By Ishtar
Published in The New Archaeology Review USA 3/3/08
Sumeria is known as the "sudden civilization" by scholars because this remarkable culture seemingly appeared out of nowhere The most striking difference between the Sumerians and later cultures was in the Sumerian concept of the afterlife. Which unlike the paradise of the Christian or ancient Egyptian afterlife was bleak and depressing.According to Sumerian legend, An took over Heaven when it was separated from Earth, creating the universe as we know it. Although he was known as the "leader" of the Sumerian pantheon, he was the most obscure of all the gods, with very little information and no images or depictions in the various temples throughout Mesopotamia remaining.
Like most ancient peoples, the Sumerians/Babylonians were polytheistic, worshipping many gods. These gods were thought to control every aspect of life and the natural world they perceived the behaviour of gods & goddesses to be like ordinary people. Although the gods favored truth and justice, they were also responsible for violence and suffering. Like the Egyptians, the Sumerians believed, in an afterlife. At death, thought that a person descended into a grim underworld from which there was no release. The Sumerians believed that in this awful place the spirits of men ate dust and crawled on their bellies. This hellish place was known as the "house of dust" . After a years time of ghostly existence, the soul of the deceased would fade away into oblivion. The Babylonian s perceived the dead as clothed in feathers like birds. They sit forlorn in darkness. The place of the dead was a land of no return, an infernal dwelling place for the shadows. Its geography was constructed of a seven fold wall with seven gates. Erishkiggel was the queen. Negal became her king when she shared with him the tablet of wisdom'.
Because of the bleak fate that waited human's after physical death, the Babylonians believed that eventually the right ritual cure for death would be discovered. The secret would be revealed via necromantic communication. The Babylonian concept of the afterlife contrasts starkly with the Egyptian vision of a heaven that sees them enjoying themselves as they did in life. Perhaps differences in environmental conditions account for this contrast. The floods of the Tigris and Euphrates were less regular and more destructive than the Nile floods. As a result, Sumerians may have developed a more pessimistic world view.
The myth of the goddess Ishtar provides us with cosmological information about the underworld and also provides and example of how in rare cases it is possible to escape the dreadful underworld. Ishtar kills her consort/son Tammuz (like Jesus he must die to descend and resurrect), she then bitterly regrets this act. In order to bring back Tammuz ,Ishtar descends to the underworld of the dead, ruled by Queen Ershekiggle. Like so many myths involving sacrifice (including the son God Jesus) this was a necessary prerequisite to liberation and awareness of spiritual resurrection. Ishtar fights bitterly and violently with her dark sister to win back Tammuz.
Every one is food in the material world; -animals and people die and feed the ground, which grows food to feed the animals and people. The essence of existence is cyclical; a macro and micro cosmic dance of circles spirals and figures eights. Awareness generating possibility into matter. Ishtar as the morning star is the wave of possibility condensing into the particle of reality in the evening star. When Ishtar dies and descends to the underworld she is disconnected from the light , this has consequences for all the beings on earth.
When Ishtar descends into the underworld the world dies and becomes baron. To reach Tammuz she must go through seven gates. The gatekeeper requires Ishtar to give him a piece of her clothing or in some accounts a veil. When we search for completion we must first become psychologically naked... Our interactions with the universe and ourselves consist of a dance, whose choreography is created by what we choose to show and what we choose to hide.
Like Jesus was tortured on the cross to tell us that we are more than our physical selves. Ishtar is tortured also by her dark sister who hangs her upside down and brutally and sadistically assaults her . Magic incantations from the god Eas rescues her. She is saved and is resurrected to the Earth, where her presence brings fertility and life back to all the creatures.
The number seven appears in a variety of international mythologies. In Ishtar's decent to the underworld she needs to go through seven gates, here she donates seven pieces of her apparel to the gate keeper. The patriarchal deviated and corrupt version of the Babylonian Ishtar ,rides on a beast with seven heads as the whore of Babylon. We have seven charkas in the body; each is a vortex of energy that represents one aspect of consciousness. From the root charka that helps us survive in the material world to the seventh chakra that connects us to the divine infinite consciousness.
If we are to evolve we must transcend our primitive nature and see beyond the desires of the ego. The iconographic Ishtar riding a lion can be decoded as humans we must have the will to override reactive animal behavior to evolve into what we are meant to be and connect our shard of divinity with divine consciousness. To evolve we need to access higher states of consciousness. As human beings we need to survive and enjoy our material world. Ishtar returns with her son/consort to the earth and regains her clothes/veils from the gate keeper. When they return the world springs to life again. Ishtar is elevated by the experience; she is rebirthing herself and also the rest of creation.
Ishtar returns with Tammuz who must live with Ershegkiggal for half the year. Plants die and their seed lies dormant in the dark earth for half the year. When does the plant begin and end? This is the symbology. Like the moon can be dark and light but still one moon, Ishtar the Queen of heaven is half of her dark hell bound sister. We are all an interplay of dark and light, good and bad. As the divine female principle are both the giver and taker of life
The Judeao-Christian Bible is in fact a rework of prior Summerian/Babylonian creation stories. It is interesting how the patriarchal Israelites modified the stories to reflect the paternalistic society from the previously more egalitarian or female goddess centred myths. The myth of Sophia is a more complex development of the earlier Ishtar myth , which sees her lost in the underworld where she yearns to return home .The Gnostic Christians where hated by the main stream literalist traditions. Their interpretation of creation was far more connected to perennial ideas of the beginning of the universe. The goddess Sophia is the Gnostic virgin mother /consort/ god being. She is the womb that generates being. She is an expression of Shekina, the feminine soul of god which separated during the creation of the universe .kabbalist believe that this disconnection from the feminine soul of god, is what has created evil in the world. When Ishtar /Innana looses the connection with the light the divine feminine aspect is lost the material world suffers as a result.
In the case of Sophia she longs to return to the world of spirit or the unmanifested dimension of infinite potential , but a curtain like barrier prevents her from coming back. Sophia as Passion creates matter, yearning soul. The Sumerian underworld is expressive of the tragic human experience when it is cut off from the divine world, from its source. Consciousness,-Soul is a the luminescent spark of humanity . In the transcendent role of the pleroma, soul seeks to escapes from chaos. We human beings intuitively feel that there is a dimension where there is no sadness when we connect the idea of this we feel hope and happiness. The Sumerian mythology is an expression of awareness of the plight of human consciousness. Within the suffering is the light the dark moon will soon become the light moon true to its lunar character.
In the Sophia's exile from the light or pleroma from which we all once originated we see how this older Sumerian myth the world of the dead and human existence has evolved. The earth now is the underworld of the Babylonians to the Gnostics and kabbalists this world is created of an evil god compared to an entombment. Deep down we all crave the connection back to the source but we have forgotten our way. This is reflected in the profound statement by Jesus follow me and let the dead bury their dead'. The Split of light and darkness as symbolised in lunar myths informs us about the connectedness of all experience. It is a temporary illusion in relation to human consciousness and the fragmented human psyche. Religion like all creation on the material plane is contaminated and impure. It is not the creation of the pleroma but the darkened condition of the soul.
In the Babylonian ,as well as almost all pagan and mainstream religions is the expression of sacrifice. In Christianity it is the crucifixion ,paganism blood sacrifice , Islam Hillal killing of meat and so on. In the Babylonian philosophy we see a Relation of sex, death and sacrifice. Sexuality and death are of course linked and Hindu gods and goddess such as Kali express this.
The ancient Babylonian temples would initiate sacred weddings' (similar to the Celts at Tara in Ireland). The rites were linked to the grain harvest. Like the grain, humans lived through fertilization, birth, death and regeneration. These dramatic recreations of the processes of nature would be expressed as a re-enacting of the marriage of the goddess of love and fertility with her lover, the young, virile vegetation god. Certainly the duties of the hierodule often included celebrating the sacred marriage - Heiros Gamos. These may have been performed from 6500 BCE. Qualls-Corbett writes - "The sacred marriage, symbolizing the union of opposites, represents the need for wholeness, on the level of the individual psyche and also, we may hazard, on that of the group. It brings together in equal status the masculine and feminine; it grounds spirit and spiritualizes earth." In sacred marriage a ranking man (e.g. a king) and woman's intercourse makes by an act of sympathetic magic, land and animals fertile and abundant. Sacred texts indicate that when Ishtar descends to the Netherworld all sexual activity ceases everywhere on earth.
The ancient Babylonian temples would initiate sacred weddings' (similar to the Celts at Tara in Ireland). The rites were linked to the grain harvest. Like the grain, humans lived through fertilization, birth, death and regeneration. These dramatic recreations of the processes of nature would be expressed as a re-enacting of the marriage of the goddess of love and fertility with her lover, the young, virile vegetation god. Certainly the duties of the hierodule often included celebrating the sacred marriage - Heiros Gamos. These may have been performed from 6500 BCE. Qualls-Corbett writes - "The sacred marriage, symbolizing the union of opposites, represents the need for wholeness, on the level of the individual psyche and also, we may hazard, on that of the group. It brings together in equal status the masculine and feminine; it grounds spirit and spiritualizes earth." In sacred marriage a ranking man (e.g. a king) and woman's intercourse makes by an act of sympathetic magic, land and animals fertile and abundant. Sacred texts indicate that when Ishtar descends to the Netherworld all sexual activity ceases everywhere on earth.
Babylon is a symbol of debauchery and sin in the Christian religion. But is also a denial of earlier religions and myths that encompassed it. Like politics, religion seeks to rubbish the opposing group's to gain support for themselves.
. As we celebrate our individuality we realise we are really all the same, we are bound by by one universal web. The virgin and the whore, the dark and the light ,angel and the devil , manifest and un-manifest are all part of one reality.
. As we celebrate our individuality we realise we are really all the same, we are bound by by one universal web. The virgin and the whore, the dark and the light ,angel and the devil , manifest and un-manifest are all part of one reality.
Death is a cessation of physical perception. Goddess's like Kali link death after life and rebirth into a holistic reality . The myth of Ishtar and Tammuz explains the nature of death, life, sterility and fertility,- heaven and hell. Religious concepts and ideas are frequently anthrophomorphised into divine beings and archetypal events. Buddhism warns against having faith in the illusory nature of the material world. Paganism encourages a connection with the rest of nature. When we loose the connection with the multitude of phenomena we do live in hell. Our path to the light involves doing the spiritual work to lead us through the gates to enlightenment. The myth of Ishtar and other deities show us we can ascend from the hell of our own making.
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