Subject: The Inner Earth. Part 5. Feb. 19, 2008.
This talks about Eden.
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He also writes: Apollo's real home is among the
Hyperboreans, in a land of perpetual life, where
mythology tells us two doves flying from the two
opposite ends of the world met in this fair region,
the home of Apollo.
Indeed, according to Hecataeus, Leto, the mother
of Apollo, was born on an island in the Arctic
Ocean far beyond the North Wind. [27]
Plato speaks of many cavities and 'wonderful
regions' in the earth, and of subterranean flows of
water, mud, and fire.
One of the cavities in the earth is not only
larger than the rest, but pierces right through
from one side to the other. It is of this that
Homer speaks when he says 'Far, far away, where
lies earth's deepest chasm'; while elsewhere
both he and many other poets refer to it as
Tartarus. [28]
In the Greek view, the lands of the living
were divided from Tartarus, the land of the
d-ad, by fierce obstacles, rivers, and bodies
of water or fire. The greatest of these was
Oceanus, which not only comprised all the seas
of the world, but was also the largest of the
'rivers' which the Greeks believed swept into
and through Tartarus, to emerge from the
underworld on the opposite side of the earth.
Other subterranean torrents included Lethe,
the river of forgetfulness, and the Styx, the
river of de-th. Tartarus was said to 'sink
twice as far below the earth as the earth
was beneath the sky', and to be bounded by
many perils.
As well as being the home of the
dethroned g-ds called the Titans, it contained
a variety of regions or kingdoms, ranging
from the Elysian Fields to the many grottoes,
caverns, and pits of t-rment reserved for
the d-mned [29].
The 1st-century Roman philosopher Seneca
spoke of people who 'forced their way into the
caverns' and entered the bowels of the earth,
'penetrating to the deepest hiding places',
where they saw 'great ru****ng rivers, and vast
still lakes', a world where 'the whole of
nature was reversed. The land hung above
their heads, while winds whistled hollowly
in the shadows, while in the depths,
frightful rivers led nowhere into perpetual
and alien night' [30].
He also wrote: 'A time will come in later
years when the Ocean will unloosen the bands
of things, when the immeasurable earth will
lie open, and Thule will no longer be the
extreme point among the lands' [31].
Clearly nothing on the earth's surface
could lie further north than Ultima Thule
(the Land of the Ultimate North).
The Scandinavian and Germanic peoples
envisioned the world as an immense yew or
ash tree, the limbs and roots of which spread
into a variety of realms or planes of
existence. The World Tree, Yggdrasil, plunged
its deep roots into several subterranean
kingdoms, which all bordered a vast primordial
void called Ginnungagap. One root of Yggdrasil
led into Niflheim, the land of the de-d. As
in the Greek underworld, many waters flowed
out from the depths and into the human world;
in Niflheim it was the spring/river Hvergelmir
(meaning 'roaring cauldron'), which boiled
and churned relentlessly. The 11 tributaries
of the Hvergelmir emptied into the central
void of Ginnungagap. The second of Yggdrasil's
roots found its way into the lands of the
go-s, Asgard and Vanaheim. While often pictured
as a land high in Yggdrasil's branches, this
realm was a subterranean one as well. In
fact, the only world of Norse cosmology that
is not in some sense subterranean is that of
Midgard (middle earth), the surface world.
Bifrost, the 'rainbow bridge', stretched
from Midgard across Ginnungagap into Asgard
[32].
In the Elder Edda, Odin says: 'No one has
ever known or will ever know the vastness
of the roots of that ancient tree.' This is
a reference not only to the created world
and h-avens, but also to the root-like cavern
system beneath the surface world. Also
issuing from the depths of the World Tree
was the titanic world-serpent or ouroboros
which encircled the earth and held its
tail in its teeth. It was called 'the
girdle of the world', and its writhings
beneath the sea were one of the sources
of storms and earthquakes. The main
entrance to the subterranean realms lay
in the north. Similarly, the Greeks
believed that one of the entrances to
Tartarus lay beyond Hyperborea, and the
entrance to the Finnish underworld lay
north of Lapland, where the earth and
sky met.
In the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, the
underworld or 'Great Below' was a place of
immense size and great t-rror, filled
with a wide range of beings, including
s-irits, the unde-d, humanoids, and s-vage
guardians. In his search for everlasting life,
Gilgamesh first had to reach the mountain of
Mashu, connected with the he-vens above and
the netherworld below. Having been allowed
to enter the 'gate', he descended into the
bowels of the earth through 12 double-hours
of darkness before reaching 'an enclosure
as of the -ods', filled with brilliance, where
there was a garden made entirely of precious
stones [33].
According to Diodorus Siculus, the Chaldees,
imagined the earth to have the form of a round
boat turned upside down and to be hollow
underneath [34].
The B-ble describes the underworld or h-ll
as a 'bottomless pit' (R-velation 9:1-2) and
'the abyss' (R-mans 10:7), a place of
punishment and misery, the abode of S-tan
and his d-mons. Other references to
subterranean realms and life include the
following: . at the name of Je--s every knee
should bow, in hea-en and on earth and under
the earth. (P-ilippians 2:10, Revised
Standard Version)
And no one in heav-n or on earth or under
the earth was able to open the scroll or look
into it. (Re-elation 5:3)
In saying, 'He [C-rist] ascended,' what
does it mean but that he had also descended
into the lower parts of the earth? (E-hesians
4:9)
For as Jonah was three days and three
nights in the belly of the whale, so will
the son of man be three days and three nights
in the heart of the earth. (Ma-thew 12:40)
J--us refers to this place as 'Eden' or
paradise. Some hollow-earthers have read
into the following quotation a reference to
the alleged polar hole in the Arctic:
He stretches out the north over the void,
and hangs the earth upon nothing. (J-b 26:7)
In the apocryphal Book of Enoch [35], Enoch
speaks of proceeding to 'the middle of the
earth', where he beheld a 'blessed land',
'happy and fertile' (25:1, 26:1). An angel
shows him 'the first and last s-crets in
heaven above, and in the depths of the
earth: In the extremities of heav-n, and in
the foundations of it, and in the receptacle
of the winds' (59:2-3). There are said to
be cavities in the earth and 'mighty waters'
under it (65:1, 87:5, 95:2). Enoch sees an
abyss 'opened in the midst of the earth,
which was full of fire' (89:34); the abyss
is said to be 'on the right side of the
earth', which, according to B-avatsky, can
mean in the north [36]. There is also a
reference to seven great rivers, four of
which 'take their course in the cavity of
the north' (76:6-7).
Finally, the following passage from "The
Se-ret Doctrine" contains several enigmatic
statements referring to the far north and
possibly to the inner earth. Speaking of the
Kaf mountains of Persian legend, Bl-vatsky
writes:
Whatever they may be in their geographical
status, whether they are the Caucasian or
Central Asian mountains, it is far beyond
these mountains to the North, that legend
places the Daevas [giants] and Peris; the
latter the remote ancestors of the Parsis or
Farsis. Oriental tradition is ever referring
to an unknown glacial, gloomy sea, and to a
dark region, within which, nevertheless,
are situated "the Fortunate Islands", wherein
bubbles, from the beginning of life on earth,
the "fountain of life". But the legend
asserts, moreover, that a ****tion of the
first "dry" island (continent), having
detached itself from the main body, has
remained, since then, beyond the mountains
of Koh-Kaf, 'the stony girdle that
surrounds the world.' A journey of seven
months' duration will bring him who is
possessed of 'Sulayman's ring' to that
'fountain,' if he keeps on journeying
North straight before him as the bird flies.
Journeying therefore from Persia "straight
north", will bring one along the sixtieth
degree of longitude, holding to the west,
to Novaya Zemlya; and from the Caucasus
to the eternal ice beyond the Arctic circle
would land one between 60 and 45 degrees of
longitude, or between Novaya Zemlya and
Spitzbergen. This, of course, if one has
the dodecapedian horse of [King] Hoshang
or the winged Simurgh [a marvellous bird,
the Persian phoenix] of Tahmurath (or
Taimuraz) [third king of Persia], upon
which to cross over the Arctic Ocean.*
*[The Caucasian bards] say that it
requires seven months for a swift horse
to reach the 'dry land' beyond Kaf,
holding north without ever deviating
from one's way.
Nevertheless, the wandering songsters
of Persia and the Caucasus will maintain,
to this day, that far beyond the
snow-capped summits of Kap, or Caucasus,
"there is a great continent now concealed
from all". That it is reached by those who
can secure the services of the twelve-legged
progeny of the crocodile and the female
hippopotamus, whose legs become at will
"twelve wings"* or by those who have the
patience to wait for the good pleasure of
"Simurgh-anke", who promised that before
she d-es she will reveal the hidden continent
to all, and make it once more visible and
within easy reach, by means of a bridge,
which the Ocean Daevas will build between that
****tion of the 'dry island' and its severed
parts.** This relates, of course, to the
seventh r-ce, Simurgh being the Manvantaric
cycle.
Part 5.
John Winston. johnfw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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