IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD AND THE WORD WAS GOD AND WITHOUT GOD WAS NOT ANYTHING MADE THAT WAS MADE IN GOD WAS THE LIGHT AND THE LIGHT WAS THE LIGHT OF THE LIVING RAINBOW HAIL THE JEWEL AT THE CENTRE OF THE LOTUS PEACE UPON EARTH GOODWILL UNTO ALL SENTIENT BEINGS
ADVENT 295 ADVENT
HOLY BIBLE Scofield Reference SAINT JOHN C 1 V 1 Page 1114 IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD AND THE WORD WAS GOD
THE THE THE HOLY HOLY HOLY WORD WORD WORD
OF TIME AND STARS Arthur C. Clarke 1972 FOREWORD "'Into the Comet' and 'The Nine Billion Names of God' both involve computers and the troubles they may cause us. While writing this preface, I had occasion to call upon my own HP 9100A computer, Hal Junior, to answer an interesting question. Looking at my records, I find that I have now written just about one hundred short stories. This volume contains eighteen of them: therefore, how many possible 18-story collections will I be able to put together? The answer as I am sure will be instantly obvious to you - is 100 x 99. . . x 84 x 83 divided by 18 x 17 x 16 ... x .2 x 1. This is an impressive number - Hal Junior tells me that it is approximately 20,772,733,124,605,000,000.
Page 15 The Nine Billion Names of God 'This is a slightly unusual request,' said Dr Wagner, with what he hoped was commendable restraint. 'As far as I know, it's the first time anyone's been asked to supply a Tibetan monastery with an Automatic Sequence Computer. I don't wish to be inquisitive, but I should hardly have thought that your - ah - establishment had much use for such a machine. Could you explain just what you intend to do with it?' Page16 'We have reason to believe,' continued the lama imperturbably, 'that all such names can be written with not more than nine letters in an alphabet we have devised.'
I = 9 9 = I R = 9 9 = R
OF T9ME AND STA9S A9thu9 C. Cla9ke,1972 Page 15 'Th9s 9s a sl9ghtly unusual 9equest,'sa9d D9 Wagne9, w9th what he hoped was commendable 9est9a9nt.' As fa9 as 9 know, 9t's the f99st t9me anyone's been asked to supply a T9betan monaste9y with an Automat9c Sequence Compute9. 9 don't w9sh to be 9nqu9s9t9ve, but 9 should ha9dly have thought that you9- ah - establ9shment had much use for such a mach9ne.Could you expla9n just what you 9ntend to do w9th 9t?' 'Gladly,' 9epl9ed the lama, 9eadjust9ng h9s s9lk 9obes and ca9efully putting away the sl9de 9ule he had been us9ng fo9 cu99ency conve9s9ons. 'You9 Ma9k V Compute9 can ca99y out any 9out9ne mathemat9cal ope9at9on 9nvolv9ng up to ten d9g9ts. Howeve9, for ou9 wo9k we a9e 9nte9ested 9n lette9s, not numbe9s. As we w9sh you to mod9fy the output c9rcu9ts,the mach9ne w9ll be p99nt9ng wo9ds not columns of f9gu9es.' '9 dont qu9te unde9stand…' 'Th9s 9s a p9oject on wh9ch we have been work9ng fo9 the last th9ee centu99es - s9nce the lamase9y was founded, 9n fact.9t 9s somewhat al9en to you9 way of thought, so9 hope you w9ll l9sten with an open m9nd wh9le 9 expla9n 9t 'Natu9ally.' '9t 9s 9eally qu9te s9mple.We have been comp9l9ng a l9st wh9ch shall conta9n all the poss9ble names of God' '9 beg you9 pa9don?' / Page16 / 'We have 9eason to bel9eve' cont9nued the lama 9mpe9tu9bably, ' that all such names can be w99tten with not mo9e than n9ne lette9s 9n an alphabet we have dev9sed,' 'And you have been do9ng th9s for three centu99es? 'Yes: we expected9t would take us about f9fteen thousand yea9s to complete the task.' 'Oh, Dr Wagne9 looked a l9ttle dazed. 'Now9 see why you wanted to h99e one of ou9 mach9nes. But what exactly9s the pu9pose of th9s p9oject ? 'The lama hes9tated fo9 a f9act9on of a second, and Wagne9 wonde9ed9f he had offended h9m.9f so the9e was no t9ace of annoyance9n the 9eply. 'Call9t 99tual, 9f you l9ke, but 9t's a fundamental pa9t of ou9 bel9ef. All the many names of the Sup9eme Be9ng - God , Jehova , Allah , and so on - they a9e only man made labels. The9e 9s a ph9losoph9cal p9oblem of some d9ff9culty he9e, wh9ch9 do not p9opose to d9scuss, but somewhe9e among all the poss9ble comb9nat9ons of lette9s that can occu9 a9e what one may call the 9eal names of God. By systemat9c pe9mutat9on of lette9s, we have been t9y9ng to l9st them all' 9 see. You've been sta9t9ng at AAAAAAA… and wo9k-9ng up to ZZZZZZZZ …' 'Exactly - though we use a spec9al alphabet of ou9 own. Mod9fy9ng the elect9omat9c typew99te9s to deal w9th th9s 9s of cou9se t99v9al. A 9athe9 mo9e 9nte9est9ng p9oblem 9s that of dev9s9ng su9table c99cu9ts to el9m9nate 9 9d9culous comb9nat9ons. Fo9 example, no lette9 must occu9 mo9e than th9ee t9mes 9n sucess9on.' 'Th9ee? Su9ely you mean two.' 'Th9ee 9s co99ect; 9 am af9a9d 9t would take too long to expla9n why , even 9f you unde9stood ou9 language.'/ Page 17 / '9'm su9e 9t would,' sa9d Wagne9 hast9ly. 'Go on.' 'Luck9ly, 9t w9ll be a s9mple matte9 to adapt you9 Automat9c Sequence Compute9 fo9 th9s wo9k, s9nce once 9t has been p9og9ammed p9ope9ly 9t w9ll pe9mute each lette9 9n tu9n and p99nt the 9esult. What would have taken us f9fteen thousand years 9t w9ll be able to do 9n a hund9ed days.' 'Dr Wagne9 was sca9cely consc9ous of the fa9nt sounds f9om the Manhatten st9eets fa9 below. He was 9n a d9ffe9ent wo9ld, a wo9ld of natu9al, not man-made mounta9ns. H9gh up 9n the99 9emote ae99es these monks had been pat9ently at wo9k gene9at9on afte9 gene9at9on, comp9l9ng the99 l9sts of mean9ngless wo9ds. Was the9e any l9m9ts to the foll9es of mank9nd ? St9ll, he must g9ve no h9nt of h9s 9nne9 thoughts. The custome9 was always 99ght…" Page 68 Into the Comet
THE SPLENDOUR THAT WAS EGYPT Margaret A. Murray Appendix 4 The New Year of God Cornhill Magazine 1934 Page 231/233 "Three o'clock and a still starlight night in mid-September in Upper Egypt. At this hour the village is usually asleep, but to-night it is a stir for this is Nauruz Allah, the New Year of God, and the narrow streets are full of the soft sound of bare feet moving towards the Nile. The village lies on a strip of ground; one one side is the river, now swollen to its height, on the other are the floods of the inundation spread in a vast sheet of water to the edge of the desert. On a windy night the lapping of wavelets is audible on every hand; but to-night the air is calm and still, there is no sound but the muffled tread of unshod feet in the dust and the murmur of voices subdued in the silence of the night. In ancient times throughout the whole of Egypt the night of High Nile was a night of prayer and thanks giving to the great god , the Ruler of the river, Osiris himself. Now it is only in this Coptic village that the ancient rite is preserved, and here the festival is still one of prayer and thanksgiving. In the great cities the New Year is a time of feasting and processions, as blatant and uninteresting as a Lord Mayor's Show, with that additional note of piercing vulgarity peculiar to the East. In this village, far from all great cities, and-as a Coptic community-isolated from and therefore uninfluenced either by its Moslem neighbours or by foreigners, the festival is one of simplicity and piety. The people pray as of old to the Ruler of the river, no longer Osiris, but Christ; and as of old they pray for a blessing upon their children and their homes. There are four appointed places on the river bank to which the village women go daily to fill their water-jars and to water their animals. To these four places the villagers are now making their way, there to keep the New Year of God. The river gleams coldly pale and grey; Sirius blazing in the eastern sky casts a narrow path of light across the mile-wide waters. A faint glow low on the horizon shows where the moon will rise, a dying moon on the last day of the last quarter. The glow gradually spreads and brightens till the thin crescent, like a fine silver wire, rises above the distant palms. Even in that attenuated form the moonlight eclipses the stars and the glory of Sirius is dimmed. The water turns to the colour of tarnished silver, smooth and glassy; the palm-trees close at hand stand black against the sky, and the distant shore is faintly visible. The river runs silently and without a ripple in the windless calm; the palm fronds, so sensitive to the least movement of the air, hang motionless and still; all Nature seems to rest upon this holy night. The women enter the river and stand knee-deep in the running stream praying; they drink nine times, wash the face and hands, and dip themselves in the water. Here is a mother carrying a tiny wailing baby; she enters the river and gently pours the waternine times over the little head. The wailing ceases as the water cools the little hot face. Two anxious women hasten down the steep bank, a young boy between them; they hurriedly enter the water and the boy squats down in the river up to his neck, while the mother pours the water nine times with her hands over his face and shaven head. There is the sound of a little gasp at the first shock of coolness, and the mother laughs, a little tender laugh, and the grandmother says something under her breath, at which they all laugh softly together. After the ninth washing the boy stands up, then squats down again and is again washed nine times, and yet a third nine times; then the grandmother takes her turn and she also washes him nine times. Evidently he is very precious to the hearts of those two women, perhaps the mother's last surviving child. Another sturdy urchin refuses to sit down in the water, frightened perhaps, for a woman's voice speaks encouragingly, and presently a faint splashing and a little gurgle of childish laughter shows that he too is receiving the blessing of the Nauruz of God. A woman stands alone, her slim young figure in its wet clinging garments silhouetted against the steel-grey water. Solitary she stands, apart from the happy groups of parents and children; then, stooping , she drinks from her once, pauses and drinks again; and so drinksnine times with a short pause between every drink and a longer pause between every three. Except for the movement of her hand as she lifts the water to her lips, she stands absolutely still, her body tense with the earnestness of her prayer, the very atmosphere round her charged with the agony of her supplication. Throughout the whole world there is only one thing which causes a woman to pray with such intensity, and that one thing is children. " This may be a childless woman praying for a child, or it may be that, in this land where Nature is as careless and wasteful of infant life as of all else, this a mother praying for the last of her little brood, feeling assured that on this festival of mothers and children her prayers must perforce be heard. At last she straightens herself, beats the water nine times with the corner of her garment, goes softly up the bank, and disappears in the darkness. Little family parties come down to the river, a small child usually riding proudly on her father's shoulder. The men often affect to despise the festival as a woman's affair, but with memories in their hearts of their own mothers and their own childhood they sit quietly by the river and drink nine times. A few of the rougher young men fling themselves into the water and swim boisterously past, but public feeling is against them, for the atmosphere is one of peace and prayer enhanced by the calm and silence of the night. Page 232 and 233 Continued. For thousands of years on the night of High Nile the mothers of Egypt have stood in the great river to implore from the God of the Nile a blessing upon their children; formerly from a God who Himself has memories of childhood and a Mother. Now, as then, the stream bears on its broad surface the echo of countless prayers, the hopes and fears of human hearts; and in my memory remains a vision of the darkly flowing river, the soft murmur of prayer, the peace and calm of the New Year of God. Abu Nauruz hallal.
THE WORD "NINE" OCCURS x 9 AND "NINTH" x 1
Page 231/233 "Three o'clock and a still starlight night in mid-September in Upper Egypt. At this hour the village is usually asleep, but to-night it is a stir for this is Nauruz Allah, the New Year of God
Page 231/233 "Three o'clock and a still starlight night in mid-September in Upper Egypt. At this hour the village is usually asleep, but to-night it is a stir for this is Nauruz Allah, the New Year of God
HOLY BIBLE Scofield Reference THE REVELATION OF SAINT JOHN THE DIVINE C 13 V 18 The Beast out of the sea Page 1342 HERE IS WISDOM LET HIM THAT HATH UNDERSTANDING COUNT THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST FOR IT IS THE NUMBER OF A MAN AND HIS NUMBER IS SIX HUNDRED THREE SCORE AND SIX
THE DEATH OF GODS IN ANCIENT EGYPT Jane B. Sellars 1992 Page 204 "The overwhelming awe that accompanies the realization, of the measurable orderliness of the universe strikes modern man as well. Admiral Weiland E. Byrd, alone In the Antarctic for five months of polar darkness, wrote these phrases of intense feeling: Here were the imponderable processes and forces of the cosmos, harmonious and soundless. Harmony, that was it! I could feel no doubt of oneness with the universe. The conviction came that the rhythm was too orderly, too harmonious, too perfect to be a product of blind chance - that, therefore there must be purpose in the whole and that man was part of that whole and not an accidental offshoot. It was a feeling that transcended reason; that went to the heart of man's despair and found it groundless. The universe was a cosmos, not a chaos; man was as rightfully a part of that cosmos as were the day and night.10 Returning to the account of the story of Osiris, son of Cronos god of' Measurable Time, Plutarch takes, pains to remind the reader of the original Egyptian year consisting of 360 days. Phrases are used that prompt simple mental. calculations and an attention to numbers, for example, the 360-day year is described as being '12 months of 30 days each'. Then we are told that, Osiris leaves on a long journey, during which Seth, his evil brother, plots with 72 companions to slay Osiris: He also secretly obtained the measure of Osiris and made ready a chest in which to entrap him. The, interesting thing about this part of the-account is that nowhere in the original texts of the Egyptians are we told that Seth, has 72 companions. We have already been encouraged to equate Osiris with the concept of measured time; his father being Cronos. It is also an observable fact that Cronos-Saturn has the longest sidereal period of the known planets at that time, an orbit. of 30 years. Saturn is absent from a specific constellation for that length of time. A simple mathematical fact has been revealed to any that are even remotely sensitive to numbers: if you multiply 72 by 30, the years of Saturn's absence (and the mention of Osiris's absence prompts one to recall this other), the resulting product is 2,160: the number of years required, for one 30° shift, or a shift: through one complete sign of the zodiac. This number multplied by the / Page205 / 12 signs also gives 25,920. (And Plutarch has reminded us of 12) If you multiply the unusual number 72 by 360, a number that Plutarch mentions several times, the product will be 25,920, again the number of years symbolizing the ultimate rebirth. This 'Eternal Return' is the return of, say, Taurus to the position of marking the vernal equinox by 'riding in the solar bark with. Re' after having relinquished this honoured position to Aries, and subsequently to the to other zodiacal constellations. Such a return after 25,920 years is indeed a revisit to a Golden Age, golden not only because of a remarkable symmetry In the heavens, but golden because it existed before the Egyptians experienced heaven's changeability. But now to inform the reader of a fact he or she may already know. Hipparaus did: not really have the exact figures: he was a trifle off in his observations and calculations. In his published work, On the Displacement of the Solstitial and Equinoctial Signs, he gave figures of 45" to 46" a year, while the truer precessional lag along the ecliptic is about 50 seconds. The exact measurement for the lag, based on the correct annual lag of 50'274" is 1° in 71.6 years, or 360° in 25,776 years, only 144 years less than the figure of 25,920. With Hipparchus's incorrect figures a 'Great Year' takes from 28,173.9 to 28,800 years, incorrect by a difference of from 2,397.9 years to 3,024. Since Nicholas Copernicus (AD 1473-1543) has always been credited with giving the correct numbers (although Arabic astronomer Nasir al-Din Tusi,11 born AD 1201, is known to have fixed the Precession at 50°), we may correctly ask, and with justifiable astonishment 'Just whose information was Plutarch transmitting' AN IMPORTANT POSTSCRIPT Of course, using our own notational system, all the important numbers have digits that reduce to that amazing number 9 a number that has always delighted budding mathematician. Page 206 Somewhere along the way, according to Robert Graves, 9 became the number of lunar wisdom.12 This number is found often in the mythologies of the world. the Viking god Odin hung for nine days and nights on the World Tree in order to acquire the secret of the runes, those magic symbols out of which writing and numbers grew. Only a terrible sacrifice would give away this secret, which conveyed upon its owner power and dominion over all, so Odin hung from his neck those long 9 days and nights over the 'bottomless abyss'. In the tree were 9 worlds, and another god was said to have been born of 9 mothers. Robert Graves, in his White Goddess, Is intrigued by the seemingly recurring quality of the number 72 in early myth and ritual. Graves tells his reader that 72 is always connected with the number 5, which reflects, among other things, the five Celtic dialects that he was investigating. Of course, 5 x 72= 360, 360 x 72= 25,920. Five is also the number of the planets known to the ancient world, that is, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus Mercury. Graves suggests a religious mystery bound up with two ancient Celtic 'Tree Alphabets' or cipher alphabets, which as genuine articles of Druidism were orally preserved and transmitted for centuries. He argues convincingly that the ancient poetry of Europe was ultimately based on what its composers believed to be magical principles, the rudiments of which formed a close religious secret for centuries. In time these were-garbled, discredited and forgotten. Among the many signs of the transmission of special numbers he points out that the aggregate number of letter strokes for the complete 22-letter Ogham alphabet that he is studying is 72 and that this number is the multiple of 9, 'the number of lunar wisdom'. . . . he then mentions something about 'the seventy day season during which Venus moves successively from. maximum eastern elongation 'to inferior conjunction and maximum western elongation'.13 Page 207 "...Feniusa Farsa, Graves equates this hero with Dionysus. Farsa has 72 assistants who helped him master the 72 languages created at the confusion of Babel, the tower of which is said to be built of 9 different materials We are also reminded of the miraculous translation into Greek of the Five Books of Moses that was done by 72 scholars working for 72 days, Although the symbol for the Septuagint is LXX, legend, according to the fictional letter of Aristeas, records 72. The translation was done for Ptolemy Philadelphus (c.250 BC), by Hellenistic Jews, possibly from Alexandra.14 Graves did not know why this number was necessary, but he points out that he understands Frazer's Golden Bough to be a book hinting that 'the secret involves the truth that the Christian dogma, and rituals, are the refinement of a great body of primitive beliefs, and that the only original element in Christianity- is the personality of Christ.15 Frances A. Yates, historian of Renaissance hermetisma tells, us the cabala had 72 angels through which the sephiroth (the powers of God) are believed to be approached, and further, she supplies the information that although the Cabala supplied a set of 48 conclusions purporting to confirm the Christian religion from the foundation of ancient wisdom, Pico Della Mirandola, a Renaissance magus, introduced instead 72, which were his 'own opinion' of the correct number. Yates writes, 'It is no accident there are seventy-two of Pico's Cabalist conclusions, for the conclusion shows that he knew something of the mystery of the Name of God with seventy-two letters.'16 In Hamlet's Mill de Santillana adds the facts that 432,000 is the number of syllables in the Rig-Veda, which when multiplied by the soss (60) gives 25,920" (The reader is forgiven for a bit of laughter at this point) The Bible has not escaped his pursuit. A prominent Assyriologist of the last century insisted that the total of the years recounted mounted in Genesis for the lifetimes of patriarchs from the Flood also contained the needed secret numbers. (He showed that in the 1,656 years recounted in the Bible there are 86,400 7 day weeks, and dividing this number yields / Page 208 / 43,200.) In Indian yogic schools it is held that all living beings exhale and inhale 21,600 times a day, multiply this by 2 and again we have the necessary 432 digits. Joseph Campbell discerns the secret in the date set for the coming of Patrick to Ireland. Myth-gives this date-as-the interesting number of AD.432.18 Whatever one may think-of some of these number coincidences, it becomes difficult to escape the suspicion that many signs (number and otherwise) - indicate that early man observed the results of the movement of Precession and that the - transmission of this information was considered of prime importance. With the awareness of the phenomenon, observers would certainly have tried for its measure, and such an endeavour would have constituted the construction-of a 'Unified Field Theory' for nothing less than Creation itself. Once determined, it would have been information worthy of secrecy and worthy of the passing on to future adepts. But one last word about mankind's romance with number coincidences.The antagonist in John Updike's novel, Roger's Version, is a computer hacker, who, convinced, that scientific evidence of God's existence is accumulating, endeavours to prove it by feeding -all the available scientific information. into a comuter. In his search for God 'breaking, through', he has become fascinated by certain numbers that have continually been cropping up. He explains them excitedly as 'the terms of Creation': "...after a while I noticed that all over the sheet there seemed to hit these twenty-fours Jumping out at me. Two four; two, four. Planck time, for instance, divided by the radiation constant yields a figure near eight times ten again to the negative twenty-fourth, and the permittivity of free space, or electric constant, into the Bohr radius ekla almost exactly six times ten to the negative twenty-fourth. On positive side, the electromagnetic line-structure constant times Hubble radius - that is, the size of the universe as we now perceive it gives us something quite close to ten to the twenty-fourth, and the strong-force constant times the charge on the proton produces two point four times ten to the negative eighteenth, for another I began to circle twenty-four wherever it appeared on the Printout here' - he held it up his piece of stripped and striped wallpaper, decorated / Page 209 /
with a number of scarlet circles - 'you can see it's more than random.'19 So much for any scorn directed to ancient man's fascination with number coincidences. That fascination is alive and well, Just a bit more incomprehensible"
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