OK, so the plot is now really starting to thicken as more and more characters introduced by The Kolbrin are starting to sound like the normal suspects with whom we are already familiar from our own traditions. We have Dadam, ‘The Firstfather’, and his wife, Maeva (Adam and Eve), along with Lewid, ‘The Lightbringer’ (Lucifer), who has studied under Estartha (Astarte). Lewid cons Maeva into stealing some ingredients from the Sacred Enclosure to make a cordial which makes everyone – ‘The Children of God’ and the semi-savage Yoslings (Lewid’s people) – sick. This is, of course, very similar to the Garden of Eden story of Primal Sin, with additional elements such as Prometheus’ stealing of fire from the gods to help mankind, thrown into the mix. The Kolbrin seems to indicate that, although this version of Primal Sin had the result of an impenetrable barrier being rolled down between the human and divine planes of existence (a barrier that can only be pierced by a human of extremely advanced personal spiritual development), it was actually a good thing for mankind because it was no longer a little goodie-two-shoes automaton which did everything God told it to, but was now free to make up its own mind and find its path back to God by itself – a far more rewarding exercise. Committing its first sin, says The Kolbrin, had paradoxically set mankind free! Now, what are we looking at with all of this? Are we seeing an extremely ancient tradition from which later biblical and/or Greek and other myth cycles sprang? Could the account in The Kolbrin be a rehashing of even earlier traditions? Or is this all just a clever modern-times rehash of bits and pieces from the traditional sources, dressed up to make a fast buck? In answer to that last alternative, I’d have to say that The Kolbrin is so non-mainstream, that its current ‘guardians’, The Culdean Trust, won’t have made much out of it financially. It seems to me like an awful lot of effort to go to for very little return. Whatever we are looking at here, I’d have to conclude that the people who published the book did so out of a genuine wish to disseminate knowledge; but as for where the content itself originally came from, I guess we’ll never know for certain unless the original manuscripts, from which The Kolbrin in its current state were translated, are studied professionally.
But back to the Book of Creation: Dadam, Maeva, Lewid, and everyone else were banished from Meruah, the Garden Paradise. An interesting aside here is the description of the place once everyone had been cast out. ‘Bright tongues of fire’ were licking the sky above it in a multi-coloured inferno, and anybody who tried to return or get near it became aware of a tingling ache that became more unbearable the nearer they approached. Sounds a bit like nuclear contagion or radiation poisoning to me. Anyway, Dadam eventually runs across a very sick Lewid who dies, but not before warning Dadam that segregation, and the monopoly of ‘sacred’ knowledge, is wrong and will always result in somebody like Lewid coming along to redress the balance. Dadam was himself later slain by an ‘Ubalite’ but many of Dadam’s folk ended up mixing with that people and founding cities in the Land of Two Rivers. One of these founders went by the name of Enkilgal who built Keridor ‘between the two Great Rivers’. I suppose we’re looking at a reference to the Gilgamesh epic and the area around Babylon here.
At this point The Kolbrin defines again why things are: THE SOURCE emits energy that contains within itself the potential for creating and maintaining forms, and also emits this thing called Awen which, as we heard in the last posting, responds to ‘moulding desires’ or, as we might call it, evolution. So these are the two ‘rays’ that emit from THE SOURCE – one an energy that contains the blueprint for all life forms, and the other a kind of self-writing improvement manual, that allows the blueprints to modify and adapt to changing circumstances. Nice and neat.
The narrative now shifts to a young man called Herthew, Dadam’s son, who was expelled from his homeland when young and wandered around with a wise companion named Habaris, before settling in the mountainous region of Krowkasis (which has just got to be Caucasus) which the current scribe of The Kolbrin enigmatically describes as the ‘cradleland of our race’. Herthew is inducted into some esoterica by Habaris that revolve around the concept of wickedness. This is a different version to that usually found in texts of this ilk in that it stresses that not pursuing our human obligation to find our innate divinity is just as wicked as the standard catalog of sin such as killing, stealing, lust, and so on. And once again, we get echoes of that very basic lesson that other schools of thought like to put fancy names on and claim for their own but which is just a basic human survival trait: learn to love your fellow man and win mastery over your passions and emotions. As usual, the normal people didn’t want to hear something that high-brow; and it sounded like too much hard work anyway, so Habaris had to mix in some practical advice – something they could ‘touch and feel’.
He used parables to teach them about the cycle of the seasons, and also about a period which he called a ‘Great Year’, made up of 52 individual years. And now, Habaris gives us the ‘circle’ of the celestial disaster event that The Kolbrin calls ‘The Destroyer’. The destruction recurs, says the narrative, every 104 Great Years, which, by my reckoning, comes out to 5,408 years. So there you have it. According to The Kolbrin the Earth gets visited once every 5,408 years by an uninvited guest from outer-space which totally wrecks civilisation. Habaris wasn’t all doom and gloom, though: he also taught the people the ‘Laws of Weal and Woe’ (which I would describe as the Law of Karma or ‘what you sow is what you reap’), established public celebrations for seed-sowing and harvest, and taught them the ritual of Ulisidui (whatever that is).
Herthew himself, however, was inducted into the greater mysteries: Confusingly, Habaris now talks of three (as opposed to two) rays that emit from THE SOURCE, containing the potential for forming and sustaining all life. There is also the suggestion of all things in one and one in all (or the ‘as above, so below’ principle) and that every ‘soul-self’ has the ability to become one with the ‘over-soul’ by following Habaris’ standard methodology of observing ‘proper’ love between man and woman and suppressing baser passions.
Habaris appears to have been a kind of ancient day Merlin because not only did he seem to have the spiritual development aspects of mankind pretty much covered, but he was also a handy bloke to have on your side when it came to dishing out a bit of violence. When the land of Krowkasis was invaded by foreigners, Habaris made some arms for Herthew. Using a process never seen before, he created a unique sword which was named ‘Dislana the Bitterbiter’. Herthew eschewed the traditional method of battle, which involved spear-throwing from a distance, and waded into the enemy ranks with his new sword to devastating effect. The King of Krowkasis was won over by this new battle technique, Herthew became the first ‘hero’ of what was going to become the ‘Noble Race’, and Habaris made some more swords to continue the winning streak.
But Habaris was more concerned with mankind’s inner battle to develop its spirituality and so, in what sounds like an excerpt taken straight from the annals of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, he gave private moral instruction to Herthew’s band of battle brothers who’d been given the new type of sword. This instruction was typically elitist and exclusive – an early example of a secret society. What follows is a summary of Habaris’ teaching, such as I understand it, and as reported in this passage of The Kolbrin:
There is something even beyond God. It is an ABSOLUTE and is totally beyond the mental ability of man to grasp – so don’t bother even trying. This ABSOLUTE engendered God. God emitted a force that gave solid shape to the ‘building stones’ of material things (we’re probably talking atoms here). The out-flowing force also created a kind of ‘celestial hymn’ that made the atoms join together in the correct sequence to produce material things (this ‘tune of creation’ is closely associated with Pythagoras’ ‘Music of the Spheres’). I kind of liken this to a musician playing a song. All the notes have to be in the correct sequence for the tune to be correctly realised, to be accurately brought into being. Any bum note, or deviation from the chord sequence, and the song is no longer what it is meant to be. I really like the concept of things being ‘sung’ into existence – it’s quite lovely. The Greeks and Romans were pretty big on the idea, too. Arma virumque cano . . . writes Virgil in the opening line of his Aeneid: ‘I sing arms and the man . . .’. Virgil is singing his work into being. God’s tune is the endless dance of creation. God’s beautiful daughter, Nature, also sings her Father’s song as she unfolds the myriad diversities of life. Creation has a purpose (phew!) but it can only be made known to the select few (oh dear!) because knowing it gives the key to the answer to EVERY question (wow!). The divine purpose and its divine secret is called Gwenkelva. For all his effort, God gets, in return, beings to receive and respond to His infinite love and goodness, and with whom He can contrast Himself, as well as a theatre of operations (creation) in which to ‘perform’ (hmmmm . . . not too sure about that last bit).
For mortals, creation; that is, life, is a school at which we must learn godhood. There are three planes of existence: (1) Heaven – the level at which man’s spiritual potential is realised in actuality; (2) Earth – the material realm of contrast and competition in which everything is a test and trial to help us develop our spiritual potential. This is where we choose our path; (3) Spirit – the intermediate plane, open to communication with the planes above and below, and where spirits freed from material bodies have limited freedoms.
So much for Habaris’ teachings to his little school of knights with shining swords, and back to the historical narrative. Habaris had taught his sword smithying technique (which involved using strange objects known as ‘thunderstones’ – probably nothing more than iron ore) to only a few select craftsmen (an ancient forerunner to the Masonic guild is what is being described here). But Idalvar, the King of Krowcasis, wanted in on the secret, so he sent his young daughter, Klara, to charm poor old Habaris and get into his confidence. This is a great little passage that involves intrigue, deception, betrayal, and a warlock called Gwidon. To cut a long story short, Gwidon prophesies an invasion from the North, Habaris marries Klara and semi-inducts Idalvar into the ‘thunderstone’ smelting process. Then, Habaris, Idalvar, his sons, and Klara die in a bizarre case of some sort of radiation poisoning at the ‘cave of the thunderstones’, leaving Herthew free to marry ‘Idalvar’s daughter’ (who subsequently dies giving childbirth), become the first king of all the peoples of Krowcasis, and decisively defeat the prophesied invasion from the North. This outcome, it is revealed, was engineered by Habaris ( and aided a little by Gwilon) who understood that to achieve it, he must lead Klara on, lure the king and his sons to the dangerous cavern, and sacrifice his own life to achieve his end. A wise and selfless man indeed!
We’ll leave The Kolbrin again there for now. In the next posting the Arthurian echoes continue as we learn all about Gwineva, the ‘Cuckoochild’. See you there.
