Part I of this series can be found here.

‍

(Isa 14:12-14) “. . .“O how you have fallen from heaven, you shining one, son of the dawn! How you have been cut down to the earth, you who were disabling the nations! 13 As for you, you have said in your heart, ‘To the heavens I shall go up. Above the stars of God I shall lift up my throne, and I shall sit down upon the mountain of meeting, in the remotest parts of the north. 14 I shall go up above the high places of the clouds; I shall make myself resemble the Most High.’”

A Late Babylonian astronomical text giving rules for calculating month lengths, and intervals of lunar visibility around the full moon, begins with the statement :

                                                           “[ṭu]ppi niṣirtu šamê pirištu ilāni rabûti”

which when translated means “Tablet of the guarded secret of heaven, secret knowledge of the great gods.” (1)

Although several millenia have passed since that Babylonian tablet was written, the occult today uses the same term ‘secret knowledge’ to describe that which they hold so dear, their worship of false gods, or 'great' gods as the tablet infers. The occult is a pseudoscience with a vast and interwoven network that has been built upon the false foundation of those two lies told by Satan in the Garden of Eden. Just as the Babylonian priests were the adepts at deciphering the hidden knowledge to the lower classes, so too today do modern day so called priests, and practicers of the occult, seek to enlighten mankind to their so called 'secret knowledge' of the hidden wisdom they claim to understand.

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

Through the professed 'sacred knowledge' of the occult, mankind has strived to prove the two lies that Satan used to deceive Eve with in the Garden of Eden. The first lie being that you won’t die, and the second, that you can be like God. It's no wonder that those who fall into this trap of the occult themselves turn evil, for they can never prove what they hold as truth to be just that, true.

‍All that Satan has built exists upon these two lies, and just as Eve was deceived by them, so too will the majority of the world be deceived by these same two lies.‍

As noted at the end of part one of this examination, although the dispersion of mankind from the Tower of Babel eventually created a vast cultural diversity of gods and goddesses, myths and legends etc..., there was one aspect that remained constant amongst all of them. They all looked to the heavenly stars and planets to explain the stories of creation, to look for guidance and direction in their everyday lives, to look for omens and divination, and to try and understand the immortal soul and what happens in the afterlife. Thus the worship of the stars, and the planets, was the one standard that each of these nations retained as they spread out over the surface of the earth.

‍

In researching the many gods and goddesses that have represented the seven different heads of the beast throughout the millenniums, it became clear that Satan has used one particular planet to be his leading figure amongst the nations. Of all the planets worshipped by the ancients, Saturn has maintained a position of worship that rivals all the other planets throughout the ages, from the first head of the beast to the last. As I will attempt to show, Saturn could potentially be the foundation upon which the mark of the beast takes its rise from, as it has played a predominant role throughout each of the seven heads, thus truly making it a symbol OF the beast.

That’s what the mark OF the beast is, is it not, a symbol of identification, an indicator, a permanent record on the body that one has accepted Satans world as the answer to mankinds problems? We can be sure that because the mark OF the beast is representative of the entire beast, this would mean that it represents something that each of the seven kingdoms also represented within their cultures. As a framework is built within this series of articles to support this line of reasoning perhaps the mark of the beast will become ever clearer throughout this examination.

‍

You are invited

The answer to help calculating the number of the beast must, in part, be found within scripture. When Jehovah said ‘let’ the one calculate the number of the beast, it was an invitation to do so, thus he would most likely give us clues within the scriptures to help us identify this mark, or symbol. In fact, it was this very invitation that spurred this examination on.

Since the invitation stems from the bible, thats where we will begin, within the scriptures. The beautiful thing about the Bible is that because it is the word of God, we can be confident that the historical events are accurate, and that they did actually happen. There are no lies in the Bible.

To begin, we start we start with the first head of the beast, Egypt. Egypt had a pantheon of gods and goddesses they worshipped in their everyday lives. Although the scriptures do not tell us the name of the god the Israelites were worshipping at Mt. Sinai, we do know that it was in the image of a golden calf.

‍

‍

We find that the Egyptian deity Apis (2)(2.1), was in the form of a bull with a solar disc between its horns. In selecting the bull to represent the god Apis, the bull had to be all black with a white triangular marking on its forehead. Interestingly the color associated to Saturn is black(3). To the Egyptians, the bull would never grow old and die, it was an eternal being, and represented the deepest of Egyptian values concerning life, time, and eternity. This is important to remember when we see how these reflect in other gods concerning time, and eternity, which will be discussed later. 

According to Alexander Hislop in the Two Babylons, he states:

‍

“the ordinary way in which the favorite Egyptian divinity Osiris was mystically represented was under the form of a young bull or calf, the calf Apis, from which the golden calf of the Israelites was borrowed. There was a reason why that calf should not commonly appear in the appropriate symbols of the god he represented, for that calf represented the divinity in the character of Saturn, “The HIDDEN one,” ”Apis” being only another name for Saturn.” Alexander Hislop, op. cit., p. 45

‍

Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c.480-c.429 BCE), a greek researcher who is often called the worlds first historian says this of Apis:

‍

The Apis is the calf of a cow which is never afterwards able to have another. The Egyptian belief is that a flash of light descends upon the cow from heaven, and this causes her to conceive Apis.

‍

No doubt, bull worship was a large part of the Egyptian way of life, and because the Israelites had been interwoven within Egyptian culture for four hundred years, they quickly returned to what was most familiar to them at Mt Sinai.

In later periods of Egyptian culture, Saturn was known as “Horus bull of the sky”, and in a later period was shortened to “Horus the bull”. (4). This 'Horus' will also tie into our modern times, however, we will discuss this later in the examination.

‍

‍

Time and time again, the Israelites would be induced into worshipping a god in the form of a bull. Throughout the scriptures, and the first four heads of the seven headed beast, worship to Saturn represented as a bull was quite common. Not always by the same name, but typically representing the same form. As the different heads of the seven headed beast came and went, the names of the bull god would change, but Baal worship would always be a pervasive part of worship by the Israelites whenever they fell astray to the foreign gods that God had warned them about many times.

Molech, or Moloch, was another of the ba’als that were worshipped by the Israelites. He is typically portrayed as a bull headed idol with outstretched hands over a fire, in which the Israelites would sacrifice their children to him.

‍

‍

Moloch also happens to represent Saturn(6), simply by another name. 

The first four heads of the beast Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Medo-Persia were renowned for their bull worship. Yes they worshipped other gods as well, as did the Israelites, but baal worship seems to be the most pronounced throughout the scriptures by the chosen people of God. 

It was to this god that the Israelites went to the deepest and darkest form of ritual in pagan worship by offering their own children as a sacrifice to the pagan god. Of course Satan was truly the recipient of this false worship, so how happy he must have been to see them fall to such a debased form of reverence to a false god.

‍

Stephens Account

When Stephen, the first martyr of Jesus Christ, related the history of the Israelites to the Pharisees, doing so under full inspiration of the holy spirit, he said this (Ac 7:41-43):

‍

“. . .So they made a calf in those days and brought up a sacrifice to the idol and began to enjoy themselves in the works of their hands. 42 So God turned and handed them over to render sacred service to the army of heaven, just as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘It was not to me that YOU offered victims and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel? 43 But it was the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Re’phan that YOU took up, the figures which YOU made to worship them. Consequently I will deport YOU beyond Babylon.’”

Also in the bible book of Amos, Jehovah reveals to us the same type of Saturn worship as was revealed by Stephen. Amos 5:26 states:

‍

“And YOU will certainly carry Sak´kuth YOUR king and Kai’wan, YOUR images, the star of YOUR god, whom YOU made for yourselves.”

The footnote from the bible to the right helps us to see that the false gods Sakkuth, Kaiwan, and Rephan, all were names for Saturn(7). Time and time again the scriptures show us that Satan used Saturn as a means of seduction to the chosen people of God.

‍Therefore, a pattern has emerged that is easily traceable from the bible, and throughout the first four heads of the seven headed beast in Revelation (Rev 13:1) we see a clear path being laid out in front of us.

As we follow this path, through the final heads of the seven headed beast, remember that we are following the trail that has been already established from the scriptures. We are not speculating right now, but have simply allowed the bible to guide us down this path using the history already contained within it, and right now we are on the trail of Saturn.

‍

Saturn Evolves

As the fifth head of the beast, Greece, came to power, the god representing Saturn took on a new form, and a new name. Just as the Egyptian god Apis represented Egyptian values of time, and eternity, so too the mythological Greek god Chronos, or Kronos, also represented the god of time. 

However, what truly ties Chronos to the Baals of the first four heads of the beast is the fact that Chronos devoured the children that were offered to him, just as the Israelites offered their children up to Moloch.

Chronos was the ruling Titan who came to power by castrating his Father Uranus. His wife was Rhea. Their offspring were the first of the Olympians. To insure his safety Cronus ate each of the children as they were born. This worked until Rhea, unhappy at the loss of her children, tricked Cronus into swallowing a rock, instead of Zeus. When he grew up Zeus would revolt against Cronus and the other Titans, defeat them, and banish them to Tartarus in the underworld. Cronus managed to escape to Rome, where he ruled as the God Saturn. The period of his rule was said to be a golden age on Earth, which was honored by the yearly celebration named after him, the Saturnalia.

‍

As noted earlier, Chronos was the representation of time, from which we get the word chronology. Greco-Roman mosaics often depicted Chronos as a man turning the zodiac wheel. You could compare him to the deity Aion, from which we get eon, as in eons of time. 

In many relics Cronus was usually depicted with a harpe, scythe, or a sickle, which was the instrument he used to castrate and depose Uranus, his father. 

‍

Syncretism

Because false gods depended on the imagination of mankind to not only exist, but to take on different forms and characteristics, quite often one tradition of worship would be infused with another, creating a fusion of gods and goddesses. As the seven headed beast morphed from one head to the other in leadership, the many stories of the gods would be interwoven with others from previous legends as new ones would be added to the mix. It truly is a tangled web of human imagination. The actual word to describe this phenomenon of the blending of gods and goddesses is syncretism, which is the amalgamation, or combining of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought.

One such example is the god Phanes. Although not specifically representing Saturn, the close association to Chronos, reveals that they were essentially one in the same. The gods Phanes, Aion, Chronos, and Leontocephalus of the Mithraic cults, all bore striking similarities with one another. Most scholars consider them to be the same god, and when we compare them it is easy to see why. Not only do they share many of the same physical qualities as can be seen in the images below, they also all represent time.

Aion is usually identified as the nude or mostly nude young man within a circle representing the zodiac, symbolic of eternal and cyclical time. The imagery of the coiling serpent is connected to the hoop or wheel through the ouroboros, a ring formed by a snake holding the tip of its tail in its mouth. This aspect of a coiling snake is very important to remember as we look further into the role that Saturn plays within the occult. Part III will cover the ouroboros in much greater detail.‍

‍

‍

‍

Phanes is a Greek deity, hatched from the World-Egg by Chronos and Ananke, and is the primeval deity of procreation and the generation of new life. Phanes was ruler of the Gods, and passed the sceptre of kingship to Nyx, its daughter, who in turn gave it to her son Ouranos/Uranus (later taken by Kronos). Phanes has been depicted a s an hermaphroditic deity emerging from a cosmic egg. A serpent entwines around his body with the head of the serpent resting on his head. There is a crescent moon with tips emerging from behind the shoulders and a sun above the head. Three animal heads are across its body at the front of the chest; a lion, a goat and a bull. Around all this is the circle of the zodiacal glyphs. In the corners around this deity are the four Greek gods of the winds(the four seasons).

Many scholars relate Phanes to AION, the God of Greek mythology adopted by the Romans and whom they considered supreme and impartial God, the God of eternal Time and Prosperity, having neither beginning nor end. He is, therefore, a God of eternity associated with other mystery religions that have to do with the superior worlds of Consciousness. Phanes was also a deity of light and goodness, whose name meant "to bring light" or "to shine"; a first-born deity, he emerged from the abyss and gave birth to the universe. He is considered immortal, with no beginning or end, and he is considered the creator of the heaven, the earth, the stars, the moon, the race of the golden men, etc., etc.

Does any of this information remind you of somebody else? Lucifer is called the 'light bearer' to those of the occult practices, and just as the original scripture at the beginning of this article states, he tries to make himself resemble the most high. As we can see he does a very good job at presenting himself in that way regarding the attributes of Phanes.

On the far right is a statue representing the Mithraic Deity of Eternal time(9,10). Notice the similarity between the Greek god Phanes, and the Roman Mithraic statue who also represented Saturn. The syncretism, or the fusion of one belief into another is apparent in these two examples. We can see how Chronos, the god of time, and who also represented Saturn, morphs into other existing traditions and beliefs, and how these beliefs become an accepted form of worship to those who lived during those times.

To those who may be unaware, Mithra, the righteous sun God, is the same deity that the roman emperor Constantine worshipped. In the switch to Christianity by the Romans during the 4th century, the worship of Mithra switched to the worship of the trinitarian god, the god of Christendom today. Instead of worshipping Mithra, the righteous sun God, people would now worship Jesus Christ as the righteous son of God in a triune form, father/son/Holy Spirit. Constantine believed that Jesus Christ, and Sol Invictus Mithras, were both aspects of the same Superior Divinity. It is from the Mithraic celebration of Saturnaliea that we get the modern day Christmas holiday. Essentially, the celebration of Christmas is the celebration of Saturn, simply in modern form.

As we conclude part II, we can easily see, that through the first five heads of the seven headed beast, Saturn played a significant role in the development of false worship upon mankind. The Israelites, Gods chosen people at the time, were not immune to this powerful diety, even sacrificing their own children to him. As will be shown in the next part of this series, the emerging heads of the seven headed beast, Rome and the Anglo-American dyad, play a significant part in this examination of the mark of the beast, and offer us some amazing insight into several prophecies surrounding the end times. I hope you will follow along...