Cydonia: Chapter Thirteen: Alchemists of Astronomy

O telescope, is not he who holds thee in his hand made king and lord of the works of God? --Astronomer Johannes Kepler It is rare to find even one prominent name in astronomy from antiquity to the present day who were not among the initiates of the mystery schools. The words astronomy and astrology were interchangeable until the 20th century. The word "science" itself is from the Latin scientia meaning "knowledge." Knowledge comes from the Greek gnosis as in Knossos, the Creten city of Eluesinian mystery school. Even science itself had its origins on Crete, at Cydonia. Aleister Crowley wrote: [985] Indeed, it is only recently that science has been allowed to study anything without reproach. Bostonian Percival Lowell, and the French astronomer Camille Flammarion, both contemporaries of Schiaparelli, shared a fascination for the occult. Camille Flammarion, Director of the Observatory of Juvisy, France was author of The Unknown and several books on the supernatural. Flammarion and Schiaparelli collaborated extensively on studies of the phenomena of spirit channeling and carried out [986] observations on the medium Eusapia Palladino in the company of other scientists in Milan Italy. After these studies Flammarion wrote the book Unknown Psychic Forces, in which he focused on some of his experiments with Eusapia Paladino. The book includes flash photographs of a completely levitated table. He wrote: Any scientist who declares mediumistic phenomena or other phenomena as yet unexplained by [987] science to be impossible is one who speaks without knowing what he is talking about. Flammarion recorded that Eusapia Palladino occasionally used to levitate and was also able to increase or decrease the weight of objects. After scrutinizing the demonstrations of this medium, Camille Flammarion stated that levitation should no longer be any more in question than the attraction of iron by a [988] magnet. Flammarion held séances in his house in Japan with Lowell and often invited mediums to his [989] Paris apartment. Percival Lowell traveled to Japan in the 1880s, and later wrote of his dealings with the supernatural in his book The Way of the Gods; An Esoteric Study of Japanese Personality and [990] Possession. In his book Occult Japan Lowell took up the subject of Shinto trances, which he had first witnessed on the summit of Mount Ontaké. Lowell, an avid observer of the planet Mars, held séances in his own house: "…red flame and potent spells in a dark dark room," as he described them to his friend [991] Frederic Jepson Stimson. Lowell became interested in the planet Mars due to Schiaparelli, having decided to take up observational astronomy in 1893 after hearing that Schiaparelli was beginning to lose his eyesight and would no longer be able to continue his work on planet. With the main goal of studying Mars, Lowell established his observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1894. Flammarion had preceded Edgar rice Burroughs by twenty-two years with the connection between Mars and reincarnation. In his fiction Uranie Flammarion described a man awaking on Mars only to meet [992] the reincarnation of himself. In his nonfiction work The Unknown Flammarion reasoned that souls of [993] men traveled to other planets in the solar system after death. The fascination that Flammarion had with occult phenomena was connected with his theory that Mars was inhabited; a belief also shared by Lowell and Schiaparelli. In his book Mysterious Psychic Forces on the subject of communication with the dead through séance Flammarion wrote: Two inescapable hypotheses present themselves. Either it is we who produce these phenomena (which is unreasonable) or spirits. But mark this well: these spirits are not necessarily the souls of the dead; for other kinds of spiritual beings may exist, and space may be full of them without our ever knowing anything about it, except under unusual circumstances. Do we not find in the different ancient literatures, demons, angels, gnomes, goblins, sprites, spectres, elementals, etc? Perhaps these [994] legends are not without some foundation in fact! Flammarion was confident not only that the Martians were far superior to Earthlings, but that they [995] ultimately would contact the earth through the means of mental telepathy. …the present inhabitation of Mars by a race superior to ours is very probable… The considerable variations observed in the network of waterways testify that this planet is the seat of an energetic vitality… we may hope that, because the world of Mars is older than ours, mankind there will be [996] more advanced and wiser. Lowell also believed that an advanced civilization had existed on Mars. He believed that the Martians were trying to keep their planet alive via a worldwide canal network that channeled water from the Martian polar caps to the rest of the planet. He outlined this theory in Mars as the Abode of Life (1909) and Mars (1895). So great was Lowell's convictions of the significance of Mars that he requested burial upon Mars Hill in Rome. After his death, Lowell's relatives honored his request on November 12, 1916. Percival Lowell's views on Mars as potentially harboring intelligent life influenced the American astronomical and political community of his day. In the summer of 1924 the U.S. Government ordered all radio transmitters in the country to maintain radio silence for 5 minutes on the hour, every hour, for a period of two days during the closest approach of Mars to the earth. The leader of the project was Dr. David Peck Todd, former head of the Amherst College astronomy department and friend of Percival Lowell. Todd asked the U.S. Government to turn off its high-powered transmitters for five minutes before each hour to give him "silent periods" in which to listen for signals during the close transit with Mars [35,000,000 miles from Earth] from August 21 to August 23 . This was called "National Radio Silence Day." rd Cooperation for this period of radio silence worldwide was obtained through American diplomatic channels. Major General Charles Saltzman ordered all American military stations to monitor and report any unusual signals, though he didn't order any cutback in normal transmissions. Admiral Edward W. [997] Eberlen, Chief of Naval Operations, did the same for his branch of the military. The U.S. Naval Observatory worked with Amherst College's newly developed "radio photo message continuous recording machine" or "Radio-Camera" invented by Francis Jenkins. This machine produced flashes of light that were recorded on film whenever an incoming radio wave was detected. Jenkins was a well respected inventor who had developed the "phantascope" between 1891 and 1894 which was a forerunner of the moving picture projector. He also developed a mechanical scanning disc that could be used to produce television pictures from electric signals. By 1924 he had perfected his system to the point of being able to record these signals on photographic material. World renowned code expert William F. Friedman, then Chief of the Code Section in the office of the Chief Signal Officer of the Army was standing by to translate any messages that may have come from [998] Mars. Friedman in 1952 became chief technical consultant to the National Security Agency and two [999] years later became the special assistant to the director of the National Security Agency. Professor Todd set up a receiver 3000 meters above the ground in a dirigible tuned to a wavelength [1000] between 5 and 6 kilometers to record Martian signals during the silent periods. Todd also operated [1001] the Jenkins radio-camera for the Naval Observatory. On August 21 the Jenkins Radio-Camera was st turned on. A roll of sensitized paper about thirty feet long and about six inches wide, slowly moved past a point of light modulated by electrical radio signals fed from an antenna on Todd's dirigible aimed at [1002] Mars. After 36 hours of recording, the film was developed and Francis Jenkins, the machine's inventor, told a stunned press conference that the device had indeed received signals and that in addition to a fairly regular arrangement of dots and dashes clusters of signals which seemed to appear every thirty minutes. The film also showed: [1003] a repetition at intervals of about a half hour what appears to be a human face. These strange patterns were reported to the public five days later on August 28, 1924 in the New York Times: MYSTERY DOTS AND DASHES WAS MARS SIGNALLING? WHAT THE PHOTOGRAPHIC FILM REVEALED. The development of the photographic film of the radio signals for the 29 hour period while Mars was close to Earth, deepens the mystery of the dots and dashes heard by widely separated powerful stations. The film disclosed in black and white a regular arrangement of dots and dashes along one side. On the other, at about evenly spaced intervals, are curiously jumbled groups, each taking the form of a crudely drawn face. The film record of the radio signals was later sent to Virginia Military Institute where it was [1004] confiscated by the NSA (National Security Agency). This ambitious attempt to communicate with Mars was not the first in modern history. Over one hundred years before Radio Silence Day in 1820 Karl Gauss, the celebrated German mathematical astronomer, proposed planting parallel wide strips of pine forest in Siberia to enclose a huge right-angled Pythagorian triangle. The giant geometric figure would be a signal to Mars that intelligent beings occupied earth. The Jan 15 1905 edition of New York Times wrote: "Nikola Tesla may use an oscillator to "wake up" Mars." Nikola Tesla later declared in a letter to The New York Times (Jan 23): "I can easily bridge the gulf which separates us from Mars." His apparatus consisted of a large primary coil 75 feet in diameter and a 3 foot wide copper ball mounted on top of a 196 foot tall mast. He increased the power of the signal, corresponding powerful alternating surges of electricity into the copper ball and into the ground, at the frequency of the Earth. Tesla wrote: I think that nothing can be more important than interplanetary communication. It will certainly come some day and the certitude that there are other human beings in the universe, working, suffering, struggling, like ourselves, will produce a magic effect on mankind and will build the foundation of a universal brotherhood that will last as long as humanity itself. Nikola Tesla had set up equipment in his laboratory near Pikes Peak, Colorado in 1899, six years before the Times article. Late one night in the fall of the same year, Tesla fired up his machine at full blast, in hopes of producing a phenomenon he called resonant rise. His tower pumped one hundred million volts into the earth's surface. Tesla described why he had chosen this level of voltage in his Autobiography: At this time I made a further careful study of the Bible, and discovered the key in Revelation. The first gratifying result was obtained in the spring of the succeeding year, when I reaching a tension of about 100,000,000 volts--one hundred million volts--with my conical coil, which I figured was the voltage of a flash of lightening. The current raced through the earth at the speed of light, powerful enough to keep from dying out over the course of its journey. When it reached the opposite side of the planet, it bounced back, like ripples of water returning to their origin. Upon returning, the current was greatly weakened; but Tesla was sending out a series of pulses that reinforced one another, resulting in a tremendous cumulative effect. At ground zero, where Tesla and his assistant stood bedazzled, the resonant rise manifested itself in an unearthly display of lightning that still stands as the most powerful man-made electrical surge in history. The returning current formed an arc of lightning that stretched skyward from Tesla's tower and progressively grew to an incredible 130 feet long. Apocalyptic crashes of thunder were heard twenty-two miles away. Tesla had been concerned that there might be an upper limit to generating resonant surges, but now he believed the potential was limitless. The demonstration did come to an unexpected halt, but that was because the power surge caused the overloaded Colorado Springs power generator to burst into flames. Tesla received no further free power from the plant's furious owners. Incandescent lights were set glowing 25 miles away. In Collier's Weekly (March 1901) Tesla was quoted: I can never forget the first sensations I experienced when it dawned upon me that I had observed something possibly of incalculable consequences to mankind. I felt as though I were present at the birth of a new knowledge or the revelation of a great truth. My first observations positively terrified me, as there was present in them something mysterious, not to say supernatural, and I was alone in my laboratory at night; but at that time the idea of these disturbances being intelligently controlled signal did not yet present itself to me. The changes I noted were taking place periodically and with such a clear suggestion of number and order that they were not traceable to any cause known to me. I was familiar, of course, with such electrical disturbances as are produced by the sun, Aurora Borealis and earth currents, and I was as sure as I could be of any fact that these variations were due to none of these causes. The nature of my experiments precluded the possibility of the changes being produced by atmospheric disturbances, as has been rashly asserted by some. It was sometime afterward when the thought flashed upon my mind that the disturbances I had observed might be due to an intelligent control. Although I could not decipher their meaning, it was impossible for me to think of them as having been entirely accidental. The feeling is constantly growing in me that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another. A purpose was behind these electrical [1005] signals! Guglielmo Marconi, who while experimenting with a radio, [a concept which, according to modern myth, he had borrowed from Tesla] recorded a series of coded signals that appeared to be similar to Morse code. In the spring 1919, Marconi announced that several of his radio stations were picking up very strong signals "seeming to come from beyond the earth." Despite intensive study these signals could not be decoded. Marconi's only possible explanation was that they had to have originated from space. The American press heard the announcement in New York by J.C.H. MacBeth, the London Manager for the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, that the Earth was in the process of communicating with beings from the planet Mars. Schiaparelli consorted with other astronomers as well in an effort to build larger and more powerful telescopes in order to observe Mars in greater detail. Schiaparelli theorized that an observatory needed to be built high up on a mountain such as Teneriffe or Etna in Italy where " the atmosphere lies [1006] under the feet of the observer, and the effects of its agitation can be partly eliminated." The first astronomer to do what Schiaparelli advised was the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-1900) who set up a temporary mountain observatory on the peak of mount Teneriffe in 1856. Three years before in 1853, Smyth had installed a "time ball" on top of the Nelson Monument on Calton Hill to give a time signal to the ships at Leith. This device operated under the same illumined symbolism as the Flamsteed ball in Greenwich. Smyth was also obsessed by the pyramids of Egypt and the mystical science of pyramidology. He is the only person to have resigned his fellowship of the Royal [1007] Society, after the Society refused to publish his papers on the subject. In 1897, the American astronomer George Ellery Hale succeeded in building a 40- inch wide telescope atop a mountain at Yerkes Observatory, the largest telescope at that time. Hale later built a 100 inch lens--the largest solid piece of glass ever constructed--for the Palomar mountain observatory. Hale got the idea in 1910 one night when an "elf" climbed in his window while he was playing billiards and told him to get money for a telescope from the Rockefeller Foundation. Hale began receiving regular visits from the elf, who advised him on numerous matters, including the administration of a telescope on Mt. Wilson and the planning for the Mt. Palomar telescope. During the building of his 100 inch lens Hale spent time in a sanatorium and would only discuss his plans for the telescope with "the sympathetic green [1008] elf." In 1930 Mt. Palomar, the location endorsed by the diamon elf who had advised Hale, became home to a temple of the California branch of Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientalis or the O.T.O. The name of this pivotal location for initiates in the mystery schools is a combination of the ending mars, and the familiar root pal, as in phalac, the god Pales or goddess called Pallas, or the patriarch Peleg, referring to the most recent Ouroboral suntelia during the aion of the Tower of Babel. While investing most of his time at the Brera Observatory, Schiaparelli mapped Mars, Venus, and Mercury, the three most significant planets with respect to the mystery schools. When he discovered the only asteroid of his long career, Schiaparelli named it appropriately, Hesperia, demonstrating his knowledge of the mysteries, and his own quest for the golden fruit found in that Garden along the meridian of Isis. Schiaparelli placed particular emphasis on researching the ancient astronomy of the Hebrews. In 1900 he retired and compiled his research of the ancient Hebrew writings concerning the cosmos in his work Astronomy in the Old Testament, (1903). His reasons were well founded. The actual origin of the [1009] name Cydonia is found in the very first book of the Old Testament. Sidon was eldest son of Canaan whose father was Ham, the son of Noah. Sidon's descendants were under a curse, according to Genesis 9:22-27. Sidon was the father of the Sidonians and Phoenicians. Josh 13:6 . The name Canaan is both the historic country of Sidon and the Biblical father of Sidon. Cain, the first son of Adam and Eve and first murderer, and Canaan, the country and the descendent of Noah, both allude the occupation "trader" or "merchant." The descendent of Noah Canaan is defined in Hebrew as a [1010] merchant or trader from Canaan, Ka na`an {ken-ah'-an}. The Old Testament uses the word canaan in this capacity: He is a merchant (Canaan) -the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress. (Hosea 12:7) She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant (Canaan). (Proverbs 31:24) Cain, son of Eve, is defined in Lexicons of ancient Hebrew as meaning "lance or spear" from Kahyin, a play on the affinity of the word qanah {kaw-naw'} and also the cane or branch as well as a [1011] merchant. In earlier chapters it was found that the Romans called the Caananites Cananaei, or Canaorum [1012] close etymology with the Latin word for the female dog, Canarius. These Latin words were traced to their origin from the Greek kuna or kunas meaning the dog- star, called by Homer, "the hound of Orion," Homer. Illiad. 22.29. A Kuna is also Greek for watch-dog, or more commonly "a guardian of the [1013] servants, agents or watchers of the gods." In Hebrew the names Canaan and Cain are used in the sense of buying and selling, activities of the Greek Hermes, Egyptian Thoth and Roman Mercury. The name of the god Mercury literally means trade and commerce. The versions of this deity through time and various cultures carried with him the rod, or caduceus and was also known for the sciences of navigation, mathematics, astronomy and writing. Homer mentioned these skills as belonging to the city of Sidon with great praise. (Iliad, XXIII, 743; Odyssey, XV, 425; XIII, 285) The Sidonians, according to tradition, are skilled in many beautiful arts, as the poet also points out; and besides this they are philosophers in the sciences of astronomy and arithmetic, having begun their studies with practical calculations and with night-sailings; for each of these branches of knowledge concerns the merchant and ship-owner; as, for example, geometry was invented, it is said, from the measurement of lands which is made necessary by the Nile when it confounds the boundaries at the time of its overflows. This science, then, is believed to have come to the Greeks from the Aegyptians; astronomy and arithmetic from the Phoenicians; and at present the far the greatest store of knowledge in every other branch of philosophy is had from these cities. And if one must believe Poseidonius, the ancient dogma about atoms originated with Mochus, a Sidonian [Phoenician], born before the Trojan times. (Strabo's Geography) In the opinion of Hubert Grimme, late professor of Semitic languages at the University of Münster, Germany, the Mosaical Tablets of the Law were one of the first, if not the first document in alphabetical [1014] script. The names Tyre and Sidon, if spelled in the original Chaldee/Hebrew are Tzor and Tsidon . The letter tsadae makes the "TS" sound in these names, the Hebrew letter, tsadae, originally meant "man lying in wait, adversity, trouble, hunt, chase." The ancient Paleo-Hebrew form of tsadae is . The modern short hand astrological glyph for the sign Leo the lion bresembles the Hebrew tsadae. The lion was considered the greatest hunter in the ancient world and astrologically Leo is known by the illumined as a symbol of the sun and Osiris and the meaning of the [1015] name of his constellation Orion, "the hunter." Dante the poet and occultist identified Mars with the constellation Leo. He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death. And if a man lie not in wait, tsadah, but God deliver [him] into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee. (Exd 21:12) I have cut off the nations: their towers are desolate; I made their streets waste, that none passeth by: their cities are destroyed, tsadah, so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant. (Zep 3:6) "To lie in wait" and "destroy" are the meanings of the root word of Sidon and Cydonia, tsadah. This also describes the act by which Cain became famous: And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. (Gen 4:3-8) Ezekiel 28:12 is one of the most detailed Biblical passages concerning the rebel cherub known to the Gnostic mystery schools as Lucifer. Lucifer, or Satan, is called both the King (melek) of Tyre (stone) and the cherub from the Garden of Eden. A cherub is an order of angel or mal'ak in Aramaic. This passage also provides an ancient connection between Mars and the location on earth of the Sidonian land of Canaan: Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; (both Satan and Cain were in the garden of Eden) Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee [so]: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones (eh-ben) of fire. (the cherub was not only on earth but among the fiery stones in the heavens, the planets) Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Jewish astrology associates the archangels with the planets: Raphael with the Sun, Gabriel with the Moon, Michael with Mercury, Aniel (Anael) with Venus, Samael with Mars, Zadkiel (Sachiel) with Jupiter, and Kafziel (Cassiel) with Saturn. The Talmud equates Samael, the angel of Mars, with Satan: The evil Spirit, Satan, and Sama'el the Angel of Death, are the same. (Rabba Batra, 16a) The biblical serpent in the tree of knowledge, referred to in Revelation 12:9 as "that old serpent" and "Satan," was the cherub of Mars. And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. (Genesis 3:22-4) Throughout the Hebrew Old Testament two words were used for a sword-like weapon, the Cherub and amazingly, the Kydon. Though the word kydon means "glorious or proud" in Greek, it means, "to strike" in Hebrew. The first place the word Cherub (two edged sword) is found in the old Testament is Genesis 3:24, referring to the weapon protecting the tree of life The first place Kydon (one edged sword ) is found is in the story of David and Goliath, as the sword of the Nephilim giant Goliath of Gath. The kydon is mentioned only three times: in Job 39:23 and 41:29 in reference to Leviathan "the great serpent," and once in Joshua 8:18 and 26 as a weapon belonging to Goliath. The name Kydon and Sidon are used interchangeably in the dialects of the Mediterranean to represent the demi-god founder of Cydonia on Crete, King Kydon, son of Cadmus-Hermes. Cain was considered, by the Gnostics mystery schools, to be the son of Lucifer. The Babylonian Talmud was a collection of ancient Hebrew scholarly and mystical writings of the Old Testament from the [1016] end of the fifth and in the first half of the sixth centuries A.D. According to the Talmud : When the serpent mounted Eve, he injected filth into her. Israel who stood at Mount Sinai, their filth [1017] ceased; the other nations who did not stand at Mount Sinai, their filth has not ceased… There is a similar passage in the Hebrew Cabalistic work The Zohar: The sons of God were the sons of Cain. For when Samael mounted Eve, he injected filth into her, and she conceived and bare Cain. And his aspect was unlike that of the other humans and all those who [1018] came from his side were called sons of God. The Zohar was written by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (150 CE--230 CE) in the form of parables and is in Aramaic, a language spoken in Biblical times. The Zohar is a compilation, mainly of commentary on the Pentateuch (the five books of the Old Testament) according to the latter's division into fifty-two weekly lessons. Its title Zohar (light, splendour) is derived from the words of Genesis 1:3 [1019] "Let there be light." The Gnostic mysteries taught that Lucifer or Samael, from the Garden of Eden, was the teacher and the father of Cain. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 4:1, we read: And Adam knew about his wife Eve that she had conceived by Sammael the wicked angel of the Lord [Sammael was evidently another name for Azazel or Satan], and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. He resembled the upper ones [angels] and not the lower ones, and she therefore said, "I have acquired a man, indeed, an angel of the Lord."