STAR FIRE - The Gold of the Gods Sir Laurence Gardner, The true Grail bloodline originated with the Anunnaki gods in southern Sumeria at least 6,000 years ago and was sustained by ingestion of an alchemical substance called 'Star Fire'. About the Speaker: Sir Laurence Gardner, Kt St Gm., KCD, KT St A., is an internationally known sovereign and chivalric genealogist. He holds the position of Prior of the Celtic Church of the Sacred Kindred of Saint Columba, and is distinguished as Le Chevalier Labhràn de Saint Germain and Preceptor of the Knights Templars of Saint Anthony. Sir Laurence is also Presidential Attaché to the European Council of Princes (a constitutional advisory body established in 1946), and Chancellor of the Imperial and Royal Court of the Dragon Sovereignty. He is formally attached to the Noble Household Guard of the Royal House of Stewart, founded at St Germain-en-Laye in 1692, and is the Jacobite Historiographer Royal by Appointment. Extracted from NEXUS Magazine, Volume 5, Number 6 (October-November 1998). It is now nearly two years since my book, Bloodline of the Holy Grail, was published, and for those of you who have not read this (or have not seen the serialised lecture transcript in NEXUS magazine), the investigation is essentially concerned with the Messianic Bloodline as it has descended through the family of Jesus Christ down to the present day. It is also concerned with comparing the New Testament Gospels with the first-hand historical accounts of the era, as related in both the Roman and Jewish archives. In this regard, it details how the eventual Christian High Church corrupted and manipulated the early records to suit its own political agenda. Despite the contrived doctrine that Jesus was born of a virgin and was the 'one and only' son of God (definitions that did not feature in the original pre-Roman texts), the New Testament Gospels of Matthew and Luke actually give details of Jesus' descendant lineage from David of Israel and the Kings of Judah. This has led to the one question I have been asked more than any other during the past months. The question (in its various forms) asks quite simply: What was so special about this Bloodline in the first place? Given that the dynastic succession from Jesus has been expressly prominent in sovereign and political affairs through 2,000 years - with the family constantly supporting constitutional democracy against control by the Church establishment - its status rests upon the fact that Jesus was a lineal descendant of King David. But, what was it that made the line of David so important, and so different from any other? It was this very question which set me on the trail for my next book, Genesis of the Grail Kings, which tells the story of the Messianic line from the very beginning. The Bible explains that the Bloodline story began with Adam and Eve, from whose third son, Seth, evolved a line which progressed through Methuselah and Noah, and eventually to Abraham who became the Great Patriarch of the Hebrew nation. It then relates that Abraham brought his family westwards out of Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) to the land of Canaan (or Palestine), from where some of his descendants moved into Egypt. After a few generations they moved back into Canaan where, in time, the eventual David of Bethlehem became King of the newly defined Kingdom of Israel. If viewed as it is presented in the scriptures, this is a fascinating saga; but there is nothing anywhere to indicate why the ancestral line of David and his heirs was in any way special. In fact, quite the reverse is the case. His ancestors are portrayed as a succession of wandering territory-seekers who are seen to be of no particular significance until the time of King David. Their biblical history bears no comparison to, say, the contemporary Pharaohs of ancient Egypt. Their significance, we are told, comes from the fact that (from the time of Abraham) they were designated as 'God's chosen people'. But even this leaves us wondering, because, according to the scriptures, their God led them through nothing but a succession of famines, wars and general hardship - and, on the face of it, these early Hebrews do not appear to have been too bright! We are faced, therefore, with a couple of possibilities. Either David was not of this Abraham succession at all, and was simply grafted into the list by later writers. Or maybe we have been presented with a very corrupted version of the family's early history - a version that was specifically designed to uphold the emergent Jewish faith, rather than to represent historical fact. In consideration of this, I was reminded of precisely what I had found with the New Testament. The Gospel texts that have been in the public domain for centuries bear little relation to the first-hand accounts of the era. The New Testament, as we know it, was compiled by the 4th-century bishops to support the newly contrived Christian belief. But, what if the Jewish scribes had previously done exactly the same thing? Clearly, I had to get back to the more ancient writings in order to find any anomalies. The problem was that, even if this were possible, the earliest Hebrew writings (which were rehashed many centuries later) were themselves only written between the 6th and the 1st centuries BC, so they were not likely to be that authentic in their telling of history from thousands of years before. Indeed, it was plain that this would be the case, because when these books were first written their express purpose was to convey a history which upheld the principles of the Jewish faith - a faith that did not emerge until well into the ancestral story. Given that the first group of these books was written while the Jews were held captive in Mesopotamian Babylon in the 6th century BC, it is apparent that Babylon was where the original records were then held. In fact, from the time of Adam, through some 19 said generations down to Abraham, the whole of Old Testament patriarchal history was Mesopotamian. More specifically, the history was from Sumer in southern Mesopotamia, where the ancient Sumerians did indeed refer to the grasslands of the Euphrates delta as the Eden. When researching for Bloodline of the Holy Grail, I found that good sources for some background information were the various Gospels and texts that were not selected for inclusion in the canonical New Testament. Perhaps, I thought, the same might apply to the Old Testament. The books of Enoch and Jubilees, for example, were among those not included. A further book, to which attention is specifically drawn in the Old Testament books of Joshua and Samuel, is the Book of Jasher. But despite its apparent importance to the Hebrew writers, it was not included in the final selection. Two other works are also cited in the Bible. The Book of Numbers draws our attention to the Book of The Wars of Jehovah. And in the Book of Isaiah we are directed towards the Book of the Lord. What are these books? Where are these books? They are all mentioned in the Bible (which means they all pre-date the Old Testament), and they are all cited as being important. So, why did the editors see fit to exclude them when the selection was made? In pursuing an answer to this question and in studying the substance of the Old Testament prior to its corruption, one fact which becomes increasingly clear is that in English-language Bibles the definition 'Lord' is used in a general context, but in earlier texts a positive distinction is drawn between 'Jehovah' and 'the Lord'. It has often been wondered why the biblical God of the Hebrews led them through trials and tribulations, floods and disasters, when (from time to time) he appears to have performed with a quite contrary and merciful personality. The answer is that, although now seemingly embraced as 'the One God' by the Jewish and Christian churches, there was originally a distinct difference between the figures of Jehovah and the Lord. They were, in fact, quite separate deities. The god referred to as 'Jehovah' was traditionally a storm god, a god of wrath and vengeance, whereas the god referred to as 'the Lord' was a god of fertility and wisdom. So, what was the name given to the Lord in the early writings? It was, quite simply, the prevailing Hebrew word for 'Lord', and the word was 'Adon'. As for the apparent personal name of Jehovah, this was not used in the early days, and even the Bible tells that the God of Abraham was called 'El Shaddai', which means 'Lofty Mountain'. The apparent name 'Jehovah' came from the original Hebrew stem YHWH, which meant 'I am that I am' - said to be a statement made by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, hundreds of years after the time of Abraham. 'Jehovah' was therefore not a name at all, and early texts refer simply to 'El Shaddai' and to his opposing counterpart, 'Adon'. To the Canaanites, these gods were respectively called 'El Elyon' and 'Baal' - which meant precisely the same things ('Lofty Mountain' and 'Lord'). In our modern Bibles, the definitions 'God' and 'Lord' are used and intermixed throughout, as if they were one and the same character, but originally they were not. One was a vengeful god (a people-hater), and the other was a social god (a people-supporter), and they each had wives, sons and daughters. The old writings tell us that throughout the patriarchal era the Israelites endeavoured to support Adon, the Lord, but at every turn El Shaddai (the storm god, Jehovah) retaliated with floods, tempests, famines and destruction. Even at the very last (around 600 BC), the Bible explains that Jerusalem was overthrown at Jehovah's bidding and tens of thousands of Jews were taken into Babylonian captivity simply because their King (a descendant of King David) had erected altars in veneration of Baal, the Adon. It was during the course of this captivity that the Israelites weakened and finally conceded. They decided to succumb to the 'God of Wrath', and developed a new religion out of sheer fear of his retribution. It was at this time that the name of Jehovah first appeared - and this was only 500 years before the time of Jesus. Subsequently, the Christian Church took Jehovah on board as well, calling him simply 'God' - and all the hitherto social concepts of the Adon were totally discarded. The two religions were henceforth both faiths of fear. Even today, their followers are classified as 'God-fearing'. So, where does that leave us? It leaves us knowing that within an overall pantheon of gods and goddesses (many of whom are actually named in the Bible), there were two predominant and opposing gods. In different cultures they have been known as 'El Elyon' and 'Baal'; 'El Shaddai' and 'Adon'; 'Arhiman' and 'Mazda'; 'Jehovah' and 'Lord'; 'God' and 'Father'. But these styles are all titular; they are not personal names. So who precisely were they? To find the answer we have to look no further than where these gods were actually operative, and the old Canaanite texts (discovered in Syria in the 1920s) tell us that their courts were in the Tigris-Euphrates valley in Mesopotamia, in the Sumerian Eden delta of the Persian Gulf. But what did the ancient Sumerians call these two gods? What were their personal names? We can trace the Sumerian written records back to about 3700 BC, and they tell us that the gods in question were brothers. In Sumer, the storm god who eventually became known as Jehovah was called 'Enlil' or 'Ilu-kur-gal' (meaning 'Ruler of the Mountain'), and his brother, who became Adon, the Lord, was called 'Enki'. This name is really important to our story because 'Enki' means 'Archetype'. The texts inform us that it was Enlil who brought the Flood; it was Enlil who destroyed Ur and Babylon, and it was Enlil who constantly opposed the education and enlightenment of humankind. Indeed, the early Syrian texts tell us that it was Enlil who obliterated the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah on the Dead Sea - not because they were dens of wickedness, as we are taught, but because they were great centres of wisdom and learning. It was Enki, on the other hand, who, despite the wrath of his brother, granted the Sumerians access to the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. It was Enki who set up the escape strategy during the Flood, and it was Enki who passed over the time-honoured Tables of Destiny - the tables of scientific law which became the bedrock of the early mystery schools in Egypt. Many books talk about the hermetic school of Tuthmosis III of Egypt, who reigned about 1450 BC. But it is not generally known that the school he originally inherited was the Royal Court of the Dragon. This had been founded by the priests of Mendes in about 2200 BC and was subsequently ratified by the 12th dynasty Queen Sobeknefru. This sovereign and priestly Order passed from Egypt to the Kings of Jerusalem; to the Black Sea Princes of Scythia and into the Balkans - notably to the Royal House of Hungary, whose King Sigismund reconstituted the Court just 600 years ago. Today it exists as the Imperial and Royal Court of the Dragon Sovereignty, and after some 4,000 years it is the oldest sovereign Court in the world. But what were the earliest aims and ambitions of the Order back in Pharaonic times? They were to perpetuate and advance the alchemical strength of the Royal Bloodline from Lord Enki, the Archetype. The kings of the early succession (who reigned in Sumer and Egypt before becoming Kings of Israel) were anointed upon coronation with the fat of the Dragon (the sacred crocodile). This noble beast was referred to in Egypt as the Messeh (from which derived the Hebrew verb 'to anoint'), and the kings of this dynastic succession were always referred to as 'Dragons', or 'Messiahs' (meaning 'Anointed Ones'). In times of battle, when the armies of different kingdoms were conjoined, an overall leader was chosen and he was called the 'Great Dragon' (the 'King of Kings') - or, as we better know the name in its old Celtic form, the 'Pendragon'. One of the interesting items from the archives of the Dragon Court is the origin of the word 'kingship'. It derives from the very earliest of Sumerian culture, wherein 'kingship' was identical with 'kinship' - and 'kin' means 'blood relative'. In its original form, 'kinship' was 'kainship'. And the first King of the Messianic Dragon succession was the biblical Cain (Kain), head of the Sumerian House of Kish. On recognising this, one can immediately see the first anomaly in the traditional Genesis story, for the historical line to David and Jesus was not from Adam and Eve's son Seth at all. It was from Eve's son Cain, whose recorded successors (although given little space in the Old Testament) were the first great Kings (or Kains) of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Two more important features then come to light when reading the Bible again with this knowledge in mind. We all tend to think of Cain as being the first son of Adam and Eve, but he was not. Even the Book of Genesis tells us that he was not, and it confirms how Eve told Adam that Cain's father was the Lord. Who was 'the Lord'? The Lord was Adon, and Adon was Enki. Even outside the Bible, the writings of the Hebrew Talmud and Midrash make it quite plain that Cain was not the son of Adam. So what else have we been wrongly taught about this particular aspect of history? The Book of Genesis (in its English-translated form) tells us that Cain was 'a tiller of the ground'. But this is not what the original texts say at all. What they say is that Cain had 'dominion over the Earth' - which is a rather different matter when considering his kingly status. In fact, the Bible translators appear to have had a constant problem with the word 'Earth', often translating it to 'ground', 'clay' or 'dust'. But the early texts actually referred to 'The Earth'. Even in the case of Adam and Eve, the translators got it wrong. The Bible says: 'Male and female he created them, and he called their name Adam.' The older writings use the more complete word 'Adama', which means 'of the Earth'. But this did not mean they were made of dirt; it means that they were 'of The Earth' - or, as the Anchor Hebrew Bible explains in absolutely precise terms, they were 'Earthlings'. There is a lot to be said about the story of Adam and Eve and of how they were the result of clinical cloning. Writers such as Zechariah Sitchin have written at some length in this regard, and my new book delves far more deeply into the subject. I shall not dwell upon this particular aspect now because I want to move more directly into the alchemy of the Messianic Bloodline of the Earthly Dragon Kings. What I will say is that the Sumerian records state that around 6,000 years ago, Adam and Eve (known then as 'Atabba' and 'Ava', and jointly as the 'Adama') were purpose-bred for kingship at the House of Shimti by Enki and his sister-wife Nin-khursag. In Sumerian, the word Shi-im-ti meant 'breath-wind-life'. Adam was certainly not the first man on Earth, but he was the first of the alchemically devised kingly succession. Nin-khursag was called 'Lady of the Embryo' or 'Lady of Life', and she was the surrogate mother for Atabba and Ava who were created from human ova fertilised by the Lord Enki. It was because of Nin-khursag's title, Lady of Life, that Ava was later given the same title by the Hebrews. Indeed, the name Ava (or Eve) was subsequently said to mean 'Life'. And there is an interesting parallel here, because in Sumerian the distinction 'Lady of Life' was Nin-tî (Nin meaning 'Lady', and tî meaning 'Life'). However, another Sumerian word, ti (with the longer pronunciation, 'tee'), meant 'rib'; and it was by virtue of the Hebrews' misunderstanding of the two words, tî and ti, that Eve also became incorrectly associated with Adam's rib. Both Enki and Nin-khursag (along with their brother Enlil, the later Jehovah) belonged to a pantheon of gods and goddesses referred to as the Anunnaki, meaning 'Heaven came to Earth'. In fact, the Grand Assembly of the Anunnaki (later called the 'Court of the Elohim') is mentioned in Psalm 82 wherein Jehovah makes his bid for supreme power over the other gods. According to the Dragon tradition, the importance of Cain was that he was directly produced by Enki and Ava, so his blood was three-quarters Anunnaki. His half-brothers Hevel and Satanael (better known as Abel and Seth) were less than half Anunnaki, being the offspring of Atabba and Ava (Adam and Eve). Cain's Anunnaki blood was so advanced that it was said that his brother Abel's blood was 'Earthbound' by comparison. Cain, it was said in the scriptures, 'rose far above Abel', so that his brother's blood was swallowed into the ground. But this original description was thoroughly mistranslated for our modern Bible, and we are now told that 'Cain rose up against Abel and spilled his blood upon the ground'. This is not the same thing at all. We can now progress our story by considering the oldest Grant of Arms in sovereign history - a Grant of Arms which denoted the Messianic Dragon Bloodline for all time. The Sumerians referred to this insignia as the Gra-al. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? From biblical history, however, we know it better as the 'Mark of Cain'. This 'Mark' is portrayed to us by the Church as if it were some form of curse. But, knowing what we now know, the Bible does not actually say this. What it says is that, having got into an argument with Jehovah over a matter of sovereign observance, Cain feared for his life. We are then informed that the Lord placed a mark upon Cain, swearing sevenfold vengeance against his enemies. No one has ever really understood why Jehovah should decide to protect Cain when it was he who held the grievance against him. But the fact is that Jehovah did not make this decision. Cain's protector was not Jehovah. As stated, the 'Mark' was settled upon Cain by the Lord - and the Lord (the Adon) was Cain's own Father, Enki. Few people ever think to enquire about the supposed enemies of Cain as defined in Genesis. Who could they possibly have been? Where would they have come from? According to the Bible, only Adam and Eve, with their sons Cain and Abel, existed - and Cain had apparently killed Abel. If we are to accept the text as it stands, there was no one around to be his enemy! So, what was this Sumerian Gra-al which the Bible calls 'the Mark of Cain'? It was an emblem dignified as the 'Cup of the Waters' or the Rosi-Crucis (the 'Dew Cup'), and it was identified in all records (including those of Egypt and Phoenicia and in the Hebrew annals) as being an upright, centred red cross within a circle. Throughout the ages it was developed and embellished, but it has always remained essentially the same and is recognised as being the original symbol of the Holy Grail. Another anomaly is presented soon afterwards in Genesis when we are told that Cain found himself a wife. Who on Earth were her parents if Adam and Eve were the only couple alive? Without confronting this anomaly at all, Genesis then proceeds to list for us the names of Cain's descendants! It becomes clear from all of this that some very important information has been edited from the Old Testament narrative. Clearly there were plenty of other people around at the time and it is not difficult to find their stories outside the Bible. Quite apart from the Sumerian annals, even old Hebrew and early Christian texts give us far more information in this regard. In order to further enhance the succession from Cain, he was married to his half-sister - a pure-bred Anunnaki princess, Luluwa. Her father was Enki and her mother was Lilith, a granddaughter of Enlil. Although not giving the name of Cain's wife, the Bible does name their younger son Enoch, while the Sumerian records cite his elder son and kingly successor, Atûn, who is perhaps better known as King Etana of Kish. Etana was said to have 'walked with the gods', and to have been fed from the 'Plant of Birth' (or the 'Tree of Life', as it is called in Genesis). Henceforth, the kings of the line were designated as being the twigs of the Tree - and the ancient word for 'twig' was klone (clone). In later times this 'Plant' or 'Tree' was redefined as a 'Vine', and so the Gra-al, the Vine and the Messianic Bloodline became conjoined as one in the literature of subsequent ages. By virtue of their contrived breeding, this kingly succession was modelled specifically for leadership, and in all aspects of knowledge, culture, awareness, wisdom and intuition they were highly advanced against their mundane contemporaries. In order to keep their blood as pure as possible, they always married within a close kinship. It was fully recognised that the prominent gene of the succession was carried within the blood of the mother. Today we call this the 'mitochondrial DNA'. And so was born a tradition inherited by their kingly descendants in Egypt and by the later Celtic rulers of Europe. True kingship, it was maintained, was transferred through the female, and so kingly marriages were strategically cemented with maternal half-sisters or first cousins. Having reached the point where the Plant of Birth is first mentioned in the records, we are at about 3500 BC; and it is at this point that we begin to learn how the kingly succession was orally fed with bodily supplements from the early days. This practice continued for more than 1,000 years until the nourishment program became wholly scientific and alchemical. Before getting into the detail of the kingly diet, it is worth considering why it was that the all-important Royal Bloodline which progressed from Cain and his sons was strategically ignored by the Hebrews and the Christian Church in favour of their promoting a parallel junior line from Adam's son Seth. Why was it that the immediate Cainite dynasty was eventually shunned by the fearful disciples of Enlil-Jehovah? In the Old Testament Book of Genesis, the lines of descent are given from Cain and from his half-brother Seth, but it is of interest to note that through the early generations the names detailed in each list are pretty much the same, although given in a different order: Enoch, Yared, Mahalaleel, Methuselah and Lamech. In view of this, it has often been suggested that the line from Seth down to Lamech's son Noah was (not very cleverly) contrived by the Bible compilers so as to avoid showing the true descent from Cain to the time of Noah. If this were the case, then something must have occurred during the lifetime of Noah to cause the ancestral story to be veiled by the later writers. The answer is to be found in the Bible itself. At that stage in the family's history, the vengeful Jehovah apparently warned Noah and his sons against the ingestion of blood - an edict which became expressly important to the later Jewish way of life. It has long been a customary Jewish practice to hang meat for blood-letting before cooking and consumption. But, in contrast, the Christian faith is especially concerned with the figurative ingestion of blood. In the Christian tradition it is customary to take the Communion sacrament (the Mass) wherein wine is drunk from the sacred chalice, symbolically representing the blood of Jesus, the lifeblood of the Messianic Vine. Could it be, perhaps, that the modern Christian custom is an unwitting throw-back to some distant pre-Noah ritual which Jehovah opposed? If so, then since it is known that the chalice is a wholly female symbol which has been emblematic of the womb from the earliest times, might this even have been an extract of menstrual blood? The answer to these questions is 'Yes'. That was precisely the custom, but it was not so unsavoury as it might seem. Indeed, few of us think to enquire about the ultimate sources of many of today's ingested medicines and bodily supplements, and those in the know would often be reluctant to tell us. The Premarin hormone, for example, comes from the urine of pregnant mares, while certain growth hormones and insulin are manufactured from E. coli, a faecal bacterium. The blood extract in question was, in the first instance, not human but from the sacred Anunnaki lunar essence - that of Enki's sister Nin-khursag, the designated Lady of Life. It was defined as the most potent of all life-forces and was venerated as being 'Star Fire'. It was from the womb of Nin-khursag that the kingly line was born, and it was with her blood, the divine Star Fire, that the Dragon succession was supplementally fed. In ancient Egypt, Nin-khursag was called 'Isis', and by either name she was the ultimate Mother of the Messianic line, for hers was the matriarchal gene which constituted the 'Beginning', the 'Gene-Isis', or, as the Greeks identified it, the Genesis. It is worth reminding ourselves, then, that the biblical edict to abstain from blood came not from Enki the Wise but from Enlil-Jehovah - the God of Wrath who had instigated the Flood, had wrought havoc in Ur and Babylon, and had endeavoured to deceive Adam by saying that he would die if he ate from the Tree of Knowledge. This was not a god who liked people, and the Sumerian records are very clear in this regard. Hence, if he forbade the taking of blood, this was not likely to have been an edict for the benefit of Noah and his descendants - it was most probably to their detriment. In strict terms the original Star Fire was the lunar essence of the Goddess, but, even in an everyday mundane environment, menstruum contains the most valuable endocrinal secretions, especially those of the pineal and pituitary glands. The brain's pineal gland in particular was directly associated with the Tree of Life, for this tiny gland was said to secrete the very essence of active longevity, called soma, or, as the Greeks called it, ambrosia. In mystic circles, the menstrual 'flow-er' ('she who flows') has long been the designated 'flower' and is represented as a lily or a lotus. Indeed, the definition 'flow-er' is the very root of our modern word 'flower'. In ancient Sumer, the key females of the Dragon succession were all venerated as lilies, having such names as Lili, Luluwa, Lilith, Lilutu and Lillette. In pictorial representation, the Messianic Dragon bore little relation to the winged, fire-breathing beast of later Western mythology. It was, in essence, a large-jawed serpent with four legs, very much like a crocodile or a monitor. This was the sacred Messeh whose name was 'Draco'. Draco was a divine emblem of the Egyptian Pharaohs, a symbol of the Egyptian Therapeutate, of the Essenes at Qumran, and was the Bistea Neptunis (the sea serpent) of the descendant Merovingian Fisher-Kings in Europe. In the old Hebrew Bibles, all references to serpents are made by use of the word nahash (from the stem NHSH); but this usage does not relate to serpents in the way that we would know them - that is, as venomous snakes. It relates to serpents in their traditional capacity as bringers of wisdom and enlightenment, for the word nahash actually means 'to decipher' or 'to find out'. Serpents, in one form or another, were always associated with wisdom and healing, and the Trees of Life and Knowledge are customarily identified with serpents. Indeed, the insignia of many of today's medical associations is precisely this image of a serpent coiled around the Plant of Birth (Tree of Life) - a depiction shown in the clay reliefs of ancient Sumer to be Enki's personal emblem. Interestingly, though, another common emblem for medical relief organisations depicts two coiled serpents, spiralling around the winged caduceus of Hermes the magician. In these instances the true symbolism of the Star Fire ritual is conveyed, and this symbol can be traced back to the very origins of the alchemical mystery schools and gnostic institutions. The records explain that the central staff and entwined serpents represent the spinal cord and the sensory nervous system. The two uppermost wings signify the brain's lateral ventricular structures. Between these wings, above the spinal column, is shown the small central node of the pineal gland. The combination of the central pineal and its lateral wings has long been referred to as the 'Swan', and in Grail lore (as in some yogic circles) the Swan is emblematic of the fully enlightened being. This is the ultimate realm of consciousness achieved by the mediaeval Knights of the Swan, as epitomised by such chivalric figures as Perceval and Lohengrin. Most of you are probably quite familiar with the functions of the pineal and other glands of the endocrinal system. But for those who are perhaps not, the pineal is a very small gland, shaped like a pine cone and about the size of a grain of corn. It is centrally situated within the brain, although outside the ventricles and not forming a part of the brain-matter as such. The pineal gland was thought by the 17th-century French optical scientist René Descartes to be the seat of the soul - the point at which the mind and body are conjoined. The ancient Greeks considered it likewise, and in the 4th century BC Herophilus described the pineal as an organ which regulated the flow of thought. This gland has long intrigued anatomists because, while the rest of the brain is 'double', the pineal has no counterpart. In the days of ancient Sumer, the priests of Anu (the father of Enlil and Enki) perfected and elaborated a ramifying medical science of living substances, with menstrual Star Fire being an essential source component. In the first instance, this was pure Anunnaki lunar essence called 'Gold of the Gods', and it was fed only to the Kings and Queens of the Dragon succession. Later, however, in Egypt and Mediterranea, menstrual Star Fire was ritually collected from sacred virgin priestesses who were venerated as 'Scarlet Women'. Indeed, the very word 'ritual' stems from this practice, and from the word ritu - which defined the sacred ceremony of the 'Red Gold'. Endocrinal supplements are, of course, still used by today's organotherapy establishment, but their inherent secretions (such as melatonin and serotonin) are obtained from the dessicated glands of dead animals and they lack the truly important elements which exist only in live human glandular manufacture. In the fire symbolism of ancient alchemy, the colour 'red' is synonymous with the metal 'gold'. In some traditions (including the Indian tantras), 'red' is also identifiable with 'black'. Hence, the goddess Kali is said to be both 'red' and 'black'. The original heritage of Kali was, however, Sumerian, and she was said to be Kalimâth, the sister of Cain's wife Luluwa. Kali was a primary princess of the Dragon House, and from her Star Fire association she became the goddess of time, seasons, periods and cycles. Because of this, her name was the root of the word 'calendar' (kalindar), which is concerned with the divisions of seasonal time. In the early days, therefore, the metals of the alchemists were not common metals but living essences, and the ancient mysteries were of a physical, not a metaphysical, nature. Indeed, the very word 'secret' has its origin in the hidden knowledge of glandular secretions. Truth was the ritu (the 'redness' or 'blackness'), and from the word ritu stems not only ritual but also the words 'rite', 'root' and 'red'. The ritu, it was said, reveals itself as physical matter in the form of the purest and most noble of all metals: gold. Hence, gold was deemed an 'ultimate truth'. Just as the word 'secret' has its origin in the translation of an ancient word, so too do other related words have their similar bases. In ancient Egypt, the word Amen was used to signify something hidden or concealed. The word 'occult' meant pretty much the same ('hidden from view'), and yet today we use 'Amen' to conclude hymns, while something 'occult' is deemed sinister. In real terms, however, they both relate to the word 'secret', and all three words were, at one time or another, connected with the mystic science of endocrinal secretions. Since Kali was associated with 'black' (being 'black but beautiful'), the English word 'coal' (denoting 'that which is black') stems also from her name via the intermediate word kol. In the Hebrew tradition, Bath-Kol (a Kali counterpart) was called the 'Daughter of the Voice', and the voice was said to originate during a female's puberty. Hence, the womb was associated with the voice, and Star Fire was said to be the oracular 'Word of the Womb'. The womb was, therefore, itself the 'utterer', or the 'uterus'. The 'Scarlet Women' were so called because of their being a direct source of the priestly Star Fire. They were known in Greek as the Hierodulai ('Sacred Women') - a word later transformed (via mediaeval French into English) to 'harlot'. In the early Germanic tongue, they were known as Horés - which was later Anglicised to 'whores'. However, the word originally meant, quite simply, 'Beloved Ones'. As pointed out in good etymological dictionaries, these words were descriptions of high veneration and were never interchangeable with such words as 'prostitute' or 'adulteress'. Their now common association was, in fact, a wholly contrived strategy of the mediaeval Roman Church in its bid to denigrate the noble status of the sacred priestess. The withdrawal of knowledge of the genuine Star Fire tradition from the public domain occurred when the science of the early adepts and later Gnostics (the true pre-Christian Christians) was stifled by the forgers of historic Christianity. A certain amount of the original gnosis (or knowledge) is preserved in Talmudic and rabbinical lore, but, generally speaking, the mainstream Jews and Christians did all in their power to distort and destroy all traces of the ancient art. In addition to being the 'Gold of the Gods', the Anunnaki menstruum was also called the 'Vehicle of Light', being the ultimate source of manifestation, and in this regard it was directly equated with the mystical 'Waters of Creation' - the flow of eternal wisdom. It was for this reason that the Rosi-Crucis (the Dew Cup, or Cup of the Waters identified as a red cross within a circle) became the Mark of Cain, and the subsequent emblem of the kingly succession. It was said that the Light remained quite dormant in a spiritually unawakened person but that it could be awakened and motivated by the spiritual energy of self-will, and by constant self-enquiry. This is not an obvious mental process, but a truly thought-free consciousness - a formless plane of pure Being. It was this very concept of 'being' or 'self-completeness' which posed the ultimate problem for Enlil-Jehovah. In contrast, his brother Enki knew that humans who partook of the Tree of Knowledge (the Anunnaki wisdom) and of the Plant of Birth (the Anunnaki Star Fire) could themselves become almost like gods. Even Jehovah was said to have recognised this, and Genesis states that when Adam had taken the fruit of the Tree, Jehovah said, "Behold, the man is become as one of Us". Enki the Wise, Guardian of the Tree of Knowledge, also had another name in the Hebrew tradition. They called him Samael (Sama-El) because he was the designated Lord of Sama in northern Mesopotamia. The teachings of the early mystery-schools were very specific about the Trees of Life and Knowledge, and they emulated the very teachings of Enki himself. It was said: Nothing is obtained simply by wanting. And nothing is achieved by relinquishing responsibility to a higher authority. Belief is the act of 'beliving', for to 'be live' is to 'believe' - and Will is the ultimate medium of the Self. The Sumerian records relate that Cain's son, King Etana, partook of the Plant of Birth in order to father his own son and heir, King Baali - and the Plant of Birth was directly associated with individual longevity and the office of Cainship, or Kingship. It was itself related to Star Fire and to pineal gland activity, and partaking of the Plant of Birth was the ritual of ingesting the Star Fire - the pure Anunnaki female essence, the Nectar of Supreme Excellence. In this regard, the Anunnaki 'flow-er' (flower or lily) was held to be the Cup-bearer, the transmitter of the Rich Food of the Matrix. In this capacity, she was called the Rose of Sharon (from the word Sha, meaning 'Orbit', along with the words Ra and On, relating to the ultimate temple of 'Light'). The significance of this highly venerated station is actually made apparent in the Bible's esoteric Song of Solomon wherein the Messianic Bride proclaims to the King, "I am the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the valleys". A Star Fire recipient King was considered to have become qualified for Kingship when he reached a pre-destined state of enlightened consciousness - a state when his aptitudes for wisdom and leadership had been enhanced to a realm of Kingship called the Malkû. It was from this Mesopotamian word Malkû that the Hebrews derived their words Malchus (King) and Malkhut (Kingdom). Only in very recent times have medical scientists identified the hormonal secretion of the pineal gland, finally isolating it in 1968. The essence was called melatonin, which means 'night worker' (from the Greek, melos, meaning 'black', and tosos, meaning 'labour'). Those with a high melatonin output react strongly against sunlight because it affects their mental capability; they are essentially night operatives. Melatonin is called the 'hormone of darkness' as it is produced only at night or in the dark. Exposure to an excess of sunlight actually makes the pineal gland smaller and lessens spiritual awareness, whereas darkness and high pineal activity enhance the keen intuitive knowledge of the subtle mind while reducing the stress factor. At this stage, it is of interest to note how it was that the Christian Church eventually demolished the true significance of the Star Fire ritual by manoeuvring it into the realm of sinister Gothic legend. In the old tradition, the ultimate holders of the Malkhut were known as Dragons or Pendragons, and the reigning head was always known as Draco. By virtue of their bodily conditioning through supplementary melatonin and other hormonal secretions, they were in fact Princes of Darkness; and they gained their heightened awareness, above-normal powers and longevity from the Star Fire - the lunar blood of the Anunnaki Queens and the priestly Scarlet Women. As detailed in Bloodline of the Holy Grail, the brutal Catholic Inquisitions of the Middle Ages were set against all the so-called heretics who in one way or another supported the Messianic Blood Royal (the Sangréal) of the Dragon Kings against the corrupted dogma of the bishops. Many of the victims were classified as occultists and witches, and they were charged with upholding the ancient and heretical cult of Draco, the Prince of Darkness. They were proclaimed by the Church authorities to be vampires! I previously mentioned the significance of the ancient Egyptian Court of the Dragon, pointing out that after some 4,000 years this Sovereign Order is still operative today. Back in the 15th century, a prominent Chancellor of the Court was Prince Vlad III of Transylvania-Wallachia, who built the citadel of Bucharest. Vlad is perhaps better remembered, however, as Count Dracula, meaning 'son of Dracul' - a name by which his father was known within the Court from 1431. Vlad was a prince of harsh disciplines, and his method of execution for crimes against the state was impalement upon wooden stakes. This was quite compatible with other hideous punishments of the time (boiling in oil, burning at the stake, drawing and quartering, etc.). But Vlad's particular method became reversed against him in a later Gothic-novel tradition which claimed that Dracula should be killed by impalement with a wooden stake. The establishment's real fear of Dracula, however, was not his savage treatment of enemies (such things were commonplace in their day), but his in-depth knowledge of alchemy and the ancient Star Fire customs. Having attended the Austrian School of Solomon in Hermannstadt, he had an in-depth scientific understanding of the bodily effects of melatonin and serotonin which enhance longevity and increase consciousness. Clearly, as the Romanian annals determine, he was a high melatonin producer, and, as we have seen, such people are adversely affected by sunlight. They are night workers (melos tosos). Consequently, the Transylvanian myth was born, and in Bram Stoker's novel (published in 1897, with its centenary last year) Vlad-Dracula was portrayed as a vampire - a Prince of Darkness who imbibed the blood of virgins! Notwithstanding this, a good deal of truly early folklore was actually based upon the Grail and Dragon traditions. The very concept of 'fairies' ('fair folk') was born directly from this base, being a derivative of fée or 'fey' and relating especially to 'fate'. In the Celtic world, certain royal families were said to carry the 'fairy blood' - that is to say, the fate or destiny of the Grail Bloodline - while the Grail Princesses of romance and history were often called 'elf-maidens'. They were the designated guardians of the earth, starlight and forest, as beguilingly replicated by the elven race in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. In the old language of southern Europe, a female elf was an ylbi, and from this word derived the town name of Albi, the Languedoc centre of the Gnostic Cathars (the Pure Ones) in the Middle Ages. When Pope Innocent III launched his brutal thirty-five-year military assault upon the Cathars from 1208, his campaign was called the 'Albigensian' Crusade because it was set against the supporters of the albi-gens ('elven blood'). Melatonin enhances and boosts the body's immune system, and those with high pineal secretion are less likely to develop cancerous diseases. High melatonin production heightens energy, stamina and physical tolerance levels and it is directly related to sleep patterns, keeping the body temperately regulated with properties that operate through the cardiovascular system. It is, in fact, the body's most potent and effective antioxidant and it has positive mental and physical anti-ageing properties. It is manufactured by the pineal gland through the activation of a chemical messenger called serotonin. This transmits nerve impulses across chromosome pairs at a point when the cell nuclei are divided and the chromosomes are halved (a process called meiosis), eventually to be combined with other half-sets upon fertilisation. Pine resin was long identified with pineal secretion and was used to make frankincense (the incense of priesthood). Gold, on the other hand, was a traditional symbol of kingship. Hence, gold and frankincense were the traditional substances of the Priest-Kings of the Messianic Bloodline, along with myrrh (a gum resin used as a medical sedative) which was symbolic of death. In the ancient world, higher knowledge was identified as daäth (from which comes our word, 'death'). In fact, as we know very well, the New Testament describes that these three substances (gold, frankincense and myrrh) were presented to Jesus by the Magi, thereby identifying him beyond doubt as an hereditary Priest-King of the Dragon succession. Yoga teachers suggest that the pineal gland (which they call the 'third eye' or 'eye of wisdom') is significant in the process of becoming 'aware', for it is the ultimate source of the Light. Illuminists and other Rosicrucian adepts have long referred to the pineal as the secret ayin - an ancient word for 'eye'. This spelling (a-y-i-n) is actually quite important because the original spelling of Cain (whether with a 'C', a 'K' or a 'Q') was not 'C-a-i-n' as we now know it, but 'C-a-y-i-n'. The name Cain, in its various forms, actually denoted One of the Inner Eye. Hence, from Kayin with a 'K' derived the word 'King', and from Qayin with a 'Q' derived the word 'Queen'. Indeed, Cain's father Enki-Samael was himself the Sumerians' designated Lord of the Sacred Eye. It is said that a truly spiritual person can automatically perceive with the third eye (the subtle eye of insight), rather than be duped by mundane eyes which reveal only physical presences. Such presences are defined by their place within arbitrary time; but to pineal graduates there is no time to calculate, for they live in a dimension where time and space are of no consequence. This dimension is not a new discovery of modern science: it was known about thousands of years ago as the Plane of Sharon, the Plane of the Orbit of Light. And so the Cainite Kings of Mesopotamia (the first Pendragons of the Messianic Bloodline) while already being of high Anunnaki substance were fed with further Anunnaki Star Fire to increase their perception, awareness and intuition so that they became masters of knowingness, almost like gods themselves. At the same time their stamina levels and immune systems were dramatically strengthened so that the anti-ageing properties of the regularly ingested Anunnaki melatonin and serotonin facilitated extraordinary life-spans. All records of the era confirm that this was the case, with those of the kingly line living for hundreds of years. And in this regard there is no reason to be over-sceptical about the great ages of the early patriarchs as given in the Book of Genesis. In addition to the Star Fire ritual, the Bloodline Kings were also said to have been nourished with the Milk of the Goddess, and it would appear that this 'milk' contained an enzyme that was itself conducive to active longevity. Today's genetic researchers call this enzyme telomerase. As recently reported in the journal Science [vol. 279, 16 January 1998], corporate studies and those of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have determined that telomerase has unique anti-ageing properties. Healthy body cells are programmed to divide many times during a lifetime, but this process of division and replication is finite, so that a non-dividing state is ultimately achieved. This is a crucial factor of ageing. The division potential is controlled by caps at the end of DNA strands (rather like the plastic tips on shoelaces). These caps are the telomeres. As each cell divides, a piece of telomere is lost, and the dividing process ceases when the telomeres have shortened to an optimum and critical length. There is then no new cell replication, and all that follows is deterioration. Laboratory experiments with tissue samples have now shown that application of the genetic enzyme telomerase can prevent telomere shortening upon cell division and replication. Hence, body cells can continue to divide way beyond their naturally restricted programming (just as do cancer cells which can achieve immortality through being rich in telomerase). Telomerase is not usually expressed in normal body tissue; but apart from being present in malignant tumours, it is also apparent in reproductive cells. It seems, therefore, that somewhere within our DNA structure is the genetic ability to produce this anti-ageing enzyme, but that the potential has somehow been switched off and probably exists within those aspects of our DNA which scientists currently refer to as 'junk'. In the canonical Bible we are told that, during the lifetimes of Noah and his sons, Jehovah issued the edict which forbade the ingesting of blood - at least this was the time-frame applied to the edict by the Old Testament compilers in the sixth century BC. It is unlikely, however, that this was the correct time-frame, for at that time Enlil-Jehovah would have had no such final authority over Enki and the Grand Assembly of the Anunnaki. Nevertheless it is apparent that, from that time, the given ages of the patriarchal strain begin to diminish quite considerably, so that from the days of Abraham and Isaac we are presented, in the main, with rather more normal life-spans. In contrast, though, the life-spans of the Sumerian Kings in descent from Cain and Etana continued at a generally high level. What we do know beyond doubt is that whatever the realities of the edict and its chronology, a major change in the Star Fire practice became necessary in about 1960 BC. This was when the Bible tells us that Abraham and his family moved northward from Ur of the Chaldees (the capital of Sumer) to Haran before turning westward into Canaan. Contemporary historical texts record that at that time Ur was sacked by the King of nearby Elam soon after 2000 BC and, although the city was rebuilt, the power centre moved north to Haran in the Kingdom of Mari. But Haran was not just the name of a flourishing city; it was the name of Abraham's brother (the father of Lot). Existing documents (discovered in 1934) also reveal that other cities in Mesopotamia were similarly named in accordance with Abraham's forebears - cities such as Terah (Abraham's father), Nahor (Terah's father), Serug (Nahor's father), and Peleg (Serug's grandfather). Quite apparently, in line with all the Sumerian evidence which supports the kingly line from Cain, these lately discovered reports confirm that the immediate family of Abraham (in the succession after Noah) were also great commissioners of the region in general. Clearly, the Patriarchs represented no ordinary family but constituted a very powerful dynasty. But why would such a long-standing heritage of prominence and renown come to an abrupt end and force Abraham out of Mesopotamia into Canaan? The answer is to be found in clay tablets which can be dated to about 1960 BC. They detail that, at that time, everything changed in the hitherto sacred land of Sumer when invaders came in from all sides: Akkadians from the north, Amorites from Syria, and Elamites from Persia. The text continues: When they overthrew, when order they destroyed; Then like a deluge all things together consumed. Whereunto, oh Sumer! Did they change thee? The Sacred Dynasty from the Temple they exiled. It was at this stage of Sumerian history that the empire fell and Abraham was forced to flee northward from the city of Ur. But what had happened to the Anunnaki, the Grand Assembly of Gods who had established everything? The text continues: Ur is destroyed, bitter is its lament. The country's blood now fills its holes like hot bronze in a mould. Bodies dissolve like fat in the sun. Our temple is destroyed. Smoke lies on our cities like a shroud. The gods have abandoned us like migrating birds. In historical terms, this total collapse of the Sumerian empire follows the founding of Babylon by King Ur-Baba in about 2000 BC. Indeed, the story of the Tower of Babel and the resultant wrath of Jehovah precisely fits the time-frame of the Sumerians' own abandonment by the Anunnaki. The story in Genesis relates that the people, who were hitherto said by Jehovah to be "very good", were severely punished because of a strange transgression which had not previously been ruled upon. The apparent transgression was that they all spoke the same language, and the unique language which they all spoke was, of course, Sumerian - the first written language on Earth. For a reason which is not made clear in the Bible, the Genesis text explains that Jehovah was not happy about the Tower of Babel and so he "did come down, and did confound the language of all the Earth". The Sumerian historical documents tell much the same story, except that the confounding of language is far better explained by the hordes of foreign invaders who came into the region. It transpires that this invasion was the direct result of friction among the Anunnaki, for at Anu's retirement from the Grand Assembly his eldest son Enlil-Jehovah assumed the presidency. He proclaimed that he was master of all the Earth, although his brother Enki-Samael could retain sovereignty of the seas. Enki was not at all happy about his brother's claim because, although Enlil was the elder of the two, his mother, Ki, was their father Anu's junior sister, whereas Enki's mother, Antu, was the senior sister. True kingship, claimed Enki, progressed as a matrilinear institution through the female line, and by this right of descent Enki maintained that he was the first-born of the royal succession: I am Enki...the great brother of the gods. I am he who has been born as the first son of the divine Anu. As a result, the people of Babylon announced their allegiance to Enki and his son Marduk - but this was all too much for Enlil-Jehovah. Having lost his popularity, he opened the gates of Sumer to let in invaders from all sides. The scribes recorded that he, the vengeful Enlil-Jehovah, brought about the "great and terrible storm" which caused the annihilation of all the Sumerian culture so that their language was no longer predominant and there was a "great confusion of tongues". All the work which had been accomplished in building up a unique civilisation over thousands of years was destroyed in one fell swoop by Enlil-Jehovah, simply because he would not share authority with his brother Enki. The records confirm that, at that moment in Sumerian history, the Grand Assembly of the Anunnaki vacated their seats and departed "like migrating birds". For all that had occurred up to that point, an urgent and significant change in kingly procedure was necessary because the Anunnaki Star Fire was no longer available. A substitute had to be found. As previously mentioned, the priestly Scarlet Women had been purpose-bred for this; but it was clear that, however carefully mated, their essence would weaken through the generations. In the event, the creation of a more permanent and versatile substitute was not a problem, for this was the province of a group of previously trained metallurgists whom Enki had called the Master Craftsmen. The first of these great metallurgists to be trained was Tubal-cain the Vulcan - a sixth-generation descendant of Cain, who is remembered even today in modern Freemasonry. In consideration of the Bible's New Testament symbology, it is of particular interest to note that Jesus' father Joseph was himself recorded in the early Gospels as being a Master Craftsman. In modern English-language Bibles, Joseph is described as a 'carpenter', but this is a blatant mistranslation. The word 'carpenter' was wrongly derived from the Greek ho-tekton which actually defined a Master of the Craft - not a woodworker, but a learned alchemical metallurgist in the manner of his ancestral forebears. In the Old Testament Book of Exodus, at the time of Moses we are introduced to a certain Bezaleel (the son of Uri Ben Hur) who is said to have been filled with the spirit of the Elohim in wisdom, understanding and knowledge. We learn, furthermore, that Bezaleel was a skilled goldsmith and a Master Craftsman, and that he was placed in overall charge of building the Ark of the Covenant. In detailing how Bezaleel should manufacture various crowns, rings, bowls and a candlestick, all of pure gold, the Bible text adds to the list something called the Shewbread of the Covenant, and without further explanation the deed is seen to be done. Although the word 'covenant' has come to be identified with contractual agreements, it originally meant 'to eat bread with', and it is pertinent to note that the Lord's Prayer (which was directly transposed from an Egyptian equivalent) specifies "Give us this day our daily bread". This is often taken to relate to sustenance in general terms, but in the original tradition the reference was more specifically directed to the enigmatic shewbread - the Golden Bread of Bezaleel. The Book of Leviticus also refers to the shewbread: And thou shalt take fine flour and bake twelve cakes thereof... And thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row. The use of the word 'flour' in English translations is actually incorrect. The word 'powder' would be more accurate. The records of the mystery schools cite rather more precisely that shewbread was made with the white powder of gold, and this is particularly significant because in Exodus it is stated that Moses took the golden calf which the Israelites had made "and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to a white powder". In this instance, the correct word 'powder' is used, but firing gold does not, of course, produce powder - it simply produces molten gold. So what was this magical white powder? Is there a way of using heat to transform metallic gold into a white powder which is ingestible and beneficial? Indeed there is, and it is here that the foremost alchemical principle of the Master Craftsmen was applied: "To make gold, you must take gold." Gold is the most noble of metals, and gold was always representative of Truth. Through the regular use of Anunnaki Star Fire (the Gold of the Gods), the recipients were moved into realms of heightened awareness and consciousness because of its inherent melatonin and serotonin. This was the realm of advanced enlightenment - the Plane of Sharon - and the Star Fire gold was deemed to be the ultimate route to the Light. Hence, the heavy, mundane person (lead) could be elevated to a heightened state of awareness (perceived as gold). This was the root of all alchemical lore thereafter. The shewbread (or, as the Egyptians called it, scheffa food) was a traditional entitlement of the Israelite and Egyptian Messiahs, for the early Pharaohs were themselves fully consecrated Priest-Kings of the Grail Bloodline, having descended through Nimrod in the Cainite succession. In ancient Egypt, the scheffa food was always depicted as a conical cake. According to the records, this metallic bread was used to feed the Light-body, as against the physical body, and the Light-body was deemed to be the consciousness. As far back as 2200 BC, the Pharaohs were using this supplement to enhance their pituitary and pineal activity, thereby to heighten their perception, awareness and intuition, but only the metallurgical adepts of the mystery schools (the Master Craftsmen of the Dragon Court) knew the secret of its manufacture. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead (the oldest complete book in the world), the Pharaoh in search of the ultimate food of enlightenment asks, at every stage of his journey, the single overriding question, "What is it?" - a question which in the Hebrew language (as explained in The Antiquities of the Jews) was asked with the single word, "Manna?". When the Ark of the Covenant was completed, Moses' brother Aaron was said to have placed an omer of manna into the Ark. This sacred manna was commonly associated with a mystical form of bread - the shewbread - or, as it was called in Tubal-Cain's Mesopotamia, the shem-an-na. At this point, we come to a particularly important definition of the shem-an-na, for according to the Master Craftsmen this conically shaped (or shem-shaped) food was made of what the Sumerians called Highward Fire-stone. In the New Testament Book of the Revelation it is said: To him that overcometh, I will give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone. Before we look at the precise nature of the white stone of the shem-an-na - the bread made from the powder of alchemical gold - let us firstly consider the famous statue of Priest-King Melchizedek at Chartres Cathedral in France. The statue portrays Melchizedek with a cup containing a stone in representation of the bread and wine which he apparently offered to Abraham, according to Genesis. The wine, as we know, was emblematic of the sacred Star Fire (just as Communion wine represents the Messianic Blood today), but the true importance of the imagery is that the bread-stone is held within the cup, thereby signifying that Star Fire was replaced by its substitute nourishment at the very time of Melchizedek and Abraham. This substitute was made from shem-an-na - the white powder of gold, the highward fire-stone. The object of the substitute was very straightforward. Instead of feeding the recipient with a direct hormonal supplement, the powder had its effect on the endocrinal system (particularly the pineal gland), thereby causing the recipient to manufacture his own super-high levels of hormones such as melatonin. In the famous Middle Ages Grail romance of Parzival, by Wolfram von Eschenbach, it is said of the Temple Knights of Grail Castle: They live by virtue of a stone most pure. If you do not know its name, now learn: it is called lapis exilis. By the power of the stone the phoenix is burned to ashes, but the ashes speedily restore it to life. The phoenix thus moults and thereupon gives out a bright light, so that it is as beautiful as before. Many have wondered about the name lapis exilis because it appears to be a play on words, combining two elements. Firstly, it is lapis ex caelis, meaning 'stone from the heavens', and, secondly, it is lapis elixir, the Philosophers' Stone by which base elements are transformed to higher states of being. Either way, or both, it relates directly to the highward fire-stone - the shem-an-na of the exotic Star Fire substitute. The key to the Parzival allegory lies in the description that the phoenix is "burned to ashes", but from those very ashes comes the Great Enlightenment. So, what exactly is a phoenix? It is a mythical bird, we might answer. But we would be quite wrong! The word 'phoenix' is far older than the Bennu bird mythology, and it is in fact ancient Graeco-Phoenician. 'Phoenix' means 'crimson' or 'red-gold'. Even today, within the confines of the Ordo Templi Orientis, the ancient Mass of the Phoenix is performed as a symbolic Star Fire ritual. It is pertinent to note that Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, was an officer of this Order - as a consequence of which, much of his novel is a coded representation of the secret knowledge. The two emblems of this ninth-degree ceremony are: the upright triangle of Gold and Light (representing spirit), and the downturned triangle of Blood and Water (representing matter). Interlocked, one upon the other, they form the familiar Seal of Solomon which contains the formula that is known as the Gem of Alchemy. An old Alexandrian alchemical text makes particular mention of the weight of the Philosophers' Stone - which it calls the Stone of Paradise. It states that: When placed in the scales, the stone can outweigh its quantity of gold; but when it is transposed to dust, even a feather will tip the scales against it. In terms of a mathematical formula, this relationship is written as: 0 = (+1) + (-1). This appears to be a very straightforward sum at first glance, because (+1) + (-1) does indeed equal zero. But when applied to physical matter it is actually an impossibility because it relies upon using a 'positive' and an equivalent 'negative' to produce 'nothing'. The moment one has a positive piece of something, it is not possible to add an equivalent negative of that something to produce nothing. At best, one could move the 'positive' something out of immediate sight - but it would still exist, and it would therefore not be nothing. The only way to turn something into nothing, as far as the material field is concerned, is to translate that something into another dimension so that it physically disappears from the mundane environment. If that process is achieved, then the proof of achievement would lie in the fact that its weight also disappears. What, then, is it that can outweigh itself but can also underweigh itself and become nothing? What, then, is it that can be gold, but can be fired and transposed to dust? It is the phoenix - the red-gold that will fire to ashes but will then be restored to enlightenment. It is the golden calf that Moses burned to a powder. It is the highward fire-stone of the shem-an-na. And we know from the Sumerian records that this was not made of stone at all, but of shining metal. In the alchemical tradition, the Philosophers' Stone is said to be that which translates base elements into gold. This is deemed to be the case in both the metallurgical sense and in the spiritual sense of higher enlightenment. In the physical sense, however, we must return to the oldest of all alchemical rules of the earliest mystery school: "To make gold, you must take gold." Hence, it is determined that there are two distinctly separate forms of physical gold: the straightforward metal as we know it, and a much 'higher' state of gold - that is, gold in a different dimension of perceived matter, and this is the white powder of gold, the hidden manna whose secret manufacture was known only by the Master Craftsmen. So, what precisely is the 'highward' or 'high-spin' state which converts gold (and platinum-group metals) into a sweet-tasting, impalpable white powder? A normal atom has around it a screening potential - a positive screening produced by the nucleus. The majority of electrons going round the nucleus are within this screening potential, except for the very outer electrons. However, the nucleus goes to the highward or high-spin state when the positive screening potential expands to bring all of the electrons under the control of the nucleus. Electrons normally travel around the nucleus in pairs: a 'spin-forward' electron and a 'spin-reverse' electron. But when these come under the influence of a high-spin nucleus, all of the spin-forward electrons become correlated with the spin-reverse electrons. When perfectly correlated, the electrons turn to pure white light, and it is quite impossible for the individual atoms in the high-spin substance to link together. Hence they cannot reform as metal, and the whole remains simply an impalpable white powder. The truly unusual thing about this white powder is that, through various applied processes, its weight will rise and fall to hundreds of per cent above its optimum weight, down to less than absolutely nothing. Moreover, its optimum weight is actually fifty-six per cent of the metal weight from which it was transmuted. So, where does the other forty-four per cent go? It becomes nothing but pure light, and translates to another dimension beyond the physical world. This conforms precisely with the ancient Alexandrian text - that the Paradise Stone, when placed in the scales, can outweigh its quantity of gold; but when transposed to dust, even a feather will tip the scales against it. Some of you may recall the NEXUS publication of a lecture given by David Hudson of ORMES LLC, Arizona, in 1996 [see NEXUS 3/05, 3/06]. In this talk, David explained how he came upon the white powder production by pure chance when running laboratory tests on soil and ore samples. During the course of his extensive research, he discovered that not only is the powder of the highward fire-stone capable of raising human consciousness, but it is also a monatomic superconductor with no gravitational attraction. As a point of warning here, I should add that this particular powder of gold has absolutely no connection with the substances currently marketed under the labels of Etherium Gold, Isis Gold and Manatau Gold. Whatever their advertising material might suggest, none of these products contain chemically measurable gold in the highward state. One of the great researchers into gravity from the 1960s period has been the Russian physicist Sakharov, and the mathematics for Sakharov's theory (based on gravity as a zero-point) were published by Hal Puthoff of the Institute of Advanced Studies in 1989 [Physical Review A, vol. 39, no. 5, 1 March 1989]. With regard to the monatomic white powder, Puthoff has made the point that because gravity determines space-time, then the powder is capable of bending space-time. It is "exotic matter", he explained, with a gravitational attraction of less than zero! To put things into perspective, it is important to recognise that just about everything we now know about the life and civilisations of the distant BC years has been learned since the late 1800s. Prior to that, the Old Testament was one of very few documents of record. But the Old Testament was never intended to be an accurate reporting of history; it was actually a book of scripture designed to underpin a growing religious movement. To some extent, just like the scriptures of other religions, the Hebrew writings were based on mythological tradition, but, since the inherent stories were never found until recently in any other documented form, the Old Testament has been treated for countless centuries as if it were an absolute, factual truth. And so the mythology became designated as history by our governing and educational establishments, and it has been taught as such in our schools and churches for the longest time. Now we have a vast amount of original literature enabling us to be far better informed, for a great number of ancient documents have been unearthed, many pre-dating the original writing of Genesis by up to 2,000 years. One would expect such discoveries to be welcomed with enthusiasm. But this has not been the case. Instead, they have posed severe problems and are regarded not as beneficial revelations but as threats. What do they threaten? They threaten to undermine the one-time mythology that has been erroneously dubbed as history. How does the establishment cope with this threat? It clings on tightly to the contrived history, and declares that the first-hand documents of history are mythological! Between the 1850s and the 1930s, records which had been hidden for countless lifetimes beneath the windswept desert sands suddenly appeared, bearing the names of such well-known characters as Abraham, Esau, Israel, Heber, Nahor, Terah and many others from the Bible. These were written during the lifetimes of these men by people who were associated with them, whereas the books of the Old Testament were compiled over 1,000 years later. But, one by one, these documents have been classified as mythology. Why? Because they tell a very different story to that which we are taught from the Bible.