Hesiod’s Theogony: Esoteric and initiatory perspectives E-Book

Nicola Bizzi

• Herausgeber: Edizioni Aurora Boreale
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The Hesiod’s  Theogony is not, as is often defined by modern philologists, a simple and banal “literary work”. It is a didactic poem of mythological-religious topic and, at the same time, a sacred and initiatory text. It is – with the sole exception of the Homeric poems in the  profane field, and of some secret texts handed down by the ancient Mystery Schools in the initiatory sphere – the most ancient mythological-religious text of public domain from archaic Greece. Its content and the precious information that it provides about the origin and nature of the Gods constituted a very important canon for all the later literatures. It was used both in the Hellenic and Roman world, and its reading (but above all its understanding) is still indispensable today for the knowledge of the religious thought of ancient Greece. However, the Hesiodic text is not unique, nor it represents an innovation. It fits into a long tradition, which is mostly an exclusive prerogative of the Mystery Schools linked to the Eleusinian Mother Tradition and to its derivations, which are the Orphic, Pythagorean or Samothracian branches.
Who was Hesiod? A poet? A narrator? A priest? An Initiate? Or all these things together? We know that he was born in Ascra, a city in Boeotia, in the second half of the eighth century B.C. It is important to highlight how ancient Ascra, a village located right at the foot of Mount Helicon, was sacred to the Muses. And Helicon is same sacred mountain on which the Muses manifested themselves, not by chance, precisely to Hesiod himself.
The style of the Theogony is not narrative, nor related to the Homeric poems. On the contrary, Hesiod leaves little space to the actual narration: he seems to express himself through a markedly esoteric code, sometimes intentionally obscure. The myths are never narrated in full, but concentrated in a few lines, sometimes in a cryptic and hermetic manner, without many details.
Hesiod's intention, erroneously interpreted by moderns as an act to show off his skills, is much more likely dictated by initiatory purposes. He proves to have knowingly and carefully dosed and set in the right place phrases, words, and concepts as only an Initiate who addresses to a double audience (one of Initiates and one of uninitiated) can and must do. He proves to know how to move with ease on a “minefield” such as that of the origin and nature of the Gods to express fundamental concepts, without breaking any oath or vow of silence.

Leseprobe

Τεληστήριον

NICOLA BIZZI

HESIOD’S THEOGONY

Esoteric and initiatory perspectives

Edizioni Aurora Boreale

Title: Hesiod’s Theogony: Esoteric and initiatory perspectives

Author: Nicola Bizzi

Publishing series: Telestèrion

Editing and illustrations by Nicola Bizzi

Cover image: Gustav Moreau: Hésiode et la Muse, 1857

(Cambridge, Massachussets, Fogg Museum)

ISBN e-book version: 979-12-80130-88-4

Edizioni Aurora Boreale

© 2022 Edizioni Aurora Boreale

Via del Fiordaliso 14 - 59100 Prato - Italia

[email protected]

www.auroraboreale-edizioni.com

All rights reserved

PART I

THE ORIGINS OF THE GODS AND OF THE UNIVERSE

ACCORDING TO THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES

Eleusinian relief representing Demeter, Kore-Persephone and Triptolemus

(Athens, National Archaeological Museum)

CAPTER I - THE TAU GENEALOGY

The knowledge of the divine genealogy, that is the birth and evolution of those subtle forces which at the same time are the builders and organizers of the Universe, of those forces that mankind has always called the Gods, the creators of physicality and nonphysicality, all this has always represented for the Eleusinians the very basis of the initiatory Knowledge and their erudition.

The Eleusinian religion, unlike many others before the Christian era, was a purely “eschatological” cult, that is not based – as Mircea Eliade has claimed – on a cyclical time and on the endless repetition of events, but on the two cardinal principles of Arké and the Eskaton, the Origin and the End. Basically, it was founded on the concept of a sacred time regulated by the Horizon of Events, which, starting from the creation, leads to an end of time regulated by a prophecy and a final regeneration. Therefore, one can well understand the attention that the Eleusinian Mystery Schools have always given to the connection between divine genealogy and the path of man on Earth.

These schools have transmitted to us a diagram of creation that is unique and very different from all the others which derive from classical antiquity and the ancient Near East. Unique and distinct precisely because it is “eschatological”, that is incorporated in time, both in the divine and in the human time.

This diagram has been the subject of an intense exegesis that has been perpetuated by the Eleusinian Schools from the ancient times until present, and has always represented a fixed point for initiatory learning. In this part of the book I will present a summary, based on the studies by Guido Maria Stelvio Mariani di Costa Sancti Severi, 73rd Pritan of the Hierophants of the Eleusinians “Mother”, at the Eleusinian Mother School of Florence. Many of the names and terminologies present in this diagram are reported in their original version or Semata Ligra, “the language of the Tan Gods” (rather than in Ancient Greek), an archaic and secret language known, studied, and practiced only in the Eleusinian initiatory context. Not all these names and words can be translated into Greek or English, but I will try, as far as possible, to explain their meaning.

Precisely, because it is placed in time, this diagram presents the birth and evolution of the divine “basic” principles, that is of the primordial and absolute divine forces, occurred on a nonphysical world before the creation of the Universe itself and of physicality as well. Eventually, physicality was created, with a succession of following evolutions that place the birth of both the Gods and the human beings, their children, over time.

All this derives from absolute-total immobility, which is called Seln’s. It refers to the Primordial Khaos, which in a timeless dimension, and from it Tha was born, the Primordial Abyss (in Greek Τάρταρος, Tartarus).

From Tha, according to the Tradition, were born all the subtle cosmic principles, later called Gods by mankind.

Inside Tha, at the beginning, there was Tau, the absolute zero. There was no universe, no physicality, the only existing thing was the Supreme Mind, which contained the whole and the nonentity at the same time; a Supreme Mind that could not self-conceive itself at the moment, whose only manifestation was self-awareness, that is being. The Absolute Zero, total and primordial divine essence, had within itself the power to rise to the nth degree, self-conceiving itself as Supreme Conscious Mind. Thus, Tau – Absolute Zero became Tau – Absolute One, the Seed, the Whole, that is the pure thought of invisible matter understood as energy that spreads and transforms.

It is the utmost Eleusinian Deity, personifying the very essence of the Universe, the creative Deity from which it all began.

Tau – Absolute One gave life to Nuthe, the Two, the Creative and Germinating Night (in Greek Nύξ, Nýx),without which the seed could not become “product”.

Nuthe must be meant, like Tau, as an impersonal and incorporeal Entity (there is no physicality yet), being part and birth of Tau’s thought, and in It are conceived four aspects (which we will see later), including a maternal one, the Darkness-Matrix. This gives and maintains life both mentally and physically (aspect that the Aegean peoples called Lada, the Greeks Leto and the Romans Latona, which is «the sweetest and most tender of the Dark Mantel Entities»1. It also has a shining aspect (identified with Asteria, «the Night of the glowing Blue Mantel»2) that is the phase in which life explodes in its eternal flourishing thanks to the absolute immobility that keeps its product incorruptible.

Nuthe gave birth to Thekh’e, the Law, the product of the One and the Two which became the Three and that «kept what it had to»3.

This Divine Element stands for the Cosmic Law, without which the Universe could not, once created, exist.

Thekh’e is the rule of physicality as opposed to Khaos, it is a fundamental Entity on the path of creation, a nonphysical entity, but able to establish physical rules, since it is the law that regulates matter and cosmic energies. It is perpetual motion, gravity, magnetism, nature.

Thekh’e created Manthethmnu, the Rhombus, the Son of the Law, which became the Absolute Four«and it was Home, Civilization, People, Stability»4. These are the four symbolic concepts of this Entity, which symbolizes the Universe that received the Law turning it into Order.

The divine sequence continues with Phikkhesh, generated by the Absolute Four, that became the Absolute Five. It stands for the Mental Brotherhood or the «Mental Brotherhood Accomplished in its beginning end»5.

This fifth preordained phase of creation is an abstract and impalpable Entity as well. Phikkhesh is, as the Texts recite, «Pure Thought Ordered in Absolute Perfection of Stability»6.

It would be foolish and puerile of humankind to try to give any form to these five Primordial Entities; Tau, Nuthe, Thekh’e, Manthethmnu and Phikkhesh are not Gods to be humanized according to the common mentality, but the five fundamental aspects of the Supreme Mind that does not rest on a God’s level. They do not live in time, but it is part of them. It is from them that time springs, that time has its origin, both human and divine time.

The sequence continues. From Phikkhesh comes Sfath, the Cosmic Sword, which became the Six and it assured the Force, the Message, the Wake. It represents the Messenger of Tau and Nuthe, the Warrior of Thekh’e, the Watcher of Manthethmnu and Phikkhesh. It symbolizes the very essence of the defense of the divine order, in opposition to the forces of Flame, the Changeable and Inconstant, and to the forces of Light. These latter originated from the bowels of the Mount or Triangle son of the Light, antithetical and adverse forces to those of the Creation, produced in turn by an antithetical Creation. It is precisely from the existence of these opposing forces that Sfath finds the main reason for being, it stands as an extreme defense of Creation in opposition to them.

In the Eleusinian Tradition, Light is called Uv, while Flame is obscenely called Uvs-s. The Triangle, or Mount of Light is named Imn.

Light represents the Anti-matrix of the Anti-one in opposition to Tau, which is Inmn («nameless», «whose name does not exist»7, this is why it is also called Hek-Em’s which means «The nameless one»). It is a mutation and at the same time a product of Lun, the Primordial Catachthonic Darkness, opposed to Tha, the Cosmic Abyss that generated Tau. Lun and Tha are both splits of Seln’s, the Absolute Primordial Void (in Greek can be identified with Χάος, Kháos).

Giovan Francesco Capoferri, Magnum Chaos

(Bergamo, detail from a Chorus inlay inside Santa Maria Maggiore)

This dual creation is a concept of fundamental importance in the Eleusinian Mysteries, a concept that is at the base of the Eleusinian mythology and which helps us understand the irreconcilable opposition between the Titans and the Olympian Deities.

The divine genealogical sequence does not stop with Sfath, but from Sfath on we assist to the passage from a nonphysical dimension to physicality, with the birth of the Universe, which happens in and over time (historically speaking, according to the Texts, about sixteen billion years ago). It occurred together with the birth of the Seven, or Ua (also called Uan-s), the Great Blue Watcher, Entity that is placed at the base of the Gods of physicality and temporality, that is placed in time and space, in a dimension that will lead to the birth of humankind and of the other ranks of the children of the Gods.

Creation diagram according to the Eleusinian Mysteries

To the Seven follows the Eight, the Great Cosmic Messenger, which spreads the seed of his divine progenies that crossed the sixteen parallels of the Universe. With it, as the texts say «what began was accomplished»8.

Thus, the Creation ends and now life can begin, both materially and spiritually speaking.

And we shall see that the Nine, passage that completes the Creation, it is no longer impersonated as the prior entities by divine “abstract” and “impalpable” concepts, but by a progeny of Blue Messengers«that were born choosing for the first time ethereal mass made of Night»9.

In other words, a body, even if made of only intelligence. This divine progeny then wrapped and covered with its limbs the matter of the planets, which, from the seed of Tau, located in the matrix of Night, generated the Tan, the Titans,giving them a body mass of only one third of Night and the other two of water and earth. The Titans occupied, in the diagram of Creation, the numbers from Ten to Sixteen. And it will be precisely the Titans, at this point not only “conceptual” Deities, but physical and real ones, to give origin to the Earth and to humankind, creating it in their image and likeness.

I will examine, in other chapters specifically dedicated to them, the figures of the primary Titans, talking about their characteristics, attributes, and peculiarities, as well as their role on Earth.

To make things as clear as possible, I reported above, taken from a manual of the Eleusinians “Mother” Schools, a graphic diagram of the Diagram of the Creation, containing both the steps that have been examined in this chapter, and some elements that will be better explained in the following chapters.

The Titan God Prometheus creates the first man. Frontal bas-relief of a Roman sarcophagus

dating back to the II century A.D. (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado)

CHAPTER II - THE EIGHT ELEMENTS OF THE COSMIC EGG

We have already seen how the diagram of the Creation according to the Eleusinian Mystery Tradition develops from the primary divine concept of Tau-Absolute Zero, which originated from Tha (the Cosmic Abyss) and eventually ends with the birth of the Titans, creators of mankind.

I will talk about the Eleusinian myth of the birth of humankind in another chapter. I will examine here what the Eleusinian Theology defines the Eight Elements of the Cosmic Egg, Primordial Divine Essences originated complementarily to this diagram, but certainly not secondary, as they are at the base of both the Eleusinian mythology and of part of the Greco-Roman one, finding partial correspondences in other mystery traditions.

From the diagram of the Creation, the Eleusinian Tradition gives rise to the concept of Cosmic Egg divided into two hemispheres, each in turn divided into four distinct sectors in which are placed the primary divine Essences “produced” by four distinct passages of the Creation, that is from Nuthe to Thekhe, then to Manthethmnu and eventually to Phikkhesh.

THE FIRST HEMISPHERE

The first Hemisphere is entirely a product of Nuthe, the Matrix, the Two, the Great Primordial Mother, which is divided into four distinct divine elements, but which in synthesis are four aspects of it:

A) Tenebrix Peceai Mantys

It is the essence of the Primordial Darkness with a Dark Mantle. It is impetuous, icy, immense, without origin or end. Also called Akherun, it is depicted in the form of a giant eagle whose head is surmounted by a huge snake that swallows everything, even the darkness itself, and at the same time determines the eternity of the BottomlessDarkenesses. In place of the ears, it has two other snake heads, symbolizing the act of listening to the Entity-Darkness. Curiously, it is a concept that was almost identically known by various Amerindian peoples, above all among the Aztecs.

B) Nux Tenebrix Fulgurales Brunii Mantys

It stands for the Night-Darkness-Thunderbolt-Unique-Cosmic with a dark Mantle. Element of transit between the Primordial Darkness and the Night, It is the brute force unleashed by darkness itself.

It is depicted as an ellipsoid of vast proportions, consisting of pure energy, emanating long blue flashes and short yellow flashes, thunders and roars. It is also a creative element, not static like Akherun. It is also called Anuve Fulthun or Seha’a, it is similar to the Titaness Leto (Λητώ), the Latins worshipped her as Latona, the Starry Night with a Dark Mantle, or rather, it represents the primordial and atavistic essence of this very important Deity of the Eleusinian pantheon.

C) Nux Asthris Azzurri Manthys

It is the Starry Night with a Blue Mantle and it is the physical manifestation of the explosion of stellar life, the “Big Bang”, the sky formed and full of stars.

It is the finished product that began with Akherun first and then with Anuve Fulthun. It is called Nehfren by the Eleusinians, it has been identified by some initiates with the Egyptian Goddess Neb-Hiet or Nebthet (in Greek Νέφθυς, Nephthys) and with Astheria, the starry Night that shines.

Depicted almost always with a human figure, she wears a crown in the shape of a palace on the head, which is why she is also called «The Goddess who holds the Palace of Heaven»10.

D) Nux Velox Sideralis

Personification of the speed of light of the Night, it is the element that closes the first hemisphere of the Cosmic Egg. It is also called Uhànhia or, in its most archaic forms, Niv’ or Tivr, and it is comparable to Hemera, Deity of the tartaric light, in the Mediterranean culture.

The Egyptian God Thot

THE SECOND HEMISPHERE

The second hemisphere is dominated for a half of its entirety by that force known as Tekhe, the Three, the very Essence of Cosmic Law, from which two important divine principles arise:

A) Thurth

It is the very Essence of Wisdom, of Knowledge, of infused Science. It is also called Fanethe, the Phannis of the Cosmic Place, it is similar to the Egyptian Tahuti (Thot), the God with an Ibis head, the Great Scribe, the Great Magister, the initiator of the Ogdoad (the eight Gods or Primordial Elements).

B) Nhàl

It is also known as Hypnys Portalis Cornii, it is «the Essence that is beyond the Great Horn Portal»11the element from which those Forces who administer the Oneiroi come from, the so-called Great Gods of the Dream, who are the children of Nhal. The most powerful of them is Qanya, a young and handsome warrior God; then it comes Rhyl, blind from one eye and always sad, also known as The Lake God; then the young and beautiful Goddess of the rivers called Rysha, and Zulia, a giant also called Zur, forever searching for his eye (he is one-eyed as well). There is no correspondence with Greek deities.

Under the domination of the forces of the Manthethmnu (Rhombus), that is the solid and ordered matter on which it also depends Sfath, the Great Cosmic Sword, the Portalis Sideralis is unleashed together with:

C) Dioritis Temporis Petris.

It represents that Force of the originally inhuman and creative element that is said Hath-A-Xai-San, The Ancient, The Mutable, The Perennial, The Lord. According to the Texts, it is indicated by Rhashamele’sh12 as the supreme God of the Khat, a non-human lineage with feline characteristics that according to the Tradition would also have lived on Earth in a remote age.

Depicted as a giant with human body and a feline head, it was defeated and turned into stone by an ancestral enemy, thus becoming the mythical Stone God of the Mystery Tradition.

Fallen into the sea, the latter reshaped his face, giving him human features and turning him into a beautiful and bald God. From a separate part of himself (to be understood as an emanation of him) the Blue God Thaumanth was born (in Greek Θαύμας, Thaumas in English), the Marvelous one, The Shimmering one, armed with a silver sword, representing for the Hellenic culture the marvelous aspects of the nocturnal sea.

It is interesting to notice how a mythical story of a God fallen into the sea and reshaped by the latter is alien to the Greek culture, while it can be found, instead, in the Kalevala, the epic poem of Finland.

Another part of himself, a lump of divine matter, arose towards the stars and, captured by a silver net, merged with it. From this merger, remodeled by Anuve Fulthun, by Nehfren, and by Uhànhia, a new splendid God was born: Pherses (in Greek Πέρσης), the Titan of Revenge with the Silver Bow, the Lord of the Palace in Heaven. According to the Tradition, this God sent a part of himself on Earth, mentioned by the Texts as the tribal God Tuskeya, while from another part of Pherses the Goddess Anuve Fulthun generated (during the Atlantis era) the God Sanuvi, known as The Ancient one or The Embodied, since he came on Earth under a human form, with a human body.

D) Mnaphunxe.

The last element of the second hemisphere of the Cosmic Egg was born under the control of Phikkhesh, the divine Essence symbolizing the Cosmic Mental Brotherhood. From It emerged the Element of Universal Love, not detached from the inner and outer Beauty of Divine Sidereal Love.

I am talking about Mnaphunxe, divine Essence of beauty, element that assumed feminine features and was known as Emminea, Fhera, Tara, or Balthe, figures similar to the great Mediterranean Goddess Dione and to the element of Universal Love known under the name of Akakal-Syn«with starry hands»13, present in the Minoan-Cretan culture under the form of the Goddess Akakalys.

II century A.D. bas-relief representing Phanes

(Modena, Archaeological Civic Museum)

CHAPTER III - THE COUNTS AND THE EIGHT KINGS OF THE GODS

After examining the development of the diagram of the Creation and the birth of the Eight Elements of the Cosmic Egg, I will discuss the topic of the sacred subdivision of time in Counts, and the one about the Kingdom over the Universe of the Eight Titans, Kings of the Gods.

We have seen that for the Eleusinians time was not cyclical, but linear. The concept of sacred time, ordered and divided into certain historical periods, was – and still is – at the basis of this great initiatory and mystery cult. These periods were called Counts by the ancient Eleusinians.

Each Count had no fixed and established duration, but could go, chronologically, from one important sacral event to another; concept that was also taken up by the Etruscans, in their division of time into saecula.

Speaking of Count, this is how Rhashamele’sh from En’n expressed himself, quoting what was engraved on the archaic tables called The Stones of the Stars:

«The beginning was not yet,

The Absolute Primordial Void was Seln.

Even the beginning had to become

When Seln was in itself,

Tha the Cosmic Abyss

And Lun, the Primordial Catachthonic Darkness.

And separated between event and event,

from the beginning the Counts had begone,

and they are in perpetual Time enclosed (...)»14.

The first six Counts are part of what is called the Mythological Phase.

Tau – Absolute One determines the First Count; the successive Counts up to the sixth are respectively determined by those primordial divine elements known as Nuth’e, Thekhe’s, Manthethmnu, Phyk-khe’sh and Sfath. This is what Rhashamele’sh narrates about the Sixth Count, the one determined by Sfath:

«Who foresees the remote events in the future time, the elderly remedy poses, and predisposes any suitable measure to whom the Thekhe’sh15breaks and obstacles. For sublime necessity, therefore, the Sixth Count was established which is not in time, with the irremovable creation of the unrealized Cosmic Sfath, whose immensity is devoid of all material measure, having in It what is matter which is not in matter»16.

With the Seventh Count, which coincides with the Age of Tau, the so-called Historical Phase begins with a chronological calculation that the Texts make start, using the current dating parameters, in 368.150 B.C. There have always been many diatribes, within the Mystery Schools, on whether or not to consider such dates from a purely chronological and literal point of view, or whether to attribute an esoteric meaning to them. Regardless the fact that one thing does not necessarily exclude the other one, the first interpretation has always prevailed. Then, it comes the Eight Count, which, together with the Ninth Count, determines a phase that the texts call The Emerald Age (115.200 - 92.121 B.C.).

With The Emerald Age the Kingdoms of the Titans begin, one after the other. They are the Lords of the Universe, and they will be eight.

The Eighth Count sees the Kingdom of the Great Ancient, the First among the Gods, «He who is the Great Father of all the Tan, Uan, the First of the Eight Kings of the Tan Gods (The Titans) wanted by Tau-Uan and Nuth’e»17. I am talking about Uranus (in Greek Οὐρανός).

Then follows the Ninth Count, in reference to which Rhashamele’sh wrote:

«Then the Ninth Count came, in which Uan, having collected his firstborn children, chosen the eldest, gave him the imperial power. Then, it was Uea the second King of the Gods, First of all the Tan. And it was still the Emerald Age»18.

Thus, we see that Uea, identifiable with the Hellenic Titan Okeanόs (in Greek Ὠκεανός), was the second King of the Gods. Rhashamele’sh continues:

«Twenty-three thousand years of the En’n lasted the Age of the Emerald, for the times of two Counts. And Eln’s, being the second son, was called by his father Uan to reign over the Tan Gods for third; and it was instantly the Tenth Count, and the Age of Ruby began»19.

Eln’s, identifiable with the Hellenic Titan Coeus (in GreekΚοιος), personification of the diurnal sky, was the third King of the Gods, and his domination chronologically covers the Tenth Count.

Rhashamele’sh tells us:

«And the time of Eln’s was passed; the Father Uan called Fan, known as En’n, the Third-born (...) and He became the fourth King of the Tan Gods (...) and the first moment of the Fan empire de-termined the beginning of the Eleventh Count»20.

The Eleventh Count of Fan, comparable to the Titan Crius in the Greek culture (in Greek Κριως or Κρειος), is of particular importance, since the date of the beginning of his reign, indicated in the Texts as 92.040 B.C., coincides with the descent of the Titans on Earth, a prelude, as we shall see, to the creation of humankind perpetuated by them.

Rhashamele’sh continues:

«And over the long line of time came the Age of Topaz (69.120 - 34.561 B.C.) after 22.980 years of the Ruby Age, according to the calculation of the En’n people, for the time of two Counts (the 10th and the 11th counts). Then, the Great Uan called the fourth one of the Tan, his children, and made him King of the Tan Gods. And Full, also called Jll, was the fifth King of the Tan Gods (...) and according to our dating system, after 34.560 years, the Age of the Topaz ended, and the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Counts ended with it»21.

The reign of Full, the fifth King of the Gods, similar to the Titan Hyperion (in Greek Ύπέριον), the Father of the Sun in the Hellenic culture, covered three counts, the Twelfth, the Thirteenth, and the Fourteenth, for a total of 34.560 years.

Aion-Uranus in a mosaic of the third century A.D. from the Roman villa of Sentinum

(Munich Glyptothek)

Rhashamele’sh goes on:

«And when the Fifteenth Count was proclaimed, the Great Uan called the fifth son at His Diorite Throne and made him King. And Hyi, also called Fa, was the sixth King of the Tan Gods. At the same time, the Age of the Orichalcum began (34.560 - 23.041 B.C.) which lasted 77.520 of our years»22.

Hyi, assimilable in the Mediterranean culture to the Titan Hyapetόs or Iapetus (in Greek Ἰαπετός), Father of the Human Lineage, was therefore the sixth King of the Gods. It is important to specify that the counts mentioned so far, up to and including the fifteenth, do not concern human affairs. Indeed, mankind had not been created yet. Thus, these counts talk exclusively about divine events, from the origin of the Titans to their coming on Earth. It will be during the reign of Hyi, during the Fifteenth Count, that the creation of humankind will take place, perpetuated by the Titan children of Iapetus. We will see this later.

Rhashamele’sh thus resumes his narration:

«And seeing that the events were near, the Great Uan called to himself the sixth of his sons, the insane Tun, and proclaimed him the seventh King of the Tan Gods. And at that moment the Sixteenth Count began, and with it the poor Golden Age (23.040 - 19.176 B.C.), which lasted 3865 of our years»23.

In this passage, when Rhashamele’sh, talking about Tun, seventh king of the Titans (identifiable with the Hellenic Kronos, in Greek Κρόνος, and with the Latin Saturn) writes that «the events are near». He refers to the imminent Great Cosmic War. This is a mythical event present in all the cultures and traditions of Earth, exemplarily narrated, in the Mediterranean area, by Hesiod in his Titanomachy (Theogony, lines 617-721):

«But when first their father was vexed in his heart with Obriareus and Cottus and Gyes, he bound them in cruel bonds, because he was jealous of their exceeding manhood and comeliness and great size: and he made them live beneath the wide-pathed earth, where they were afflicted, being set to dwell under the ground, at the end of the earth, at its great borders, in bitter anguish for a long time and with great grief at heart. But the son of Cronos and the other deathless Gods whom rich-haired Rhea bore from union with Cronos, brought them up again to the light at Earth’s advising. For she herself recounted all things to the Gods fully, how with these they might gain victory and a glorious cause to vaunt themselves. For the Titan Gods and as many as sprang from Cronos had long been fighting together in stubborn war with heart-grieving toil, the lordly Titans from high Othrys, but the Gods, givers of good, whom rich-haired Rhea bore in union with Cronos, from Olympus. So they, with bitter wrath, were fighting continually with one another at that time for ten full years, and the hard strife had no close or end for either side, and the issue of the war hung evenly balanced. But when he had provided those three with all things fitting, nectar and ambrosia which the gods themselves eat, and when their proud spirit revived within them all after they had fed on nectar and delicious ambrosia, then it was that the father of men and Gods spoke amongst them: “Hear me, bright children of Earth and Heaven, that I may say what my heart within me bids. A long while now have we, who are sprung from Cronos and the Titan Gods, fought with each other every day to get victory and to prevail. But show your great might and unconquerable strength, and face the Titans in bitter strife; for remember our friendly kindness, and from what sufferings you are come back to the light from your cruel bondage under misty gloom through our counsels”.

So he said. And blameless Cottus answered him again: “Divine one, you speak that which we know well: no, even of ourselves we know that your wisdom and understanding is exceeding, and that you became a defender of the deathless ones from chill doom. And through your devising we have come back again from the murky gloom and from our merciless bonds, enjoying what we looked not for, O lord, son of Cronos. And so now with fixed purpose and deliberate counsel we will aid your power in dreadful strife and will fight against the Titans in hard battle”. So he said: and the Gods, givers of good things, applauded when they heard his word, and their spirit longed for war even more than before, and they all, both male and female, stirred up hated battle that day, the Titan Gods, and all that were born of Cronos together with those dread, mighty ones of overwhelming strength whom Zeus brought up to the light from Erebus beneath the earth. A hundred arms sprang from the shoulders of all alike, and each had fifty heads growing from his shoulders upon stout limbs. These, then, stood against the Titans in grim strife, holding huge rocks in their strong hands. And on the other part the Titans eagerly strengthened their ranks, and both sides at one time showed the work of their hands and their might. The boundless sea rang terribly around, and the earth crashed loudly: wide Heaven was shaken and groaned, and high Olympus reeled from its foundation under the charge of the undying Gods, and a heavy quaking reached dim Tartarus and the deep sound of their feet in the fearful onset and of their hard missiles. So, then, they launched their grievous shafts upon one another, and the cry of both armies as they shouted reached to starry heaven; and they met together with a great battle-cry.Then Zeus no longer held back his might; but straight his heart was filled with fury and he showed forth all his strength. From Heaven and from Olympus he came immediately, hurling his lightning: the bolts flew thick and fast from his strong hand together with thunder and lightning, whirling an awesome flame. The life-giving earth crashed around in burning, and the vast wood crackled loud with fire all about. All the land seethed, and Ocean’s streams and the unfruitful sea. The hot vapor lapped round the earthborn Titans: flame unspeakable rose to the bright upper air: the flashing glare of the thunderstone and lightning blinded their eyes for all that they were strong. Astounding heat seized Chaos: and to see with eyes and to hear the sound with ears it seemed even as if Earth and wide Heaven above came together; for such a mighty crash would have arisen if Earth were being hurled to ruin, and Heaven from on high were hurling her down; so great a crash was there while the Gods were meeting together in strife. Also the winds brought rumbling earthquake and duststorm, thunder and lightning and the lurid thunderbolt, which are the shafts of great Zeus, and carried the clangor and the warcry into the midst of the two hosts. A horrible uproar of terrible strife arose: mighty deeds were shown and the battle inclined. But until then, they kept at one another and fought continually in cruel war. And amongst the foremost Cottus and Briareos and Gyes insatiate for war raised fierce fighting: three hundred rocks, one upon another, they launched from their strong hands and overshadowed the Titans with their missiles, and hurled them beneath the wide-pathed earth, and bound them in bitter chains when they had conquered them by their strength for all their great spirit, as far beneath the earth as heaven is above earth; for so far is it from earth to Tartarus».

We will address the complex issue of the Titanomachy in detail in the following chapters of this essay, which focus on Hesiod’s Theogony. Therefore, I suggest it to whom intends to deepen this topic not only on the basis of a simple historical, philological, and textual analysis, but above all in the light of its esoteric perspectives examined according to the Eleusinian Initiation view. It is sufficient to say that it was a clash between the Ancient Gods, the Titans and the new usurpers, the Olympians, aimed at the control not only of this world, but of the entire universe (or at least of this galaxy). A clash of immense proportions, both on the physical and on the subtle level, which saw the new Gods as the winners. The Titans were relegated into Tartarus, until the day of their revenge, when, breaking the mighty chains of orichalcum that imprison them, they will return to reconquest what belonged to them.

I will later return to this subject in some chapters purposely dedicated to a reading of Hesiod’s Theogony according to the Eleusinian Mystery Tradition.

Jean Louis Cesar Lair: The torture of Prometheus (1819)

(Puy en Velay, Musée Crozatier)

Let us now turn our attention to the Progenies by Rhahamele’sh, a mystery text which so far, as we have seen, has made mention of seven Gods-kings of the Titans. All names that acquire a certain meaning for us if compared with those of the Aegean-Mediterranean culture. Thus, we see that Uan is the Starry Sky, the One, the Heavenly Father, that is the Mediterranean Uranus. The others are his children, which can be compared with those mentioned by Hesiod in his Theogony. The Great Cosmic War, or the clash between the Great Ancient Gods and New Purpurean Gods, broke out, according to the Texts, in 19.175 BC, to end 173 years later, in 18.957 BC.

With the Sixteenth Count, the reign of Tun (Kronos), a cycle end, symbolically and esoterically speaking. It is the end of an era of Tan justice, followed by the chaos represented by the war (the Seventeenth Count) and by new Counts which are no longer marked by the sidereal justice of the Titan Gods, but by the dominion of the new usurpers Gods. I here report what Rhashamele’sh writes about it:

«And then time broke its thread and the immense Galaxy revolted on itself, and it was the Seventeenth Count, and the Great Galactic Cycle had begun and ended, and in the middle sixteen Counts had succeeded one another. And with the infamous Seventeenth Count came the Great Galactic War (...). And for one hundred seventy-three years (...) there was nothing but immense ruin and mournful war of eight thousand and eight thousand battles (...)».

The following passage is the folly of Tun, the seventh King of the Gods, and of the unconscious role he had in the Titans’ defeat:

«The seventh and last part of the sidereal battle was undertaken by Tun the insane(...). He became insane as a result of His Work. Though he did not understand how, to the enemies whom he did not believe such, he had confided the secrets of the access to the limbs of his Father, the Immense Uan, and introduced them to His most sheltered parts. He could have not prevented them from slaughtering him, with the consent of his Mother Taea. Later, in this awful time another damage occurred, and still unaware that His brother, the great Full, followed the Paternal fate, he was slaughtered and precipitated. Eventually, even Hyi had to be touched by the same unfortunate defeat. But he was not mad yet when he replaced His brother Hyi as King of the Ancients, (...) and with great deeds he organized not the wise defense, but the disastrous offense. It had not reached the inevitable epilogue yet, that He, aware of his error, abandoning the brothers and children of Tan, from the battle fled with cowardice, and hid himself in a humble and unknown site, far from the eyes of the betrayed Tans, but not from his own, so that these could not accuse Him, He upset his atho(the spirit, the mind) became the Mad God».

This passage of Rhashamele’sh contains in a few lines some of the greatest initiatory secrets of history, both divine and human history, and some of the most controversial enigmas of mythology. It explains the true meaning of Uranus’s emasculation. It is not an “emasculation” in its material meaning, it is a real deicide: without realizing it, Tun/Kronos confided to the enemies (whom we can identify with Zeus and the Olympians), whom he did not believe such (since, evidently, they had presented themselves to him in a friendly way, not showing their real intentions) «the secrets of the access to the limbs of his Father, the Immense Uan [Uranus]», «and introduced them to His most sheltered parts. He could have not prevented them from slaughtering him, with the consent of his Mother Taea [Gaea]».

Giving an understandable interpretation to the uninitiated: Tun/Kronos, deceived by the false intentions of those whom did not see as enemies, would inadvertently have told them certain secrets. Secrets that would have allowed them to access the most reputable limbs of his father Uranus, and they slaughtered him with the consent of Taea/Gaea, a detail that suggests that the misdeed occurred right here on Earth. Uranus would not have been emasculated (the concept of emasculation indicates, however, symbolically, the loss of power) but slaughtered and fallen on Earth, renewing a fate that had already been experienced by Full/Hyperion, according to the tradition, another fallen God.

Gardens of Bomarzo, Italy: stone sculpture of a Titan

Without realizing his terrible mistake and the consequences of his superficiality that had led to the death of his Father, Tun/Kronos, once he began the inexorable attack of the Olympian Gods, committed another unforgivable mistake, organizing not a “wise defense”, but a “disastrous offense”. And when he finally realized what and how many mistakes he had committed, instead of making them right, he cowardly fled, abandoning and betraying the other Titans, announcing their defeat. Then he hid, because of the shame of his gesture, in a humble and unknown place and, overcome by remorse, went mad, becoming «the Mad God».

The last and eighth predestined King of the Titans did not have time to succeed his brother, the insane Tun/Kronos. Thus, he never reigned over the Titans and the Universe, since, following the victory of Zeus and the Olympians, the era of the Titanic Kingdom effectively and dramatically ended. This God is identifiable with the mysterious Hathaxhisan, the God of Stone.

Hathaxhisan is not mentioned in the Theogony, and therefore does not find any correspondence with the Deities contemplated by the Hesiodic text and the Hellenic tradition in general. We know, however, from the teachings of the Eleusinian Mystery Schools, that he is similar to the Minoan-Cretan God Anak, whose name has the meaning of “Lord”, “The Lord”, thus indicating power and royalty on divine investiture. Anak was, indeed, a widespread epithet used by numerous Lelegic kings of the Aegean coasts of Anatolia, especially of Caria.

The female counterpart of Hathaxhisan, mentioned by Rhashamele’sh as Syn, also called “Syn with the starry hands”, Titaness of Cosmic Love, is similar to the Cretan Goddess Akakal, whose name means “High Beauty”, also known as Dione to the pre-Greek populations of mainland Greece and of the Aegean area. I will talk about this Goddess in depth in the next chapters.

Nineteenth century print depicting Zeus fighting against the Titan Gods

CHAPTER IV - THE BIRTH OF HUMANKIND

We have seen how, according to the texts of the Archaic-Erudite Discipline handed down by the Eleusinian Mistery Schools, the Titans arrived on Earth in the year 92.040 B.C., during the reign of the Titan Krèi (mentioned as Fan in the most archaic Texts) in the last phase of the mythical Ruby Age. But it was in the Orichalcum Age, with the advent of the Fifteenth Count of Hyi, in a period of time that according to the Texts goes from 34.560 to 23.041 B.C., that the human lineage of Hygeneis, sons of Iapetus, was born.

In addition to Hesiod, many other ancient authors mention the Hygeneis (or Gegeneis)24, a term that cannot be translated with giants, as is commonly and erroneously interpreted, but with born from the earth. With this name a new race of human beings was called (identifiable with today’s humankind), created in the image and likeness of the Titans, so that they could perpetuate themselves on our world. Almost all the myths and religious traditions of the peoples from all over the world – from the Middle East to the Americas, from Africa to Polynesia – agree when talking about the creation of man and woman by a God or Superior Beings. It is worth mentioning the texts of the Sumerians, which tells us about some Gods descended from heaven, the Igigi and the Anunnaki.

The myth of Atrahasis, a hero in the Babylonian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh (a story at the base of the Great Flood) is a text that dates back to the seventeenth century B.C. It is engraved on a tablet now preserved at the British Museum in London, and it offers us some interesting testimonies on the relationship between the Anunnaki and the Igigi. The text, unfortunately deteriorated and showing some gaps, consists of three tablets, each of them develops in eight columns, four on the front and four on the back; each column consists of about fifty-five lines.

The Poem of Atrahasis opens with the condition created after the cosmogony: the God of Heaven, Anu, has returned to his dominions; Ea (Enki), has descended into the Apsû, the underworld of the abyssal waters, above which the Earth rests; Enlil has taken the Earth for himself, with all the living beings contained in it.

Then, the Igigi are obliged to work on Earth, where the God Enlil reigns. They dig rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates, and waterways, and their heavy work goes on for 2500 years. Until, as narrated starting from line 39 of the 1st Tablet of the Poem, these Gods begin to think about their condition and one of them asks the other companions to abandon their work and rebel against their superiors. The Igigi listen to their companion and throw the work tools into the fire and, marching together, they turn towards the sanctuary of Enlil. We can read in the poem: