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| The Order of
Melchizedek
"Yeshua has entered on our behalf as forerunner, becoming High Priest forever according to the Order of Melchizedek." Hebrews 6:20 Melchizedek, a Type of Christ
We also find mention of Melchizedek in Psalms:"Your people shall be willing in the day of your power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: you have the dew of your youth. The LORD has sworn, and will not relent, You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." (Ps. 110:3-4) Melchizedek is mentioned again in the New Testament book of Hebrews as the oldest priest of a higher order, more ancient and direct from God, than the Children of Israel (Levite) priesthood. In the Book of Hebrews, Jesus is repeatedly referred to as a High Priest of the Order of Melchizedek. So there was a pre-historic priestly order, founded by this mysterious pre-Israelite Jerusalem King. (I say pre-Israelite because he was long before Moses, Solomon, the Temple, etc. He existed in Father Abraham's time, showing up as mentioned in Genesis, then disappearing again.) The Gnostic scriptures refer to him as Melchizedek the Supreme Paralemptor, which means Light-Bringer or Light-Maker. The Gnostic library on line has some texts that mention him, one is even named Melchizedek. It's real vague writing, as if they're trying to hide secrets--- speaking in a code. Pain in the neck to read! But mysterious as hell.... Edgar Cayce believed and taught that Melchizedek was one of the Lives of the Master and explains his theory in a book of that title. Cayce believed Melchizedek was an earlier incarnation of Jesus who came to introduce the Eucharist of bread and wine. Personally, I am not certain of that theory because I have always had trouble with believing in re-incarnation. I do believe in Genetic memory, however. The theory of genetic memory is becoming widely accepted and puts forth the possibility that when we have flashbacks to another life, we are really tapping some memory of one of our ancestors. On the other hand, mythology and the religions of the world teach that God and Goddess often like to be born among us, so if anyone could have previous life-times, if anyone could be a "victim" of re-incarnation, it would be them. Maybe Melchizedek was indeed Jesus making an advanced appearance---or maybe he was God-the-Father. Our Order believes he was God's High Priest and still is. In the Hebrew Bible Melchizedek is called the High Priest of El Elyon, YHVH, the Most High One. Our Order of Melchizedek, founded in 1996, attempts to accurately reconstruct the priestly system, rites and practices of this pre-Old Testament order. The members of this ancient priesthood were the first to use the bread and wine to represent the body and blood of the earth---they never did animal sacrifices like the later priesthoods. The Melchizedek rites are powerful. Some of the rituals and prayers beautifully express the connection between heaven (sky-god Yahweh) and Earth (earth-Mother). Melchizedek Clergy dress in black and white (balance, cosmic origins) and use a white cutout cross from a black field, with a gold Jerusalem seal at the intersection of the cross. These priests and priestesses of YHVH use an ancient, simple but powerful Eucharist ceremony either daily or at least once a week. Members greet each other with "Hail Melchizedek!" in Hebrew or English. The second one answers, "Melchizedek Hail!" • • • • • • •
• Visit this page of our website for more on
the Ineffable Name YHVH and how it
came to be made up of the Quaternity, the four-part Divine Father, Mother,
Sacred Son and Shekinah Daughter. What does the name Hebrew Melchizedek mean in ancient Hebrew? Several theories abound. There is the standard "King of Righteousness" and the historical linguistic "The God Zadok is my Sovereign" definition. Below is a rather bizarre interpretation of his name. Bizarre but meaningful nonetheless. • • • • • • • •
Dark Matter from Orion and Eta Carina = Melchizedek
and Tithing?
Merkabah is a Hebrew word meaning Chariot of Fire Merkabah mysticism is studied in our Ancient Order of Melchizedek. Merkabah or Merkavah as it is sometimes spelled, follows the oldest system of mysticism in the Bible, older than even Kabbalah. Kabbalists say Merkabah does not pre-date Kabbalah, but is rather the earliest form of Kabbalah. It begins in the book of Ezekiel (Hebrew Bible / Old Testament) where Ezekiel's vision of the fiery chariot spawned the earliest Jewish mystical system. The "Riders" of the Merkabah/Chariot would ascend upward thru seven different "heavens." Special sacred pass words, hand signals, and Guardians marked each level. This system has been carefully kept alive, and is coupled now with both Jewish and Christian Kabbalah and end-time prophecies. The Initiate is taken up and up, evolving level by level to the Seventh Heaven. Here the divine Presence of YHVH, the four-in-one Deity, the Face is revealed to the climber..... The symbol of the Order is a seven rayed star, symbolizing the seven heavens, seven musical notes and seven colors in the light spectrum. Here is an excerpt from the first lesson: It is important to note that the book of Ezekiel was written in Babylon while the Jews were being held captive there. Babylon, an ancient city full of magic and the oldest pantheon of deities known to man, means "Gateway of the Gods." Abraham was from Ur, a city not far from Babylon. He was a Sumerian, not a Hebrew. Both Babylon and Ur were full of step-pyramid ziggurat temples each with seven levels. Priest and Priestess Initiates would climb these levels to reach the ultimate gateway to heaven. The Tower of Babel was said to be a ziggurat, and it was built, as the Bible story tells us, for the express purpose of reaching heaven. This idea was thus an ancient one, and poor Babylon seems to have missed the boat, and the chariot, in this case. She is now a city buried in the desert of Iraq. But still Babylon haunts us, and we hear the prophet of Revelation's enigmatic cry, "O mystery, Babylon......" In modern Iraq, on the spot of Babylon's ruins, an annual festival is held to act out the story of the Goddess Inanna and her consort Dumuzi, as well as the creation of the world by Tiamat and Marduk. Saddam Hussein revived this lavish festival making it a fabulously colorful event. CNN attended and filmed it in 1998, 99 and 2000. Since the war came and Saddam fell, I do not know if they still have this "pagan" celebration. Saddam was also rebuilding Babylon and had every brick imprinted with "Babylon rebuilt by the Glorious Saddam Hussein". Ah, the ego of an anti-christ. Dumuzi is mentioned in the Old Testament several times, the Israelites brought his worship back with them when they returned from Babylon. The Jewish women would weep loudly for him in the Women's Court of Solomon's Temple. It was a ceremonial form of weeping, and the Yahwist Priests used to encourage it until a "purging" episode around 200BC. The ceremonial weeping marked the fact that the god Dumuzi would die every year at Spring planting time and be resurrected after three days in a garden tomb... He was always found alive again by a woman, usually by his priestess-wife. The similarity to the gospel story of Mary Magdalene finding Jesus alive is significant. See Similar Gods to Yeshua and Myth of the Dying God for more details. Chariot Mysticism and the Sun God in the Three Desert Religions (Judaism, Christianity & Islam) [Alan, a professional religious librarian, a Christian, but born & raised Jewish, who is also a member of our discussion list, wrote the following brief notes on the Riders:] Merkabah (chariot) mysticism is the earliest form of Jewish esotericism known, deriving from speculation on the nature and qualities of the chariot in Ezekiel's vision of the Throne of Glory (Ezekiel 1). These visions have been endlessly fascinating to readers down to the present day. Many researchers believe that the imagery was influenced by the idea of the sun-chariot found in a lot of surrounding cultures and mythologies. The goal of Merkabah mystics was to ascend to the divine throne, which they attempted to do by means of rituals and other mystical practices. Merkabah mysticism not only gave rise to later Kabbalism, it influenced Gnostic ideas of ascent to the realm of the hidden god, as well as similar ideas in Islamic mysticism. Elements of it even appear in the New Testament, where Paul writes of someone (maybe himself) who ascended to the "third heaven" (there were seven heavens in Merkabah) and heard and saw unutterable mysteries (II Corinthians 12:2-5). The prophet Muhammad's Midnight Ride to heaven on El-Buraq also owed a lot to the imagery of Merkabah Mysticism. [Bishop Thomas Clary of the Free Catholic Church and the Society of Mary Magdalene comments on Paul and the number of Heavens:] I'm not a fan of Paul, he had his good days and bad days -- more bad ones--but he wrote beautifully on Love (1Cor. 13:1-13) and on men and women (Gal. 3:28). On Paul going to the third heaven (2Cor. 12:2), the commentary in the Catholic Study Bible has an interesting comment: "In the body or out of the body: he seemed no longer confined to bodily conditions, but he does not claim to understand the mechanics of the experience. Caught up: i.e., in ecstasy. The third heaven...Paradise: ancient cosmologies depicted a multitiered universe. Jewish intertestamental literature contains much speculation about the number of heavens. Seven is the number usually mentioned, but the Testament of Levi (Lev. 2:7-10, 3:1-4) speaks of three; God himself dwelt in the third of these. Without giving us any clear picture of the cosmos, Paul indicates a mental journey to a nonearthly space, set apart by God, in which secrets were revealed to him. Ineffable things: i.e., privileged knowledge, which it was not possible or permitted to divulge. I find this interesting: in the Gnostic Gospel of Mary when Mary Magdalene had information revealed to her by Jesus, Peter and Andrew wouldn't believe that she, as a woman, could receive this kind of information which would only be given to them (10-19). And the ten pages explaining the secrets she received were conveniently missing. +Thomas
"Streams of Nectar" All scriptures say that God is Light, and our soul, being of the same essence as God, is also Light. When St. Teresa speaks of a "dark sheet" covering the soul she is referring to the various coverings of mind, matter, and illusion. In the mystic literature, generally, the soul is said to be covered by three distinct bodies, the physical, the astral, and the causal. In India, there are finer distinctions, and reference is made to koshas or sheaths in which the soul is encased. When the soul rises above physical consciousness and enters the astral plane [first heaven], it sheds the physical body. As it proceeds further and enters the causal realm [second heaven], it dispenses with the astral body. As it advances, it experiences its own increasing brilliance. When it crosses the causal plane and reaches the supracausal [third heaven], it arrives at the Fountain of Life which the Sufis speak of as chasma-e-kausar and which the Sikh scriptures refer to as Amritsar. On tasting its waters, it finally sheds its next covering, that of its causal body. It is purified of matter, mind and illusion. Mystics compare its brilliance to that of a dozen suns. On attaining this stage, the soul realizes its own innate divinity and cries out, "I am That [Soham]."
~~~~~~~~~~ For an interesting "new agey" take on Merkabah, read
this article from another webpage:
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MEL: dark, milk, galaxy. Is it not curious that the letters
mel identify not only with dark, but also milk and galaxy considering that
we live in the milky way galaxy and have recently discovered dark matter
arriving in the winds of earth.