STAR FIRE - The Gold of the Gods

The true Grail bloodline originated with the Anunnaki gods in southern Sumeria at least 6,000 years ago and was sustained by ingestion of an alchemical substance called 'Star Fire'.

Part 1 of 3

Extracted from NEXUS Magazine, Volume 5, Number 6 (October-November 1998).
PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia. editor@nexusmagazine.com
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From our web page at: www.nexusmagazine.com

From a lecture presented by
Sir Laurence Gardner, Kt St Gm., KCD, KT St A.
at the 1998 NEXUS Conference held in Sydney, 25-26 July
Transcript © Sir Laurence Gardner 1998

It is now nearly two years since my book, Bloodline of the Holy Grail, was published, and for those of you who have not read this (or have not seen the serialised lecture transcript in NEXUS magazine), the investigation is essentially concerned with the Messianic Bloodline as it has descended through the family of Jesus Christ down to the present day. It is also concerned with comparing the New Testament Gospels with the first-hand historical accounts of the era, as related in both the Roman and Jewish archives. In this regard, it details how the eventual Christian High Church corrupted and manipulated the early records to suit its own political agenda.

Despite the contrived doctrine that Jesus was born of a virgin and was the 'one and only' son of God (definitions that did not feature in the original pre-Roman texts), the New Testament Gospels of Matthew and Luke actually give details of Jesus' descendant lineage from David of Israel and the Kings of Judah. This has led to the one question I have been asked more than any other during the past months. The question (in its various forms) asks quite simply: What was so special about this Bloodline in the first place?

Given that the dynastic succession from Jesus has been expressly prominent in sovereign and political affairs through 2,000 years - with the family constantly supporting constitutional democracy against control by the Church establishment - its status rests upon the fact that Jesus was a lineal descendant of King David.

But, what was it that made the line of David so important, and so different from any other? It was this very question which set me on the trail for my next book, Genesis of the Grail Kings, which tells the story of the Messianic line from the very beginning.

The Bible explains that the Bloodline story began with Adam and Eve, from whose third son, Seth, evolved a line which progressed through Methuselah and Noah, and eventually to Abraham who became the Great Patriarch of the Hebrew nation. It then relates that Abraham brought his family westwards out of Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) to the land of Canaan (or Palestine), from where some of his descendants moved into Egypt. After a few generations they moved back into Canaan where, in time, the eventual David of Bethlehem became King of the newly defined Kingdom of Israel.

If viewed as it is presented in the scriptures, this is a fascinating saga; but there is nothing anywhere to indicate why the ancestral line of David and his heirs was in any way special. In fact, quite the reverse is the case. His ancestors are portrayed as a succession of wandering territory-seekers who are seen to be of no particular significance until the time of King David. Their biblical history bears no comparison to, say, the contemporary Pharaohs of ancient Egypt. Their significance, we are told, comes from the fact that (from the time of Abraham) they were designated as 'God's chosen people'. But even this leaves us wondering, because, according to the scriptures, their God led them through nothing but a succession of famines, wars and general hardship - and, on the face of it, these early Hebrews do not appear to have been too bright!

We are faced, therefore, with a couple of possibilities. Either David was not of this Abraham succession at all, and was simply grafted into the list by later writers. Or maybe we have been presented with a very corrupted version of the family's early history - a version that was specifically designed to uphold the emergent Jewish faith, rather than to represent historical fact.

In consideration of this, I was reminded of precisely what I had found with the New Testament. The Gospel texts that have been in the public domain for centuries bear little relation to the first-hand accounts of the era. The New Testament, as we know it, was compiled by the 4th-century bishops to support the newly contrived Christian belief. But, what if the Jewish scribes had previously done exactly the same thing?

Clearly, I had to get back to the more ancient writings in order to find any anomalies. The problem was that, even if this were possible, the earliest Hebrew writings (which were rehashed many centuries later) were themselves only written between the 6th and the 1st centuries BC, so they were not likely to be that authentic in their telling of history from thousands of years before. Indeed, it was plain that this would be the case, because when these books were first written their express purpose was to convey a history which upheld the principles of the Jewish faith - a faith that did not emerge until well into the ancestral story.

Given that the first group of these books was written while the Jews were held captive in Mesopotamian Babylon in the 6th century BC, it is apparent that Babylon was where the original records were then held. In fact, from the time of Adam, through some 19 said generations down to Abraham, the whole of Old Testament patriarchal history was Mesopotamian. More specifically, the history was from Sumer in southern Mesopotamia, where the ancient Sumerians did indeed refer to the grasslands of the Euphrates delta as the Eden.

When researching for Bloodline of the Holy Grail, I found that good sources for some background information were the various Gospels and texts that were not selected for inclusion in the canonical New Testament. Perhaps, I thought, the same might apply to the Old Testament. The books of Enoch and Jubilees, for example, were among those not included.

A further book, to which attention is specifically drawn in the Old Testament books of Joshua and Samuel, is the Book of Jasher. But despite its apparent importance to the Hebrew writers, it was not included in the final selection.

Two other works are also cited in the Bible. The Book of Numbers draws our attention to the Book of The Wars of Jehovah. And in the Book of Isaiah we are directed towards the Book of the Lord.

What are these books? Where are these books? They are all mentioned in the Bible (which means they all pre-date the Old Testament), and they are all cited as being important. So, why did the editors see fit to exclude them when the selection was made?

In pursuing an answer to this question and in studying the substance of the Old Testament prior to its corruption, one fact which becomes increasingly clear is that in English-language Bibles the definition 'Lord' is used in a general context, but in earlier texts a positive distinction is drawn between 'Jehovah' and 'the Lord'.

It has often been wondered why the biblical God of the Hebrews led them through trials and tribulations, floods and disasters, when (from time to time) he appears to have performed with a quite contrary and merciful personality. The answer is that, although now seemingly embraced as 'the One God' by the Jewish and Christian churches, there was originally a distinct difference between the figures of Jehovah and the Lord. They were, in fact, quite separate deities. The god referred to as 'Jehovah' was traditionally a storm god, a god of wrath and vengeance, whereas the god referred to as 'the Lord' was a god of fertility and wisdom.

So, what was the name given to the Lord in the early writings? It was, quite simply, the prevailing Hebrew word for 'Lord', and the word was 'Adon'. As for the apparent personal name of Jehovah, this was not used in the early days, and even the Bible tells that the God of Abraham was called 'El Shaddai', which means 'Lofty Mountain'.

The apparent name 'Jehovah' came from the original Hebrew stem YHWH, which meant 'I am that I am' - said to be a statement made by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, hundreds of years after the time of Abraham. 'Jehovah' was therefore not a name at all, and early texts refer simply to 'El Shaddai' and to his opposing counterpart, 'Adon'.

To the Canaanites, these gods were respectively called 'El Elyon' and 'Baal' - which meant precisely the same things ('Lofty Mountain' and 'Lord').

In our modern Bibles, the definitions 'God' and 'Lord' are used and intermixed throughout, as if they were one and the same character, but originally they were not. One was a vengeful god (a people-hater), and the other was a social god (a people-supporter), and they each had wives, sons and daughters.

The old writings tell us that throughout the patriarchal era the Israelites endeavoured to support Adon, the Lord, but at every turn El Shaddai (the storm god, Jehovah) retaliated with floods, tempests, famines and destruction. Even at the very last (around 600 BC), the Bible explains that Jerusalem was overthrown at Jehovah's bidding and tens of thousands of Jews were taken into Babylonian captivity simply because their King (a descendant of King David) had erected altars in veneration of Baal, the Adon.

It was during the course of this captivity that the Israelites weakened and finally conceded. They decided to succumb to the 'God of Wrath', and developed a new religion out of sheer fear of his retribution. It was at this time that the name of Jehovah first appeared - and this was only 500 years before the time of Jesus.

Subsequently, the Christian Church took Jehovah on board as well, calling him simply 'God' - and all the hitherto social concepts of the Adon were totally discarded. The two religions were henceforth both faiths of fear. Even today, their followers are classified as 'God-fearing'.

So, where does that leave us? It leaves us knowing that within an overall pantheon of gods and goddesses (many of whom are actually named in the Bible), there were two predominant and opposing gods. In different cultures they have been known as 'El Elyon' and 'Baal'; 'El Shaddai' and 'Adon'; 'Arhiman' and 'Mazda'; 'Jehovah' and 'Lord'; 'God' and 'Father'. But these styles are all titular; they are not personal names.

So who precisely were they? To find the answer we have to look no further than where these gods were actually operative, and the old Canaanite texts (discovered in Syria in the 1920s) tell us that their courts were in the Tigris-Euphrates valley in Mesopotamia, in the Sumerian Eden delta of the Persian Gulf.

But what did the ancient Sumerians call these two gods? What were their personal names? We can trace the Sumerian written records back to about 3700 BC, and they tell us that the gods in question were brothers. In Sumer, the storm god who eventually became known as Jehovah was called 'Enlil' or 'Ilu-kur-gal' (meaning 'Ruler of the Mountain'), and his brother, who became Adon, the Lord, was called 'Enki'. This name is really important to our story because 'Enki' means 'Archetype'.

The texts inform us that it was Enlil who brought the Flood; it was Enlil who destroyed Ur and Babylon, and it was Enlil who constantly opposed the education and enlightenment of humankind. Indeed, the early Syrian texts tell us that it was Enlil who obliterated the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah on the Dead Sea - not because they were dens of wickedness, as we are taught, but because they were great centres of wisdom and learning.

It was Enki, on the other hand, who, despite the wrath of his brother, granted the Sumerians access to the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. It was Enki who set up the escape strategy during the Flood, and it was Enki who passed over the time-honoured Tables of Destiny - the tables of scientific law which became the bedrock of the early mystery schools in Egypt.

Many books talk about the hermetic school of Tuthmosis III of Egypt, who reigned about 1450 BC. But it is not generally known that the school he originally inherited was the Royal Court of the Dragon. This had been founded by the priests of Mendes in about 2200 BC and was subsequently ratified by the 12th dynasty Queen Sobeknefru.

This sovereign and priestly Order passed from Egypt to the Kings of Jerusalem; to the Black Sea Princes of Scythia and into the Balkans - notably to the Royal House of Hungary, whose King Sigismund reconstituted the Court just 600 years ago. Today it exists as the Imperial and Royal Court of the Dragon Sovereignty, and after some 4,000 years it is the oldest sovereign Court in the world.

But what were the earliest aims and ambitions of the Order back in Pharaonic times? They were to perpetuate and advance the alchemical strength of the Royal Bloodline from Lord Enki, the Archetype.

The kings of the early succession (who reigned in Sumer and Egypt before becoming Kings of Israel) were anointed upon coronation with the fat of the Dragon (the sacred crocodile). This noble beast was referred to in Egypt as the Messeh (from which derived the Hebrew verb 'to anoint'), and the kings of this dynastic succession were always referred to as 'Dragons', or 'Messiahs' (meaning 'Anointed Ones').

In times of battle, when the armies of different kingdoms were conjoined, an overall leader was chosen and he was called the 'Great Dragon' (the 'King of Kings') - or, as we better know the name in its old Celtic form, the 'Pendragon'.

One of the interesting items from the archives of the Dragon Court is the origin of the word 'kingship'. It derives from the very earliest of Sumerian culture, wherein 'kingship' was identical with 'kinship' - and 'kin' means 'blood relative'. In its original form, 'kinship' was 'kainship'. And the first King of the Messianic Dragon succession was the biblical Cain (Kain), head of the Sumerian House of Kish.

On recognising this, one can immediately see the first anomaly in the traditional Genesis story, for the historical line to David and Jesus was not from Adam and Eve's son Seth at all. It was from Eve's son Cain, whose recorded successors (although given little space in the Old Testament) were the first great Kings (or Kains) of Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Two more important features then come to light when reading the Bible again with this knowledge in mind. We all tend to think of Cain as being the first son of Adam and Eve, but he was not. Even the Book of Genesis tells us that he was not, and it confirms how Eve told Adam that Cain's father was the Lord. Who was 'the Lord'? The Lord was Adon, and Adon was Enki. Even outside the Bible, the writings of the Hebrew Talmud and Midrash make it quite plain that Cain was not the son of Adam.

So what else have we been wrongly taught about this particular aspect of history? The Book of Genesis (in its English-translated form) tells us that Cain was 'a tiller of the ground'. But this is not what the original texts say at all. What they say is that Cain had 'dominion over the Earth' - which is a rather different matter when considering his kingly status.

In fact, the Bible translators appear to have had a constant problem with the word 'Earth', often translating it to 'ground', 'clay' or 'dust'. But the early texts actually referred to 'The Earth'. Even in the case of Adam and Eve, the translators got it wrong. The Bible says: 'Male and female he created them, and he called their name Adam.' The older writings use the more complete word 'Adama', which means 'of the Earth'. But this did not mean they were made of dirt; it means that they were 'of The Earth' - or, as the Anchor Hebrew Bible explains in absolutely precise terms, they were 'Earthlings'.

There is a lot to be said about the story of Adam and Eve and of how they were the result of clinical cloning. Writers such as Zechariah Sitchin have written at some length in this regard, and my new book delves far more deeply into the subject. I shall not dwell upon this particular aspect now because I want to move more directly into the alchemy of the Messianic Bloodline of the Earthly Dragon Kings. What I will say is that the Sumerian records state that around 6,000 years ago, Adam and Eve (known then as 'Atabba' and 'Ava', and jointly as the 'Adama') were purpose-bred for kingship at the House of Shimti by Enki and his sister-wife Nin-khursag. In Sumerian, the word Shi-im-ti meant 'breath-wind-life'.

Adam was certainly not the first man on Earth, but he was the first of the alchemically devised kingly succession. Nin-khursag was called 'Lady of the Embryo' or 'Lady of Life', and she was the surrogate mother for Atabba and Ava who were created from human ova fertilised by the Lord Enki.

It was because of Nin-khursag's title, Lady of Life, that Ava was later given the same title by the Hebrews. Indeed, the name Ava (or Eve) was subsequently said to mean 'Life'. And there is an interesting parallel here, because in Sumerian the distinction 'Lady of Life' was Nin-tî (Nin meaning 'Lady', and tî meaning 'Life'). However, another Sumerian word, ti (with the longer pronunciation, 'tee'), meant 'rib'; and it was by virtue of the Hebrews' misunderstanding of the two words, tî and ti, that Eve also became incorrectly associated with Adam's rib.

Both Enki and Nin-khursag (along with their brother Enlil, the later Jehovah) belonged to a pantheon of gods and goddesses referred to as the Anunnaki, meaning 'Heaven came to Earth'. In fact, the Grand Assembly of the Anunnaki (later called the 'Court of the Elohim') is mentioned in Psalm 82 wherein Jehovah makes his bid for supreme power over the other gods.

According to the Dragon tradition, the importance of Cain was that he was directly produced by Enki and Ava, so his blood was three-quarters Anunnaki. His half-brothers Hevel and Satanael (better known as Abel and Seth) were less than half Anunnaki, being the offspring of Atabba and Ava (Adam and Eve).

Cain's Anunnaki blood was so advanced that it was said that his brother Abel's blood was 'Earthbound' by comparison. Cain, it was said in the scriptures, 'rose far above Abel', so that his brother's blood was swallowed into the ground. But this original description was thoroughly mistranslated for our modern Bible, and we are now told that 'Cain rose up against Abel and spilled his blood upon the ground'. This is not the same thing at all.

We can now progress our story by considering the oldest Grant of Arms in sovereign history - a Grant of Arms which denoted the Messianic Dragon Bloodline for all time. The Sumerians referred to this insignia as the Gra-al. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? From biblical history, however, we know it better as the 'Mark of Cain'.

This 'Mark' is portrayed to us by the Church as if it were some form of curse. But, knowing what we now know, the Bible does not actually say this. What it says is that, having got into an argument with Jehovah over a matter of sovereign observance, Cain feared for his life. We are then informed that the Lord placed a mark upon Cain, swearing sevenfold vengeance against his enemies.

No one has ever really understood why Jehovah should decide to protect Cain when it was he who held the grievance against him. But the fact is that Jehovah did not make this decision. Cain's protector was not Jehovah. As stated, the 'Mark' was settled upon Cain by the Lord - and the Lord (the Adon) was Cain's own Father, Enki.

Few people ever think to enquire about the supposed enemies of Cain as defined in Genesis. Who could they possibly have been? Where would they have come from? According to the Bible, only Adam and Eve, with their sons Cain and Abel, existed - and Cain had apparently killed Abel. If we are to accept the text as it stands, there was no one around to be his enemy!

So, what was this Sumerian Gra-al which the Bible calls 'the Mark of Cain'? It was an emblem dignified as the 'Cup of the Waters' or the Rosi-Crucis (the 'Dew Cup'), and it was identified in all records (including those of Egypt and Phoenicia and in the Hebrew annals) as being an upright, centred red cross within a circle. Throughout the ages it was developed and embellished, but it has always remained essentially the same and is recognised as being the original symbol of the Holy Grail.

Another anomaly is presented soon afterwards in Genesis when we are told that Cain found himself a wife. Who on Earth were her parents if Adam and Eve were the only couple alive? Without confronting this anomaly at all, Genesis then proceeds to list for us the names of Cain's descendants!

It becomes clear from all of this that some very important information has been edited from the Old Testament narrative. Clearly there were plenty of other people around at the time and it is not difficult to find their stories outside the Bible. Quite apart from the Sumerian annals, even old Hebrew and early Christian texts give us far more information in this regard.

In order to further enhance the succession from Cain, he was married to his half-sister - a pure-bred Anunnaki princess, Luluwa. Her father was Enki and her mother was Lilith, a granddaughter of Enlil. Although not giving the name of Cain's wife, the Bible does name their younger son Enoch, while the Sumerian records cite his elder son and kingly successor, Atûn, who is perhaps better known as King Etana of Kish.

Etana was said to have 'walked with the gods', and to have been fed from the 'Plant of Birth' (or the 'Tree of Life', as it is called in Genesis). Henceforth, the kings of the line were designated as being the twigs of the Tree - and the ancient word for 'twig' was klone (clone). In later times this 'Plant' or 'Tree' was redefined as a 'Vine', and so the Gra-al, the Vine and the Messianic Bloodline became conjoined as one in the literature of subsequent ages.

By virtue of their contrived breeding, this kingly succession was modelled specifically for leadership, and in all aspects of knowledge, culture, awareness, wisdom and intuition they were highly advanced against their mundane contemporaries. In order to keep their blood as pure as possible, they always married within a close kinship.

It was fully recognised that the prominent gene of the succession was carried within the blood of the mother. Today we call this the 'mitochondrial DNA'. And so was born a tradition inherited by their kingly descendants in Egypt and by the later Celtic rulers of Europe. True kingship, it was maintained, was transferred through the female, and so kingly marriages were strategically cemented with maternal half-sisters or first cousins.

Having reached the point where the Plant of Birth is first mentioned in the records, we are at about 3500 BC; and it is at this point that we begin to learn how the kingly succession was orally fed with bodily supplements from the early days. This practice continued for more than 1,000 years until the nourishment program became wholly scientific and alchemical.

Before getting into the detail of the kingly diet, it is worth considering why it was that the all-important Royal Bloodline which progressed from Cain and his sons was strategically ignored by the Hebrews and the Christian Church in favour of their promoting a parallel junior line from Adam's son Seth. Why was it that the immediate Cainite dynasty was eventually shunned by the fearful disciples of Enlil-Jehovah?

In the Old Testament Book of Genesis, the lines of descent are given from Cain and from his half-brother Seth, but it is of interest to note that through the early generations the names detailed in each list are pretty much the same, although given in a different order: Enoch, Yared, Mahalaleel, Methuselah and Lamech.

In view of this, it has often been suggested that the line from Seth down to Lamech's son Noah was (not very cleverly) contrived by the Bible compilers so as to avoid showing the true descent from Cain to the time of Noah. If this were the case, then something must have occurred during the lifetime of Noah to cause the ancestral story to be veiled by the later writers. The answer is to be found in the Bible itself.

At that stage in the family's history, the vengeful Jehovah apparently warned Noah and his sons against the ingestion of blood - an edict which became expressly important to the later Jewish way of life. It has long been a customary Jewish practice to hang meat for blood-letting before cooking and consumption.

But, in contrast, the Christian faith is especially concerned with the figurative ingestion of blood. In the Christian tradition it is customary to take the Communion sacrament (the Mass) wherein wine is drunk from the sacred chalice, symbolically representing the blood of Jesus, the lifeblood of the Messianic Vine.

Could it be, perhaps, that the modern Christian custom is an unwitting throw-back to some distant pre-Noah ritual which Jehovah opposed? If so, then since it is known that the chalice is a wholly female symbol which has been emblematic of the womb from the earliest times, might this even have been an extract of menstrual blood? The answer to these questions is 'Yes'. That was precisely the custom, but it was not so unsavoury as it might seem. Indeed, few of us think to enquire about the ultimate sources of many of today's ingested medicines and bodily supplements, and those in the know would often be reluctant to tell us. The Premarin hormone, for example, comes from the urine of pregnant mares, while certain growth hormones and insulin are manufactured from E. coli, a faecal bacterium.

The blood extract in question was, in the first instance, not human but from the sacred Anunnaki lunar essence - that of Enki's sister Nin-khursag, the designated Lady of Life. It was defined as the most potent of all life-forces and was venerated as being 'Star Fire'. It was from the womb of Nin-khursag that the kingly line was born, and it was with her blood, the divine Star Fire, that the Dragon succession was supplementally fed.

In ancient Egypt, Nin-khursag was called 'Isis', and by either name she was the ultimate Mother of the Messianic line, for hers was the matriarchal gene which constituted the 'Beginning', the 'Gene-Isis', or, as the Greeks identified it, the Genesis.

It is worth reminding ourselves, then, that the biblical edict to abstain from blood came not from Enki the Wise but from Enlil-Jehovah - the God of Wrath who had instigated the Flood, had wrought havoc in Ur and Babylon, and had endeavoured to deceive Adam by saying that he would die if he ate from the Tree of Knowledge. This was not a god who liked people, and the Sumerian records are very clear in this regard. Hence, if he forbade the taking of blood, this was not likely to have been an edict for the benefit of Noah and his descendants - it was most probably to their detriment.

In strict terms the original Star Fire was the lunar essence of the Goddess, but, even in an everyday mundane environment, menstruum contains the most valuable endocrinal secretions, especially those of the pineal and pituitary glands. The brain's pineal gland in particular was directly associated with the Tree of Life, for this tiny gland was said to secrete the very essence of active longevity, called soma, or, as the Greeks called it, ambrosia.

In mystic circles, the menstrual 'flow-er' ('she who flows') has long been the designated 'flower' and is represented as a lily or a lotus. Indeed, the definition 'flow-er' is the very root of our modern word 'flower'. In ancient Sumer, the key females of the Dragon succession were all venerated as lilies, having such names as Lili, Luluwa, Lilith, Lilutu and Lillette.

In pictorial representation, the Messianic Dragon bore little relation to the winged, fire-breathing beast of later Western mythology. It was, in essence, a large-jawed serpent with four legs, very much like a crocodile or a monitor. This was the sacred Messeh whose name was 'Draco'. Draco was a divine emblem of the Egyptian Pharaohs, a symbol of the Egyptian Therapeutate, of the Essenes at Qumran, and was the Bistea Neptunis (the sea serpent) of the descendant Merovingian Fisher-Kings in Europe.

In the old Hebrew Bibles, all references to serpents are made by use of the word nahash (from the stem NHSH); but this usage does not relate to serpents in the way that we would know them - that is, as venomous snakes. It relates to serpents in their traditional capacity as bringers of wisdom and enlightenment, for the word nahash actually means 'to decipher' or 'to find out'.

Serpents, in one form or another, were always associated with wisdom and healing, and the Trees of Life and Knowledge are customarily identified with serpents. Indeed, the insignia of many of today's medical associations is precisely this image of a serpent coiled around the Plant of Birth (Tree of Life) - a depiction shown in the clay reliefs of ancient Sumer to be Enki's personal emblem.

Interestingly, though, another common emblem for medical relief organisations depicts two coiled serpents, spiralling around the winged caduceus of Hermes the magician. In these instances the true symbolism of the Star Fire ritual is conveyed, and this symbol can be traced back to the very origins of the alchemical mystery schools and gnostic institutions.

The records explain that the central staff and entwined serpents represent the spinal cord and the sensory nervous system. The two uppermost wings signify the brain's lateral ventricular structures. Between these wings, above the spinal column, is shown the small central node of the pineal gland.

The combination of the central pineal and its lateral wings has long been referred to as the 'Swan', and in Grail lore (as in some yogic circles) the Swan is emblematic of the fully enlightened being. This is the ultimate realm of consciousness achieved by the mediaeval Knights of the Swan, as epitomised by such chivalric figures as Perceval and Lohengrin.

Most of you are probably quite familiar with the functions of the pineal and other glands of the endocrinal system. But for those who are perhaps not, the pineal is a very small gland, shaped like a pine cone and about the size of a grain of corn. It is centrally situated within the brain, although outside the ventricles and not forming a part of the brain-matter as such.

The pineal gland was thought by the 17th-century French optical scientist René Descartes to be the seat of the soul - the point at which the mind and body are conjoined. The ancient Greeks considered it likewise, and in the 4th century BC Herophilus described the pineal as an organ which regulated the flow of thought. This gland has long intrigued anatomists because, while the rest of the brain is 'double', the pineal has no counterpart.

In the days of ancient Sumer, the priests of Anu (the father of Enlil and Enki) perfected and elaborated a ramifying medical science of living substances, with menstrual Star Fire being an essential source component. In the first instance, this was pure Anunnaki lunar essence called 'Gold of the Gods', and it was fed only to the Kings and Queens of the Dragon succession. Later, however, in Egypt and Mediterranea, menstrual Star Fire was ritually collected from sacred virgin priestesses who were venerated as 'Scarlet Women'. Indeed, the very word 'ritual' stems from this practice, and from the word ritu - which defined the sacred ceremony of the 'Red Gold'.

Endocrinal supplements are, of course, still used by today's organotherapy establishment, but their inherent secretions (such as melatonin and serotonin) are obtained from the dessicated glands of dead animals and they lack the truly important elements which exist only in live human glandular manufacture.

In the fire symbolism of ancient alchemy, the colour 'red' is synonymous with the metal 'gold'. In some traditions (including the Indian tantras), 'red' is also identifiable with 'black'. Hence, the goddess Kali is said to be both 'red' and 'black'. The original heritage of Kali was, however, Sumerian, and she was said to be Kalimâth, the sister of Cain's wife Luluwa.

Kali was a primary princess of the Dragon House, and from her Star Fire association she became the goddess of time, seasons, periods and cycles. Because of this, her name was the root of the word 'calendar' (kalindar), which is concerned with the divisions of seasonal time.

In the early days, therefore, the metals of the alchemists were not common metals but living essences, and the ancient mysteries were of a physical, not a metaphysical, nature. Indeed, the very word 'secret' has its origin in the hidden knowledge of glandular secretions. Truth was the ritu (the 'redness' or 'blackness'), and from the word ritu stems not only ritual but also the words 'rite', 'root' and 'red'. The ritu, it was said, reveals itself as physical matter in the form of the purest and most noble of all metals: gold. Hence, gold was deemed an 'ultimate truth'.

Just as the word 'secret' has its origin in the translation of an ancient word, so too do other related words have their similar bases. In ancient Egypt, the word Amen was used to signify something hidden or concealed. The word 'occult' meant pretty much the same ('hidden from view'), and yet today we use 'Amen' to conclude hymns, while something 'occult' is deemed sinister. In real terms, however, they both relate to the word 'secret', and all three words were, at one time or another, connected with the mystic science of endocrinal secretions.

Since Kali was associated with 'black' (being 'black but beautiful'), the English word 'coal' (denoting 'that which is black') stems also from her name via the intermediate word kol. In the Hebrew tradition, Bath-Kol (a Kali counterpart) was called the 'Daughter of the Voice', and the voice was said to originate during a female's puberty. Hence, the womb was associated with the voice, and Star Fire was said to be the oracular 'Word of the Womb'. The womb was, therefore, itself the 'utterer', or the 'uterus'.

The 'Scarlet Women' were so called because of their being a direct source of the priestly Star Fire. They were known in Greek as the Hierodulai ('Sacred Women') - a word later transformed (via mediaeval French into English) to 'harlot'. In the early Germanic tongue, they were known as Horés - which was later Anglicised to 'whores'. However, the word originally meant, quite simply, 'Beloved Ones'. As pointed out in good etymological dictionaries, these words were descriptions of high veneration and were never interchangeable with such words as 'prostitute' or 'adulteress'. Their now common association was, in fact, a wholly contrived strategy of the mediaeval Roman Church in its bid to denigrate the noble status of the sacred priestess.

The withdrawal of knowledge of the genuine Star Fire tradition from the public domain occurred when the science of the early adepts and later Gnostics (the true pre-Christian Christians) was stifled by the forgers of historic Christianity. A certain amount of the original gnosis (or knowledge) is preserved in Talmudic and rabbinical lore, but, generally speaking, the mainstream Jews and Christians did all in their power to distort and destroy all traces of the ancient art.

In addition to being the 'Gold of the Gods', the Anunnaki menstruum was also called the 'Vehicle of Light', being the ultimate source of manifestation, and in this regard it was directly equated with the mystical 'Waters of Creation' - the flow of eternal wisdom. It was for this reason that the Rosi-Crucis (the Dew Cup, or Cup of the Waters identified as a red cross within a circle) became the Mark of Cain, and the subsequent emblem of the kingly succession.

It was said that the Light remained quite dormant in a spiritually unawakened person but that it could be awakened and motivated by the spiritual energy of self-will, and by constant self-enquiry. This is not an obvious mental process, but a truly thought-free consciousness - a formless plane of pure Being.

(to Part 2)
(to Part 3)

About the Speaker:
Sir Laurence Gardner, Kt St Gm., KCD, KT St A., is an internationally known sovereign and chivalric genealogist. He holds the position of Prior of the Celtic Church of the Sacred Kindred of Saint Columba, and is distinguished as Le Chevalier Labhràn de Saint Germain and Preceptor of the Knights Templars of Saint Anthony. Sir Laurence is also Presidential Attaché to the European Council of Princes (a constitutional advisory body established in 1946), and Chancellor of the Imperial and Royal Court of the Dragon Sovereignty. He is formally attached to the Noble Household Guard of the Royal House of Stewart, founded at St Germain-en-Laye in 1692, and is the Jacobite Historiographer Royal by Appointment.

Editor's Notes: