Obscure Mythology Chapter 19:

Samhain, Celtic festival, Wiccan sabbat.

Well I think I have the Chapter correct, finally, of course I have to go back and fix all the incorrect ones but that isn’t as important as getting this project done. Just seven more chapters and I will have posted an A-Z entry of obscure mythology and then I can finally get into other intriguing and mysterious posts and research. I did start this blog a few months back as a place to find such topics as the unexplained, mysterious, strange, unusual and of course Mandela effect as well and I will get to those things I just need to see this project through first. I can’t stop on Chapter 19, I’ve come so close to the end of the alphabet, I just hope everyone can hang on for a few more weeks. Once I have the Obscure Mythology project I will delve deeply into my favorite subjects like the Voynich manuscript, ancient aliens, anomalies on the moon and Mars, etc. I will warn you all now that I have become less and less interested in the Mandela Effect for one simple reason, It has become too mainstream! Now anyone with a bad memory or a  Mandela Effect for one simple reason, It has become too mainstream! Now anyone with a bad memory and a youtube channel is screaming Mandela when a product changes its name or a new species of animal is discovered, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that there is something to it and it does deserve to be researched and exposed but the way it is happening now is the way the flat earth conspiracy theorists are being treated. By bombarding youtube and social media with all things Mandela the community is actually harming it more than helping it. I got into a very long winded and pointless argument with one popular Mandela theorist when he posted a video claiming that King Tut’s crwon had changed in this universe because it now had a snake and a vulture. Without going into the exact details I politely told him he was wrong and that the dual crown signified a unified (Upper & Lower Egypt) and had been part of Egyptian culture for thousands of years but because this guy had no prior knowledge and did absolutely no research, he automatically assumed it was a Mandela effect, he then made a five minute video saying how this dual crown must be a Mandela Effect. Four thousand people viewed it within a few hours and just like that this guy spread his theory to a bunch of gullible people. This is what is wrong with the Mandela community and why I took a step back from it. I won’t be associated with all these greedy youtubers that are only out for views and cash. I want to spread the truth and try to figure out why it’s happening not perpetuate the idea that the Mandela community is just another tin foil hatted group of crazy conspiracy theorists. There is truth to it and its existence but right now it is being treated more as a joke than a mystery. Alright, enough on that for now, after my Mythology project is done I will dive much deeper into all of these anomalies throughout the world. I chose Samhain as my S entry for a few reasons, the first being that it is associated with Halloween which is the only “holiday” I acknowledge and actually sort of enjoy, the second reason is because I identify as a Wiccan if I had to write down what my religious beliefs are and lastly because it fits in with much of what I have been saying about how Catholicism stole and incorporated numerous pagan rites into their own dogma. So let us read what the Mythology dictionary says about Samhain.

Samhain: Celtic: a festival on October 31/November 1, the Celtic New Year

This was the one occasion when the Otherworld became visible to mortals. The gates were opened so that those who had been wronged by those still living could exact vengeance. It was adapted by Christianity as St. Martin’s Mass or All Hallows, and the night of October 31^st became Hallowe’en, a night when demons are let loose on the earth to entrap the innocent.

(Dictionary of Mythology, an A-Z of themes, legends and heroes. J.A. Coleman)

I know everyone knows what Halloween is but not many really know the history or its origins. There are numerous stories and myths from all over the world about how our ancient ancestors revered and honored their dead. A ritual in South America (the name of the ritual and the tribe escapes me right now) saw people dig up their deceased and mummified relatives and parade them around town, even throwing a large banquet for them before placing them back in their tombs or graves when the ritual was over. Other ancients used to bury their dead under the floors of their homes. Archaeologists have uncovered some of these ancient homes with two or three generations of family buried beneath the main floor of the domiciles. Humans have always been fascinated and scared by death and perhaps these rituals helped put death in perspective and I suppose when you interact with the deceased in the ways they did perhaps it helped them to remember the dead that way keeping them alive eternally in their hearts and minds. Of course when it comes to the Catholic church they had to make it a scary unhappy holiday so you had a reason to run to the church for help and salvation. They took an elaborate celebration of the dead and tried to turn it into another way to control and cause fear among the populace. I was fortunate enough to be in Key West, Florida back in the early 1990’s and one of the most memorable events I witnessed was the celebration of Fantasy Festival, which is celebrated on All Hallow’s Eve. It is an amalgamation of Halloween, Samhain, Mardi Gras, Voodoo and more. I don’t know the true origins of Fantasy Fest or if it is still celebrated but I can tell you it was the closest thing to an ancient celebration that I have seen. People were dressed in elaborate costumes, others wore skeleton masks and costumes, all while dancing, singing and drinking throughout the night. At midnight a massive parade travels down the main street and the party gets into full swing. It was quite the sight especially for an 18 year old kid from Northern Wisconsin. I digress as usual. I wanted to show how our ancient ancestors respected their dead but also how the mainstream religions stole and absorbed these rituals for their own advancement.

Well, I suppose I rambled on enough for today, I hope you enjoyed it and continue to come back and read my posts and I do promise to get back into the strange and mysterious once my alphabet is complete! Until then, take care, respect each other and nature and above all question everything and do your own research. Never take someone’s word just because they have a youtube channel or thousands of followers on social media, there is much more going on out there than meets the eye and the only way to find the truth is to look for it. Have a great day and as always: PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                 above image: Costumed revelers at Key West's Fantasy Festival.

Obscure Mythology R: Ruwa, A supreme god of the Chagga in Tanzania

     Welcome back to my next installment of Obscure Mythology A-Z. I messed up the Chapter numbers a few letters back and have yet to rectify it on my older posts so I decided just to bypass the number for today. Here we are on R, almost done with the alphabet and this project. Like I said once I am done with this I will be getting back to the world of the weird and mysterious. It has been fun researching all these obscure myths and I will miss doing this but I am also nearly ready to tackle some other awesome and intriguing stuff as well! I had envisioned doing this A-Z project in a month or so but that would have required posting just about everyday when I started this and this summer with all of its twists and turns were not going to allow that to happen but I am glad to be back on the computer and doing a blog a week, it is better than not doing this at all. I’ve stated it a million times but I will say it again, writing, researching and sharing my thoughts are my therapy and I’ve needed it lately! Today’s installment comes from the Chagga people of Africa (located in what is now Tanzania) and it has a few recognizable themes, which is one of the main reasons I did this project. It still amazes me after 15 plus entries that so many myths and legends from around the world are similar. You will definitely see that in today’s post. Keep in mind that these myths are thousands of years old, passed down orally for generations, they precede the Bible, Torah or Quaran or any other religious text by thousands of years. How can these stories be so similar from so many different places before the written word? That is why I do this, to start these debates, to spark something in your mind to question everything you’ve been taught and to think for yourself. Here is Ruwa:

Ruwa: a supreme god of the Chagga in Tanzania.

Ruwa made the first humans, who were immortal, and placed them in a garden on earth where they were forbidden to eat the fruit of just one plant, the yam called Utaho. The serpent of death tempted them and they ate some of the yam, losing their immortality. The plant itself was taken up to heaven and restored.

Another version says that Ruwa gave humans the power to renew themselves by sloughing their skins as a snake does. This worked for some time than failed.

(The Dictionary of Mythology, an A-Z of themes, legends and heroes. J.A. Coleman)

                                                             above image: the official badge of the Chagga Chieftain.

See what I mean about being very familiar? That is the story of Adam and Eve yet it is thousands of years older than the bible. We also see the similarities between the serpent and the forbidden fruit! Now some skeptics say that these tribes must have incorporated Christian themes in their stories as explorer’s and missionaries entered Africa but these stories are way older than that! The west didn’t even really begin exploiting Africa until the 19^th Century and these stories were already thousands of years old. Sure Christians have been in Africa for about 2,000 years but that was mostly in the north, especially Ethiopia, but these stories precede Christianity or Judaism. Tribal societies pass down their myths and legends through oral traditions and even have an appointed story teller or two who’s only job is to be taught the ancient stories, preserve them and share them with the next generation. It is already a known fact that mainstream religions like Christianity have incorporated or flat out stolen ancient pagan rituals and stories for their own so why wouldn’t they steal stories about creation and the first men and women? Every organized religion around today (except Scientology, that’s just pure Sci-Fi) can trace its roots back to ancient religions or rites. The Sumerian tales of Gilgamesh closely parallel the biblical story of Noah and the Ark while the story of Osiris shares many similarities with the biblical stories of a certain guy names Jesus. They even share the same birthday (December 25^th) which just so happens to fall right around a very important ancient religious “holiday”, the Winter Solstice. This is not a mere coincidence I can guarantee you that.

Did you notice how in this tale it wasn’t a certain person who was tempted to eat the fruit but the group as a whole? Of course the Bible had to blame Eve because they had to establish that woman was inferior to man and the reason we have original sin and mortality today. The leaders of the early Christian church had to find a way to get the tribal savages their missionaries were enlightening to diverge away from the matriarchal hierarchies most of them had known for tens of thousands of years, so they vilified the first woman Eve (although we all know from my L entry that there was in fact a female before Eve, Lilith and she was kicked out of Eden for demanding to be treated as an equal, the bible then vilified her by making her a consort of the devil) in attempt to put them in their place, in their minds. Early catholic leaders also dismissed, rewrote or destroyed any gospels or stories centered on Mary Magdalene and Mary, Jesus’ Mother, for fear that women would believe they were equal to man. Even in today’s society we deal with sexism some middle eastern countries still give women no rights at all yet we know through research and artifacts that women were paramount in ancient societies and religions. It is yet another attempt to divide us as a whole. The truth is humans, Homo sapiens, could not exist without women and with the technology of the 21^st century men are not even really needed. This is what researching ancient and obscure myths and stories can lead you to. I could go on for hours but I have two small children who demand a lot of my attention so unfortunately for me and perhaps fortunately for you I must end this. I did want to touch on the last part of the entry about how the other version says humans could slough their skin and renew themselves. I have found this a very common myth in African circles especially, while most Native American myths incorporate humans being made of mud from the aftermath of the great flood. I will look more into these similarities in future posts and hope to find more examples in my future research. Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope that I may have ignited a spark in a few of you to research this and other myths, mysteries and legends. Until the next time take care and as always…………….PEACE………………………………..

                                                          above image: women of the Chagga tribe. women play a prominent role in the tribe and were not blamed 

                                                          specifically for eating the forbidden yams.

Chapter  ??, Obscure Mythology: Qivittoq

I had to put question marks for my header because I realized I have messed up the Chapter titles. I looked back at the posts before this and noticed a couple of chapter 15’s and such. I will have to go back and edit the headers one of these days when I have an extra minute. I don’t like seeing such blatant mistakes on my posts but I also have so much happening that I may have to let those slight errors slide for now. I have four computers in this house, two older laptops, an ancient desktop and a newer desktop and all four of them have an issue right now! I spent three hours yesterday trying to print a single piece of paper and between all four computers it didn’t even happen. I have a feeling it has something to do with Windows 10 or the printer which is fairly old is kaput, whatever the reasons this is the stuff I have been dealing with lately and that’s just the minor stuff! Anyhow, I’m trying to work through these technical and personal problems to get my posts out a little more frequently since I still have about ten chapters of the Obscure Mtyhs to post before I can get back to my other stuff. I am really excited for post on the Voynich manuscript, I’ve been doing a lot of research and I believe my theory may have some validity! I would imagine I should have it posted sometime next year at the p[ace I’ve been working. So the technical problems get worse when it seems like I have the slowest and most unreliable internet in the entire universe as well! You know for a long time I always believed I was cursed, either myself directly or my family was the target of a curse years back and it is in full swing right now. My favorite season (Summer) has all but passed and I have gotten almost zero accomplished. I suppose it didn’t help that it rained about three quarters of the season and all these damn solar flares may have something to do with my spotty internet. Anyway, I am rambling like usual but I also wanted to make today’s entry seem more relevant. It comes from the Inuit people of Greenland and it is called qivittoq (great scrabble word!) and with the summer I’ve been having it seems pretty okay with me. I will let you read for yourself what it is then we can discuss a little about it.

Qivittoq: a wandering spirit in Greenland, Inuit

A person who leaves the community to live alone in the wild who soon develops the physical attributes of an animal such as claws, fur, etc. He depends on his own efforts but sometimes steals food from the community he left to become a qivittoq.

Sounds pretty good, run away into the wild and become a hermit that develops certain animal parts to help you survive! I suppose the stories started from old disheveled hermits being seen by their old community members scavenging, wearing furs and other accruements associated with the flora and fauna that they escaped into. What better way to keep kids away from the creepy hermits than to make them afraid of them. I suppose there are other reasons for the stories but that one is probably the one used the most. I don’t know how many times in my life I’ve wanted to just grab a backpack of essentials and move out into the woods, no electronics, no distractions just the wide open spaces of nature and me. I was lucky to be born in the Northwoods of Wisconsin and to have a Grandfather who grew up surviving in the woods so I learned a great deal about the natural world that surrounded me and how to coexist with it. I have a deep respect and understanding of nature and would make a pretty decent hermit, at least I think. The guy from the Into the Wild book had absolutely no knowledge of the wilderness and did a decent job by himself for a while, he died making careless mistakes when his hunger got the best of him, but had he been even just a little more trained or knowledgeable he could have made it a long time. As awesome as running away and becoming a Wildman sounds like fun, I know I could never leave my responsibilities behind just to save my own sanity. Perhaps that’s why these intuits made up these stories in the hopes that it would frighten people away from the idea of running and keep them in the community as a valued member instead of a selfish exile. Sure someday when the crap really hits the fan I will disappear into the wild but I will bring my family along and it will be for survival not self exile. So when I got to Q in the Mythology dictionary and came across this I had to use it because even as crappy as my summer has been and even though I’ve fantasized about just slipping into the woods and disappearing I know my place is here with my loved ones, my readers and this blog. I can escape into my writing whenever I want without worries of starving or turning into a half rabbit half man. Well, I hope you enjoyed this entry and I hope you come back next time, until then stay safe and as always: PEACE!!!!!!

PS: these last two images are just showing the beauty of Greenland, no real connection to the entry. The bottom image is of a statue of the Goddess of the sea, such a powerful and beautiful sculpture!

A Little something different for today:

     I took this picture about five or six years ago with my macro lens. It is just an extreme close up of some ice that was on my railing one winter morning. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular when I snapped this, as a matter of fact I was just trying out the lens which I had just received from my wife for my birthday (or maybe Christmas, I’m not so sure about that detail). I’ve posted this picture or its edited version quite a few years back on my photography blog (www.edgarblaire.blogspot.com, haven’t posted in a while but there is four years of my writing and pictures available to peruse) and it is one of my favorite images that I’ve ever taken, well the edited version is and I’m going to tell you why. First here is the edited version:

The first image, the unedited one is fairly cool, you don’t get to see ice this close up that often but after I saw the Ice King hidden in there I had to do a little editing to really get the image I lioked. I swear this looks just like a luminescent figure sitting on a throne and looking down, maybe upon the world. I started to imagine this Ice King as God, sitting there in a shining human form looking down at his creation. I shutter to think what he thinks while he sits there and sees his creations destroying themselves and their world. Does he care? Is he enjoying this? Does he want us to kill each other off? Or is he weeping, locked in an icy prison unable to help because his creations turned their backs on him? Perhaps sometime ago, evil tipped the scales of balance and has been in charge ever since. All of this war, murder, greed, debauchery and selfishness has weakened him to the point where he is nothing more than an observer unable to help his people.  I’m not saying he is the God, of the Bible or anything, but if we were created by some omnipotent being this theory would make the most sense to me. With Category Five Hurricanes smashing into our coasts and the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging heavy in the air, fear and darkness has gripped our society. In a time when we should be coming together to make our planet and our lives better we are being torn further apart. I don’t necessarily believe that we are in the end times but I do believe we are in a very crucial time for humanity. We are on course to not only destroy ourselves but our planet and no matter how hard we try to change or stop it something happens to divide us and to scare us enough to fall back into line. All the while the entity that created us may be watching, sitting in his prison that we built around him, watching his beloved creations destroyt themselves over worthless ideals and even more worthless possessions. I’ve often questioned why, if there is a God, an almighty creator diety who supposedly made us in his own image and loved us like nothing else, would let us fall this far down the pit of Hell but then it came to me that perhaps he can’t help, perhaps our actions, our selfishness, our arrogance has rendered him powerless. It is never to late to change yet I fear our time is running out, instead of being driven apart by fear, racism, patriotism, terrorism, war and inclement weather we should be standing strong, uniting to save ourselves, our planet and who knows maybe our God itself.

In conclusion, although all may seem hopeless and yes we are still sliding down the abyss but it doesn’t mean it’s too late. When I first took this picture I didn’t really think it was that interesting or special but then when I actually looked at it closer I saw this Ice King, or Frozen God. There is beauty in everything and there is hidden hope behind every evil action that occurs. We need to stay strong and stay united and pray that we can do enough to break our Creator out of his prison to restore the balance and save us before it is too late. 

......................................PEACE......................................

Chapter 15: Place of the 7 caves, Aztec

     Hello, welcome back to obscure mythology. I apologize again for the delays in my postings. I am trying to get back to some sort of schedule to not only finish this part of my blog but to get my head back in the game as well. This summer has been an emotional roller coaster and the fact that it has rained for about 90% of it doesn’t help. I am normally a creature of habit but these past few months have admittedly thrown me into a funk that has been very hard for me to get out of. I have always used my writing and research as a way to keep my mind from funking out like this but I had a flood of problems come at me like I haven’t had to deal with before. I haven’t been this inundated in a long time and I honestly didn’t know how to deal with it and I still don’t but I do know that writing and research has been my outlet and it needs to be again. Its like I have been shooting down a raging river being pulled toward a waterfall and I have finally just managed to grab onto a limb from a passing tree on the riverbank. I haven’t managed to get out of the river yet but at least I have anchored myself and can start planning on my escape back to solid ground. My family and friends are my anchor while this blog and my research are my escape. I would rather die trying to escape the river than to let the river take me over the edge of the falls and into oblivion. When I get depressed or start questioning everything I like to recite my favorite poem, Invictus by: WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

Out of the night that covers me, 

      Black as the pit from pole to pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be 

      For my unconquerable soul. 

In the fell clutch of circumstance 

      I have not winced nor cried aloud. 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 

      My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 

      Looms but the Horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years 

      Finds and shall find me unafraid. 

It matters not how strait the gate, 

      How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate, 

      I am the captain of my soul. 

The last two lines are my absolute favorite. Anyhow, I’ve wasted too much time with this long winded apology, I need to get back on track. Today’s post, The Place of 7 caves caught my eye because of its mention of Atzlan, the same name as the park here in Wisconsin that I believe has to do with ancient copper miners and perhaps even giants!

I have written about both a few times in the past and when I came across this mention of Atzlan in the Mythology Dictionary, I had to use it. Here is what the dictionary had to say about the Place of 7 caves.

Place of seven caves; Central American

In Aztec lore, the place where the tribes which emigrated from their homeland, Atzlan, split up and went their separate ways. (Dictionary of Mythology, an A-Z of themes, legends and heroes. J.A Coleman)

The mainstream belief is that the mound building people of ancient , in Illinois at Cahokia and Atzlan, left their well established homes and cities (Cahokia, itself was home to upwards of 10,000 people at its peak) and migrated south ending up in present day Mexico. They became the Aztec empire in the years that followed. An ancient Aztec text described how their ancestors followed the maize (corn) from their homes in the south to their new home in Central America. I am torn when it comes to this supposition, I do believe that the people of Atzlan and the Aztecs were related but I don’t believe the mainstream timeline or supposed path they took. There is much more to pre-history (this is how I refer to history before the mainstream believes the written word was discovered, normally up until about 2000-1000 bce.) than we have been told and much of our ancient history has been intentionally suppressed or outright erased. When the Conquistadors invaded and subsequently conquered the Aztec and Incan civilizations their missionaries destroyed everything they deemed was against the church, needless to say anything with any kind of religious tone was destroyed. Less than twenty authentic Incan religious texts have survived until today. I wonder what they might have held. So, back to the Place of the Seven Caves, I began to think that this may be an actual place that exists, where the tribes did converge and then disperse across not only North America but Central America as well. Perhaps this place is somewhere in the American Midwest or Southwest, it makes me want to go search Google Earth! This is why I do the research I do, it opens up so many more doors and makes me ask so many more questions and as long as these questions remain unanswered I will search for the answers. I hope you continue this journey with me and once again thanks for your patience when it comes to my posts. I cannot wait to post again and I’m glad I grabbed onto that branch! Until the next time, which will be sooner than three weeks, have a great day and as always, PEACE!!!!!!!! 

Obscure Mythology Chapter 15: Otherworld, the Celtic afterlife.

     Hello, first of all I want to apologize for being gone for so long, life has been throwing me a lot of curveballs and unfortunately, I can hit a fastball but not the off-speed stuff. The two people who influenced my life the most are gone and I still not sure how to cope with these losses. My Grandfather passed away a few weeks back, he was responsible for showing me the beauty and importance of the Natural world, I will miss him dearly. The other, my Grandmother is still alive but her mental capacities are gone for the most part, it was her fanciful bedtime stories that sparked my imagination and gave me my love for story telling. She was my spiritual and intellectual inspiration while my Grandfather was my natural tutor and instructor. I am who I am because of them and this is by far the most heartbreaking and emotionally draining experience I have ever been forced into and it isn’t even over yet. The hardest day of my life was walking into my Grandmother’s room and seeing her so helpless. It is hard to describe in words how utterly devastating it is to see someone you love so much in such a state. All I could think about was how much she did for me when I was growing up and how I couldn’t do anything for her. I stayed by her side for quite a while just holding her hand as she slept. I still feel horrible for pulling my hand away when it came time to leave. Yes, I had to pull my hand away from her because her grip was so tight, the woman who raised me, who held my hand when walking or squeezed them not so gently when I started acting up in church (which was a lot) didn’t want to let go of my hand. Although she will not remember my visit or that incident it will never leave my mind and I will always feel regret for leaving her.  I always knew that days like that would eventually happen but no matter how hard I tried to be prepared, I wasn’t, at all. I can see why people use the saying, “When it rains, it pours.” I have been drowning in sadness, hopelessness and fear these past few weeks and I needed to escape. Writing and research is how I do that and that is why I had to get back to my blog. I need to keep on pushing through these dark days and understand that everything happens for a reason and that the best way for me to battle is to do what I love doing. I had been scouring the Mythology dictionary for a good entry for today for a few weeks and even had about eight different choices to try to narrow down, until I opened the book today. It opened directly to the O section but more importantly right to today’s entry: The Otherworld, the Celtic version.  I’ve probably mentioned this a time or two but according to a few different DNA screens I am a full 25% Irish/Scottish so it only seems fitting that I try to understand death and rebirth through the eyes of my ancestors. I hope you enjoy this post.

Otherworld[=Avalon, British=Ard mhac leinn. Tir inna N’og, Irish] Home of the fairies: land of the Gods

A place where another existence, in many ways similar to this life, awaits those who died. A death in this life meant a rebirth in the Otherworld and vie versa. It is said to become visible to mortals at the feast of Samhain.

That place sounds okay to me, hell for all I know this is the Otherworld. It has the same sort of cyclical reincarnation theme that Eastern religions have as well, like I suspected it would yet it still holds a hint of a realm for the dead like the place Heaven was patterned after. I like the mention of Samhain as well, being a Wiccan, this is an important holiday or Sabbat as we call them. It is the one day of the year that the veil that separates the realm of the dead and the living is extremely weak. When the Catholics incorporated Samhain into their religious pantheon they renamed it All Saints Day, they claimed it was a day when the veil that separated Heaven and Earth was the weakest. It is of course most commonly referred to as Halloween today. Yes, they stole it and assimilated it into their own practices to make the transition from “heathen” to righteous Christian, but again I am digressing and showing my utter contempt for organized religion. I think I’ll end this for today thinking about my Grandfather working hard in his garden in the Otherworld waiting patiently for my Grandmother to bring him a glass of lemonade. Someday I’ll show up to pick a tomato or two but for now I can be happy knowing he is happy and doing what he loves doing. Have a great day and thanks for supporting me and my endeavors. As always: PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

above image: the different levels of punishment in Nork

 Obscure Mythology Chapter 14: Nork

Cambodian hell or home of the damned.

     Welcome back. Today I went for something a little different. Up until this point I have been looking more at figures and myths and not places, so when I came across Nork, I had to share it. I grew up Catholic so the thought of going to Hell was always in the back of my mind. It was the fear of being sent into eternal damnation that made me a pretty good kid and what made organized religion like Catholicism so powerful. Did you know that back in Medieval times when a church or cathedral was being built the Catholic church would offer Sunday’s as a day of penance, meaning if you stayed after mass and helped to build the new church all of your sins for the past week or longer if you’d not been going to mass would be forgiven? All your sins, as long as you helped build the new church. It kind of made the fear of Hell a little less foreboding so it was stopped. I will not get into my views on organized religion, I am here just to share and research. Many people assumed it was the Catholic church that “invented” Hell, but most ancient myths had a special horrible place for bad people. As with the flood myth it seems as if Hell or a similar variation can be found in just about every civilization. I knew of the Norse version which just so happened to be called, Hel. Coincidence? Absolutely not. It was more than likely stolen from Norse Mythology to help the founders of Christianity describe their terrible awful place of eternal damnation. It should also be noted that not all underworlds were considered bad. In many ancient cultures, the Underworld was the place where all the dead went. There is one big difference between the Christian Hell and Cambodia’s Nork but I’ll wait until after I share the entry before I get into. Well, let me stop my ranting and introduce you to the Nork, Cambodia’s Hell.

Nork: hell, the home of the damned. Cambodia

This realm, which has eight levels, lies below the earth and the torment inflicted on sinners increases with the depth. The lowest hell is called Avichi. Each level is divided into sixteen separate hells with increasing levels of torture.  Spirits who have suffered torment appropriate to their sins are reborn. (The Dictionary of Mythology an A-Z of themes, legends and heroes, J.A. Coleman).

Just as many ancient myths had a Hell, they also had many different levels like Nork. I believe the Christian version started out multileveled but was later condensed into the Hell we envision today. Dante’s famous medieval book The Inferno, tells of the supposed layers of the Christian Hell but modern religious teachings don’t mention layers  when speaking of the Christian Hell. The one major difference that I was speaking of was the way the Cambodian’s incorporated reincarnation into their Hell. It is an interesting aspect and it keeps with the Eastern philosophies while still scaring people with horrible damnation and torture. I am uncertain if other Eastern philosophies have their own versions of pre-reincarnation Hells as well. Again, this is another reason why I do this kind of research, it opens up so many of doors to look into. The reason I chose Nork over many other deserving candidates was because of the way it incorporated both Christian and Eastern mythology. I’ve learned so many new things since starting this little adventure and I love sharing them with you the reader. I appreciate everyone who reads this and I’m glad that you’re sticking around to see what’s next. I have 12 more instalments of the A-Z mythology and then I will get back to my other stuff and believe me I have got a lot including my ground breaking new theory on the Voynich Manuscript, if you are unfamiliar with it I urge you to look it up and then be prepared to be wowed when I present my theory. Until next time, thank you for reading and as always: PEACE!!!!!

PS: while searching for images to go with this post I found out that nork is a derogatory term for North Koreans (sorry, not my intentions) and  another name for a woman’s breast! See what kind of fun stuff you can find while doing research?