by William Henry

from WilliamHenry Website
 

What do you see in this illumination?

Featured on the previous page is an illumination from a 12th century English bible housed at the Bodleian Library Oxford. When most look at it they see David (below) playing his lyre and triumphantly dancing before the Ark of the Covenant as it is being carried into Jerusalem with great pomp and ceremony.

Careful consideration of this illumination reveals that there is something more here. Attached to the right side of the Ark is a stylized pillar. Attached to the left side is a winged ‘worm’ or serpent. Together they represent the serpent and the Tree of Knowledge.

I’m plenty curious about why these extra ‘devices’ are present. Nowhere in scripture is a pillar and serpent explicitly linked with the Ark of the Covenant. Jewish art never shows a pillar on top of the Ark. Nor does it associate it with a serpent. Yet, here they are plain as day.

This is not an isolated incident. In the illumination from the famed 12th century Winchester Bible shown here an unknown artist called ‘the Master of the Leaping Figure’ portrayed Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, similar to the serpent that accompanies the Ark in David’s celebration scene. Yahweh’s head curls around the base of a pillar. His body is that of a serpent.

The Hebrew prophets cower before Yahweh whose head curls around the base of his pillar.

Note that his body is a serpent.
 

As both Jews and Christians adopted their sacred symbols from neighboring Sumeria and Egypt, an explanation for the inclusion of the serpent and pillar symbols in the celebration scene is found in comparing them with their appearance in these cultures.

E.A, the primordial creator God and wise being of ancient Sumer (present day Iraq), for instance, was portrayed as a bearded man-serpent floating beside his pillar.

E.A., the bearded man-serpent floats beside his pillar and delivers the secrets of the stars to a priest.

E.A. is the prototype for the ‘serpent’ of Eden.

In Egypt E.A is a perfect match for the bearded man-serpent Thoth and his pillar.

The Egyptian wisdom-bearer, Thoth, as a bearded man-serpent.

His pillar is supported by lions in the left corner.

The hieroglyph of the Casket or Pillar of Os-Iris on the next image also matches this configuration. This device (‘vessel’, ‘ark’) held the ‘head’ of Osiris’. His ‘head’, a symbol for his soul, itself symbolized by a serpent, hangs from his pillar.

A portion of the hieroglyph of Osiris.

In this glyph we see a shape that appears to be that of a structure with a vaulted roof and high wall (or antennas) that extend beyond the roofline. This is the symbol for ‘sanctuary’ in ancient Lower Egypt. Flanking this symbol are two TET (‘stabilizer’)
pillars , also called djed (pronounced jed) pillars.

Archaeologists have yet to uncover an actual Egyptian structure that resembles the glyph for sanctuary. In addition to a Port-a-Potty it resembles in form, and therefore possibly function, the biblical Ark of the Covenant, the shittim box or throne that held (or transmitted) the manna (the ‘food of the Gods’), and upon which sat or shat Yahweh, the serpent.
When the pillar with its serpent is attached to the ‘Ark’ or sanctuary glyph it forms the Pillar of Osiris, also known as the Ladder to Heaven to the Egyptians.
As we can plainly see from the Egyptian depictions on the following pages, this serpent-pillar rested on a platform that resembles the golden power tool the Israelites called the Ark of the Covenant.
Two tablets the Egyptians called the Shuti or enlightenment tablets top this attachment . The Shuti are the set of sapphire (blue stone) tablets that Moses brought down from his first ascension of Mount Sinai (a metaphor for the Tree of Life).
The stones are actually (s)tones – keys, tones, frequencies , vibrations, bells, or rings . These tones are the secret (s)tones hidden from Nebuchadnezzar by Jeremiah who took them to Tara in Ireland. They power the Ark.

These illustrations speak volumes about the nature and capacity of the missing piece to the Ark of the Covenant. The complete power tool is an antenna that emits a healing tone or vibration.

Two ‘cherubs’ hold the Pillar containing the ‘head’ of Osiris . Note the Ark beside it. The ‘head’ is the Dead Head of the Alchemists .

Thoth setting up the Pillar of Peace . Note that it rests on an Ark.

The two ‘cherubim’ face each other just as they do on the Ark constructed for Moses.

Riders of the Lost Arch.

The Ark is often compared to the Ark of Noah, a sailing vessel (Arko). The Ark and its pillar attachment meet in this Egyptian depiction from Denderah.
Just as an ark or sailing vessel has a mast, there was a vertical attachment that topped the Ark of the Covenant. I propose this is the complete Ark of the Covenant.

The Bible calls the Goddess and her pillar Asherah or As-Tara, the Goddess worshipped by King Solomon (‘Peace’) (I Kings 11:5). The As-Tara resembles an oil (or a baster) can because Jacob’s story assures us that’s what it is. It is a baster that produces the starry (aster or As-Tara) Christos oil, an exotic ‘fruit’ known as ‘Blue Apples’ or the ‘Blue Stones of Atlantis’ that display highly advanced power on Earth.

Moses retrieved these stones on his first ascension of Mt. Sinai.

The Casket of Osiris

The Casket or Pillar of Osiris was a phallic-shaped device that stood approximately 40 feet tall. It was made of evergreen or living acacia (shittim) wood (just like the Ark of the Covenant) and was lined with a gold alloy (probably palladium). Also known as the “Ladder to Heaven,” the “Backbone of Osiris,” and the Pillar of Meroe, it contained the ‘head’ of Osiris.

The platform or pedestal upon which this pillar rests resembles in form, and likely function, the biblical Ark of the Covenant.
Presented on the following pages is a representation of the Pillar of Osiris – the complete Ark of the Covenant—by Dana Augustine with my guidance. This design is based upon Egyptian originals.

The complete Ark with its pillar attached.

The device stood between 45 and 180 feet tall.

The dimensions of the Ark given in the book of Exodus

represent a miniature version of the Egyptian original.
 

This green-gold pillar or needle was to be placed on top of the golden box and its kapporeth cover or Mercy Seat.

God said, “I will address thee from above the Kapporeth, from between the two Cherubim.”
 

The Ark of the Covenant produced an oil the Essenes later called

CHRESTOS or CHRISTOS.

In this scene from the Winchester Bible

the Lord sits between the two Cherubim on the Ark or Arch (symbol of the Covenant)

with the green Tree of Life between his legs.

This green-gold pillar or needle was to be placed on top of the golden box and its kapporeth cover or Mercy Seat. God said,

“I will address thee from above the Kapporeth, from between the two Cherubim.”

Note the two cherubim facing the pillar.

The Shuti (shitti) enlightenment tablets.

This pillar matches the story of Jacob, who took a stone and set it up as a pillar. Upon this stone were seven stars or eyes. These are the seven lamps of the golden menorah and the staff with seven stars held by Jesus in Revelation. As the word stone can also be written (s)tone, the seven stars may be notes or tones.

The Jews who transported it, along with the Ark, to Jerusalem, held this stone/pillar in great veneration in later times.
Despite the Lord’s injunction in Leviticus,

“You shall make no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image , neither shall you set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: For I am the Lord your God”

The Hebrews continuously sought the Pillar, sometimes at the request of Yahweh (who alternates between malevolent and benevolent acts suggesting either a split personality or the a commingling of two separate Gods into one by Hebrew scribes).
In the Book of Numbers, I Am said to Moses,

“Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole : and it shall come to pass that everyone that is bitten when he looks upon it shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.”

Like the Ark, this pillar was ‘lost’.

THE PILLAR AND SOLOMON’S TEMPLE

The presence of this pillar would explain one of the great mysteries of Solomon’s Temple: the incredible discrepancy between Solomon’s Temple I (950 BC) and Solomon’s Temple II (c. 20 BC – 70 AD), built during the time of Jesus. On one the height of the Porch is 30 cubits (I Kgs 6:2).

On the other (built during the time of Jesus) it is a massive 120 cubits high (II Chr. 3:4), approximately as tall as a 22-story building. Accounting for this huge discrepancy has given biblical scholars headaches for centuries.

Here is how scholars have reconciled the differences:

1) The discrepancy is ignored – the most popular way of “explaining” Bible difficulties.
2) The chronicler (probably the prophet Ezra), was under the influence of the prophetic bravado and exaggerated the Porch’s height in order to inflate the Jewish national ego.
3) The verse contains a typo. A scribe intended to write 20 cubits but wrote 120 instead.

None of these explanations pass the “red face” or “straight face” test. This leaves the fourth explanation. Maybe the Porch was truly 120 cubits high, after all.

If so, I believe the chain of research I have followed explains the discrepancy. The tall porch was not dead space. The Porch was designed to house the complete Ark, an antenna whose height was adjusted between 45 and 90 feet in various stories, and may even have had a height of up to twenty stories.

A Jewish legend supports my conclusion. The stone placed in the sanctuary of Solomon’s Temple II was supposed to have been the stone-pillar, (s)tone pillar or antenna, , Jacob set up a Bethel. The Ark of the Covenant was supposed to have rested upon this stone in the Temple II. This puts the pillar and the Ark together.

Ark raiders revere the original Knights Templar. Evidence suggests these nine French knights secretly recovered the Ark from the site of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem and carried it, or a replica, along with sacred knowledge to France in 1128 AD. The Cistercian architects who used it to inaugurate the Cathedral Age exploited the knowledge the Templars recovered. Between 1130 and 1200 57 Gothic houses of light were started in France.

An inscription at Chartres Cathedral says the Ark was ‘carried away’ from or to there in the middle of the 13th century.

Scholars speculate that whatever the Templars discovered at Solomon’s Temple, either by accident or design, directly or indirectly involved the Ark of the Covenant. As well as something else, some explosive Secret that only a few high ranking officials could know.

Whatever it was that the Templars discovered all records, all archives, all evidence of its existence was destroyed. The implication being it was something other than gold bullion, something so fantastic that not even torture could bring it to the lips of the Templars.

Some claim the Templars protected the secrets of Jesus. This speculation returns us to the Christos oil and the understanding that the Ark-pillar secreted an oil or a substance. In one tantalizing Hebrew story, retold by Manly P. Hall, when Adam was nearing the end of his life he sent Seth back to the Garden of Eden to fetch the Oil of Mercy that God had promised mankind.

This oil—or substance—was in the possession of the angel who guarded the gate to Eden. When Seth reached this gate the angel allowed him to enter the Garden. In the midst of Eden Seth saw a great Tree (the Ark and Pillar) whose branches reached into heaven. The Tree was shaped like a cross and stood on the edge of Hell.
Unfortunately, the angel refused to give Seth the Oil of Mercy. Instead he gave him three seeds from the Tree of Life . When Seth returned home with them Adam was so overjoyed he died three days later, and the seeds were buried in his mouth, as the angel advised. The seeds became a tree which absorbed the blood of Adam.

Before the Flood Noah dug up the Tree (and probably its three seeds) for safekeeping in the Ark. After the Flood, he buried Adam’s skull under Mount Cavalry, where Jesus was later crucified.
Paralleling the legend of the Three of Life , Adam, says the Jewish legend, also gave a branch from the Tree , called the Key of Life by the Egyptians, to Enoch. (This Key of Life was actually (s)tones – keys, tones, frequencies , vibrations, bells, or rings .) Enoch gave it to his great-grandson Noah, the hero of the Deluge who also brought it on the Ark. Then it was handed down through the line of Shem, son of Noah, from generation to generation, until it reached Abraham. Abraham’s grandson Jacob possessed it, as did his great-grandson Joseph who brought it with him to Egypt where he rose to highest rank in the Pharaoh’s court.

There, the Key of Life – the ring remained among the treasures of the Egyptian kings until it passed to the hands of Moses. Later, though it is not widely known, Jesus acquired the Key of Life, using it to perform many of His miracles.

Assyrian pillar and serpent combination.
 

The German Christian Gnostics who minted this thaler in the 16th century adopted this theme.

They link the crucifixion of David’s ancestor, Jesus, with this serpent-pillar.

The Kerymeion or ‘Stone of Light’ bears the face of Jesus.

A member of Napoleon’s army discovered it in Egypt in 1798,

one hundred years before the same face ‘appeared’ in the first photograph taken of the Shroud of Turin.

In my book Ark of the Christos, I concluded that an important repository of the Templar secrets of the Ark is the Abbey of St. Denis in Paris, the City of Light. This ‘jewel case for light’ is located a few miles north of the Ile de Citie (‘City of Illi’, light), whose heart is Paris. A scintillating representation of the Ark-Pillar is found at St. Denis.

The Abbey of St. Denis derives its name from Denis the first bishop of Paris and patron saint of France. In 250 AD he was arrested and decapitated along with two companions. According to legend, he collected his ‘dead head’ and with the guidance of an angel walked six kilometers to a place called Catulla, the site of the present abbey, where he fell to his feet and was buried.
The decapitated head catches my attention. The alchemists call the symbol for the Templar secrets a ‘dead head’ .

Because of Denis’ ‘dead head’ this place emanates a supernatural energy. St. Denis has a vibe similar to Tara, Ireland’s sacred ‘Valley of the Illi or Ari Kings", and parts of Southern France where the Cathars (the Ca-Taras or Catula) lived. The soil of these places is imbued with life energy. Subsequently miracles are said to occur at St. Denis. French kings were coronated, educated and buried there.

Behind Denis is Dionysus-Adonis, the rustic wine God who discovered and introduced wine. Dion is the same as D’ION, D’Ioanh, D’Jonah and D’Oannes, the name of the fish God in Babylon. Significantly, it means ‘Dove’, the symbol for the Goddess Aphrodite, Goddess of love (AMOR in France), and the Holy Spirit.

Dion, the Holy Spirit or ‘Light’, of Ysus-Adonis (Isis-Aton) was a prototype of Christ, who also was killed along with two companions (at the ‘Place of the Skull’) and whose body was torn in pieces and cannibalized. The key symbol is the skull, , the symbol of the Templars’ secret.

The abbey had been founded in the seventh century by the Frankish king Dagobert in honor of Denis, and his legendary companions Rusticus and Eleutherius.

King Dagobert II, and the Merovingian dynasty from which he came, have been romantically mythologized in the annals of both local legend and modern mystical Grail history, which upholds them as the supposed bloodline of Christ. They are the offspring of Merovee, a “sea monster” who was described as half-man, half-fish.

By the Templars’ time, 1137, what had long been the royal abbey of France where French kings were educated and buried was dilapidated. St. Bernard condemned it as a “synagogue of Satan” and a “workshop of Vulcan.”

Rightly so, Vool was the Su-Merian God E.A who was identified as VOOL or “Vul”, the vulgar alchemist Vul-can of the Romans and Tubal Kain, the ‘smith’ or ‘schmidt/shaman’, of the Hebrews. E.A was portrayed as a mer(u)-man or merman, part human, part fish. He is Merovee.

Priests of E.A tend the Pillar of Light.
 

A Cathar watermark for the MR vase and the Cross of Crucifixion,

a cross mounted to an ox head ascended by a serpent spitting the three Seeds of Life.

The Cathars of Southern France, who swapped secrets with the Templars and the Irish, called E.A’s pillar of light AMOR or love, from the root MR, meaning ‘bright light’. Fascinatingly, Meru (the root of Moriah and Mero-vingian) is the name for the central pillar of Atlantis. The Greeks called the Atlanteans Meropes in honor of this pillar. MR is the name of the oil/substance secreted by the Ark-Pillar.

The Mer-Opes are the Ophites, the ‘Serpent Born’ children of E.A, who was alternately portrayed as half-human, half-fish or half-human, half-serpent. The Church of Rome teaches that M R = Maria Redemptrix, and Mary is the “Gate of Heaven” or the “Ark”. From this serpent gate came the Merovingians.
The skull of the fish God E.A, , is the same as the Templar treasure. Its secrets were, and may still be, hidden at St. Denis.

The Abbey represents the effort of Abbot Suger, who envisioned the church as the center of a new illuminated Christianity. In his three books on the building and consecration of the church, the brilliant Abbot penned thirteen separate inscriptions celebrating the Holy Light. In one of these illustrious inscriptions, a verse inscribed on the golden doors of west façade Suger tells us:

“Bright is the noble work, this work shining nobly Enlightens the mind so that it may travel through the true lights To the True Light where Christ is the true door.”

From such words Suger developed his theory of lux continua, or continuous light. His aim was to bring the True Light of God into the world, the ‘Coming Forth Into Day’ of the ancient Egyptians.

St. Denis, Paris.
 

Medallion from a window at St. Denis, Paris.

The Pillar and Ark are surrounded by the Lion, Bull, Man and Eagle.

The medallion from a window at the cathedral of St. Denis, Paris shown here represents the Ark of the Covenant carried on four wheels and resembling a triumphal chariot. Inside the Ark are seen the Rod of Aaron and the tablets of the Law or Torah . Water symbolizes the Chrestos oil.

Dominating both, there rises majestically from the watery depths of the Ark a great pillar upheld by God the Father himself. Near the wheels are the four emblems of the evangelists, the lion, bull, man and eagle, which are so to speak the borders (elements) of the symbolic car.

The Ark is clearly seen to be the pedestal or platform of the Cross. The Ark surmounted by the Cross is called the Quadriga of Aminadab, the triumphal chariot of the Song of Songs that the four evangelists must draw to the ends of the Earth. One 13th century French commentator on the Songs, Honorius of Autun, explains that Aminadab (badamina in reverse) standing in the car represents the Crucifixion.

In my view, this symbolic car or Ark is the same as the Pillar of Osiris. It is the Ark of the Christos.

A controversial document links the formation of the Templars with this Ark. The first part of the document is purported to have been written in Greek in the year 1154 and claimed the original Templar Commanders to have been initiates to a secret affiliation of primitive Gnostic Christians under the leadership of the Patriarch Theoclete who had made High de Payens (the founder of the Templars) heir to the Apostolic Succession of John the Divine.

M. Matter and Eliphas Levi were two convinced that the origin of the Johannite Church could be traced to the sect of ancient Christians known as the Mandaeans, the name of the followers of John the Baptist who lived in Iraq. These Gnostics taught a doctrine familiar to that of John the Baptist whom they regarded as the Initiator of Jesus and through whom their mystical doctrine and mission was transmitted to John the Beloved Apostle.

Among the peculiar symbols of this Order of the Mandai (also known as the Wise of John and Christians of John) was the figure of a severed head of a bearded man, a reminder of the martyrdom of their first teacher to some, which I have interpreted as a symbol of the complete Ark of the Covenant.

The Sanskrit word for Gnosis or wisdom was Jnana, which with the addition of an ‘ai’ becomes Jain, and with an ‘o’ becomes Jon-ana or J’Oanna. This gives a powerful clue to all the mysterious Johns, including the ‘beloved disciple’ John, the disciple who was closest to the heart of Christ, on whom Jesus leaned at the Last Supper, and who never knew death. Christ was said to have delivered a secret initiation to this John, whose initiatory name was Lazarus. He brought the Holy Grail into the “upper room” at the Last Supper.

The Templar ‘Johns’ appear to be a continuation of the Jains. They preserved a primordial oral tradition. The content of these texts have largely been lost, however the fragments that do survive deal with phenomenal ideas including: how one can travel to far lands by magic means, how one can perform miracles, how one can transform plants and animals (genetics?), and how one can fly through the air.

The founder of Jainism (c.6th century BC) was Jina, also called Mahavira (Great Hero), who was regarded by his followers as the latest of many tirthamkaras (“ford makers” or “bridge finders”) whose example, if followed, could lead to the release from the wheel of rebirth in one lifetime.

The detail of a Jain engraving shown here shows a pillar on a cart.

Jen pillar borne on an Ark with wheels.
 

Jen, etymologically, is a combination for “human being” and for “two.” It is variously translated as goodness, benevolence, and love. (Gen means love in Mayan.) Jen, notes Huston Smith, was the virtue of virtues in Confucius’ way of life.

“It was a sublime, even transcendental, perfection that he confessed he had never seen fully incarnated.”

Jen involves a display of human capacities at their best. These capacities, we have seen, were called the siddhes.

“It is a virtue so exalted,” writes Smith, one “cannot but be chary in speaking of it. To the noble it is dearer than life itself.”

The person of Jen is of utmost character: magnanimous, unselfish, empathetic, large of heart. They have decapitated their ego.

As I have discussed elsewhere, and will comment upon further in the Ark Cabal newsletter, the complete Ark is the archetypal design upon which the human body or bodhi, the enlightenment tree of Siddharta, the Buddha, is based.

The complete Ark –Pillar superimposed on the human body, or the human bodhi, or enlightenment, tree.

When overlaid on the chakra system we can see that the Ark of the Covenant, the golden container that housed the Tablets or (S)tones of God corresponds with the solar plexus region of the body. In light of the way it corresponds to our mystic body system, I find it most fascinating that Osiris’ pillar device was said to be lined with gold, hence its appellation “the golden flower.”

When this golden flower (the human body) ‘blossoms’ remarkable things happen. It emits a tone, key or oscillation of life . This tone is taken up to the brain by the nerves or branches of the Pneumo gastric nerve, and becomes the “fruit of the Tree of Life” in the pineal gland. Pineal was the name of the place where Jacob saw God face to face.

Pneuma is the feminine name for the soul and gastric, from the Greek gastros, refers to the stomach. Another name for the pneumogastric nerve is the Vagus, or “light,” nerve. It is the rod of light, which is the channel for the Chrestos carrying it up the spinal cord.

This chakra is directly related to an individual’s emotional life. This is interesting in that the solar plexus corresponds to the sympathetic system, which controls the conversion of inorganic and organic matter into psychic energies. The adage, “we are what we eat” applies here. Activation of this chakra can enable out-of-body experiences and healing abilities.

It is fascinating that the Twelve Tribes of Israel are referred to as the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac (“circle”). When applied in physiology they refer to the solar plexus, and the twelve forces centered there as featured in the alchemical illustration below.

One of the most revered of Jesus’ sayings is “I am the light of the World.” The word “world" comes from “whirl,” to turn as a wheel. In this illustration the solar plexus is depicted as a whirling vortex.

The solar plexus as the whirling vortex.

The ornamental border of the alchemical drawing on the previous page contains groups of names of animal, mineral, and vegetable substances in an egg-shaped bubble.

Their relationship to corresponding parts of the human body is shown by the dotted lines. This figure could be Atlas since he is shown holding the world all around him. It shows the spiritual energy of the world entering the spiraling solar plexus.

This is a missing piece to the Ark of the Covenant. More, importantly, it is a missing piece to ourselves. Our quest in the Ark Cabal is to uncover the mysteries of this missing piece and allow our spiritual bodies to flower