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Underground > Temple >

Vallis and Gehinnom

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03:05 / 21.02.04

Well, I can't actually show you the drawing as I don't know what it's actually called, but maybe if I describe it it will ring a bell. If it helps the picture appears in the CD booklet for NON's "Children of the Black Sun", so I'm assuming it has some kind of gnostic/alchemic reference or something along those lines.

It's black and white. Depicted is a cvalley of hills with some mountains in the background. To the left of the drawing is the word "Vallis" (that means valley, right?) To the right of the drawing is the word "Gehinnom" (Torah word for Hell?) In the center of the drawing is what looks like a gigantic demon of sorts with a goat head, hands raised to the sky, 7 odd-looking symbols in it's chest. At the waist of this demon is a sort of rounded building with a giant burning flame in the center.

Any idea what this thing is from and what on Earth it represents? I'm intruiged.

04:35 / 21.02.04

Ha, it's funny you should mention "Gehinnom", i posted on another site about this and the fact that 'Hell' is something that seems to be entirely created by the Bible.

Here's a part of the text i linked to :

Another Greek word "Gehenna" occurs 12 times in the New Testament; 11 times in the Gospels and one time in the Epistle of James. Jesus used "Gehenna" about 7 times. Some of the occurrences of "Gehenna" are in parallel passages, that is, they refer to the same event. "Gehenna" is the Greek form of the Hebrew "ge-hinnom." It literally means "valley of Hinnom" Sometimes it is referred to as the "valley of the sons of Hinnom." In the Old Testament "Tophet(h)" also refers to this place. (See Young's Concordance under Hinnom) "Gehenna" is a valley that lays on the west and southwest of Jerusalem. In the valley, Israel offered up its children as a burnt offering to a god who came to be known as Moloch. (The spelling varies)

Here's the link, i found it eye-opening to say the least : Bible and Hell

I don't know about the symbols though because i haven't seen them. I searched on the net but didn't look for long enough i don't think, if anyone can link to a picture it would be cool. (I would of guessed that they would be the symbols of Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Mercury and Saturn, but i haven't seen it so i don't know.)

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12:34 / 21.02.04

H'mm, thanks Jack Frost. I suppose that the demon in the picture could be Moloch (that would explain the burning flame underneath him). As for the symbols in his chest, they all look the same (kinda like rectangular arrowheads) and each have a number underneath them, like this:

7
4 5 6
2 3
1

15:41 / 21.02.04

Bible and hell.

Yep, that was pretty interesting. By any half-decent, sensible logical standard, the concept of hell makes absolutely no sense at all, for reasons that every bored school kid in the joint on a Sunday gets to grip with quite quickly, so I'm not going to bother going into them here.
But it's such a powerful idea somehow, isn't it, hell ? You know, in what's an allegedly secular post-modern age, it still lingers around. So it must speak to something in the human psyche, however misguided, whether or not it's in the Bible as such. Anything that's been dwelt on for two thousand years almost has to have some kind of ontological reality, but what is it, exactly, that makes the idea so appealing ? You know, we invented it ourselves, but why ? And I'm not really talking about the church here either - clearly that had it's reasons for pitching this stuff, but why did everyone buy it ? And why do we still ?
Anyway, just posting this thing for something to talk about, bored as a bored guy on Saturday aft. And hi Jack, incidentally, hope the banishings etc worked out ok

17:54 / 24.02.04

VALIS is the name of Philip K. Dick's book where he tries to make sense out of a fantastic mystical experience he had in the mid-70s. He created the name, but maybe it comes from somewhere else in the ether....?