Originally posted by Halcyon
Medicine woman:
The reference to the Urim and Thummin in your quotes is interesting. Is the book you're refering to a product of mormon research, and if not, what is the significance of the urim and thummin mentioned extraneously to mormon literature?
No, the book is not Mormon. I'll look that up for you. I seem to recall a reference to the Mormons, however.
In case you didn't get the citation: Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark, by Sir Laurence Gardner, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, London, 2003, pps. 28-33, 36-41, 71-73, 94, 108, 109.
Page 30: Light and Perfection: Mystery of the Jewels - "And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the URIM and the THUMMIM: and they shall be upon Aaron's heart, when he goeth before the Lord." "These words U'RIM and THUM'MIM mean Light and Perfection. Hence, the SCHAMIR ("lightning stone") and SCHETHIYA ("stone of perfection") of the Talmud are synonymous with the URIM and THUMMIMM of Exodus."
"At not time in the Old Testament is there any question concerning the nature of the URIM and THUMMIN. Neither their shape, size, color, nor weight is discussed. They are saimply accepted as something with which Moses was familiar. What we have here, nevertheless, are two magical stones. One is a radiating jewel, which emits a charge of lightning that custs through stone, while the other has the power of levitation."
Page 31: The Curious Spiral - "Numbers 27:21 tells that the URIM was used by the High Priest when he sought council with the Lord, and this divine wisdom was obtained from between the golden cherubim which surmounted the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:22). Then Judges 20:27-28 explains that standing before the Ark was indeed considered to be standing before God. Since the URIM and THUMMIM had to be present for the Ark to convey the word of God, some have suggested that they were like dice or oracular lots. But the key attribute of the URIM, when in the presence of the Ark, was its radiating light, and the Bible says that "God is Light." In accordance with this precept, therefore, the Ark-light of the URIM was a perceived manifestation of God."
"What then was this URIM-SCHAMIR that was so fundamental to summoning the power of the Ark? Thus far we ahve ascertained that it was a prescious stone: a crystal gem with the ability, under certain conditions, to emit a spear of light that could cut through stone with precision."
"Whether related to the URIM-SCHAMIR or other sources of divine judgment, the graphic symbol for wisdom remained constant from the earliest times in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). It was the emblem of the Sumerian god Enki, Lord of the Sacred Eye - a serpent spiraling around a central rod or stem. In Egypt, the White Brotherhood of Karnak were priestly craftsmen of the Therapeutate, whose work with..."
Page 32: "...the MFKZT also involved them with healing, so that wisdom and healing became synonymous and the same serpentine emblem was adopted." (NOTE THIS, JENYAR, THIS ONE'S FOR YOU!)
Page 33: "The High Priest's breastplate (in the pouch of which the URIM and THUMMIN were ceremonially placed) is described in Exodus 28:17-20 as being ornamented with 12 precious stones. They are given as sardius (carnelian), topaz, carbuncle (garnet), emerald, sapphire, diamond, ligure (amber), agate, amethyst, beryl, onyx, and jasper. Noticeably missing from this list is ruby, but both Job 28:18 and Proverbs 8:11 compare wisdom with rubies."
Page 36: The Remarkable Ruby - "So, what did the world's supposedly first ruby laser, a litle over 40 years ago, look like? It looked precisely like a serpent coiled areound a central stem - just as in the emblems of Enki and Asklepios. Not surprisingly, lasers were soon adapted for use in the world of medicine, taking over from scalpels in the field of omicrosurgery. If the URIM-SCHAMIR were indeed a cylindrical ruby, with a suitable helicoidal crystal sleeve to hand, then all it would have needed to become operative was a connective power supply."
Page 39: The Ring of the Testimony - "Whereas the URIM (the male stone) was perceived as a godly manifestation, the female THUMMMIM represented the Queen of the Heavens, whom the Canaanites called Anath."
"The "testimony" which Moses brought down from the mountain and lodged in the Ark (Exodus 40:20) was very likely the noble crystal coil in which the URIM-SCHAMIR was inserted - the very jewel for which Solomon built the Temple of Jerusalem as a sacred abode. Moses had acquired it from the El Shaddai (Lord of the Mountain), and in this regard the Qabalistic doctrine that the tablet was a SAPPIR which Moses held in the palm of his hand makes a good deal more sense. What he had was the other part of hte light-spear equation - the spiraling SCHETHIYA, or, as it was known to the high priests Aaron and Eleazar, the THUMMIM."
"Since the URIM and THUMMIN (as separately identified in the Bible) were mutually supportive devices, it is not entirely through misapplication that the Morman tradition often portrays them as a single object: the URIM-THUMMIN. They constituted the male and female, and when brought together at the Ark they did indeed manifest their unified Light and Perfection. Alone, however, the THUMMIN-SCHETHIYA was a uniquely empowered substance with levitational attributes, just as described in the Qabalistic doctrine."
Page 41: A New Dynasty - " The treasures of the House of Gold (the URIM-SCHAMIR adn the THUMMIM-SCHETHIYA) were placed in the care of Moses and the new Israelite priests, who were charged in Sinai to establish a reigning dynasty in the Promised Land. In time, these kings (in descent from the 18th dynasty of Egypt) were to become the Royal House of Judah - the line of David, Solomon, and, eventually, Jesus. First, however, the land of Canaan (later Palestine) had to be entered, traversed, and conquered before the new monarachy could be established in Jerusalem."
Page 73: A Divine Essence - "In addition to the URIM and THUMMIN becoming active in the presence of the Ark, the Bible also explains that the power of the Ark was deadly. Two of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, were killed by the fire which leapt from the Ark (Leviticus 10:1-2), given in the Talmud as bolts "as think as threads."
Page 75: "As a protective enclosure, the Arc of Testimony was considered to embody the very essence of light and energy; it was a manifestation of the supreme power of God. But since it was a manufactured device, from where did this electrical essence derive? A clue is immediately found in the original use of the Hebrew word ARON which, as we have seen (like ARCA), defined a box. However, it was more specifically a collecting-box, and the older root meaning of ARON was the verb "to gather" or "gathering." The power was gathered and stored by the box itself, while the most fearful discharge (when the URIM and THUMMIN were present) was regarded as an ultimate judgment. It was perceived as the Light and Perfection - a divine oracular inspiratino of the great Archon (an ancient Greek word meaning "bow" or "arc").
Page 94: ELECTRIKUS - "At various stages of the Old Testament (from the moment of his direct association with Mount Horeb and the Ark) God is portrayed as sending out arrows of lightning. He was said to exist between the cherubim and ws at his most fiercely judgmental when the penetrative lightning stone of the URIM-SCHAMIR was present. In mystic and masonic lore, God has been called the Archon, the Architect, and the Archetype, and he dwelled in a House of Judgment called the Archeion."
"Without any explanation in Exodus, the URIM and THUMMIN appeared at Mount Horeb as if Moses had previously been familiar with them. We know from the Bible that Moses was an Egyptian (Exodus 2:19), and from Manetho's AEGYPTAICA (c.300 BC) that he had been trained as a temple priest at Heliopolis. Moreover, Phinheas the Levite (son of Eleazar), in whom the "everlasting priesthood" was confirmed (Numbers 25:11-13), bore the same name as Panahesy, the Egyptian Governor of Sinai who happened to have been the Chief Servitor of Aten at Akhenaten's temple of Amarna. Although the Sinai mountain is called Mount Horeb (Cherub Mountain) in the BIble, it subsequently became known as SERABIT EL KHADIM - the full translation of which is "Prominence of the Servitor."
Page 108: The Orbit of Light: Masters of the Fire-Stone - "When discussing the URIM and THUMMIM earlier, we touched on the subject of iridium crystal. Before progressing to the nature of the highward fire-stone, ti is necessary to look a little more circumspectly at iridium and other platinum group metals (PGMs), since they are central to understanding MFKZT. Along with platinum, the other five PGMs are iridium, palladium, rhodium, osmium, and ruthenium. Because of the ultimate strengths of the metals, they are now used in surgical, optical, and dental instruments, crucibles and thermocouples, machine bearings, electrical switch contacts, and all manner of precision devices down to the tipping of needles and pen nibs."