In recent memory, several conspiracy theories focused on the occult have noticed that the bad guys of the Satanic New World Order conspiracy worship Saturn. There’s of course, the vague assertion between Saturn and Satan. Many have talked about this–including the likes of David Icke, Jordan Maxwell, and Tracy Twyman, among others. This makes sense, and yet there is so much more to be said.
Saturn was usually pictured as an aged man holding a sickle, from which we undoubtedly get our representation of Death–the old man with a sickle. The Planet Saturn revolves around the sun for approximately 29 years, therefore the human lifespan would be two or three revolutions of this planet. This could be the reason Saturn is connected with Death and the Grim Reaper, which is the skeleton dressed in a black hood holding a sickle that reaps human beings at their death. This same Roman deity is used to denote the end of the year, and a newborn baby symbolizes the New Year, i.e. it denotes time. Another name for Saturn is Kronos, which also means time. Indeed, this is what Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8 might be getting at:
3 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
In Talismanic Magic: Saturn: The Occult Signification of His Square, Seal, and Sigils by Samuel Liddell MacGrethor Mathers, he sums up what Saturn rules over:
Saturn rules over the color Black; over Saturday in the week; over the period from the middle of December to the middle of February in the year over Capricorn and Aquarius in the Zodiac, which are called his houses, and has power in Libra, wherein he receives his Exaltation; over the dragon, the ass, the lapwing, the cuttlefish, the mole over the metal lead, the precious stone onyx, ; he is the under the power of the number three in arithmetic, and the geometrical figure of the equilateral triangle.
The actions of Saturn are associated with binding, chastening, crystallizing, hardening, hindering, limiting, magnetism, obstruction, retarding, and suppression. If the forces of Saturn seek to constrain, break down and later harden, then it would follow that this process relates to the descent and crystallization of spirit into matter or consciousness into the organic material of the body. This is perhaps the Holy Grail secret of Saturn, which we will explore later on. Saturn, so active in the cosmic changes, was regarded by all mankind as the supreme god. Seneca says that Epigenes, who studied astronomy among the Chaldeans:
“…estimates that the planet Saturn exerts the greatest influence upon all the movements of celestial bodies.” – Naturales Quaestiones VII. 4. 2.
An astrological treatise ascribed to Manetho (Manethonis Apotelesmaticorum libri sex) states that:
“In the beginning Kronos the Titan ruled the entire ether; his star the far-seeing gods called ‘the shining one.’”
Ancient Greek poets and historians like Ovid and Tacitus remembered the early tragedies enacted in the sky by the heavenly bodies and asserted that Jupiter drove Saturn away from its place in the sky. Before Jupiter (Zeus) became the chief god, Saturn (Kronos) occupied the celestial throne. In all ancient religions, the dominion passes from Saturn to Jupiter. In Greek mythology, Kronos is presented as the father and Zeus as his son who dethrones him. Kronos devours some of his children. After this act, Zeus overpowers his father, puts him in chains in Tartarus, and drives him from his royal station in the sky.
In Saturn’s association with the Old Testament, we see in Numbers 22:21-39, we see Satan first appears as an angel that stops a guy named Balaam from going forward. Satan is an angel, which his donkey can see, but Balaam cannot. The donkey refuses to move. He beats the donkey in punishment until after the third time the donkey speaks to him. We read in Deuteronomy 23:4 that Balaam the son of Beor of Pathor of Mesopotamia was hired to curse Israel. We read in Numbers 22:4, 5 and 7, that Balak the son of Zippor, king of the Moabites, sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor to Pethor and “the elders of Moab … departed with the rewards of divination in their hand.”
Both Islam and Judaism have strong Saturnian elements in them. In Islam, its revealed book of the Quran has all sorts of rules and limitations for its adherents, especially for women. Women must dress up in black, Saturnine robes, cannot show their faces, cannot drive, are subject to “honor killings”, rapes, etc. Men aren’t allowed to drink alcohol, they have to pray to Mecca five times a day, etc. In Judaism, we have the Old Covenant which Jehovah made with various patriarchs which gave us the Law and strict Kosher laws on what they can and cannot eat. They cannot work on the Shabbat (Saturn’s day) and must get circumcised. Both religions are very restrictive and binding. Both religions can be excessively obstructive and controlling. Perhaps this is why the Apostle Paul describes the Jewish Law in terms of being a “curse” in his letters. The Hexagram or the six-pointed star is the Seal of Solomon, nowadays known as the Star of David. It’s also known as the talisman of Saturn in Kabbalistic sources. In modern strands of Satanism, including Thelema, black robes are often worn in magical rituals and initiation ceremonies. Indeed, there are various Satanic/Luciferian spells and rituals with strong Saturnian elements in them.
In the Testament of Solomon, King Solomon used the seal or ring of Sabaoth (given by Michael the Archangel) to command demons or djinn to do his bidding and even torture them. If the seal is imbued with Saturnian powers it makes sense it can be used to bind spirits in some manner. In many sources, the chief symbol of Saturn is the cube. This relates to the Kaaba stone of Islam as well as the Foundation Stone in Jewish creation myths, which in turn relates to the myths associated with the Holy Grail and the Philosopher’s Stone. The Nazi Otto Rahn supposedly claimed he had found the Holy Grail that once belonged to the Cathars. According to Tarotica, the cube’s edges also form the Hexagon, associated with the Hexagram, being a stable symbol in Solomonic ritual magic as well as Israel’s Star of David. It reminds us all too well of Hellraiser’s puzzle box, where the person who solves it, effectively summons Cenobites from Hell and drags the unfortunate soul down with them to be tortured with chains.
The cube is the “base” of the platonic solids, and when turned and viewed from the right angle, it’s edges form a Hexagon. This is where the idea of someone being “hexed” comes from. We can take hex to basically mean “bind” or “bound.” When one puts a “hex” on someone else, all they are really doing is putting them in a box. You may positively “hex” someone by wishing them health and abundance, but negative hexing is done through things like gossip where one defines another persons space as having only certain negative and obstructive qualities. One essentially builds this box of “reality” around the targeted individual, and celebrities are all too aware of this form of binding magick as certain trivialities of their personal lives become endlessly repeated and turned back in on themselves in cacophonous “chamber of secrets” style reporting that is spread as far and wide as possible. This meaningless white noise has served to obstruct and drown out the utter Holiness of the Saturn’s Cube, itself being the chamber of prayer and sacred immanence.
Mesopotamia was the very home of Babylonian mysteries and the birthplace of astrology. The name Balaam in Semitic language means “Conqueror of the People” and definitely links us with “Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord (Genesis 10:9).” We read in verse 8 that this Nimrod, the son of Cush, began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was the great-grandson of Noah and “the beginning of his kingdom was Babel.” He built other cities like Ashur and Nineveh, which later became the capital of the Assyrian Empire. Nimrod is styled “the mighty hunter before the Lord,” or as Strong renders it, “against the Lord.” He shows that the Hebrew word paniym is more correctly translated as “against” rather than “before”. Like many in Babylon, Nimrod had a tendency of changing:
“…the glory of the incorruptible God into an image liken to corruptible man, and to birds and fourfooted beasts and creeping things.” (Romans 1:23).
Nimrod was certainly “against” the Lord in all he planned and did. “The mighty hunter against the Lord” led multitudes away from the creator god and laid plans for a worldwide conspiracy against Yahweh, as the story goes. That was the reason behind the Babylonian Mystery cults. Many of the cults were dedicated to the worship of Saturn, as the House of Judah (i.e. the Jews) were dedicated to also worshipping in the Tabernacle of Saturn. Saturday is named after the star god Saturn. As it follows, Saturday is not only the seventh day of creation. It is the day set aside for the glory and honor of Saturn/Nimrod. It was Nimrod who proclaimed himself to have resurrected and ascended to the planet “Saturn” in the Babylonian Mysteries. According to the ancients, planets were called wandering stars. And yet, there are many parallels between Yahweh and Saturn as well.
Matthew Henry’s Commentary states they were worshipping the planet Saturn and the Sacred Hebdomad.
You have had the images of your Moloch-your king (probably representing the sun, that sits king among the heavenly bodies), “and Chiun, or Remphan” (as Stephen calls it, Acts vii.43, after the LXX), which, it is supposed, represented Saturn, the highest of the seven planets. The worship of the sun, moon, and stars, was the most ancient, most general, and most plausible idolatry. They made to themselves the star of their God, some particular star which they took to be their god, or the name of which they gave to their god. This idolatry (Deut. iv. 19); and those that retain an affection for false gods cannot expect the favour of the true God.
The prophet Ezekiel in the Babylonian exile had a vision—the likeness of a man, but made of fire and amber who brought him to some darkened chamber where the ancients of the house of Israel with censers in their hands were worshipping idols portrayed upon the wall round about. Then the angel of the vision told him: “Thou shalt see greater abominations that they do”—and he brought the prophet to the door of the gate of the Lord’s house—”and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.” Next, he showed him also Jews in the inner court of the Lord’s house “with their back toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the sun toward the east.” It is in this instance we find that despite Yahweh’s deep connections with other heathen gods, he is always seeking to usurp their local authority in favor of his own.
The traditional Orthodox explanation of the Genesis creation account in which God or “the gods” (the Elohim) creates man in “our image” implies the trinity–the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I’ve never bought that explanation, though. I think the earliest strands of Judaism were polytheistic, and the religion became more and more monotheistic as time progressed. The scholastic evidence suggests that the Pentateuch developed out of two separate Israelite groups: Yahwist and Elohist. They base that theory on the vocabulary used in the Pentateuch: certain portions refer to the Israelite deity as Yahweh, others Elohim. The two were eventually merged into one god, but there is evidence to suggest that Elohim represented an entire pantheon of Canaanite deities, and Yahweh was one of those gods. In that case, Judaism developed as a cult that began to worship Yahweh exclusively and gradually usurped competing regional cults. This is much like how Jupiter betrays his father Saturn/Chronos as well as fellow Olympians.
For example, El, a Semitic word used by Jews for Yahweh, was also used by Canaanites as another name for Baal. It’s a clear case for the Israelite adoption of names found in preexisting religions. Baal was merely one of these Elohim, which also represented Saturn. The bull was also symbolic of El and his son Baal Hadad and both wore bull horns on their headdress. In other words, the horned god archetype is deeply connected to Saturn and the cosmocrators. El is also the Demiurge and the Freemasonic “Great Architect of the Universe” which is obviously a reference to Ialdabaoth (the “child of chaos”) of the Ophites and the Apocryphon of John. In a way, Ialdabaoth is a mixture of Baal, Kronos, and Yahweh. El is simply another name for Saturn.
This is made evident in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Praeparatio Evangelica (Preparation for the Gospel) (X), as he quotes Sanchuniathon’s History of the Jews:
And soon after he says:
‘It was a custom of the ancients in great crises of danger for the rulers of a city or nation, in order to avert the common ruin, to give up the most beloved of their children for sacrifice as a ransom to the avenging daemons; and those who were thus given up were sacrificed with mystic rites. Kronos then, whom the Phoenicians call Elus, who was king of the country and subsequently, after his decease, was deified as the star Saturn…
Incidentally, the ach-heretic Christian, Marcion’s primary goal was to distance Christianity from other religions (especially Judaism), that is, to distinguish the Christian god from all other gods before it, so that Christianity was something entirely new and unique. That was the way Christianity could be entirely independent from competing religions while also coexisting with them, i.e., pluralism. It’s a shame that none of his writings have survived, so we can only glean whatever information is retained by anti-Marcionite apologists like Tertullian.
I have found the use of the term “Elohim” deliberately obscured as Judaism moved from henotheism to monotheism. Despite Michael S. Heiser’s contentions, the Elohim was a council of gods (Elohin in Ugarit). These were the sky gods as opposed to the Shaddim/n, who were the earth gods. In other words, they are demons. The Shaddim is related to El Shaddai. Judaic (indeed all ancient near eastern) beliefs are a jumble of different ideas with some of them being discarded as time goes on and others mutating and merging with other ideas.
If El was a sky god, then how could he be thought of as an earth god? My suspicion is that this is tied to the concept of the “throne of God”. There has always been an uneasy tension between the idea of the celestial gods (stars) living in the sky and guiding human existence and the idea of the gods living on a solid surface (such as a mountain, the Axis Mundi). The central idea of a Mountain of God (also found in the Book of Enoch where the Garden of Eden is found on the same mountain) was mostly discarded in favor of an alternate universe called Heaven. To the Ancient Jews, however, this dichotomy of a celestial heaven and mountain of God constantly played back and forth (we see this very strongly in the Ezekiel Throne / Chariot description). Thus, El was the sky god that ruled the heavens but he also ruled from the world mountain. This made him both a sky god and an earth god.
I favor the notion (as do some other scholars) that the Moloch that the later prophets railed against so vociferously, was, originally, Melech (“King”) which was the nice way of speaking of El when he was in a bad mood. He was the older, deeper god whom one appeased in the background to appease the reigning sky god, YHWH (also known to the Greeks and Romans as i.e. Zeus / Jupiter). In the case of El Shaddai, I suspect that the title referred to El on the Throne of God without any particular chthonic implications but that the constant associations with the Shaddim kept the title from being more popular in later days. Christians, today, have no problem with “God, the Rock” as the translation has removed any relationship between Shaddai (“rock”) and shaddim (eventually mutated to “Satans”).
Some equate the Garden of Eden with the Golden Age of Saturn. Some even postulate that Eden was actually some sort of “Sacred Mountain” or the World Axis, like the climbing of Dante’s Mountain of Purgatory that represents the pilgrim’s progress, through the sphere. Eden was blocked off from Adam and Eve because of their transgression of Divine Law. This sacred mountain, upon whose summit stood the temple of the gods, gave rise to the stories of Olympus, Meru, and Asgard. The City of the Golden gates—the capital of Atlantis—is the one now preserved among the numerous religions as the City of the Gods, the Holy City, and even the New Jerusalem of Revelation, with its streets paved with gold and its twelve gates shining with precious stones.
Atlantis was said to have been a naval power that took over parts of Western Europe and Africa in 9400 B.C. before an explosion sank the island beneath the ocean. Like Eden, it was said to have been centered at the source of four rivers—which also comes from the Sumerian myth of Ziusudra and the Zoroastrian legend of pairideaza, from which we get the word “paradise”. The Garden of Eden is called gannah in Hebrew, which means a hidden place. It’s an Avestan term from Old Persia, which was also used as a term to refer to enclosed parks, matching Plato’s description of Atlantis being a highly advanced society, walled off from the rest of the barbaric world, in his writings. The author of Mystery Babylon writes about the “hidden” nature of Saturn:
Saturn was, and is, probably one of the most important figures behind the development of Mystery Babylon. Interestingly enough, Saturn was also known to be a “god of hidden counsels,” a “concealer of secrets,” and a “god of ‘mysteries.’ In fact, one of the major subtitles of this god was, “the Hidden One” or the “Hidden God.” Now, what was so mysterious about this god; that he had to be hidden?
According to some ancient thought, Saturn might have originally been equated to Noah – at least at first; and the reason he was known as “The Hidden One” was simple: Noah was “hidden” in the ark for an extended period of time! Because of this, Noah could have been considered “the first of the Hidden Ones” – but, not the last!
Saturn is also a staple in ritual magic and alchemy. In Zosimos’ Visions, the author indicates that the main purpose of the transformation process featured in his dream vision is the spiritualization of the sacrificing priest to become spirit or pneuma. We are told that he would “change the bodies into blood, make the eyes to see and the dead to rise again.” Later in the visions, he appears in the glorified form, shining like the midday sun, much like the risen Christ. Throughout the text, it is clear that the sacrificer and sacrificed are one and the same. It goes back to the old alchemical idea of what redeems and that which is to be redeemed are also one and the same. Let us revisit Zosimos’s Visions, quickly.
The composition of the waters, and the movement, and the growth, and the removal and restitution of bodily nature, and the splitting off of the spirit from the body, and the fixation of the spirit on the body are not operations with natures alien one from the other, but, like the hard bodies of metals and the moist fluids of plants, are One Thing, of One Nature, acting upon itself. And in this system, of one kind but many colours, is preserved a research of all things, multiple and various, subject to lunar influence and measure of time, which regulates the cessation and growth by which the One Nature transforms itself.
And saying these things, I slept, and I saw a certain sacrificing priest standing before me and over and altar which had the form of a bowl. And that altar had fifteen steps going up to it.
Then the priest stood up and I heard from above a voice say to me, “I have completed the descent of the fifteen steps and the ascent of the steps of light. And it is the sacrificing priest who renews me, casting off the body’s coarseness, and, consecrated by necessity, I have become a spirit.”
And when I had heard the voice of him who stood in the altar formed like a bowl, I questioned him, desiring to understand who he was.
He answered me in a weak voice saying, “I am Ion, Priest of the Adytum, and I have borne an intolerable force. For someone came at me headlong in the morning and dismembered me with a sword and tore me apart, according to the rigor of harmony. And, having cut my head off with the sword, he mashed my flesh with my bones and burned them in the fire of the treatment, until, my body transformed, I should learn to become a spirit. And I sustained the same intolerable force.”
And even as he said these things to me and I forced him to speak, it was as if his eyes turned to blood and he vomited up all his flesh. And I saw him as a mutilated image of a little man and he was tearing at his flesh and falling away.
A little later in this vision account, Zosimos, speaks to what appears to be a spirit of metal or a planetary demon:
As he was saying these things to me and the boiling increased and the people wailed, I saw a copper man holding a lead tablet in his hand. He spoke aloud, looking at the tablet, “I counsel all those in mortification to become calm and that each take in his hand a lead tablet and write with his own hand and that each bear his eyes upward and open his mouth until his grapes be grown.”
Saturn is also associated with the alchemical element of lead and in gnosis is a planetary demon. The parallel between the Hebrew god and Saturn is of considerable importance as in regards to the alchemical idea of the transformation of the God of the Old Testament into the God of the New. The alchemists of old were naturally attracted to the great significance of Saturn, for besides being the outermost planet, the supreme archon and demiurge Ialdabaoth, he was also the spiritus niger who lies captive in the darkness of matter, the deity or that part of the deity that is swallowed up in his own creation. It is this dark god who steals a portion of his mother Sophia’s divine power in which Sophia seeks to recover through Ialdabaoth’s/Jehovah’s creations of Adam and Eve as we see in Irenaeus’ account of the Ophite myth in Against Heresies (1.30.6):
But as he could merely writhe along the ground, they carried him to their father; Sophia so labouring in this matter, that she might empty him (Ialdabaoth) of the light with which he had been sprinkled, so that he might no longer, though still powerful, be able to lift up himself against the powers above. They declare, then, that by breathing into man the spirit of life, he was secretly emptied of his power; that hence man became a possessor of nous (intelligence) and enthymesis (thought); and they affirm that these are the faculties which partake in salvation. He [they further assert] at once gave thanks to the first Anthropos (man), forsaking those who had created him.
In Hippolytus’ Refutation of All Heresies (V, 11), he mentions a Gnostic group called Peratics, they specifically name Cronus as the demiurge and lord of mortal generation.
For Cronus is a cause to every generation, in regard of succumbing under destruction, and there could not exist (an instance of) generation in which Cronus does not interfere.
They also say that this god is identified with the midheaven cardinal point, or the summer tropic, which is the very force that turns the wheel of fate over the world (V, 10).
Since, then, astrologers are acquainted with the horoscope, and meridian, and setting, and the point opposite the meridian; and since these stars occupy at different times different positions in space, on account of the perpetual revolution of the universe, there are (necessarily) at different periods different declinations towards a centre, and (different) ascensions to centres. (Now the Peratic here-ties), affixing an allegorical import to this arrangement of the astrologers, delineate the centre, as it were, a god and monad and lord over universal generation, whereas the declination (is regarded by them as a power) on the left, and ascension on the right. When any one, therefore, falling in with the treatises of these (heretics), finds mention among them of right or left power, let him recur to the centre, and the declination, and the ascension (of the Chaldean sages, and) he will clearly observe that the entire system of these (Peratae) consists of the astrological doctrine.
It is this god that the initiate seeking to return to the source in the Pleroma must overcome by “giving up” different aspects of himself to each astral gatekeeper. This is explained very well in the Hermetica. The Freemason Albert Pike in Morals & Dogma summarizes Celsus’ description of the Mithraic Mysteries of ascension.
We learn this from Celsus, in Origen; who says that the symbolical image of this passage among the stars, used in the Mithriac Mysteries, was a ladder, reaching from earth to Heaven, divided into seven steps or stages, to each of which was a gate, and at the summit an eighth, that of the fixed stars. The first gate, says Celsus, was that of Saturn, and of lead, by the heavy nature whereof his dull slow progress was symbolized. The second, of tin, was that of Venus, symbolizing her soft splendor and easy flexibility. The third, of brass, was that of Jupiter, emblem of his solidity and dry nature. The fourth, of iron, was that of Mercury, expressing his indefatigable activity and sagacity. The ,fifth, of copper, was that of Mars, expressive of his inequalities and variable nature. The sixth, of silver, was that of the Moon: and the seventh, of gold, that of the Sun. This order is not the real order ,of these Planet’s but a mysterious one, like that of the days of the Week consecrated to them, commencing with Saturday, and retrograding to Sunday. It was dictated, Celsus says, by certain harmonic relations, those of the fourth.
Perhaps in the myth of St. George slaying the dragon lies an old alchemical idea of the crucified serpent or the tail-eating dragon, Ouroboros, where the poisonous element of matter or Saturnian dross is destroyed on the alchemical cross to reveal and create the elixir of Mercury (symbolizing spirit). We already saw that the Sethians and Manichaeans viewed the serpent as representing the Logos or Jesus, which relates to Jesus himself identifying with the bronze serpent of Moses (John 3:14). This identification troubles many fundamentalist Christians but is real, nonetheless. If this line of study is pursued, it leads to a great many “troubling” ideas and correspondences. If pursued, it will lead to many (unpopular) enlightening principles. Just as the alchemical serpent is crucified, Jesus became sin on the Cross for mankind, taking our punishment upon Him and shedding His blood on the cross in our place, as a ransom for many and stealing souls from Hell when he descends there. This is similar to the idea of Prometheus stealing fire from Mount Olympus or Hari Krishna stealing souls from Yama or Indra, the god of death and the underworld. And like Jesus, Mercurius (the spirit behind the planet Mercury) or Hermes was a god of revelation, who discloses the secret of the art to the adepts.
The last part of Zosimos’ Visions (quoted above) recalls the saying of St. John Chrysostom’s saying that in the Eucharist, Christ drinks his own blood and perhaps eats his own flesh. It also reminds us of the orgiastic meals of the cult of Dionysus, where animals were sacrificed, torn into pieces and eaten. They represent Dionysus Zagreus who was also torn into pieces by the Titans (including their leader Chronos/Saturn). The composition of the waters in which the spirit splits off from the body is a clear reference to the heavenly baptism of John the Baptist, where the sins of the repentant are washed away in the spiritual waters of grace and truth (the Holy Spirit/comforter) flowing from Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
Speaking of John the Baptist, January 6, the date is famous for the instance when Jesus was baptized by John celebrated on Epiphany. This date falls under Capricorn, the goatfish or Aegipan. According to Zlatko Pletze in Fate, Providence and Astrology in Gnosticism (1): The Apocryphon of John, he connects Capricorn with Saturn and Adoni as well as Sabaoth. He’s referencing the archons and authorities from the Apocryphon of John and the Zodiac (obviously).
In regards to the demiurge, ancient depictions of Zurvan/Mithra look exactly like Yaldabaoth as depicted in the Apocryphon of John. He also holds the keys and the rod-like Janus in the Roman pantheon. And he has the rooster with him. You can clearly see how Zurvan’s imagery was assimilated into the Catholic depiction of St. Peter (keys and rooster). Also, Mithras is often depicted as being born out of a rock. St. Peter is the rock of the church. Coincidence? I think not. Weird how these deities bear a closer resemblance to Peter than Jesus. I wonder why that came about.
According to John 19:34, the stabbing or piercing of holy lance or “spear of destiny” into Jesus’ side by the Roman Centurion named in extra-Biblical tradition (the Gospel of Nicodemus) as Caius Cassius Longinus, resulted in the pouring of blood and water. This reminds us of Jesus’ saying in Matthew 10:34:
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
Killing with the sword is a recurring theme in alchemy. The “philosophical egg” is divided with the sword, and with it, the “King is transfixed” and the dragon or “corpus” is mutilated. The alchemical sword, like the cross, brings about the separation of the elements (flesh and spirit), so that a new more perfect body can be processed. It is this sword that “kills and vivifies,” and dipped and anointed with the waters of life. Mercurius is the giver of life as well as the destroyer of the old form. It is the sword that comes of the mouth of the Son of Man in Revelation of St. John, and according to Hebrews 4:12, the Logos, the Word of God, and hence Christ himself is that sword.
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Christ is the mediator and savior, the solver and separator, who is a sword, for he is the “penetrating spirit” “more piercing than a two-edged sword”. And so, the spirit of Christ pierces the veil that covers the blinded soul, in which the believer is said to cross over from the Saturnian/Satanic hyper-cube of time, space, and flesh (symbolized as the old man in Pauline literature) and into the realm of spirit, being the Kingdom of God (the new man in which the fleshy deeds of the old man are mortified). The divisive and separate function of the sword in alchemy is prefigured in the flaming sword of the angel or cherub that separated Adam and Eve from paradise. Separation by a sword is a theme that can be found in the Ophite diagram: the earthly cosmos is surrounded by a ring of fire which at the same time encloses paradise. But paradise and the ring of fire are separated by the “flaming sword.” An important interpretation of the cherub’s flaming sword is given by Simon Magus as reported by Hippolytus in Refutation of All Heresies (VI.12):
This, he says, is
the flaming sword, which turned to guard the way of the tree of life.For the blood is converted into seed and milk, and this power becomes mother and father— father of those things that are in process of generation, and the augmentation of those things that are being nourished; (and this power is) without further want, (and) self-sufficient. And, he says, the tree of life is guarded, as we have stated, by the brandished flaming sword.
For Simon, the sword represents the fiery force of generation which turns and spurns the spirit from escaping out of the realm of matter and into the Simonian fiery tree of life, which represents the aeons and the Godhead. This teaching prefigures the Kabbalah by several hundred years, at least. And yet the flaming sword represents the very fiery force that “turns” something small and into something great. It is the means of transformation of the vital spirit in man into the Divine or the true arcane substance of alchemy symbolized as seed and milk in Simon Magus’s doctrine.
If, however, these be converted into seed and milk, the principle that resides in these potentially, and is in possession of a proper position, in which is evolved a principle of souls, (such a principle,) beginning, as it were, from a very small spark, will be altogether magnified, and will increase and become a power indefinite (and) unalterable, (equal and similar) to an unalterable age, which no longer passes into the indefinite age.
How does any of this relate to Saturn? In the quest for the Holy Grail, the answer is revealed. Tracy Twyman in Regnum in Potentia, Part 1: Saturn’s Kingdom Transformed Into the Golden Age, writes about a particular Holy Grail romance:
In Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, the knight Gawain is sent on a mission by a hermit who looks young, although he is 75 years old. The mission is to find the sword that John the Baptist was beheaded with, which he will need to enter the lands of the Fisher King. The sword belongs to a pagan king named Gurguran, who promises Gawain that he can have it if he will rescue the king’s son from a giant who has kidnapped him. Gawain kills the giant, but the boy is strangled to death in the process. Then, in a strange rite, Gurguran chops his sons body into pieces and distributes them to his subjects to eat. Gawain then receives the sword and is led to the Grail banquet at the Fisher King’s court, where 12 knights who are hundreds of years old (reminiscent of the 12 Olympian gods) sit around a banquet hall, all looking youthful except for their grey hair.
Indeed, we see Wolfram revel in providing us with a number of deep mystical truths in his poem. At one point of the story, in Parzival, Wolfram tells us that the cycles of Saturn govern the intensity of Grail King Amfortas’s perpetual wound.
Then answered the host, * Far sorer than before was the monarch’s pain, In this wise did he learn the tidings that Saturn drew near again, And the star with a sharp frost cometh, and it helpeth no whit to lay. The spear on the sore as aforetime, tn the wound must it lunge alway. When that star standeth high in heaven the wound shall its coming know Afore, tho’ the earth shall heed not, nor token of frost shall show. But the cold it came, and the snow-flakes fell thick in the following night…
To be “saturnine” means to be slow, gloomy, and depressed. The Gospel of Truth calls the universe of matter in terms of being a nightmare filled with violence:
Since it was terror and disturbance and instability and doubt and division, there were many illusions at work by means of these, and (many) empty fictions, as if they were sunk in sleep, and found themselves in disturbing dreams. Either (there is) a place to which they are fleeing, or without strength they come (from) having chased after others, or they are involved in striking blows, or they are receiving blows themselves, or they have fallen from high places, or they take off into the air, though they do not even have wings. Again, sometimes (it is as) if people were murdering them, though there is no one even pursuing them, or they themselves are killing their neighbors, for they have been stained with their blood.
This is not so dissimilar to how Plutarch describes the perpetual dreams of Saturn. Parzival at one point in his story sits next to his host, the Grail King Anfortas (possibly symbolizing the crucified Christ), amidst the Grail, the holiest of holies, surrounded by the celestial hierarchies. He has witnessed the bleeding spear and the suffering it has caused the King and is court. He has seen the mysterious destroying power of Saturn and the sickness, old age and death in its wake. Yet he has not connected them with the glorious regenerative power of the Grail that overcame the Saturnine decay. Later, Parzival is forced to demonstrate his fitness for Grail membership. A squire steps forward and hands Anfortas a sword made of ruby. The King presents Parzival with the sword saying:
“This sword often came to my aid in the greatest need, that is before God’s will I receive so sore a wound. Now I give it to you. May it bring to you what you can never acquire by simple gazing at what is taking place here.”
The sword is unique, yet Parzival could not recognize this fact. If he had but known, he would have seen the full harmony of wisdom, love, and strength from this weapon (representing the Logos). Parzival should have seen how the pitiful suffering of the king and realize that the power the King once had in his sword now belongs to him. As Parzival reveals, the path of initiation is long and weary, full of doubt, sorrow, and pain that pierces the veil into the Holy of Holies of the spirit where regeneration occurs with the Logos. It is the “narrow gate” that Jesus in Matthew and Luke once advocated and commanded his followers to walk through, out of Saturn’s/Satan’s Kingdom, to be saved. It is the second journey towards the Grail Castle that will teach him the necessary wisdom that he must not only ask but also provide the answer himself. He will be armed with the wisdom that he will translate thus:
” I myself am guilty for the suffering of humanity; only if I reach the highest goal, and then not for myself, but in service of the word, can I bring forth healing.”
It is the Grail King who understands how the great cosmic forces operating in the macrocosm rule in the microcosm of the human body. This is the secret of the Hermetical axiom: “As above, so below.” As we’ve seen, Saturn’s power primarily works in obstructing and inhibiting, just as how the control system mankind is currently in bondage to, behaves. The controllers (in their various guises) prevent their slaves from seeing certain truths, from forcing us to live their way of reality. Perhaps this is why the term “royalty” is tied with the word “reality.” The excess Saturnian energy may be why so many people are unwilling to change their minds even when confronted by evidence.
The conspiracy author David Icke has often said that consciousness is like a ball under water. It rises to the surface by itself unless there is someone pushing it down. Perhaps this is why Saturn is so important to the controllers and “secret societies”. However, they too, like everyone else, are prisoners in this continuum of Saturn and with various machinations are seeking to break out from. Here are a few more videos worthy of your consideration.
The Aeon Eye 