Man has often wondered about the birth of his world. Our remote ancestors told strange tales of parental deities who gave birth to planets, and people.
Primitive religious thought regarded inanimate Nature as teeming with terrifying psychic life. It is a trend which persists in the dark recesses of the modern mind. There is reason for this persistence . . .
Were the ancients entirely wrong?
Science has unlocked many mysteries that terrified our forebears, but there are others which remain just as enigmatically sealed as before.
What strange astrological influences do the dark stars exert as they speed through the heavens on their evil courses? Like a cosmic combination lock their tuning unleashes timeless forces of evil.
The Pantheon of Old Gods rides again to bring hideous terror to the 20th century.
Release date:
June 30, 2014
Publisher:
Orion Publishing Group
Print pages:
320
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THE lecture room was filled with an odd medley of the curious, the not-so curious, the faithful and the not-so-faithful. They ranged from earnest, pimply-faced teenagers with thick spectacles and protruding eyes, to rather sleek, svelte professionals, behind whose enigmatical, mask-like faces lurked dark secrets.
The lecture hall had been suitably bedecked for the occasion. It had, when the circumstances demanded, resounded to the cries of tub-thumping politicians. It had heard the impassioned pleas of idealistic pacifists, it had been charged with the reactionary emotion of a flat-earther, numerous religious cults and sects had protagonised their particular theory and eschatologies through its confines.
It had seen every shade of political colour from dark, reactionary blue, over the black and brown of the extreme Right, through middling pinks and yellows, down to the veriest reds. It had seen speakers of every faction, creed and party—the hall was very impartial. It was because of that impartiality that some of the crank organizations were able to use it, when more serious bodies were otherwise engaged.
There was always a long waiting list for its commodious accommodation. The garish flags and the trumpet-and-drum atmosphere of a political rally changed overnight at the hands of the new hirers. They had changed pretty rapidly on this occasion. The walls were disguised with thick, black, velvet-like tapestries. The tapestries were embroidered and emblazoned with the signs of the Zodiac. The stage itself was illumined by one powerful spot-light, a spot-light which shone powerfully and dramatically upon the speaker—Madame Zaff, the lady Astrologer, was in full gallop. A great torrent of words flowed from her, rushing along like some almighty river, taking the majority of the audience with her until even the sceptic began to listen intently, until even the doubter began to feel the first faint promptings of certitude. The converted renewed their faith, for Madame Zaff possessed a most admirable eloquence.
“Let me remind you,” she said in that powerful but husky voice of hers, a voice which could sound as mysterious and as exciting as the timeless pre-science which she preached. “What is astrology?” she asked. Her black velvet robe made a miniature epitomisation of the velvet tapestry that clothed the hall, and flashed with the stars and crescent so beautifully embroidered upon it. “Astrology,” again the deep, thrilling tone of voice, “Astrology,” she repeated, “the ancient art of divining the fate and the future of human beings. More than an art—a science! More than a science and an art together! A revelation of the gods themselves! The great gods who set the Stars in their courses who created Orion, and the mighty Universe itself! This is not a science that was born yesterday! This is not a science that was founded by 20th century man. Go back to the glories of ancient Babylon, Go back with me now, in your minds. Take your minds back, before the Christian era and you will find a highly developed knowledge of astrology among those wonderful Babylonian people. If the criterion of any art is its ability to expand, then surely, astrology deserves the favour of that criterion! It spread to Greece four hundred years before the Christian era dawned! It was in Rome before the Apostles got there! Was it confined to Greece and Mesopotamia and to the Romans? No!” Her voice sunk to a sepulchral whisper and then suddenly rose to a violent crescendo “It was in China and India, it reached the mysterious land of Egypt! It flourished in the Nile valley, it was know to the Arabs. It was known throughout the ancient world. We have grown proud! We think our ancestors were ignorant savages. We do not say so in so many words, but we often think so, and it is wrong for us to think so. There is much that the ancients could teach us, much secret knowledge that is lost. But not all, not all …” Again her voice sank to that sepulchral whisper. “In ancient Babylonia and in Assyria astrology was one of the two chief means the priests used to discover the will of the gods, and surely, astrology must have a basis in fact. Ask yourself what lies at the basis of the theory of astrology. It must surely be that there is a Divine Power at the back of the world.” She brought her arguments round with care, with great care and skilful cunning. She paused momentarily, and then began the argument afresh.
“Is it not an indisputable fact,” her black eyes glittered and shone like two dark ravens flying across the pale vista of her face, “is it not an indisputable fact that man’s life and happiness are dependent upon the phenomena that exist in the heavens? The very soil from which we draw our daily bread could give us no food if the celestial sun did not shine upon it. It would give us no food if the rain did not come down from the heaven upon it. Think of the damage that is done by storms and by thunder and by lightning and by thunderbolts! Where do these things come from? From the sky! From the heavens above us. See now how these ancient Babylonian priests observed these things for themselves, and the sense to know that the heavens which are the source of man’s happiness, indeed of his very existence, must also contain the track of his fate. As the moon and the sun move regularly through their native sphere if they moved in the course of a pattern on an inviolate law, then surely there is no such thing as chance, all things are governed by law.
“The planets—‘the Wanderers’ as our ancient forebears called them—Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Venus and Jupiter, these planets were identified by the ancient ones with the great gods. The planet Jupiter stood for Marduk, Venus was the goddess Ishtar, Saturn was identified with the god Ninib, Mercury was associated with Nebo, Mars has much in common with Nergal. The moon-god is Sin, and the Sun-god Shamash! These together were believed, by our Babylonian antecedents, to have prepared everything that happened on our world.
“What more logical then that the Babylonian priests should take upon themselves to work of completing and designing a system that would enable them to understand everything that they could observe in the heavens. Slowly, day by day, their knowledge was built up over the years. First they understood the movements of the sun and the moon. Gradually they became cognisant with movements of the five planets, those in particular which were most visible and could most easily be recognised. See now the beauty and the intricacy of the thoughts and their knowledge. Not only is it important to note the movement and position of the sun, moon and planets relative to the earth but relative to each other. And, of course, our ancient Babylonian priest astrologers noticed certain peculiarities in the movements of the heavenly bodies. They attached great significance to all that they saw and when something outstanding took place, that was, naturally of outstanding significance to them. Imagine how they would have felt when they first saw the wonder of an eclipse of the Moon! And when their observations grew more calculating and more careful, the permutations of possible combinations of movement, so there grew up a gigantic body of knowledge.
“Now, how to interpret these occurrences in the skies? First they would consult their mnemonic records, relying either upon the written symbol or the memory, they would discover what particular events had taken place when a certain phenomenon was being observed in the sky. Thus they would correlate cause with effect, and effect with cause.
“Do you not see the patience and the love and the devotion that these men must have had for their work? To observe and correlate? To correlate and to observe … the action in the sky, the action on earth. For example, let us imagine an occasion when the new moon rose in a cloudy sky and an enemy was defeated, or there was abundant rain. They knew then that the new moon rising in a cloudy sky was a good omen, a sign of high favour, and whenever it recurred they would know that good would befall them. Another phenomenon which they observed was the appearance occasionally of the new moon earlier than they had calculated. It arrived before it was expected, and this was a dangerous and unfavourable omen. It could mean they would be defeated in battle, it might mean there would be a plague among their livestock. There was another method, as well as the observation of events, and the connection of the memory of events with various astrological phenomena, and this second method meant an association of ideas.
“An association of ideas of events in the sky and earthly events. The first example that I gave you—the new moon in the cloudy sky—can now be linked to the second in which we see that they are working on the association of ideas principle. To them, anything premature would tend to indicate an unfortunate happening.” She paused and drank water from a small crystal glass beside her on the table, then those jet black raven eyes went flashing around the lecture hall again. “In its earli. . .
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