WE propose to discuss a chain of ideas, all connected, which have roots in the ancient past, and are still relevant today. We can sum it up in one word -- Du.Ku.
Du.Ku. as a word means "Holy Mound." This is said to be the Sumerian name for a cosmic place in Ubshu-ukkinnaku, where the ancestors of Enlil lamented, where the Sun-god and the Anunnaki decided fates. A Du.Ku. mound is said to have existed in the temples of each major deity.
What is Ubshu-ukkinnaku? This is the Divine Assembly Hall where the gods met. It could also be called Hall of Judgement. It contained the Holy Mountain, Du.Ku., and, in this respect, can be said to be connected to the concept of the Dur.An.Ki., or the Bond-Heaven-Earth, which we have surveyed elsewhere.
In the Enuma Elish, the Elder Gods met in the Divine Assembly Hall to decide the fate of the Ancient ones who caused them so much trouble. It was in Ubshu-ukkinnaku that the decision to send EnKi, (later MarDuk), into battle, to vanquish the Dragon TIAMAT.
As above, so below. In the heavens, or on the 12th Planet, was the Divine Assembly Hall. On Earth, as its counterpart, we learn that every major temple had a Du.Ku. Mound, similar to the Merus we come across in India. It was in this sacred part of the temple that the High Priest would perform an oracle, communicating with the Gods, beseeching their good favor, in Ubshu-ukkinnaku, in order to determine the fate of his city and his ruler for the coming year.
This act was performed but once in a year's time, during (and as the major component of) a festival known under various names: 1.) DuKu; 2.) Labulum; 3.) Dul-Azagga; 4.) Festival of the Goddess Bau.The Du.Ku. festival was a complement to the famous Sumerian (and Babylonian) New Year Festival, the Akitu Festival. Akitu means "On Earth Build Life" and in some parts of the country was performed not on the traditional spring equinox, but at the time of the fall equinox, which was the traditional time for the Du.Ku. Festival, and these two are related much in the same way that Passover and Yom ha-Kippur are related. This Akitu festival lasted several days, and was performed in the month of Nisannu, the same as Nisan, as is the current usage of the word in the Hebrew calendar.
>The AKITU festival takes us back in time to the 38th century before the common era, when Anu and Antu made their famous (and perhaps final) visit to Earth. It was at this time that the Calendar was given to humankind. We are told that the Akitu festival celebrates this granting of the Calendar. As we have discussed the AKITU festival in more detail in the previous section of the present work, we shall not delay the reader with more repetitions here. Zecharia Sitchin, in the sixth volume of The Earth Chronicles, tells us --
>"Surprisingly, the texts on the clay tablets (whose scribal colophons identify them as copies of earlier originals) clearly describe two sets of rituals -- one taking place in the month Nissan (the month of the spring equinox) and the other in the month Tishrit (the month of the autumnal equinox); the former was to become the Babylonian and Assyrian New Year, and the latter was retained in the Jewish Calendar following the biblical commandment to celebrate the New Year 'in the seventh month,' Tishrei. While the reason for this diversity still mystifies scholars, Ebeling noted that the Nissan texts appear to have been better preserved than the Tishrei texts which are mostly fragmented, suggesting a clear bias on the part of the later temple scribes, and Falkenstein has noted that the Nissan and Tishrei rituals, seemingly identical, were not really so; the former stressed the various celestial observations, the latter the rituals within the Holy of Holies and its anteroom."<1 >
This is an interesting statement. The Rite, in Jewish usage, which is associated with the Holy of Holies, is Yom ha-Kippurim, the Day of Atonement. While we do not know exactly what took place in the Du.Ku. festival, we can conjecture.
For starters, the Hebrew Day of Atonement only came into usage after the time of Zechariah and Nehemiah, i.e., after the return from the Babylonian Captivity and the rebuilding of the Temple and Ezra's reforms. This suggests that it was obtained from the Priesthood in Babylon, and this is not an impossibility, even if there are still those who insist that everything in the Bible originated with the Jews or Christians.
The Du.Ku. takes place in the month of Tashritum, which in Hebrew is Tishri. Sitchin continues, on the subject of the Holy of Holies --
"The statement that Anu seated himself 'facing the rising Sun' leaves no doubt that the ceremony involved a determination of a moment connected with sunrise on a particular day -- the first day of Nissan (the Spring Equinox day) or the first day of Tishrei (the autumnal Equinox day). It was only when this sunrise ceremony was completed, that Anu was led by one of the gods and by the high priest to the Barag.gal -- the 'Holy of Holies' inside the Temple."(BARAG means 'inner sanctum, screened-off place' and GAL means 'great, foremost.' The term evolved to Baragu / Barakhu/ Parakhu in Akkadian with the meanings 'inner sanctum, Holy of Holies' as well as the screen which hides it. This term appears in the Bible as the Hebrew word Parokhet, which was both the word for the Holy of Holies in the temple and for the screen that separated it from the anteroom. The traditions and rituals that began in Sumer were thus carried on both physically and linguistically."<2>
In the Kabbalah, the word Paroketh assumes great significance, and we will leave it to the interested researcher to pursue it. A word which is related to Paroketh is Kaporeth, "Covering." It is related like Hebrew words are sometimes, by means of anagram. In a similar manner, TORAH 'Law' and TROAH 'Gate' are related, of this, more, later.
The meaning of the words Yom ha-Kippurim, then, is "Day of Coverings." That is because the people would be "covered" on the Day of Atonement, when the lamb was sacrificed on the altar of burnt offerings, and the goat was charged up with the sins of the people and banished into the wilderness of Gehinnom, to Azazel. So, then, the colloquialism we use today, namely, "you're covered" -- has ancient religious roots.
Sitchin speaks of the High Priest going into the Holy of Holies, known as the Barag-gal. Could the High Priest, then, be a Baru priest? The BARU priests were, along with the Ashipu priests, considered the most important in the entire hierarchy. The Ashipu priests were the exorcists, the BARU were the diviners, oracle priests, and prophets.So, then, the head of the BARU priesthood, on the day of the Du.Ku. festival, went into the Barag-gal and communicated with the gods in the Hall of Judgement, where the oracle for the new year was delivered to the BARU-priest. Also, we read elsewhere that BAR means "Barrier", or "Ring-pass-not" in reference to "Those Who Are Without (and must stay that way!)"
One more thing about the Du.Ku. festival, we find in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, s.v., Calendar -- Babylonian:
"Tishri (Dul-azag, the 'sacred mount,' i.e.,the altar of incense formed like a terraced tower in the sky near Libra)..." <3>
AFTER the Babylonian Captivity, the Jews got most of their Ritual, at least that which wasn't retained from their original, authentic, ancient and primitive Goddess cultus, which was as indigenous to the Hebrews as the God of the Fathers cultus<4>. The Nabiim (Prophets) exchanged information with their Babylonian captors and received much in return.
The Day of Atonement could be said to be a State Oracle, much like every major Theocracy, such as the old Tibetan Hierarchy under the Gelugspa sect, with the Dalai Lama performing the National Oracle, all of which exercise this in connection with the New Year festivals.
During the Day of Atonement, the main ritual was associated with the sacrifice of the Lamb and the driving of the scapegoat, into the wilderness, delivered to Azazel, free of charge. The sins of the people were transferred to the goat, and the goat was banished. The lamb was charged with the good works of the people, and sacrificed on the altar of burnt offerings.
The blood was used to purify the Holy of Holies, where it was sprinkled on the Mercy Seat and the horns (keren) of the Golden Altar of Incense Prayer.While the people outside the Temple were instructed to sing and dance and shout, the High Priest inside the Holy of Holies, no doubt, quite intoxicated from the mystical adorations, the kawwannah, (of which more later), the fasting, the incense, for any tyro knows that there was one particular ingredient in all incense mixtures of the ancient past, that is illegal today, and for that very reason -- all these worked to get the High Priest worked up into the correct state of consciousness, in order to vibrate the Sacred and Divine Name of God, the most Secret and Holy, the Lost Word, the Ineffable Name.
This Name was probably lost when the priesthood in the Temple split up, right around the same time the Chasidim split up, namely, 100 b.c.e. This was a result of the problems experienced during the Maccabean administration, one group staying behind in Jerusalem, and becoming pharisees, while the other group exiled itself into the wilderness, kind of like the scapegoat being delivered to Azazel.
To Hebron and Moreh, Mamre and the Dead Sea they went, under the headship of Joshua.
These schismatics (at least, in the eyes of their adversaries) later became known as Essenes, or Healers. At the time, they were Prophets, Diviners, Oracle Priests, and Healers. From the manuscripts that have finally come to light, it is clear they were aware of the solitary means of Grace available to Humankind, for there were instructions for taking care to clean the garments of seminal emissions, so they were not necessarily the harsh Branch Davidians the present-day so-called scholars make them out to be, in order to marginalize them and make their message irrelevant to today. The terms used above, the Priest classes, were related to the Babylonian Baru priesthood, which by that time had long since ceased to exist in its original form, being driven to Pergamon by Cyrus the Great, and to other places.
One of the most important works on the subject of the Dead Sea Scrolls (and most widely dismissed as nonsense by the orthodoxy of Scrolls scholarship) is The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth, by John M. Allegro. Allegro was on the original team hired to organize, translate, and interpret the Scrolls, and the first to be let go of, when his discoveries started to make the Church authorities uncomfortable. His career was ruined.
In this excellent work, Allegro gives us a very interesting account of the Sect, narrating their origins, their ancestry (they were of the Enoch-Enmeduranki Lineage), and gives the story of the Teacher of Righteousness and the significance of the Diviner's Oak.
This teacher, Joshua, once was in Jerusalem, as a part of the Priesthood, or School of Prophets, but got fed up with the changes that were coming into vogue, as a result of the Jews being forced to modernize their practices because of the Hellenism that was rampant in the land... The Sons of Zadok were opposed to this, and Joshua was one of these. This group of schismatics retired to the desert wilderness, established a community in order to continue the work of God until the end of time.
It was in the year, circa 88 bce, on the Day of Atonement, that the "Wicked Priest" from the Jerusalem community appeared in the Desert, and took the Teacher of Righteousness, and hung him upside down on the Oak of Mamre, or the Teacher's Oak, or Diviner's Oak, and left him to die. This became the original for the Hanged Man of the Tarot, of the Lamb being slain at the foundation of the world, of the murder of Hiram the Master Builder, of the Crucifixion of Jesus. The oak tree itself reappears in the early Kabbalah, in the Book Bahir, and becomes known as the World Tree.
[Later editions of this text shall include parallel comparisons...]
In all cases, the victim never gave up the Word .
Et In Arcadia Ego...
19 September 1999 e.v.
19 September 1999 e.v.
Twin Cedars Lodge.
NOTE: the next real revision will be coming on the Day of Atonement, 2000 e.v. Stay Tuned. Still on the way.
<F1>Sitchin, When Time Began, p. 111. BACK.
<F3>Hastings, E.R.E., Vol. III, p. 75a. 'CALENDAR (Babylonian),' by Fr. Hommel. BACK.
<F4>The worship of Al-Shaddai -- for an interesting interpretation of El-Shaddai, see the writings of Kenneth Grant and Albert Churchward. BACK.
(In Allegro, Chapters 4, 5, 6, pp. 62 - 106.)
A. The Nefilim.
B. Enoch.
C. The Preservation of the Enochian Tradition.
D. Its passing to Moses.
E. Joshua's Inheritance.
F. It stays in the High Priesthood.
G. The Babylonian Captivity -- the Zadokites -- the new Message.
H. The Chasidim separate -- Essenes / Pharisees.
I. The Teacher of Righteousness (2nd Joshua).
J. The Diviner's Oak.
K. The Murder of the Teacher.
L. The Significance of the Murder, and of the Date of the Murder, and its relation to the Time System of The Code of the Eternal, in which Ages or Cycles come, one after the other.[In other words, this was the dawning of the Piscean Age, and this was the primal sacrifice, on the Day of Atonement, related to the New Year's festivities, ushering in the New Age.]
A. In the Desert.
B. In the Transjordan and Egypt.
C. Transmission to the West.
D. The Babylonian Geonim.
E. The Transmission from Babylon to Italy; to Germany and to the Languedoc, in the 12th Century e.v.
A. Bahir.
B. The Transformation of the Diviner's Oak into the World Tree.
C. The new formula of Atonement.
D. The Visitation of Elijah on the Day of Atonement in the year 1130 e.v., to Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne.
E. The Schools of Kabbalah, from the Reception in 1130 e.v., to the Period of the Zohar.
F. From the Zohar to Isaac Luria's school of Kabbalists in Safed.
G. Shabbetai Zevi and Jakob Frank, and their followers.
A. Atonement == At-One-Ment, it is an individual act today.
Copyright (©) 1999 - 2000 e.v. All Rights Reserved, by Jonathan Sellers.