The Caudeacus

[mynameis]

Twin Snakes

When i first encountered this idea when it was late at night and I was playing MGS (Metal Gear Solid) for the Playstation a decade ago. What you may ask does MGS have with the Caduceus vs the Staff of Asclepius (http://drblayney.com/Asclepius.html)? My simple answer is good versus evil and the stripes of the barber shop's pole.

From mythology, Zeus (Dyeus Pita, Horus) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Father) made Maia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maia_%28mythology%29) (Gaia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_%28mythology%29), Ma'at (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%27at) or Prthivi (Dhghom Mater), Demeter (Da Mater) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_mother) his wife settled in the slopes of Mount Cyllene. It was in this cave that their son Hermes was born. Ancient Greeks attribute to Hermes (Thoth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth)-like) many innovations; the flame of Prometheus, he constructed the first lyre and flute, and introduced words and numbers like Thoth, he invented medicine, astrology, weights, measures, and commerce, and he carried the Cadeuceus.

Kundalini is a Sanskrit word meaning either "coiled up" or "coiling like a snake." There are a number of other translations of the term usually emphasizing a more serpent nature to the word - e.g. 'serpent power'.

Symbols of the Caduceus and its coiling snakes is also from an ancient symbolic representation of Kundalini physiology. Which comes from the concept of Kundalini yogic philosophy of ancient India and refers to the mothering intelligence behind yogic awakening and spiritual maturation. It might be also regarded by yogis as a sort of deity, hence the occasional capitalization of the term.

In some cases, depictions of the Greek kerykeion can be radically different from that of the traditional caduceus. These representations will feature the two snakes atop the wand (rod), crossed to create a circle with the heads of the snakes resembling horns. In this form, it looks remarkably similar to the symbol for the planet Mercury — Mercury is the Roman name for Hermes, who carries the kerykeion, or caduceus. The basic power of the Caduceus is the primal power to heal or harm. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus)

While the symbol of the Caduceus, a staff with one or more snakes, has been used for healing. The idea of the Hippocratic oath comes into use.

As with most mystery schools and guilds, his oath goes as:


I swear by Apollo, Æsculapius, Hygieia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgement, the following Oath.

To consider dear to me as my parents him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and if necessary to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art if they so desire without fee or written promise; to impart to my sons and the sons of the master who taught me and the disciples who have enrolled themselves and have agreed to the rules of the profession, but to these alone the precepts and the instruction.

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death.

Nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion.

But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts.

I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.

In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.

All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.

If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath)

Physicians have rarely changed these techniques from the days of early Egypt. Early Greeks historical and mythic writers like Homer and Herodotus have studied these mythic events and many other philosophies in Alexandria Egypt. All the knowledge of the pre-flood culture and of the known world at the time was housed in Egypt by Alexander the Great (sometimes depicted with horns). What other reasons would the Greeks have known that DNA exists besides the Greeks?

Juno was unhappy with Jupiter's infidelity, and saw Hercules as a living, breathing symbol of her shame. She delayed his birth, and when Hercules was a mere baby (but a big one!) sent two snakes into the crib he shared with his mortal half-twin Iphicles. Hercules killed them both with his bare hands, marking the beginning of his career as a monster-killer. (http://www.comfychair.org/~cmbell/myth/hercules.html) Once again the twins theory comes into play with snakes.

Even less known is the most ancient of the Egyptian Ogdad religion which depicted the gods and goddesses as amphibian dualities.

Socrates described men and women like these gods. At one point men and women were conjoined the same yet at one point, the Gods split the male and female sides and then they would be forever in search of their other half, while the gods would have twice the numbers for wor(k)ship. Again more evidence DNA through copulation and the need for programs of breeding certain racial qualities and selections. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogdoad)

Uraeus was a Greek word that may have its origins in ancient Egyptian, meaning "she who rears up". As the Uraeus was seen as a royal symbol, Horus and Set were also depicted wearing one. Another name for this is the term "Totaf" found also in the Bible. (http://www.crystalinks.com/uraeus.html) This is also associated with the Egyptian goddess Wadjet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadjet).

As we know, Moses (also depicted with horns) and the wizard of Ramses battled with staffs and snakes in the bible. Moses's staff like the Egyptian wizard's become snakes. One snake was good, the snake Moses possessed with the power of god, while the other snake was evil namely the Pharaoh's wizard's snake.

How far we have strayed from this original intent of the Hippocrates's snakes. Ideas behind the sacred staffs and the oaths struck me further when I just thought the exact opposite of the Hippocratic oath. Was there an oath that thrived doing on harm. How could such an oath had existed within the conscious or unconscious psyche of the human mind? Maybe you never looked closer at barber poles?

Brain surgery in ancient Egypt was well known and documented. Bloodletting was a well known practice for curing sickness and for restoring the vitality. Physicians believed certain humorous fluids within the body were spoiling and needed drainage. If there ever was a different use for healing knowledge perhaps to harm the pole suggests that it may have been used with torture methods. Religious inquisitions might have gotten ideas for torture from the Greek philosophers themselves.

A barber pole is a type of sign used by barbers, a pole with white and red stripes. The origin of the barber pole is associated with the service of bloodletting. During medieval times, barbers also performed surgery on customers. The original pole had a brass basin at the top (representing the vessel in which leeches were kept) and bottom (representing the basin which received the blood). The pole itself represents the staff that the patient gripped during the procedure to encourage blood flow.

The red and white stripes symbolize the bandages used during the procedure: red for the blood-stained and white for the clean bandages. Originally, these bandages were hung out on the pole to dry after washing. As the bandages blew in the wind, they would twist together to form the spiral pattern similar to the stripes in the modern day barber pole. The barber pole became emblematic of the barber/surgeon's profession. Later the cloths were replaced by a painted wooden pole of red and white stripes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber's_pole)

Colors of the barber pole showed three ideas. First, the differences between the left and right heart aorta intakes and outflows, second, the idea of two pieces for the snakes the DNA of the human being, third, the good versus the evil that exists within that person as part of their established make up.

Metal Gear Solid features twin brothers one Liquid Snake, and the other Solid Snake. Both are clones created from the genetic material of Big Boss. From a mythological standpoint, the story between the two brothers reminds me of Hercules and his brother Iphicles. One brother was good while the other turned somewhat supernaturally evil. Why would this happen.

Hercules was created differently from birth than was Iphicles. Hercules had something else making him innately different and godlike compared with Iphicles. Twin Snakes depicted the result of one type of genetic influence over the other. When one version of DNA was multiplied and reinforced the linage the DNA purity was stronger.

In the past before the mythical fall of mankind, humans suffered a kind of genetic damage against the purity of our DNA. Maybe it was stronger and less diverse ages ago. When DNA purity happened accidentally from detailed examples from myth, perhaps the chance of what we call the supernatural happened. A person became imbued and gifted by the gods.

Occurrences of these kind vary, but I think this may be the key pieces of evidence for our devolution and our coming discovery of the next stage of human evolution. I hope I haven't wasted time posting this. It's very long and drawn out, but pseudo-archeology doesn't hold a candle with real evidence.

[tru3]

there is indeed quite a bit on the caduceus out there.

it appears in vedic literature, in the context of descirbing the energy system of the human body. the central column, the shushumna, is flanked on either side by the ida and the pingala; one flows upward, one flows downward (i can never remember which is which :confused: ) it looks something like this:

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/3406/caduceustheomorskelao1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

hope this is helpful. :)

[mynameis]

http://www.livevideo.com/video/genefire/4D5A038D29C14656ABD13B871E21D83C/the-reptilian-truth-to-the-new.aspx

[mynameis]

Caduceus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_%28symbolism%29)

Sumerian Ningizzida with two griphons or the Sphinx - Eagles / Harpies.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Ningizzida.jpg

From another website I attend. I am including these links also.

The word El was found at the top of a list of gods as the Ancient of Gods or the Father of all Gods, in the ruins of the Royal Library of the Ebla civilization, in the archaeological site of Tell Mardikh in Syria dated to 2300 BC. He may have been a desert god at some point, as the myths say that he had two wives and built a sanctuary with them and his new children in the desert. El had fathered many gods, but most important were Hadad, Yam and Mot, each of whom has similar attributes to the Greco-Roman gods Zeus, Poseidon or Ophion and Hades or Thanatos respectively. Ancient Greek mythographers identified El with Cronus (not Chronos).
You're almost correct on the mythological assertion. Yam is a synonym for El. I am not sure about that because you've stated that he's his own grandpa.

Incidentally the Egyptian gods aren't the god of Israel, but there are customs that have passed on through them. See Akhenaten: It's now possible to assert that he as a Judean/Egyptian (Hykosos) King, whose mother may have been Judean. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten)

El or Elohim is associated perhaps with Tehwom or Apep / Set. I don't know how correct that assertion is but the Rabbi would know. Tehwom appears when light hits a reflecting pool, the gleaming light from the surface is the Tehwom or presence of the light or the surface of their supposed god.

When on the ocean when the sun rises that image is readily available and seen. The surface of the earth is curved so the horizon in the distance sits the reflection of light play from the sun on the surface of the water. I'm not 100 percent correct, but the logo on the Pepsi can, the winged disc, and showing Set and Apophis both as the shining one have lead me to conclude these assertions.

The oldest correlation with all these post-flood cultures goes back from sets of amphibian frog or reptile like gods and pre-flood to the Sumerian trinity of Marduk, Inanna, and Utu/Shamash.

If the research is correct, I'm still following the research the origins of the Ba'al Bek Temple Mount, where Alexander said to sacrifice. How was it built et cetra. Ba'al Bek may not have a connection to the sites there, but I am waiting to see what happens with the Bosnian stuff, of late.

The oldest symbol to follow from the pre-flood culture may be the statuette sizes and maybe the beards like Dagon who is the ancient form Prometheus. Dagon was said to have spread religion, culture and language through from the East to the West. In Chinese mythography this indicates that Dagon's tail like the fish may have been serpent-like.

In the Indian culture this would be people the like the serpent-like Naga. In the west the serpent in the garden of evil brings knowledge while in the east the serpent is a form of power and good luck. This is no mistake but an attempt at control by eastern religions over the people of the west, I think. Naga's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naga_%28mythology%29)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3a/NagaPhnomPenh.jpg/280px-NagaPhnomPenh.jpg

The Dravidian Indo-European influence on religion lines may come from the Indian east, I am still trying to familiarize and lock down the possibility through following the different mountain religions of the area.

[mynameis]

Genius and Juno

In Roman mythology, every man had a genius and every woman a juno (Juno was also the name for the queen of the gods).
This aureus of Hadrian shows the Genius of the circus.

Originally, the genius/juno were ancestors who guarded over their descendants. Over time, they turned into personal guardian spirits, granting intellect and prowess. Sacrifices were made to one's genius/juno on one's birthday.

The juno was worshipped under many titles:

* Iugalis - protected marriage
* Matronalis - protected married women
* Pronuba - protected the bride
* Virginalis - protected virginity

In addition to each genius/juno of individuals, regions, families, households and cities had a genius. The genius of the Roman race was a winged, naked youth. The genii dedicated to places were usually depicted as snakes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius_%28mythology%29



Larvae

In Roman mythology, the larvae or lemures were the spectres or spirits of the dead; they were the malignant version of the lares. Some Roman writers describe lemures as the common name for all the spirits of the dead, and divide them into two classes: the lares, or the benevolent souls of the family, which haunted and guarded the domus or household, and the larvae, or the restless and fearful souls of wicked men. But the more common idea was that the Lemures and Larvae were the same. They were said to wander about at night and to torment and frighten the living.

On May 9, 11, and 13, the Lemuralia or Lemuria, the Feast of the Lemures, occurred, when black beans were offered to the Larvae in the hopes of propitiating them; loud noises were also used to frighten them away.

Lemurs were so named by Linnaeus for their big eyes, nocturnal habits and unearthly noises they make at night. Some species of lemur were identified by their calls before scientists had seen individuals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larvae



Causes of Melancholy. God a cause.

He can make the proudest spirits stoop, and cry out with Julian the apostate, Vicisti, Galilæ: or with Apollo's priest in Chrysostom, O cælum! O terra! unde hostis hic? What an enemy is this? And pray with David, acknowledging his power, "I am weakened and sore broken, I roar for the grief of mine heart, mine heart panteth," &c. Psalm xxxviii. 8. "O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chastise me in thy wrath," Psalm xxxviii. 1. "Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken, may rejoice," Psalm ii. 8; and verse 12, "Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, and stablish me with thy free spirit." For these causes belike Hippocrates would have a physician take special notice whether the disease come not from a divine supernatural cause, or whether it follow the course of nature. But this is farther discussed by Fran. Valerius de sacr. philos: cap. 8. Fernelius, and J. Cæsar Claudinus, to whom I refer you, how this place of Hippocrates is to be understood. Paracelsus is of opinion, that such spiritual diseases (for so he calls them) are spiritually to be cured, and not otherwise. Ordinary means in such cases will not avail: Non est reluctandum cum Deo (we must not struggle with God). When that monster-taming Hercules overcame all in the Olympics, Jupiter at last in an unknown shape wrestled with him; the victory was uncertain, till at length Jupiter descried himself; and Hercules yielded. No striving with supreme powers. Nil juvat immensos Cratero promittere montes, physicians and physic can do no good, "we must submit ourselves unto the mighty hand of God," acknowledge our offences, call to him for mercy. If he strike us, una eademque manus vulnus opemque feret, as it is with them that are wounded with the spear of Achilles, he alone must help; otherwise our diseases are incurable, and we not to be relieved.

http://www.exclassics.com/anatomy/anat33.htm



Saturn

(Latin: Saturnus) was a major Roman deity of agriculture and harvest. He was identified in classical antiquity with the Greek deity Cronus, and the mythologies of the two gods are commonly mixed.

Saturn's wife was Rhea's equivalent -- not Magna Mater. Saturn was the father of Ceres, Jupiter, and Veritas, among others. Saturn had a temple on the Forum Romanum which contained the Royal Treasury. Saturn is the namesake of Saturday (dies Saturni), the only day of the week to retain its Roman name in English. The planet Saturn is also named after the Roman god, being the furthest observable planet of the seven classical planets of antiquity.

[edit] Early concept

Before the influence of Greek culture on the Roman psyche, Rome had their own gods. These gods were referred to as the numina, which means "powers", "presences", or "wills". The early Romans looked at their gods in a much less poetic and more practical way. Their gods were not usually associated with a form much less with a gender, and no stories were told about the numina. They were closely connected with everyday life. The most notable numina were the Lares and Penates.

Originally, Saturn was an ancient Italian god of fruit, and in this light had a more wholesome relationship with Demeter or Gaia.

Saturn was one of the numina and was said to be protector of sowers and seeds. His wife, Ops, also helped the harvest. Later, as Greek culture increasingly influenced Roman religion, Saturn became associated with Cronus, the Titan and father of Jupiter. In this way, Saturn was personified, and a great number of stories came into being about him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_%28mythology%29




(Saturn) The God of Melancholy

I was wondering about the curious title of The Rings of Saturn after finishing the book because although the book is about lots of different things, astronomy is nowhere writer's concern. After thinking about it for some time I came to some interesting conclusions.

The book starts with the following epigraph from an encyclopedia entry on the rings of Saturn:

The Rings of Saturn consist of ice crystals and probably meteorite particles describing circular orbits around the planet's equator. In all likelihood these are the fragments of former moon that was too close to the planet and was destroyed by its tidal effects(-->Roche Limit)

The planet Saturn is generally considered to be the patron god of melancholy. A god for sadness? You will ask. Well, as it turns out, the Greeks were not a very happy people. They understood the tragedy of human condition much better than today's channel surfing and crack-wise-with-friends generation. But that doesn't solve the puzzle of the meaning of the title. Does Sebald mean that the beautiful thing (the moon) that once was, is now destroyed as perhaps does every other thing, and is now replaced by another beautiful thing by some mysterious force in nature which takes care of transience and mutability of everything. The rings, perhaps, remind us of the inevitable cycle (and hence the rings) of destruction that history goes through. This is what he writes somewhere else in the book:

"On every new thing there lies already the shadow of annihilation. For the history of every individual of every social order, indeed of the whole world, does not describe an ever-widening, more and more wonderful arc, but rather follows a course which, once the meridian is reached, leads without fail down into the dark."

Sebald, not surprisingly, doesn't believe in the idea of historical progress, his view of history is more attuned to Nietzschean eternal recurrence. Whatever has happened will happen again and whatever is happening has already happened before in the past!

The title may also signify the strange connection between beauty and sadness. Doesn't anything beautiful also leave you with a faint feeling of sadness, by thinking that what you are looking at will not last, will perish sooner or later. And if you want to cling or attach to that beautiful thing, it will ultimately result in pain and a feeling of loss. Or the connection may also mean that when you are sad the world looks more beautiful. This may sound strange. And yes to some extent it is definitely false. After all who can forget Hamlet's (the most famous depressive in literature) lament when he compares earth to a sterile promontory and the overhanging firmament to a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours and cries out in pain as to how weary, stale, flat and unprofitable the uses of the world are to him. But be that as it may, an enlightened sadness (of the kind the narrator of the book feels) does sharpen your perception and cleans up your mind. So that you start seeing new things which were hidden earlier when you were happy and hidden connections between things and everything starts making sense in a mystical, elevated sort of way. I already sound like a new age lifestyle philosopher and Guru who wants to sell the idea of salvation through sadness and I hate that. So I will stop now.

http://marcelproust.blogspot.com/2005/05/god-of-melancholy.html




Saturn Devouring His Son

Saturn Devouring His Son is the name given to a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It depicts the Roman myth of Saturn, who, fearing that his children would supplant him, ate each one upon their birth. It is one of the series of Black Paintings that Goya painted directly onto the walls of his house sometime between 1819 and 1823. After his death it was transferred to canvas and now resides in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_Devouring_His_Son


Kroni (Tamil:குறோணி) is a figure in Ayyavazhi mythology. He is the primordial manifestation of evil, and manifests in various forms of evil, such as Ravana and Duryodhana, in different ages or yugas. In order to counteract and destroy the evil of Kroni's manifestations, Mayon (a Tamil name for Vishnu), incarnates as avatars such as Rama and Krishna. He is analogous to Satan in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. He shares many similarities with the demon Kali of the Mahabharata and Kalki Purana.

Kroni in the Akilattirattu Ammanai

According to the Akilattirattu Ammanai, the Ayyavazhi holy book, Kroni was born in the first of the Eight Yukams (aeons) with multitudinous limbs each the size of a mountain, and was the first evil to be born in the Universe. He had a fire of ravenous hunger in his stomach, and he drank all the waters of the sea to quell it. The water being insufficient, he swallowed Kailayam, the abode of Shiva, and the proceeded to devour the entire Universe. Mayon, residing with Shiva in Kailayam, escaped promptly and undertook a Tavam to receive a boon from Sivan in order to destroy the Kroni. Shiva granted the boon, but made Mayon aware of the necessity to Appear in different forms for the successive six yukams in order to destroy the six fragments of the Kroni. Being aware of the mission, Mayon sliced Kroni into six fragments, and saved the Universe. With that event the first Yukam came to an end.

[edit] Fragments of Kroni

The six fragments of Kroni were then born as evil spirits (or Asuras) in six successive Yukams (aeons). In all the yukams Mayon had to incarnate in the world to destroy the evils. The six fragments were then known as

1. Kuntomasali
2. Thillaimallalan and Mallosivakanan
3. Suraparppan Sinkamukasuran and Iraniyan
4. Ravanan
5. Thuriyothanan and the Ninety-nine Brothers
6. Kaliyan

Kroni, the spirit of Kali Yuga, is said to be omnipresent in the present age, and this is one of the reasons why followers of Ayya Vazhi, like other Hindus, believe that the current yuga, Kali Yuga, is so degraded.

[edit] Philosophical View

Philosophically Kroni is viewed as the evil which preventing the Soul from getting the obsolute bliss or knowledge. The six-fragments were considered as six evils found in the six chakras except Sahasrara of physical Human body. It was told that every human beings should overcome the qualities of six fragments (ill effects) and should attain divinity (Sahasrara) the state of union with God.

But this view was often criticised by some followers because the Akilam did not mention this Kroni directly as relation with Chakras. But since it is believed that, many philosophical concepts are symbolised indirectly as mythical figures in a story form in Akilam, this view on Kroni is accepted during religious studies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kroni

[tinmenace]

http://www.globalfailure.com/images/180-caduceus-stlouis.jpg

http://www.jamesmuir.com/caduceus-sculpture-by-james-muir.html#

Just one of the more interesting Caduceus sculptures I've seen.

[mynameis]

Uraeus and Nehustan of Moses:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/snake6.jpg

Golden Uraeus of Senusret II

In 1920, after only a half-hour excavation, the Qufti worker Hosni Ibrahim held in his hands the solid gold Golden Uraeus of Sesostris II. It had been decided to make a (follow-up) complete clearance of the El-Lahun Pyramid's rooms, at Saqqara. The start in the rock-cut offering chamber, leading from the sepulchre, on the south, immediately revealed in the turnover of the 6 inches of debris, the Golden Uraeus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uraeus), crown ornament.

Prior to the 1922 find of Tutankhamun's tomb, this Golden Uraeus was the only ornament ever known to be worn by a king.

The Golden Uraeus is of solid gold, 6.7 cm, black eyes of granite, a snake head of deep "ultramarine" lapis lazuli, the flared cobra hood of dark carnelian inlays, and also inlays of turquoise. For mounting on the king's crown, two loops in the rear-supporting tail of the cobra, provide the attach points.

Besides, the Uraeus being used as an ornament for "Statuary", or as an adornment on the king, it was also used for jewelery and in amulets. However another important usage is as the Hieroglyph.

The simplest hieroglyph is the "Cobra" (the Uraeus), however there are subcategories, referring to: goddess, priestess, the goddess Mehnit, shrine of goddess (àter), goddess Isis, and lastly goddess: (Cobra (uraeus) at base of God (ntr)). The Rosetta Stone uses the plural of the last example, "3-god 'Flags' with Cobra at each base of flag ". The story of the Rosetta Stone has the king (the Priests of the king), listing His reasons for being honored, and in return, "The Gods and Goddesses (plural)" reward Him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uraeus
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/snakesofegypt.htm


The Tomb of High Priest Djedptahiufankh

Three separate mummy bandages dating to Years 5, 10 and 11 of Shoshenq I were found on Djedptahiufankh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djedptahiufankh)'s body. Djedptahiufankh's burial was found intact and undisturbed, and his mummy was personally unwrapped by Gaston Maspero himself in 1886. A web link below gives a clear photo of his mummy and a discussion of his career. It also mentions some of the jewelry, in the form of gold rings, amulets and a uraeus, among other items, which were found on his body.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djedptahiufankh


Wadjet:

In Egyptian mythology, Wadjet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadjet) (also spelt Wadjit or Wedjet, and in Greek, Udjo, Uto, Edjo and Buto) was originally the local goddess of the city of the same name, Per-Wadjet, named after her. As the patron goddess, she was associated with the land, and so became considered a snake, usually a cobra, which were omnipresent around the area. Indeed, her name means papyrus colored, a reference to the Cobra's skin.

Eventually, she became the patron goddess of the whole of Lower Egypt, and since she was linked to the land, she was thought of as the wife of Hapy, the god of the Nile, which flowed through it. As patron of Lower Egypt, she automatically became associated with Nekhbet, who held the same position in Upper Egypt, and together they were known as the two ladies of the pharaoh.

As a cobra, she was depicted as such, and became confused with Renenutet, with whom her identity eventually merged. As patron and protectress, she was often shown coiled upon the head of Ra, the chief deity, in order to act as his protection, an image of her which became the Uraeus symbol. The ancient Egyptian word wedjet signifies blue, and the same word is used for the human eye. Consequently she became associated with the Eye of Ra. Indeed, in later times, she was often depicted simply as a woman with a snake's head, or as a woman wearing an Uraeus, which had originally itself been her.

In becoming the protectress of Ra, who was also a sun god, she became a goddess associated with heat and fire, and so was sometimes said to be able to send fire onto those who might attack. Consequently, she later became identified with the war goddess of Lower Egypt, Bast, who acted as another figure symbolic of the nation, consequently becoming Wadjet-Bast. In this position, since Bastet was a lioness, Wadjet-Bast was often depicted with a lion's head. Eventually, her position as patroness led to her being identified as the more powerful goddess Mut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mut), whose cult had risen to power with the cult of Amun, and eventually being absorbed into her as Mut-Wadjet-Bast.

In art, Mut was pictured as a woman with the wings of a vulture, holding an ankh, wearing the united crown of Upper and Lower Egypt and also a dress of bright red/blue, with the feather of Ma'at at her feet. Alternatively, as a result of her assimilations, she is sometimes depicted as a cobra, a cat, a cow, or as a lioness. Some of Mut's titles included World-Mother, Eye of Ra, Queen of the Goddesses, Lady of Heaven, Mother of the Gods, and She Who Gives Birth, But Was Herself Not Born of Any.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadjet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mut


And they would lose the way of Moses:

The Nehushtan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehushtan) (or Nehustan, Hebrew: נחושתן or נחש הנחושת) is a sacred object in the form of a bronze snake upon a pole. It is most well known for its mention in the Bible where it was used by Moses to save the Israelites from snake bites. The Bible also records that it was worshipped for a period of time in the Kingdom of Judah and incense was offered to it. It was therefore destroyed by King Hezekiah as idolatrous.

The Book of Numbers provides an origin for an archaic bronze serpent associated with Moses, with the following account:

"Forwards

21.9. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
21.8. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
21.7. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
21.6. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Backwards

21.9. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
21.8. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
21.7. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
21.6. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died."


Its worshippers were called Naassian, and Hezekiah called the snake, in contempt, "Nehushtan", a brazen thing, a mere piece of brass (2 Kings 18:4). This, however, may be a subtle play on words: heb. נחש (nachash) means serpent while נחשת (nachoshet) means brass or bronze.

When the young reforming king came to the throne of Judah in the late 8th century BC:

"He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan." 2 Kings 18:4.

In fact, remnants of the northern kingdom, together with some of the Naassian, actually protested Hezekiah's destruction of Moses' creation by memorializing both the bronze serpent and Hezekiah himself among the stars of the summer constellations, perhaps Serpens and Ophiuchus.

The dual -an ending specifies that the idol was of two snakes upon the pole, the familiar entwined snakes on the staff that survived in Hermes' caduceus and the single snake on the Rod of Asclepius.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehushtan


The Ark of God:

In the Qur'an

There is a brief mention of the Ark of the Covenant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_of_the_Covenant) in Islamic literature. This mention is in the middle of the narrative of the choice of Saul to be king. The Qur'an states:

And (further) their Prophet said to them: "A Sign of his authority is that there shall come to you the Ark of the Covenant, with (an assurance) therein of security from your Lord, and the relics left by the family of Moses and the family of Aaron, carried by angels. In this is a Symbol for you if ye indeed have faith."
002:248

Various historical Islamic scholars have stated that the Ark may have held a chrysolite or ruby figure, with the head and tail of a she-cat and with two wings. Al-Tha'alibi, in "Qisas al-Anbiya" (The Stories of the Prophets), give an earlier and later history of the Ark.

According to a few Muslim scholars, the Ark of the Covenant does not have a religious basis in Islam, and Islam does not give it any special significance. Others believe that it will be found by Mahdi near the end of times. These Islamic scholars believe inside there will be relics left by the people of Moses and the people of Aaron. There might be the sceptres of Moses (eg., Nehushtan), Aaron's rod, Plates of the Torah, and Aaron's turban.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_of_the_Covenant
http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmuseum/Ark_of_the_Covenant_Replica.htm



Aaron's Rod (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron%27s_rod)

A later tradition asserts (Hebrews 9:4) that the rod was kept in the Ark of the Covenant. The main fact, however, is thus confirmed, that a rod was preserved in the Tabernacle as a relic of the institution of the Aaronic priesthood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron%27s_rod

The Aaronid priesthood reacted differently toward the Nehushtan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehushtan) bronze serpent's destruction. The Aaronid priests, seeing the bronze serpent as a constant reminder of Moses' ascendency over Aaron, were not unhappy at its destruction.

[i am all i am]

G'day Mynameis.

http://www.dreamstime.com/caduceusmedicalsymbol-thumb1625075

http://webzoom.freewebs.com/garyosborn/Chakras.jpg

These pictures are from this thread, and there is some other aspects of the thread that you may be intersted in.
http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2119&highlight=origins+knowledge

With LOVE.

[mynameis]

Corrected order

The Book of Numbers provides an origin for an archaic bronze serpent associated with Moses, with the following account:

Forwards:

21.9. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

21.8. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

21.7. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

21.6. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Backwards:

21.6. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died."

21.7. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

21.8. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

21.9. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

[zircon]

On the other thread "Snake Cults Dominated Early Arabia" there is interesting info from Rastamasta that dovetails into what has been posted here by Mynameis; and much of the research has been covered extensively by Philip Gardiner in his many excellent books.
However there may be another point not mentioned above that is that Mercury is often associated with the caudeacus and with serpent imagery, being also the same as Hermes and Thoth, ie a messenger from the "gods", and the preserver / bringer of skills, technology and arts after the destruction wrought by the deluge.
This is highlighted in "Hamlet's Mill" a book asked about in earlier threads. Mercury holds a secret an this is represented by a labyrinthine way, intertwining dual forces. This seems to have been well-known by the ancients. Egyptian Thoth weighed the souls of the dead; and nearly all masonic symbols are hermetic in character. The Emerald tablets and the Vision of Hermes: Poimandres (where secrets of the universe are revealed) are hermetic (connected to the god mercury whose symbol is the caudeacus)
Look here http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta08.htm
This line is one of many important ones:
Thus, suffering is the result of the Immortal Man's falling in love with His shadow and giving up Reality to dwell in the darkness of illusion; for, being immortal, man has the power of the Seven Governors--also the Life, the Light, and the Word-but being mortal, he is controlled by the Rings of the Governors--Fate or Destiny.
And
After the lower nature has returned to the brutishness, the higher struggles again to regain its spiritual estate. It ascends the seven Rings upon which sit the Seven Governors and returns to each their lower powers in this manner: Upon the first ring sits the Moon, and to it is returned the ability to increase and diminish. Upon the second ring sits Mercury, and to it are returned machinations, deceit, and craftiness. Upon the third ring sits Venus, and to it are returned the lusts and passions. Upon the fourth ring sits the Sun, and to this Lord are returned ambitions. Upon the fifth ring sits Mars, and to it are returned rashness and profane boldness. Upon the sixth ring sits Jupiter, and to it are returned the sense of accumulation and riches. And upon the seventh ring sits Saturn, at the Gate of Chaos, and to it are returned falsehood and evil plotting. Then, being naked of all the accumulations of the seven Rings, the soul comes to the Eighth Sphere, namely, the ring of the fixed stars. Here, freed of all illusion, it dwells in the Light
The Egyptians likened humanity to a flock of sheep. The Supreme and Inconceivable Father was the Shepherd, and Hermes was the shepherd dog. The origin of the shepherd's crook in religious symbolism may be traced to the Egyptian rituals. The three scepters of Egypt include the shepherd's crook, symbolizing that by virtue of the power reposing in that symbolic staff the initiated Pharaohs guided the destiny of their people.
This staff may be symbolic of the Caudaecus.
"Iamblichus averred that Hermes was the author of twenty thousand books; Manetho increased the number to more than thirty-six thousand ... Among the arts and sciences which it is affirmed Hermes revealed to mankind were medicine, chemistry, law, arc, astrology, music, rhetoric, Magic, philosophy, geography, mathematics (especially geometry), anatomy, and oratory"

[zircon]

Twin Snakes. Twin Snakes depicted the result of one type of genetic influence over the other. When one version of DNA was multiplied and reinforced the linage the DNA purity was stronger.....In the past before the mythical fall of mankind, humans suffered a kind of genetic damage against the purity of our DNA. Maybe it was stronger and less diverse ages ago. When DNA purity happened accidentally from detailed examples from myth, perhaps the chance of what we call the supernatural happened. A person became imbued and gifted by the gods....Occurrences of these kind vary.... I hope I haven't wasted time posting this..

I found your posts really interesting!!!! And I'd like to know if you see any connection with previous posts that I put ealrier on this thread about the left- and right- side control, that I see showing through in people, (in their "glace") and which displays the degree of control by "gods" - hidden in the balancing effects of the assymetry of the face.

In connection with your comments about the Twins, I think there is a connection to the age of Gemini. This could have been the period when the DNA intertwining was carried out. Before that and after the deluge (and I feel, re-positioning of the astral bodies that created the new period of entrapment on Earth in a reality-matrix) the successsive stages were related to the re-introduction of languages and cultures: this breeding and nurturing stage of humanity in a state of ignorance (Ages of Leo and Cancer) led to more advanced DNA manipulation later on. The age of Gemini I feel is the symbolic group-consciousness or memory of this. Gemini of course is rules astrologically by Mercury and this reveals the link to Hermes/Thoth..

The Hermetic texts tell us to go back through the rings (spheres of power) and to free ourselves of the influence of these successive ages of increased control of us by outside agencies. In other words to return to the source. This would be a time when the DNA was stronger; less interfered-with. What's your view?

[zircon]

Another point is that "El" meant "shining, filled with light, heavenly or angelic" but this would refer again to the special effect of the intertwining red and white and the increased "power". Power of course can be compared to dangerousness and fearsomeness, ie having dragon-like qualities. These are clearly visible as I've said before in the lef- and right- side "glance" of any person being influenced in this way.
One then comes back to the stories of "Elfs"; from Wikepedia:
The word elf (álf) has been traced back as far as the theoretical Proto-Indo-European root word *albh meaning "white", from which also stems the Latin albus "white", and the Portuguese, Spanish and English albino, conected to the word "Albion"
In order to protect themselves against malevolent elves, Scandinavians could use a so-called Elf cross (Alfkors, Älvkors or Ellakors), which was carved into buildings or other objects. It existed in two shapes, one was a pentagram and it was still frequently used in early 20th century Sweden as painted or carved onto doors, walls and household utensils in order to protect against elves.
The elves could be seen dancing over meadows, particularly at night and on misty mornings. They left a kind of circle where they had danced, which were called älvdanser (elf dances) or älvringar (elf circles)

On lake shores, where the forest met the lake, you could find elf circles. They were round places where the grass had been flattened like a floor. Elves had danced there.... It could be dangerous and one could become ill if one had trodden over such a place or if one destroyed anything there.

Any comments please?

[zircon]

Elfs often stole babies and replaced them with identical "TWINS" ie the child was changed in some way - into a "changeling"..... the same body but with a different spirit.

[mynameis]

You are correct about the idea of the changelings and all the information you posted. I am working with all the local mythography I can find that extends backward to the earliest point where culture hasn't been systemically destroyed. I can think of these possibly in the mountain regions extending through the Alps to China and various regions of the Mid-East. Also of note those mountains have evolved to higher points over time, therefore civilizations at the foot would gradually be carried to the peaks. It would be harder to find an ancient mountain civilization because of this, I believe.

Also as I noted that the exposure to sunlight's radio particles can change the DNA and damage it. After this type of damage the DNA is less pure and re-combined in different ways. As we grow older the code of DNA becomes shorter and shorter and eventually leads to Apoptosis or Type I cell-death or Autophagic or Type II cell-death. If indeed the Sun changed its frequency the DNA would have been damaged in certain ways. The elder Egyptian gods (Amphibian frog types) and parables of Socrates (How man and woman were two parts of a separated whole, hard to explain how he thought about this) along with the story of the rib of Adam shows this some what.

I'm glad you found the post interesting and are seeing with another added perspective, but it's just an inkling that I have been following for a very long time with mythography. Other's have valid perspectives, and I'm not wanting to taint other's I just want others to be more aware. I am going to try and advance my knowledge in the Indian mythography and note similar contours between the findings that I've seen already for a source of origin. Many believe the source is lost in the Mountains and time will show us whether that is correct.

[zircon]

Interesting. I'd be keen to know what you think about some of Phil gardiner's ideas though, in general. My own fields of research are pretty wide-ranging and my earliest lines of in-depth study were into astrology and mythology. Then history, ancient history, and economics and politics, philosophy. I'm involved in communications consultancy, and also healing therapy. The area of language, its origins and structure, interest me greatly. I'm looking more into the way the brain works, though I have no medical expertise in that area.

[zircon]

..... I am working with all the local mythography I can find that extends backward to the earliest point where culture hasn't been systemically destroyed. ..... Also of note those mountains have evolved to higher points over time, therefore civilizations at the foot would gradually be carried to the peaks. It would be harder to find an ancient mountain civilization because of this, I believe. .... The elder Egyptian gods (Amphibian frog types) and parables of Socrates (How man and woman were two parts of a separated whole, hard to explain how he thought about this) along with the story of the rib of Adam shows this some what. ....

I feel it's more plausible that the residence of cultures in higher-lying areas is to do with finding afe places of retreat from the advancing water-levels at a certain time. Evidence for this is given in Hancock's "Underworld" and "When the Sky Fell" by Flem-Ath (which also makes reference to languages in the high Andes that contain peculiarities, and the myth that the bearded tall folk that lived there rarely if ever descended to mix witht he coastal communities, and even had placed the women-folk at an even higher altitude in case of further flood dangers)

I wonder if you have seen S.Oppenheimer's book?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Origins-British-Genetic-Detective-Story/dp/1845291581

This argues that the inhabitants of the B.Isles were and are most closely linked to the Basques in the DNA (The basques have an unusual and rare blood-type as you may know) and who themselves linguistically are linked (in place-name and other spelling similarities) to ancient sumeria. Given that all the western regions of Europe have myths about settlement from the west and by sea, after the deluge, and (for me) the fascinating idea that Britain was visited by traders from the eastern Med, - the recent discovery of ancient copper mines in Wales, the likely fact that the bronze and iron age settlements in England included huge white chalk-covered cities and pyramid mounds - and that the Caesars were determined to eradicate the Druidic culture (and not forgetting the suggection that Joseph of Arimathea and (mother) Mary took refuge in the so-called fortunate isles, actually backed up by a comment by st.Augustine I believe), this new pointer towards a very old genetic link to the eastern Med, the Balknas, and also Finland, is very important. Francis Prior is of course well-known also for his view that pre-Roman Britain was advanced as an agrarian society (as much as the tigris/euphates area) with extensive communications links to the rest of the world.

Can you tell me more about the Soctrates reference there? It's possibly part of Platonic "mysticism", which has so many impo

[mynameis]

Before the war of the gods man are created by the gods work tool so that gods would have people to work and bring them sustenance.

A.) Man created by Hephaestus (I-Jephaethus) / Prometheus.
B.) Woman spawned through man or separately as the Pandora event.

Man in this age is content and at peace. Prophecy states then that a coming war between god and Titans (Demon like creatures) will occur. We get the same versions and excerpts of this myth from different sources. There is two different ways the myth is told:

1.) Men were unisex and are divided to increase the productivity and worship of the gods before the prophecy.

2.) Man is divided by the gods for the creation of demigods like Herakles for the coming war.

As predestine, the war will occur when the titans become free from Gaia's womb, the inner earth (make your own conclusion about that). Next of course is the mythology behind man and woman. After the division of the soul of mankind Zeus declared that the gods will be made safer, and mankind will be resigned forever to look for their soul mate or other half. This is one way how the ancient Philosophers understood how males and females function differently.

http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Cronos.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cronus

Despite all these events, which some have called barbarous, Cronos has been celebrated for having ruled the world under the period known as the Golden Age, which is the first age of man. At this time there were no punishments, no swords, no helmets and no threatening words, and even to eat the flesh of oxen was held a crime. And being so, war was unknown and life passed in gentle ease. This was the time when spring was everlasting, and streams of milk, nectar and honey flowed in abundance. And, as unbelievable as it sounds, this was the nature of the rule held by the one who castrated his father: a time and a rule without pain, during which the earth, without compulsion, brought forth great stores of all kinds of needful things, and men lived secure never cheating or destroying each other.

During the reign of Cronos, they say, men did not have children, for at that time, when the universe revolved backwards, all humans came out of the earth and were therefore called AUTOCHTHONOUS. And for that very reason there were no families or states and nothing of what comes with them. Instead, humans had the ability of conversing, not only among themselves, but also with all kinds of animals, and were able to learn from every creature. For all these reasons the men of the Golden Age are believed in any respect to have been happier than those of the following ages. This rule lasted until Zeus overthrew his father and banished him to Tartarus, land of darkness and death in the depth of the Underworld.

http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Cronos.html

Pandora
(She knowing or unknowing let's death enter the world or a kind of disease called by either a cancer or sin on mankind as punishment)

In Greek mythology, Pandora ("all-gifted") was the first woman. Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create her as part of the punishment of mankind for Prometheus' theft of the secret of fire, and all the gods joined in offering her seductive gifts. Her other name, inscribed ("[ ]nesidora") against her figure on a white-ground kylix in the British Museum, is Anesidora, "she who sends up gifts." According to the myth, Pandora opened a container jar (pithos) releasing all the evils of mankind— greed, vanity, slander, envy, pining— leaving only hope inside once she had closed it again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora

[zircon]

Hello My name is; some interesting points about the Golden Age and about Pandora, and about Moses and the snakes etc. Large parts are occulted to make their reading unclear. The opening of the third eye, and the combining of Kundali into the rising serpent has to be handled with care. It can be part of a technique for withstanding the forces of control. In previous times the focus of conscience development on other areas such as national, group and individual power, cultural identity, tribal identity etc as we go back in time, take us back towards a Golden Age of "innocence". We were innocent in the sense that people were one with nature and the animals, using art to contemplate the future. But interference from outside forces with a focus on the later stages, leading now to the current industrial exploitation of humanity, and this has yet to be fully replaced/confronted by a greater ethical (galactic) consciousness. Kundalini energy can help protect ourselves from the negative serpent. The important thing now is to enjoy the ride. ALLOW everything, then choose wisely. As someone very wise said to me, when you follow your heart, it's all there. I think looking back to the earlier consciousness tends to reveal the degree of control held by those negative serpent forces. One huge aspect of this was convince us that we are bad !and incapable of making our lives be in balance with the universe and Earth. Anyway Earth herself is out of balance now, and like us, struggling to restore herself, release ourselves from war, mutilation, power and being dumbed-down and broken. Anything that continues to cause that has to go, of course. Stories about the past can contribute to that ignorance and sometimes help us to break out of that state, too.

[mynameis]

Segment available July 25 at this URL
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3411/02.html

It's all in the epigenes
Until recently, most scientists agreed that our genetic makeup was hard-wired into our DNA. But the once-scoffed science of epigenetics -- which proposes that newer, environmentally formed traits can be passed on to our offspring -- is gaining support in traditional circles
Daniel Tencer, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Saturday, August 26, 2006

Arturas Petronis and Moshe Szyf know a little something about the fads of science. As pioneers in the budding field of study known as epigenetics, they took their share of abuse for supporting scientific theories that, for many years, were considered heresy among most scientists.

Mr. Petronis, head of epigenetics at the University of Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, once applied for a research grant, and received the following anonymous written comment: "This is shit."

Mr. Szyf, a professor of pharmacology at McGill University in Montreal, had a proposed research article of his described as "a misguided attempt at scientific humour."

"What they do is crush any opinion that doesn't fit theirs," Mr. Szyf says. "I was told not to work on (epigenetics) if I ever wanted a career."

But what a difference a few years makes. Mr. Petronis and Mr. Szyf are now both mini-celebrities in the increasingly accepted field of epigenetics, which postulates that there is a "second code" of programming on top of our DNA, a code that -- unlike DNA -- can change during our lifetimes. In the past half decade, epigenetics researchers have theorized that our diet, the chemicals we are exposed to and even our behaviour towards one another can cause changes in the way that our genes are expressed -- and some of those changes may even be passed on to future generations.

That, in turn, has caused many scientists to rethink almost everything we know about how genetic information is passed on from parent to child. The traditional view of genetics has been almost deterministic: We are born with a code that dictates everything we are, physiologically. Our genes work the same way from the day we are born to the day we die. Our destiny, geneticists said, was written in our DNA. But now scientists are beginning to think that people aren't just shells to carry on DNA, but rather the "caretakers" of our genetic code. How we live, epigenetics researchers say, changes the way our genes function, and some of those changes can be passed on to our children and grandchildren.

This is a seismic shift in our view of heredity, but to understand how we got to epigenetics, first we have to look at genetics.

Remember the Human Genome Project? A decade ago, it was the darling of molecular biologists everywhere.

Thousands of scientists in hundreds of labs deciphering every gene in the human body, creating a comprehensive map of human DNA structure. Once completed, proponents said, it would clue us in to almost everything that happens with humans: The likelihood of contracting a particular disease, the effectiveness of a particular treatment, even our propensity towards violent or criminal behaviour, would be read like an open book by geneticists.

But as genetics-mania swept the world through the 1990s and the Human Genome Project came to fruition, it slowly became clear that DNA would not answer all the questions scientists had believed it would. Researchers expected to find at least 100,000 genes in the human body, but found only a fraction of that -- less than 30,000. Diseases that were obviously hereditary, such as diabetes, did not seem to have a gene that determined if a person would develop the disease -- only genes that suggested a predisposition to the disease. Scientists cloned animals that, though identical in DNA to the original, had different physical traits from the original and suffered rare and inexplicable diseases.

Slowly, one of the fundamental tenets of genetics began to implode, and scientists had to start looking seriously at the idea that people inherit more than just genes.

"The scientific community thought that the Human Genome Project was going to be the complete story," says Jeffrey Besterman, chief scientific officer at the Montreal-based firm MethylGene. "People thought that just knowing the sequence of DNA in humans was going to be adequate. But it turns out that that's actually just the beginning."

Enter epigenetics. The basic science behind it had been theorized for some time. As much as 30 years ago, researchers proposed that there are chemicals that attach themselves to our DNA and change the way the genes function.

The idea was meant to answer some fundamental questions that genetics could not. One of those was the problem of identical twins. Even though twins carry the exact same DNA, it has been known for decades that one twin can develop hereditary diseases the other one does not.

This was the problem Mr. Petronis set off to explore about eight years ago. He noticed that in about half of the cases of schizophrenia found in twins, only one twin developed the condition, even though schizophrenia is widely considered to be genetic.

"After 50 or 60 years of study, there was no specific explanation of twin discordance," Mr. Petronis says. "Ninety-nine per cent of geneticists still believe environmental factors play a role, but when you ask for specifics, they can offer nothing."

By studying sets of twins where one twin had a psychiatric disorder and the other didn't, Mr. Petronis found the psychiatric patients had more in common with each other, epigenetically, than they did with their own twins.

"Any two random people share 99.7 per cent of their DNA, but at the epigenetic level, people are very, very different," Mr. Petronis says.

(This may also help to explain why recent attempts at cloning animals have met with less than total success. Scientists may be properly cloning the genetic sequence, but not the epigenetic sequence, giving rise to errors in replication.)

But the more controversial and eyebrow-raising aspect of epigenetics has to do with heredity. Evidence is beginning to mount that the epigenetic code, or at least parts of it, can be passed down from parents to their children.

One of the most prominent backers of this idea is Marcus Pembrey, a geneticist at University College London in the U.K. who studied the unusually detailed historical medical records of the isolated northern Swedish city of Overkalix. What Pembrey and his colleagues found was astonishing: The grandsons of men who experienced famine during mid-childhood went through puberty earlier and had longer lifespans, while the grandsons of men who were well fed in early childhood had an increased likelihood of diabetes. For females, the effect was similar but it was tied to the grandmother, rather than the grandfather.

"This is not a 'trickle-through' (of genetic material), this is clearly an evolved response," Mr. Pembrey says. He speculates that the purpose of such a response "would be to adjust early growth and reproduction to accommodate unpredictable or adverse environments."

Mr. Pembrey then looked at a contemporary study of two generations of families living in Bristol, England. He found that fathers who had started smoking before age 11 had sons who were significantly fatter than average. There was no similar effect on daughters.

For the first time, it seemed there was a scientific basis for that old adage that the sins of the father are visited upon the son.

Mr. Pembrey points out that his research is not the first evidence of genes having the ability to "remember" experiences. He cites a 1913 book by A.T. Swain,

The Earth, Its Genesis and Evolution Considered in the Light of the Most Recent Scientific Research, which describes an obscure discovery by the famed 19th-century psychologist and physician Ivan Pavlov. In experiments on mice, Pavlov found that the children of mice who had learned to navigate a maze had an easier time learning the maze than their parents had -- and the grandchildren were able to learn the maze even faster than the children.

Other research in recent years has backed up Mr. Pembrey's hypothesis. Michael Skinner, director of Washington State University's Center for Reproductive Biology, exposed a group of pregnant rats to methoxychlor, an insecticide, and vinclozolin, a fungicide, both believed to cause infertility. He found that not only did the rats' offspring suffer from an increased infertility rate, so did the next three generations of descendants, without any further exposure to the toxins. His research identified two genes that appeared to have undergone epigenetic changes.

Mr. Skinner told the press: "This is a new paradigm for medicine and explains how our environment could impact our health, and generations to come."

l

Yet the idea that what we are exposed to can be recorded in our genes and passed on to our descendants is still controversial, even within the field of epigenetics itself.

"You ask five people to interpret these findings, you get five different answers," Mr. Petronis says, adding that the interpretation of cross-generational data is "very speculative."

"There could be lots of compounding factors."

That's something Mr. Pembrey and other epigenetics researchers concede.

"We have observed trans-generational responses, but of course that doesn't prove that they're (caused by) epigenetic inheritances," Mr. Pembrey says. "This is purely speculative. But not entirely wild speculation."

The major problem with epigenetics is that researchers still know so little about it. According to Mr. Szyf, we have yet to learn 90 per cent of what there is to know about how these processes work, and figuring it all out will be "much more complicated than reading genes," he says.

"Epigenetic codes are moving targets. They could change at any time. And the same gene, one gene, could have 700 epigenetic programs. So that complicates things."

Mr. Szyf, who is editor-in-chief of the newly-launched scientific journal Epigenetics, the first publication devoted to the field, has done research linking epigenetic changes to social interaction -- yes, even the way we behave toward one another can apparently change the way our genes work.

With his colleague Michael Meaney, a researcher at Montreal's Douglas Hospital, Mr. Szyf showed that rats whose mothers groom and lick them when they are young grow up to be much calmer than rats whose mothers neglected them.

Nothing surprising about that -- we all understand the importance of good child-rearing. But what was surprising was that Mr. Szyf and Mr. Meaney found epigenetic changes to be the cause. By nurturing their young, the rat mothers activated a gene that suppressed the creation of cortisol, a stress hormone. The neglected pups did not have that gene activated, produced more cortisol, and therefore were more stressed out.

Perhaps most interestingly, Mr. Szyf and Mr. Meaney were able to increase the well-nurtured rats' stress by injecting them with methionine, an amino acid commonly found in food supplements. Although in this case the treatment was negative (it caused the rats to have more stress), Mr. Szyf and Mr. Meaney demonstrated that something as simple as a chemical in our diet can cause fundamental changes in the way our genes work -- in this case, changing the individual's emotions and state of mind.

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Of course, researchers are still many years away from developing drugs that could therapeutically alter the function of our DNA, but that doesn't mean they're not trying. Montreal-based MethylGene is one of the first pharmaceutical companies in the world to focus exclusively on epigenetic drugs.

Founded a decade ago, the company has developed two kidney cancer-fighting compounds, designed to "turn on" a gene that suppresses tumours. If it proves successful in trials, it would be one of the first medical treatments in the world built on the science of epigenetics.

Because cancer is a disease of the genes -- it is essentially the uncontrolled and unregulated reproduction of DNA -- it is an obvious first target for epigenetic medicine. But MethylGene CEO Don Corcoran says altered versions of the drugs could potentially work on other, non-cancer diseases.

By targeting different enzymes, MethylGene hopes to develop drugs that would aid in the fight against Huntington's disease, for which there are currently very few therapies, as well as fungal infections and diabetes.

"So even though the diseases are completely different, you might b able to fix them with a similar process," Mr. Corcoran says.

But if serious progress is to be made in understanding epigenetics, it will require a thorough map of how the epigenetic code works. In 2003, a consortium of public and private firms in Europe began the first Human Epigenome Project, which aims to have 10 per cent of the human epigenetic structure mapped by this fall.

Just last month, the group released its first major findings, comprehensively mapping the epigenetics of three human chromosomes. The researchers found that about one-fifth of the genes in those chromosomes can have their behaviour changed.

But the European epigenome project is relatively small, with only three participating organizations. Last December, a group of 40 prominent cancer researchers called for the creation of a wide-scale Human Epigenome Project, one they expect would take at least a decade to sift through the complex data. With new research papers on epigenetics now coming out at a frenzied pace, the full-scale project seems increasingly likely to become reality soon.

So what can we glean from all this? We have reason to believe that the food we eat, the chemicals we ingest and even our parents' behaviour towards us can all change the way our genes function. But what can and should we be doing to protect ourselves -- and our descendants -- from harm? Few are willing to say just yet.

But Mr. Pembrey doesn't beat around the bush. "Childcare has a whole new meaning," he says. "Given that we have shown exposure-sensitive periods in mid-childhood and fetal life, the responsibility would appear to fall on the parents and those charged with the care and protection of children."

Mr. Szyf agrees that what we know about epigenetics adds a whole new moral dimension to our own behaviour, but he cautions against jumping to any conclusions about what parents should be doing, until we know more about how it all works.

"We shouldn't walk around worried that everything we do will affect our grandchildren," he says. "It will, but we can't do anything about it except to do the things we were taught to do through evolution or social evolution.

And we should be careful about changing things without knowing what we're doing. Because they may have consequences we never thought of."

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/observer/story.html?id=0e301579-a587-4825-961f-ee4eb4f690f9

Other reference notes:
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NewAge/Lucis_Trust.htm