Saint Seiya The Hades PS2 Walkthrough#13-Inframundo

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Best Satanism: A Guide to the Awesome Power of Satan for $13.74

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Satanism: A Guide to the Awesome Power of Satan Overview

This is a handy, comprehensive guide to a wide range of topics relating to the awesome power and cult of Satan, in myriad forms and under many different names, from ancient times to the present. Distilled from hundreds of reliable sources both religious and secular, the entries include men and movements, orders and objects, rites, rituals, incantations, legends, and occult practices that have fascinated the mind of man through the ages.

This book contains facts relating to a host of unorthodox beliefs and irrational acts which have only recently come to light. The simple manner in which even the most abstruse topics are handled will open the mysterious world of darkness to readers with no prior knowledge of the occult and to intrigue and inform those who seek to extend their knowledge of the subject. This lexicon defines all terms in satanic lore and witchcraft as well as offering sketches of prominent figures in the field over the centuries.

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The Routledge Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons (Routledge Dictionaries) Review

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The Routledge Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons (Routledge Dictionaries) Overview

This dictionary covers, in one volume, over 1,800 of the most important deities and demons from around the world. From classical Greek and Roman mythology to the gods of Eastern Europe and Mesopotamia, from Nordic giants to Islamic jinns and Egyptian monsters, it is packed with descriptions of the figures most worshipped and feared around the world and across time. Fully cross-referenced and featuring two handy guides to the functions and attributes shared by those featured, this dictionary is the essential resource for anyone interested in comparative religion and the mythology of the ancient and contemporary worlds.

Clash of the Titans -TV Spot 6 [HD]

Release Date: April 2.

Great Price for $8.67 Mythology for Dummies

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Mythology for Dummies Overview

Every culture and time has its myths. You might say that myths help us to understand people, since just like people they can be inspirational and beautiful, as well as cruel and violent. The main players in mythology are the original drama kings and queens — they hang themselves in shame, poke out their own eyes, rule cities, and marry their relatives — and the fun doesn’t stop there! If you want all the scoop on gods and goddesses, fates and furies, monsters and heroes from around the world, Mythology for Dummies is the Who’s Who of mythological figures that you can’t do without.

It’s no secret that mythology can be confusing for anyone. From cultural hero Johnny Appleseed, to manly Odysseus, to femme fatale Aphrodite, and those pesky Cyclops running amuck on that faraway island, Mythology for Dummies covers all the bases, including information on:

• Greek mythology
• Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey
• Roman mythology
• Virgil’s Aeneid
• Beowulf
• Non-European mythology

Also, this book will get you up to speed on the heavy stuff—like how mythology intersects with our lives, and explores the meaning of existence. Organized into chapters on specific topics, it breaks down the common types of myths and mythological figures, and offers plain-English explanations of how myths have appeared in cultures throughout the ages. You’ll find what you need to know on these topics and many more:

• What makes myths different from legends and fairy tales
• Greek creation myths and those really ancient Greek Gods
• The Olympian Gods (taller, younger, and better looking than you)
• The Greek goddesses (the fairest and the meanest of them all)
• Heroes — made, born, and re-born
• Mythological places from Elysium Fields, to Atlantis, and Xanadu
• Roman religion — how it was begged, borrowed, and stolen

You’ll also enjoy helpful features like charts comparing major figures, and a tear-out tip-sheet with a timeline of world civilizations. Whether you want to dabble in the wonders of mythology or get serious, Mythology for Dummies will demystify the subject, and show you how important myths can be to a culture. You’ll never say, “It’s only a myth” again!

Check Out AFTERLIFE: GREEK AND ROMAN CONCEPTS: An entry from Macmillan Reference USA's <i>Encyclopedia of Religion</i> for $6.90

AFTERLIFE: GREEK AND ROMAN CONCEPTS: An entry from Macmillan Reference USA's Encyclopedia of Religion Review

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AFTERLIFE: GREEK AND ROMAN CONCEPTS: An entry from Macmillan Reference USA's Encyclopedia of Religion Overview

This digital document is an article from Encyclopedia of Religion, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses. The length of the article is 3312 words. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser. The second edition of this highly regarded encyclopedia, preserving the best of the first edition's cross-cultural approach, while emphasizing religion's role within everyday life and as a unique experience from culture to culture, this new edition is the definitive work in the field for the 21st century. An international team of scholars and contributors have reviewed, revised and added to every word of the classic work, making it relevant to the questions and interests of all researchers.

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Children's Book of Mythical Beasts and Magical Monsters Overview

Discover the adventures of heroes and monsters that exist in the world of mythical and magical creatures!

Stories have been told on every continent since the dawn of time, and some have lasted for thousands of years, becoming what we know today as myths. These fantastical tales educate and fascinate by creating amazing worlds and inhabiting them with wondrous feats of heroics and dastardly deeds of evil. Children's Book of Mythical Beasts & Magical Monsters gives children the opportunity to discover these stories, and encourages them to understand storytelling from different cultures.

Orpheus and Eurydice Act 1 Scene 1 (Streets of New Orleans)

based on the 1959 movie by Marcel Camus. The story is an ancient Greek myth of two lovers, Orpheus and Eurydice; Orpheus is a young man who can make the sun rise with the beauty of his voice, and Eurydice is his tragic love. On their wedding day, Eurydice is dancing through a meadow when she is bitten on the heel by a snake. She immediately dies and her soul goes to Hades, the underworld where all souls go after death. Bereft of his young bride, Orpheus decides to go down to the underworld and plead with Hades to release Eurydice back to him. At first, Hades refuses, but when Orpheus begins to sing, even the God of the Dead is moved to tears and agrees to allow Eurydice to return above ground to join the living, but on one condition - that Orpheus cannot look upon her face until they reach above ground. If Orpheus looks back at her while they are still in Hades' dominion, then Eurydice will return to him as his prisoner and Orpheus will never see her alive again. The two lovers begin their trek but just as Orpheus sees the sunlight breaking through the mouth of the cave above ground, he can no longer restrain himself and he turns with shining eyes to gaze upon his beloved. But alas, in his eagerness to be with his love, Orpheus has broken Hades' condition and with a cry of despair Eurydice is drawn back into the depths of the underworld, never to be seen by Orpheus or any living creature again. The story has been updated to present day Mardi Gras in New Orleans. A young ...

[Dead God's Wrath] The Requiem of Hope (The Day Hope Died)

Okay, here's a simple video I did for my character Hope for Dead God's Wrath RP. I had decided instead of making one long video about Hope's past, I'd make several mini ones, breaking her past into sections. Well, I meant to go in order, but happened to finish this one first. So here you go. This one in particular shows the last days of Hope's life before she died. Read below for more details. Story: Okay the video starts out with Hope weeping, this takes place right after she challenges Hades, her father. All this is apart of Hades scheme to get her to join the god's side of the war and fight for him. He had killed Hope's husband. To get his soul back, Hope challenged Hades and he accepted. He bet her if she could survive 10 days of a lifetime of pain, he'd free her husband and promised that they would never have to feel pain again as long as they lived. Well, Hades didn't play fair. He chained her to a cell wall, telling her he'd be back and that it was meant to keep her from running away. But really, Hades directed all of the pain he promised onto the people of the village, not Hope. It was all apart of his plan, though. The people, dieing of fire, starvation, and disease would give anything to free themselves from their sufferings even if it meant sacrificing an innocent woman. And that was exactly what Hades told them to do. He told them where Hope was and said she was the blame for the plagues and that she should be burned to repent for her sins. Before hand, to ...

Beat Generation

1 Introduction:

The Beat Generation emerged in America in 1950s, which turned out to be a suffocating age. The intensively industrialized civilization brought about economic affluence but led to the mental bareness. Individuality and freedom had been deprived of mercilessly .The beat movement not only announced the spring of a new literary conception but also predicted an overall liberation of mind. And much more importance was attached to the choice of their life made in the hard times. Nearly all the members were gays, and had the experience of drug smoking. They embraced the extreme individualism, and took the morbid craze as an effective means to break through the bound of conventional moral and legal system.

They recorded the experience of themselves and revealed the truth of bottom through their works, giving a long howl of pain to the modern civilization, which deprived the human freedom. In their eyes, the arts and behaviors were closely related; the arts reflected the behaviors, while the behaviors embodied the arts.

Among the influential members were Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. The term "beat generation" was introduced by Jack kerouac sometime around 1948 to describe his social circle. The major beat writings included Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Allen Ginsberg's Howl and William Burroughs' Naked Lunch.

Allen Ginsberg was probably one of the best-known contemporary poets in recent history. He was born in 1926 in Newark. Many of his writings were interpreted as controversial and obscene. The reading of Howl resulted in the arrest of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the owner of City Lights Books, on obscenity charges. The authorities objected to Ginsberg's openness concerning his homosexuality as well as the graphic sexual language. Many of his other writings deal with subjects such as narcotics.

William Burroughs was born in1914 in St. Louis. He was well known for his openly homoerotic tendencies and his experiments with narcotic substances. Most of his writing centered on the underworld and drug sub-cultures and his film, Naked Lunch, achieved cult status.

Jack Kerouac was born in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts. As the author of the infamous novel, On the Road, Kerouac became a leader and a spokesman for the Beat Movement. Many critics often questioned Burrough's literary merit, observing that much of his work was mundane rambling that encouraged and glorified a world of drugs and immorality.

2 The social background of the beat movement

The beat movement broke out in special social and political background in America. After World War II, the America began to tend to a closed society. Intensive mechanization and more application of new technology deprived of the people's privacy and freedom, and was taken as the supreme ideology, which could completely manipulate the man and the surroundings. The abuse of nuclear weapon created new source of terror, convincing people that human would be devastated by the power of science. As the escalating of power of the Pentagon, many military bases were set up all over the world to open a way for the American supremacy policy. The traditional tolerant ideas for the differences of the ideology had degenerated into the zeal for the political uniformity. The respect for individuality had been denied, which was replaced by the suppress of the public opinion and censorship for writing works. This industrialization development guided America into the economic affluence but led to the mental lack and loss of honestness. In the stifling atmosphere, the beat movement aroused surprisingly. It initiated a new style full of freedom. The beats were taken as a group of cynics, addicted to the drug, crimes and homosexuality. They took themselves as a band of vagrants forsaken by the orthodox culture, a group of vanguards holding a new and eccentric outlook on morals, a group of anonymous writers creating only for themselves.

3 The outlook of beats on life

3.1 The root of the beats' outlook on life

The outlook of beats on life was rooted in the radical romantic philosophy. They were in turn influenced by William Blake, Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau. They carried forward the Thoreau's attitude to life --radical idealism, which was full of the skeptics about the industrial civilization and strong desire for the return to natural idyllic life. Like Whitman and Blake, they extolled all creatures and advocated the typical American style purity, simplicity, and freshness.

3.2 The rejection of the prevailing American middle class values

Then, the beats rejected the prevailing American middle class values, which aimed at the pursuit of ease and comfort. They showed strong contempt for the comfortable but very dull life style of middle class, and compared it to " a pool of the stagnant water "which stifled the breath of individual freedom to death. They turned a blind eye to the convention and pursued the new exciting life full of the adventure and surprise, which had broken through the restriction of conventional morals. The beats drank themselves in the drug, and crimes, and took these as the bliss of life, as they thought that they lived for themselves and considered themselves as the championship for the liberty. But everything turns to the opposite when it reaches to the extreme. So the beats' excessive violation of convention and riot against orthodoxy incurred bitter and fierce slander and censure from many critics. They were nicknamed "desperados", a group of illicit who wantonly broke the laws to satisfy their mean desires. The beats attempted to prove their firm faith in the freedom with the unorthodox views on life. But their lifetime efforts turned out to vain, only got a little approval and compassion.

3.3 The pursuit of the individualism

The beats found the American convention of respect for individuality had been corrupted by the industrial civilization. They felt such a sense of suffocation that they had never experienced ever since as to try to seek a new field for individual development. "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked", Allen Ginsberg gave such a howl of pain to the industrial civilization in his Howl. They accepted the reclusive life with pleasures to withdraw from the uproar of community. The beats lived in solitude, and created amazing works in the tranquility. They found the quiet life was a good way to break away from the moral restriction and legal sanction. When they embraced the excluded values on the world, they were doomed to be sent into floating vagrant life.

It seemed that the beats were satisfied with this life. They roamed about everywhere all over the world. And the roaming life turned out to be an effective means to escape from the worldly uproar, as there were no conception of family, career and community in their mind. They solved the puzzle of the life and searched for the source of artistic creation during the ceaseless roaming experience. Besides, the beats upheld fanatically the anarchism. They abused the corrupted government, and compared it to the "cancer cell" parasized on the national regime. Burroughs considered that the federation was operated by a handful of political gangsters who plotted to set up a centralized state to intrude on the freedom and privacy of public.

4 The beats'outlook on the literature

Beside the unique outlook on life, the beats as a school of literary scholars also set up a brand new style and model for the literary creation. The beats upheld a true and typical American literature, which was free, open and fresh. They put forward a new aesthetic standard of literature to break through the constraint of convention and rejected the prevailing academic attitude to poetry. These standards could be characterized in the following terms:

(1) They based the poetry on the true experience of life and made their works the true record of realistic life.

(2) They emphasized the uglification and distort of humanity to reflect the deformed development of society.

(3) They held absolute faith in the instinct and opposed the modification and polish.

(4) The inspiration of creation originated in the free and unconstrained flow of association.

(5) Created a new and exciting rhythm to coordinate with the free association.

And these items would be explained in details as follows.

4.1 The true record of realistic life

Nobody but the beats could bring the true fragments of individual experience into the literary creation. Their works were almost the portray true to life .The beats initiated the style of confession. They persistently recorded the real feelings of their own lives in their writings. "Truth is beauty", which was the generally acknowledged principle governing the creation of the literature. Under the guide of this principle, the beats took the realistic life as suitable subjects of works and worshipped them as totems. In 1950s Kerouac lived in Mexico and suffered from the severe disease and poverty, though he still worked hard regardless of the hard condition. And the hero of his work On the Road Dean was complete reproduction of himself. Dean led a rootless and purposeless life. He didn't know what to do, and where to go. His conduct was driven by the changing weird ideas coming out of the mind.

The capricious temperaments of Dean was surprisingly similar to Kerouac himself. A friend of Kerouac said that talking with Kerouac was like talking with many people, because his mood was fluctuating like the turbulent waves. The beats' works were also true exposition of their own nature. The characters in beats' work were almost blemished by some flaws in the morals: drug-smoking, excessive drinking, homosexuality, criminal offences. As the characters of works, the beats played the same parts in their own lives. They indulged in the drug and crimes .The beats took this exposition of nature as an aesthetic standard. They held that arts and the behaviors should mutually influence. The arts reflected the behaviors, while behaviors performed the arts and supplied source materials for arts.

4.2 The beats' emphasis on the dehumanization and the distort of humanity
The beats' emphasis on the spiritual dehumanization was direct respond to the American self-betray and self-damage. The America was undergoing a continuous decline, while the uglification symbolized regeneration. The beats' efforts to extend the literature theme were unprecedented. Nothing could not be listed into the scope of literary description: naked sleeper, vagrants, drug-smoker, rioting face, even the prostitutes on the street. Anything could be the object of description. The beats' works manifested a kind of open life without the restriction of the orthodox morals. They took the corrupt life as a longstanding reality and an effective means to expose the darkness of society. They also found it the outlet to drain the mental stress for them. William Burroughs brought the drug and homosexuality scenes into the poetry in 1950s. He portrayed the agony of mental torture and used the obscene language, which was full of bitter satires. His representative work Naked Lunch displayed a nightmare-like picture full of gloomy and terrible scenes.

In Naked Lunch Burroughs transforms the body's addictive nature into an entity called the "Human Virus" or the "evil virus." The virus lives upon the human host, satisfying its own needs for drugs, sex, or power (the three basic addictions for Burroughs) through demonic possession, which dehumanizes the human being by making him subservient to a physical or psychological need. When addicted or possessed, the human being becomes identical with the virus and regresses to a lower form of life. Through the distort of human nature, Burroughs expressed the pain of people lived in the morbid developing society and brought the dark side of humanity to light. Allen Ginsberg's Howl had been accused for the radical views and vulgar language when it was published. He aimed the target of attack at the mechanical civilization of America after the World War II, and cursed it as "Robot apartments! Invisible suburbs! Skeleton treasuries! Blind capitals! Demonic industries! Spectral nations! Invincible mad houses! Granite cocks! Monstrous bombs!"

The Kerouac 's On the Road is the true record of another abnormal life. The hero was an absolute insane, who was driven by the bizarre ideas in the mind. He took delight in his absurd behaviors and drank himself in the wild sensual stimulus. The deviation from the normal model showed that the beats had shifted from the singing of virtue to the distort of the human nature, which proved to be an effective tool for uncovering of the deformed development of society. Whitman's conception of affinity (also the compassion for everything) played the role of mould in Ginsberg's poem. Whitman loudly appealed to the public: everything was born equally. Anything including the pirates, the prostitutes, the slaver, the businessman could be brought into the works. This practice influenced Allen Ginsberg greatly. Ginsberg began to accept that the poetical language came from the usual language of common people. And he declared that the writers should embrace the commonplace, explore and defer to the popular and mean things.

4.3 The absolute faith in the instinct and opposing of the modification
The beats attached much importance to the instinct and held that the words were the voice of mind. Kerouac suggested that writers should regardless follow the initial impulse from the bottom, which was regarded as the aesthetics of poetry creation. This view carried forward the William Wordsworth's philosophy of poetry creation: "All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling". This theory also came from the Surrealism，which emphasized the casual stream of consciousness, aiming to display the real thinking process without the control of morals or the aesthetical standards. Surrealism held that the poetry is indeed a form of discovery through the illusion. The surrealist induced the spontaneous illusory feelings. Ginsberg went on with the theory of surrealism .He claimed that "These psalms are the workings of the vision haunted mind and not that reason which never changes." He took notice of the ideas from the flashing across the mind in the dream, and took them as the preposition of realistic poetical creation. In order to recall the spontaneous feelings, the beats brought the drug smoking and the meditation of Buddhism into poetry creation. The effect of drug was marvelous. It could create mysterious illusion. Coleridge claimed that his KublaKhan was completed in the fantasy produced by the marijuana.

Ginsberg also tried to extend the scope of consciousness at risk of the damage of the drug to his body. He wrote as he took the drugs and drunk himself into the spontaneous illusion produced by the acid. Besides, they also learned a lot from the Meditation. Through the tranquil thinking, they got themselves into the wild imagination and dismissed the turmoil inference from the mind. Then the stream of thought would gush out from the bottom. The beats took the process of creation as the improvisation of Jazz. They wrote what they thought of by instinct. They pursued the unexpected ceaseless stream of consciousness, constantly using the changing images to go on the waves of consciousness, because in their eyes the cease means the death. The firm faith in the instinct made the beats unanimously oppose the modification: they held that literature should express common and pure feelings freely, instead of the obscure and complicated structure of rhetoric.

Writers should record instantly what he thought of, rather than make modification afterwards. In their eye, modification meant disguise of truth as well as the lie told before the practical experience. Allen Ginsberg held absolute faith in the instinctual impulse, so he never regarded the etiquette or used the soft euphemism. In his poem America, he cursed the American abuse of nuclear bomb, and yelled " Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb", which not only made many critics trembling with amazement but also caused the much agitation in the American literary arena.

4.4 The inspiration of creation from the fluent association

The beats broke the formal logic of convention verse and put the stress on the free flowing stream of consciousness. Kerouac thought that the beauty of poem originated from the free and fluent association. In this respect, Kerouac carried forward romantic philosophy of Wordsworth to its limit. He held that writers should recollect an act or feeling through the free association, and he replaced this normal flow of consciousness stream with the wild fantasy, which could achieve the goal of: letting the consciousness flow smoothly. The writers' purpose is "struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind", which should be violent and unconstrained from the bottom. The beats delighted in the extreme release of feelings and tried to find a kind of language, which could not block the free flow of the consciousness stream. They realized the importance of the natural language, which broke through the restriction of the conventional language. There was no logical language structure in Whitman's mind during the process of creation. He released the waves of fantasy regardless of the pattern of verse meter.

So his verse was like the fluid melody charged with the wild ecstasy. Kerouac maintained that "no periods separating sentence-structures already arbitrarily riddled by false colons and timid usually needless commas-but the vigorous space dash separating rhetorical breathing". So the punctuation marks should also be omitted so that the sentences could be completely in harmony with the consciousness stream. William Burroughs invented a new writing technique --shifting. He collected some fragments from the extensive reading, casual conversation, and newspaper, and then rearranged them into a whole.

This unique technique made the images in his works shift quickly from one to another, and produced an extraordinary momentum and energy, which were in step with rate of free association. For example, the scenes in the Nake Lunch changed rapidly, "In Yemen, Paris, New Orleans, Mexico City and Istanbul"; in a sentence emerged five scenes. Besides, in his works, nearly all the logical transition structure such as the link words were dismissed on purpose for the smooth flow of association. As a result, the steam of consciousness could skip from one image to another swiftly. This means was applied skillfully in the beginning of Allen Ginsberg's Howl.

Ginsberg listed a series of sentences led by the word "who" to describe the "the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness":

"Who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,

Who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake light tragedy among the scholars of war,

Who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,

Who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall,

Who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,

Who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night".

These successive turbulent scenes were linked closely without any transition, and caused a burst of irresistible impact, which carried the consciousness stream through without stopping.

5 Conclusion

The beats initiated a free style. They gave free rein to their literary creation and meanwhile embraced unconventional life style. They always took themselves as the sages bearing the mission of supplying more alternatives for the life and literature. The significance of beat movement was reflected on their efforts to set up more new standards of life. When the mainstream of history tends to the uniform model, the revolting outlook on life supplied new choices. These choices mean the creation, which means more new choices coming from the creation. But the beats' efforts to create more choices came to naught. The crazy life style pursued by beats in the youth did not bring more choices. They ate their own bitter fruit when they entered their declining years.

Some were mysteriously missing and others yielded to the criticism from the public. The new conception of literary creation advanced by the beats turned out to be eliminated by the ruthless materialization in that age. Almost half a century has passed, the beats had chanted their own elegy of life and literature. As the fellows behind them, when faced with the deafening lines, the spontaneous voice of the mind which focused on the terrible experience and association, what would we think of?

In some way, we had been confronted by the choices made as beats. Now we lived in the dull world lacking in the diversity and individuality. The voice of multi-culture was drowned by the uproar of the uniform model, and the liberty of individuality was confined by the rigid dogmatism. Our age is calling the reconstruction of moral standards, the emancipating of the mind as well as enhancing of individuality. We should carry on the values advocated by the beats --liberty, openness. So we think it necessary to make clear that the attitude towards life and literature was the matter of individuality choice, not the impose from the group. In any way, individual choices mean the toleration of things which is disgusted by oneself but maybe appreciated by others.

Dance of the generals - Beitou, Taiwan - feb. 2010

dance of some of the taoists generals at 九天宫, 北投; temple of the Nine Heavens. Among these characters are QiYe (七爺, le one with the tongue out) and BaYe (八爺, the little one). Story says, the two generals were buddy long time ago, and Baye was waiting for his pal at a bridge. Unfortunately, this was flood season. Since he's small, it didn't take long to get him drowned, and when his mate arrived, it was too late, and QiYe hanged himself ( the tongue out comes from it). They are considered as Guardians/gods, and are said to help people going to the underworld, some kind of our greek Charon. The people around throw "ghost money". It's money you have to burn in order to get it through to the world of ghosts. With a pragmactical sense of the real world, it was decided, that, since it is burnt, ghost would see if it is real or fake money, so in the end people keep their savings and just give papres shaped like ancient money to their dead relatives.

My Greek Mythology Search Video

Dont judge me :P Φάτε τα εσώρουχά μου!

Ancient Aliens The Visitors - {s01e02} - Full Length

Next Episode: www.youtube.com The episode proposes that alien visitations have occurred around the globe, and cites as evidence, claims that the Dogon people were given galactic knowledge by a star god the Hopi and Zuni celebrations of Kachinas (or "gods from the sky") that are symbolized with headdress that are said to resemble modern space helmets and that the Chinese Huangdi was a Han leader who came to Earth on a yellow dragon which is suggested to have been a metaphor for a spaceship. ₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪ Playlist: www.youtube.com (Contain all videos for season 1) History Channel -- Ancient Aliens -- The Visitors (Season 1 Episode 2) April 27, 2010 ₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

Is Halloween a Satanic Ritual? Pre-Historic Celts - Halloween and Samhain

Halloween's Ancient Origins

How many of us really know the meaning behind Halloween? Most of us enjoy Halloween, that is with the exception of a few Religious Zealots who believe that it's devilish, and perhaps also a few overly concerned mothers. Halloween has been celebrated differently, at different times and different places. Its lore is nearly as diverse as the costumes that you see parading around on Halloween night. But Halloween has always been a bit of a mystery, and filled with contrariness and revelry, a necessary release of social tension.

Halloween is so much fun, that we almost forget it's a holiday (Holy-Day). At least the Christian Evangelists have, who claim that it is evil and demonic. The founder of the Christian Coalition, Reverend Pat Robertson even went so far as to call it a 'satanic ritual' and did his utmost to have it banned in 1982. He completely ignored the fact that Halloween is most definitely a Christian Holiday and one of the most important ones at that.

It has been celebrated by the Christian Church for over fourteen hundred years, and is one of the six holy days of observance, when high mass is held. Sunday is also one of the six holy days of observance!

You probably know that Halloween is the 'All Saints Day' of the Christian world. Correspondingly, the following day of November 2nd, is 'All Souls Day'. This juxtaposition of days is meant to insure that the Heavenly Saints will look after the souls of the dearly departed. Halloween or 'Hallowtide', as it was once known, was not always observed on the 1st of November, but a much older festival was.

Halloween inherited some of its supernatural flavor, and the tradition of bonfires from this ancient festival but surprisingly little else. Most of the customs we celebrate today, such as wearing costumes and trick-or-treating, originated in Medieval times.

Halloween and the Pre-historic Celts

Imagine what it would be like if you could travel back in time, to a time long before Halloween was celebrated on the cobbled streets of Medieval Europe. Our time machine may not be able to transport you bodily, but it will transport your mind back in time, to explore the ancient festival that Halloween eventually replaced.

It is into the pre-historic world of the Celtic tribes that our journey will take us, and this is where it gets a little tricky, because the Celts didn't use writing. Julius Caesar tells us that, 'They consider it improper to entrust their studies to writing'. The myths, history and tradition of the Celts, were orally recounted, and passed on by the Druidic bards, who sang their sagas at festive gatherings.

"These sagas were part of a long vernacular tradition that was written down centuries later, probably in corrupted and abbreviated form. These stories should be read as clues to the mystery of ancient lore and to the art of storytelling, rather than as straightforward evidence of social practice."1

The Celtic tribes were the fiercest enemies of Rome, and sacked it on four occasions. Yet, much of what we know about the Celtic culture was written by the Romans. What do you think your enemies would write about you? What the Roman's did write, was generally filled with horrifying tales and pernicious propaganda. As exemplified by the Hollywood film, Wicker Man, which was loosely based on Roman accounts of the Celtic celebration of Halloween, their Sahmain.

The most reliable source for us to understand the mysterious culture of the Celts, is by way of their stone age monuments and gold and silver artifacts. Even with our time machine, it is a seemingly impossible task to date the line that divides pre-historic Europe from Celtic Europe, or indeed to tell if such a line even exists. All that we can know with any surety is that the obscure origins of the Celtic tribes lays somewhere between 34,000 years ago, the age of Ireland's old mound of New Grange, and 3300 BC, marking the first construction of Stonehenge.

From Julius Caesar, we also learn that the Celts were divided into aristocratic tribes. They lived in circular houses and formed cozy communities ruled by king like chieftains. We also know that their legendary festivals were held in huge rectangular halls. Some people believe that these were an early prototype of the Medieval Cathedral.

The Celtic Sagas tell us that they were a mystic Culture. Like Halloween itself, the Celts existed between the very real world of daily practicalities and an enchanted world, filled with fairies, fey and supernatural feats. They lived their fearless lives with great zeal and fervour. The Celtic women were the most liberated women in the ancient world. They enjoyed sexual equality and fought side by side with their men in battle.

The men fought without clothes or armour. Can you imagine what they must have looked like? Their naked bodies would have been a terrifying sight. The men were completely shaven except for a moustache, and a wild mane of hair highlighted with powdered limestone. As you may have seen in Mel Gibson's movie 'Brave Heart', some of the men even dyed their bodies blue and wore amulets and huge torcs around their necks.

Halloween and the Ancient Festival of Samhain

Thousands upon thousands of years before the dawn of the Christianity, around the 1st of November, the Celtic tribes celebrated what has become Halloween. It was their Harvest Festival of Samhain (pronounced 'sow-win'). The Celtic calendar of festivals was based on cycles of nature and the agricultural year. They celebrated the Solstices and Equinoxes, as well as the Cross-Quarters in between - Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, Samhain. 2

The eight spoked wheel of the Celtic year, perpetually turns on and on. At each of its eight points, the natural rhythms of the seasons, of our personal lives, of our communities and of the heavens, come into alignment. Like nature itself "people are moved by the rhythms of the earth, its tides of ebb and flow, caused by the cycles of the sun and moon. While the moon magnetically controls the waters, the sun controls the seasons. With the withdrawal of the sun's light, warmth and energy, like nature itself, we automatically draw our energies inwards in order to sustain life".

The Celtic Halloween - Samhain, marked the beginning of the sun's journey into the wintery underworld. The harvest was reaped, the fields lay fallow, the livestock was ritually culled and its meat salted and smoked in readiness for the coming cold. The agricultural year had come to its end, and on Samhain, the Celtic New Year would begin.

Daylight is the summer of the seasons while nighttime corresponds to the winter. The line that divides day and night is at it's thinnest at twilight, at dawn and dusk. Samhain was the dusk of the seasons, when the sun of the old year passed away and entered into the underworld. It was the twilight season, when the veil that separates the world of the living from that of the dead and supernatural, is at its thinnest. So thin that cracks open between the worlds, allowing fairies, ghosts and other supernatural beings to enter the living world.

Samhain was a time of supernatural intensity, when an immense amount of spiritual energy poured into the world. It was a time when divinations were performed to see what the coming year had in store. It was a time of purification and a time of magic and ritual to appease the dead.

In Celtic mythology, Samhain was the day when the tribal god, the Dadha, made love with Morrigan, the raven goddess of war. You might know of Morrigan because in later ages she played the role of the evil sorceress in the legend of King Arthur.

After our brief journey back in time, some of you may be thinking, that even if Halloween isn't Satanic, then Samhain sure sounds like it could be. To put the matter to rest once and for all, there is no way it could be. There is no corresponding god, angel, or any utterly evil being in the Celtic pantheon. In closing, I will once again quote from Nicholas Rogers' extraordinary book, 'Halloween - From Pagan Ritual To Party Night'-

"The belief is satanic cults blossomed only in the late medieval era when it formed part of the persecutory discourse against heretics and witches - long after the demise of Samhain."4

Foot Notes

1. Rogers Nicholas, 'Halloween - From Pagan Ritual To Party Night', Pg 18, Oxford University Press

2. The Cross-Quarter festivals of the Celtic calendar.

A) Imbolc, the spring festival was celebrated on the 1st of February.

B) Beltane, the summer festival was celebrated on the 1st of May.

C) Lughnasadh, the autumn festival was celebrated on the 1st of August.

D) Samhain, the winter festival, like our Halloween, was celebrated on the eve of October 31st and the 1st of November.

3. Paterson Jacqueline, 'Tree Wisdom', Pg 83, Thorsons - Harper and Collins

4. Rogers Nicholas, 'Halloween - From Pagan Ritual To Party Night', Pg 13

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The Great Pyramid

According to standard orthodox Egyptology the pyramid complex on the Giza plateau are funerary structures of the three Pharaohs from the fourth dynasty approximately 2575 - 2465 BC. The Great Pyramid is attributed erroneously to Khufu (Cheops) - with the other two being those of Khafre (Chephren) and Menkaura (Mycerinus).

Author Miroslav Verner writing in The Pyramids stated:

"To suppose that the pyramid's only function in ancient Egypt was as a royal tomb would be an oversimplification."

This is now more true than ever and I am of the opinion that if the pyramids, or more specifically the Great pyramid, was built solely for burial purposes of the given King (Khufu/Cheops) then it was and will remain an unprecedented farce. It is simply unimaginable that so much effort be placed into building a structure of such gargantuan proportions, with such amazing astronomical alignments, with such perfect precision, by thousands of human souls, all for the one purpose of burying their God-King.

In all the pyramids in Egypt, not one has delivered the full body of a Pharaoh. There have been parts - a supposed mummified foot at Djoser; fragments of a mummy in the pyramid of Unas and Pepi; an arm and shoulder at Teti and a skeleton of a young woman in the coffer of the pyramid of Menkaure. But never a full mummified body of a pharaoh that was supposed to be buried within. The Egyptologists claim that this was due to the tombs having been raided over the vast period of time. This may be true, but alternatively it may be that pyramids were used for other purposes as well, or instead of. These body parts discovered within the pyramids may be pharaonic remains, but they could just as easily be more modern burials, placed within the pyramids at a later date. A similar thing is found in the burial mounds of Europe and elsewhere. Here, the burial mounds, as sacred images of the primordial mound, womb of the mother earth or world mountain were Gateways to the Otherworld and for centuries progressive generations would cut into them and make fresh burials. This did not take away the purpose or meaning of the mounds as Gateways. In fact this use utilised the main purpose.

Were these great feats of human ingenuity and skill just for the purpose of encasing the carcass of one man? No. I will show in the book and DVD Gateways to the Otherworld that there was much more to the whole thing. In fact, if they were built for just one man then why did Amenemhet III have two pyramids built, one at Dashur, which contained his granite coffer and one at Hawara with a quartzite coffer? It is claimed that one of these was a cenotaph, which comes from the Greek kenotaphion, meaning "empty tomb". Of course, this is even more remarkable, that a tomb should be built empty, and the reason given by Egyptologists is simply that it would confuse the "tomb raiders". So thieves were stupid then?

The only so-called evidence that the Great Pyramid was built for Khufu is scant to say the least. Herodotus, the infamous Roman historian visited the pyramids in 443 BC and claimed that Khufu was buried underneath the pyramid, not in it. This was two thousand years after the supposed event. We simply cannot trust what we read today in our newspapers, let alone believe Herodotus and his interpretation of what he was lead to believe.

The next piece of "evidence" is extremely controversial as it relies upon some difficult to see, let alone decipher "inscriptions" on a funerary complex near the Great Pyramid claiming to be "in the time of Khufu." Again, and lastly, in the pyramid itself the hieroglyphic symbol for Khufu himself as a quarry mark was discovered by archaeologist Richard Howard-Vyse who is now believed to have forged it under pressure of competition from contemporary foreign archaeologists - namely the Italian Caviglia.

So, we are left with an inscription "near" the pyramid, a fake hieroglyph and a two and a half thousand year old text based upon hearsay. This is hardly evidence for it to be the burial place of Khufu, let alone for anything else, although it is perfectly possible that Khufu was buried at this "special" place where later or earlier a pyramid was constructed. The pyramid however remains an enigma; regardless of what we are led to believe.

This unproven nonsense has pervaded Egyptology ever since, regardless of any other reason for the existence of the pyramids.

Now there is another reason.

The Great pyramid of Giza is to be found arguably at the centre of the earth's landmass (30 degrees north, 31 degrees east) - both north-south and east-west. It is in the perfect location - at the centre - for collecting the "earth energy" as Tesla proved with his experiments on resonance as we shall see, it is also the perfect shape and size. To add to this, the two materials used were also perfect, as I shall explain. But first we need to take a foray into the world of Tesla.

Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was an eccentric and brilliant inventor who managed to harness the alternating current we use today as well as radio, florescent lighting and much more. Tesla believed he could send waves of electricity directly to our homes through the earth and/or ether without the use of wires and without harming anybody along the way by simply applying a subtle push-pull resonator. In 1901 Tesla said "my next step was to use the earth itself as the medium for conducting the currents..." and he did.

Tesla successfully sent electricity 26 miles and extracted it using a "magnifying receiver". This is an incredible thought that energy waves, even extremely low frequency waves, could be sent around the globe and then with a magnifying receiver they could be picked up and understood or used. In fact Tesla even "tuned" in his pyramid shaped magnifying transmitter to the resonance of the earth and found that his co-workers were becoming ill with symptoms of "extreme tension of the nerves."

Tesla discovered that "The Earth was found to be literally alive with electrical vibrations, and soon I was deeply absorbed in this interesting investigation." Tesla continued and revealed his feelings; "My first observations positively terrified me, as there was present in them something mysterious, not to say supernatural." This remarkable supernatural energy will be explained fully in the new book and it has incredible ramifications for us all, and the future of mankind.

"It was some time afterward when the thought flashed upon my mind that the disturbances I had observed might be due to an intelligent control."

It would be many years later that Schumann would discover the resonance of the earth and prove that it had its own wave-particle pattern and that it can be altered by the surrounding universe and any number of other external influences. How does it do this? The chaotic beginnings of the big bang are still very much in the realms of theory and there is another theory, which goes that the universe is a standing wave being pushed and pulled by some impulse. This impulse pushes and pulls the standing wave, which then does the same to its neighbour and hey presto light can travel across the universe as a wave cascade, without loss of energy - a perpetual motion.

Tesla had discovered "intelligent" signals by pure accident and stated the case. Unfortunately through circumstances outside of his own control he never did get around to seriously working on the phenomena and nobody since him has had the intelligence or will to see the issue through. What Tesla discovered however was found within the ELF (electro-magnetic frequency) field, the low frequency band widths. Many people are out there, not least of whom are SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) looking on the megahertz level, when they should be redirecting their search back down to earth and to the extremely low frequency, before the mobile phone masts completely engulf us.

What struck me though was, Tesla's receivers were great towers with pyramids on top and Tesla's insistence that to be at the centre of the land mass (dependent upon where you are) would be far more beneficial to the purpose of the machinery.

So, Tesla discovered the resonance of the earth and that this resonance had intelligent or supernatural attributes. The resonance of the earth is in the same 0-40 Hz as the human "mind", the same mind, which is constantly emitting signals into the environment around it. These signals are much more than just waves, they are also particles - they are therefore "matter".

We see stars in the sky, little lights flickering billions of light years away. Many of these lights are no longer there; they are stars that have died, and yet we still see the light. This light, we now know to be wave-matter-particle; we know it is the continued life of that star. We ourselves, as part and parcel of the whole universal constants and laws of chaos and order, are nothing different to those stars. We are also putting out signals, which will continue as wave-matter-particles, even after we have died.

Amazingly Tesla described these electromagnetic signals as stationery parallel circles forming on the surface of the earth. These are no different to the circles mankind has been perceiving and materialising here on the earth for thousands of years, as stone circles, rock art and all manner of mysterious artefacts. And where would the most powerful, collective electromagnetic current collect other than at the centre of the landmass. As the great and mystical saying Om turns from a circle into a square as it reaches "mmm", so too this great collection of human thought and quantum emotion turns into a square base at the great pyramid in Giza.

So, the Great Pyramid, at the centre of the earth's landmass and as a perfect shape for receiving the resonance of the earth, simply must have a better reason for existing than as a large coffin for one man.

Lets break it all down and move through the various elements one piece at a time.

Great Pyramid

Made up of mainly solid mass with the interior spaces being the Descending and Ascending passages, the Grand Gallery, a subterranean chamber, another chamber unnamed and the King and Queens chambers. The King's chamber (so named by Arabs who attempted to raid the tomb, but found it empty) is 10.46 meters east to west; 5.23 meters north to south and 5.81 meters high. This is an architectural 3 dimensional representation of the Golden Mean or Phi - a sacred geometry well before Pythagorus.

The sides of the Great Pyramid line up almost exactly with the cardinal points (NWSE) on the compass, with an accuracy that would defy today's builders, leaving a fifth point on top. The dimensions of the earth's size and shape can be calculated using the dimensions of the pyramid, it being a scale model of the hemisphere with information on the latitude and longitude of the earth. Adding to this the element of the earth's pre-historic tilt of very approximately 22-25 degrees being built into the whole structure, then we have a truly powerful mathematical building.

The very foundations of the pyramid also defy modern building techniques as it rests perfectly level with not one corner of the base more than 13mm higher or lower than the others. When we remember that the base covers 13 acres we can suddenly understand just how this was an incredible feat of human engineering.

The King's chamber is made of solid red granite transported from the quarries of Aswan six hundred miles away.

In the chamber itself there is a coffer, thought by Egyptologists to be the remains of Khufu's sarcophagus. Nothing was ever found in the coffer, neither was there a lid. It is too big to take out of the corridor leading to and from it - indicating that it must have been laid inside as the building was erected around it, which is opposite to the funerary custom of the period. There is not the slightest piece of evidence to suggest that Khufu be ever laid to rest in this 3 ton granite container. There is nothing, not even any funerary implements or embalming materials, not a scrap. And yet, short of any other ideas, the orthodox situation remains that a building with 2.3 million blocks, weighing between 2.5 and 50 tons each, of perfect size and orientation was built for one man to be buried within. To add to this not one of the fourth dynasty Pharaohs put their names upon the pyramids supposedly built for them, whereas from the fifth dynasty onwards official inscriptions are in their thousands. No wonder I am constantly told by academics that they don't believe the pyramid was a tomb!

So what is the truth of the Great Pyramid? Well, firstly I decided that I should run through some of the theories that have been put forward and some of the more esoteric beliefs, which related to my own quest.

There are legends and traditions that claim the King's chamber to be a place of initiation. I would in part go along with this theory, especially in relation to the rituals required or made surrounding the Gateway mythology. There are also many stories of individuals who have felt peculiar presence's or had mystical experiences within the chamber. There is also the tradition that Napoleon himself actually refused to express what happened to him in that enigmatic place, saying, "You would not believe me if I told you".

According to these modern popular folk tales the coffer itself is the centre of the process or "energy vortex." Writer C. Dunn in his book The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt (Bear & Co, Santa Fe) goes so far as to say that the Great pyramid was a huge geomechanical power plant that responds to the earth's vibrations or resonance and transforms it into energy. Dunn conjectured that the geometric and physical design of the chamber inside the pyramid turned it into a large transducer and has produced a highly scientific analysis of the subject. So there is now scientific experimentation behind these folk tales - but with a very different purpose.

On the medical and scientific side there are stories of amazing healing and sharpened razors. In the 1920's Antoine Bovis discovered that the heat and humidity of the King's chamber reduced the decay rate of dead animals - something denied by orthodoxy still today. Bovis went on to construct a small-scale pyramid and oriented it in the same fashion. He placed a dead cat inside and found the result to be the same. Following this in the 1960's US and Czech researchers repeated the process and achieved the same results.

In the ancient Egyptian language of Khemitian (black people or people from the black) the pyramid was known as Per-Neter, which can be translated in two ways - House of Nature, or more importantly the House of Energy, remarkably like "pyramid", which means Fire in the Middle. It is interesting of course to note that Nature and Energy are interchangeable in this way, indicating that the Khemitians truly saw the energy as from nature itself (herself). Not to mention that the word Neter (NTR) also means neutral, which is the position one supposedly has to be in to gain entry into the Otherworld - i.e. between the gates. Another title of course for the Giza area is Rostau, which means Gateway and is sacred to Osiris and his progenitor Sokar, the God of the Underworld. In the Book of Am-Duat, Sokar inhabits a place of the dead that even Ra, the sun god cannot access - this is therefore a place of darkness or black. Sokar can also be seen in the representations of the fourth and fifth hours of the Duat, standing upon his mound within what seems to be a hill topped by a black conical symbol of some sort. Incidentally and perfectly related, the only way that Ra can traverse this mystical realm is by taking the form of the snake!

According to Reginald Aubrey Fessenden - author of The Deluged Civilisation of the Caucasus Isthmus (1927) - The term 'Rostau' is again a literal translation of E-kur or Akur - meaning the "great mountain" or "great house."
Ak is the first half and comes from Akh, which is "one of the five elements forming the human being seen as an aspect of the sun, the link between the human and the luminous life force. It left the body at death to join the circumpolar stars." Ur is the second half and means city. And so, the location of Akur, where the pyramids are situated means simply the city where the dead leave the body to join the stars. Add this to Rostau, meaning gateway and we truly do have the Stargate.

Writer Zecharia Sitchin tells us that the Sumerians also called their Ziggurat temple in Nippur - (a truncated, stepped-pyramid) - Ekur, a "house which is like a mountain" - but quotes a poem which exalts the goddess Ninkharsag as the mistress of the "House with a Pointed Peak" - a perfect pyramid. This is interesting in that the Sumerian goddess Ninkharsag is synonymous with the Egyptian Goddess Isis. The Inventory Stele - said to have been written by Khufu - states that the monument (Great Pyramid) was dedicated to Isis.

It's possible then that Akur and Akhu both come from the same root words, as does the name Aker, which, according to the studies made by Egyptologists, is also connected with the Sphinx - being the "guardian of the entrance of the Underworld."

The Akhu or 'Shining Ones' - variously named 'Ancestors,' 'Sages,' 'Ghosts' or 'Spirits,' can also mean 'Astral spirits' as associated with the stars.

As for the serpent link, there are many ancient Egyptian illustrations showing human figures on the backs of 'feathered serpents' about to ascend to the stars.

So, why would all three meanings of the Giza area and pyramid, and the myths, relate to both a gateway and to illumination? And why would the people associated with this area be deemed to be special "bright" or "shining" people if not for their seeming ability to access the illumination and hence go through the Rostau or Gateway.

The truth of the Great Pyramid from its history, folklore, legend and language is that the ancient Egyptians saw it as the portal to another world. Not a world of aliens or a parallel universe, but as the perfect ancient machine to enable and to even magnify an internal altered state of consciousness. For thousands of years the tribal shaman would be the guide to the life-after and bring back fortune. He would access caves, holes in the ground and eventually man-made mounds such as Newgrange in Ireland. Over time the shaman became priest, leader, king and pharaoh. He alone could contact the gods and the pyramid is the ultimate extension of this very humanly evolved process.

But this is just the beginning of an amazing tale that will lead us into a world of wonder. For there is something much more amazing about a world full of gateways to the otherworlds.....

Taken from the book and dvd Gateways to the Otherworld by Philip Gardiner

For more about Philip Gardiner see http://www.gardinersworld.com

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Dwarka And The Mahabharata

Every Indian, either living in India or living outside India, knows about the two epics that dominates the Indian psyche and the psyche of the terra firma. These epics are the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The Mahabharata has exercised a continuous and pervasive influence on the Indian mind for millennia. The Mahabharata, originally written by Sage Ved Vyas in Sanskrit, has been translated and adapted into numerous languages and has been set to a variety of interpretations. Dating back to "remote antiquity", it is still a living force in the life of the Indian masses. With more than 74,000 verses, long prose passages, and about 1.8 million words in total, the Mahabharata is one of the longest epic poems in the world. The Mahabharata has a total length of more than 90,000 verses.

Everything about the Mahabharata is huge, from its sprawling length, to the enormous breadth of its vision. The longest of all epics is like an encyclopedia, a world all on its own. At its core is the powerful and moving story of the Pandava and Kaurava cousins who ultimately fight the greatest war of all, Kurukshetra. But that is not all, the Mahabharata is full of mythic stories, vast time spans of history, detailed geography and a massive body of spiritual teachings.

The author of the massive epic is Rishi Vyas, who, according to the text itself, spent three years creating it, rising every morning, and working on it every day. His abode was Vyas Gufa, a cave high in the Himalayas, which is still visited today by travelers on their way to Mansarovar.

In Mahabharata's Musal Parva, the Dwarka is mentioned as being gradually swallowed by the ocean. Krishna had forewarned the residents of Dwaraka to vacate the city before the sea submerged it. The Sabha Parva gives a detailed account of Krishna's flight from Mathura with his followers to Dwaraka to escape continuous attacks of Jarasandh's on Mathura and save the lives of its subjects. For this reason, Krishna is also known as RANCHHOR (one who runs away from the battle-field). Dr. SR Rao and his team in 1984-88 (Marine Archaeology Unit) undertook an extensive search of this city along the coast of Gujarat where the Dwarikadeesh temple stands now, and finally they succeeded in unearthing the ruins of this submerged city off the Gujarat coast. The first archaeological excavations at Dwaraka were done by the Deccan College, Pune and the Department of Archaeology, Government of Gujarat, in 1963 under the direction of H.D. Sankalia. It revealed artifacts many centuries old.

Marine Archaeology Unit (MAU) jointly by the National Institute of Oceanography and the Archaeological Survey of India. Under the guidance of Dr. Rao, a great marine archaeologist, a team consisting of expert underwater explorers, trained diver-photographers and archaeologists was formed. The technique of geophysical survey was combined with the use of echo-sounders, mud-penetrators, sub-bottom profilers and underwater metal detectors. This team carried out 12 marine archaeological expeditions between 1983 to 1992 and articles and antiquities recovered were sent to Physical Research Laboratory for dating. By using thermo-luminescence, carbon dating and other modern scientific techniques, the artifacts were found to belong to the period between 15th to 18th century B.C. In his great work, The Lost City of Dwaraka, Dr. Rao has given scientific details of these discoveries and artifacts.

Between 1983 to 1990, the well-fortified township of Dwaraka was discovered, extending more than half mile from the shore. The township was built in six sectors along the banks of a river. The foundation of boulders on which the city's walls were erected proves that the land was reclaimed from the sea. The general layout of the city of Dwaraka described in ancient texts agrees with that of the submerged city discovered by the MAU.

The ASI conducted a second round of excavations in 1979 under S.R. Rao's direction. He found a distinct pottery known as lustrous red ware, which could be more than 3,000 years old. Based on the results of these excavations, the search for the sunken city in the Arabian Sea began in 1981. Scientists and archaeologists have continually worked on the site for 20 years.

The UAW began excavations at Dwaraka again from January 2007. Dr. Tripathi said: "To study the antiquity of the site in a holistic manner, excavations are being conducted simultaneously both on land [close to the Dwarakadhish temple] and undersea so that finds from both the places can be co-related and analyzed scientifically."

The objective of the excavation is to know the antiquity of the site, based on material evidence. In the offshore excavation, the ASI's trained underwater archaeologists and the divers of the Navy searched the sunken structural remains. The finds were studied and documented.

On land, the excavation is being done in the forecourt of the Dwarakadhish temple. Students from Gwalior, Lucknow, Pune, Vadodara, Varanasi and Bikaner are helping ASI archaeologists. In the forecourt, old structures including a circular one have been found. A small cache of 30 copper coins was discovered.

"Within the past few months, the engineers began some dredging operations there and they pulled up human fossil bones, fossil wood, stone tools, pieces of pottery and many other things that indicated that it indeed was a human habitation site that they had. And they were able to do more intensive sonar work there and were able to identify more structures. They appeared to have been laid out on the bank of a river that had been flowing from the Indian subcontinent out into that area. ( That river was the legendary saraswati river ) According to the news releases, they have done a radiocarbon testing on a piece of wood from the underwater site that is now yielding an age of 9,500 years which would place it near the end of the last Ice Age. There were actually two radiocarbon dates: one about 7500 years old and another about 9500 years old. The 9500 year old one seems to be the strongest one. That's the one they are going with. This was announced by Minister Joshi ( Murli Manohar Joshi was the Indian Minister for Ocean Technology then ). Mahabharata was then a reality and it was not a cock and bull story concocted by Ved Vyas.

Ved Vyas also described the city of Dwarka in great details. The poets described Dwarka as a city so golden that it cast its radiance on the ocean for miles around it. Dwar means door, and Dwarka is a city of many doors or a gateway. It was an island, connected to the mainland by many bridges, and legend says that Krishna asked Vishwakarman, the architect of the gods to build him a city more beautiful than any before it.

Krishna chose a remote location, far beyond the reach of Jarasandh. He picked distant Dwarka on the western coast of India, far from Mathura, and spent a year putting his plans into action. He built on the sunken remains of a previous kingdom, Kushasthali, which itself was built on older ruins, all underwater. Krishna reclaimed a hundred miles of land from the sea and called in Vishwakarman, the architect of the gods to give him a city that was the envy of the world.

The Mahabharat and the Bhagwat Puran and other texts, describe the wonders of Dwarka. The most expensive and luxurious materials were used. In those days of unbelievable riches, it was quite common to use precious stones, gold and silver as construction material. Royalty and rich nobles invariably used gold, those who could not afford it used silver or metal.

Dwarka was a city of rose and gold. The palaces and many of the mansions were built of gold, over which pink lotus domes towered, topped by soaring golden spires. The floors were made of emeralds. Precious stones studded the walls and crystal arches curved overhead, inlaid with gold. The houses were beautifully decorated and sculptures adorned the walls. Even the cowsheds were made of silver, brass and iron.

Seen in this beautiful picture is lord Krishna coming to the island city of dwarka

Dwarka was a very well planned city, following the highly developed science of town planning. The architect, Vishwakarman, first mapping out the highways, lanes, gates and parks. He sectioned off plots and divided the city into six zones, residential and commercial. He planned out the port and created the bridges and gateways and the fortifications. Everything was laid out in detail before the construction began.

Like many kingdoms of the time Dwarka had a passport system. Its citizens were issued with a clay seal which had to be presented when they entered or left the massive gates. The seal of Dwarka was a mythical three headed dog and seals matching the description have been found in the undersea ruins today.

In the Newspaper The Hindu dated 23 Feb 2007 an article was published which I reproduce here vervatim." CHENNAI: Ancient structural remains of some significance have been discovered at Dwaraka, under water and on land, by the Underwater Archaeology Wing (UAW) of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Alok Tripathi, Superintending Archaeologist, UAW, said the ancient underwater structures found in the Arabian Sea were yet to be identified. "We have to find out what they are. They are fragments. I would not like to call them a wall or a temple. They are part of some structure," said Dr. Tripathi, himself a trained diver.

Thirty copper coins were also found in the excavation area. The structures found on land belonged to the medieval period. "We have also found 30 copper coins. We are cleaning them. After we finish cleaning them, we can give their date," he said.

Dwaraka is a coastal town in Jamnagar district of Gujarat. Traditionally, modern Dwaraka is identified with Dvaraka or Dvaravati, mentioned in the Mahabharata as Krishna's city. Dwaraka was a port, and some scholars have identified it with the island of Barka mentioned in the Periplus of Erythrean Sea. Ancient Dwaraka sank in sea and hence is an important archaeological site." My idea is not to go in the discussion of how the city went under the sea but the fact is that this city is now approximately under water of the Arabian sea some 135 feet below water. This city has been mentioned in the Mahabharata and that this city has been found, dated, and mapped. The probable date of this city is between 9500 to 7500 years before present which will put it as 7500 to 5500 years BC.

Mahabharata was not a fictional epic but a reality is also evident from the works of many scholars who have done extensive work in this area, and by getting all the facts together what comes out of the whole is the fact that the near about exact dates of the major happenings in the epic has also been identified. This at least proves that the Vedic civilization is a much older phenomenon than perceived by many western scholars till date.

There is a striking inscription which has been found in the Jain Temple at Aihole prepared by one Chalukya King Pulakeshi. It says, according to scholars, that the temple was constructed in 30+3000+700+5 = 3735 years, after the Bharat War and 50+6+500 = 556 years of Shaka era in Kali era. Today Shaka era is 1910. Hence 1910- 556 = 1354 years ago the temple was constructed. Thus the year of inscribing this note is 634 AD. At this time 3735 years had passed from the Bharat War. So the date of the War comes to 3101 BC. This is also the date of Kali Yuga Commencement. Naturally, it is evident that relying on the beginning of Kaliyuga Era and holding that the War took place just before the commencement of Kaliyuga,

The verse inscribed is :

Trinshatsu Trisahasreshu Bhaaratdahavaditaha | Saptabda Shatayukteshu
Gateshwabdeshu Panchasu | Panchashatasu Kalaukale Shatasu Panchashatsu
cha | Samatsu Samatitasu Shakaanamapi Bhoobhujaam ||

The verses has been interpreted by considering the clauses of the verse. It says "3030 years from the Bharat War" in the first line, ( Trinshatsu Trisahasreshu Bhaaratdahavaaditaha) where the first clause of the sentence ends. in the second line, the second clause starts and runs up to the middle of the third line thus ( Saptabda.....Kalaukale) This means 700+5+50 = 755 years passed in the Kali Era. It is clear from the former portion of the verse that 3030 years passed from the Bharat War and 755 years passed from Kali Era. Kali Era started from 3101 BC. 755 years have passed so 3101-755 = 2346 BC is the year when 3030 years had passed from the Bharat War. So 2346+3030 = 5376 BC appears to be the date of Bharat War.

The Greek Ambassador Magasthenis has recorded that 138 generations have passed between Krishna and Chandragupta Maurya. Many scholars have taken this evidence, but taking only 20 years per generation they fixed the date of Krishna as 2760 years before Chandragupta. But this is wrong because the record is not of ordinary people to take 20 years per generation. In the matter of general public, one says that when a son is born a new generation starts. But in the case of kings, the name is included in the list of Royal Dynasty only after his coronation to the throne. Hence, one cannot allot 20 years to one king. We have to find out the average per king by calculating on various INDIAn Dynasties. I have considered 60 kings from various dynasties and calculated the average of each king as 35 years. Here is a list of some of important kings with the no. of years ruling.

Chandragupta Mourya 330-298 B.C. 32 years.

Bindusar 298-273 B.C. 25 years.

Ashok 273-232 B.C. 41 years.

Pushyamitra Shunga 190-149 B.C. 41 years.

Chandragupta Gupta 308-330 A.D. 22 years.

Samudragupta 330-375 A.D. 45 years.

Vikramaditya 375-414 A.D. 39 years.

Kumargupta 414-455 A.D. 41 years.

Harsha 606-647 A.D. 41 years.

---------

327 years.

The average is 327/9 = 36.3 years.

Multiplying 138 generations by 35 years we get 4830 years before Chandragupta Mourya. Adding Chandrgupta's date 320 B.C. to 4830 we get 5150 B.C. as the date of Lord Krishna. Megasthenis, according to Arian, has written that between Sandrocotus to Dianisaum 153 generations and 6042 years passed. From this data, we get the average of 39.5 years per king. From this we can calculate 5451 years for 138 generations. So Krishna must have been around 5771 B.C. Pliny gives 154 generations and 6451 years between Bacchus and Alexander. This Bacchus may be the famous Bakasura who was killed by Bhimasena. This period comes to about 6771 years B.C. Thus Mahabharata period ranges from 5000 B.C. to 6000 B.C. and Dwarka fits into this scenario perfectly.

Mahabharata mentions the ancient tradition as 'Shravanadini Nakshatrani', i.e., Shravan Nakshatra was given the first place in the Nakshatra- cycle (Adi-71/34 and Ashvamedh 44/2) Vishwamitra started counting the Nakshatras from Shravan when he created 'Prati Srushti'. He was angry with the old customs. So he started some new customs. Before Vishvamitra's time Nakshatras were counted from the one which was occupied by the sun on the Vernal Equinox. Vishvamitra changed this fashion and used diagonally opposite point i.e. Autumnal Equinox to list the Nakshtras. He gave first place to Shravan which was at the Autumnal Equinox then. The period of Shravan Nakshatra on autumnal equinox is from 6920 to 7880 years B.C. This was Vishvamitra's period at the end of Treta yuga. Mahabharat War took place at the end of Dwapar yuga. Subtracting the span of Dwapar Yuga of 2400 years we get 7880 - 2400 = 5480 B.C. as the date of Mahabharat War.

Recently Dr. S.B. Rao, Emeritus Scientist of the National Institute of Oceanography, Dona Paula, Goa, 403004, has discovered under the sea, Dwaraka and dated it as between 5000 to 6000 BC. This news has been published by all the leading newspapers on 22nd October 1988. Many works of the Vedic and Puranic tradition contain a sufficient number of clues in the form of astronomical observations which can be used to determine the approximate date of Mahabharata and thus establish the historical authenticity of the events described in this great epic. Notable among these works are the Parashar Sanghita, the Bhagvat Puran, Shakalya Sanghita, and the Mahabharat itself. Aryabhatta, one of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers of India in the fifth century AD, examined the astronomical evidence described in the Mahabharata in his great work known as the "Aryabhattiya". According to the positions of the planets recorded in the Mahabharata, its approximate date was calculated by Aryabhatta to be 3100 BC implying that the great war described in the Mahabharata was fought approximately 5000 years ago, as most Hindus have always believed.

A number of British scholars of the 19th century, especially Friedrich Max Muller, tried to interpret this astronomical evidence to prove that the observations recorded in Hindu scriptures are imaginary. As an amateur astronomer, I propose to examine the astronomical evidence presented in the Bhagvat Puran and Max Muller's criticism of this evidence in light of the advances made in astronomy in the past fifty years. Max Muller, in the preface to his translation of the Rig Veda, examines the astronomical observations described in the Bhagvat Puran and concludes that these observations are "imaginary", apparently because they did not agree with the prevalent views of the European, primarily British, Indologists of the nineteenth century about the time of the Mahabharata.

Carl Segan, a renowned astronomer at Cornell University, who hosted the public television series "Cosmos" in 1985, pointed out that Hindus were the only ones who came anywhere close to correctly estimating the real age of the universe. Unlike many cultural traditions which treat science and religion as antithetical to each other, the Hindu tradition encourages the study of physics and metaphysics both for a comparative understanding of the true nature of the cosmic mystery surrounding and pervading the universe.

Everything about the Mahabharat is huge, from its sprawling length, to the enormous breadth of its vision. The longest of all epics is like an encyclopaedia, a world all on its own. At its core is the powerful and moving story of the Pandava and Kaurava cousins who ultimately fight the greatest war of all, Kurukshetra. But that is not all, the Mahabharata is full of mythic stories, vast time spans of history, detailed geography and a massive body of spiritual teachings.

In the end I would like to invite my readers to a 9.35 minutes video on http://www.disclose.tv which will precisely show case the antiquity of this great civilization. The link is given below. Copy and paste on the address bar of your browser and press enter.

http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/1134/Dvaraka_Giant_Underwater_City_found_in_India/

Bibliography:

Forbidden Archaeology by Michael cremo, David Frawley.
Underworld by Graham Hancock.
tginvents.com/tushar/MahabharatDating2.htm
hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/mahabharat/mahab_sarasvat.html
epicindia.com/magazine/Culture/the-lost-city-of-dwarka

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Hierapolis in the Heavens: Studies in the Letter to the Ephesians (Library Of New Testament Studies) Overview

"Hierapolis in the Heavens" is a project which brings together several articles and essays that Kreitzer has written on the letter to the Ephesians and follows up a new suggestion which he first put forward in 1997 as to the setting and provenance of the epistle. Nothing quite like this has yet been published on Ephesians, particularly as it does offer some important new archaeological, textual and numismatic evidence for scholarly consideration. The book should also be of interest to social-historians of the first-century world as it argues that the letter we know as "Ephesians" was written to what was, in effect, a daughter-church of the church in Colossae; some intriguing questions about power-relations between churches such as this are opened up as a result.It was formerly known as "The Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement", a book series that explores the many aspects of New Testament study including historical perspectives, social-scientific and literary theory, and theological, cultural and contextual approaches. "The Early Christianity in Context" series, a part of JSNTS, examines the birth and development of early Christianity up to the end of the third century CE. The series places Christianity in its social, cultural, political and economic context. European Seminar on Christian Origins is also part of JSNTS. "Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Supplement" is also part of JSNTS.

The Greek Hero Theseus

Theseus was the son of both king Aegeus of Athens and Poseidon. His mother was Aethra, a princess of Troezan near Athens. His mixed paternity may seem unusual, however the ancient Greeks believed that it was possible for a hero to have two fathers.

Shortly after Aegeus married Aethra he decided to return to Athens. Aethra was instructed to keep their son with her until he was old enough to travel to his father in Athens. Aegeus buried a pair of sandals and a sword under a huge stone and told Aethra that when Theseus could lift the stone and take the items from under it, then he would be ready to come to Athens.

When Theseus came of age he went to the rock and lifted it with ease and took the sandals and sword from under it. Aethra explained that he would have to travel to Athens to meet his father. He could reach Athens by land or sea, however the sea faring route was the safer way, whereas the land based route was full of dangers. Theseus decided to reach Athens by land and thus test his heroic skills.

The 'labours' of Theseus were known as the six entrances to the underworld that were passed as he made his way to Athens.

1. When Theseus reached the sanctuary of Epidaurus (in the Peloponnese) he met Periphetes. Periphetes was the son of Hephaestus and a monstrous creature who owned a bronze club that he used to beat travellers to death with. Theseus beat Periphetes, firstly with a boulder that he threw at the monster and then used the bronze club to finished beating him to death.

2. He next met the monster Siris near the Isthmus (near Corinth). Siris would imprison unwary travellers and tie them to two trees that were bent down to the ground. He would untie the tree, which would tear the unfortunate person apart. Theseus killed Siris in the same way that the monster had killed his victims. Siris had a daughter called Perigune who was raped after Theseus had killed Siris.

3. The next monster Theseus came across was known as the Crommyon Sow. This was an enormous pig that may have been the offspring of another monster known as the Typhon. Theseus killed the pig and continued with his journey.

4. Theseus reached Megara and met the robber Sciron. Sciron would lure people to a cliff edge and throw them off when they were off guard. He did this so that a giant turtle or sea monster would be regularly fed.

5. When Theseus reached the mystery shrine of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis he met king Cercyon. King Cercyon would challenge travellers to a wrestling match and then beat them to death. He needed to do this in order to stay alive. Anyone who beat Cercyon would need to do the same. Theseus beat Ceryon to death and then refused to follow this rite, thus ending the bloodshed.

6. Theseus then made his way from Eleusis towards Athens. Here he met Procrustes. Procrustes was known to either stretch his victims to death on a special stretching device. If they did not fit on it he would lop off feet. Theseus stretched Procrustes to death (although it is uncertain if he had to lop off his feet first) and then carried on with his journey.

When Theseus arrived in Athens, he kept his identity a secret from his father. Aegeus had some years earlier offered Medea refuge from Corinth. She had helped Jason retrieve the golden fleece from her father king Aeetes in Colcis and fled with him. They later married and settled in Corinth with their two sons. Jason decided to abandon Medea and marry Glauce, a princess of Corinth.

Medea was furious and poisoned Glauce and her father to death. She then killed her two sons and refused to give their bodies to Jason. Shortly before committing these murders, Aegeus happened to be passing by. He was looking for a cure to his childless marriage. Medea gave him advice in return for his promise to give her a safe refuge in Athens. Aegeus agreed to this and later Medea arrived in Athens.

They married and all was well until Theseus arrived. She realised that Theseus would inherit the throne from Aegeus and tried to poison him. Aegeus realised who Theseus was just in time to stop him being poisoned. Medea left Athens soon after.

At this time, Athens had lost a war against king Minos of Crete. In retaliation, Minos had forced very unfavourable terms against the Athenians. Every nine years they had to send seven youths and seven maidens to Crete. No one knew what happened to them so when the time came for the tribute to be given, Theseus volunteered to go in place of one of the youths.

When he arrived in Crete it became apparent that they were an offering or sacrifice to a monster known as the Minotaur. This monster had the head of a bull and the body of a man. It was said that the Minotaur was the offspring of king Minos' queen and a bull that was a gift from the king of the sea, Poseidon. Minos offended Poseidon, so instead of taking the gift back, he decreed that Minos' wife should fall in love with the bull and procreate with it. Minos was so ashamed of his wife's actions that when the Minotaur was born, he imprisoned it in a huge maze or labyrinth to keep the world from knowing about his wife's guilt.

Minos' daughter, Ariadne fell in love with Theseus and helped him to kill the Minotaur. She fled with him and expected him to repay her by becoming her husband. Instead, Theseus abandoned her on the island of Naxos as she slept.

When he returned to Athens he forgot to exchange the black sail of his ship for a white one, which led Aegeus to believe that Theseus was dead. Aegeus threw himself into the sea in despair and died.

For the rest of Theseus' story visit http://www.mythologyhellenic.com

Jane Sproston was a teacher of Classical Civilisation and Classical Greek in a number of secondary schools. She is also an examiner of Classical Civilisation for a major examination board. Her website is http://www.mythologyhellenic.com