The Secrets of the Gods 23. The Theogony

Once again in each other’s arms and far from the Garden of the Gods, Enki and Ninhursag continued their love story without disturbance, which gave results, according to world myths. In the Book of Genesis from the Old Testament, after being banished from the Garden of Eden, „Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from Yahweh. And she again bare his brother Abel” (4:1-2). Cain became a farmer while Abel a shepherd. After some time, the brothers brought a sacrifice to their god: Cain „from the fruit of the ground” and Abel „from the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof„. The biblical god chose the younger brother’s offering, which aroused jealousy in the elder one. So, one day, Cain killed Abel. The biblical god found out and banished him „in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden„. Not long after, „Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For Yahweh, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew„. In addition to these three, Adam and Eve „begat sons and daughters„. The story of the first two sons is by no means a real chronicle of the past, but is actually copied from the myths of other peoples. For example, the part where the brothers brought offerings to their god, who chose that of the shepherd Abel, is identical to the Sumerian legend in which the goddess Inanna, in order to choose a husband, asked the shepherd Dumuzi and the farmer Enkidu to present the fruits of their labor; being more delighted with meat than porridge, the goddess chose the shepherd. The two brothers seem to be the biblical copies of Enki and Enlil. In Akkadian, Abel (the name given by the Greeks to the biblical Havel) means „Lord of Water”, being made of from „a” („water”) and „bel” („Lord”); Enki was the god of water, whom the Babylonians called Ea, meaning „House of Water”. The Sumerians believed that Enki taught people how to herd animals while Enlil taught them agriculture, exactly the occupations of the two biblical brothers. In world myths Enlil took his brother’s throne and sent him to the Underworld. For example, in Egypt, the shepherd Osiris was killed by his brother, Seth; in the Bible, Cain killed the shepherd Abel. The Greek name of Adam and Eve’s third son, Seth (Shet in Hebrew), is undoubtedly the name assigned by the Greeks to the Egyptian god of storm and desert. As these characters, copied from other cultures, were included in the biblical story, we have no reason to take them serious. We keep only the simplest statement: Adam and Eve „begat sons and daughters„.

The Bible does not mention how many children the Divine Twins had, but we find out their number from the Sumerian epic Enki and Ninhursag. The action takes place in Dilmun, „a pure place (…) a clean place (…) a shining place„, where „the lion did not kill, the wolf did not steal the lamb, the dog who killed children was unknown, the boar who devoured grains was unknown„. There, Enki impregnated Ninhursag, who gave birth to Ninsar („Lady of Vegetation”) or Ninmu („Beautiful Lady”) after only nine days. Enki also lay with his daughter, and from their union Ninkurra („Lady Ruler of the Land”) was born, who was herself impregnated by Enki, giving birth to Uttu („Vegetation”). The god also slept with his great-granddaughter, but Ninhursag took his seed from Uttu and buried it in the ground, from which eight plants grew. Eating the fruits of those plants, Enki was cursed by his sister and became pregnant. Since he did not have female genitalia, the god could not give birth and became ill, with eight organs affected. Seeing him dying, Ninhursag forgave him and, to heal him, removed the seed from his body and inserted it into her own womb. In a short time, the goddess gave birth to eight minor deities (Abu, Nintulla, Ninsutu, Ninkasi, Nanshe, Azimua, Ninti and Enshag), who healed the god’s organs affected by the curse.

Of the 11 children, only Ninsar / Ninmu was conceived naturally by the Divine Twins, which means that Sophia did indeed acquire from her union with Anu / Bythos the ability to reproduce. Ninhursag did not contribute in any way to the birth of the goddesses Ninkurra and Uttu, and the last eight seem to have been made through in vitro fertilization. Ninsar was called Inanna by the Sumerians and Ishtar by the Akkadians, being often mistaken with her mother. For the Egyptians she was Hathor, for the Scandinavians Hel, for the Greeks Artemis, for the Hindus Kali, for the Canaanites Anat, and the list goes on. Ninsar / Ishtar was the much-desired child of Sophia, born from her two halves. If the spirits torn from Enlil were incarnated in animals and plants on Earth, Ishtar was conceived in the usual way of the aeons. It is said that during tantric sex, believed to have been invented by Shiva and Shakti (Enki and Ninhursag in Indian religions), the bodies, minds and spirits of the partners merge. Sophia’s halves or the spirits of the two gods merged and Ishtar was born from their mixture. Thus, Sophia was divided into not just two, but three entities, one male and two females. It is curious that although the aeons always gave birth to a pair consisting of a male and a female entity, the Divine Twins managed to create only one child. Probably, the limitation imposed by matter did not allow things to proceed as in the spiritual world of the aeons.

Enki was not satisfied with his first child, preferring a male child instead. For this reason, in the Enki and Ninhursag epic, he slept with his daughter. Seeing that one of the two feminine parts of Sophia could not offer him a son, he hoped to obtain the desired result from his mating with the other one. This is the episode from Vedic mythology in which Prajapati pursued his daughter to rape her. Unfortunately for him, a new girl, Ninkurra, was born. The god of wisdom did not give up and tried again, but the result was a new goddess, Uttu. He would probably have tried endlessly to obtain a son if he had not been stopped by his beloved sister and wife who poisoned him, thus affecting his eight organs. Promising to stop that desperate attempt, Enki received the antidote. Taking his seed which she implanted in her womb, Ninhursag tried to help him obtain a son through genetics, resulting in eight children, the sons and daughters of the first humans mentioned in the Bible. But none of them were what Enki desired. Genetically, they were all identical to the Divine Twins. However, in those bodies there were no parts of Sophia, but rather spirits torn from Enlil, like all beings born on Earth in the animal and plant kingdoms. The fallen aeon (or, more precisely, the mixture of Sophia and Theletos) was at this point of the story divided into five distinct entities: Enki, Ninhursag, Ishtar, Ninkurra and Uttu. Which was too much. Because he had consumed a part of his own energy that composed his spirit for each of his daughters, Enki decided to reunite himself. In Greek myths, Cronus swallowed all his children, only Zeus being saved by a trick, from which we conclude that the god absorbed his daughters just as Sophia assimilated Theletos. The only one who escaped this treatment was Ninsar / Ishtar; the other two were not as lucky, which is why they do not exist in the world myths.

It seems that not all celestial gods wanted to prevent sexual relationships between the Divine Twins. In the Apocryphon of John, the leader of the archons, Enlil, „implanted the desire for intercourse in the one who belonged to Adam. And he produced through these unions images of bodies and he infused them with a hostile spirit„. In the Old Testament, a serpent is the one who convinced Eve to taste the forbidden fruit of sexuality, „The Serpent” being the epithet of Enki. But what if the biblical writers did not use a metaphor in this case, but tried to create an image as close to the truth as possible? We know that energetic entities can not interact with the three-dimensional world without material bodies. Enlil is said to have come to Earth to separate Sophia into two different entities, for which he created bodies. However, it is not specified what body he possessed during that visit. Since humanoid beings did not exist until the making of the Divine Twins’ bodies, it is logical to assume that Enlil entered the body of an animal that existed on our planet at that time. Thus, it becomes possible that he was the reptile that convinced Eve to enjoy the „fruit of knowledge” with Adam, sowing in her „the desire for intercourse„, as mentioned in the Apocryphon of John. Why would he want the Divine Twins to copulate? Undoubtedly, because a child born of them would have meant a new division of Sophia, that is a reduced power for his enemy, the rebel aeon. If he divided her in two to be able to control her, we suspect he would have had nothing against dividing her into three or more parts.

The rest of the aeons / celestial gods did not share his belief. Considering that they forbade the Divine Twins from engaging in sexual relations and then tried to separate them, driving Enki out of the Garden of the Gods, we understand that they feared a child born of Sophia’s halves. Why? We can try to find out the reason by discovering what happened in the immaterial world of the aeons at the moment of the exiled aeon’s „sin”. For Gnostics, the primordial aeon, Autogenes, from which all others were born, was an „indestructible” light, in other words a form of positive energy. The aeons resulting from him were also forms of positive energy, some males and others females. Many other cultures believed the same thing, as exemplified by Kitab al-Milal wa-al-Nihal („The Book of Religions and Sects”), written in the 12th century by Shahrastani: „The light brought forth the beings of light, all spiritual, luminous and divine„. The spiritual Pleroma functioned according to a well-established order; male aeons mated with their partners, giving birth to other pairs, also made of positive energy. Sophia did not follow the rules, committing a „lawlessness under the pretext of love„, as Bishop Irenaeus claimed in Against Heresies. First, she became an androgynous aeon by assimilating Theletos, which was a first. The only androgynous being until then was the primordial aeon, Autogenes. However, if Autogenes split into a male and a female entity, Sophia achieved the opposite. When she set off to mate with Bythos / Anu, the aeons were frightened. In Pistis Sophia they all „became angry with her and hated her„. Some Gnostics claimed that Horos was made then to stop Sophia. The fear of the aeons was justified, considering that no one knew what effects the action of the rebel one could have. Until that moment, pairings only occurred between male and female entities; now they were faced with one between a male aeon and an androgynous one. Disregarding the laws of nature could lead to a universal imbalance, a catastrophe of enormous proportions. Unable to be stopped, Sophia tried to „comprehend the greatness of the Father„, which had an unexpected result: „she found herself caught in an agony of the mind” and „was thrown back towards herself„. Naturally, that union with the overly powerful Heavenly Father should have destroyed her. However, being part of the immortal Autogenes, like everyone else, she could not be killed („Then she could not reach her end, for it was impossible„), as there is no death on the spiritual level. However, she was „in danger of being absorbed into the greatness of God and dissolved into his absolute essence„, which could cause the dreaded universal imbalance. When she assimilated Theletos, her female part could be mixed with his male one, becoming an aeon with the same nature as Autogenes. However, mixing one male and one androgynous could not lead to anything good. For this reason, Horos / Enlil „kept her out of the ineffable greatness„, then trapped her in matter, to prevent a possible repetition of the episode. Even though the cosmic disaster was avoided in time, a change occurred. Not at the universal level, but in Sophia. The moments when „she was thrown back towards herself” and her trapping „in an agony of the mind” transformed some of the light from which she was made into darkness or some of her positive energy into negative one. Evil was born then, as many religions from the earliest times until today claim. For Kabbalah, the destruction of the vessels that supported divine emanations caused chaos and a rupture in the Universe, which reminds us of the episode of the birth of negative energy. In Christianity, Lucifer’s rebellion caused the birth of evil, and he changed from an angel of light into a hideous creature of darkness, an obvious allusion to Sophia’s transformation. We do not know the proportion between the two types of energy she was made of, but we can deduce that, with her division into Enki and Ninhursag, the amount of her negative energy began to increase. A new division would have meant a new increase of the „darkness”, which would explain the fear of the celestial gods about the birth of a child of the Divine Twins. From the world myths it appears that Ishtar was identical to her mother, with the ancients often confusing them; the major difference between the two female thirds of Sophia was the highly emphasized negative side of the daughter. Ishtar was depict in most religions as a ruthless warrior, capable of anything to achieve her selfish goals, a different image from that of Ninhursag, praised as a divine mother who takes care of all her earthly children. At the same time, it seems that the male part of Sophia was formed from a higher quantity of negative energy, with Enki often being portrayed in a negative light by our ancestors, unlike his sister and consort. He was blamed for Sophia’s sin, he was called „the great deceiver” and he commanded the forces of darkness against Enlil. If the splitting of Sophia increased the amount of negative energy in her, especially in the male entities, we understand why Enki desired a son so much. Only a male heir, born of him from Sophia, could have the power to stand up to the god of storm, Enlil. And if this hypothesis is correct, the Enki and Ninhursag myth shows a transformation of the god of wisdom. Each division of the fallen aeon increased the amount of negative energy in the newborn child and decreased the positive energy; therefore, Ninkurra and Uttu were made of more „darkness” and less „light”, compared to the Divine Twins. By assimilating them, Enki introduced a larger amount of negative energy into his own spirit, which significantly changed him. For this reason he expelled his other half, for whom he could have endured any punishment from the Council of the Gods not long ago. And this transformation of the god of wisdom convinced the celestial aeons that things had gotten out of control. Enki could no longer be left free, but needed to be imprisoned; Enlil was to descend to Earth to take power from the god of wisdom and restore order in Sophia’s prison. However, like any spiritual entity, in order to live in the three-dimensional world, Enlil needed a material body. Not just any body, but one similar to those of the Divine Twins, with superior DNA, capable of sustaining his powerful spirit. A body born of Ninhursag.

In the Hittite legend Kingship in Heaven, „Kumarbi swallowed the manhood of Anu” and became pregnant. Although „he spit from his mouth and mixed together the manhood of Anu„, he gave birth to three gods, including Teshub, the god of storm. Hesiod’s Theogony contains a similar account, with Cronus castrating his father with a sickle. Since both attackers are different aspects of Enki, the episode described by the Greeks and Hittites represents the forced union of Sophia with Bythos from the world of aeons. Anu prophesied to Kumarbi that he would be dethroned by one of his sons, just as Uranus did to Cronus. Unlike his Hittite counterpart, titan Cronus fathered children naturally with his wife, Rhea, whom he immediately swallowed after they were born. One of them, Zeus, was saved by his mother and hidden in a cave on the island of Crete. There, the future god of the sky and storm was fed with milk from the goat Amalthea and honey brought by the nymph Melissa („Bee”). After growing up, Zeus freed his siblings and together they defeated their father, taking over the throne of the Earth.

In Egyptian mythology, the birth of Seth also took place in secret. When Ra forbade the goddess Nut from giving birth during the 360 days of the year, she was given five extra days by the god Thoth. In those days she secretelly gave birth to five children, one of whom was Seth, the god of storm and desert. If for the Greeks the birth took place in a cave, for the Egyptians the event occurred in the desert. Seth, like Teshub and Zeus, are alter-egos of Enlil.

Before the birth of the Indian Krishna, it was prophesied that he would destroy evil on Earth, just like in the legends of Zeus and Teshub. Krishna was born in a prison, where his mother had been held by her brother, King Kansa. The birth was miraculous, Krishna being conceived not through sexual contact, but through „mental transmission” (or, more precisely, through artificial insemination). Krishna’s life was threatened from birth, just like Zeus and Seth, as King Kansa ordered all infants to be killed. The child was saved after a voice from the sky advised Krishna’s mother to cross the Jamna River, where they could no longer be reached by the evil king. The Indians believed Krishna to be the incarnation of the god Vishnu, that is Enlil of the Sumerians, thus confirming the story of the Greeks, Egyptians and Hittites. Kansa was the brother of Krishna’s mother, just like Enki and Cronus for Ninhursag and Rhea.

Surprisingly more or less, there is a reference to the birth of Enlil in the Old Testament: „Therefore Yahweh himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good” (Isaiah 7:14-15). A child fed with milk and honey just like Zeus, born of a virgin like Enlil, who will choose good and reject evil… It may seem like a coincidence, but not if we look at the name carefully. For the evangelist Matthew, Emmanuel translates to „God is with us” (1:23). However, in Sumerian, „em” or „im” means „wind, storm, weather, cloud, rain”, „anu” is „sky” or „heaven” in Akkadian (derived from the Sumerian „an„, which has the same meaning), and „el” represents the word for „deity” in the Northwest Semitic languages (including Hebrew). Therefore, the most accurate interpretation of the name Emmanuel / Immanuel is „God of storm and heaven”, none other than Enlil.

Christians interpreted this excerpt from the Book of Isaiah as a prophecy about their god, Jesus. The name of the nymph Melissa, who fed Zeus with honey in the myths of the Greeks, is used in Ireland as a feminine form of the Gaelic name Maoiliosa, which means „Servant of Jesus”. In the Gospel of Matthew, the birth of Jesus was prophesied by an angel who appeared to Joseph in a dream. Three wise men from the east saw a star that went ahead of them until it reached Bethlehem (an aircraft?) and settled above the house where the divine child had just been born. The wise men entered, worshipped him and gave him gold, incense and myrrh. Hearing that the Messiah („The Anointed One”, the savior awaited by the Jews) had been born, King Herod (like Enki and Kansa) ordered all the children up to two years old in Bethlehem to be killed. The angel appeared to Joseph again in a dream, advising him to flee with Mary and the child to Egypt, where all three hid until Herod’s death. The Infancy Gospel claims that Jesus was born in a cave (like Zeus), later being placed in a manger. In the early centuries of Christianity, a cave in Bethlehem was indicated as the place of his birth, which had previously been considered the birthplace of the god Tammuz. The flight to Egypt suggests a connection with Seth, the god of storm and desert, especially considering that to reach Egypt from Judea, Jesus and his family had no choice but to cross the Sinai Desert. We have already found many similarities between Jesus and Enlil, which led us to the conclusion that the biblical character is a copy of the god of storm. Therefore, the famous miraculous birth from a virgin, prophesied beforehand, the endangerment of the child’s life and his hiding only represent the story of Enlil. In the Gospel of Luke, the Holy Ghost entered Mary to make her pregnant after she was visited by the angel Gabriel, a story that suggests artificial insemination. Rhea and Nut (the mothers of Zeus and Seth) are aspects of Ninhursag, the one nicknamed „The Virgin„, just like the mothers of Emmanuel and Jesus in the Bible.

In the Gospel of John from the New Testament, „the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us„. In most cultures, the word represents authority. For the Sumerians, Enlil was the supreme source of authority on Earth. For the Egyptians, the ruling god Ra cut off his own phallus, from which drops of blood gave rise to two personifications of intellect: Hu („Authority”) and Saa („Intellect”). Ra was An of the Sumerians and his two children could only be the authoritarian Enlil and the god of wisdom and intelligence, Enki. Therefore, Enlil was also attributed with the authority symbolized by the Word. We also note that the Gnostic aeons are called „words” by Bishop Irenaeus and in the Tripartite Tractate. Furthermore, Enlil was also Logos of the Gnostics, which means „the Word”. The name Christ (Khristos in the New Testament) bears a striking resemblance to that of the Indian Krishna, who is the same Enlil. In Talmud, Jesus is considered the son of the Roman soldier Pandira. Although the Jews tried to hide through this statement the divine origin of Jesus, „pandira” becomes „pa-ntr-ra” in Egyptian, which means „the god Ra” („pa” – definite article always placed before the noun, „ntr” = „god” in ancient Egyptian, „Ra” – the name of the supreme god of the Egyptians). And Ra, as we saw before, was the Sumerian An, father of Enlil.

Identity confirmation of the one who gave birth to Enlil’s material body comes from the Gnostics. Bishop Irenaeus said that, according to the vision of the Sethian sect, Christ descended from the seven heavens and united with Sophia, being born in the material world as Jesus. In chapter 8 of the Pistis Sophia, Jesus said: „And after this, at the command of the First Mystery, I looked down again into the world of men, and found Mary, who is called my mother according to matter. I spoke with her in the manner of Gabriel, and when she turned herself towards the height, towards me, I cast into her the first power which I received from Barbelo, that is the body which I bore in the height. And I cast into her the power which I had received from the great Sabaoth, that is the Good, who is in the region of the Right„. In chapter 7, he also said: „And when I had come into the world, I went into the midst of the sphere of the archons and took the form of Gabriel, the angel of the aeons, and the archons of the aeons did not recognize me, but they thought that I was the angel Gabriel„. That is the angel who, in the Gospel of Luke, announced Mary she would get pregnant, which happened immediately after his departure. Coming secretly into the material world, Enlil artificially inseminated Ninhursag and he incarnated himself in the body of the baby. „And I entered into the midst of their prison, which is the prison of the body„, he said in the Gnostic text Apocryphon of John.

The Book of Revelation in the New Testament hides the same event, but also additional details: „And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads” (12:3). „And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world” (12:9), who was thrown to Earth, is Enki, the „serpent” who deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden. He „stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born” (12:4), just like titan Cronus. The woman „brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days” (12:5-6). Although Christians did not understand this episode of the Revelation, they all believe that it refers to the birth of Jesus. Decoding the text, we understand that Enki was very disturbed by the incarnation of Enlil and tried to stop his birth. However, he did not succeed, and the boy was „caught up unto God„, taken by Anu „to his throne„. It is unlikely that the boy was taken to the immaterial world of the aeons immediately after obtaining a physical body in the three-dimensional world, so we go for the more logical version of other peoples, who claimed that he was hidden on Earth, most likely in a cave. Ninhursag was also hidden, to be protected from her brother’s revenge, in a place where she stayed until Enlil’s return. „And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (12:14-17). We notice two elements that betray the real identity of the two: The dragon spewed water from his mouth, Enki being the god of wisdom and waters; the woman was saved by the earth, Ninhursag being the goddess of Earth in most ancient cultures. And so ended the love story between the Divine Twins… From the account of the Revelation we can understand that Enki attacked his sister, probably feeling betrayed, although the poor woman was impregnated without her consent. However, the author conceals a different version in his text: the water coming from the Dragon towards the woman „as a flood” may symbolize his attempt to impregnate her, sperm often being called „water” in ancient symbolism. We know that Enki ardently desired a son, but until then he had only daughters. We also know from Mesopotamian myths that Ninhursag eventually gave birth to Marduk, his long-awaited heir. In the Book of Revelation, the Beast appears from the sea, a character with an identical aspect to that of the Dragon, who „gave him his power„, undoubtedly being Marduk. Therefore, there is a good chance that the spitting of „water” towards the woman represent Enki’s attempt to impregnate her as well. The earth that opened up to swallow the Dragon’s „water”, as well as the woman’s hiding in the wilderness, could symbolize the Celestials’ attempt to prevent the birth of a potential son of Enki. From the biblical phrase „the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness” we understand that Ninhursag did not leave willingly, but was probably taken there by a flying machine.

Enlil returned after he grew up (specifically, after „a thousand two hundred and threescore days„, as the Book of Revelation claims). He imprisoned Enki in Abzu, an underground world, as the legends of many cultures claim. For example, in Egypt, Seth killed Osiris, who became the lord of the Underworld, and for the Greeks Zeus locked Cronus in Tartarus, the underworld prison. Many Mesopotamian myths depict Enki as „sleeping” in the underground world of Abzu, although they do not explain his presence there. The Japanese god Susanoo is in the same situation, with no legend to justify his move underground. However, the myths of other peoples, such as the Egyptians, Greeks and Scandinavians, reveal that the god of wisdom was imprisoned there by Enlil, who became the new ruler of Earth. He not only took his rival’s throne, but also his wife. In Aztec mythology, Tezcatlipoca, the god of storm, stole the wife of the god of water, Tlaloc. In Egypt, Seth took his brother’s widow, Isis, as his own wife. In Canaan, Asherah, the wife of El, had a relationship in the past with his brother, Dagon. For the Greeks, Hera, the wife of Zeus, also had a relationship with her brother, Poseidon. In Sumerian mythology, Damgalnuna (Damkina in Akkadian), that is Ninhursag, was the consort of both Enki and of Enlil. According to the Enlil and Sud myth, she did not willingly become the wife of her earthborn son, but was forced into it, Enlil raping her on a boat. The Gnostics confirmed the sexual assault version, with the Apocryphon of John text stating that Eve was raped by the leader of the archons. The same is found in On the Origin of the World, where not only the leader, but also other angels raped her: „And they committed deeds without thought and came to her. They seized her and defiled her (…) not in a natural but a disgusting way, defiling the seal of her first voice (…) The dominions and their angels defiled her in every way„. For the Sethian Gnostics it was not the leader, but other archons who raped her, and she gave birth to angels. The birth of sons also appears in Apocryphon of John, where Eve gave birth to two sons of the leader of the archons: Eloim and Yave, one being just while the other being unjust.

When Ninhursag became the wife of Enlil, she gave up the epithet Ninki („Lady of Earth”) and adopted the name Ninlil („Lady of Storm”). Why did the god choose her as his wife? In Pistis Sophia, referring to the „tyrants” led by Adamas, Jesus said: „And I took away from all of them a third of their power, so that they would no longer do their wicked deeds” (Chapter 15), „And I took away a third of their power, so that they could not complete their evil deeds” (Chapter 16). When Enlil arrived on Earth, Sophia was divided into three different entities: Enki, Ninhursag and Ninsar / Ishtar. The „third of their power” of the exiles is one of the three parts of Sophia. The attraction of the goddess Ninhursag to his side (by force, admittedly), namely her separation from the other two thirds, aimed to weaken the power of Sophia („so that they could not complete their evil deeds„). The Divine Twins had begun to multiply and give birth to new types of entities, stronger than ordinary spirits but weaker than aeons: angels, demons or minor deities in myths. To stop Sophia (for the umpteenth time?), Enlil had to come to Earth, imprison Enki and take Ninhursag with him. Only in this way he could hope to control things. And if the exiles were building an army, the god of storm could not face them alone. Therefore, he needed help. He needed his own army, which he obtained. Needing someone trustworthy to lead the army, the god created a new being, formed from his mixture with Sophia, a deity more powerful than any before. Myths say that Ninhursag gave birth to a son, Ninurta, initially called Ningirsu, Ninib or Ninip. According to Sumerian myths, Ninurta is the one who changed his mother’s name from Ninlil to Ninhursag. As the god of war in Mesopotamian religions, the inheritor and right-hand of Enlil, Ninurta was part of a holy triad in Nippur, alongside his parents. A very large number of hymns and incantations were dedicated to him, where he is depicted as a hero who saves the world from diseases and the influence of demons. Not just any hero, but the greatest one who has ever walked on Earth, Ninurta even managed to defeat Enki in battle. However, until the birth of Ninurta, Enlil had to lead his army alone against the rebels.

Sophia was not alone on Earth, but accompanied by other entities. In Enuma Elish, in the fight against the gods, Tiamat had her 12 children by her side. For the Greeks, Cronus and Rhea ruled over Earth with their ten siblings and their children. For Tibetans, the god with unworthy thoughts fell from heaven with few accomplices. The Book of Revelation in the New Testament claims that „the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (12:9). Christianity believes that one-third of the angelic population accompanied Lucifer into exile, influenced by a quote from the same Revelation: „His tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth” (12:4). In the fifteenth century, the Spanish bishop Alphonso de Spina claimed that 133,306,668 was the exact number of the fallen angels, based solely on his own imagination. An exorcism text dating back to the third dynasty of Ur speaks of „anunna eridu ninnubi” or „the 50 Anunna of the city of Eridu”, the gods under Enki’s command. On a tablet discovered in Ebla around 2,300 BC, Dagon (already identified with Enki) was the leader of a pantheon consisting of 200 gods. The Book of Enoch claims that 200 Watcher angels led by Azazel (the same Enki) were punished for mating with mortals. In Mesopotamia, in addition to the Anunna (the celestial gods or the Gnostic aeons) there were the Igigi („Eyes of the Earth”), called „fallen gods” in Enuma Elish, whom Enki incited to rebellion. In all the world religions there are lesser divinities who serve the great gods from both sides, usually called „angels” or „demons„. Even in present-day UFO literature, tall, blonde extraterrestrials are accompanied by small, gray ones with big heads. Being more powerful than mortals and weaker than gods, these deities cannot be aeons or spirits ripped off from Enlil, incarnated on Earth in plants or animals. Their birth is due to the Divine Twins, as ancient myths claim. In the Gospel of the Egyptians, Sophia created Sakla and Nebruel, who gave birth to the 12 serving angels who reign over Hades and Chaos. For the Sethian Gnostics, the archons raped Eve and she gave birth to angels. In Jewish folklore, Lilith (Adam’s first wife) and Samael, the same Divine Twins Ninhursag and Enki, gave birth to demons. In the Old Testament, Adam and Eve „begat sons and daughters” divided into two families: that of Seth and that of Cain. Although they are called „men„, the Bible implies that they were higher entities, due to their unusual lifespan: Seth lived for 912 years, Enosh 905 years, Kenan 910 years, Mahalalel 895 years, Jared 962 years, Enoch over 365 years, Methuselah 969 years, Lamech 777 years (753 in the Orthodox version), Noah 950 years. In the Sumerian epic Enki and Ninhursag, these descendants of the Divine Twins are minor deities created by artificial insemination, different from children born naturally (such as Ninsin, Ninkurra and Uttu). Although they all shared the same DNA, the differences were of a spiritual nature. The direct descendants of the Divine Twins were parts of Sophia; the descendants of those created in the laboratory were, like all other beings on Earth, parts of Enlil. Some of them served Enki, while others served his rival. This division of minor deities is suggested in the Bible by the two clans descended from Adam and Eve. The descendants of Seth are the servants of the one called by the Egyptians Sutah (Seth for the Greeks) and by the Sumerians Enlil; the descendants of the exiled Cain are followers of the deities into which the exiled aeon Sophia was divided. Most often, the former were considered angels and the latter, demons. The former were bird-gods, associated with day, light, the Sun, right and good, often called Celestials; their rivals were serpent-gods, associated with night, darkness, the Moon, left and evil, called Watchers in Hebrew folklore (and not only). The two sides, led by Enlil and Enki, were in a constant conflict throughout the history of Earth. Their first war took place before Enlil’s coronation as king of Earth, Enki not being willing to give up the throne without a fight.

The gods of the Scandinavians were divided into two families, who fought a long war. On one side were those from the Aesir clan, sovereign gods with martial, warrior-like character, led by Odin (none other than Enlil). Their enemies were those from the Vanir family, deities associated with fertility and wealth, in other words those of Enki. After the victory of Aesir gods, the two sides exchanged hostages, and the winners even adopted some deities from the opposing side. Thus, from the Vanir, the twin gods Freyr and Freyja, along with their father Njord, passed to the opposite side, completing with their wealth and fertility the attributes of legal sovereignty and martial strength of the Aesir clan. After this adoption, the giant Loki also appeared among the ranks of the Aesir gods, whose children were imprisoned because of a prophecy: Hel became the queen of the Underworld, the wolf Fenrir was chained underground and the serpent Jormungandr was thrown into the ocean surrounding Midgard, the world of humans.

In Hinduism, the deities were also divided: Deva (gods) and Asura (entities opposed to the gods, often called demons, like Lucifer’s fallen angels in Christianity). These two groups were in endless conflict, as revealed in the Vedas, the sacred books of the Indians. It is said that before the creation of humans, the Deva gods wanted to dominate the Asura demons. For this, they had to drink amrita, the nectar of immortality, which had been lost in the ocean of milk, probably the primordial ocean or void. Since it was difficult to extract, the gods asked the demons for help, promising them amrita as well. When the nectar surfaced, the god Vishnu (Enlil) transformed into a woman, distracting the attention of the demons so that the gods could steal the amrita. The demon Rahu took a sip of it, but was decapitated later. In an alternate myth, the god of storm Indra (also Enlil) fought the demon Vritra, who took the form of a dragon. Indra consumed a large amount of Soma to gain the power he needed, destroyed Vritra’s 99 fortresses and eventually reached the malevolent dragon. He killed the dragon after a long battle and the gods bestowed upon him the title of king for this deed. In the first form of Hinduism, the Vedic one, the names of the two sides were reversed, Asura being the good gods and Deva the malevolent ones. The Asura entities, almost identical to the Aesir from Scandinavia, took their name from the Egyptian Asar (which in Akkadian means „Prince of the Waters”), called Osiris by the Greeks and Ashur by the Assyrians. The Persians adopted both groups of deities from Vedic Hinduism and named them Ahura or Amesha Spentas (the good gods, led by Ahura Mazda) and Daevas (the demons subordinate to Angra Mainyu or Ahriman), according to the teachings of the prophet Zarathustra. Also in Persian religion the two sides were in an endless conflict, just like in most ancient religions.

In the Theogony, written around 700 BC, the Greek poet Hesiod presented the genealogy of the gods. From Chaos (the primordial void, identical to Abzu / Apsu of Mesopotamia or Nun of the Egyptians) were born Gaia (Earth), Tartarus (a space within the Earth) and Eros (sexual desire, the need for reproduction). The material world arose because of this need for reproduction, according to Gnostics. Chaos, Gaia and Eros from the Greek genesis are similar to Abzu, Tiamat and Mummu from the Babylonian Enuma Elish. Next to them Erebus (darkness), Nyx (night), Hemera (day), Aether (air) and Uranus (the sky) were born. In an alternate version, the world arouse from Chronos (time) and Ananke (fate, destiny), a name most likely derived from the Mesopotamian Anunnaki. In many ways these deities are similar to the aeons of the Gnostics. Gaia and Uranus gave birth to several children: 12 Titans, three Cyclops and three Hecatoncheires. Because Uranus locked his children in the Underworld, Gaia freed the youngest of the Titans, Cronus (a different entity from the god of time with a similar name), who castrated his father. The 12 Titans (who have the same number as the offspring of Tiamat from Enuma Elish or the angels who reign over Hades and Chaos from the Gospel of the Egyptians) became the rulers of the Earth, with Cronus being similar to the Babylonian Kingu. The Titan swallowed his children as they were born, except for Zeus (Enlil) who was saved in time. After freeing his brothers and sisters, Zeus attempted to overthrow his father, starting the first war of the gods, known by the Greeks as Titanomakhia (the Titanomachy). One side had 16 Titans (Cronus, Oceanus, Hyperion, Coeus, Crius, Iapetus, Mnemosyne, Tethys, Theia, Phoebe, Rhea, Themis, Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus and Epimetheus), and the other six gods (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter and Hera), three Cyclops and three Hecatoncheires. Prometheus and Epimetheus betrayed their family and sided with the younger gods. The adoption of these deities (and Aphrodite later) by the winning side is also found in Scandinavia, where Freyr, Freyja (similar to Aphrodite in many ways), Njord and Loki joined the Aesir gods. For the Greeks, the war took place in Thessaly, with Zeus and his followers establishing their headquarters on Mount Olympus (the highest in Greece and the second in the Balkans), and the Titans on Mount Othrys. The war lasted ten years and was fierce, as Hesiod recounted in Theogony: „a scorching blast wrapped the Titans, the sons of the Earth, while the vapor rose giant towards the divine cloud, and despite their power, they felt their eyes blinded when the lightning and thunder’s light flashed. A fierce heat run through the abyss. The sight in their eyes and the sound in their ears were like those that would be made if the Earth and sky above met„. After being defeated, the Titans were imprisoned underground in Tartarus, much like Loki’s children in Norse mythology, Osiris and Apophis in Egyptian mythology and Lucifer in Christianity. After this victory, Zeus became the king of the gods and ruler of the Earth, just like Marduk in Enuma Elish, Enlil in the original Sumerian myth, Odin in Scandinavia and Seth in Egypt.

Like the Greeks, the Celts believed that the first war of the gods took place in their land. For them, the creators of the world were the Tuatha de Danann („Tribes of the Mother Goddess Danu”) gods, a name derived from the Mesopotamian god Anu. It is possible that Danu was originally the god of heaven, being converted into the goddess of Earth during the matriarchal period. Being the tribe of Anu, we understand that the Tuatha de Danann were Enlil and his servants, the Olympians of the Greeks, the Devas of the Hindus or the Aesir clan of the Norse. Lebor Gabala („The Book of Invasions”) from the 12th century claims that, in Ireland, the gods came across the Fir Bolg people, led by Eochai, with whom they fought for the island. Since the war lasted too long, they decided that ten from each side to fight on the plain of Mag Tured. Convinced by Morrigan, the goddess of war, Nuada, the king of the gods, decided to face the opponents’ champion, Streng. Nuada lost his hand but Eochai was killed, so the Tuatha de Danann won.

According to world myths, after arriving in our world, Enlil took over his army of followers and waged a war against the exiles. Even the Book of Revelation mentions this conflagration: „And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (12:17). After the victory, Enlil was crowned king of the Earth, took Ninhursag as his wife, imprisoned Enki in the Underworld and condemned his servants to hard labor. In some versions Ishtar followed her father, becoming his wife, and in others she followed her mother, being adopted by Enlil. If this is how things went, it is possible that the Underworld where the god of wisdom was imprisoned actually exist?

We learn in elementary school that our planet was formed approximately 4.57 billion years ago. The outer surface of the planet is divided into several tectonic plates, which move relative to each other in time. The layer at the surface, called „the Earth’s crust” or „lithosphere„, is a solid crust dominated by oxides and silicates. It is made up of two parts: the continental crust and the oceanic or marine crust, with a thickness ranging from 30 to 60 kilometers. Underneath the Earth’s crust lies „the mantle of the Earth„, which has a thickness of 2,900 kilometers and is made up of plastic rocks. The mantle represents one-third of the Earth’s mass, with a density oscillating between 3¼ and almost 5 g/cm³. At the center of the planet is the „core” or „Earth’s nucleus„, with a thickness of approximately 3,400 kilometers, made up of heavy elements (especially iron), where atomic fusion reactions occur under conditions of high temperatures and pressures. The core accounts for 31.5% of the Earth’s total mass and only 16.2% of its volume, with an average density of 10 g/cm³, while the average density of the Globe is only 5.5 g/cm³. Due to the melted metals, the core of the planet generates the Earth’s magnetism under the rotation of the Earth.

This knowledge comes from geophysical and geological research, such as gravimetry and isostasy (which deals with the density and static equilibrium of rocks), volcanology, seismology, the study of meteorites for analogies and deep drilling, which in Russia has reached up to 12 kilometers (barely scratching the surface). Although we are taught all of these as absolute truths from our earliest years of school, it seems that not everyone accepts them. In 1692, astronomer Edmund Halley (who named Halley’s Comet) proposed the hypothesis of a hollow Earth with concentric spheres that rotate at different speeds. Each of these spheres has magnetic poles, atmosphere and light, with the possibility of even being inhabited. Although ridiculed, Halley’s idea did not disappear, as scientists of the time would have wished. After about half a century, Swiss physicist and mathematician Leonhard Euler resumed the hypothesis of a hollow Earth, but abandoned Halley’s spheres. Euler introduced the idea of a sun inside the Earth, which provides light and warmth to an underground civilization. In 1818, former American captain John Cleves Symmes Jr. claimed that the Earth has four concentric spheres inside and vast openings at the poles. He even proposed an expedition to the North Pole, which was approved by then-president John Quincy Adams but canceled by the next president, Andrew Jackson. In his 1829 book Elements of Natural Philosophy, Scottish mathematician and physicist John Leslie also presented the hypothesis of a hollow Earth. In Journey to the Center of the Earth from 1864, Jules Verne wrote about a prehistoric world located inside our planet. French occultist Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre claimed that he was visited in 1885 by a group of enlightened masters who live in a world called Agartha, located under the Himalayan Mountains in Tibet. The Theosophical Society took on the name Agartha, claiming that it is a vast underground system of caves, located under Tibet, inhabited by demons called Asura. In The Phantom of the Poles from 1906, William Reed promoted the idea of a hollow Earth, but without concentric spheres or inner suns. Writer Walpurga Ehrengarde Helena Hohenthal, an intimate friend of British Queen Victoria, asserted in Colloquies with an Unseen Friend (1907) that the descendants of Atlantis live in underground cities beneath a desert and that an entrance to that underground kingdom will be discovered in the 21st century. At the beginning of the last century, Martin Gardner claimed that Eskimos and Mongols came from the interior of the Earth through a tunnel located at the North Pole. In A Journey to the Earth’s Interior from 1913, Marshall B. Gardner spoke of a sun inside our planet. At the same time, the first Russian science-fiction author, geologist Vladimir Afanasyevich Obruchev, published the novella Plutonia, in which a prehistoric world lit by a central sun was inside the Earth, connected to the surface by a hole located at the Arctic polar circle. Explorer Ferdynand Ossendowski wrote in Beasts, Men and Gods from 1922 about an underground kingdom that he called Agarthi. Douglas Baker claimed to have traveled astrally to the interior of the Earth, which is inhabited by an advanced civilization. Occultists like Guy Ballard or Alice Bailey claimed to have met beings from the Underworld through clairvoyance. In the late 1920s, Russian painter Nikolai Roerich undertook a long journey in Central Asia, seeking the entrance to Agartha and the kingdom of Shamballa; in his book Himalayas Abode of Light (1947), he recounted: „I remember that while crossing Karakorum, a servant iadackh told me that beneath us were numerous underground cavities where all kinds of treasures were found, and where a wonderful people lived, unaware of the sins of the world. As we approached Hotan, the emptiness was felt under the horses’ hooves, and the guide continued to tell us about the torrents that guarded the entrance to Agartha and about the fact that the impure ones who approached the entrance to Agartha died poisoned by the emanations of toxic gases„. In his book Anything Can Happen from 1940, writer and sculptor George Papashvily claimed that several giant skeletons were found in a cave in the Caucasus Mountains, as well as a tunnel leading to the interior of the Earth. According to him, anyone who enters that tunnel cannot return to the surface. Many other authors of the last century promoted the idea of an underworld either inside a hollow Earth or in a vast system of tunnels inhabited by a highly advanced technological and spiritual civilization, with some even suggesting that UFOs originate from that world. American Admiral Richard Byrd claimed that on 19th February 1947, he flew a plane through a tunnel at the South Pole. A tractor beam caught him and brought him to a nearby underground city, where the beings he found there let him know that they were the guardians of humanity and did not agree with our nuclear weapons. In his journal, which was made public by former CIA agent Virgil Armstrong, Byrd wrote: „The people who live here communicate telepathically. In fact, they do not live on the surface. Underground, at a depth of several miles, there is a very large city with millions of inhabitants, called Agartha. There are several cities underground in various parts of the globe, but Agartha is the most important of them„. Agent Armstrong stated: „The admiral describes in detail that in the underground cities live people with delicate features who have thousands of years of life, but age does not mark their traits. Those in Agartha know the secret of bodily immortality. After they feel they have lived long enough, they are the ones who choose the moment to withdraw from life. Their women give birth only once or twice throughout their lives and gestation lasts only three months„. Armstrong also revealed that the United States government had established relations with the Great Council of Agartha, that UFOs were means of conveying for the inhabitants of the Underworld and a part of their manufacturing technology had been revealed to the Pentagon, „the invisible plane being a result of this advanced knowledge„. American geophysicist Raymond Bernard had some surprising conclusions, such as: there is no North or South Pole, but only wide openings that lead to the hollow interior of the Earth, UFOs come from that hollow interior and the interior of our planet is heated by a central sun, which is the source of the auroras.

As outlandish as this hypothesis of a hollow Earth may seem, it appears to be not a new one, but rather a belief from ancient times. All world cultures speak of an underworld, most often associated with death and inhabited by deities. The first known mention of it was by the Sumerians. For them, all human souls were required after death to go to the Underworld, called Irkalla, and there was no concept of paradise in the Egyptian or Greek sense. That world has seven gates and to reach them, the soul must descend or cross the River of Death (according to Tablet 10 of the Epic of Gilgamesh). The horrifying conditions here are described in detail in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Descent of Ishtar to the Underworld or Enkidu and the Netherworld. Irkalla is a „dark house (…) where those who enter are deprived of light, where dust is their house and clay their food (…) where they are clothed like birds, with wings as garments, where dust is scattered on the door and lock„. According to the Epic of Gilgamesh there is a hierarchy in this world, the one with more sons fares better than the one without any and the one who was not buried according to funeral practices is doomed to become a wandering spirit. Irkalla is ruled by a monarch (Ereshkigal or Nergal) who is surrounded by numerous officials, Anunnaki who confirm the death sentence and record the deceased’s name in a register. Once entered into this world and having the death sentence pronounced, the deceased must remain there forever. Also in the Underworld there is Abzu or Apsu, a word conventionally translated as „Freshwater Ocean” because it represents the source of groundwater. Abzu was the home of Enki, the god of wisdom and waters, his temple in the city of Eridu being even called E-abzu.

The Hurrian name for the Underworld is Turi („The Deep”), while in Hittite it is Dankuis dagan-zipas („Dark Earth”). It was believed that there are waters that dry up during the summer, the springs being the natural entrances to that world. There was also the idea of a meadow somewhere in the west. All human beings lead a dark existence after death and need offerings so as not to disturb the living. The fate of sinners was harder than that of others, as they had to eat excrements. The Hattic Wurunshemu, the Hurrian Allani and Kumarbi, the ancient Hurrian god of grains, were among the gods who lived in the Underworld, called Taknas siunes („Gods of the Earth”).

In West-Semitic mythology, Mot was the god of death. Not much is known about his domain, but only that it is „the deepest part of the Earth„, a land of „decay, dirt, saliva and mucus„.

For ancient Egyptians, the land of the dead consisted of Duat or Anduat and Amenti, the residence of Osiris. The Fields of the Blessed (Sekht-Iaru or Sekht-Ianru) and the Fields of Peace (Sekht-Hotep) were in Amenti. The area called Re-Stau in Duat was considered the residence of the god Sokar. The Great Double Hall of Ma’at, where 42 judges judged the souls of the dead, was also in Amenti. God Anubis put the deceased’s heart on one side of a scale and a feather on the other; if the heart was lighter than the feather, the deceased was given the right to live in Amenti. Otherwise, they were eaten by the monster Ammit, called „The Devourer of Souls„.

The Underworld of the Greeks was called Hades, named after its ruler. Guarded by Cerberus, the three-headed dog, Hades was a place invisible to the living, where spirits went after death. Here there were the Elysian Fields, led by the demigod Rhadamanthus, a place where spirits lived an easy life without work. Usually, those who were near the gods during their lifetime, such as heroes, as well as the righteous and virtuous, ended up here. Once in the Elysian Fields, a spirit had to choose between staying there or reincarnating on Earth. A spirit that was reincarnated three times, who after each death of the physical body ended up in the Elysian Fields, was sent to the Blessed Isles, the paradise of the Greeks. The Fields of Punishment were reserved for those who created chaos in the world and committed crimes against the gods. God Hades, the ruler of the Underworld, personally punished for eternity the unfortunate ones who ended up in this place. In the Valley of Mourning were sent those who suffered from love. The Asphodel Meadows were reserved for spirits who had not committed great sins but had not accomplished important deeds during their lifetime, which would have ensured them a place in the Elysian Fields. These meadows were the place where ended up those who did not belong to other places in Hades. Below the Underworld was Tartarus, described as being as far below as the Earth was from heaven. It was an extremely dark place used as a prison, especially for gods. In Tartarus, Uranus and Zeus imprisoned the Titans, with Cronus becoming, as Homer claimed, the king of that world.

If in Greek mythology the Underworld was named after its ruler, Hades, the same thing happened in Norse mythology, where the territory inside the Earth was called Hel, just like its queen. In Grimnismal, the Hel world is found under one of the three roots of the Yggdrasil tree. Above this world is Niflheim, one of the nine worlds of the Scandinavians, initially a primordial territory of ice and cold, and later a place where those who did not die in battle ended up. In other myths they were sent to Hel, along with the spirits of sinners. People who died in battle went to Valhalla, a huge hall in Asgard belonging to god Odin, or to Folkvangr, a field of the goddess Freya.

In Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism, Shambhala is a hidden kingdom in Central Asia, with its capital in Kalapa. For Buddhists, the kingdom is ruled by Maitreya, the future Buddha. The prophecies of the Kalachakra Tantra claim that when the world is torn apart by war and greed, the twenty-fifth king will come from Shambhala with a huge army to destroy the forces of evil and lead the Earth into a Golden Age. The Hindu text Vishnu Purana considers Shambhala to be the birthplace of Kalki, the last incarnation of the god Vishnu, who will lead the world in the Golden Age. Late esotericism also regards it as a hidden place, inhabited by a mystical brotherhood whose members work for the good of humanity. Alice A. Bailey called the realm Shamballa and considered it another dimension or spiritual reality on the etheric plane, a spiritual center where Sanat Kumara, the ruling deity of Earth, resides. Although initially described as an earthly paradise, identical to the Garden of the Gods in other cultures, over time it has come to be considered an underground land, associated or even mistaken with Agartha, a legendary underground city popular in esotericism. It is generally believed that Agartha is the name of the underground kingdom and Shambhala is the name of its capital.

Beings similar to the inhabitants of Shambhala are the blajini / rohmani / rugmani from Romanian mythology. They live underground, in the Other Realm, beyond the Saturday’s Water. They are said to have taken part in the creation of the world and support the pillars that uphold the Earth. Considered descendants of Seth (the third son of Adam and Eve) and imagined as blond haired, the blajini lead a virtuous life based on virtue and the inability to do harm. They were believed to be faithful, kind-hearted, gentle and wise, just like the inhabitants of Shambhala.

In the Popol Vuh of the Maya, Xibalba is described as a kingdom located beneath the surface of the Earth, associated with death and ruled by 12 powerful gods or rulers known as „The Lords of Xibalba”. Hun-Came and Vucub-Came were the firsts of the Mayan gods of death who ruled Xibalba, the other ten being demons who have dominion over different forms of human suffering: diseases, hunger, poverty, fear or pain. These lords, who work in pairs, are Xiquiripat (Flying Scab) and Cuchumaquic (Gathered Blood), who infect the blood of humans; Ahalpuh (Pus Demon) and Ahalgana (Jaundice Demon), who cause swelling of the bodies of humans; Chamiabac (Bone Staff) and Chamiaholom (Skull Staff), who turn corpses into skeletons; Ahalmez (Sweeper Demon) and Ahaltocob (Stabber Demon), who hide in unclean areas of houses and stab people; Xic (Wing) and Patan (Tight Belt), who make people die coughing up blood while on the roads. The other inhabitants of Xibalba are under the dominion of these lords, only coming to the surface of the Earth to fulfill their assigned duties. Xibalba is a very large place, with the Popol Vuh describing many individual structures and locations. The main pieces are the Council of Lords place, five or six houses that serve as the first tests in Xibalba and the Xibalban Court. The lords’ houses, gardens and other structures are also mentioned, suggesting that Xibalba is at least a great city. Xibalba is full of tests, trials and traps for anyone who enters the city. Even the road to this world is full of obstacles, such as a river of scorpions, a river of blood and a river of pus. Above the rivers there is a crossroads, where travelers choose one of four roads that attempt to deceive them. After passing these obstacles, travelers reach the Council of Lords, where they must greet the present lords, including some realistic dummies, made to deceive and humiliate those who greet them. Then the confused mortals are invited to sit on a bench, which is actually a hot stove. The lords of Xibalba enjoy humiliating people before sending them to one of Xibalba’s deadly tests. There are at least six testing houses used to kill or simply humiliate people who do not pass them. The first is the House of Darkness, inside of which there is only darkness. The second is the Noisy House or the Cold House, filled with cold and noisy hail. The third is the House of Jaguars, full of hungry jaguars. The fourth is the House of Bats, full of dangerous bats. The fifth is the House of Blades, full of swords and blades that move on their own. And the sixth is the Hot House, full of fire and heat. According to Popol Vuh, Xibalbans used to love being worshiped by the mortals who brought them human sacrifices. However, Xibalbans were soon tricked by people into accepting false sacrifices. In the 16th century, in Verapaz (El Salvador), it was believed that the entrance to Xibalba was in a cave near the city of Coban (Guatemala). Similarly, the cave system in Belize was also considered an entrance to this underworld. In 2007, Mexican archaeologist Guillermo de Anda discovered in a cave in the Yucatan Peninsula, near the city of Tahtzibichen, a massive templar complex, a paved road, a pyramid and bones, which he believes could be Xibalba.

In Jewish folklore, Sheol is a place of darkness where the spirits of all the dead go, both the righteous and the sinners. Here, the spirits become entities without personality or strength. In rabbinic literature, Christianity and Islam, Gehenna is the destination of sinners, a place different from the neutral Sheol, called Gai Ben-Hinnom in the Old Testament and Gehinnom in Talmud. Christians have named the Underworld Hell or Inferno, considering it a place ruled by demons, where the souls of sinners are tormented, opposed to Heaven, the destination of the righteous. In Catholicism there is also Purgatory, the world where spirits wait to purify themselves before heading to Heaven.

The tribes of Native Americans from the southwest United States (Navajo, Zuni, Pueblo, Hopi, Apache) have the same origin myth, claiming that they came from underground. Hopi from Arizona says that their ancestors escaped a storm of falling stars with the help of serpent people who sheltered them underground. Another Hopi legend speaks of ant people who saved them from a storm of fire and ice in the same way. And scientists seem to agree with them. In 1950, while mapping the California area, the American submarine topography research teams discovered that the continental tectonic plate of California is lined with many huge underground caves and passages. After a while, it was noted that some of them extend under the states of Utah and Nevada. Researchers established on that occasion that a large part of California floats on the ocean, supported by several natural pillars formed from underwater caves, and the San Andreas Fault is the result of the collapse of several such support pillars. In 2010, Brigadier General Emil Strainu, the director of the Center for Psychotronic and Ufological Studies and adviser to the Romanian Parliament on unconventional and asymmetrical issues, stated that there are between three and five tunnels that run from one end to the other of the American continent.

The Underworld exists also in other cultures, bearing various names, such as Patala in Hinduism, Naraka or Niraya in Buddhism, Diyu in China, Yomi or Yomi-no-kumi in Japan, Mictlan for the Aztecs, Ukhu Pacha for the Incas, Tuonela in Finland or Toonela in Estonia. Usually, this world is considered the home of gods associated with Enki and the place where spirits go after death. In some cases it is even a prison of the deities. If the Underworld is real, the following question arises: how could immaterial entities, such as the spirits of the deceased, be imprisoned in a material place? Even the gods need physical bodies in order to interact with the three-dimensional world; undoubtedly, this law of nature applies to humans as well. If the ancients and some modern researchers are correct, within our planet there is a hidden land, the realm of Agartha with its capital in Shamballa. In esotericism, this underground realm is not only material, but also spiritual, existing both in our world and in an immaterial dimension or a spiritual reality on the etheric plane. This goes beyond our capacity to understand. However, it seems that things are not as complicated as occultists describe them. In Greek mythology, Tartarus is located beneath the Underworld at a distance equal to that between Earth and heaven. How could this be possible? Heaven is the spiritual world of the aeons; the distance between this world and Earth can only be equal to the distance between a part of the Earth, such as the Underworld, and another spiritual world. Therefore, Tartarus, the prison of fallen gods and sinful humans, is not located inside the Earth, but in another immaterial dimension.

In the 1920s, while discovering elementary particles and investigating their properties, physicists were surprised. „When someone studies the properties of atoms, they discover that reality is stranger than anyone could have imagined. Particles actually have the ability, in a certain sense, to be simultaneously in more than one place„, said Alan Guth, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA). This means that particles not only exist in our universe, but also appear in others that are parallel to ours. The same professor explained: „Essentially, everything that can happen does happen in one of the alternatives, which means that overlaid on the known universe is an alternative universe where Al Gore is president and Elvis Presley is still alive„. The theory of the multiverse, first formulated by Hugh Everett in 1957, claims that quantum particles can exist simultaneously in two different states, coexisting in different universes. In quantum physics, the multiverse is a hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together encompass everything that exists and can exist: the totality of space, time, matter and energy, as well as the physical constants and laws that describe it. Parallel worlds influence each other through a subtle force of repulsion, so they do not evolve independently of each other. Another theory, called Many-Interacting World, suggests that parallel universes have a connection to each other, unlike the old theory of the multiverse, which stated that parallel worlds could not interact in any way. The hypothesis of parallel worlds is not a recent invention; it has been found in many ancient cultures.

Kabbalah claims that before the emergence of the material world there were multiple worlds that were destroyed due to a universal imbalance. To rebalance the Universe, the physical world, Asiah, was created, which allows the other three spiritual worlds (Atsilut – the world of emanations, Beriah – the world of souls and Yetsirah – the world of angels) to exist without the danger of being destroyed. Kabbalah also speaks of ten sephirot („emanations”), which form the Sephirotic Tree, matched with the Tree of Life: Keter, Chokmah, Binah, Chesed, Gevurah, Tipheret, Netzach, Hod, Yesod and Malkuth. Each sephira corresponds to an archangel, who leads one of the ten angelic classes. Although for Kabbalists the Sephirotic Tree has no connection to the three spiritual worlds, this „tree” resembles others in various cultures. For example, in shamanic folklore from northern Eurasia there is a special tree that rises among several worlds. In Mesoamerica, a giant tree supports 13 worlds, linking the underground to the celestial ones. In Norse cosmology, the tree Yggdrasil supports the nine worlds of the Universe: Asgard at the top, the world of the Aesir gods; below it Alfheim („the Realm of fairies”) or Ljosalfheimr („the Home of the light elves”), the world of elves; in the middle of the tree is Midgard, the world of humans, surrounded by Vanaheim (the home of the Vanir gods), Jotunheim or Utgard (the world of the Jotnar giants), Niflheim (the world of ice and cold) and Muspellsheim or Muspell (the world of fire); below them there are Nidavellir or Svartalfaheim (the realm of the dwarves) and Helheim or Hel (the abode of the dead).

Some incantations from the 2nd millennium BC Sumer have references to the seven heavens and seven earths. Such an incantation is: „an-imin-bi ki-imin-bi” („the heavens are seven, the earths are seven”). In addition to this version, in Mesopotamia there was also the idea of the existence of three heavens. Hindu scriptures specify 14 worlds, seven heavenly and seven infernal. In the myths of the Hindu sect Ayyavazhi there are seven Logas (higher worlds): Deiva Loga, Yama Loga, Swarga Loga, Brahma Loga, Vaikunda Loga, Shiva Loga and Para Loga. According to the Collection of Six Voices, one of the books in the Kandlour (which gathers the sacred texts of the ancient lamas), there are different heavens that are not accessible to all deities, these six domains being divided into 28 domiciles. Maori traditions from New Zealand speak of various heavens, ranging in number from two to fourteen. In the Talmud, the Universe is composed of seven heavens, called „shamayim„, inhabited by Yahweh and his angels: Vilon, Raqi’a, Shehaqim, Ma’on, Makhon, Zebul and Araboth. The Quran frequently mentions the existence of seven „samaawat” or heavens. The Catholic Church also speaks of seven heavens, while their number increases to nine in the Orthodox Church. Christianity also speaks of 24 gates of heaven that every spirit must pass through after death. And in the Pistis Sophia of the Gnostics, 13 worlds of aeons are mentioned, which have the same number as in Mesoamerican myths.

Due to contradictory data, we cannot know the exact number of these parallel worlds. Nor do we know when or why they were created. Kabbalah speaks of a universal catastrophe and the creation of spiritual worlds to maintain cosmic balance, which could be a possible explanation considering that the „universal catastrophe” may be the appearance of negative energy, which led to the imprisonment of Sophia. We do not know the role of these parallel worlds, but we can infer from the information obtained so far that they housed different entities. One of them is that of the aeons, divided into several dimensions; one is reserved for smaller positive deities, such as angels or minor deities; another is the home of negative entities; in one, the spirits of mortals await their next reincarnation; another one is a maximum security prison reserved for extremely dangerous beings. It appears that these spiritual parallel worlds are not arranged like the Sephirotic tree of the Jews or that of the Scandinavians and Mesoamericans. The few public records from initiates of various ancient mysteries suggest that the spiritual worlds have the form of concentric spheres. Within the lowest sphere, the material world – our solar system (which also has the form of a sphere) – was created, which in turn contains concentric spiritual spheres. In Scandinavian myths, the world of humans was located in the middle of the cosmic tree Yggdrasil; the branches housed those of the gods, while the roots were those of the dead. Inside the Earth (more precisely, in the Underworld) is a portal to the lowest spiritual world, the prison of the gods. Greek mythology says that Tartarus was at a distance from the Underworld equal to that from heaven to Earth; because heaven represents a spiritual world, a distance equal to that between it and the material world can only represent a distance to another immaterial world. A few chapters ago I proposed the hypothesis of a portal to a spiritual world within the Sun. The core or nucleus of the Earth has a temperature equal to that at the surface of the Sun and several researchers, including the Swiss physicist and mathematician Leonhard Euler, the Russian geologist Vladimir Afanasyevich Obruchev and the American geophysicist Raymond Bernard, support the existence of a sun inside our planet; in both cases, the existence of a portal to an immaterial world inside the Earth, similar to that in the Sun, becomes possible. This hypothesis can help us understand the Sumerian myths, where Enki slept in an underground world different from Irkalla, the abode of the dead, being „awakened” when the other gods needed his advice. In other words, his body was kept in a certain place, while his spirit was confined to an immaterial world, the Tartarus of the Greeks; when he was needed, Enki was resurrected, his spirit being brought back into his body. We best understand this from Egyptian mythology, where Osiris reached the afterlife after being killed by his brother; Isis gathered the pieces of her husband’s body and Anubis assembled them, then mummified the corpse, which allowed Osiris to come back to life to impregnate his wife. Following the example of the god, the lifeless bodies of the personalities of ancient Egypt were mummified so that their spirits could be reincarnated in the future.

The Pistis Sophia of the Gnostics can help us understand the spiritual worlds that formed the „heaven” of the aeons. In this work, the worlds are called „aeons” and the spiritual beings that usually bore this name are called „archons” or „emanations„. We are told that „Pistis Sophia was in the thirteenth aeon, in the realm of all her unseen brothers – that is the twenty-four emanations of the great unseen„. This thirteenth spiritual world was the lowest, with Bythos / Anu dwelling in the first one, the highest. Sophia „saw the light of the veil of the Treasury of the Light and desired to go to that place. And she ceased from her mysteries in the thirteenth aeon and sang praises to the light she saw in the height, which was in the veil of the Treasury of the Light„. Thus, she left her own dimension and ascended to the first one to unite with the Heavenly Father: „she went out of her own region, the thirteenth aeon, and came into the twelve aeons. The archons of the aeons persecuted her and were angry with her because she intended to have greatness„. As she passed through each dimension, Sophia took with her a portion of the power of the other aeons. Only Nous / Enlil „did not give what was purified from his light at the time when the archons gave their purification„, desiring to „rule over the entire thirteenth aeon„, that is Sophia’s dimension. After separating her from Anu / Bythos, he set a trap for her in her own dimension, that light like the Heavenly Father’s, which gave rise to the matter that imprisoned her: „he persecuted Sophia in the thirteenth aeon – that she might look down to the parts below, and that in that region she might see her power of light resembling a lion, and might long for it, and go to that region so that her light might be taken from her„. The thirteenth spiritual world became the material world (our solar system), Sophia’s prison. According to Hesiod’s Theogony, along with matter, Tartarus was born in the depths of the Earth, an immaterial dimension used as a prison for the gods. According to Pistis Sophia, the aeons performed „mysteries” in their worlds, an ambiguous expression from which we only understand that they acted in a certain way on their dimensions. When Sophia passed through each of the 12 dimensions, she „stopped their mysteries” and the „archons who continued or persisted in performing the mystery hated her„. In other words, taking away some of their power, Sophia stopped their mysterious influence on the immaterial dimensions. After she was incarcerated in matter, the aeons regained their influence over their worlds and, moreover, began to influence the material world to weaken the rebel. Enlil „also joined the twelve aeonic archons” and, together with that „great power with the face of a lion” that he created in the physical world (the Sun), „persecuted” Sophia to „take the power from her„.

To understand the influence of the aeons on our three-dimensional universe, we must realize that the 12 immaterial dimensions that make up the aeon world or „heaven” are the 12 zodiac constellations in astrology. Since ancient times, people have created a map of the sky, dividing it into 12 parts, each corresponding to a constellation, thus creating the zodiac. Although researchers have identified 88 constellations today, only the 12 main ones are included in the zodiac. The main activity of astrologers is to observe the trajectory of the Sun on the celestial sphere (called the ecliptic) and its passage through the 12 constellations. Astrology claims that the 12 zodiac constellations influence life on Earth; the influence of a constellation is stronger when the Sun is in its zodiac house. If the Sun is truly a portal that connects our world to that of the aeons, it means that each dimension is governed by a pair of aeons (there are 12 worlds and „twenty-four emanations of the great unseen„) who persist in „performing the mystery” to „persecute” Sophia and „take the power from her” when the Sun reaches their dimension / constellation. Thus, we realize that the Universe we see from Earth is not an enormous hologram meant to deceive exiles from the material prison, nor is it a collection of lifeless celestial bodies floating through cosmic space. The world religions claim that the immaterial dimensions are populated by various ethereal beings, not just the main aeons, the so-called „angels„, most likely spirits who have managed to escape from the cycle of reincarnations and return to the spiritual world. Sometimes the deities were considered stars; the best example is the Book of Enoch, where the angels are called „stars” and the fallen ones, „falling stars„. In Pistis Sophia, the rebel aeon believed that the „power of light in the form of a lion” made by Enlil, that is the Sun, is Father Bythos / Anu; therefore, for Sophia, there was no difference between the supreme aeon and a star. Moreover, for the Gnostics, the aeons were „indestructible lights„, that is forms of positive energy. If the 12 immaterial dimensions, populated by etheric beings, are the 12 zodiacal constellations, it is possible that the stars that make up those constellations are actually the celestial gods of the spiritual world, the aeons and angels who serve them. It is a bold hypothesis that at first glance seems fantastical. But what if it were true? What if humanity’s ultimate dream of reaching the stars is just a hidden desire in the collective subconscious to return Home? This could explain humanity’s obsession with studying the sky through astronomy and astrology, the construction of megalithic structures based on equinoxes or solstices or to precisely mirror the structure of constellations, as well as the construction of a multitude of astronomical observatories since the Stone Age, such as Stonehenge (over 4,000 years old), Nabta Playa (7,000 years old) or Carahunge (almost 7,500 years old). The ancients studied the celestial bodies to understand how the gods influenced their lives. They spent much of their time looking at the sky and governed their lives based on the movements of the celestial bodies, which priests interpreted as messages from the gods. Is it superstition or were the stars truly celestial gods?

In addition to the 12 main immaterial dimensions there seem to be many others, most likely transitory ones. In some religions, including Christianity, between Earth and heaven (the world of the aeons, consisting of 12 dimensions), there are several gates / customs / tribunals inhabited by various minor entities. Their number is uncertain, usually ranging from 20 to 40, which is understandable, given that there are more than 12 constellations, with researchers having identified 88 so far. We do not know the number of these dimensions, their roles or what kind of beings inhabit them. However, we can learn details about at least one: Orion, one of the most important constellations for the ancients. Its oldest representation was found in 1979 in a cave in West Germany, sculpted on a mammoth ivory that is 32 – 38,000 years old. The ruins of the Hopi Indians in the southwestern United States mirror the Orion belt, being oriented towards Chaco Canyon, just as the belt is oriented towards the star Sirius. Orion’s belt is reflected in the Mayan complexes along the Street of the Dead in Mexico City and in the pyramids of Giza. For the Greeks, Orion was a giant hunter, the son of the god Poseidon and a gorgon, who became a constellation after his death. In medieval Muslim astronomy, the constellation was known as „al-Jabbar” („The Giant”). For the Hungarians it was the Archer, later replaced by the biblical hunter Nimrod. The Eskimos of Alaska also consider it a hunter. The Apollo mission logo depict the three stars of Orion’s belt and future NASA missions will be named Orion, just like the lunar module of the Apollo 16 mission. Perhaps American writer Richard Charles Hoagland was right when he said that NASA is led by a secret elite of Osiris worshippers. For the ancient Egyptians, the constellation Orion was Sah, matched with the shepherd god Osiris. The Babylonians also referred to the same deity, calling the constellation „Heavenly Shepherd„. What is the connection between the Egyptian god and the Orion constellation? „Orion was wrapped in Duat while the one who lives on the horizon purifies himself„, says a funerary text, which suggests that this constellation was Duat for the ancient Egyptians, the world beyond where Osiris was sent after his death. One of the god’s epithets was „the one who dwells in Orion with a season in heaven and a season on Earth„, which strengthens this hypothesis. „We have passed the paths of Osiris; these are at the limit of the sky„, claims one of the Coffin Texts, manuals for guiding souls in the afterlife, confirming that the shepherd god’s world was in the sky. Or, more precisely, „at the limit of the sky„. And Osiris, as we know, was the Sumerian Enki, who was imprisoned by Enlil in an immaterial dimension after the first war of the gods ended.

The god of wisdom’s punishment was not permanent, as revealed by the world myths. Osiris’ epithet, „the one who dwells in Orion with a season in heaven and a season on Earth„, has no explanation for Egyptologists, but the answer is found in Sumerian legends, where Inanna partially saved Dumuzi, who was forced to live half a year on Earth and half in the other world. That is half a year in the material world and the other half in his ethereal prison, probably the Orion constellation. For this reason, in some Mesopotamian texts, Enki „sleeps” in the other world, while in other myths he is as awake and active as can be. We encounter a similar story in ancient Greece, where Persephone, the goddess of the Underworld, lived half a year on Earth, with her mother, and half in the Underworld, with her husband, Hades. The Greeks took Osiris / Dumuzi’s myth and assigned it not to the god of the Underworld, but to his wife.

The imprisonment of Enki did not last forever, the god of wisdom ultimately managing to free himself, using his superior intelligence. In order to regain his throne on Earth, occupied by the usurper Enlil, the old enemy of Sophia, Enki needed an army. And for that, man had to be created.