbis of the 16th Century were adept at making servant Golem. Read this revealing quote from Gershom Scholem's "On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism":
"After saying certain prayers and holding certain fast days, they make the figure of a man from clay, and when they have said [6] the Shem Hamephorash over it (that is, breathed the breath of life into it, by ritual chanting) the image comes to life. And although the image itself cannot speak, it understands what is said to it and commanded; among the Polish Jews it does all kinds of housework, but is not allowed to leave the house. On the forehead of the image they write Emeth, that is, truth. But an image of this kind grows each day; though very small at first, it ends by becoming larger than all those in the house. In order to take away his strength, which ultimately becomes a threat to all those in the house, they quickly erase the first letter, Aleph, from the word Emeth on his forehead, so that there remains only the word Meth, that is, dead. When this is done the Golem collapses and dissolves back into the clay or mud that he was . . .They say that a Baal Shem in Poland, by the name of Rabbi Elias, made a golem who became so large that the rabbi could no longer reach his forehead to erase the letter E. He thought up a trick, namely that the Golem, being his servant, should remove his boots, supposing that when the Golem bent over, he would erase the letters. And so it happened, but when the Golem became mud again, his whole weight fell on the rabbi, who was sitting on the bench, and crushed him."
(This delightful tale illustrates the dangers of using creative thought for selfish purposes. It was a warning to Cabalists of that day in Europe. It is a warning of this day to students of mind control and mind dynamics courses; and we use it in our latest talk on Psychic Self-Defense, Part III, "The Dweller on the Threshold", BSRF No. 24-M, $3.50. Scholem does not include the secret of bringing such a man-made creation to life, charging the clay figure with freshly shed blood or sperm. The technique is described in detail by Franz Bardon in his book, "Initiation Into Hermetics". But Jochman tells us that the Sumerian adepts had their own variation on the technique and carried it several steps further.)
THE ESSENCE OF THE CLONE
The Akkadian texts make it clear that what was being sought in the blood was Napishtu, or an "essence" related to Shi-im-ti, the "breath-wind-life". The key is in the name of the god from whom the blood was finally taken -- Te-e-ma. According to translators W.G. Lambert and A. R. Millard of Oxford University, the name means "personality", with the further connotation "that contained within which binds the memory". This is nothing less than a description of the gene, the element which gives the cell life, and directs the cell to begin the process of reproduction.
The inscriptions tell of the delicate operation by which the god Ea "purified the Napishtu" and offered the solution to Ninhursag, who carefully held the clay-egg-cell. But it was Enki who performed the crucial injection: He blows in" the "breath-wind' into the cell, and gave it life. The injection was successful for the cell began to multiply.
IMPREGNATION OF THE BIRTH-GODDESS
The next and final step involved artificial impregnation. Ninhursag "cut off 14 pieces of the clay-egg-cell" -- she selected 14 cells out of the newly-dividing creation. There then follows a description of the coming of 14 Birth-Goddesses to the operating table: Everything is detailed, from the shaving of the pubic hair, the preparing of the scalpels and surgical instruments, and finally the operations themselves. Within each, one of the 14 selected cells was placed in the womb, and the cells began to grow into living beings.
At the beginning of the tenth month after the first operation, Ninhursag directed surgery to remove the mature creatures. The texts tell what follows: " . . .she opened the womb, Her face brightened with joy. Her face covered with a mask, she removes. That which was in the womb came forth. She cries, I have created! By my hands I have made it!" One cuneiform picture has Ninhursag showing one of the new humanoid babies to the god Ea. On the left side is a minor "god" surrounded by laboratory flasks, bringing a carefully sealed container to a boil on top of a stool-like holder, showing where the child had come from.
Once the experiment proved successful, it appears the process of artificial impregnation was repeated again and again, the cells being used all from the original cell created by Enki, Ninhursag, and Ea. The result would have been the production of a multitude of Clones -- creatures that looked exactly alike. A scene depicted on a rock carving found,in the mountains of Elam near Sumer shows a seated god holding a flask from which liquid is pouring -- a familiar representation of Enki, A goddess is seated next to him -- Ninhursag -- and about the pair are lesser deities, very likely the birth-goddesses who partook in the great experiment of creation. Facing the birth-goddesses, Enki and Ninhursag are row upon row of dwarfish, long-haired man-like creatures who look like a multitude of identical twins -- as if they had been produced from the same mold.
Who were these dwarfish creatures? Perhaps the answer may be found in the reason for the creatures' creation: They were to become "primitive workers" in the mines of Apsu or southern Africa. It is not without significance that this area has turned up some of the oldest prehistoric mines in the world -- as well as forms of ape-men that have become a puzzle to anthropologists: Australopithecus robustus and agile, Zinjanthropus and Homo Habilis. Were these forms, instead of being so-called "ancestors" of man, actually the result of genetic creation by unknown experimenters in the past? Perhaps someday we will find the secret when the Bit Shimti is unearthed -- the laboratory-house where enigmatic "gods" manipulated the "breath of life". . .
("Forgotten Ages" is a monthly publication of J.R. Jochman, $3.00 a year, PO Box 82863, Lincoln, Nebraska 68501)
References
- Mooney, Richard E. Gods of Air and Darkness. New York: Stein and Day, 1975. Print. <http://amzn.to/LIgFxK>
- Pauwels, Louis, and Jacques Bergier. The Dawn of Magic. Gibbs & Phillips, 1963. Print. [Later re-issued as The Morning of the Magicians, 1968: <http://amzn.to/1pv5n7Y>]
- Scholem, Gershom. On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism. New York: Schocken Books, 1965. Print. <http://amzn.to/Vncmnh> [Edition, 1996: <http://amzn.to/M4vBrd>]