Ethiopia, Queen of Sheba, and Spaceships

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abijah
pleb in zion
Posts: 2577

Ethiopia, Queen of Sheba, and Spaceships

Post by abijah »

I highly recommend Jonathan Pageau and Richard Rohlin's "Universal History" series, seriously fascinating stuff and nourishing content, ranging from subjects of Alexander the Great w/ the Greeks, to King Arthur and the Holy Grail in the medieval West, to the Far East, as well as mythic topics like Beowulf, Groundhog Day, and Gog & Magog.

But two of the most interesting for me where the episodes pertaining to Ethiopia (subject-matter of this post largely based on this discussion):
Ethiopia is portrayed as not only the furthest geographical extremes (being on the edge of the known world), but they also have this *symbolic* element of embodying the 'furthest extremity' of something, the outer limits on the edge. Thus Ethiopia becomes associated with all that is foreign, all that is dark and mysterious, all that is ambiguous and hybridic, as well as associations with riches like gold (all the best gold came from there), and jewels, and aromatics, and spices and all the other exotic delites which come from these places.

Genesis 2
11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
  • 1 Kings 10
    1 And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD, she came to prove him with hard questions.
    2 And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart.
Isaiah binds all this up in the prophetic template that God will give the messiah the "treasures of darkness", which ultimately harks back to the land of Havilah in Eden, where there is fine gold, the precious onyx stone, and the aromatic resin bdellium.

Isaiah 45
1 Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden...
3 I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel...
Thus saith the LORD, The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans >[dark-skinned foreigners], men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine..

This connection between gold/riches/jewels, with aromatic`incense/culinary spices, and with darkness/mystery/foreignness/riddles.
This is best shown probably in the Queen of Sheba, who being "dark, yet fair", comes to Solomon with all these riches and retinue, because she has heard his wisdom.
Image

How does she do this? She tries him hard questions, poses him riddles (just like a sphinx/cherub does who guards entry into the sacred space), specifically with the language that "she communed with him all that was in her heart", which is and becomes a fundamental leitmotif associated with Ethiopia. Apparently, an Egyptian translation of "ethiopia" means "stealer of the heart", which is the emblematic purpose of her as the extreme version of the "strange/foreign woman", as well as the fallout of her union with Solomon. Her lineage by the Judaic monarch results ultimately in being the agents by which the Ark of the Covenant (another symbol of the divine feminine, the heart, and mystery.

One thing I find really interesting about the Queen of Sheba narrative is when it says this:

1 Kings 10
And when the queen of Sheba had seen all Solomon's wisdom, and the house that he had built... there was no more spirit in her.

The KJV renders it "there was no more spirit in her", but the word also means "breath" and "wind". She was "breathless". This is a puzzling tie-in with Noah's Ark (which is connected with the Temple Solomon builds in this context), wherein the Genesis narrative specifically explicates that the floodwaters destroyed all flesh in whom is the breath of life. Thus the Queen of Sheba who's breathless at Solomon's wisdom (wisdom is feminine) is connected with the Ark who preserves. The Ark that preserves Noah in the flood, the Ark that preserves Moses in the Egyptian river, the Ark (of the Covenant) that preserves the tablets of the Law, the mannabread and Aaron's budded-rod. All this feminine symbolism I think somehow points to the divine feminine's role in as being a *container*, an agent which *preserves* through the chaotic waters. Likely this speaks to Heavenly Mother's role in salvation.

But anyway (spoiler warning), recently I read Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and to my surprise, all this symbolism shows up in this humorous space-adventure novel.

Arguably the whole theme of the book is that the main crucial aspect to getting the answer to a mystery that you're seeking, is to ask the right question. You have that famous scene where they build a supercomputer who can answer any question, and then they realise they put the cart before the horse. A supercomputer with the capacity to answer any question is inherently limited to the askers ability to phrase the question/ pose the riddle properly. They ask the computer what the answer to 'Life, the Universe and Everything', and the concise answer is 42. The computer than spells out the need for them to have a computer beyond its own capability and that he the forerunner supercomputer will be it's designer (and explicitly makes an analogy to John the Baptist, who foreruns Jesus..), and that only this supercomputer 2.0 will be able to formulate the question to 'Life, the Universe & Everything'. The ultimate Question necessarily precedes the ultimate Answer.

Later in the book, we learn that this secondwave supercomputer designed solely with the purpose of formulating the ultimate Question, is none other than the planet Earth, herself.

This is totally symbolically coherent, and totally aligns with biblical symbolism so peculiarly.

Matthieu Pageau in his interview with Jordan Peterson makes exactly this connection (13:40 - 15:30)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R-vkbx ... u.be&t=825, how the pre-Creation state of the earth in the beginning of Genesis 1 as being "dark", being "formless and void" as being related to God being posed with a cosmic riddle, on which He must solve if He intends to bring the light of order to the dark, disembodied chaos. All of this is contained in the Queen of Sheba, who is "dark" (the foreigner/stranger which represents all that is mysterious/unknown), who tests Solomon with questions/riddles, and who is rendered 'void'/breathless at his answers.

So I find it fascinating how in Hitchhiker's, the origin story of the Earth (the earth being inherently feminine) is that it is a supercomputer whose designed purpose is to, over the span of eons, to formulate the ultimate Question to 'Life, the Universe and Everything'.

Another fascinating connection has to do with the protagonists' spaceship, the 'Heart of Gold'.
Image

Remember earlier about this association between Ethiopia/Queen`of Sheba, and being a 'stealer of the heart' (you'll have to watch the Pageau 'Universal History' video ^above, to get the full gist), and how this maps on to the (divinely-sanctioned) theft of the Ark of the Covenant? This same trope plays out, in how Zaphod Beeblebrox *steals* the "Heart of Gold" spaceship, and interestingly in order to accomplish this heist he needed to block off certain parts of his brain, the part where he formulated the plot to begin with, he put his own veil over his mind in order to steal the 'Heart of Gold'.
Image

Moreover, this 'Heart of Gold' spaceship is operated by the use of the 'Infinite Improbability Drive', which certainly maps onto the Ark of Noah, as well as the Ark of the Covenant in terms of divine feminine symbolism.
Image

The idea of the feminine as being a vessel is huge in the scriptures, Noah's Ark being like Heavenly Mother transporting him through the waters (biblical cosmology was the outer space is "the waters'), acting like a spaceship bearing Noah through the dark, chaotic riptides.

Anyway, just another random schizo post where I spastically make weird connections I see places lol. I might add more later.

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Ymarsakar
captain of 1,000
Posts: 4470

Re: Ethiopia, Queen of Sheba, and Spaceships

Post by Ymarsakar »

Haha. this is great. Nie just did a sons of god thread. Guess religion is turning sci fi now

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Niemand
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 13999

Re: Ethiopia, Queen of Sheba, and Spaceships

Post by Niemand »

Ymarsakar wrote: May 25th, 2023, 4:29 pm Haha. this is great. Nie just did a sons of god thread. Guess religion is turning sci fi now
You can thank Von Däniken. (Not that he came up with it. Morning of the Magicians and Timeless Earth got there earlier.)

I always thought the idea that the Ark of the Covenant was an electrical device was kinda cool.
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