Where is East?

The Identity of the Scandinavian Odin and Adon of Babylon
1. Nimrod, or Adon, or Adonis, of Babylon, was the great war-god. Odin, as is well known, was the
same. 2 Nimrod, in the character of Bacchus, was regarded as the god of wine; Odin is represented as
taking no food but wine. For thus we read in the Edda: "As to himself he [Odin] stands in no need of
food; wine is to him instead of every other aliment, according to what is said in these verses: The
illustrious father of armies, with his own hand, fattens his two wolves; but the victorious Odin takes no
other nourishment to himself than what arises from the unintermitted quaffing of wine" (MALLET, 20th
Fable). 3. The name of one of Odin's sons indicates the meaning of Odin's own name. Balder, for whose
death such lamentations were made, seems evidently just the Chaldee form of Baal-zer, "The seed of
Baal"; for the Hebrew z, as is well known, frequently, in the later Chaldee, becomes d. Now, Baal and
Adon both alike signify "Lord"; and, therefore, if Balder be admitted to be the seed or son of Baal, that
is as much as to say that he is the son of Adon; and, consequently, Adon and Odin must be the same.
This, of course, puts Odin a step back; makes his son to be the object of lamentation and not himself; but
the same was the case also in Egypt; for there Horus the child was sometimes represented as torn in
pieces, as Osiris had been. Clemens Alexandrinus says (Cohortatio), "they 03 lament an infant torn in
pieces by the Titans." The lamentations for Balder are very plainly the counterpart of the lamentations
for Adonis; and, of course, if Balder was, as the lamentations prove him to have been, the favourite form
of the Scandinavian Messiah, he was Adon, or "Lord," as well as his father. 4. Then, lastly, the name of
the other son of Odin, the mighty and warlike Thor, strengthens all the foregoing conclusions. Ninyas,
the son of Ninus or Nimrod, on his father's death, when idolatry rose again, was, of course, from the
nature of the mystic system, set up as Adon, "the Lord." Now, as Odin had a son called Thor, so the
second Assyrian Adon had a son called Thouros. The name Thouros seems just to be another form of
Zoro, or Doro, "the seed"; for Photius tells us that among the Greeks Thoros signified "Seed." The D is
often pronounced as Th,--Adon, in the pointed Hebrew, being pronounced Athon.

Centaurus, for his presumption and pride, was smitten with lightning by the supreme God, and cast
down to hell (DYMOCK, "Ixion"). This, then, is just another version of the story of Phaethon,
Aesculapius, and Orpheus, who were all smitten in like manner and for a similar cause. In the infernal
world, the father of the Centaurs is represented as tied by serpents to a wheel which perpetually
revolves, and thus makes his punishment eternal (DYMOCK). In the serpents there is evidently
reference to one of the two emblems of the fire-worship of Nimrod. If he introduced the worship of the
serpent, as I have endeavoured to show, there was poetical justice in making the serpent an instrument of
his punishment. Then the revolving wheel very clearly points to the name Centaurus itself, as denoting
the "Priest of the revolving sun." To the worship of the sun in the character of the "Revolver," there was
a very distinct allusion not only in the circle which, among the Pagans, was the emblem of the sun-god,
and the blazing wheel with which he was so frequently represented (WILSON'S Parsi Religion), but in
the circular dances of the Bacchanalians. Hence the phrase, "Bassaridum rotator Evan"--"The wheeling
Evan of the Bacchantes" (STATIUS, Sylv.). Hence, also, the circular dances of the Druids as referred to
in the following quotation from a Druidic song: "Ruddy was the sea beach whilst the circular revolution
was performed by the attendants and the white bands in graceful extravagance" (DAVIES'S Druids).
That this circular dance among the Pagan idolaters really had reference to the circuit of the sun, we find
from the distinct statement of Lucian in his treatise On Dancing, where, speaking of the circular dance
of the ancient Eastern nations, he says, with express reference to the sun-god, "it consisted in a dance
imitating this god." We see then, here, a very specific reason for the circular dance of the Bacchae, and
for the ever-revolving wheel of the great Centaurus in the infernal regions.

Here is a video I made...
You will notice the "pagan and/or polytheistic" similarities in the "circle dance" represented in tribes all around the globe and passed down from antiquity. Coincidence? Definitely not.

Dance Dance Dance - RexRed


I am probably more pagan and/or polytheistic than I am mono theistic and I do not feel insulted by the word "pagan". Though I do not believe in any ritual form of sacrifice, which is also in Christianity (and Abraham's attempt at it.).

I worship the sun as my higher power and I really don't mind being referred to as a pagan. lol

Number me among the circle dancers.

No one has to prove someone who is making a claim to be wrong. By making the claim, you assume the burden of proof. You have proven nothing.

You should prove your assertions or do you just come in a bugger up someone's thread with your own outlandish accusations and then run?

You said the Norse pagan pantheon was not styled after the Babylonian one.

I suppose you also think the similarities in the Greek and Roman pantheons are simply coincidence.

Maybe think a bit before you argue something you apparently have not thought out.

In fact, I began reading the Norse, Icelandic and Greenland sagas in the late 1970s, which was in line with my lifelong interest in history, the subject in which I majored in university. You can suppose what you wish to suppose, but your suppositions and your speculations are bootless without a solid background in the history and the culture of the places and peoples to whom you refer. As have already pointed out, Babylon was a city--it was not a culture, it was not a language, and it had no inherent religion. The Akkadians founded the city, and any alleged pantheon would have come from them. They accumulated "gods" from the various Sumerian and Elamite cities they conquered. It is silly to even speak of a pantheon--the idea has been superimposed by the Greeks who spread across the middle east in the wake of Alexander III of Macedon. Babylon was occupied by the Akkadians, then the Assyrians (who derived from the Akkadians). the Suteans, the Aramaeans, the Chaldeans (twice in a period of four centuries), the Medes, the Persians and finally, the Greco-Macedonians. It is hilarious that you think there was some single, powerful mythological traditions that has informed all of Europe. Why not central Asia and China, too? The Aramaeans traded across Asia to China. In fact, most of what we know of the history and culture of that region comes from Hellenistic sources, after the collapse of the old Persian Empire. Naturally they would attempt to frame what they found in terms of the culture they understood and considered superior, which is to say, their own culture. There is no good reason to assume that the Akkadians, or any of the other Semitic peoples of the region, had any concept of a pantheon.

You're imposing your poorly-informed notions on a subject vastly more complex than you apparently realize. If you post bullshit, you can expect that someone might call bullshit. Get over it.

The mystery religion of Babylon, before that, dates back to "the flood" "according the the Hebrew Bible and Babylonians" some of the sons of Noah, whom the Bible (perhaps erroneously) attributes to starting the pagan pantheon in order to usurp the power from their supposed one true god. (so the Bible says) Is this not just another facet of the mysteries? Another means to enslave people with religion.

First they created a new language so that the masses could no longer commune with this God in the original tongue. In one generation the old language was forgotten and lost.

Setanta wrote:
Babylon was a city--it was not a culture

Comment:
Babylon was a city with a culture, with their own language and religion that was created with specific purposes in mind.

The mystery religion was perfected in Babylon by the kings through the magi for the purpose of creating writing, then religion, war and empire building. For the ultimate goal of human worship versus God worship.

"The druids were not a country" how silly. The druids had rulers and they also created a culture with the mystery religion that was utterly destroyed by the Romans. A religion does not need a country to survive, it only needs tribal adherents. Contrary to popular belief, pagan religions do war among themselves.

Sure, I would assume you have a good knowledge of history but do you have a good knowledge of the religion that arose in Babylon as a result of their kings and the magi of the kings?

I am ordained clergy and Babylonian "religion"was and is my major field of study since I was a child.

You mention the Sumerians as if I am going to be shocked to learn they existed.

Long ago I also started studying Babylon but I decide early on, it was an epiphany moment, I did not want to know of the everyday life of the Babylonians... what they had to eat, their war conquests, how they sold their sheep and if the had toilets.

I decide I wanted to focus on their religion and how it related to the rest of the religions of the world.

At that time I believed that all religions were autonomous and sprung up all on their own as if in a vacuum; like you do now and like some have said the religions of Mesoamerica, China etc... did.

In studying and focusing like a laser on only the Babylonian religion (of the area pre and post Babylon). I came to understand the mystery system of Babylon.

That within their religious system there were the enlightened and the unenlightened. Two faces that were privy to different learning. Just like the divide here in this thread.

There were those privy to the inner mysteries and those who lived and worshiped the deities on the "outside"

From the way you talk about it you seem to be oblivious to this mechanism within the mystery religion system.

It is this inner enlightenment that is the vehicle with which the Babylonian Mystery system replicated and grew and covered the entire earth (like a global flood).

It moved out of Babylon and was able to transcend languages, cultures, peoples and geography and root itself in the fledgling empires of the world.

It did indeed move to China, India, Greece, Rome, Africa and the Americas north and south including tiny island nations even in the farthest most remote regions. i.e. Easter Isle...

On the surface these seemed like different religions but in reality they were all part of the very same mystery system.

When I learned this many years ago it literally changed my life.

I have spent the remainder of my life observing and affirming this to be true through "evidence and proof". One needs to first know what they are looking for.

Before I learned this I was adrift in a sea of confusion and each "pagan" religion I weighed over another as if they were unique. All calling for worship in their own right.

I now see them all as telling one big story.

Each iteration religion fills in new parts of the whole picture.

That is not because they each are making new stuff up; that is because that each sibling religion holds pearls of wisdom that was given to them from Babylon and when Babylon fell these pearls of wisdom were lost, yet, retained by their predecessors.

It is all one large picture.

There is nothing you can say that can change my understanding of this. You can belittle me and shout expletives until you are blue in the face. I have seen "the writing on the wall".

I have compared the religions of the world, I have seen the patterns of them replicating the system through fertility goddesses and fire, earth and sun worship etc. just enough to maintain the exact same frame of the mysteries and then they have their unique differences that make them seem alluring and "new" when "there is nothing new under the sun".

It is all one mystery system and you are the one who has been played by it Setanta, not me.

This is why I can see words like "east" and see the language and religion right through the word as if it is speaking directly to me and one of the initiated and aware...

I do not call Babylon "the mother of harlots" but I do call it the mother of religion.

Monotheism seems to imply that it is somehow different from Babylon mystery religion but, the very same hierarchy of power and self worship exists within it also as with Christianity and Islam.

They all borrow from the mysteries and simply are puzzle pieces that make up the whole picture.

Are there any religions that exist outside of Babylon?

Even Science names planets after Gods like Pluto and Mars...

But science and reason are the closest we have ever come to a system that does not have two faces, one hidden and one open.

Excerpt: (online writer)
In fact, the Sumerians were also aware that Gaga/Pluto ended up in the odd orbit next to Neptune. In the Sumerian pantheon, the planet we call Neptune was the celestial counterpart of the Aquarius god Enki. His ‘chancellor’ or ‘visier’ was nicknamed Ushmu, meaning “He ‘of two faces” - and so was he depicted, with one face looking at Enki and a second face looking away from him (Fig. 1) - exactly the way Pluto looks at Neptune.



"He of two faces"

One seen and one unseen... mystery.

at a minimum, can we at least all agree that the earth is round?

yes?

good... cos those flat-earth folks make my skin crawl...

It is round, but heaven is only up if you are not upside down. (just kidding)

If you're going to quote stuff you really should attribute your quotes and include links if possible.

Should you be standing directly on the North Pole, that is the axis of the Earth, then there is no East or west or north, there is just south until you take at least one step. Then Polaris, the North Star, is directly above your head at 90 degrees.

I will try and do that more. Generally I agree.

It is not because I want it to seem like I wrote some things but because defending my sources can detract from the point I am making.

All in good time.

This discussion can go on and I hope to learn things here also I know everyone here has a wealth of info perhaps even exceeding my own in many areas.

In some cases we are saying the same things.

Point taken.

That is a very interesting way to think about it if we could travel through the earth.

I think there is a distinction also between circumnavigating the globe.

There was no flood, and there is no evidence of any such flood. Inform yourself about The Epic of Gilgamesh--that's the origin of the flood story. The "language" of Babylon was the language of the founders--the Akkadians--and the the language of whoever had most recently occupied it. Writing existed long before Babylon. What the bible has to tell us is bullshit as much as the story you're trying to Cobble together here.

You're just making **** up as you go along, once again. Is that how you think scholarship works? Do you think it's just a matter of "whatever elaborate story I like best?"

The Christianity of the Bible is not the only religion to use the myth of the flood, and I would be interested in knowing the psychology and derivation of the flood myth.

There were floods, just not a flood. It's easy to see how catastrophic deluges could affect a people's thinking.

There must be some need of the psyche to create a myth of a flood not a real flood but some psychological story some symbol. Just like in the story of the Garden of Eden, to take it literally is to miss the point of the whole story in its relationship to the development of the psyche of the human being. To insist on taking these myths literally is to miss the point whether you're an atheist or a True Believer. The point is to ask questions not to have simple answers. That's why fundamentalists and atheists sound so goddamn similar. I swear I can't tell one from the other.

I think it must really be true what Alan Watts said, that there really is a strong taboo against knowing who we are, what we are. Is it possible to break this taboo?

It is by no means proven, of course, but some scientists have speculated that the flood myth of the middle east was a vague memory of the ancient flooding of the Black Sea basin. This page from Global Security-dot-org explains that hypothesis. Global Security is the very antithesis of scientific woo-woo and conspiracy theories.

Once again we can all speculate as to what was meant by certain things written in the past.

We do know that the flood storiy of the Hebrew Bible was recorded later than the flood story of Gilgamesh... That is one thing for certain.

Was the Hebrew flood story based upon the Gilgamesh story?

That is quite probable given the uncanny similarities. Let's focus on the differences of each story.

The question is why would the Hebrews take a story written by the Babylonians and rewrite it?

It is evident it was to promote and lay ground for their monotheistic God religion or as, Izzy said, there was another flood or... it is a figurative flood.

For all we know, both flood stories are figurative.

Once thing we know for certain without any doubt... 6000 years ago there was not a flood caused by rain that covered the entire globe killing all life except for a handful of humans and animals.

As Setanta said, of which this research I was aware of, the Mediterranean did overflow its border at one point and the Black Sea was made. Given the similarities of both stories they are describing a similar event from two different religious perspectives.

I years ago studied these stories and what became evident to me was they both draw different religious conclusions.

In the Gilgamesh story, the result of the flood was the direct and poignant catalyst for a pantheistic religion to emerge where with the Hebrew story much is the same (written later) but contrarily is a catalyst for a monotheistic religion to emerge.

So one could say the point of each story is to promote each religions framework polytheism versus monotheism.

Given that this is the "purpose" of each story just as the story of Babel's famed tower was to explain multilingualism we see that it is not so much the event itself that is given emphasis but the results and speculation as to the cause of each event.

That each event transpired due to evil be it the treachery of a ruler or a people or misguided ideas about what God may or may not represent.

The flood is merely a vehicle to relay morality.

In this case monotheism or polytheism.

Did a localized flood happen? Quite possibly. If this is a recollection of the Black Sea flood I have heard it speculated by scientists that in the onset it carried the power of a, or several, nuclear explosions. This might easily have been perceived as an act of God(s).

Due to the flood stories both equally being used as propaganda to promote a religious system of belief through fear, I have always seen this as the catalyst for the emergence of various religious systems of the past.

Such that the story itself was used to create polytheists and monotheists such that these religious frameworks can be considered the actual flood that covered the world with their own kind of religion and progeny.

Polytheism and monotheism was the actual flood that had an effect on the world where water, often symbolized in baptism, was the catalyst for the entire being or inhabited earth to become affected by a religious transformation and outcome.

We see that polytheism was indeed exported on a mass worldwide scale by the Gilgamesh story and then later the Noah flood story mimicked this action by creating the monotheism we see today.

None of this was "made up by me"... I am simply an observer of the impact that these religious stories have had on the world. I have pointed out the far reaching effects of these stories be they based on fact or fables I cannot know for sure. The results of these stories are certainly real and leave no doubt as to the intent meant by their respective authors.

I would like to also make another point that some here have had objections to as to my broad brush approach to Babylon being the originator of paganism.

One thing we know is the world prior to 6000 years ago was completely overrun by emerging pagan and polytheistic tribal cities.

Babylon has historically taken credit and been blamed for this paganism.

It is speculated by anthropologists and archaeologists that the spread of paganism occurred perhaps thousands of years earlier.

This is indeed possible and if so it would seem that Africa would be the actual mother of paganism and when humans were first learning language and tool work that religion was a logical kin to such developments.

Paganism may very well have its roots in the stone age or even earlier for all we know.

This would explain why there is a basic framework of paganism in most all ancient cultures because it was present when populations initially spread across the globe.

This does not negate the spread of "mystery Babylonian religion", Babylonian religion merely compliments an older spread that laid groundwork for its later spread.

It is evident that Babylon Mystery religion touched all of the pagan religions of Europe and beyond but the religions of Mesoamerica may have been due to an earlier spread.

Just as the first pyramid builder traditions may have predated Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations as we know them. It is more likely they have their roots in stone age religions. Stone monuments are nearly impossible to carbon date and the ages for a rare few pyramids and stone glyphs may be much older than we speculate. Africa is filled with massive stoneworks that stretch far back into antiquity predating by perhaps thousands of years the religious activity on the fertile crescent.

The earlier spread does not change the spread of the Babylonian brand of religion from the "east" (Isht). The extent of the Babylonian religion's spread is a source for much speculation and analysis.

The Babylonians merely became the main proponents, with far reaching influence, of the ancient form of paganism.