Mystery, Babylon the Great

By Goro Adachi
October 25, 2001

Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters... And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH... And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, thees shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire... and the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

(Revelation 17:1-18)

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven... And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen... And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached onto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities... Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire... And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning. Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls... The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing... For in one hour so great riches is come nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city! ... And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.

(Revelation 18:1-24)

Gate of the God

Is New York City -- plausibly the greatest city on earth -- the city called 'Babylon' personified by a 'great whore'? Does the scriptural passages concerning the fall of Babylon have some relevance to the 911 terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center twin towers? Indeed, since many had long compared NYC to the scriptural 'Babylon', the 'prophecies' in Revelation quoted above can quite naturally be considered applicable to the first major attack on the US homeland - one of the biggest, and most shocking, terrorist incidents in all history. Although some may object to the resultant implication that NYC is the city of sinners that had to be destroyed by 'God' himself, I'd point out that the sense of 'good vs. evil' in the Bible is quite a murky one that should not be taken too literally. (In fact, nothing in religious writings is to be taken literally - it's a trap that ape-brained men can't seem to get past... and this has caused so much trouble for the world throughout history. This is what happens when a powerful 'gift' is given to those who are not ready to handle it. History of mankind since c. 4000 BC -- when 'Pandora's box' was opened -- is the story of humans struggling to co-exist with the divine 'gift'.) A case in point: in Genesis, we read that at one time men were all united, spoke one language, and worked together in harmony toward reaching 'heaven':

And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.  (Genesis 11:4)

In other words, mankind was thriving in peace and had high hopes. And what does 'God' do?

And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel...  (Genesis 11:5-9)

If the biblical 'God' represents all that is 'good', then this episode does not make much sense, does it? If 'good' represents men not living in harmony and striving to become something better, then what good is being 'good'? Hence, the overlay of NYC and Babylon the 'whore' need not be viewed as an 'evil' city versus those representing the 'good'. And there is, of course, a direct parallel between the NYC-Babylon juxtaposition and the biblical tale concerning the building of the Tower of Babel just quoted above. According to tradition, the Tower of Babel was built in the ancient city of Babylon - in fact 'Babel' and 'Babylon' are practically interchangeable terms. How fitting is it that it was the twin towers -- by far the tallest in the city -- of the modern Babylon, i.e. NYC, that were destroyed in the recent terrorist attacks? NYC is the ultimate melting pot of all peoples of this planet where they interact in harmony (well-exemplified by NYC being the home of the United Nations) and produce something great -- just like the builders of the Tower of Babel. And even the designation of 'whore' is quite applicable as at the entrance to NYC is found the welcoming Statue of Liberty, a great woman symbolizing the great city.

There are further correlations to be yielded by the label 'whore'. A character in the scriptures that would best fit the description is Mary Magdalene - an enigmatic female companion, or quite likely the lover/wife, of Jesus Christ. Although Mary Magdalene is never described as a prostitute in the New Testament, it has been the prevalent view that she was. Chances are, though, the Magdalene is to be considered a 'whore' only in the symbolic sense that she was a version of the ancient Egyptian goddess par excellence, Isis, the wife-sister of Osiris, who was both a 'virgin' and a 'whore' as well as a goddess of wisdom and magic. (Isis' companion Osiris was killed and later resurrected to nicely parallel the Magdalene's companion, Jesus.) Isis, in turn, was represented in the sky by the great star Sirius -- a star of utmost importance to the ancient Egyptians as its 'rebirth' (i.e. 'heliacal rising') in mid-summer had the function of marking the New Year and signaling the beginning of the life-giving annual flooding of the Nile, roughly coinciding with the summer solstice. Curiously, the biblical tale about the Tower of Babel immediately follow those concerning Noah and the Great Flood as if to echo the correlation.

Esoterically, Sirius is represented by a five-pointed star, i.e. a pentagonal form -- thus ending up strongly resonating with the fact that the '911' terrorist attacks hit not just the WTC towers but also the Pentagon (whose construction, by the way, began on 9-11). Sirius, moreover, may be considered a 'stargate' par excellence for in ancient Egypt 'star' was interchangeable with 'doorway'. Sirius being the brightest star in the night sky, it can thusly be viewed as the ultimate 'gate of heaven', or 'gate of the god' - which just happens to be the very meaning of the name 'Babylon'. Similarly, the name given to the historical Tower of Babel, Etemenanki, meant 'the house of the foundation of heaven and earth', i.e. a gate to heaven. This link is then further enhanced by the fact that the name 'Magdalene' (as Magdala) can mean 'tower' as in the Tower of Babel and the WTC twin towers. Reinforcing the connection even more, amazingly, is the groundbreaking date of the WTC twin towers being August 5, that is, the very date of Sirius' heliacal rising/'rebirth' in our epoch!  The Magdalene's name can also mean 'place of the dove' - which is still quite intriguing as it relates to the flood theme; it was a dove that signaled for Noah that the flood had ended (see Gen. 8:8-12).

The Fallen

In Genesis, the cause of the biblical Flood is -- rather mysteriously -- associated with 'fallen angels', or 'giants'/'sons of God', more properly called the 'Nephilim':

 

There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. And God saw that the wickedness was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth...

The Benben Stone connection then brings us back to Osiris, the husband-brother of Isis, as ancient Egyptian theology equated the heavenly stone with the soul of Osiris as well as the phoenix. Since the phoenix signifies the concept of resurrection, it may be inferred that the Benben/shem is symbolic of Osirian resurrection which mythologically takes place with the help of Isis. And similarly, Jesus -- in theory, the biblical Osiris -- is identified in the New Testament with the cornerstone of the Temple that the ‘builders rejected’:

Antediluvian Pillars

Osiris was considered the ruler of the Golden Age known to the ancient Egyptians as the Zep Tepi, or 'First Time'. This mythical realm in turn has been often associated with the supposed great antediluvian civilization that Plato called 'Atlantis'. In Plato's accounts of this lost world, the only clear reference to its geographical position is that it was situated beyond the 'pillars of Hercules' (an ancient name for the Straits of Gibraltar at the western end of the Mediterranean Sea). Osiris, correspondingly, was often depicted in the shape of a pillar by the ancient Egyptians. Could the two 'pillars of Hercules' that represented a gateway to the paradisiacal realm be now considered analogous to the Tower of Babel/'gate of the god' or more specifically the twin towers/pillars of NYC destroyed in the 9-11 terrorist attacks?

The imagery of two pillars is also clearly evocative of the two pillars of Jachin and Boaz (symbolizing individual power and life) that stood at the entrance to Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, the home of the Ark of the Covenant. They were made of brass (1 Kings 7:15) - which has a most fitting implication as brass/bronze is considered to signify 'the indissoluble compact between Earth and Heaven and the pledge of the everlasting stability of this covenant' (Chevalier & Gheerbrant, Dictionary of Symbols, "column"). Representations of these pillars are still found in lodges of Freemasonry, a large semi-secret and esoteric organization which carries within its mysterious tradition that of the medieval warrior-monks, the Knights Templar.

After its sudden dissolution initiated by the French king Philip the Fair in 1307, the Templar survivors apparently made their way into Scotland where they and their tradition found a sanctuary and were maintained by certain interlocking families including the Sinclairs, the patron of Scottish Freemasonry, who had a close connection with the Templar knights. Among the Templar legacies were almost certainly things they had obtained at the site of Solomon's Temple which they had been allowed to use as their headquarters. It is known that the knights excavated the site and probably found something of great importance which may have contributed to the rapid rise to the top of the power structure in Christendom. So it was quite obviously through the incorporation of Templarism that Freemasonry came to adopt the Solomonic twin-pillar symbolism.

That these pillars are relevant to our discussion is effectively confirmed by the imagery on one of the tarot cards called the 'High Priestess' or 'Papess' which shows a high priestess/female pope along with the pillars of Jachin and Boaz marked 'J' and 'B'.

The Papess almost certainly represents none other than Mary Magdalene (= Isis, Babylon, tower, etc.) who actually had a power struggle with Peter the first pope according to Gnostic Gospels. Also, tellingly, the term ‘prostitute’ (a description often applied to the Magdalene), as hierodulae, would refer to the ‘sacred women’-- or 'priestesses' -- of the temple of the Goddess who performed a ritual practice resembling the anointing of Jesus by Mary of Bethany (often equated with Mary Magdalene). In ancient times, anointing of the king was a ritual – called the ‘Sacred Marriage’ in Greek – performed by a royal bride; the implication being that Mary Magdalene married Jesus, just as Isis was the wife of Osiris, resulting in the 'Holy Grail' which is the 'Blood Royal'.

The pillars of Jachin and Boaz also nicely relate back to the themes of the Flood and Atlantis as originally these Masonic pillars represented the 'Antediluvian Pillars' erected by Enoch, Noah's great-grandfather, who is considered one of Freemasonry's founders. According to legend, Enoch had the foreknowledge of the coming Deluge and constructed nine hidden vaults in which he concealed certain knowledge. He then placed two columns at the site upon which were inscribed the 'seven sciences' of mankind and such. The vaults were later found by Solomon while building his Temple. Enoch, therefore, can be viewed as a prototype of Noah and the vaults/pillars are another form of the Ark containing antediluvian, or Atlantean, 'knowledge'.

It is interesting to point out here that it is the 'Book of Enoch' that contains the most detailed account of the affairs of the 'fallen angels'/'Watchers' briefly mentioned in Genesis. Also, that the number of Enoch's vaults was nine, combined with the twin pillars visually forming the number '11', raises the possibility that the date of the terrorist attacks on the NYC twin towers (9-11) was in reference, at least in part, to the Antediluvian Pillars and its connection to the WTC 'pillars'. Seemingly supportive of this, numerically, also is the fact that there are exactly 111 days left in the year after 9-11. As it happens, the Sumerian version of Noah's Ark "was a cube - a modest one, measuring 60x60x60 fathoms, which represents the unit in the sexagesimal system where 60 is written as 1" (Hamlet's Mill, p.219). In other words, the original Ark could be considered to have measured 1x1x1 or '111'.

Lost and Found

After some contemplation, I have now finally found a reasonably sound explanation as to why such a symbolic link exists. An 'airplane' is a perfect vehicle to carry the notion of the 'air-plane' as in the 'dimension of air' that is sandwiched between the planes of earth and heaven. Its relative position therefore is implicative of the familiar theme of the unification or 'gate' of earth and heaven. In support of this interpretation, we find that in ancient Egypt it was conceptualized that the air god Shu was sort of a pillar that held the vault of heaven above. This imagery is strikingly evocative of Atlas of Greek mythology who was condemned to bearing the heaven on his shoulders for eternity after the great war with the Olympians. Atlas, in turn, is said to have been the first king of Atlantis and in effect the embodiment of this legendary civilization!

Airplane crashes would therefore be analogous to the destruction of the antediluvian world, i.e. none other the the Great Flood, which may be conceptually thought of as the collapse of great pillars/towers/gate -- and that is exactly what took place at the World Trade Center in NYC!

The planes crashing into the WTC towers and the Pentagon was of course like no other plane crashes. The magnitude of devastation and symbolic coherence was off the scale. Does this imply something? Why so strong an echo of the 'Atlantean' destruction in 2001?

Could it be that like Osiris and the phoenix, Atlantis is getting ready to rise again from its ashes now? Is the Ark about to be opened? Is the discovery of the fabled Atlantean 'Hall of Records' imminent?

In 2000, an underwater city with pyramidal structures was detected off the coast of Cuba. Researchers have been quietly examining this most enigmatic archaeological find behind the scenes. We are at this time simply awaiting the news of this paradigm-shattering revelation to break. Could this be relevant? It seems so.

Indeed, long before the '911' attacks I had already detected a curious pattern. In the 'View from Here' section of the Etemenanki website, for example, I have made the following remarks:

• June 20: "Looks like this is going to be a summer of Atlantis."
• July 06: "...the undercurrent esoteric theme of this summer was to be the 'rising' of Atlantis... I'd say 'the timetable', the template of history, is dictating that 2001 be the beginning of the 'resurrection of Osiris' (which has many levels of meaning)."

Along with these I had also noted how this theme appeared to be entangled with Mars at which NASA's latest probe, Mars Odyssey, just arrived on Oct. 23, '01. All summer long, Mars was very close to Earth -- in fact, closest in over a decade -- and was a dominant object in the night sky. And since 1998, Mars Global Surveyor had been giving us new photographs of the controversial Cydonia "monuments" on Mars in an attempt to confirm or refute the claim of the Cydonian structures being artificial - a question that still has not been settled but is getting more and more intriguing. Perhaps Odyssey will help solving the enigma soon.

It cannot be ignored that NYC, where the 'Atlantean pillars' stood, is situated at ~40.8°N latitude which happens to be the very latitude of the Martian 'monuments' in Cydonia. And one of the most intriguing Cydonia structures happens to be a pentagonal pyramid called the 'D&M Pyramid' which is very much evocative of the Pentagon hit by a plane on 9-11. The Martian Pentagon is even partially collapsed to reflect the US Pentagon, or vice versa.

What are we to make of all these and other connections? Atlantis... Mars... Was Atlantis on (gasp) Mars? Did mankind first started on the Red Planet before the "Flood"? One telling clue is the fact that the humans ‘free-running circadian rhythm’ (i.e. the natural sleep-awake cycle without any external time cues such as sunrise, sunset, clock, daily routine, etc.) is not 24 hours as expected, but about 24.7 hours long instead – that is, almost precisely the length of a Martian day.

Did man 'fall' to Earth in an "Exodus" from the Red Planet like a life-seeding meteorite and knowledge-providing 'fallen angles'? The shem was a 'fire-stone' - isn't this a potent allusion to Mars, the planet/'stone' of fire?

What was placed in the Ark of Moses, according to some scholars, were actually meteorites. Could the tale of Moses and his Ark, then, be another version of Noah and his Ark? Was the 'Exodus' of the Israelites led by Moses, then, actually a parabolic story about an interplanetary migration of man in the forgotten past?

The 911 event being a symbolic reenactment of the Flood (i.e. destruction of 'Atlantis'), wouldn't the pattern dictate that the next event be a mass 'Exodus'? Could it be just a coincidence that I conceptually equated President Bush with Moses in The Two Suns of Election MM last year?

But where would be the destination of this 'Exodus'? Where is our 'Promised Land'?

You guessed it: Mars.

The world events today appear to be symbolically anticipating mankind's imminent migration to the Red Planet on which will likely be found enough water to sustain a full-blown civilization soon (this is probably where Mars Odyssey comes in).

We are going back to our Genesis, the First Time, the Golden Age, the Age of Osiris.

America is no longer the 'New World'. Mars is. And this is actually part of what I had in mind when I stated in early 2000:

Now, I'm not sure if I want to say this... but here is something that the data I have is suggesting to me.  It's that the year 2000/2001 is to bring to the United States one of the biggest events the country has ever experienced.  This is not something I 'believe' or based on 'millennial' mentality; it's just what the data I have (not presented on this website) is suggesting to me.  The key concepts attached to this are termination and 'New World'.

Mars is Osiris. And Osiris is being resurrected like a rising Morning Star. It is time for a Total Recall.

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