Image: The Euphrates in Syria. All of the places mentioned were in ancient times still joined to the continent of Alkebulan Africa. Mesopotamia, [Greek- between two rivers], so named because of its strategic location between the Tigres and the Euphrates rivers. The land of Assyria takes its name from one of their ancient kings called Asshur. Ge: 10:11: Out of that, land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, Ge: 10:12: And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city. Ge: 10:13: And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, Ge: 10:14: And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim.
Image: A map of Mesopotamia. The above map shows the Mesopotamian kingdom in green, the center lay in the uppermost portions.
Image: This relief is of Sargon II of Assyria, [722-705back], with one of his subjects. The Mesopotamian king Sargon c.a. [2384-2340] BCE expanded his empire to include Syria, Cilicia, Assyria, and Elam.
Image: This painting is of the imperial palace of Sargon II in the city of Nineveh. The city was at one time the capital of Assyria, situated on the east bank of the Tigris river, opposite Mosul in Iraq. Sargon II (722-705 B.C.) ruled for a period from Nineveh. Sennacherib 705-681 B.C. succeeded Sargon he also made Nineveh his royal city.
Sennacherib‘s youngest son and successor Esarhaddon 681-669 B.C. built a palace at Nineveh, in spite of his efforts at Nineveh Esarhaddon focused his energies on rebuilding Babylon. In 612 Nineveh was destroyed by the Babylonians and their Mede and Scythian allies. Zephaniah (2:13-15), Zep: 2:13: And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness. Zep: 2:14: And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds: for he shall uncover the cedar work. Zep: 2:15: This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside me: how is she become desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! Everyone that passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand. And in Nahum in its entirety specifically, Na: 2:6: The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved. The above scripture is an exact account of how Nineveh was destroyed. Na: 2:7: And Huzzab shall be led away captive, she shall be brought up, and her maids shall lead her as with the voice of doves, tabering upon their breasts. Na: 2:8: But Nineveh is of old like a pool of water: yet they shall flee away. Stand, stand, shall they cry; but none shall look back. The land of Assyria takes its name from one of their ancient gods called Assur.
The Assyrian king Assoernasirpal II.
The oldest remains unearthed stem from the Third Millennium B.C. they were unearthed in the Ishtar temple. In ancient history, we will read that Ur of the Chaldea where Abraham came from was in fact the conquerors of the Assyrians who were a satellite of Ur. Let us examine Ur, one of the most important cities of ancient Mesopotamia located on the Western Bank of the lower falls of the Euphrates river. Some very illuminating finds were unearthed in (Tel Muqayyir) modern Iraq. From the data thus far gathered we can see a pattern of development since Ishtar was the deity worshipped by the Assyrians who were a satellite at many points in the history of the Babylonians who were as per their own records descendants of Nimrod. The same Nimrod of the Bible, whose mother Serimaris or Astarte was called the Queen of Heaven, or the mother of Heaven. Serimaris and Nimrod correlate to Isis and Horus of the Kemitians (Egyptians). Also according to archeological evidence, Babylon is one of the first ancient civilizations it is also the place, where the two rivers the Tigris and the Euphrates meet. The Babylonian king called Hammurabi wrote the Code of Hammurabi or Laws of Hammurabi.
Image: Hammurabi receives the Sacred Scrolls containing the laws from the Sun God Shamash. Right above; Shamash attacks the Chaos monster, with bolts of lightning. The Sun God Shamash had the same attributes as the Kemitian Sun god Rah. The Laws of Hammurabi correlated closely to the ―Medu Netcher‖ of the Kemitians also called Maat (moral laws) the Babylonians as was previously indicated were at certain points in their history conquered by the Egyptians, who in turn foisted their culture onto the conquered people hence the direct correlation of religious thought and development. One key factor of utmost importance is the development of Algebra by the Kemitians. The science of Algebra was introduced by the Kemitians to the rest of the world. With the knowledge of Algebra, massive mathematically accurate pyramids were constructed. The Babylonians were taught the science of Algebra, this teaching came about as a result of the Babylonians being conquered by the Kemitians. The Arabs as a result of the intermingling of ethnic groups and wars of conquest in later history became, as their Babylonian predecessors the custodians of the science of Algebra thanks to the Kemitians. the Greeks, whom Heroditus chronicled were also recipients of the wisdom of the Kemitians by way of the Phoenicians also a people subjugated in history by the Egyptians, and later the Europeans received their education, again through the conquest of the Greeks who passed on to them this ancient Egyptian science that we call Algebra today.
Gilgamesh the hunter.
Above Orion fighting the bull Taurus the hero-hunter aesthetic is found in most cultures again pointing to an original source for the epics and myths of certain ancient cultures.
The Ishtar Gate. Nebuchadnezzar built this gate in honor of the fertility goddess Ishtar, who was symbolic of the mother and wife of Nimrod or Tammuz. The earliest inhabitants of Iraq were descended from Tammuz or Dammuzi also pronounced Damu‖ which is an ancient Mesopotamian word meaning Son of the Blood. Interestingly
enough the word Damu is also Swahili for Blood denoting again a commonality in language and symbolism in the cultures of the continent. These religious cultures were all tantric which means that they hearkened on certain particular methods to gain contact with the particular deity or god‘s/goddesses that their culture revered. The premise of this work is that those so-called gods and goddesses were in fact demonic entities and we have already exhaustively examined literature from outside of the bible to bear up our points here, we will give accounts of certain Hieroglyphs of the examined cultures that will serve to illuminate our points.
The Enuma Elish. Center the complete Rosetta Stone (British Museum photo). A screenshot from National Geographic‘s hieroglyph translator shows what the glyphs look like. Above right is an example of Mesopotamian Hieroglyphs. The Kemitians Egyptians‖ were the originators of Hieroglyphic writing as a means of communication, through conquest they spread their culture to the surrounding regions. Some claim that the Sumer empire predated that of the Egyptians, if one is referring to the later interbreeding of the original inhabitants of Kemit with their conquered vassals and the later marauding Hyksos and Haribu peoples, then the Sumer empire predated them yes. Now if one were to examine the culture of the original Kemitians, based on unearthed archeological evidence. We would then see an unmixed group of pure Nubian i.e. (black men) stock, and it is these people who were the originators of the art of communication called Hieroglyphs. The art was developed in keeping with their belief of sacral kingship, the king was literally a representative of Rah or god.―Pharaoh‖ was a god on earth and gods cannot die, they only transition from the temporal, or earthly plane of existence in order to occupy the spiritual plane hereby becoming one with deity, and attaining the perfection 360 degrees of entirety, called universal consciousness or oneness. In creating an account of their words, and deeds through the Hieroglyphs or Medu Nechter they were deified for eternity as future generations would have an account of them preserved in stone. This is the teaching that Buddhism sprang from, as was already shown the Dravidians a people originating in the Delta region, were the people that introduced Tantricism into India, including the practice of the consumption of Cannabis Sativa as a form of spiritual enlightenment. From India Tantricism spread throughout the Fareast and the orient.
In Tibet, the pre-Buddhist cultural value system is referred to by anthropologists, the Tibetans themselves as well as a host of other disciplines and professions as a Shamanist culture. The Tibetan practitioners of Bon consider themselves to be Shamen. The Shamanism of Tibet is ancient, and it incorporates Black magic as well as so-called “white magic”. The Tibetans have written extensively about their spiritual value system a well-known work on Tibetan Shamanism is the: “Tibetan book of the Dead”. The Bonpo Shamen were and still many are members of a clan guild. The Bon Shaman like Shamen of every culture globally are visited and then possessed by an “ancestral spirit”, a god or a demon this is their own account, not mine. The possessed would then become “divinely mad”; temporarily retreating into the wilderness the Shaman lived primitive existences i.e., “like an animal” and saw visions of him/herself devoured by animals. After the possessed returned to their clan they were taught by elder Shamen how to use their powers and how to invoke spirits to do their bidding through the incantation of mantras.
Figure: above is of Mantras/Runes carved into the rock in Tibet. The word Rune means secret or mystery in early English and related languages.
The flag of Tibet is a culture wholly given over to Shamanic principles and has been thus for thousands of years. The sun symbol is easily recognized on this flag, the “yin yang” between the lions, the two Snow Lions (associated with the heavens); they represent the East, cheerfulness, a precise and clear mind free of doubt, and the earth element. The Snow Lion is one of the Four Dignities which are the Lion, Tiger, Garuda, and Dragon they four are symbolic of the confidence the leader must develop in order to rule with wisdom and compassion.
Image: an illustration depicting the Four Dignitaries the sun is again a central theme here.
Tibetan Shamanism existed and was practiced in Tibet hundreds, if not thousands of years before Buddhism came to Tibet, it is a distinct spiritual value system that today has incorporated Buddhism. A true study of Tibetan spirituality for example, the Tibetan book of the dead will expose the student to Buddhist thought already being explored in Tibetan Shamanism, any study and practice of Buddhism will not necessarily expose one to the multi layered and complexed nature of the Shamanic culture in Tibetan Shamanism also known as Bon, Bon-po ,or Bön. Bon religion is also incorporated into their spiritual practices by Satanists as well as Witches. Iam inferring here that Tibetan Shamanic practices, are a highly complexed set of magical rituals complete with spirit possession, that is of such sophistry, that secular scholars equate their spiritual manuals as historical and cultural but have no comprehension of them , or they choose to ignore the inherent “spirituality”, as practiced by the Tibetan Shamen. The present “living god”, of Tibetan Lamaism, is the Dalai Lama Tenzien Gyatso. The Dalai Lama is held to be a god in flesh, by his followers, and a reincarnation of Buddha. A quote here from Helena Blavatsky’s “Isis Unveiled Volume I”, will lay bare some of the essence of what is being said herein. “Lamas-Buddhist monks belonging to the Lamaic religion of Tibet, as for instance friars are to the popish or Roman catholic religion. Every lama is subject to the grand Taley-, the Buddhist pope of Tibet, who holds his residence at Lhasa and is a reincarnation of Buddha”.
The “Tibetan Shamanic Wheel of Life”, which predates Buddhism yet it, incorporates in its entirety Buddhist thought. The Samsara Wheel/The Wheel of Joy is the middle illustration in the painting. From the: Tibetan Book of the Dead.
The Gyankil Chakra above represents the Samsara wheel to the left of the page. As an example of the idea of Buddhist taught in a pre-Buddhist culture let us examine the Samsara Wheel. This Chakra is replete with Buddhist thought and it predates Buddhism, to call Tibetan Shamanism Buddhism is to miss the point entirely. Bon in its darkest manifestation is an ancient form of Sun god spirituality as such witchcraft and Satanists can and do incorporate and draw from this spirituality as it is authentic pristine sorcery. Many will be offended by the above statement their offense stems from their ignorance pertinent to spiritual matters. I will quote from the Tibetan Buddhist text entitled: “The Epitome of The Great Symbol”. “Whatever thoughts, or concepts, or obscuring [or disturbing] passions arise are neither to be abandoned nor allowed to control one; they are to be allowed to arise without one’s trying to direct [or shape] them. If one do no more than merely to recognize them as soon as they arise, and persists in so doing, they will come to be realized [or to dawn] in their true [or void] form through not being abandoned. By that method, all things which may seem to be obstacles to spiritual growth can be made use of as aids on the Path. And therefore, the method is called “The utilizing of obstacles as aids on the Path. “Though the text is called Tibetan Buddhism the thought processes expressed. were known to Tibetan Shamen and present in their literature. The quote is of the type that, “Left Hand Path”, practitioners i.e. Satanist’s”, delight in uttering hence their incorporation of Tibetan Shamanism, into their own practices.
Another example of a spiritual value system being used to sell everything, from cologne to soap is the line of Samsara products. Presently what people refer to as secular society, is not secular at all, since civilizations are built from the value systems of the people within them, and all “secular” states and governments still gather inspiration from the mythology, culture and spiritual values of their forebearers.
The flag of South Korea this flag is fully Shamanistic in its entirety. At left an original rendering of same.
The white background symbolizes the cleanliness/purity of the people, taeguks/trigrams represent the origins of all things universally, red represents the earth and blue heaven/sky. For those who may think that what I propose here is mere supposition, I refer you to the book Liber 777 by Aleister Crowley. In the editorial preface Liber 777 is called a cabbalistic dictionary of ceremonial magic, oriental mysticism, comparative religion, and symbology. Crowley on page 67 used the taeguks or trigrams below, in his Trigrams of the Yi King with their various attributes. The fact that the trigrams shown below, all correspond to an element namely wind, water, earth, fire all necessary for the practice of witchcraft is telling in the sense that, the Korean’s knowingly placed such symbols along with the, “Ying Yang”, on their flag thus signalling their spiritual values to the symbol literate. The Korean Sam-Taegeuk is to the right of the page. This flag begs the question why a secular government would incorporate Shamanism, in modernity into their national flag? The lessons that history and etymology has taught humanity, has largely gone unnoticed by the majority of people, yet these symbols that are representative of “spiritual value systems”, are being used throughout modern society globally, pointing to the very spiritual nature of human beings, even in the twenty first century . I will continue here with the explanation of the colors on the Korean flag, yellow is for the Korean people, blue is symbolic of the heavens, red is the earth. The symbolism on the sides, of both flags above are characters that have the same meaning; the meanings are as follows:
This symbol above on the right of both flags is a Korean character it is called gam.
The variant meanings of the above character are as follows moon, winter, north, intelligence, son, water, and wisdom.
This character is seen at the lower half at right of both flags above called in Korean gon it stands for, earth as in nature, summer, west, courtesy, mother, earth as in one of the four elements, vitality.
The final character ri is representative of the following and can be seen on the bottom left on both flags, sun, autumn, south, justice, daughter, fire, fruition. The Shamanist characteristic of South Korea is visible throughout the flag and its symbolism.
The Logo of the World Conference against Racism racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance a creation of the United Nations. Observe the logo an ancient Shamanic symbol used in many cultures as we have already shown throughout this book. Today it is showing up in the logo of a United Nations created “representative” body. It is indeed not surprising to me in the least as the UN is a known supporter of all things esoteric and occultic. Again, we see that organizations globally that claim to be “secular” are nothing but fronts for a spirituality that is expressly forbidden in scripture. The flag to the right of the page was once used by what is now communist North Korea supposedly two opposing ideologies both using the same symbolism as the symbols are representative of spirit and spirit is universal and all encompassing.
The present flag of North Korea. The blue, red and white are still present and have the same meanings as the South Korean flag. Ironically, the state is called The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, all this from a dictatorial, government.
The presidential seal of the President of Communist Korea two Phoenix birds on both sides, with the national flower the Hibiscus middle at bottom of the seal. The Phoenix bird is also a sunsymbol and a prominent feature in Shamanic, occultic and esoteric spirituality globally, its use on this seal is in keeping with that tradition.
The phoenix is known in the mythology of all cultures globally the mystical bird which self-combusts into flames and is miraculously reborn from its own ashes. The phoenix also corresponds and is shown directly in the book the Goetia or the Lesser Key of Solomon, as the demon Fennex a great Marquis of Hell and has twenty legions of demons under his command, he teaches all wonderful science, he is an excellent poet and is very obedient to the conjurer his color is purple as he claims royalty, other spellings of his name is Phoenix, Pheynix and Phoenix.
This map shows the close proximity of India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China to the Indus River. I will like to examine here the language called Sanskrit the Indo-Iranian language also called an Indo-European language. This correlates to statements made in this work about a priestly class of Brahmin co- opting the Dravidian teachings and creating their own peculiar brand of paganism. The Brahmin are called Aryans, Aryans are a Caucasoid people, Europeans. Here is more proof of the Hindu Kush valley being a place where Baalism came to India from the Middle East via Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Indus is a river in South Asia. It has a 3000 km stream area the following names of countries and mountains that follow are ll, or are either in its direct path or the Indus circumnavigates or flows from either of them.
These are the following names of mountains, countries, and even bodies of water they are as follows, Himalayas, West Tibet, Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan, Karachi, The Arabic Sea, Sutlej, Sukkor, Karakoram, and Hindukush. In order to understand the living conditions of early man, their lifestyle and belief systems must be studied. A river in anciency was a source of wealth to those who were fortunate enough to be living in its immediate vicinity. Take for instance Egyptian high culture and the Nubian high culture. The development of high culture in the ancient world always occurred around the areas that were fertile this means that a vast river network would have been the contributing factor to the sustained development of high culture. Therefore given the evidence on our map we have conclusive proof of such a claim take note of the places on your map that the Indus river surrounds China, Tibet, India, Iran, Iraq, etc. all these countries in the ancient world were
known to have developed a very high culture and what is called a civilized way of living meaning they were exposed to education, they had an existing government some were ruled by kings others were ruled by a priestly class all these developments were made sustainable by direct access to water. Water and the irrigation of canals and viaducts for the betterment of crops and sustenance of cattle and other livestock made it possible for the continued preservation and development of their culture and the preservation of their various monarchies. We have today at our disposal maps that show that the river the Indus connects to all the countries indicated above this connection made it possible for men to travel by seafaring vessels, from one continent to the other today we do this by plane because of the advanced technology available.
Sometimes people traveled to other countries for purposes of war as in the case of the Dravidians being conquered by their lighter-skinned Aryan traducers. In other periods people traveled for purposes of trade or for educational purposes or simply to escape religious or political tyranny, it is within this inter-cultural travel that ideas and schools of thought were exchanged adapted, and abandoned by one group of people or from one culture to the next.
The fertility of the countries in the regions on the map previously mentioned, was a result, of their close proximity, to the Hindu Kush River. Now has it dawned on you the reader why this work can set forth empirically the assertion, that all these countries got their religious practices from the ancient Phoenicians and Babylonians which countries are today Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. True scholarship, has the ability to bear up its claims outside of the narrow scope of its core literature, my core literature being in this case the bible. I have ventured far outside the bible and yet my claims are borne up, by scripture not the other way around. My work cannot bear up scripture the bible is the direct words and laws of God my claim to this work is rooted in a biblical background, not in secularism. The readers who are well-read and are familiar with the works of Joseph Ben Jochannan and Cheik Anta Diop will be able to comprehend the factual evidence presented herein. The mission of this work, as was stated previously, is to introduce Jesus in a different light and at the same time, destroy falsehoods and fables, surrounding him and his ministry.
The Karakoram Mountain, is a glacial tributary of the Indus Kush River, as can be seen the Indus Kush, encompasses vast regions in Asia it is from these regions that the cult practices of Baalism found their way into India and from India, they were spread by the emissary of paganism Gautama Buddha.
Afghanistan along with Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq all belonged at one time either to the Babylonian kings or to the Phoenician kings. In scripture, Jezebel was described, as a Phoenician queen, the goddess of the Phoenicians was Diana/Ashtoreth.
The Khyber pass is above on the map, written in white.
Dravidian dark-skinned inhabitants of India, the languages that certain Dravidians speak, include Tamil, Telugu, and Kanarees. The script on the right of this page is Sanskrit, the most ancient form of writing known to these people . These people are some of the earliest inhabitants, of India, they are a matrilineal people, meaning inheritance is ascertained according to the line of the mother not unlike that practiced by many Africans throughout the continent.
Many of their deities are also of the female sex, it was these people who brought the tantric practices now famous in India, to India. The Chakra, The Wheel of Righteousness: in the Indian flag. The wheel of Ashoka) is a depiction of the Dharmachakra, (see Dharma Chakra), the Wheel of Dharma (Sanskrit: Chakra means wheel). The wheel has 24 spokes, which represent the 12 Laws of Dependent Origination and the 12 Laws of Dependent Termination. What is referred to as Hinduism came from them; they are distinct from the Indo-Aryan people, who now predominate in India. The painting above speaks volumes, it portrays Rama, (the blue color of Rama signifies he is an Avatar of Vishnu), Sita, Laksmana, and a demon Suruphnaka with her nose severed; here the demon looks like a Dalit. The Brahmin produced this painting, and the subjugation of all of the darker-skinned Indians began to be, institutionalized, within Hinduism. Through these types of portrayals the untouchables, almost exclusively look like the devil in the painting above.
Above are photos of people of the Cham civilization in Vietnam. The Cham exists today in Vietnam.
A
A pre-modern Buddha statue in Vietnam, note its ‘negroid’, characteristics.
Above the head of another pre-modern Buddha in the same area.
The photos above are of early Buddhas in India, Nepal, and China. Some historians and archaeologists have found a pronounced Dravidian or Cham/Kham (The Cham are the indigenous inhabitants of Vietnam), presence in all of the earliest civilizations of the countries mentioned above. Their findings lend credence to the claims made in this book that the earliest religions of man all have a single origin.
Descendants of the black-skinned Dravidians in modern India, are as black as any African and darker than most descendants of Africans in the Diaspora. The photos to the left are of some young Dalit women in Orissa India. It is from these countries in ancient history from whence the Dravidians emerged bringing with them their cultic practices. The Aryans co-opted their religious practices after having conquered and subjugated them the Aryans developed Brahmanism out of this school of thought came Buddhism and later Hinduism.
Early Shiva statue from the Cham civilization in Vietnam.A map displaying the ancient Kham civilization.
Above a map of modern India showing Orissa the area densely populated by the Bondo people, a people who according to their own oral history came to India from Africa.
Above a Bondo woman in Orissa province.
The Dravidian descendants in India speak a number of languages like Tamil, Telugu, Kannadigas, and a few not mentioned here. The revolutionary Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka are direct descendants of Dravidians. Bondo women, from the Orissa province in India, with their characteristically dark skin and broad noses.
The Indo-Aryans are all of the Brahmin (merchant class their religious language is still officially Sanskrit.
A map of the Indus Valley and its tributaries, and the Indus river.
Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and India are clearly identifiable on the above-shown map. Also, the Hindu Kush glacial tributary of the Indus River can be seen. As I indicated earlier, in the region of Nepal Buddhism spread, through the efforts of Siddhartha Gautama (c.a. 560-480 b.c.e.). The earliest depictions of Buddha strongly resemble the Dravidian and Bondo people, again pointing to a non-Aryan people, as the original inhabitants of the Indian sub-continent.
Dalits in Nepal.
Above an early Thai Buddha from around 800 b.c., with the characteristic broad nose and thick lips, usually associated with the people shown above. The evidence points to a dark-skinned people having been the indigenous inhabitants of the eastern nations including China.
In Roman Catholicism, we can see traces of the worship of the sun god Rah of the Egyptians. Therefore, by dint of practicality Roman Catholicism is in fact ancient Egyptian sun god worship, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the Christian Judaeo principle called monotheism. Catholicism is polytheism cloaked under a sophisticated Christian-sounding veneer, where the Egyptian gods are either called saints or some other convenient title to cloak their original identity.
Interestingly enough practitioners of the Santeria blood cult and Vaudon all worship and accept the saints of Roman Catholicism, they claim that the Catholic saints all correspond to their pantheon of deities, and they see no difference whatsoever between their demon gods and the so-called Roman Catholic saints. The Greek culture co-opted many of the Egyptian gods and goddesses, hence the polyglot of religious veneration that typifies Modern Greek culture. The Greeks were later conquered by the Romans, who adopted many forms of Greek culture, including many of their gods and goddesses alongside, those already venerated by the Romans.
Take note of the so-called Monstrance or sunburst in the Roman Catholic priest’s hands. This is the same symbol represented by the Egyptians, as their God the Roman Catholic institution is, worshipping the Egyptian sun god Rah and not Jesus of our bible.
Figure: Pope Johannes XXIII Note the crown on his head, it is a triple crown directly mimicking the description of the crown in revelations, where it is said on his (Jesus’) head, that he wore many crowns.
The Roman Catholic church purports to be a God-ordained government and is a body that wields massive political, as well as religious influence, globally. Since their practice of idolatry disqualifies them from God’s perspective from being true sons of God. They are a religious cult, and their dogma is false, these are the people that some claim are representatives of Jesus on earth this notion is erroneous, as the bible clearly defines a messianic community to be comprised firstly of Apostles, Pastors, Preachers, Teachers, Governments, Helps/Tongues. No mention is ever made of a Pope, a Madonna, or any icon as an object of worship and there is no mention made of a Cardinal or any of the designated roles that Roman Catholic leaders cloak themselves in.
This is the official flag of Vatican City. The City has an armed elite division. The Pope has special guards called Papal Guards. The Vatican has its own national anthem. The coat of arms to the right of this page is Pope Francis, the current Pope. The coat of arms was recently updated, the insignia of the order of Jesuits is present, as a heraldic ensign on this emblem, the five-pointed star of witchcraft was changed to an eight-point star, and the cluster of grapes was also modified. The ever-present sunburst or monstrance is also visible, which is the god of Roman Catholicism.
Above a papal guard at the entrance to Vatican City.
Map of Vatican City which sits on seven hills.
The Roman Catholic Institution is in fact a country a nation possessing its own constitution and leadership. The word Catholic means ecumenical all-embracing, worldwide, universal. The total population is 850 people of mainly Swedish and Italian backgrounds. The official languages are Latin and Italian. Vatican City is a sovereign state that is independent of the Italian state, since the 11th of February 1929. Only Cardinals younger than 80 years can vote. Their total income is 175, 5 million dollars per annum, the bulk of this income is said to come from the sale of souvenirs, stamps, and books. Out of this church came the ecumenical movement. At present Francis, the current pope has appointed and according to the Vatican news outlets as well as secular news outlets, “eight cardinals from all around to help him “govern” the church”, there you have their own words stating that they are a government and not simply a church. Under Roman Catholicism, many Africans in the Diaspora were forced to adopt what is in fact ancient Egyptian sun god or Ishtar worship cloaked under a Christian veneer. Some Spanish-speaking descendants, of enslaved Africans, call themselves, “Latinos”, the true Latin man is an Italian, and the Spaniards, the black descendants of slaves calling themselves Latino, are simply former slaves with no knowledge of their past. The ability of the European to divide and rule African descendants in the Western hemisphere is astounding and a cause for concern, since it even inhibits people from accepting the preached gospel of Jesus Christ.
Sir George in his letters to the Christians of Scotland had this to say (quoted from Bishop Alexander Hislop: The Two Babylons); “Romanism is a refined system of Christianized heathenism, and chiefly differs from its prototype in being more treacherous, crueler, more dangerous, and more intolerant.” Note the idol in the back of the pope of a dead man on a stake they claim that the image is Jesus. The image is a character created by the artist Michael Angelo for the Roman Catholic Institution, he was commissioned by the papacy to create such art. Note the Pope above praying to the goddess Isis (Virgin goddess), middle above in front of a huge painting of Isis and her son Horus, note the color of the woman and child (black), the last image is an enlarged picture of the woman. In Haiti she is called Erzili Danto (Isis), the scar on her identifies her, for in the Vaudon pantheon of deities that is how she is portrayed.
At the right of this page the Black Madonna and Pope John Paul with the halo around his head, he is now a Roman Catholic saint, not unlike the ancestors of other religions who become gods and goddesses and receive prayers. Here again, is more proof of the paganism in Roman Catholicism. Pope Benedict XV1 prays inside the Grotto of the Apparitions’ also called Grotto of Massabiele. September 13, 2008, in the Sanctuary of Lourdes. Pope Benedict made a pilgrimage to Lourdes to mark the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.
The crown above
is used by female witches in their ceremonies, it is referred to as the goddess crown, the symbol on the front of the crown symbolizes the moon. The same symbolic moon can be observed on the head of the woman in this illustration, proving that this is a witchcraft piece of art and not Christian at all, yet the Roman Church has for centuries incorporated her into their institution’s iconography. In Haiti and in many cultures throughout the Caribbean the woman above is called Yemaya, “Mami Wata”, Yemaya is a Vaudon deity who possesses the attributes of the Roman Mary, the Vaudon claim that their Yemaya is associated with Isis.
Ancient painting depicting Artemis/Serimaris the Sun goddess and her son. Note the twelve stars above the head of the woman mimicking the twelve Apostles, this woman represents the modern EU or European Union with their flag, which has twelve stars. This is one of the deities that the Roman Catholic institution, has adopted and plagiarized as their version of Mary and Jesus. This painting is a Greek adaptation of the Egyptian Goddess Isis and her son Horus, which was later adopted by the Romans under Constantinople. This symbolic woman, the so-called “Queen of Heaven”, came to represent the mother of Jesus, they simply merged their pagan culture with Christianity, in order to create a government ruled by a Roman hierarchy yet the symbolism and the rituals remained Roman and Greek paganism. The early Catholics sacralized, Roman and Greek culture and passed their culture off to the world as holy. The Greeks called Isis Artemis.
Figure: The “Black Madonna and Child” of the Roman Catholic Institution, known to Anthropologists and researchers as Isis with her son Horus.
Figure: Another example of paganism and idolatry as practiced by the Roman Institution, indirect defiance of biblical precepts.
Aset and Heru/Isis Horus, original Madonna and child in the Vatican here is Pope Benedict XVI the former pope, and Francis the present Pope, praying to the ‘Black Madonna’. These “Black Madonna’s” can be found throughout Europe and are revered by all Roman Catholics. This work asserts that the bible clearly renounces the worship of idols as idolatry and paganism; it is in their adaptation of pagan worship that the Roman institution is in error. The error is a grave one indeed, as billions of souls are being deceived, by the idolatry practiced by the papacy.
Above statue of Ignatius Loyola.
Figure: The Roman Institution has created saints throughout its existence one of their more interesting “saints”, Ignatius Loyola the founder of the order of the Jesuits the Jesuits insignia can be seen above, the letters IHS surrounded by a sunburst/nimbus. His book Spiritual Exercises is visible above at the far right of this page. Through his practice of transcendental meditation Loyola would be seen levitating above the floor by his subordinates. He incorporated several disciplines into his doctrine of spirituality namely, Telepathy, (Parapsychology), Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and a host of others most of the disciplines he employed were either occultic or pseudo-scientific.
Figure: Isis and the child Horus with his side-lock, yes, a dreadlock on the side of his head, this statue shows the original Magma Mater, Queen of Heaven,
The European Roman Catholic interpretation of Isis and her son Horus.
The Chinese Shin Moo is the solar mother goddess of Chinese mythology.
The Green Tara goddess found all over the Orient and in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism, she is also found in Tibet.Below is her Hindu equivalent , the nimbus or sunburst surrounds both their heads.
Here is an excerpt from Hislops book about depictions of Mary and Jesus. “When, therefore, it is known that the most famed pictures of the Virgin Mother in Italy represented her as of a fair complexion and with golden hair, and when overall Ireland the Virgin is almost invariably represented at this day in the very same manner, who can resist the conclusion that she must have been thus represented only because she had been copied from the same prototype as the pagan divinities. Nor is this agreement in complexion only, but also in features. Jewish features are everywhere marked and have a character peculiarly their own. But the original Madonna’s have nothing at all of Jewish form or feature; but are declared by those who have personally compared both, entirely to agree in this respect, as well as in complexion, with the Babylonian Madonna’s found by sir Robert Ker Porter among the ruins of Babylon.
There is yet another remarkable characteristic of these pictures worthy of notice and that is the nimbus or peculiar circle of light that frequently encompasses the head of the Roman Madonna. With this circle, the heads of the so-called figures of Christ are also frequently surrounded. Whence could such a device have originated? In the case of our Lord, if His head had been merely surrounded with rays, there might have been some pretense for saying that that was borrowed from the Evangelic narrative, where it is stated, that on the holy mount His face became resplendent with light. But where, in the whole compass of Scripture, do we ever read that His head was surrounded with a disk or a circle of light? But what will be searched for in vain in the Word of God, is found in the artistic representations of the great gods and goddesses of Babylon. The disk and particularly the circle were the well-known symbols of the Sun divinity, and figured largely in the symbolism of the East.
With the circle or the disk, the head of the Sun divinity was encompassed. The same was the case in Pagan Rome. Apollo, as the child of the Sun, was often thus represented. The goddesses that claimed kindred with the Sun were equally entitled to be adorned with the nimbus or luminous circle. From Pompeii, there is a representation of Circe, “the daughter of the Sun” with her head surrounded by a circle, in the very same way as the head of the Roman Madonna is at this day surrounded. Let anyone compare the nimbus around the head of Circe, with that around the head of the Popish Virgin, and he will see how exactly they correspond”. From Alexander Hislop: (The Two Babylons).
Figure: Chin Mu, Shing Moo the Chinese goddess of Heaven, surrounded by her ladies in waiting note the dragon armrests on either side of her throne in Chinese mythology the dragon is a sacred creature. Directly above Yashoda suckling her son Krishna the “blue boy”, the ever-present nimbus also used so prevalently by the Catholics, as an identifier of deities and holy personalities.
Shing Moo and Ma Tsoopo of China: The name of Shing Moo, applied by the Chinese to their “Holy Mother,” compared with another name of the same goddess in another province of China, strongly favors the conclusion that Shing Moo is just a synonym for one of the well-known names of the goddess-mother of Babylon. Gillespie (in his Land of Sinim) states that the Chinese goddess-mother, or “Queen of Heaven,” in the province of Fuh-Kien, is worshipped by seafaring people under the name of Ma Tsoopo. Now, “Ama Tzupah” signifies the “Gazing Mother”; and there is much reason to believe that Shing Moo signifies the same; for Mu was one of the forms in which Mut or Maut, the name of the great mother, appeared in Egypt (BUNSEN’S Vocabulary); and Shngh, in Chaldee, signifies “to look” or “gaze.” The Egyptian Mu or Maut was symbolized either by a vulture or an eye surrounded by a vulture’s wings (WILKINSON).
The symbolic meaning of the vulture may be learned from the Scriptural expression: “There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen” (Job 28:7). The vulture was noted for its sharp sight, and hence, the eye surrounded by the vulture’s wings showed that, for some reason or other, the great mother of the gods in Egypt had been known as “The gazer.” But the idea contained in the Egyptian symbol had evidently been borrowed from Chaldea; for Rheia, one of the most noted names of the Babylonian mother of the gods is just the Chaldee form of the Hebrew Rhaah, which signifies at once “a gazing woman” and a “vulture.” The Hebrew Rhaah itself is also, according to a dialectical variation, legitimately pronounced Rheah; and hence the name of the great goddess-mother of Assyria was sometimes Rhea, and sometimes Rheia. In Greece, the same idea was evidently attached to Athena or Minerva, whom we have seen to have been by some regarded as the Mother of the children of the sun.
For one of her distinguishing titles was Ophthalmitis (SMITH’S Classical Dictionary, “Athena”), thereby pointing her out as the goddess of “the eye.” It was no doubt to indicate the same thing that, as the Egyptian Maut wore a vulture on her head, so the Athenian Minerva was represented as wearing a helmet with two eyes, or eye-holes, in the front of the helmet. (VAUX’S Antiquities). Having thus traced the gazing mother over the earth, is it asked, what can have given origin to such a name as applied to the mother of the gods? A fragment of Sanchuniathon, in regard to the Phoenician mythology, furnishes us with a satisfactory reply. There it is said that Rheia conceived by Kronos, who was her own brother, and yet was known as the father of the gods, and in consequence brought forth a son who was called Muth, that is, as Philo-Byblius correctly interprets the word, “Death.”
As Sanchuniathon expressly distinguishes this “father of the gods” from “Hypsistos,” The Most High, we naturally recall what Hesiod says in regard to his Kronos, the father of the gods, who, for a certain wicked deed, was called Titan, and cast down to hell. (Theogonia).” From Alexander Hislop: (The Two Babylons).
Figure: The two images above are decidedly African in their physical characteristics, specifically the baby being held by the first woman above, the child is a rendering of Krishna a close inspection of his hair will reveal the thick coarse hair of the African.
The statue directly above is very African in its physical makeup. The physical attributes of the two figures above lend significant credence to the claims made in this book, and in many other scholarly works of a Dravidian i.e. African presence in pre-Aryan/Brahmin India. The most ancient names of Krishna and his mother are, Isi and Iswara, the following is from Alexander Hislop’s, The Two Babylons: “In Egypt, the Mother and the Child were worshipped under the names of Isis and Osiris. In India, even to this day, as Isi and Iswara; in Asia, as Cybele and Deoius; in Pagan Rome, as Fortuna and Jupiter-puer, or Jupiter, the boy; in Greece, as Ceres, the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast, or as Irene, the goddess of Peace, with the boy Plutus in her arms; and even in Tibet, in China, and Japan, the Jesuit missionaries were astonished to find the counterpart of Madonna and her child as devoutly worshipped as in papal Rome itself ; Shing Moo the holy mother of China with a child in her arms, and a glory around her, exactly as if a Roman Catholic artist had been employed to set her up”. Osiris, as the child called most frequently Horus. BUNSEN. KENNEDY’S Hindu Mythology. Though Iswara is the husband of Isi, he is also represented as an infant at her breast. The very name, by which the Italians commonly designate the Virgin, is just the translation of one of the titles of the Babylonian goddess. As Baal or Belus was the name of the great male divinity of Babylon, so the female divinity was called Beltis. (HESYCHIUS, Lexicon) This name has been found in Nineveh applied to the “Mother of the gods” (VAUX’S Nineveh and Persepolis); and in a speech attributed to Nebuchadnezzar, preserved in EUSEBII Proeparatio Evangelii, both titles “Belus and Beltis” are conjoined as the titles of the great Babylonian god and goddess.
The Greek Belus, as representing the highest title of the Babylonian god, was undoubtedly Baal, “The Lord.” Beltis, therefore, as the title of the female divinity, was equivalent to “Baalti,” which, in English, is “My Lady,” in Latin, “Mea Domina,” and, in Italina, is corrupted into the well-known “Madonna.” In connection with this, it may be observed, that the name of Juno, the classical “Queen of Heaven,” which, in Greek, was Hera, also signified “The Lady”; and that the peculiar title of Cybele or Rhea at Rome, was Domina or “The Lady.” (OVID, Fasti) Further, there is strong reason to believe, that Athena, the well-known name of Minerva at Athens, had the very same meaning. The Hebrew Adon, “The Lord,” is, with the points, pronounced Athon. We have evidence that this name was known to the Asiatic Greeks, from whom idolatry, in a large measure, came into European Greece, as a name of God under the form of “Athan.” Eustathius, in a note on the Periergesis of Dionysius, speaking of local names in the district of Laodicea, says the “Athan is god.” The feminine of Athan, “The Lord,” is Athan, “The Lady,” which in the Attic dialect is Athena. No doubt, Minerva is commonly represented as a virgin; but, for all that, we learn from Strabo that at Hierapytna in Crete (the coins of which city, says Muller, Dorians have the Athenian symbols of Minerva upon them), she was said to be the mother of the Corybantes by Helius, or “The Sun.” It is certain that the Egyptian Minerva, who was the prototype of the Athenian goddess, was a mother, and was styled “Goddess Mother,” or “Mother of the Gods.” CRABB’S Mythology. Gutzlaff thought that Shing Moo must have been borrowed from a Popish source; and there can be no doubt, that in the individual case to which he refers, the Pagan and the Christian stories had been amalgamated. But Sir. J. F. Davis shows that the Chinese of Canton find such an analogy between their own Pagan goddess Kuanyin and the Popish Madonna, that, in conversing with Europeans, they frequently call either of them indifferently by the same title. (Davis’s China). The first Jesuit missionaries to China also wrote home to Europe, which they found mention in the Chinese sacred books unequivocally Pagan–of a mother and child, very similar to their own Madonna and child at home.
Figure: Yashoda and baby Krishna as a suckling child, the statue below is a depiction of the same goddess and her son, also known as Isa and Ishwara, the Kemitian/Egyptian equivalent being Isis/Aset and Horus/Heru.
Image: Some Caribbean islands including the lesser and Greater Antilles. Martinique,
Guadeloupe and French Sint Martin were called the French Antilles, with Sint Maarten, Curacao, Aruba, Bonaire, Saba, and Sint Eustatia comprising the Dutch Antilles. Frantz Fanon the Martiniquan Doctor, revolutionary, author, Marxist and Antillean. Carlos Cooks was an Antillean. Maurice Bishop though a Grenadian by parentage was born in Aruba and attended school for a period of time there. Athyli Rogers author of the Rastafari bible, the Holy Piby, was an Anguillan, though Anguilla is not an Antillean island, Anguillans and Sint Maarteners are related by blood ties and share a common heritage. Edward Wilmot Blyden the man whose world-renowned protégé Marcus Garvey, is heralded by most Pan-Africanists as the father of their ideology, is a virtual unknown in so-called black studies‖ literature. Most writers writing about the Pan-Caribbean Pan-African experience tend to focus on Jamaicans and Africans conveniently omitting the fact that the actual Pan-Caribbean, Pan-Africanist movement started in the smaller islands and not in Jamaica. The movement was begun by people like Edward Blyden and others even before him. George Padmore and C.L.R James are rarely ever written about but they are in fact intrinsic to any honest analysis of the Pan-Caribbean and Pan-Africanist movement in the world today. This book though not a Pan African nor a Pan Caribbean work yet gives due credence to the greats in the aforementioned since, without their efforts, a work such as this would indeed be lacking substance in certain areas.
In her book, The First Rasta Helen Lee claims, that Marcus Garvey was agitating for integration, how a supposedly informed individual could make such a claim, can mean only one thing, Lee who is obviously enamored with Howell; was pandering to certain sentiments and sensibilities of the type of readership that she caters to. After his release from prison on trumped-up charges Marcus Garvey was deported to Jamaica in 1928, where he resumed his activities on behalf of Africans everywhere. He was politically active in Jamaica where he ran for a seat on the city council while he was in prison, and he won by an overwhelming margin.
Lee’s attempt at diminishing the impact and influence of Marcus Garvey on the development of African civilization in the Diaspora is exposed in this work for what it is, a specious attempt at misinformation. The historical records clearly show that Garvey was deported back to Jamaica he later left for England, where he died in 1940. Creating the false notion that Garvey never returned to Jamaica but was somehow sent to England, is a deliberate and malicious attempt, by this white journalist, claiming to identify so greatly with the Rastafari, that even within the obvious suicidal behavior of Athlyi (―Roger Athlyi‖ writer of the Holy Piby i.e. the Rastafari bible). Lee attempted to make Athlyi some sort of hero. Athlyi killed himself plain and simple; no amount of misplaced pandering to misdirected sensibilities can change that. The likes of Athlyi were not and have never been a great influence on black people globally Athlyi‘ marginal influence is limited to the few followers he had in his heyday, likewise Leonard Howell. Marcus Mosiah Garvey on the other hand influenced black intellectuals globally and he still does so today from politicians and preachers to university students to street hustlers Garveyism has had an enduring impact on the world that no human being can diminish nor deny.
The ideology that Garvey espoused, led to many African leaders, such as Kwame Nkrumah, and Jomo Kenyatta just to mention two very famous leaders, who openly called themselves Pan-Africanists after the ideology developed by Marcus Mosiah Garvey. The ideology called Garveyism led to these men formulating the methods and means that they would later utilize to bring about the independence of their respective countries. That they failed to follow in the Pan-African tradition after having achieved independence is no reflection on Garveyism at all, but rather it is a reflection on the men as human beings.
Today both the JLP and the PNP of Jamaica are vying for the right to call themselves the ideological successors of Marcus Garvey; fortunately for Garvey history will show that he was not a socialist. Garvey believed firmly in the democratic ideal, and capitalism, in fact, was his preferred economic model. Both the JLP and PNP are socialistic in their rhetoric, in practice, they are decidedly autocratic, and absolutist in their governing styles bordering on oligarchies. The very fact that these parties are now vying for the right to call Marcus Garvey, the father of their political ideology, points to his universal acceptance that has in fact forced the political hierarchy in his homeland, to want to adopt him as the father of their various movements.
Pan-Africanists, the Rastafari, and students of the enlightened variety both white and black have long accepted and understood the universal truths espoused by Marcus Garvey; however, his separatist rhetoric has been and rightly should be avoided by most. The applicability of his political program, as pertains to the betterment, of the condition of the Africans in the Diaspora, should be championed by any truly enlightened Caribbean leader. Caribbean people, do not need journalists, or academicians to define their reality; they can define their own reality.
On the point of the church’s role in the Caribbean; Lee attempts to portray the role of women, as substituting for the lack of men in said institutions. The Jesus image, as created by Roman Catholicism is portrayed by Lee, as a psychological prop; upon which black Caribbean Christian women, project all of their pent-up sexual emotions. Lee in her attempt to describe the church services of some people, who may or may not be Christian, lumped Christianity with Pocomania, and other religious sects, like Obeah and Shango. In the spiritist practices above the adherents are said to become possessed by one of their many deities, demon spirits, who cause them to manifest a wide assortment of behavior, while persons who experience the real indwelling of the Holy Ghost are experiencing what was spoken of in Acts 2:38. Moreover, the chief spirit of most of the cults mentioned corresponds to the divine androgyne, of ancient paganism, which has been identified as a symbol of Satan. For instance Obatala the chief deity of the Yoruba is a spirit manifesting both male and female characteristics, not unlike many of the other so-called gods of the ancient and modern pagans examined in this book. The Pentecostal movement is a fact worldwide; many people around the world grew up in the Pentecostal movement.
Lee erroneously claimed that speaking in tongues is akin to the possession, of the cults. Speaking in tongues‖ has been observed all over the globe even among Europeans and Caucasians in America and Canada, accounts of such are to be found in newspaper articles and on video footage throughout the western hemisphere. The attempt by some white writers to portray speaking in tongues as a black phenomena‖, limited to the uneducated and the ignorant is an example of their use of the mastery of the written word to portray events in favor of the worldview that they espouse. This is the case of writers like Helen Lee and Timothy White is a decidedly pro-Rastafari worldview (of the Bob Marleyite variety).
While these writers can champion whatever worldview they want to, their attempts at lumping the very real experience of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, in true Christians‖ with demon or spirit possession akin to the possession at a Voodoo ceremony, will be challenged in this work, as it is mere fantasy and conjecture on the part of two journalist‘s attempting to explain away something that is experienced by people globally regardless of color or creed on a daily basis, as a purely black phenomenon limited to a few backward peasants and women with a limited education nothing could be farther from the truth.
Since true Christianity is diametrically opposed to occultism, those of us who truly know what the Full Body Ministry, stands for can appreciate the paradox in the matter. For one the truly Christian woman would consider such thoughts sacrilegious, and the so-called white Jesus image, even in Jamaican society is not revered by all, not in the early 20th century nor today. There have been and still are in the region churches that emphatically teach an anti-Eurocentric doctrine, there are many church institutions regionally that do not encourage the veneration of any imagery period taken from Roman Catholicism, even the pagan Christmas is not venerated nor celebrated by Apostolic people in the Caribbean nor around the globe. The weak attempt of a white woman to define the experience of the African in the Diaspora failed, as all such attempts must fail, by dint of the fact that; the African in the Diaspora is far more complicated, and sophisticated than anyone from outside said group, presuming to be able to precisely analyze an entire group of people will ever be able to fathom.
Leonard Howell one of the earliest Rastafari leaders/ prophets‖ was an ardent admirer of Hinduism, and Indian culture and philosophy in general. The original Howellites could be heard chanting to Krishna the Hindu god. Howell began in the early thirties encouraging his followers to revere Haile Sellassie as a messiah, during this time there were many Rastafari mendicants. Some well-known leaders were Joseph Hinds, Archibald Dunkley, and Nathaniel Hibberts, though there were many leaders, these were some of the earliest and chief leaders, of some of the better known Rastafari sects. All the other more contemporary leaders rose to prominence in the nineteen sixties.
Haile Sellassie received certain Rastafari leaders during his Jamaican visit, some of whom were honored with imperial medals by the emperor. Mention also must be made here of Prince Emmanuel the founder of the Emmanualites so-called Bobo Shanties‖. Vernon Carrington founder of the twelve tribes of Israel is a well-known Rastafari leader; both these men rose to prominence in the sixties. Haile Selassie himself denounced the idea that he was divine; stating that he was a Christian, and worshipped Jesus, the Rastafari saw his denial as a sign of humility. The idea of Haile Sellassie as a god later gained global prominence through the medium of Reggae music. Robert Nesta Marley, the half-caste from Kingston is its most ardent seed planter.
The philosophical packaging and ideology of Rastafari are similar in many aspects, to Hinduism, right down to their Vegan diet, anyone can discover this for themselves by studying the original theology of Rastafari, the person wishing to know the truth must first understand who Howell was, and why his doctrine appealed to the disenfranchised, and downtrodden of society. The first
Rastafari unlike today, were largely poor, and uneducated young black men and women the eldership consisted of war veterans, some former Garveyites, and many young unwed mothers. Although Howell was not the only black Jamaican at that time teaching about a black messiah, he was one of them who succeeded where many failed in establishing a commune where his people could live and work largely undisturbed by outsiders. The belief in a universal black messiah was widespread amongst African descendants in the Western hemisphere, even amongst African Americans, as they had their Wallace Fard and Elijah Poole aka Elijah Muhammad, (These men also claimed to be messiahs or Mahdi=Arabic for messiah).
Based on historical accounts then we can safely say that Leonard Howell was not a novelty in the early thirties when this type of teaching was widespread amongst black people globally. What was novel about Howell though, was his ability to galvanize his followers few before him or after him have been able to do what he did, and it is for that reason that I have chosen to focus on him, he influenced present-day Rastafari thinking and living more so than any of the other leaders. Even after Howell’s camp (Pinnacle) was broken up, many of his followers were able to galvanize large segments of the poorer classes behind their ideology. Poverty lack of education and financial resources conditioned the masses of young people at that time to seek a way out of their situation. When Howell came on the scene preaching black pride and hailing Haile Selassie as a god, offering a refuge from the ghetto that they inhabited Howell’s practice of Marijuana use offered a temporary escape from the bleak landscape at that time. Howell became an instant savior to those people at that time he became their leader a voice for the voiceless and a father to the fatherless. Howell renounced his British citizenship claiming Ethiopia as the Promised Land for blacks and Haile Selassie as their long-awaited king who would deliver them from European colonial tyranny and oppression. Howell lived in an Indian-styled hilltop commune, called Pinnacle he called himself Gangunguru Marajh, he even had a harem in the manner of the Hindu kings that he so admired.
Howell was well-read and had traveled extensively when he lived in the city of New York; he ran a tea shop,‖he more than likely sold Marijuana in his tea shop. Howell himself functioned as a healer; years later in Jamaica, he would use his knowledge to heal people, he took them to a hot springs bath that relaxed their minds and bodies healing them of many ailments in their physical bodies. Howell was not simply talking hope he was bringing about results many of the women he attracted were young uneducated single mothers looking for a way out of poverty. The situation today has not changed much the Village Ram mentality; of some in the Caribbean, has spawned a generation of young single-parent households headed by mostly, poor, young, uneducated women. This situation has led to an increasingly alarming number of single, young women, turning to, drug lords for their financial sustenance. While criminal enterprise has proven to be very lucrative. The truly wealthy criminals hold a monopoly position. The young men and women that the dons employ are largely their pawns and are usually expendable when they no longer cooperate or are either incarcerated or incapacitated.
Howell was what the poor saw as a way of escape at that time he knew what they wanted him for and he wanted power and lordship thusly both parties were served they fed his illusions of grandeur and he literally fed them. In this scenario, each party corrupted the other, yet they both got what they wanted. Howell was genuine in his beliefs he was willing to die for his beliefs and his followers this is what endears a man to anyone. , If a man is willing to die for his word, that stance will inadvertently bring about a certain measure of respect from others even one’s enemies. Howell was a bonafide channeler he was an adept in elemental magic; (elemental magic is rituals where various elemental spirits are conjured in order to aid the adepts, there are earthbound spirits, fire spirits, water spirits, and air spirits), his son Blade in the book The First Rasta by Helen Lee corroborated this. Howell was adept at spirit channeling people felt a definite presence when he entered a room, that was his hallmark his bearing and presence.
Bob Marley would later emulate this man calling himself Tough Gong, meaning I am tougher than Gong. The original Gong was Leonard Howell, a Gong is a hallowed cymbal-like instrument used by almost all oriental religious systems of worship, to announce the proceeding or ending of a session, this instrument was also used to honor a particular deity‘s presence. Howell was meticulous in his choice of names and euphemism‘s Bob Marley‘s use of the name was mostly braggadocios, and also a respectful acquiescence of the preeminence of Howell. Howell used Cannabis as a means of gaining contact with the spirit world. Howell understood that the average youth, of a western persuasion, would never easily grasp the intricacies involved in spirit contact through meditation, and tantricism, the smoking of Cannabis was an easier simpler method so this was employed. In the late sixties, Howell and his followers were nominally wealthy people, because of, Cannabis cultivation. Rastafari culture holds as a core tenet that, Cannabis Sativa is a sacred i.e.(Holy) plant.
Cannabis was, introduced into the Caribbean, by Indian Sadhu‘s, and smoked sacramentally by Sadhu‘s. The Sadhus were brought to Jamaica, Trinidad and Guyana in the 17th century by Europeans, primarily as indentured servants, for the purpose of cane cultivation. They brought with them their religious beliefs and myriad gods; (Some accounts claim that the Spaniards introduced Cannabis into the Caribbean as early, as the 15th century, the Cannabis originated in both historical accounts in India). These people some of whom were called Sadhu‘s, or holy men brought Cannabis Sativa to Jamaica their worship of their gods sometimes entailed the smoking of Cannabis, at certain points an elixir would also be drunk this potion contained a mixture of honey and Cannabis,(Behang/Bhang). Hemp was grown in the Caribbean region as early as the 15th century and was done chiefly by the British in an attempt to break the Russian monopoly on the production of Hemp as an industrial product. The Hemp plant was used chiefly as an industrial product, the plant is indigenous to West and Central Asia.
The Sadhu smoking his sacrament to kali‖, Shiva is the chief demon prince worshipped by Sadhus.
The painting above the Sadhu is of Shiva and his consort Parvati. On the right, a Shiva devotee in Nepal is covered in the white/gray ash characteristic of Shiva.
Figure: This map indicates a portion of Western Asia Ur of the Chaldea is shown. The Euphrates and Tigris rivers respectively are visible as two blue parallel lines flowing into the Persian Gulf.
The complexed relationships evinced between these regions cannot be handled in this work as this will take the work in an unintended direction suffice it to say that this work is a synopsis of a much broader work. Western Asia denotes a number of geographic regions chiefly Iran, Turkey, Syria, and a number of other regions Iraq is in South Western Asia. As recently as 1979, Iran was known as Persia. The term Central Asia denotes portions of or the entire region of Turkistan, Turkistan is the historical term for a region in Central Asia comprised of Kazakhstan, portions of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and the autonomous Chinese border territory of Xinxiang Uygur in the past it was called East Turkistan or Chinese Turkistan. Authors note, The last piece of historical data shows why there is a Chinese Muslim population in China, this occurred as a result of conquest by the Turks during the expansion of their Ottoman empire. If you are a news junky you will recall that the Xinxiang province in China is a hotbed of Uyghur Muslim ―extremist activity‖, later in this work I will examine the aforementioned in-depth. As I have shown, taking into account the information given about the civilizations shown above. They were all highly developed cultures in the past, and had frequent contact amongst themselves. It should come as no surprise to anyone that a common religion, was shared by the people, in the regions shown above. Hemp is also grown as an industrial product in Russia, Poland, Japan, Hungary, and China.
Hemp is refined and developed into soap, it is used in paint, and the Hemp products Marijuana and Hashish are used as drugs. Based on the above information we have learned that Cannabis served a variety of uses, in the past as well as today. In modern society in most countries of the world, Cannabis is used, as a recreational drug, but its usefulness as medicine has rarely been examined or taken seriously by the medical community. Many persons clamor for its legalization as a means of furthering their own subversive agendas.
The aim here is not to promote the smoking of any substance recreationally, or for self-medication. The intent here is to honestly, deal with the multi-functional role that Hemp products have played as a natural product, that has been developed and exploited by man, it is in man‘s abuse and misuse of the plant that has created the addictive behavior, evinced today, among many people, in all sectors of society. I will now resume my examination of the Pinnacle settlement and the lifestyle of its leader and his followers. The Pinnacle settlement was associated with Indian plantation workers with locked hair; this was before any African descendants in Jamaica ever grew locks.
Certain Rastafari elders called locks Zagavi; the etymology of the word, Zagavi is in the Hindi language. Many Rastafari cite Bible passages in order to support their way of life, the bible does not condone the smoking of any substance as a means of spiritual upliftment, or enlightenment. The word of God clearly condemns the use of any substance excessively, and it clearly makes a distinction between the clean and the unclean. The Holy Ghost makes it possible for a child of God to touch God’s throne through the means of prayer praise and worship. Sadhu‘s socialized with Jamaicans of African descent therefore, the Rastafari assertion that locks came to their movement because of seeing pictures of Ethiopian warriors with locked hair is not completely accurate.
Image:Jomo Kenyatta with a dreadlocked Mau Mau warrior. This photo is erroneously cited by some historians as an impetus for certain Jamican Rastafari to have grown locks; such an assertion is false since Rastafari in Jamaica wore dreadlocks before the 1950‘s when this photo began making the rounds in western media publications. Leonard Howell was impressed with Gandhi and his philosophy of nonviolence within social protest.
Howell later co-opted the nonviolent strategy, which was not always successful, some of Howell’s followers were in constant conflict with the police some of the conflicts were because of Marijuana cultivation, Howell‘s rhetoric was anti-establishment this also brought mass exposure to his movement and its ideology.
Pinnacle; or the remnants of the settlement of Howell and his people. Pinnacle was purchased by Howell and his wife Tynneth Howell from a mister Chang a businessman of Chinese extraction, for the sum of 1200 pounds. Today the Pinnacle site is one of controversy as the Rastafari people of Jamaica and the Howell family, are taking legal action, to have the Pinnacle settlement, declared a Rastafari cultural heritage site, recognized as such under international laws. Howell died in 1981 ―peacefully‖, in a hotel room in Kingston according to the account given by Helen Lee.
Above is a faded photo of Leonard and Tyneth Howell.
Flyer and Photos of Leonard Percival Howell a.k.a The Founder and Father of the Rastafari Movement.
As I indicated previously in this book the Rastafari movement does not have one central founder, Rastafari came about as a result of a Caribbean wide mass acceptance of Ethiopianism, Garveyism, et al, the movement had various forerunners‖ in its formative years Howell happens to be one of the more famous of them. All Rastafari believe in the divinity of Haile Selassie the Kebra Nagast is the main source used, in proving that Haile Selassie is a direct descendant of the house of David through the union of King Solomon and the queen of Sheba.
Copyrights Wade A. Bailey : Above a detailed map of the area located on the continent of Alkebulan aka Africa, detailing the biblical area of the Garden Of Eden. In Genesis 2:10, 11, 12.13,14,15 it is stated that two rivers went out of Eden one of the rivers Gihon (the Blue Nile), compassed or surrounded Ethiopia.
A painting of Adam and Eve. Property of Dr Malachi York.
From the scriptural accounts, we can see that the Garden of Eden is to be found in the land of Ta-Merre i.e. Egypt [land of the Sun]. Many European scholars even some so called Christian scholars claim that the location of Eden is neither in Egypt nor even on the African continent citing a supposed mis-spelling in the King James Version of the Bible as pertains to the word Ethiopia in some accounts. They claim that in the original language the word was Kush which they attempt to link to Iran or Irak and even Turkey.
Sadly it is buffoons of the above mentioned ilk who are not true scholars but poseurs and miseducators who have for decade’s mis-written and falsely fashioned history and academic scholarship as per their racist pet theories and notions. I will now provide factual evidence grounded in science and historically verifiable data as to the location of Eden. There are two very preeminent and world renowned scholars of the ancient world namely Dr Cheik Anta Diop and Dr Joseph Ben Jochannan. Both these scholars who functioned in their capacity are well travelled world lecturers and were both professors at major universities during the span of their careers. I studied both of these men’ works to establish the scientific and archeological basis for the evidence I will bring forth. If one were to conduct a study of the ancient world in pursuit of the location of the Garden of Eden one would have to start in anciency not in modernity. The entire studied population of the earth is by now well aware that, the earliest man-like fossils were discovered in Africa by Louis Leakey and his wife. Based upon carbon dating and other scientific data we have empirical evidence that the human race originated on the so-called “African continent” which is in fact correctly called Alkebulan. I will like to examine here certain bible passages taken from Genesis. Genesis chapter 2:10 “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. From the above we can see that Eden was not a Garden but Eden was the name of a land mass precisely how large is not given, what it does state is that out of Eden flowed a river That parted four ways and the following names are given for those four rivers. Genesis 2:11 the name of the first is Pison“White Nile,” that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is Gold. Havilah is old Nubia from the word Nub which means gold. Some so-called modern scholars place Havilah in modern day Turkey. How can one make such a claim seeing that Turkey was not known in ancient history or in modern times for being a land renowned for its vast gold reserves.
The assertion that Iran or Iraq could have been the location for Havilah is also destroyed by the fact that although ancient Babylon was the site where today’s Iraq is located, Babylon was in fact a satellite state of ancient Kemit misnomered Egypt by modern Euro-centric scholars. The fact that Nimrod mentioned in the bible as the great hunter before the lord was according to ancient as well as modern accounts none other than Osiris the Kemitian god of the underworld, we have evidence in history that attest to Nubian kings having conquered and subjugated the entire continent of Alkebulan so vast was their empire that there was an upper and a lower Egypt also the Nile river was identified as the Blue Nile and the White Nile, most Eurocentric scholars ignore these pertinent facts. Babylon was a satellite state of Nubia by way of Kemit, and had vast Gold reserves is as a result of gold being brought to that region from our Kemit and Kush or Ethiopia which is rightfully called Punt. These evidences in ancient history points only to an African source, of much of the mineral wealth of the region. Not only was the Nubian kingdom, which in fact penetrated even into Sudan on our modern map of Africa above Sudan just below the Blue Nile we have an area identified as Nubia.
Africans were already using the term Nubian in ancient times as a term of designation of a distinct, highly developed social, political,Religious and cultural ethnic group in the area in question. Before European contact. The Arab and Berber did not exist at the primacy of the development of Nubian civilization. Berbers according to the Encarta are themselves an Arabized people, how then can an assimilated primitive culture formed after the Nubian which were a supra-civilization, be credited with having fathered the modern inhabitants of Nubia? The utter absurdity in the matter defies common sense! Scholars still use terms such as Hamitic, Japhetic and Semitic as terms of designation for the various people groups on the planet.The terms are in fact derived from the bible they are the names of the three sons of Noah namely, Ham, Shem, and Japheth. Ham fathered the African nations most notable of which are Kush (Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea), Mitsrayim (Egypt), and Phut=Punt (Nubia), Nimrod (Babylon) et al. Shem fathered certain notables such as Asshur (Assyria), Elam, Aram and Arphaxad, out of these came the so-called Semites along with their languages. The Nubians who were a dark skinned thick-lipped people with wooly hair not unlike many of their surviving descendants today they are in fact the architects of what we call Egypt. These people founded the world’s first university at Timbuktu .It is to this region that all the European scholars traveled to become learned, in the ways of the “Medu Nechter” or the so-called Egyptian mystery system. Onyx the other precious metal mentioned in the Genesis account was also greatly used in Kemit as a depiction of “Kephera” the so-called Scarab Beetle “Dung Beetle”, which is usually made from black Onyx and Gold.Also one important fact that must be taken into account in anciency the continent of Alkebulan was still joined to the other countries of the so called Middle East all of whom were satellites of the Nubians. One must bear in mind that there was no Aswan Dam. Io mention here the names of the rivers mentioned in scripture in Genesis.The name of the third river is Hiddekelit states that it went towards the east of Assyria, and the fourth river is the Euphrates.All of the places mentioned were in ancient times still joined to the continent of Alkebulan Africa.Mesopotamia, [Greek- between two rivers], so named because of its strategic location between the Tigres and the Euphrates rivers.The land of Assyria takes its name from one of their ancient kings called Asshur.Ge: 10:11: Out of that, land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah,Ge: 10:12: And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.Ge: 10:13: And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim,Ge: 10:14: And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim.
In ancient history, we will read that Ur of the Chaldea where Abraham came from was, in fact, the conquerors of the Assyrians who were a satellite of Ur. Let us examine Ur, one of the most important cities of ancient Mesopotamia located on the Western Bank of the lower falls of the Euphrates River. Some very illuminating finds were unearthed in (Tel Muqayyir) modern Iraq. From the data thus far gathered we can see a pattern of development since Ishtar was the deity worshiped by the Assyrians who were a satellite at many points in the history of the Babylonians who were as per their own records descendants of Nimrod. The same Nimrod of the Bible, whose mother Serimaris or Astarte was called the Queen of Heaven, or the mother of Heaven. Serimaris and Nimrod correlate to Isis and Horus of the Kemitians (Egyptians).Also according to archeological evidence, Babylon is one of the first ancient civilizations it is also the place, where the two rivers the Tigris and the Euphrates meet. The Babylonian king called Hammurabi wrote the Code of Hammurabi or Laws of Hammurabi.
Excerpted from Rastafari and its Shamanist Origins by Wade A. Bailey.
Ethiopia’s bedrock belongs to the earth’s first continent, a continent called Gondwanaland by geologists, of which Africa forms the last intact remnant. The structures of this 600-million-year-old land made up of hard, massive folded pre-Cambrian crystalline rock, have been covered over throughout most of Ethiopia by recent formations. Ethiopia is called the cradle of mankind, by some geologist’s and anthropologists. The Bible records in Genesis 2:8-14 that: ‘And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed 10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted into four heads. 11 The name of the first is Pison, that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good there is Bedellium and the Onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second is Gihon (Blue Nile) the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. 14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria and the fourth river is Euphrates. As per the biblical description Eden was a huge land mass and the river that flowed out of it, straddled more than one country, Ethiopia is one that was specifically named as being completely surrounded by one of the rivers namely Gihon (Blue Nile), judging from the biblical description the Garden of Eden is placed on the African continent, interestingly said placement is in agreement with ,scientific, archaeological, historical references and evidence.
Here we have a visual map aide showing the proximity of Arab countries to Africa, it is from those countries, that Cannabis was introduced into the continent. Ethiopia is located in the northeast region of Africa, the ‘Horn’, of Africa so called because of the horn shaped tip of the continent, that demarcates the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean. Ethiopia is bordered by Sudan on its western border Somalia to the southeast, Kenya to the south, Djibouti to the east, and Eritrea
to the north and northeast. Ethiopia consists of four major river systems the first system consists of the Takaze also known as the Atbara, the Abbay or the Blue Nile, lastly the Baro originating in Sudan, then flowing westward into the Nile.
According to the officially available figures Ethiopia’s population is about 76 million people, it is the third most populous nation in Africa. The varying ethnicities that comprise Ethiopia’s populace is diverse and are grouped as follows, the Amhara and Tigrinya 32 percent, the Oromo 40 percent, Sidamo 9 percent, Somali’s 6 percent, Shankella 6 percent, Gurage 2 percent, Afar 4 percent. There are hundreds of languages spoken in Ethiopia that fall into four major categories. Three of which have a common ancestry that is called proto-Afroasiatic by linguists (Afro-Asiatic is Hamitic-Semetic). The three are known as Cushitic, Omotic and Semitic. Harold G. Marcus wrote in his seminal work; A History of Ethiopia published by University of California, that: ‘Evidence is strong that the Afro-Asiatic (Hamitic-Semitic) group of languages developed and fissured in the Sudan-Ethiopian borderlands. There Proto-Cushitic. and Proto-Semitic began their evolution. In Ethiopia, the Semitic branch grew into a northern group, today echoed in Tigrinya, and a southern group, best heard in Amharic. It simultaneously spread to the Middle East, whence, millennia later, it returned in a written form to enrich its cousins several times removed’. Cushitic includes the Agaw, the Somali, the Afar, the Saho, the Hadiya, the Kambata, the Oromo and the Gedeo. Omotic, the term Omotic is derived from the fact that the people thus designated traditionally lived on both sides of the Omo river. The following nationalities comprise the Omotic, the Dorze, Janjaro, Maji, Kafa, Waylata and the Dizi. The last category is the Semetic Geez is the oldest Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia, it is largely confined to the religious sphere i.e. sacral literature and theology. Other Semetic languages are, Amharic, Tegra, Harari and Gurage. There is the Nilo-Saharan language groups, which are not connected to the Cushitic, Omotic and Semetic language groups previously cited, they are as follows the Anuak, the Nuer, the Kunama southwestern Eritrea, the Gumuz in western Gojam and the Manjanjir. Linguistic and archeological evidence point to a prehistoric genesis for Ethiopian culture. Early evidence of human existence has been found in the varied array of stone tools, found in many parts of Ethiopia. Village farming was developed in Ethiopia during the Neolithic period. There is empirical evidence that Stone Age culture endured in Ethiopia, during different epochs. The Watta of Ethiopia were related to the hunting groups of northeastern and eastern Africa. The Agau are an early population who still exist today in Ethiopia. The Agau discovered new strains of plants, the domestication of the donkey and mule breeding regionally. The plateau peoples are grouped into three groups, linguistically and anthropologically, they are referred to as the Central Agau, and western and eastern Cushite’s. During the second Millennium the population increased dramatically, resultantly the Cushitic population who lived in the southern fringes expanded into Uganda, Kenya, and Tanganyika. The migrations of the Bantu’s into Ethiopia changed the population dynamics in Ethiopia and all other southern African societies. Along with the afore mentioned and the erection of the phallic stones in southern Ethiopia, the basis for the development of states in Ethiopia were established. The development of city states in Ethiopia were spurned by various socio-religious dynamics and the intra-personal relationships of the various people groups vis a vis their counterparts. One of the ethnicities in Ethiopia credited with helping advance the proto-city state, to the contemporary city state are the Oromo. The Oromo, lived in the Ethiopian highlands in areas like Bali, the borders of what is now the Republic of Somalia. They claim to have emerged from the Borana region of southwestern Ethiopia. By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, powerful Abyssinian kings by force of arms, made the Oromo move west and southwest into the barely habitable, saltpans, lava fields and toward the boulder and sand deserts near Lake Rudolph. Some Oromo groups over time developed powerful monarchial states. The Oromo are notable for their martial feats specifically as cavalry (mounted soldiers), ancient Ethiopian literature is replete with mention of or praises to the Oromo for their exploits on the battlefield. In 1776 civil war ushered in the era of the ‘age of princes’, the war and political intrigues persisted till 1855. The civil war ultimately resulted in the proto provincialism that is prevalent even today, resultantly the various provinces competed for territory and resources against the other provinces in a struggle for ultimate hegemony. The period saw the ascendency of various provincial dynasties, each province was demarcated along ethnic and national lines, the loyalty of the people was not to Ethiopia, but to their provinces and their kings who ruled over them. The Gondar monarchy’s decline led to an increase in the influence of the Galla. Gondar was once Ethiopia’s largest city, and a hub of religion and art. Gondar was Ethiopia’s defacto capital from 1635-1867. By this time, the Solomonic dynasty and ethos extant for hundreds of years was well established. Since the Galla at the time were a well-established and powerful ethnic group, the royal family forged strong ties with the Galla through marriage. The Ethiopian imperial monarchy was diluted because of the majority of Galla being Muslims, the throne then was not a legitimate manifestation of Christian power but was an instrument of power wielded by Muslims. One dynasty that laid claim to the Solomonic heritage, as well as being a mainly Christian polity in its hierarchical structure, was Shoa. Shoa an alternate spelling is Shewa, free of the rampant civil strife sweeping the rest of Ethiopia, was able to create a largely coherent bureaucracy that was characterized by a heterogenous coexistence, among the varying ethnic and religious groups. The unification of Shoa was solidified under a Christian dynastic monarchy, which waged wars of hegemony till the end of the 18th century. In the reign of Sahle Sellassie (1813-1847) an Amhara Negus, he had many childrenone of them being Haile Melekot, the father of Menellek II. When his father was murdered Sahle Sellassie, seized the throne although he had older male siblings. Sahle moved swiftly to consolidate power with the help of his mother’s kinsmen, he marched from the monastery at Sehla Dingay, where he was enrolled as a student, to his father’s capital at Qundi and claimed the succession, he was proclaimed Ras of Showa. Some of his male siblings reached Qundi, at a later date and were promptly imprisoned. Shortly after his proclamation a Ras, he proclaimed himself Negus of Shewa. In 1829, Shewa was hit with a debilitating famine, shortly thereafter a cholera epidemic struck, killing two thirds of the stricken. Again, misfortune struck, when one of the Negus’ generals rebelled, Medoko, several of the elite Matchlockmen (infantry with guns) deserted with him and they joined with the Oromo. Together they burned Angolalla, and waged battles against Shewa. When Sahle Sellassie was able to put down the rebellion (1835), another catastrophe struck, Shewa was afflicted by a drought which decimated crops and livestock, bringing famine to the province. Sahle Sellassie responded to the famine by opening up the royal storehouses to the people, this act greatly enhanced his status with many viewing him as a wise, loving and generous king. Sahle Sellassie was a great reformer, some of his notable reforms are as follows, he limited executions to murder, treason and sacrilege, executions required the consent of the Negus. He further ceased the practices (torture) of his predecessors, such as brandings with hot irons, executions, and severance of limbs of accused persons and criminals. Many death sentences were reduced to life imprisonment or property forfeiture. Blood money was paid to a murder victim’s relatives, instead of handing them over to the relatives of the victims’ family (an ancient tradition in Ethiopia still practiced at the time). He instituted tax reforms and greatly increased the store of firearms available to the state at the time. He signed friendship treaties with both France and England and even encouraged foreigners to settle in Shoa.In the following, I will highlight Ethiopian Orthodoxy, Ethiopian history, iconography, music, art, and culture. Ethiopian artists have produced an enormous amount of work particularly, the artwork of the Tewahedo Church, murals, manuscripts, ceremonial furniture, including their unique crosses and panel paintings on wood. Ethiopian iconography depicts a wide variety of sacred imagery used for a variety of reasons both devotional and apotropaic objects (amulets), i.e. having the power to ward off evil or bad luck. The national dress of Ethiopia is the Shamma, a rectangular shawl of three feet in width, hand woven from cotton. Men wear jodhpurs, which fit tightly from knee to ankles. Women wear blouses with full skirts of ankle length. Men and women wrap barnos, around their shoulders (especially in the highlands), when the weather cools or is breezy. The national dish of Ethiopia is called injera, a locally made sour, fermented flat bread with a spongelike texture, and wat ot zegeni, which is a type of curried stew made of beef, mutton or chicken, hardboiled eggs are added, and are seasoned in the Ethiopian manner with, red pepper (berbere) and other spices. It is at times served with tedj, a honey mead fermented drink, or tall an Ethiopian beer. Names and naming ceremonies in Ethiopia, like most Middle Eastern and African countries are of paramount importance. Asfa Wossen Asserate, the great grandson of Haile Sellassie, wrote in his book; ‘King of Kings: The Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Sellassie’, the following: ‘Ethiopian naming conventions have no concept of the division into Christian name and surname that us usual in Europe. People have a single given name. This is often followed by the fathers’ name, thus Tafari Makonnen is Tafari the son of Makonne’. If a child dies, and another is born, the newborn child’s name oftentimes is Kassa, meaning restitution. Common male names are Hagos (joy), Desta (pleasure), Tesfaye (my hope). Some common names for females in Ethiopia are Ababa (flower), Zewditu (crown), Terunesh (you are pure) and a host of others, but these are commonly recognizable even in this work since the famous etege Zewditu Menellek’s daughter’s name is one of the most common female names, in Ethiopia. Common Christian or baptismal male names are, names compounded with for instance Gebre (servant of) an example is Gebre Yesus (servant of Jesus), Walda (son of), Haile (power of), and Habte (gift of). Well known female baptismal names are, often compounded with the following Amete (maid of), like Amete Maryam maid of Mary, or Walatta (daughter of) for example Walatta Sion (daughter of Zion).
The following is taken from my book Rastafari and its Shamanist Origins. The post concerns Somalia a neighbour of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is one of the main focal points of the book, Somalia played a crucial part at times vis a vis Ethiopia, as a result, it was included. Those who read this blog know that I went into some depth on the Ethiopian Haile Sellassie, on this blog here is the link to that https://soualigayouth.wordpress.com/2016/04/21/atseemperor-haile-sellassie/.
More posts like this will follow since I often post short or sometimes lengthy excerpts from the book previously mentioned.
Due to its arid climate, Somalia is a very infertile country with few natural resources.
Animal husbandry is the most important economic sector.
The war of 1991 virtually crippled the economy and it has yet to recover.
The bungling of the Americans in the armed conflict, in the early part of the 90s only worsened the Somali problem. The many clans and sub-clans vying for power in Somalia, all adhere to Islam Sunni Islam is the religion practiced by ninety-eight percent of the Somali population, the U.S. Army nor any other occupying force can resolve the conflict in Somalia, the conflict is of an ethnic and religious nature.
The Somali people themselves are the only persons remotely qualified to intervene in the highly complex social-political and social religious milieu that is Somalia.
Few western writers and journalists ever dare cross the line and accuse their governments outright of the crimes, and atrocious acts that they’ve committed in Somalia, I read an interesting piece recently which highlights such in my opinion quite succinctly, I’ll quote some excerpts from that piece here, from Johann Hari, The Independent April 15th, 2009. Hari exposed how the lack of a government in Somalia in 1991 created a lawless society teetering on the brink of starvation, that vacuum was exploited by unscrupulous western nations disposing of toxic waste. “As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken”. He narrated how the coastal population and their children suffered from, strange rashes, nausea, and malformed babies. Following the 2005 Tsunami hundreds of leaking barrels washed up onshore. People suffered from radiation sickness and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia confirmed the presence of nuclear waste in Somalia: “Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it.” Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, which seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to “dispose” of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: “Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention.” Abdi Samatar said the following of the situation in Somalia: “The Ethiopian invasion, which was sanctioned by the US government, has destroyed virtually all the life-sustaining economic systems which the population has built for the last fifteen years.” Abdi Samatar, professor of Global Studies at the University of Minnesota, (Democracy Now).
The Ethiopians and Somalians have historically engaged in bloody protracted wars since Ethiopia is 48% Coptic Christian and about 41% Muslim with the remaining 11% of the population practicing indigenous animist beliefs. “At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia’s seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our fish stocks by over-exploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster, and other sea-life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia’s unprotected seas.”. The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: “If nothing is done, there soon won’t be much fish left in our coastal waters.”
Out of the preceding scenario, the “pirates”, arose from Somalia, it is a well-documented fact that Somalian fishermen, in an attempt to stymie, the flow of trawlers and dumpers destroying their livelihood, attempted to impose a “tax”, on foreigners fishing and dumping waste in their waters. The Somali catastrophe that saw American troops in Somalia in the 1990s was exacerbated in 2006 during the Bush administration. In 2006 the Bush regime bolstered an alliance of Somali warlords calling themselves the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). The TFG established a base of operations in the western city of Baidoa, with the help of the Ethiopian army, the US Navy warships, AC-130 gunships, and western mercenaries, the TFG captured Mogadishu with the help of the aforementioned forcing the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), out of Mogadishu. Presently the resistance has re-captured most of Somalia, in the wake of the foregoing, Al-Shabaab has emerged seemingly “out of nowhere”, with a clear anti-western agenda, given Somalia’s recent history Al-Shabaab (the youth) is a reaction to the many modern western incursions into Somalia. The latest round of fighting in Somalia has created a humanitarian disaster rendering more than 1.3 million people homeless, continued instability, drought, high food prices, and the local currency’s collapse have served to worsen the dilemma. Paul Salopek wrote in the Chicago Tribune that: “(Somalia) is a covert war in which the CIA has recruited gangs of unsavory warlords to hunt down and kidnap Islamic militants…and secretly imprison them offshore, aboard U.S. warships. The British civil-rights group Reprieve contended that as many as 17 U.S. warships may have doubled as floating prisons since the Sept, 11 terrorist attacks”.
“Somalia is one of the great unrecognized U.S. foreign policy failures since 9/11,” said Ken Menkhaus, a leading Somalia scholar at Davidson College in North Carolina. “By any rational metric, what we’ve ended up with there today is the opposite of what we wanted.” (Paul Salopek, “US Appears to be Losing in Somalia”: Chicago Tribune). Presently Al-Shabaab is receiving aid from Al-Qaida in Libya and the LIFG, Somalia is a haven and breeding ground for militant Islamists, bent on jihad. The US interventions in the Islamic world have all been monumental disasters, this is the reason I opined that only the Somali’s are remotely capable of handling their affairs. In the pre-modern period of Somalia’s history protracted wars were waged, with the Ethiopians even in modern times, as was the case with the Italo-Ethiopian war’s, in the Ethiopian emperor Menellek II’, time the “Battle of Adowa”, was fought against the Italian invaders.
AL-ḤAYĀT MEDIA CENTER, on July 28, 2017, released an English language and Arabic language video, with English captions. The video featured two narrators and, a Caucasian American narrator and an Arabic speaking narrator, both of whom are fighters with the Islamic State. What follows is transcribed from the video in question entitled: Inside The Khilafah.
To the observant listener, the narrator says that the Amir of IS still alive, referencing him in the active present tense. IS mocked the Taliban for pretending Mullah Omar was still alive even when it was painfully obvious, that he was long dead, any Caliphate becomes illegitimate, if the Caliph is dead and a replacement is not announced. No one can give bayah, pledge allegiance to a dead man if their Caliph is truly dead IS would be obligated to announce his replacement under law (sharia).
The following is the transcribed video, video transcription by Wade Bailey, source Al-ḤAYĀT media center: “Despite the fierce and unrelenting campaign against the Islamic State may Allah preserve it. The State Wallamduillah, continues striving to carry out Allah’s order and to wage war on the Satatnic monetary system of the Tawagheet. Following the release of the gold dinar and silver dirham, the Islamic State is now rolling out the copper fez denomination of coins into the marketplace, to help facilitate smaller financial in a shari manner. The correlation between the new Islamic State coins has been set by the monetary committee, the value of the dinar corresponds to the market price of gold, while the value of one dirham is set, to the value of 100 fals. All goods and transactions must be priced and conducted using the new Islamic currency. This includes everyday goods as well as contracts, wages and services, including services provided by the Islamic State’s various departments. Wherever the Islamic State coins are available it is forbidden to deal with, the insidious banknotes that have no intrinsic value, and are printed at will by the Tawagheet. The subjects of Amir-ulmukhmineen are now cooperating and working closely, to ensure the successful implementation of the new Islamic currency. We ask Allah Azza wa-Jal, to bless this initiative and make us amongst the forerunners of those forbidding what is evil and enjoining that which is good.
English translation by al-Maqalaat dd May 10, 2017
English translation of the recent statement by Hay’at Tahrir Shaam concerning the Astana deal.
“The legal position concerning the latest events and developments facing the Syrian revolution.
All praises are due to Allah Who said: “We will, without doubt, help our apostles and those who believe, (both) in this world’s life and on the Day when the Witnesses will stand forth.”
And the Exalted Who said: “Permission is given unto those who fight because they have been wronged, and Allah is indeed able to give them victory.”
And the most complete peace and blessings for always be upon our master and leader the Messenger of Allah, and his family and companions and those who adhere to them. As for what comes forth;
The series of plots against the Jihad of the people of Shaam and their blessed revolution is still ongoing and the latest chapter and most evil one is the Astana agreement. The sacrifices of the people of Shaam and their revolution and Jihad and blood and prisoners are sold on the market of regional and international bargains. As a contract was signed which achieves the interest of the international parties except the interest of the Syrian revolution and Shaam and its people.
The change of names does not change the realities, and the Muslims of Shaam will not be fooled by flashy slogans which try to fool them that they seek to bring an end to the bombings, while in reality, it is an attempt to deviate their revolution and a theft of their sacrifices with the excuse of protecting them. And they seek to break the backbone of the Mujahideen who are defending them in a way which prevents the regime from re-establishing its authority over them. And if the Muslims in Shaam would accept the equation: sacrificing the revolution to stop the bombing in return. Then they would not have revolted against the tyrant of Shaam in the first place and they would have accepted the tyrant himself similarly to these offers.
And in front of this reality which we pass through we have received news from multiple sources of unprecedented movements by some remnants of previous corrupt factions. And these movements seek to force and enter at the border and from there to the heartland of the liberated territories in Idlib and elsewhere. In a new conspiracy to achieve that which the disbelieving forces like the Russians and the Rawafid and the Nusayriyah were unable to achieve in all of these passed years; in terms of breaking the motivations of the Mujahideen and defeating them or taking over the territories, the Sunni Mujahideen liberated. These movements are carried out by a group of remnants of corrupt factions of whom the leadership were satisfied with loyalty to covert projects at the expense of the revolution of the people of Shaam and their Jihad. As they are preparing to assault the remaining territories of the revolution and Jihad in concordance with the resolutions of Astana.
And in accordance to these suspicious movements and sudden preparations the Fatwa council in Hay’at Tahrir Shaam has decided the following:
Firstly: agreeing to the Astane deal and accepting it is a betrayal to Allah, his messenger and the believers, also [ a betrayal ] to the blood spilt and efforts put forth in liberating the Muslims in Shaam from the shackles of the Nusayri [ sect ] , and a conspiracy to eliminate the Jihad and revolution in Shaam, and preparation to assign authority to the Nusayris again, and submitting the country and people to the disbelieving occupiers, by exercising the methods of guardianship over the Muslims of Shaam. So it is obligatory upon every Muslim to work on breaching this deal, oppose it, expose its reality and uncover those behind it.
Secondly: these gatherings and remnants are groups of corruption, agents, and mercenaries, despite their different names the factor that unites them is corruption in the lands, there isn’t a major sin that they haven’t committed in the lands they land upon, such as plunder of wealth, properties, dishonoring the Muslims and terrorizing those who are safe.
Due to this, repelling whoever intends to corrupt the revolution and Jihad from these people or other than them is a type of Jihad in which the aggressor who corrupts the religion and worldly matters is repelled, and it is obligatory upon every Muslim. They should rather fight deadly than to let them occupy the areas liberated by the blood of the Mujahideen. And if Allah writes death for one of us in those situations then what a blessed martyrdom it is in the sake of Allah and striving against his enemies. And it is obligatory upon the masses to fight those criminal remnants, and sacrifice the valuable than to allow those corrupters to advance towards any area under any pretext or banner.
And this ruling includes these remnants and also those who cooperate with them or allow them to work under their banner, all of them are the same in the ruling of the obligation to repel and fight them.
Finally: to our honored people in the guarded Shaam and land of resurrection and gathering, and to our soldiers and soldiers of all the Sunni factions we say, seek help from Allah Almighty in striving against your enemies until Allah judges between us and them, and do not enfeeble, sorrow, weaken or despair. Fight in defense of your religion, border, honor, land, revolution and Jihad.
“And Allah will surely support those who support Him. Indeed, Allah is Powerful and Exalted in Might.”
“O you who have believed, persevere and endure and remain stationed and fear Allah that you may be successful.”
And praises are due to Allah the Lord of the worlds.
Soualiga Youth 