|
|
Post by stephen on Nov 18, 2016 15:32:45 GMT
Seriously, though, your response actually demonstrates my point. Instead of dealing critically with the issues raised in response to your strange apparent desire to "bust" Grant's mythopeia using hard-headed rationalism, lol, we get an ad for a talk you were about to do. Was this intended as some sort of glib badge of "authority" at which point critical thinking ends? as though doing a little talk meant anything in and of its own right apart from the fact you're interested in a general sense in this subject and sometimes do talks about it?
Welcome back to the forums, NOT 2, with the delightful little paragraph from your recent post quoted above. Possibly you are disappointed that I have not deigned to respond to your accusations; possibly a little frustrated even, which might explain why you are verging on the offensive.
My post about my "little talk" actually was meant to explain my other preoccupations and also was merely for information - it seems that Gregory, at least, found the digression worthwhile. You are correct, it was no big deal, a decent evening's entertainment for the Pagan Pathways group and quite ephemeral; although it did earn me my £20 expenses, which was a lot more worthwhile than spending my time, apparently having to justify every statement that I make to your approval.
How does it actually deal with any of my points (the main points being, 1. why do you feel the need to categorically assert "X was _never_ worshipped as Y" when nobody now living, including you, is in a position to say so in any verifiable way? What compels you to feel you need to make such haughty statements that are actually unprovable? ) and 2. that we're dealing with occultism, not history, and that things from behind the veil don't care much for modern philology or 20th/21st century academic views of how they should present themselves to the deeper minds of the species?
My statement about Dagon was meant to be provocative, or dogmatic; OK I should have said that all available evidence indicates that the ancient Semitic deity Dagon was never portrayed or regarded as some half-human, half-fish, monstrous sea god. And there is a decent amount of evidence available to indicate just how he was actually regarded. So if people want to exercise their lurid imaginations and portray Dagon as some beast from 20,000 fathoms, let them knock themselves out, but all the available evidence is that it is based on a total and largely deliberate distortion.
Yes, we are dealing with Occultism, which for far too many people means believing whatever they like, being sloppy about known and provable facts, essentially doing poor research, having no substantial material basis for the foundations on which they proceed to construct their magical edifices of the imagination. And in too many cases the results suck. That's all I have to say; it is not a primary concern of my will to satisfy your problems with giving approval to my posts on the forums.
Evidently your byline of "Non-mobilely-Becoming" is intended as an affirmation of the belief that you are one of "the deeper minds of the species". Personally, I find it a trifle pretentious.
|
|
|
|
Post by N0T 2 on Jan 15, 2018 1:08:11 GMT
Interestingly, of the five identified Philistine cities known to archaeologists, three are coastal cities, situated right on the sea itself - Gaza, Ashdod and Ashkelon. One might imagine them to have a fish god, like all other coastal peoples.
Dagon, the idol of the port city of Ashdod, is a name of Semitic origin, and actually means "great fish" in Hebrew, according to Donald Tyson (Agrippa's three books, page 556, note 16.).
Given the earlier Canaanite Dagon's association with grain, I wonder whether he was simply a god propitiated for sustenance, and when his devotees were on the sea, they hit him up for fish instead.
|
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Jan 18, 2018 15:45:43 GMT
Clueless in Gaza ?
Cecil B. DeMille new the score, back in 1949:
|
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Jan 18, 2018 16:09:31 GMT
One does not need to consult the prolific Mr.Tyson for this translation of Dagon:
The Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, B. Davidson, (London, 1978 reprint) has: DGH, 'to multiply, be increased'; DG, 'fish'; DGH 'a fish'; DGVN 'large fish',pr.name of an idol of the Philistines worshipped at Ashdod; DGN, 'corn, grain'.
This translation of DGVN is simple laziness, being based on accepted tradition of the preceding ten (?) centuries. If you really want to get into the possible etymology of the name, you should check out The God Dagan in Bronze Age Syria by Lluis Feliu, (Brill, 2003), available online but some of the essential pages are missing. Being a thorough academic, Feliu does not come down on either side of the DGN definition.
The Philistines were not Semites but invading Sea Peoples, probably of Achaean origin, and they carved out a nice bit of territory for themselves on the coastal plains of what later became known as Palestine; named after them by the Greeks.
Samson and Delilah is a great film, by the way, Hedy Lamarr is worth the haircut. |
|
|
|
Post by N0T 2 on Jan 19, 2018 1:46:28 GMT
Indeed - it's so obvious that to do so would be overkill, but I thought it worth pointing out, and I have to say, Mr. Tyson is hardly an author deserving of being lazily called "lazy" by some random person on an internet forum. Perhaps we should email him to find out just how lazy he was being when he wrote that footnote. Academically (not magically, poetically, symbolically, or creatively) speaking.
Back to our subject, though, which is poetic fiction and mythopaeia inspired by vagaries of rich and nuanced historical provenance that refuses to be reduced to the flaky assertions of 20th century mere academics, let alone their amateur audience: - those Dagon-worshipping Philistines were predominantly associated with the sea, having invaded from the sea, taking several port cities and settling as a coast-dwelling, fishing, people, all of whose (sea-fronted) cities happen to be known by vastly ancient Sea-mitic* names, by which they are nearly exclusively referred to in the equally Semitic documentary record, starting with the Egyptian, along with an acceptably idiomatically and semiotically Semitic name of their fish-god, Dagon, at the Semitic-named city of Ashdod: the name Dagon, which syllables all Semitic-speaking Semites (and trading settlers, such as Philistines) in the Middle East would interpret as "Big Fish", or the Uberfish, Making Fish Great Again, a deity rather typical of such seafaring, sea-originating, sea-y folk.
Also, perhaps there were other sea-nonimical* names of this same deity in the Philistine tongue, that would probably have consisted of different sea-llables* than "Dagon", but probably just meant "fish god" in their own tongue, the same way Dagon meant or at the very least indicated "big fish" in the Semitic languages that literally every other aspect of Philistine culture has come down to us in.
_
* sic.
|
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Jan 19, 2018 15:20:46 GMT
As one "random person on an internet forum" to another, I wasn't accusing Tyson of being lazy (he could hardly be called that), I was calling the actual translation of 'large fish' or 'great fish' as being lazy, because it represents the easiest option; adding the -VN suffix to DG, does not necessarily denote 'big or 'great' anything. Tyson would have got his meaning from a lexicon, possibly the same one I use and quoted.
The Semitic god Dagon adopted wholeheartedly by the Philistines is the same god Dagan worshipped as the chief god in Ebla and Mari centuries earlier; Ebla is a considerable distance from the sea and Mari, while it is situated on the Euphrates is close to the desert borders of Syria and Iraq.
There is something overwrought, if not quite "twitchy" about the style of your response; perhaps another nice picture courtesy of Cecil B. DeMille and his art department might calm you down.
|
|
|
|
Post by N0T 2 on Jan 31, 2018 13:27:18 GMT
As one "random person on an internet forum" to another, I wasn't accusing Tyson of being lazy (he could hardly be called that), I was calling the actual translation of 'large fish' or 'great fish' as being lazy, because it represents the easiest option; adding the -VN suffix to DG, does not necessarily denote 'big or 'great' anything. Tyson would have got his meaning from a lexicon, possibly the same one I use and quoted.
The Semitic god Dagon adopted wholeheartedly by the Philistines is the same god Dagan worshipped as the chief god in Ebla and Mari centuries earlier; Ebla is a considerable distance from the sea and Mari, while it is situated on the Euphrates is close to the desert borders of Syria and Iraq.
There is something overwrought, if not quite "twitchy" about the style of your response; perhaps another nice picture courtesy of Cecil B. DeMille and his art department might calm you down.
As "overwrought" is and was an adjective often levelled at both of my favourite authors, usually by people who didn't get what they were doing, I'll take it as an enormous compliment, Stephen - indebted. Thanks.
Back to our subject: I'm not sure of what a Semitic or Canaanite augmentative suffix was in the Bronze, Iron or earlier age, but, interestingly, -on or -un is in fact a suffix denoting "large", in many Italic and Occitan (celtic) dialects. Most familiar would be the modern Italian -one ending, minus the final syllable, which is very often dropped in casual parlance - language being primarily spoken, not written, especially in ancient times), not that the Philistines were Italic, at least not then, lol.
If instead of European languages, we're talking Semitic, the suffix -on can indeed be augmentative:
So - -ON is, in fact, an augmentative suffix in both indo-European and Semitic languages.
It wouldn't surprise me if ancient Greek had a similar feature. But we're not riding on the idea of large, we're asking about how fishy he was.
Dag- denotes or can certainly be considered to denote fish, and Oannes was Dagon's Babylonian equivalent. I don't see it as too problematic to entertain the notion of Dag-On as a later composite abbreviated term, colloquial, sacred or otherwise.
That image of that single, isolated statue you provide is nice, but saying it is the only imaginable Dagon (or, conclusively proving it actually represent a Philistine Dagon at all) is like saying Zeus was never a shower of gold as well as a bloke or a swan.
There's several ways in which Dagon can mean Big Fish, all listed above.
Never say never, unless you say it twice. That's what I always say.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2018 3:31:08 GMT
The Stone is locked. Zos unlocked it. It must be manipulated in a certain way, and the doorway of the Kabaa will open with the Aeon of Zain between the spaces and reveal the Night of Isis. Grant says this is the supreme Magick of Atlantis. This is why the sign of protection is needed, past the pylon of the Daemon. It will reveal other things without such a grand approach, by tracing and extending lines from objects, new geometries will emerge. Done correctly the geometry can strongly invoke Azathoth. I have not found a way to make this not a difficult experience. This is the realm of the spectral hyena, preconceptual cognition, and other baleful lunar vibrations, which may also be the plateau of Leng. Grant writes briefly about this in Zos Speaks, he too seemed to have a difficult experience in this trance. I'm not sure it ever gets easier, not for the faint of heart. The use of Zos' Key in the first example, is a whole different level beyond the yellow trance. Extreme caution should be observed when using the Stone, the physical vessel can be damaged, among other unintended effects.  |
|
|
|
Post by N0T 2 on Feb 1, 2018 13:39:55 GMT
I wonder what Philistine connoisseurs were like.
|
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Feb 5, 2018 15:56:35 GMT
So - -ON is, in fact, an augmentative suffix in both indo-European and Semitic languages.
It wouldn't surprise me if ancient Greek had a similar feature. But we're not riding on the idea of large, we're asking about how fishy he was.
Dag- denotes or can certainly be considered to denote fish, and Oannes was Dagon's Babylonian equivalent. I don't see it as too problematic to entertain the notion of Dag-On as a later composite abbreviated term, colloquial, sacred or otherwise.
That image of that single, isolated statue you provide is nice, but saying it is the only imaginable Dagon (or, conclusively proving it actually represent a Philistine Dagon at all) is like saying Zeus was never a shower of gold as well as a bloke or a swan.
There's several ways in which Dagon can mean Big Fish, all listed above.
The above is taken from NOT 2's post of January 31.
Yes, I was aware that -ON, or -VN, serves as an augmentative suffix; I stated that it did not necessarily have this role in the Hebrew form of an Akkadian god-name: Dagan. Both Hebrew and Akkadian are/were Semitic languages, but the common element to both names here is the DGN.
Oannes is a Greek name originating in the work of Berossos in the early third century BCE. Berossos was a priest of Bel (Marduk) at Babylon and his aim was to introduce the culture and history of Babylonia to the civilised Hellenistic world of the time. He was working with and interpreting much more ancient material. The only surviving fragments of his three volume work are to be found as a very useful appendix in Robert Temple's The Sirius Mystery.
It is tempting to interpret Oannes as being a Greek expansion of Akkadian Ea, god of the subterranean freshwater ocean, the Abzu; he was the master of magic and the arts of civilisation. He is a totally different god to Dagan. Otherwise, if he is to be considered as one of the Seven Sages - the apkallu - who lived before the Flood, this would not be the case. Apparently, Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian sources give the names of these Sages and the cities from which they are said to have come; they are represented as fish-garbed figures and may well be supernatural entities, but they are not amphibious beings.
Most of this information can be found in the excellent Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia by Jeremy Black and Anthony Green with illustrations by Tessa Rickards, (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1992). The book is in the form of a dictionary and the entry for Dagan concludes:
"A tradition dating back at least to the fourth century AD of Dagan as a fish deity is erroneous."
And having said that, no further words should really be wasted.
|
|
|
|
Post by N0T 2 on Feb 9, 2018 0:14:53 GMT
So - -ON is, in fact, an augmentative suffix in both indo-European and Semitic languages.
It wouldn't surprise me if ancient Greek had a similar feature. But we're not riding on the idea of large, we're asking about how fishy he was.
Dag- denotes or can certainly be considered to denote fish, and Oannes was Dagon's Babylonian equivalent. I don't see it as too problematic to entertain the notion of Dag-On as a later composite abbreviated term, colloquial, sacred or otherwise.
That image of that single, isolated statue you provide is nice, but saying it is the only imaginable Dagon (or, conclusively proving it actually represent a Philistine Dagon at all) is like saying Zeus was never a shower of gold as well as a bloke or a swan.
There's several ways in which Dagon can mean Big Fish, all listed above.
The above is taken from NOT 2's post of January 31.
Yes, I was aware that -ON, or -VN, serves as an augmentative suffix; I stated that it did not necessarily have this role in the Hebrew form of an Akkadian god-name: Dagan. Both Hebrew and Akkadian are/were Semitic languages, but the common element to both names here is the DGN.
Oannes is a Greek name originating in the work of Berossos in the early third century BCE. Berossos was a priest of Bel (Marduk) at Babylon and his aim was to introduce the culture and history of Babylonia to the civilised Hellenistic world of the time. He was working with and interpreting much more ancient material. The only surviving fragments of his three volume work are to be found as a very useful appendix in Robert Temple's The Sirius Mystery.
It is tempting to interpret Oannes as being a Greek expansion of Akkadian Ea, god of the subterranean freshwater ocean, the Abzu; he was the master of magic and the arts of civilisation. He is a totally different god to Dagan. Otherwise, if he is to be considered as one of the Seven Sages - the apkallu - who lived before the Flood, this would not be the case. Apparently, Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian sources give the names of these Sages and the cities from which they are said to have come; they are represented as fish-garbed figures and may well be supernatural entities, but they are not amphibious beings.
Most of this information can be found in the excellent Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia by Jeremy Black and Anthony Green with illustrations by Tessa Rickards, (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1992). The book is in the form of a dictionary and the entry for Dagan concludes:
"A tradition dating back at least to the fourth century AD of Dagan as a fish deity is erroneous."
And having said that, no further words should really be wasted.
I agree - no more words should be wasted simply repeating an assertion by a 20th century academic at a distance of millennia to his subject, as though that interpretation is a dogma, or somehow proscriptive for modern poets' or occultists' use of the stimulus material - I can't imagine anything sillier or more pointless. He wasn't there. Neither were we, so let's perhaps enjoy that fact and explore its potential, much in the way Lovecraft and Grant do, as much as the potentials of an academic interpretation from twenty five years ago.
However, I am pleased that, after having first asserted ..you eventually come round to agreeing that this can in fact be the case, after I gave the examples of idioms in both Semitic and Indo-European languages in my post above, where this is exactly what it can and does mean. I don't assert this is the only possible interpretation, but I do assert that nobody now living is in a position to categorically rule out such an interpretation on a linguistic basis, regardless of whether such a view has been published within our living memory, or not.
Language is a fluid and messy business, always has been, always will be - there is no such thing as a pure language, either in derivation or use, either now or thousands of years ago. How much more so, that other medium of meaning: religion/myth.
I think it is reasonable to describe a fish-garbed entity, whether supernatural or otherwise, as amphibious, that is in fact a precise symbolic description of any representation of an entity bearing land- and sea- dwelling components. They can be both supernatural and amphibious. Unless you don't believe in the supernatural, like some academics. In any case, they can certainly be interpreted by creative writers in that way, as do our various Dagon authors, who do not need permission for such an interpretation from any authority beyond their own poetic sources of wonder and inspiration. One man's supernatural entity is another man's amphibian, and vice-versa, depending on whether the ability to operate in two worlds at once is viewed as natural or super natural. Whether this was how it was first intended as a symbol is as secondary in importance, as it is unknowable to anyone alive today.
A 1990's academic stating doesn't mean anything, in reality. That's their opinion, and 1700 years worth of people living in closer cultural and historic proximity to the subject disagree. Using the word "is" does not ultimately define the object to which it is applied, it simply points to the subjective frame of reference being used by the party saying it. I'm sure he has his reasons, but so do Grant and Lovecraft and all the others going back to the 4th century A.D. who hold a contrary view.
Clearly, someone in the 4th century (or earlier), much closer in culture and mode of thought to the earlier Philistine or Canaanite Dagon-worshippers (whether inland or coastal), to the active cults of various pagan gods of antiquity, to the unbroken traditions of magic and mystery cults that still proliferated then, and to the various symbolic and linguistic modes of use available, than either of us or the academic wishing to impose a neat and tidy uninitiated profane modern interpretation nearly three millennia after the fact, disagrees.
It seems to me unreasonable to dismiss the views of people who actually lived in antiquity (the 4th century can certainly be considered within such a timeframe), when dealing with antique subjects, to dismiss a 1700-year old tradition as "erroneous", especially when it is not being used solely for dry philological purposes but for poetic and mythopaeic resonance by the authors so using it (Lovecraft, Grant, etc).
1990s academia has some value, but, speaking as an academic, it's the last basket I'd put my eggs in if I wanted to engage with Reality.
I look forward to vast swathes of ongoing discourse on this most fascinating of topics.
Best regards
Non-mobilely becoming,
N0T 2
|
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Feb 12, 2018 15:17:45 GMT
I was listening to Radio 4 yesterday when something of interest cropped up: a quiz question about biblical themes. Someone had posed a 4 part question asking what was the fruit of the Tree of Life; how many wise men visited the baby Jesus; what kind of animal swallowed Jonah and what was Mary Magdalene's profession ? The response had been - apple, three wise men, a whale, a prostitute. But none of these largely accepted 'facts' had any basis in the biblical texts, they were all later accretions, inventions or rationalisations.
The one on Jonah took my attention. The Book of Jonah 1.17 states: "Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah..." Consulting the Hebrew text I found that the verse is regarded as being verse one of chapter two, but the translation of 'great fish' was what I expected: DG GDVL, noun and verse, with no ambiguity whatsoever.
This applies directly to this protracted business about Dagon, all of the interpretations of him as a fish-god, half-man, half-fish, or even as a sea god belong to a period commencing well after his actual worship as a god had been wiped out or died out. There is no textual evidence or authentic archaeological evidence of cult practices in which Dagon was worshiped or portrayed as fish-god of the sea. On the other hand, there is ample evidence of Dagan as being a completely anthropomorphic, powerful god of the land and its wellbeing and as a judge of the dead in the underworld and all of this evidence has been supplied by the enthusiasm and painstaking efforts of professional academics such as archaeologists and textual translators.
Dear NOT 2,
If you are going to carry on making assumptions about what I do or do not believe in relation to this particular subject, you might inform me as to whether or not you have ever read my Dagon Rising: A Litany of Dagon which puts the business of Dagon's identity into a broader context. If not, you might have the courtesy to do so, if you are going to persist in telling me how misguided I am. The essay is still available online at:
www.philhine.org.uk/writings/pdfs/dagon01.pdf
I agreed to Phil putting this online. He used the original booklet, which contains some typos, but changed the design of the title page. The essay was written in 1989 and many things have progressed since then, but I am still generally content with it.
Love is the law, love under will.
Stephen.
|
|
|
|
Post by N0T 2 on Mar 3, 2018 19:35:57 GMT
Stephen,
I make no assumptions, I am referring to your own stated position in this thread, and address the ideas you propose in it.
Simply repeating that you once wrote something about this and it ended up on some guy's blog does not resolve the issues I have raised with the Dagmas you have stated here.
I haven't read your article, I have however read your posts here and you simply keep avoiding the facts and ideas I have raised to challenge your Dagmatic dogma - that everyone associating Dagon with fish or the sea, whether in science fiction or biblical commentary, is "misguided" (as though fiction or myth, as opposed to philology, can be wrong) - as you have stated here, whether linguistic, archaeological or logical.
Your main objections were linguistic and based on a categorical pronouncement deriving from an incomplete and poorly-understood physical material record. I've shown ways in which your conclusions, as stated in this thread, regardless of whether they were in something you once wrote elsewhere too, aren't the only viable ones, as you seem to insist. That's all.
Best,
N0t 2
|
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Mar 8, 2018 14:59:12 GMT
I X A X A R X I X A R A A X I R A X X A R I X A A R A X I X R A X A X I
I X A X A A R X A X A I R A A X A R X I A X A R I A A X A I X A R X A A R I A X A X R A A X A X I
Attachments:IXAXAR.doc (26 KB)
|
|
vindicabo
Full Member
"'I'" is a point of reference.
Posts: 52
|
Post by vindicabo on Apr 26, 2020 0:50:49 GMT
The sephira that is not a sephira – the, not a – formal, without particularity.. The empty set. The 0th highest number, the end and lack of infinity. The Supernal triad is the abstract condition emerging from but necessary for consciousness, thus necessarily preceding and following, thus the mutual reflection of Kether and Malkuth.. Malkuth is the negation of the laws of relativity embodied by the relative, Kether, the Plenum, which allows all to be absolute by being one and allowing all to have bijection with themselves and, through ratiocination with 1, differentiates different things and is, due to self-proportionality, responsible for kether’s onto identical to particular solipsists. Attachments:
|
|
vindicabo
Full Member
"'I'" is a point of reference.
Posts: 52
|
Post by vindicabo on Apr 26, 2020 2:52:15 GMT
To clarify, HHH is my cypher for the sixth Stone. That is mostly for my sake. Thank you for tolerating my rambling. I have learned a lot about myself, my Qibla, and my Kabbalah.
|
|
