Welcome back to the Book of Gleanings, being a part of The Kolbrin. The last few episodes have been fairly sequential in that they followed the life and travails of Hurmanetar, some sort of ancient hero-cum-wise man who, it would appear, after a lot of work on himself, managed to rise above the ‘earthiness’ of existence with all its lusts, violence, and passions, until he found the peace within and came to terms with his relationship with the being (or force, or power, or whatever) that he considered to be his god. In aspiring to a more refined level of existence, Hurmanetar was either taught, or managed to work out for himself, some ‘Great Truths’ (none of which, unfortunately, The Kolbrin enlarges upon) and some of which definitely tended to what we have now come to know as ‘alchemy’.
But be that as it may, The Book of Gleanings now abruptly shifts focus. It seems to have said all it is going to say about the esoteric Hurmanetar and his nephew and successor, Ancheti, and now switches focus to a different type of spiritual leader who was known, or so says The Kolbrin, as Yosira. This chap enters the narrative as having already achieved guruhood, and he is going to dominate the next few chapters. The foreboding opening words of the chapter set the scene:
‘These are the words for the Sons of the True Doctrine, written in the temple of Sacred Mysteries at Yankeb in the Days of Darkness, by the Unnamed Lord of the Secret Belief, who then lived. The true knowledge of the teachings and mysteries of Yosira concerning the spirit within the body, taken from his books and rewritten truly after the custom of writing.’
Well, you can’t say fairer than that, can you? We, the readers – or listeners – are meant to envisage a band of rapt and attentive disciples or acolytes seated around their Master and hanging on his every word. It’s all damn good stuff! Just before I begin in earnest, though, I’d better warn you that this passage is given in the form of one long lecture by Yosira to his students (whom he calls his ‘chosen ones, light of my light’) so, to save you having to read a load of stuff that will already be very familiar to you from other religions and teachings, I’ll pare the whole thing down to its essentials and comment where I feel it’s appropriate. And we ought to note also that we are starting to get into the true meat and bones of what The Kolbrin calls the Good Religion, so we’ll start to see the ripping yarn-like quality of previous chapters broken up by some good old-fashioned philosophical ear-bashing.
Yosira starts off by talking himself up. He is, he says, the ‘Vice-regent of the God of Gods’ (wow!) and the ‘Custodian of the Books of Power’ (double wow!). Apparently, he has been sent on a mission into a foreign land, Tamerua, in which he must establish the rule of his One True God, which is a common enough trope found amongst several traditions, but this time with one important difference: Yosira, you see, has the power to bestow the gift of immortality and it is that theme – immortality or, more accurately, the nurturing of the inner divine spark – which dominates this section of the work. Apparently we are all born with the inner spark that has the potential to become ‘immortal’ but those of us who can’t handle the ‘big time’ of leading a life that will develop that spark are plunged into ‘forgetfulness’ at the end of our earthly existence. Hmmmm . . . we’ve heard all that before, haven’t we?
Anyway, Yosira rocks up in Tamerua, gathers his ‘Sons’ (=disciples) around him, gives them the gift of immortality and sends them out into the land to find and convert those of its inhabitants that are receptive to his message. Interestingly, Yosira says this is necessary because he doesn’t have enough ‘fighting men’ in his following to take the land by force, so he is relying on what he calls ‘guile’ – religious-philosophical commandoes in other words – to convert the place. That kind of imagery is pretty common in ancient philosophies (especially in Ancient Greek and Roman writings) where military analogies are frequently used to exhort candidates to try harder when converting to a new belief system.
Yosira then goes into his big soap-boxing speech. His own inner light, he says, comes first-hand from the ‘Supreme Source’, the ‘God of Gods’, and is so powerful that he can only reveal it bit-part. The inner light is, of course, the soul – or spirit – and Yosira tells his messengers that the inhabitants of Tamerua won’t really be able to grasp that concept, so the disciples must therefore instruct with complete truthfulness where it concerns matters of physical welfare, but be guarded with how they instruct on matters of the inner body, or soul.
According to Yosira, every human is born with an inner divine spark and that is the only part that is alive; everything else is simply a coating. The heat of the divine spark radiates out to the outer casing through the blood. The more intense the inner spark, the more intense the heat that radiates out to the casing. The heat generates what Yosira calls a glow, the ‘Breath of God’ which, although invisible, can somehow affect what is around it. I guess that we have to understand this ‘Breath of God’ as some kind of energy field – so Yosira is putting his own spin (or allegorical parable) on existence as a constant dance of changing energy states – as what comes next begins to sound very much like an aspect of Quantum Theory.
This ‘Breath of God’, says Yosira, comes from one source (his God) but has two forms; one heavy and one light, and from these two forms (let’s call them forces) all things are made. You see what I mean about Quantum Theory? Yosira has just described, in his own simplistic terms, the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ forces that either hold atoms together or allow them to disintegrate through various ‘steps’ of energy, to produce what we see as ‘change’.
Anyway, Yosira then goes on to give his interpretation of the way the Universe is structured, and it’s the fairly standard cosmological model: Above everything is God. Below God are Heaven and Earth. Heaven is divided into a nice, light bit where good spirits dwell, and a nasty, dark bit where the bad boys live. The opposing sections are continuously in conflict so the boundary between the two ebbs and flows, dependent on how strong each is at any one time, but, says, Yosira, good will always ultimately conquer evil. That everlasting battle between heavenly beings is, apparently, beyond the ability of Earthlings to get their heads around because, or so says The Kolbrin, the light and darkness are not those known on this planet. Bit patronising that bit, I thought, but I am assuming Yosira was alluding to those discussions on Good vs. Evil that plunge into the deeply metaphysical and get into the realm of Plato’s and Socrates’ ‘Forms’, or those versions of Good and Evil that are the pure, distilled essence of each, rather than the messy, sometimes arbitrary and subjective terms we bandy about here during our everyday lives.
Next, Yosira goes all Egyptiany, calling the ‘Gates of Heaven’ the ‘Land of the Horizon’ and he tells his team that, at death, the ‘Lord of the Body’ (that’s another term he uses for the soul or spirit) rocks up at these ‘Gates’. If you’ve been good and are filled with light, you go through the door into the Light part of Heaven, and if you’ve been bad and are filled with darkness, you go through the door into the Dark part of Heaven.
Departed souls can’t return across the void to Earth but it’s not all one-way traffic because the Light and Dark parts of Heaven somehow emanate their respective influences which are felt on our planet and can impact on human life. Yosira hints that there’s some secret knowledge around that particular subject but he’s not allowed to mention it here (spoilsport!) because, he implies, it is powerful enough to be misused in the hands of ‘unenlightened ones’.
The next bit is pretty cool and interesting as Yosira starts to describe how the ‘influences’ from the Good and Evil parts of Heaven can manifest on Earth. The influences, he says, Good or Bad, can manifest in different aspects because they have what sounds like the power to manipulate available energy and matter into visible forms. Rarely, says Yosira, they appear as human-shaped shades (ghosts? apparitions? Angels? Demons?) but more commonly as ‘lukim’, which he describes as ‘motes’ Now, whether he means single motes (which would seem pretty pointless and not particularly impressive) or things like dust motes swirling together to form some shape or other, Yosira doesn’t say; but I am assuming the latter (which is really evocative of Middle-eastern and Arabian Djinns and Sand Devils). All of these – Good or Evil – Yosira calls the ‘formless ones’ but, once again, I am forced into seeing here some kind of allegorical reference to the strong and weak forces of Quantum Physics and their ability to effect ‘change’ through energy interaction.
After that tantalising little spiel, Yosira (or the scribe writing this stuff down) starts to jump around a bit. Apparently there are three great spheres and Earth is in one of them. In that sphere the ‘Breath of God’ (or energy emitting from The Source) divides into two: one, Manah, is light and contains life, while the other, Manyu, is heavy and contains flesh. If any of you have been following the Gurdjieff thread of this Ancient Self-help website, you may notice some parallels between the two philosophies.
Yosira says that his God is totally beyond the comprehension of mortal man, so it doesn’t really matter how we perceive him (or her or it) as long as that perception has the effect of fulfilling the purpose that the God has for mankind and furthers mankind’s own spiritual destiny (and isn’t that a refreshing viewpoint compared to all that ‘thou shalt have no other god but me’ fire and brimstone nonsense?).
And it gets even better. Yosira also says that, while man remains spiritually underdeveloped, not only doesn’t it really matter what type of god he dreams up in his head to adore, but all the attendant ritual and worship that go along with it also do no harm as long they are not so over the top that they obscure the basic purpose of the service. I really like this. It cuts to the core of what we call religion. There are some basic tenets of human kindness and love in all religions, and what I think The Kolbrin is saying here is that, when religions are stripped of their dogma and absurdities and fanaticism, they are all one and the same thing. If you take idiot humans out of religion, what you are left with is something quite beautiful. And, despite Yosira’s – once again – patronising tone here about we moronic humans not somehow getting it, I think most of us somehow know, somewhere deep inside, that all the outer frippery of religion is just so much white noise, and that the true message lies in a universal and umbrella Love (with a capital L). In my opinion, it is when that Love (with a capital L) is the cushion on which Reason (with a capital R) rests and can be achieved, that we begin, finally, to approach that state for which we are spiritually destined and can then alter our very being. Or something like that, anyway.
So, after Yosira warned against any ‘gods’ that lead humans into the lusts of the flesh or the depths of ignorance, he sent his disciples out into Tamerua as captains of what sound like their own little band of bodyguards. Those envoys got a pretty good reception from the inhabitants and returned to Yosira with the sons of various governors as hostages. And those hostages, as a captive audience as it were, got a right old ear-bashing from Yosira before he addressed the people as a whole. What follows is thematically quite disjointed; it seems as if the scribe has settled for pulling out the main tenets of Yosira’s religion/philosophy and allocated a small paragraph to each. It’s interesting, though, because it gives the reader the first real insight into the basic guidelines of the so-called Good Religion that figures so prominently throughout the remainder of The Kolbrin. I’ll try to sum it up without dwelling too long on any one point:
No child was to be sold into bondage by its parents or guardians (or anyone else for that matter). Yosira fully understood that when nations get a superiority complex, it is an inbuilt disease of human nature to create a master-slave culture – and this is a very topical issue as I am writing in the time of the BLM (Black Lives Matter) movement. Obviously, Yosira was implying that all lives matter.
No woman was to be pimped into prostitution by the man who was responsible for her upkeep (The Kolbrin doesn’t tell us, at this point, what the marital arrangements were in Tamerua, so we don’t know whether Yosira is talking about more than one wife, or domestic servants, or something else entirely). Pimping was a punishable offence. In addition, if a master impregnated one of his women who was not his wife, that child could not be sold into bondage and, moreover, the woman was then free to marry any freedman who would take her.
Incest is the biggest taboo. Sexual relations between any members of the hierarchy grand-parent/parent/child/grandchild was strictly forbidden. According to Yosira, any child born from incest was a beacon to the most evil of the ‘Formless Ones’ we discussed earlier. The punishment for committing incest was death by fire and any child born from an incestuous act was branded with the mark of incest. So, then, old Yosira certainly knew how to deter folk from inbreeding. You’d hope that somebody who talked himself up as much as Yosira had the higher knowledge that the real reason incest was not a good idea was because it leads to genetic instability and inbred aberration; so his threats that the culprits would be burnt alive and that any child born from incest would invite some form of demonic possession, were simply easily comprehended deterrents.
Yosira then moves onto another of his big no-no’s: adultery. Adultery, he says, like a child born of incest, creates another opportunity for the nasty lukim to find their way into a human body. There’s a little aside in this section about a message that permeates pretty much the whole of The Kolbrin, and which appears to be central to the Good Religion: It’s about the polarity of male and female. Men are born to perform manly duties, and women are born to perform womanly duties. There is to be no crossover, it was all very binary. Not a very modern outlook, I know, but we have to understand that Yosira (if he ever existed) was a man of his time. And once again, just as he did with incest, Yosira doesn’t hold back with the shock value of his deterrent for adultery. The parable he uses to thump home his message is powerfully grotesque. A beautiful and powerful queen in a faraway country thought she could emulate powerful kings with their multiple wives by taking multiple husbands. While pregnant by one man, she was also impregnated by another. The two seeds warred and destroyed one another thus permitting evil lukim to set up house in the queen’s womb and infecting any man who penetrated her thereafter. Again, we’d hope that Yosira, who should have been wise enough to understand that the real reason adultery was a no-no was because it has the potential to seriously destabilise society, was using easily understood – and, in this case, rather graphic – parable to get his message across. There is probably also a veiled message about the danger of venereal disease (the lukim) if a woman has too many sexual partners (the same is, of course, true for men, but Yosira was writing in a strongly patriarchal society).
And the lessons keep on coming. Don’t sleep in somebody else’s bed unless their ‘spell’, as Yosira calls it, has been removed. Now, I read this on two different levels. There is the obvious health issue – sickness and germs can hang around on bedding unless it is deep-cleansed (a lesson for our Covid-19 ridden times) – but there is also, I think, an emotional element to this, whether Yosira intended it or not. Marriage beds are intensely private environments. Material things are said to absorb essence (energy?). I don’t think that I am being whimsical if I venture that there are some very powerful psychic undercurrents in play if one partner from an ended relationship (whether through death or separation) takes a new partner into the former shared bed. Of course, that goes for all sorts of other formerly shared things as well, but the bed, I think is perhaps the place where relationship emotions are most intensely played out. But that’s just my opinion, so back to Yosira and his ear bashings:
There is a bit more on basic hygiene: don’t eat from the plate of somebody else or drink from their vessel unless their ‘spell’ has been removed; that is, the stuff’s been cleaned; and if any follower of Yosira’s God gets unwittingly sprinkled with a libation poured to some other god, they must be hauled off to the rather grandly named ‘Master of Mysteries’ to be decontaminated.
A bit more on hygiene follows: don’t wash in water that somebody else has washed in, nor in any water that’s been resting in a man-made container. And, on more private matters, no follower of Yosira’s God is allowed to touch a menstruating woman, may go near any woman, anytime, with unwashed hands, and, after sex, both male and female have to ‘purify’ themselves before carrying on with whatever else they have to do.
Well, if you thought all that advice was a bit too straightforward for the rather overly-dramatic Yosira, don’t worry, because, true to form, he followed it up with some dire warnings about basic food preparation and storage: Apparently, one type of lukim, the nableh, love to hang out in human food (so I suppose they are analogous to bacteria or germs) so there are suggestions on how to thwart their intentions: hang up meat and fish but not bread; ground bran or meal should be kept in a capped container with nowrata flowers (whatever they are); sweep up any stray crumbs or other leftovers from meals; bury any animal bits not used for cooking in the ground; scour clean any vessels that have been used for storing food with sand and expose them to sunlight (evidence right there that the ancients had at least a rudimentary understanding that UV light can have a detrimental effect on germs and bacteria).
This is all pretty much Kitchen Hygiene 101, and it goes on: When meat or fish goes dark and stinks, it’s a sign that the nableh have taken up residence, so you have to get it out the house and bury it where no other animals can find it in case they become infected. According to Yosira, if you let the nableh have full rein, they will multiply and bring on the night terrors – again, this is Yosira attempting to scare people into exercising some good old common sense where it concerns food storage and meal preparation. Whether or not he was ‘advanced’ enough in his understanding of the ‘mysteries’ he constantly refers to, that what he called the nableh were, in reality, dangerous microbes (or maybe those demonic entities are, when you get down to it, just another way of describing one and the same thing as harmful bacteria) we’ll never know. I suppose you could look at it that the common people of Yosira’s times simply didn’t have the vocabulary to describe harmful bacteria and so the concept of demonic nableh achieved the same effect. Were Yosira preaching to a modern audience, would he use the phrase ‘harmful bacteria’? Probably.
And he’s not finished yet: If the pouring spout of a pitcher or pot has gone black, you have to smash it because this time it’s the ‘fiery lukim’ who’ve had a go at it. If any followers of Yosira’s God eat with strangers, they have to purify themselves on the following sunrise. If you eat without cleaning your hand with water or sand, the ‘lukim of the night’ will pay you a visit. If you bleed any beast for cooking, you have to get rid of any stains on yourself or else the ‘dark lukim’ will single you out. Don’t keep any food or drink where you sleep because that will also draw the attention of the ‘lukim of the night’
I know that Yosira is just talking common sense here – albeit spiced up with a bit of supernatural retribution if you mess up – but, to me, this passage does highlight that people of old did have a thorough grasp about how germs in the form of disease and illness spread; and the next bit highlights that, because Yosira goes on that the lukim can take up residence in all sorts of places. They can be spread in any type of discharge from the nose or mouth of humans, and are also found in stagnant water (so humans are forbidden from drinking it). Still on the subject of water, Yosira states that drinking water should only be either drawn from the ground or taken from non-stagnant sources that are shaded by trees.
Humans should eat only wholesome food, nothing that wrecks the digestion. It should not be too dry or overly salty and anything that is going moldy must be discarded because the mold is excreted by – yes, you guessed it – the lukim. Moreover, beasts that have died without being slaughtered should not be consumed, and meat should never be eaten uncooked. And, on that note, Yosira has apparently said all he’s going to say about practical food hygiene and the pesky lukim, and abruptly switches focus to things of a more ethical nature.
Killing a fellow human is strictly forbidden except in war, self-defence, or ‘to uphold the purity of the household and home’ (I am assuming that means fighting off would-be rapists, burglars, home invaders or the like). Killing by stealth or striking from behind is considered murder and will be punished. Revenge may be taken by the family of a slain victim.
Yosira puts great store on the concepts of oath-making and oath-breaking. If an oath is sworn on Yosira’s God, he says, breaking it will irreversibly scar your soul/spirit. Yosira puts oath-keeping (or, in modern terms, keeping your promises) right up there as a test of virtue. Mankind, he says, has enough hurdles to vault in this test of a life, without making oaths he will find hard to stick to. An oath, once made, lasts forever, even if the circumstances that brought it into being change or become diluted over time. In fact, Yosira’s advice is along the lines of: it’s wiser to avoid making oaths because it’s hard work sticking to what you’ve promised and the consequences can be terrible if you don’t keep your word.
OK, this has been a long episode, but we’re nearly there now, so please stick with me for just a little longer as I think you’ll agree this Yosira chap is an interesting character – even if he does seem to have a rather high opinion of himself.
The next paragraph borders on the metaphysical, and I’m not sure whether it’s really neat and deep, or just really patronising – so I’ll keep it brief. Yosira issues a warning that it is a very foolish man who fears only what he can see with his eyes. So, he’ll be afraid of a wildfire or a sandstorm, for instance, but will thumb his nose at the lukim because they are invisible to his senses. What Yosira is getting at here really belongs on a philosophical level, because he is telling us to use our Reason (with a capital R) rather than follow our normal senses. He says the evidence that the ‘invisible’ lukim exist lies in their manifestation; that is, their result (the rottenness in food, the diseases and infections that occur because of it, and so on), and so we have to use our noddles and put two-and-two together to get the real picture. In other words, we need to detach from our five senses and withdraw into the realm of mind (=Reason) to work out what is going on at a sub-atomic level. The particle dance of CHANGE as it happens is not readily visible to our everyday senses – we can only detect the latest state, the leading edge of change if you like.
Yosira then pulls a major swiftie, because he segues on beautifully and, having sown our minds with the concept that just because you can’t see the lukim doesn’t mean they don’t exist (because the consequences of their presence can be discerned), he slips in the revelation that the same can be said of his God; that is, just because you can’t see Him, Her, or It, doesn’t matter a jot because the consequences, the results if you like, of His, Her, or Its presence, are visible all around you. It’s a very neat little rhetorical trick Yosira has pulled off here and, like all the best rhetorical tricks, he’s saved it till last in his little ‘morality’ sector, and he now moves on to some winding up remarks before the chapter comes to an end.
Yosira then addressed the assembled bands of his disciples with their ‘fighting men’ and gave them some final advice before letting them loose on the general population of another land whose name is given as Tewar. He tells them not to ridicule the inhabitants’ beliefs or way of life, nor to defile any of their property or buildings. Yosira and his people, therefore, entered Tewar in peace and were received well. Like all good advanced beings entering a primitive civilisation, Yosira taught Tewar’s people the arts of weaving and metal-working, as well as a ‘mysterious’ way to make metal tools and weapons (eh?) although he kept the secret of sharp-edged weapons amongst his own followers. In return, the locals built Yosira a home of brick and reed, from which he gave his disciples some more instructions.
The dove, he said, is the most sacred of birds and not for eating, but if the locals wanted to sacrifice one to their own gods, they were to be allowed to do so. Milk from any animal without horns and a cloven hoof was not for drinking, but if the locals wanted to drink it, that was up to them.
And, on a more grisly note, children who were still breast-feeding were not to be sacrificed when an elder died (apparently the belief was that young blood would give ‘life’ to the dead person) because, Yosira said, it is up to every human to make their own destiny. Furthermore, if anyone tried to bury a live suckling-child with a corpse (part of the same local belief) they would themselves be killed. And, really interestingly, any goods or tools buried with an individual were to be broken before being interred – and that, I am assuming, was a really good precaution against any potential grave-robbing.
And, finally, onto the last paragraph of this chapter and, again, it sounds to me like a piece of really solid practical advice. Any worker in metal was to take one day in seven off. On the rest day, no fire was to be lit and no metal moved, and any objects made in the previous six days were to be placed in a trough of ‘sanctified’ oil. No metal object was ever allowed out of a workplace without first going through the oil. Brilliant inventory control, in my book, and a good way of preventing any weapons or precious objects somehow finding their way into the wrong hands.
And that’s where the first chapter on Yosira ends. He sounds like a practically minded teacher who understood that the way to help others less knowledgeable than himself was to dress information up in a way that would mean something to them – hence the lukim analogy for harmful microbes and as a deterrent for harmful societal behavior such as incest and adultery. He seems also to have used religion to achieve other practical ends, just like so many leaders and governments before and after him. The ruse, for example, of sanctifying goods by demanding they be immersed in ‘holy’ oil ensured that 6 days output was taken to a central container for a weekly stock-take and inventory control – very clever thinking.
And as far as self-help on a personal level is concerned, well, we can look at the practical advice on food hygiene and general sterilisation – that’s always worth remembering. Moreover, we need to take on board what Yosira said about the significance of keeping your word. In fact, he put so much importance on it that his advice is never to swear an oath if you can possibly avoid it. He’s right, you know. Words – promises – have immense power, and we should never openly swear to something unless we have the utter conviction to go through with it. If we don’t, it is often not just ourselves that we let down. The promises we make frequently involve the hopes and aspirations of others, often those who are near and dear to us. Other people actively depend on us keeping our word. They rely on us doing what we say we will. Some will even risk everything they own based solely on our oath, so never ever make a glib promise.
OK, that’s it for now. I know that was a pretty long stint so thanks for sticking with me. The next chapter is entitled The Rule of Yosira and I hope to see you there.
