On 2002-08-09 12:10, Marc Lamb wrote:


A "good intellectual exercise, at least"???


"I think that myth is often more credible--and more true--than many a chronicle filled with facts and figures. Myth tells us what's essential about what happened. Facts and figures can lie or (insofar as meaning is concerned) lead in any direction whatever." --Neil Howe

Ever heard of this guy, Mr. Horn?

Yes. I don't agree with premise, though. I do agree that facts, in and of themselves, are not reliable, if that helps.

Emile Botta, French consul at Mosul, had dug a little at Kuyunjik (Nineveh) and a great deal at Khorsabad (another Assyrian capital) during the Romantic unraveling in 1842-1843, but his discoveries were, for the English-speaking world, completely eclipsed by the series of excavations conducted by Sir Austen Henry Layard at Nimrud (Biblical Calah) and Nineveh beginning at the midpoint of the cultural warfare phase of the 2ndGA in 1845. Layard published popular accounts of his work. Thousands of copies were sold in England and America. He also produced several handsome folios of etchings and lithographs which illumiated his discoveries. Archaeology in 1845 was much different than it is today. Instead of flying out to Iraq for a season of a few months, Layard had to spend many weeks making his way to West Asia by slow steamer and then on horseback for hundreds of miles to Mosul. When he arrived there, he found himself the only European in the whole area. His papers from the Turkish government in Constantinople meant little in a region where the far-away Turkish rulers were hated by the rebellious Arabs and wild Kurdish tribesmen. A lone foreigner must steer a perilous course with the local authorities: the religious head, or cadi, at Mosul and the village chiefs were constantly at war. But none of this perturbed the calm assurance of Layard. As the excavations progressed, the splendour of Assyrian civilization began to dawn upon Layard. Here was sculpture that rivaled the achievements of Egypt and Greece. Here were vast palaces with great courtyards and myriad rooms. The walls were decorated with exciting relief sculpture that showed kings and nobles in rligious and court ceremonial, victorious in battle over many nations, and devoted to the hnting of fierce animals. The scenes represented on the walls were accompanied by explanatory cuneiform texts which could not at this time be read. Most of the finds made by Layard were of the time of Ashurnazirpal, a great Assyrian king of the nint century B.C.. After Nimrud, Layard moved to Kuyunjik, ancient Nineveh, the late Assyrian capital, where he was to excavate for many years under the auspices of the British Museum. By this time, the late 1840s and early 1850s, the decipherment of the cuneiform had been partially achieved, and a few texts could be read with some assurance. The known was gradually linked to the partially known. When Layard at Nineveh found the reliefs of Sennacherib which portrayed te capture of Lachish, everyone recalled the passage in second Kings and Isiah which described these events: "Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah did Sennacherib, King of Assyria, come up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them. And Hezekiah, King of Judah, sent to the King of Assyria to Lacish saying, "I have offended..."." (II Kings,18) The text accompanying the Assyrian relief reads: "Sennacherib, king of the multitudes, King of Assyria, sat upon the house chair while the booty of Lachish passed before him. (more later) DMMcG

At Nineveh, in 1850, Layard came upon two small rooms that turned out to be the great library of artist archetype Ashurbanipal, the last major ruler of the Assyrian Empire. This Ashurbanipal was that same king, the son of hero archetype Esarhaddon, whose name was then unknown. Here in the library were indeed the business records and the official correspondence of the Assyrian kings from Sargon II to Ashurbanipal, documents which ran ito the thousands. Even more important were the literary remains, as Layard had shrewdly guessed, but neither he nor anyone else then realized what the content of this literature was to be and how it would open new vistas into the past. It was another generation before many of the tablets were read. As we have seen, among them George Smith was to come upon the Mesopotamian story of the flood, myths of the creation, that had inspired Thales of Miletus, the great Epic of Gilgamesh, and many fine hymns and psalms reminiscent of the style of the Old Testament. Here,too, were texts on chemistry, medicine, astronomy, and mathematics, texts of such difficulty that it has been only within our time that translation has been possible. In Ashurbanipal's library also were copies of texts a thousand to fifteen hndred years older than the Assrian documents. Some had been translated into Assyrian; others remained in the original Old Babylonian, a Semitc language related to Assyrian; and still others were in Sumerian, a still mre ancient Asianic tongue. Not only were the texts stored in the library, but also there were dictionaries and grammars and sign lists for reading Sumerian. Without such aids, we might not be able to read the Sumerian today; as it was, a half-century and more elapsed before any facility in handling this extinct language was achieved by modern scholars. Much of what Layard did was superficial, incomplete, and many of his conclusions were faulty--but all that is unimportant. His great and permanent contributions were after all, his rediscovery of the Assyrians and the interest which he stimulated in ancient West Asia. People were tremendously excited by the reports of Layard's work, and there was an insistence that further excavations should be made, not only in Assyria, but also in Babylonia and the Holy Land. It was soon clear that the finds of Layard and Botta in Assyria had not disclosed the center and place of origin of Mesopotamian civilization, but that Assyrian civilization was a rather late derivative of Babylonian. This encouraged digging in the lower Tigris-Euphrates valley as Layard and Botta had dug in Assyria. Excavations were begun at Babylon and soon followed by diggig at other sites. Even to the casual observer, it was obvious that the Babylonian plain had once been dotted with great cities as large or perhaps larger than Babylon. On all sides cold be seen great mounds rising from the level plain; and each one of these represented an ancient site. From the mid-1850s onward, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, and Americans began to dig in these mounds: the British at the mound called Muqayyar in the far south which proved to be the ancient town of Ur; the Germans at Warka (ancient Erech); the French at Telloh; and the Americans after 1888 at Niffer (ancient Nippur) and in 1912 at Bismaya under Edgar James Banks. It was apparent that many of these sites in the lower valley had known centuries of occupation. In the upper levels of a mound one might encounter remains of the Persian period (ca. 539-330 B.C.), then just below this the so-called Neo-Babylonian age of Nappolassar, Nebuchadnezzar, and Nabonidas (ca. 625-539 B.C.), below that the remnants of a period contemporary with the Assyrian Empire, and so on down into the depths and into the past to the more ancient glories of Babylonia when Hammurabi ruled the land and promulgated the great code of laws which de Morgan was to find at Susa in 1901. Yet this was not the beginning. Under the levels of the Hammurabi period of the eighteenth century B.C. were found still earlier strata which gave evidence of a brilliant civilization, that of the Asianic speaking Sumerians, the parent of all others in the Mesopotamian area. This civilization had been in existence for more than a thousand years before Hammurabi; it was even older than the Egyptian and possessed a great art and a rich literature. Here was a civilization that had passed so completely from the memory of man that the writers of the Old Testament and of the classical period had had no knowledge of it. Thus it was that during the past century and one-half over two thousand years of ancient West Asian history has been revealed and the Oriental origins of Western Civilization made much cleaer. (more later) DMMcG

On 2002-08-09 11:35, Marc Lamb wrote:
Speaking of the "Tower of Babel", Professor, here is the story...


Genesis 11

1 Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.
2 It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.
4 They said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth."
5 The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
6 The LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.
7 "Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech."
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.
9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.

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I see two events in this story: 1. The building of the tower, and 2. the resulting confusion.

Question: Do both of these events take place in a saecular spring or summer? Or, does does the former take place in spring, while the latter is a summer event?

What's your opinion on this, Mr. McGuiness?

Hummm, anyone else? Feel free to jump on this one.

That passage of Genesis has always baffled me. Babel is Babylon (its real name; Babylon is a Greekified version), and a lot of scholars have suggested the Tower of Babel either as a ziggurat or a metaphor for Babylonian astrology. Neither of those really works, though, because of the language idea. At Babel (which means "Gate of God"), God is supposed to have confounded human languages so that people couldn't understand one another. But diversity of languages existed long before Babylon was founded, even if we consider only the Fertile Crescent area and take phrases like "the whole earth" to mean only that portion of it.

So it's not clear what these events are supposed to mean. A lot of Genesis consists of somewhat-rewritten Babylonian myths and folklore -- just about all of it that isn't specifically about Abraham and his descendants. Which makes sense if you consider that Abraham is supposed to have come from Ur. But this passage defies comprehension. If I had to guess, I'd say it dimly refers to some legend about the founding of Babel, garbled over time and oral transmission and revision by priests. But that's only a guess, and not very informative even as a guess.

As for what Turning it represents, that depends. If we see it as a garbled version of history, then it occurred in no Turning, because the founding of Babel occurred in pre-saecular times. If we take it at face value, as a myth of the loss of clear understanding that occurs when communication must be filtered through language, then I think it resonates best with the meaning of the Second Turning, when the old moral consensus comes apart and confusion reigns over the quest for a new one.

The most direct effects that the rediscovery of the history of ancient West Asia during the past 150 years have had is an enormous and exponential increase in our knowledge and understanding of the cultures that informed the "cosmological conscience" of Judaeo-Christianity. Like so many others who have studied ancient West Asian cultures, I have found James B. Pritchard's 1969 edition of "Ancient Near Eastern Texts" to be an excellant illustration of just what types of things have been learned by "recent" scholarship with regard to the religious traditions of the area. This is especially true in his presentation of the Egyptian "Memphite Theology" and the "Babylonian Creation Account." But I have also found of even greater significance a book originally written in 1950 by nomad archetype Theodore H. Gaster entitled, "Thespis: Ritual, Myth, and Drama in the Ancient Near East." For Gaster,"...when we look to the beginnings of European literature we find everywhere drama, and always drama derived from a religious ritual designed to ensure the rebirth of the dead world." (Thespis p.7) The dramatic action is performed in "...a pattern and sequence of ritual acts which, from time immemorial, have characterized major seasonal festivals in most parts of the world." (ibid.p.9) Gastor sees a seasonal pattern being acted out in ritual form whose "...purpose is periodically to revieve the topocosm, that is, the entire complex of any give locality concieved as a living organism." (ibid. p.17) The topcosmic seasonal pattern resembles the main tenants of the so called " gia hypothesis" that sees the entire globe as an ecozone. the topocosm thus becomes the seasonal and ritual process by which the microcosm of humanity is reconciled to a divine macrocosmic universe. It's universal character can be found in it's survival "...in formal myths but also--albeit in serverely attenuated guise--in the hymns and chants associated with the liturgy. It may be recognized in the structure of several Bblical Psalms, while sophisticated literary developements of it may be detected in the same way in the choral odes of the 'Bacchae' of Euripedes, in the Homeric 'Hymn to Demeter,' and even in some of the hymns of the Medievel Church." (ibid p.19). Like the seasonal pattern, the topocosmic pattern has a four fold functional nature consisting of rituals of mortification, purgation, invigeration, and jubilation. Mortifications are symbolic or actual rituals of suffering and are associated with the season of winter. Cleaning purgation rituals are found in the spring. Invigerations or "mock combats" are found in the summertime and jubilations are rituals associated with the "return of the dead" and the fall harvest. Gastor was an expert on the ancient Canaanite religious texts from the acinet ruins of the Temple of Baal in a city which in antiquity was known as Ugarit whose modern name is Ras Shamra. The city flourished during the first four centuries of the secondary phase of the Ancient West Asian Paradigm during the Mitanni and Hittite saecula and the exodic unravaling and Ugaritic crisis of the Exodic Saeculum ca. 1626- 1208 B.C. The culture and religion of Ugarit was an early form of Baal worship found later and in the same place practiced by Phoenicians and described by Romans, Greeks, and Hebrews and practiced by devotees of the cult of Baal-Helios at Baalbek in Syria during the Hellenistic and Romal Imperial periods. Gaster also showed that the Baal figure is a syncretic composite of 1)the Semitic "dying shephard motif" (eg. Tammuz) 2) the Indo-European "dying and rising vegitation god" (eg. Adonis) and 3) the victorious Sumero-Asianic "creator god" (eg. Enlil). The creation information is recapitulated by Gaster in his analysis of the Babylonian Epic of creation called the "Enuma Elish" which was, as we have alreadyseen, among the first major subjects studied from the ruins of Nineveh and Ashurbanipal's library. Gastor studied ancient west asian indo- european ritual by looking at the Hittite myths of "Hahhimas" and "Telipinu" and the "Snaring of the Dragon" which was "...the cultic myth of the annual Puruli festival." (ibid. p.20) In his study of acient Eygptian myth and ritual, Gaster focused on the dramatic texts from Edfu and from the Ramesseum, and the so-called "Memphite Creation Play" inscribed on the celebrated "Shabaka Stone." The "Memphite Cosmology" was caused to be inscribed by the Nubian pharaoh named Shabaka during the Shabakan Awakening ca. 722-689 B.C. This text represents the cosmology found in the cult of Isis during the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods. Since the publication of "Thespis" modern scholars have come to know more about the Asianic speaking Sumerians. In this case, one can turn to the researches of scholars like S.N. Kramer, Thorkild Jacobsen, or Miguel Civil. Likewise, our knowlge of Indo- Europeanism has also increased especially as it applies to the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism and the cult of Mithra during the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods. This also applies to our knowledge of the Essene cult during the same period. The Essnes were a Jewish cult influenced by Zoroastrianism. The Cult counter-culturally flourished in the cultural modernism of the Augustian High. It vigouriously emerged during the spiritual warfare phase of the Christian Awakening and engaged in cultural warefare duing the Claudian Unravaling which ended with the onset of the Flavian Crisis in 70 A.D. with the destruction of the Secound Temple in Jerusalem and the Diaspora. The religious traditions of the Essenes have been reconstructed by studies done on the famous Dead Sea Scrolls buried in the caves at Wadi Qumran around 70 A.D.. (more later) DMMcG

According to Robert Ellwood, the exuberant activity of the new religious groups in modern America "has a precedent," one that has significantly influenced the shape of the recent religious consciousness. The last half of the twentieth century has not been the only period in a struggle with the hectic pace of life has thrown up a radical reaction in the form of new religious movements. During the Hellenistic Age, fringe movements also sprang from the world of Eastern religions. Culturally, the Hellenistic period falls during the period from the Macedonan High ca. 387-356 B.C. to the end of Orientalization II during the spiritual warfare phase of the Sassanid Awakening ca. 130-161 A.D.. Hellenistic culture grew out of the confrontation of Greek philosophy with Egyptian and West Asian life and represented a new culture, one that was mystical, syncretistic and cosmopolitan. The culture of the Hellenistic period bore much resemblance to that of modern Western civilization. Like the twentieth century, the Hellenistic era witnessed several forms of government and the expansion of big business, the growth of cities with crowded slums, and a widening gap between rich and poor. In the areas of ar and the intellect, Hellenistic civilization also displayed modern characteristics: a narrow specialization of learning, an emphasis upon science, an inclination toward realism and materialism, an enormous production of mediocre literature, extreme ideology in education and an interest in mysticism side with dogmatic unbelief and extreme skepticism. (more later) DMMcG

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Thus far in the history of Western Civilization there have been four periods that I have labled "Orientalizations." If one were to examin parallel developments between the periods of Orientalization he or she would discover Orientalizations I and III are similar historical processes with similar historical results. When I discussed Orientalization I ca. 814-569 B.C. I showed how the alphabet facilitated the evolution of rational thoughts in the minds of men like Thales and Anaximander of Miletus which, of course, is located in Asiatic Greece. The alphabet, like many of the cosmological stories, were transferred to the Greeks by semitic speaking Canaanites in West Asia known as the Phoenicians. This was the same group of people who had replaced the earlier Canaanite peoples from the city and culture of Ugarit who had developed their own syllabic alphabet writtn in cuneiform. Both the people of Ugarit and the Phoenicians worshipped as part of the Baal Cult. This worship anticipated the Greco-Roman devotees of the Hellenistic Cult of Baal-Helios at Baalbek in Syria during the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods. Orientalization III occurred at the end of the Medieval Paradigm ca. 1122-1328 and the operative features of Orientalization III were Arabic numerals. As it turns out, Arabic numerals are to Western science as the alphabet was to ancient Greek reason. Hence Orientalizations I and III are similar since in Or I, reaon was produced from letters whereas in Or III, science was produced from numbers. Like Or's I and III it appears that Orientalizations II and IV are equally so conjoined. As we shall see, during Orientalization II ca. 76 B.C.-161 A.D. Roman Imperial culture became increasingly Orientalized in its political economy in the areas of both Church and State. During this second period of Orientalization Rome moved from a secular to Theocratic State or to put it more traditionaly from the Republic and Principate to the Dominate and from a secular civic religion to a state cult. Of course nomad archetype Constantine the Great was just the most successful of a long line of theocrats that go back to the legacy of prophet archetype Marcus Aurelius and nomad archetype Septimius Severus. During the period between Marcus Aurelius and Contantine there were several forms of theocracy attempted there was the first priest-king Eluyabalus, the god-king Diocletian, the priest-king Pope in Rome, the cultic leaders, Maxentius of Mithra, and the king-priest Constantine the Christian. It is my contention that that our contemporay period I call Orientalization IV is evolving in a similar way to that of Orientalization II. Below I will attempt to list the parallel eight turnings comparing Or's II and IV: ------ORII---------------ORIV--------Julian-Unr---------NewFreedom-Unr--ca.76-44B.C.--------ca.1912-1929--[cultural-war-------[culture-war---of-Essene-Awk]--------of-3rdGA]------------------------------------------------------------------------- --Octavian-Cr---------NewDeal-Cr-----ca.44-12B.C.-------ca.1929-1946---[actual-war---------[actual-war----of-Essene-Awk]--------of-3rdGA]----------------------------------------------------------------------------Augustine-Hi------NewFrontier-Hi--ca.12B.C.-14A.D.---ca.1946-1968--
-[steady-state-------[steady-state--cult-modernism-----cult-modernism--of Essene-Awk]------of-3rdGA]----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------Christian-Awk-------NewAge-Awk-----ca.14-41A.D.--------ca.1968-1986--[spiritual-war]----[spiritual-war--of-Christian-Awk]---of-4thGA]-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Claudian-Unr-------Millenial-Unr---ca.41-70A.D.-------ca.1986-2001---[culture-war---------[culture-war--of-Christian-Awk]-----of-4thGA]---------------------------------------------------------------------------Flavian-Cr-------3rd-WorldWar-Cr---ca.70-102--------ca.2001-2019(?)--[actual-war--------[actual-war-----of-Christian-Awk]---of-4thGA]-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Trajanic-Hi-------PostWar-Hi-------ca.102-130-------ca.2019(?)-20??- --[steady-state-----[steady-state---cultfundament-------cultfundament--of-ChristianAwk---of-ChristianAwk-------------------------------------------------------------------------Sassanid-Awk---------5thGA---------ca.130-161---------ca.20??-20??----Spiritual-war------Spiritual-war--of SassanidAwk------of-5thGA------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------



At the end of the Sassanid Awakening the theocratic Dominate replaces the secular principate with the accession of the "new age" princeps, philosopher king, and prophet archetype Marcus Aurelius. It is at this point that I begin the Medieval Paradigm. If the parallel is correct then after the 5thGA some type of new paradigm will emerge that will be culturally dominated by 4thGA fundamentalism from the post war steady state high. But during the 5thGA a vigorous modernist conter-culture will emerge and be ultimetaly connected to the modernism of the 3rdGA ca.1893-1968 in the same way that the fundamentalism of the 4thGA ca. 1968-20?? is connected to the fundamentalism of the 2ndGA ca. 1819-1893, and just as the cultural modernism of the 1stGA ca. 1727-1819 is connected to the 3rdGA, ad serriatum. (more later) DMMcG

To make the turnings line up better here is condensed version of the table:


Julian-Unr---------NewFreedom-Unr--ca.76-44B.C.----ca.1912-1929

Octavian-Cr-------NewDeal-Cr-----ca.44-12B.C.-------ca.1929-1946

Augustine-Hi------NewFrontier-Hi--ca.12B.C.-14A.D.--ca.1946-1968

Christian-Awk----NewAge-Awk-----ca.14-41A.D.-------ca.1968-1986

Claudian-Unr-----Millenial-Unr------ca.41-70A.D.-------ca.1986-2001

Flavian-Cr-------3rd-WorldWar-Cr--ca.70-102---------ca.2001-2019(?)

Trajanic-Hi-------PostWar-Hi---------ca.102-130--------ca.2019(?)-20??

Sassanid-Awk----Future Awakening---ca.130-161------ca.20??-20??

I believe that two of the parallel dates in the comparison of Or's I and II are at least interesting, if not significant. These dates are the years 70 and 2001. I hesitate to state the case out of fear that some Christian fundamentalist will use it for "end-time" proof. Hence, my disclaimer! The year 70 is the year that separatets the cultural warfare phase of the Christian Awakening (i.e.Claudian Unraveling) ca.41-70, from the actual warfare phase of the Christian Awakening (i.e. Flavian Crisis) ca.70-102, while the year 2001 also separates periods of cultural and actual warfare during the 4thGA ca.1968-20?? (i.e.Millenial Unraveling and 3rd World War Crisis). The interesting parallel is the common denominator is the destruction of major symbols of the status quo by either an aggressive and hegemonic Western power or by semitic speaking "terrorists." In A.D. 70, the major symbol of the status quo was the second temple in Jersusalem and the Roman armies under nomad archetype Vespasian and his second-in-command hero archetype son Titus were the agressive and hegemonic Western power. The temple was destroyed because it had become the epicenter of a group of fighters called, in both the New Testament and Flavius Josphus, in Greek, "Lestai." It is not insignificant that [J]e,sus was crucified between two of them. The word "Lestai" translated often as "theives" or "bandits" could best be translated today as "terrorist." It is highly likely that the Romans also considered Christ to be either a lestai or a lestai-symp. Other lestai were associated with the military arm of the Essene cultic community described as suicides at the seige of Masada, also in 70. These Masada defenders were also known as the "sicarii" the "stabbers" or "assasins," which is the probable etymology of the name Judas Iscariot. Of course, we remember that it was the Essenes, those Zoroastrianized cultists, who placed the Dead Sea Scrols in the caves at Wadi Qumran, also around 70. So the Romans represent the archetypal symbol of the Western and agressive hegemonic power while the 2nd temple becomes the major symbol of "lestai" activity. In 2001, semitic speaking "terrorists" destroyed the World Trade Towers on September 11th. This event is the polar opposite to those events described as havihg occurred in A.D. 70. The events of 2001 represent semitic speaking "terrorists" destroying the archetypal symbol of a Western and aggressive hegemonic power. It took them a long time to retaliate, but they have long memories in the Orient. (more later) DMMcG

Thanks Mike, better than my feeble attempt..DMMcG

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Of course the religious war launched on 9/11/01 is just the most recent act in a long list of wars between Western Christians and "Asiatic" Muslims since the time of Muhammed during the spiritual warfare phase of the Islamic Awakening ca.632-664 A.D.. In its early days, Muslims spilled out of Arabia and Christianity was on the defensive. I have already shown how important the battles of Constantinople in 711 and Tours-Poitiers in 732 were to the survival of Western Civilization. Since 1500 the tide has turned as Christians took the offensive and Islam on the defense. Now the reverse seems to be true again with the resurgence of 4thGA fundamentalist militant Islam. With an estimated six million Muslims from West, Central, and East Asia and Africa living in America today the religious war has taken on a differnt twist as liberal Christians eagerly embrace an Islam that preaches patriotism. peace and love. Of course, militant Islam is not a recent phenomena in America. We need to remember that "...Muslim immigrants from Lebanon in the 1890s or Pakistan in the 1990s came to a country where there was already a small Muslim population--a Black Muslim population." (Eck p 239) America's "native" form of Islam has its origins in the cultural sin of slavery. "The two largest Islamic offshoots in America are the Baha'i World Faith and the Nation of Islam. These movements are quite eclectic, however, having diverse religious and social origins. Baha'i has had a long presence in America, being well established before World War II. Though its greatest growth in the United States occurred after the war, its faith and institutional structure had long been in place. The movement is stable and seems likely to endure. The Nation of Islam, on the other hand, should be seen more as a postwar development. Its origins were in the 1930s, but its effective beginnings did not come until after the war. Also, the movement has experienced some earth-shaking changes in recent years." (Kyle p.239) The twentieth century history of the Nation of Islam dates to the very beginning of the cultural warfare phase of the 3rdGA (New Freedom Unraveling ca.1912-1929) in 1913. At that time the movement was associated with a twenty-seven year old prophet archetype, Billy Sunday contemporary and latter day Vivekananda named Timothy Drew who had been renamed Noble Drew Ali. Like the Christian Evangelist, Ali called "...urban blacks of America's cities to a sense of dignity and belonging rooted in what he called their Moorish past, which he also refered to as their Asiatic past. He travelled widely as a young man, and according to the lore surrounding him, the queen of England made him a noble, the sultan of Turkey gave him the name Ali and the king of Morocco commissioned him to teach the Muslim faith to Americans of African descent." (Eck p.252) Ali was, of course, wrong as to te geographical origins of Black Muslims. They were not Asiatic in their cultural origins but the religion they followed was indeed a product of West Asia. Ali's reference to Moorish heritage recalls the "reconquista," the internal crusade in Spain, and makes sense of the Moroccan connection. Earlier I referred to prophet archetype Ali as a latter day artist archetype Vivekananda. It is highly probable that Ali, like Vivekananda, could well have been the first Islamic missionary in the United States. After Ali's death in 1929 leadership of the Nation of Islam fell to the mysterious nomad archetype Wallace D. Fard who established the first Temple of Islam in Detroit in 1930. In 1934 Fard passed the mantle of Messenger of Allah to a nomad archetype named Robert Poole, renamed Elijah Muhammad. According to historian C. Erik Lincoln. "Elijah Muhammed must be credited with the serious re-introcuction of Islam to the United States in modern times, giving it the peculiar mystique, the appeal and te respect without which it could not have penetrated the American bastion of Judeo-Christian democracy." (Eck p254) Elijah Muhammad claimed that his authority to teach came from Allah himself who had communicated with him. Officially the beginnings of the Nation of Islam can be dated to the beginning of the New Frontier High in 1946 when Elijah Muhammad was released from prison after having been jailed during World War II for refusing to kill on any orders but Allah's. During the New Frontier steady state high ca.1946-1968 in the period of time before the onset of the Civil Rights movement, the NOI spread to almost every major American city with a large black population and the movement itself centered in Chicago. It was in the "...black ghetto, with its crime, filthy streets and crowded apartments where life is cheap (that) was the principle context of Muslim recruitment. Here the voice of social protest, challenging the downtrodden and criminals to recover their self-respect and repudiate the dominant white culture and its religion, did not go unheard." (Kyle p.242) Eric Lincoln refers to the NOI as a kind of protest movement "directed at the whole value construct of white Christian society." The Black Muslims of the NOI considered themseves to be counter-cultural and totally alienated and opposed to the cultural modernism of the 3rdGA New Frontier High. They believed that they had created an absoutely new society in America that emphasized severe moral and social discipline. In fact they have, in many ways, re-adopted values and attitudes that were well within the "Puritan-American mainstream" in former days. In this sense the Black Muslims have adopted many "moral standards of the Caucasian devels" and canbe regarded as a "cultural sect calling blakcs out of their sub-culture." (Kyle p.243) Perhaps the individual who did the most to deliver the message of the Nation of Islam was artist archetype Malcom Little, renamed Malcolm X, who had converted to Islam while in prison. He broke with Elijah Muhammad in 1964 primarily over what he perceived to be a form of racism practiced by Black Muslims. He esablished his own Muslim Mosque along with the secular Organization of Afro-American Unity. But in 1965 his name was joined to that grim list of the assasinated that littered the final years of the New Frontier steady state ca. 1946-1968. (more later) DMMcG

The Julian Unraveling ca. 76-44 B.C. comes at the onset of Orientalization II and marks the cultural warfare phase of the culturally modernist Essene Awakening. Meanwhile its historical parallel can be found in the New Freedom Unraveling ca. 1912-1929 which begins the period of Orientalization IV. The New Freedom Unraveling represents the cultural warfare phase of the culturally modernist 3rdGA. The period of actual warfare of the Essene Awakening occurred during the Octavian Crisis ca. 44-12 B.C. In Judaea during the crisis, nomad archetype Herod the Great, the son of the Idumaean Antipater, first attracted the attention of his Roman patrons because he waged a victorious campaign against a "terrorist" chief who controlled an entire district in northern Galilee. According to the historian Josephus, Herod trapped this "terrorist" chief, whose name was Hezekiah, and executed him on the spot. But we know that Hezekiah was a guerrilla leader rather than an ordinary "terrorist" because his sympathizers in Jerusalem were powerful enough to force Herod to stand trial for murder. A cousin of nomad archetype Julius Caesar intervened, obtained Herod's release, and gave him the recommendation that soon led to Herod's appointment as puppet king of the Jews in 39 B.C. Herod had to fight more "terrorists" in order to consolidate his control over Palestine. Josephus declares that "terrorists overran a great part of the country, causing the inhabitants as much misery as a war could have done." So Herod "took the field against the terorists in the caves." When trapped inside, the terrorists turned out to have their families with them, and they refused to surrender. One old terrorist stood at the mouth of an inaccessible cave and in full sight of Herod killed his wife and each of his seven children "and went so far as to sneer at Herod" before leaping to his own death. Thinking himself "master now of caves and cavedwellers," Herod left for Samaria. But his deparure removed all restraint from the "habitual troublemakers in Galilee," who promptly killed a Roman general named Ptolemy and "systematically ravaged the countryside, establishing their lairs in the marshes and other inaccesible places." (more later) DMMcG

During Orientalization IV the period of actual warfare of the 3rdGA corresponds to the New Deal Crisis ca. 1929-1946. It was at this time when America launched its anti-cultic campaign against Nazism and its second Asian War against Japan. These struggles were followed by the culturally modernist New Frontier steady state high ca. 1946-1968, when the United States embarked upon its global hegemony with a new form of "cold-war presidency" from nomad archetype Eisenhower onward, and America would fight and tie and loose its third and fourth Asian wars. Meanwhile back in Orientalization II, the culturally modernist steady state of the Augustan high ca. 12 B.C.- 14 A.D. witnessed its own, new form of executive called princeps. But in Judaea, upon nomad archetype Herod the Great's death in 4 B.C. uprisings took pace in all outlying areas. The new terrorist leader was hero archetype Hezekiah's son, artist archetype Judas of Galilee who seized a roal armory. Simutaneously in Peraea across the Jordan, a terrorist slave named Simon "burnt the palace at Jericho and many magnificent country residences." A third rebel terrorist, a former shepherd named Athnongaeus, "declared himself king"--which is probably Josephus' way of saying that he was considered a messiah by his followers. Before the Romans killed Athnongaeus and four of his brothers, one by one, these terrorists succeeded in "harassing all Judaea with their brigandage." Varus, the Roman governor of Syria, restored law and order. He captured 2,000 "ringleaders" and had them crucified. For historical purposes it is important to note tat these events occurred in the year that prophet archetype [J]e,sus of Nazareth is said to have been born. Artist archetype Judas of Galilee soon emerged as the leader of the main terrorist forces. Josephus says he "aspired to royalty," and at times characterizes him as"a very cleaver rabbi." In 6 A.D. the Romans tried to carry out a census. Judas warned his countrymen to resist because the census would lead to "nothing less than complete slavery." Josephus has him say that "the Jews have no king but YHWH." Therefore "taxes should not be paid to the Romans" and "YHWH would surely assist them if they had faith in their cause." Josephus reports that those prepared to submit to Rome were treated as enemies: their cattle were rounded up and their dwellings burned. No information has survived concerning how and when Judas of Galilee met his fate. We know only that his prophet archetype sons continued to fight. Two would be crucified, and another claimed to be messiah. (more later) DMMcG

The spiritual warfare phase of the culturally fundamentalist 4thGA I have labled the New Age Awakening ca. 1968-1986. Back in Orientalization II this period corresponds to the spiritual warfare phase of the culturally fundamentalist Christian Awakening ca. 14-41 A.D.. Of course it was during this period, around 26 A.D., when prophet archetype [J]e,sus of Nazareth activly began to preach his messianic doctrines. At this point in time a "shooting war," led by artist archeype Judas of Galilee and his prophet archetype sons, was being fought not only in Galilee, but in Judaea and Jerusalem as well. The [J]e,sus cult was neither the largest nor the most threatening of the rebellious situations with which artist archetype Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who decreed [J]e,sus' death, had to contend. For example, Josephus describes the appearance of an angry city mob joned by a huge influx from the country when Pilate transgressed the Jewish taboo on graven images in Jerusalem. Later Pilate was surrounded by another angry mob protesting the missuse of temple funds for the construction of an aqueduct. From the gospels we know that [J]e,sus himself led an attack on the temple, and that some sort of uprising took place shortly before [J]e,sus' trial, since the popular terrorist leader Barabas and several of his men were in jail at that point. After [J]e,sus was killed, the Romans continued to try to clear the Judaean coutryside of terrorists. As I have already indicated, to the Romans, [J]e,sus was just another subversive who deserved the same fate as all the other rabble rousing terrorists and revolutionaries who kept crawling out of the desert. That was why the title on [J]e,sus' cross read (INRI) "king of the Jews." And, as I pointed out above, we remember that [J]e,sus was not crucified alone; the gospels report that his fate was shared by two other convicted criminals. These men, as I have already said, were called in Greek "lestai," precisely the same term that Josephus used when he wanted to refer to the zealot-terrorists. The evangelist Mark states that at the time of [J]e,sus' trial, the Jerusalem jail contained a number of prisoners "that had made insurrection." If [J[e,sus' companions were drawn from these insurrectionists, the grisly scene at Golgatha obtains a unity otherwise lacking. (more later) DMMcG

Between the years 1986 and 2001 Western Civilization was dominated by the cultural warfare THphase of the fundamentalist 4thGA. This period is described as the Millenial Unraveling. During this turning America entered upon its fifth and sixth Asian wars. The first of these was the so-called Persian Gulf War which was America's first West Asian War and her first energy war. Shortly after the terrorist incidents of September 11th 2001, the United States has been engaged in its first Central Asian War in Afghanistan which was also her second energy war. In Orientalization II the period of cultural warfare of the fundamentalist Christian Awakening was known as the Claudian Unraveling ca. 41-70. In 44 A.D. Josephus reported that a great terrorist chief named Tholomaios was captured and executed by the Romans. Shortly thereafter, a messianic figure named Theudas appeared in the desert. His followers abandoned their homes and possessions and massed on the banks of the Jordan river. Some say Theudas intended to make the waters part as they had done for Joshua; others that this messiah was going the other way, westward, toward Jerusalem. No matter--the Roman governor Cuspius Fadus sent the cavalry; They beheaded Theudas and slaughtered his followers. During the feast of Passover in 50 A.D., a Roman soldier pulled up his tunic and farted into a crowd of pilgrims and temple worshippers. "The less restrained of the young men and the naturally tumultuous segments of the people rushed into battle," writes Josephus. The Roman heavy infantry was called in, creating a gigantic panic in which, according to Josephus, 30,000 people were trampled to death (some say he probably meant 3,000). Something close to a general revolt developed in 52 A.D. under the leadership of Eleazer ben Deinaios, a "revolutionary terrorist" who had been in the mountains for almost 20 years. The governor Cumanus, "rounded up Eleazer's folowers, killing still more." But the disorder spread "and all over the country plundering went on and the bolder spirits rose in revolt." The Syrian legate intervened, beheaded eighteen terrorists, and crucified all of the prisoners who had been rounded up by Cumanus. The revolt was finally crushed by a new governor, Felix, who captured Eleazer and sent him to Rome--probably to be strangled in public. "The terrorists whom he crucified," says Josephus, "and the local inhabitants in league with them whom he caught and punishe were too many to count." In Jerusalem, assasinations by "dagger men" (i.e. sicarii) who concealed their weapons inside their garments now had become common. One of their most famous victims was the high priest Jonathan. In the midst of all this bloodshed, military-messianic contenders appeared again and again. Josephus refers to one set of messianic leaders as "evil scoundrels." Next came a Jewish Egyptian "false prophet." He collected several thousand "dupes," led them into the desert, then turned around and tried to attack Jerusalem-- providing confirmation, if the Romans needed it, that all such people were politically dangerous. The situation in Palestine in 55 A.D. again according to Josephus was dominated "day by day with fighting." By 66 A.D. the terrorists were everywhere; their agents had infiltrated the Temple priesthood and forged an alliance with another Eleazer, the nomad archetype son of the high priest Ananias. Eleazer issued a kind of declaration of independence, an order preventing the daily sacrifice of animals dedicated to the health of hero archetype Nero, the reigning emperor. The pro-Roman and anti-Roman factions began to fight in the streets of Jerusalem; dagger men, freed slaves, and the Jerusalem rabble le by Eleazer on one side; the high priests, the Herodian aristocracy, and the Roman royal gaurd on the other. Meanwhile, the last prophet archetype surviving son of artist arcetype Judas of Galilee, stormed the fortress of Masada, equipped his terrorists with Roman weapons taken from the armory, and marched on Jerusalem. Bursting onto a chaotic scene, Manachem took command of the insurrection-- "like a king," says Josephus. He drove out the Roman troops, gained control of the temple area, and murdered the High Priest ananias. Manahem then decked himself with kngly robes, and follwed by a train of armed terrorists, prepared to enter the sanctuary of the Temple. But Eleazer, possibly to avenge his father's death, ambushed the cortege. Manahem fled but was captured and "put to death by prolonged torture." The Jews fought on, convinced that the real messiah would yet appear. After the Romans had suffered several reverses, Nero called in his best general, nomad archetype Flavius Vespasianus, vetran of the campaigns against the Britons. With 65,000 men and the most advanced forms of military engines and and siegecraft Vespasian and his hero archetype son Titus put down the revolt. Of course, by this time the cult of Christianity had infiltrated itself into the city of Rome. The Roman city cult was was originally led by nomad archetype Paul of Tarsus, but after his execution , leadership of the Roman cult was undertaken by prophet archetype Peter of Capharnum, Christianity's first Roman Priest-King. Peter himself was executed during the time of persecution following the "great fire" in Rome forever associated with the incendiary Nero. The unraveling came to an end or the new crisis began, as we have already seen, with te destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem in 70. A destruction that was at least pschologically as traumatic as the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11/01. (more later) DMMcG

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About how people felt about life; how their religionchanged; how their art changed; their multiculturalism; and their scholars.

The actual warfare phase of the 3rdGA probably began on 9/11/01 and can be characterized at this point as a struggle between American modernism and Islamic fundamentalism. On a larger level I believe the crisis will see an expansion of fundamentalist belligerants and corresponding decline in modernists to the extent that wars will be fought between fundamentalists a la Christians vs Muslims etc.. If the eighteen year turning cycle maintains into the future, the next steady state high will emerge around 2019. Obviously we have more information about the actual warfare phase of the Christian Awakenig. I have labled this phase the Flavian Crisis ca. 70-102 A.D. The crisis began, as I have already shown, with the destruction of the second temple of Jerusalem. The historian Tacitus reckoned that 600,000 rebels had gathered in the city. "All who were capable of serving appeared in arms," and the women were no less martial than the men. Josephus, from the Roman side, called upn the besieged to surrender; the Jews branded him as a traitor, and fought to the last. Starving Jews made desperate sorties to forage for food; thousand of them were captured by the Romans, and were crucified; "the multitud of these was so great," Josephus reports, "that room was wanting for the crosse, and crosse were wanting for the bodies." In the later stages of the five-month siege the streets of the city were clogged with corpses; ghouls wandered abot despoiling and stabbing the dead; we are told that 116,000 bodies were thrown over the walls. Some Jews swallowed gold pieces and slipped out from Jerusalem; Romans or Syrians, capturing them, slit open their bellie, or searched their feces, to find the coins. Having taken half the city, nero archetype Titus offered what he thought were lenient terms to the terrorists; they rejected them. The flaming brands of the Romans set fire to the Temple, and the great edifice, much of it of wood, was rapdly consumed. Te surviving defenders fought bravely, proud says Dio, to die on Temple gronds. Some killed one another, some fell upon their own swords, some leaped into the flames. The victors gave no quarter, but slew all Jews upon whom they could lay their hands; 97,000 fugitives were caught and sold as slaves; many of them died as unwilling gladiators in triumphal games throghout the empire. Resistance continued in Judaea till 73, but essentially the destruction of the Temple marked the end of the rebellion and of the Jewish state. The flight or enslavement of a million Jews so accelerated their spread through the Mediterranean that their scholars came to date the Diaspora from the destruction of the temple. Jews migrated to all parts of the empire and even though exact statistis are hard to get it has been estimated that seven to ten percent of the population in the Western Mediterranean was Jewish. (more later) DMMcG