Ormus
Source: book-of-thoth.com
It is said that study of the Alchemical Path involves learning to view the same problem from many different angles, while gaining all the possible information about it from many fields. A diligent researcher of the esoteric in pursuit of this worthy goal, is bound to eventually run into a peculiar-sounding word, which keeps reappearing in the most diverse fields of study, each time supposedly meaning something else.The same Alchemical Path calls on its adherents to put together all their knowledge about a particular subject into a common cauldron as it were, in order to fuse it into something which just might become greater than the sum of its parts. In a feeble attempt to follow this precept, the present monogram is meant to be a brief summary of the material available on this topic. Perhaps it will help future researchers syncretise the various connections into a more meaningful whole.
I am referring to the word "Ormus" and its similar-sounding "Orme", both used as either a noun or a personal name. The two are encountered in one form or another in a mind-boggling array of contexts, most of which are nonetheless held to be completely unrelated, as shall be seen. Our goal is to hopefully try and establish such a relationship.
1. The Biblical Snake
The earliest mention of the term probably appears in the Bible in Genesis 3:1, where it says that "the serpent was more 'erom' than any beast of the field". The word "erom" has been translated from Hebrew as "subtil" in the King James Version and "crafty" in the New American Standard, and basically means "cunning" (though it can also stand for "naked" in other contexts.)
This is an archaic adjective form, based on the noun "orma" - "craftiness or shrewdness".
It's important to note in this respect, that the Serpent in the Biblical story is said to represent the Sumerian god Enki, whose symbol was the snake. Enki was described as having given mankind the ability to procreate, which in the Bible was metaphorically depicted by his giving Eve the fruit of "carnal knowledge".
It is obviously not a coincidence then, that one of Enki's common titles was "Buzur" - the Crafty One. It would seem therefore, that "orma" originally meant to denote an attribute of Enki.
2. The Persian Kingdom
A quick search for the word Ormus in such respected modern repositories of public knowledge as Wikipedia, reveals surprisingly little. We shall focus on their second entry in a second, though it's curious that there's no actual article attached to it, and perhaps it's time somebody put one up. But it seems that the most important reference there is to the Kingdom of Ormus.
This city-state was a port located on the south-western coast of Iran on the Persian Gulf, in the region called "Hormoz" today, some say on the island bearing the same name in the Hormuz Strait.
According to the Wiki article, "The name of the port, the island, and the kingdom is Iranian and ultimately derives from that of the Zoroastrian deity, Ahura Mazda, which becomes Ohrmazd in Pahlavi, Hirmiz in Manichean Middle Persian, and Hormoz in New-Persian."
Wikipedia places the kingdom's existence in the 13th to 17th Century CE, but other sources state that as early as 325 BCE travelers report a rich country of "Harmozia" in the same location. The latter article agrees that this word is seen to derive from "Ahura-Mazda", but adds that the original etymology is probably more connected with "khurma" - a palm-date, for which the region was known.
The Kingdom of Ormus is afforded a mention in John Milton's immortal "Paradise Lost", in describing Satan at the beginning of Book II: "High on a throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth or Ormus and of Ind, ... Satan exalted sat".
One wonders why Milton would choose to make this particular comparison, and we shall later examine whether he may've had ulterior motives for doing so. But another connection readily presents itself here: the Christian Satan is of course represented by the Biblical Snake, who is described by the similar-sounding word "orma".
3. The Rosicrucians
Our next and possibly most important reference to Ormus as a person comes from Rosicrucian lore.
As a bit of background, the Rosicrucian Order is considered to have been founded around 1407 by a German named Christian Rosenkreutz (1378-1484), who studied in the Holy Land under various occult masters. This is the theory accepted by most institutions which use the name "Rosicrucian" today, such as AMORC - the organization behind the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum of San Jose, or The Rosicrucian Fellowship.
Rosicrucianism became known throughout Europe in early 17th Century with the publication of three Manifestos, which contained enough "hermetic" information to quickly captivate the minds of the leading philosophers of the era. According to the famous occult researcher Manly P. Hall, late 16th Century mystics like John Dee and Francis Bacon were already "Rosicrucian" in the nature of their beliefs anyway, but they did not use this term for various reasons, primarily due to religious and political persecution. The sudden appearance of the "alchemical" doctrines of Rosicrucianism was seen as a kind of a "serious joke", which basically allowed these people to promulgate their views more openly.
There is however a lesser known legend found mostly in Masonic literature, which holds that the order has much older roots, and was in fact created in the year 46 CE in Alexandria, Egypt, when a Gnostic sage named Ormus and six of his followers were converted into an early version of Christianity by Mark, the disciple of Jesus.
This view is considered to be a relatively modern inclusion into Rosicrucian history, and is not acknowledged by the above organizations. It comes from the writings of Masonic historian E.J. Marconis de Negre, who, together with his father Gabriel M. Marconis, is held to be the founder of the "Misraim-Memphis Rite" of Freemasonry.
In his "Brief History of Masonry" from 1849, Marconis wrote that Ormus had combined Egyptian mystical doctrines with the new Christian teachings. The philosophical legacy that he created was preserved and later passed on to the Knights Templar:
"About the same time [46 CE] the Essenes and other Jews founded a school of science according to Solomon’s teaching and joined Ormus. The followers of Ormus, up to 1118, were the only trustees of the ancient doctrines of Egypt, purified, of course, by Christianity and the teachings of Solomon. These doctrines they communicated to the Templars. They were in consequence known under the name of “Knights of Palestine” or “Brethren of the Rosy Cross of the Orient”. The “Rite of Memphis” claims these Brethren as its immediate founders."
The writings of Marconis are based on earlier conjectures by Rosicrucian scholar Baron de Westerode, who wrote in 1784 that the disciples of the Rose Croix came from the East into Europe in 1188, for the propagation of Christianity after the Islamic troubles in Palestine. The founder of their Order in antiquity was a seraphic priest of Alexandria, a Magus of Egypt named Ormesius, or Ormus. He founded the Society of Ormus, which was joined by groups like the Essenes of Palestine and the Theraputae of the Thebaid Tradition (See Nesta Webster's, "Secret Societies and Subversive Movements", London, 1924, p. 87 and note 37, and also Jonathan Sellers, "Qadosh: The Johannite Tradition") .
Although Albert Mackey notes in his "Encyclopedia of Freemasonry" (circa 1860) that Westerode makes an "inextricable confusion" here, between "Rose-Croix Freemasons" and the Rosicrucian philosophers (see the article for "Rose Croix of Gold" under the letter "R") - but Westerode's and Marconis' statements about this have become widely accepted, and many recent researchers hold the Alexandrian Ormus as the founder of "hermetic Rosicrucianism", via the medieval agency of the Templars. (See for example Picknet and Prince, "The Templar Revelation" (1998), under "Priory of Sion").
Westerode claimed that Ormus founded a society called "The Sages of Light", to the members of which he gave a red cross as a decoration. This notion was later expanded by esoteric historian John Weisse in "The Obelisk and Freemasonry" (1881) and is basically taken for granted today by most writers on the subject.
Michael Howard writes in "The Occult Conspiracy" (1989) that Ormus used the symbol of a cross, surmounted by a rose, "to symbolize the specifically pagan brand of Christianity he embraced." The symbol of a red (or ‘rosy’) cross was later adopted by the Templars, while the cross with the surmounting rose was taken up by the medieval Rosicrucians.
Other researchers, like Dr. Lenny Horowitz, cite the work of Baigent, Lincoln and Leigh in "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" (1982) , that the red cross was used as an identifying symbol of the Masonic Tradition for many centuries, starting with its adoption by the "True Order of the Red Cross", or the Rosicrucians, in 1188. The custom began in the 1st Century with the mystic Ormus, who is believed to have exchanged theosophies with Judaic, Zoroastrian, Mithraic, Hermetic, neo-Platonic and Pythagorean scholars, and whose name was synonymous with the "principle of light" in Zoroastrian and Gnostic history. Ormus was thus the originator of the Red Cross symbol, which in recent times came to stand for the World First Aid Medical Organization.
Before moving on, it should be mentioned that another very interesting theory exists about the meaning of the name "Rosenkreutz", besides "holder of the red cross". Some maintain that this is a combination of the Hebrew words "raz" meaning "secret", and "karoz" or "kroz", meaning "herald" (can be pronounced also as "roz" and "koroz") - making it "Herald of Secrets" or even "secret message". The first word could also be "rosen", which means prince or duke in Hebrew, which would make it "Prince Herald".
4. The Gisors Elm
The word "orme" means "elm" in French. This fact is held by many scholars as highly significant for several reasons, which we shall look into.
An event of major importance in the history of the Knights Templar is said to have occurred in 1188. It represented a major ideological and political split, which is likely to have influenced subsequent European history for many centuries, possibly until this very day. Its significance was popularized in recent times in the mentioned "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" (HBHG) and picked up by many subsequent researchers. It is known as "the Cutting of the Gisors Elm".
The legend holds that in that year the King of England Henry II met with the French King Philip II, on the Field of Gisors in north-western France, a centuries-old traditional location for royal negotiations. Their meeting followed the loss of Crusader Jerusalem to the Saracens the previous year, and is said to have been overshadowed by allegations of treachery on the part of the Jerusalem Templars.
The authors of HBHG describe several interesting aspects of this encounter which quickly turned violent, and its end result was that the great Elm in the center of the field, thought to have been over 800 years old, was cut down by the French. This action symbolized the end of Henry's claims to French lands, and began a great and irreparable rift between the two countries.
Although Henry and Philip joined forces later that year in the Third Crusade, their division led to Philip soon leaving the campaign, and ultimately developed into many bloody conflicts between the English and the French, like the Hundred Years War.
An interesting description of the Cutting of the Elm story with its political causes and ramifications and several interesting alchemical interpretations, can be found on Ellie Crystal's Crystalinks site.
Many writers have commented on the deep symbolic significance of this event, which can be seen as a metaphor for mankind's "fall" from the idyllic existence of Eden. The researcher Tracy Twyman, for example, makes a fascinating connection between the "sacred tree" symbolism of the Tree of Life as the Zodiacal Serpent and the origin of the Hebrew alphabet, on which the arcane teachings of the Kaballah are based (see Tracy R. Twyman, "The Cutting of the Orm: The Golden Age Calendar and the New Cabala" in a collection Dagobert's Revenge articles). Others, like Beau Berger, have connected Ormus and the Orme of Gisors with the Mars-Cydonia mystery, as well as the layout of Rennes le Chateau, and its attendant secrets of the Priory of Sion.
According to Lincoln et al. and their followers, the most important aspect of the Cutting of the Elm was that beyond everything else, it actually signified the formal separation of the Order of the Knights Templar from their "parent organization", of which they had been only the military arm. As HBHG puts it: "The Ordre de Sion, which had created the Knights Templar, now washed its hands of its celebrated protégés. The ‘parent’, in other words, officially disowned the ‘child.’ " (on page 110.)
The said parent organization was no other than the now infamous Priory of Sion, which was called the "Order of Sion" before. We thus have another aspect of the Ormus story here, which demands a close examination.
5. The Priory of Sion
The authors of HBHG base their analysis of this subject on the "Secret Dossiers" of the Priory, deposited at one time with the National Library in Paris. Although these documents have been widely debunked as an elaborate hoax, many serious researchers, such as Prof. Steven Mizrachs of Florida International University, have found enough compelling evidence from other sources to suppose that something akin to the Priory of Sion has indeed existed in medieval history.
Mizrachs observes that for about a hundred years before the Cutting of the Elm, the Templars and the "Order of Sion", who were the "guardians of the Holy Grail", were said to have been unified under one leadership. But after their formal separation at Gisors, the Templar Order continued on its own until destroyed in the year 1307. Whereas the "Order of Sion" changed its name to "Priory of Sion" - and with two important subtitles, which were supposed to say a great deal to the initiated.
One was “le Ordre de la Rose-Croix Veritas”, or “the Order of the True Rose-Cross.” And the other was “Ormus”, in memory of our Alexandrian Gnostic who used the Rose Cross as his symbol. As Twyman notes in her above article, "the implication was that the Priory of Sion and the Rosicrucian brotherhood were one and the same."
This statement has become pretty much accepted as fact by many writers on this topic (see, for example, Mark Amaru Pinkham, "The Real Secret Society Behind The DaVinci Code", in Atlantis Rising Magazine, issue #58)
The lord of the Gisors castle, on the estate of which stood the famous Elm, was Jean de Gisors. This man is named in the Dossiers as the first Grand Master of the Priory when it was reformed after the Cutting event, and can be thus called the Founder of the Modern Priory.
Furthermore, HBHG claims that there apparently exists a manuscript written in 1629 by Robert Denyau, the cure of Gisors, according to which Jean de Gisors also founded Christian Rosenkreutzer's Rosicrucians, the "Order of the Rose-Croix", at the same time. Some researchers dispute Denyau ever saying anything of the sort, but I have not been able to substantiate this denial.
Accepting the above as true, we certainly have a fascinating web of connections here. A man who is a central figure in an "Orme" event, becomes the founder of both Rosicrucianism and the Priory of Sion. Both orders are related to the Knights Templar, through their use of the Red Cross as their emblem. And both are said in one way or another to continue the tradition of the Gnostic Ormus from the first Century.
And even if we dismiss both the Priory Dossiers and the Denyau manuscript as forgeries, some obvious links between legends of the Priory and the Rosicrucian Order cannot be denied, although, as noted, modern day Rosicrucian organizations like AMORC make no mention of this. The red cross symbol, for one, stands as an important connection between the two.
Another very interesting fact is that the orphan Christian Rosenkreutz was brought up and lived a large part of his life in the Languedoc region of France, the heart of the "Albigensian doctrine" and the seat of Rennes-le-Chateau, which is intimately connected with the Priory of Sion.
The possible implications of all these interrelationships have of course not escaped the attention of conspiracy theorists. If Rosicrucian doctrine indeed lay at the heart of Freemasonry and the foundation of the United States, as Manly Hall maintained in his essay referred to above, then their ties with the Gnostic Ormus could have enormous significance in world affairs today. Whether the whole Priory/Grail Bloodline story is fake or not, the influence of certain "Masonic" doctrines in early America is something much more difficult to deny.
Perhaps the most influential conspiracist in recent times to combine all this information into a very sinister scenario, has been the Fundamentalist Christian Barbara Aho. Although presenting her findings from a vehement bible-thumping perspective, she has conducted a highly impressive amount of research on this subject, and her work is routinely cited by many writers in the field. Her best known exploration of the "Ormus conspiracy" is the very aptly named "The Merovingian Dynasty: Satanic Bloodline of the Antichrist and the False Prophet", whose title is probably the best summary of the direction of its content. Despite the obvious agenda, this amazingly informative work is an absolute must read for all researchers of this subject, and we're not kidding here.
Here is another interesting essay by songwriter Mark Naples, "The Dark Web: Sauniere's Secret Society Connection", which ties the Priory with the Martinist political movement of the 19th Century. An intriguing claim is made, that the mentioned Masonic historian and founder of the Memphis Rite, E.J. Marconis de Negre, was in fact a relative of Marie de Negre, Dame de Blanchefort, who is a vital player in the Priory mystery. But Mackey's Masonic Encyclopedia says that EJ's father, Gabriel Marconis, was called "de Negre" due to his dark complexion, what others would call "a swartze". This may be a factotum that needs further checking.
In one of her talks, Aho notes the fact that the poet John Milton (1608-1674) was Cromwell's Foreign Secretary, who greatly influenced the latter's international policies, but also had many ties with Rosicrucian mystics. In this light, Milton's aforementioned inclusion of the "Kingdom of Ormus" into his Paradise Lost, especially when used to describe Satan, is likely to have been some type of an elaborate message he was sending to somebody, perhaps to the entire world.
6. The White-Gold Star Fire
We now move on to an entirely different aspect of "Ormus", which is considered by many today to be this concept's most pertinent incarnation in the Modern Age.
During the 1970's and 80's, an Arizona farmer and amateur metallurgist named David R. Hudson made several very interesting chemical discoveries, which he proceeded to patent. From 1995 Hudson began speaking at scientific conferences, and his theories quickly won international acclaim in alternative-history and "alchemical" circles.
Hudson discovered that certain elements have peculiar properties when they are in what is called a "mono-atomic" state. Among other things, he claimed that actual ingestion of such minerals has miraculous physical effects on one's body and mind. Hudson was also a student of esoteric doctrines, and came to believe that he had re-discovered the ancient "food of the Gods", the proverbial "Manna from Heaven".
Hudson patented his discovery under the name of "Orbitally Rearranged Monoatomic Elements", or ORME's. A close follower of Hudson, Barry Carter, clarifies that these elements later came to be loosely referred to by the more ambiguous "ORMUS", because subsequent researchers couldn't agree on the "monoatomic" part.
Physicist Daniel S. Ward, founder and curator of the immense Library of Halexandria, has written a highly entertaining online adventure novel with amusing outer-space connections called "The Golden Tear from the Eye of Horus", based on Hudson's exploits and his plans (which never materialized) of setting up a hi-tech "alchemical" commune focused on quantum research. Ward knew Hudson personally at one time, and has told me that the latter liked the acronym ORME, because he thought the word "orme" meant the same as "mannah" in Hebrew - the question "what is it".
Since "orme" actually means nothing of the sort in Hebrew, Hudson appeared to have been wrong about this. Ward says that Hudson has never mentioned the Gnostic Ormus, and probably did not know about him. In that case, Hudson's use of this particular word in naming his discovery is nothing short of a staggering coincidence. (Carter, as evident from his above article, had been with Hudson since early on, but became aware of this connection only later.)
Hudson's findings had been very skeptically received by the scientific establishment and were widely debunked at one time. Nevertheless, his monoatomic elements have been found by some to be beneficial in homeopathic medicine, and under names like "M-State" or "White Powder Gold" had begun to appear in a wide range of products usually sold as vitamins or "food additives", which do have a large customer base.
A famous troubadour of Hudson's theories, who is probably the most responsible for their great popularization in recent times, has been the esoteric writer Laurence Gardner. Gardner believes that Hudson's elements were very well-known to an elite secret priesthood in the ancient world. Monoatomic gold in particular, in white-powder form, was known as "Star Fire" and used to perpetuate certain arcane traditions and genetic traits. Gardner holds this fact to be deeply related to the legacy of the "Holy Grail".
Gardner first outlined his theory in a series of lectures published in Nexus Magazine in Autumn 1998 under the title "Star Fire - The Gold of the Gods", whose subtitle says it all: "The true Grail Bloodline originated with the Anunnaki gods in southern Sumeria at least 6,000 years ago and was sustained by ingestion of an alchemical substance called 'Star Fire' "
Gardner's highly controversial and far-fetched conclusions had caused him to be widely ridiculed in the past for many reasons, primarily due to his staunch support of a claimant to the Stewart throne, the famed "Prince Michael of Albany", who has for years been considered a fraud by nearly all other researchers, and recently it seems has been proven as such. Gardner's titles, listed at the end of the Nexus article, are said to be nonsensical and even outrightly fraudulent. Furthermore, he has become implicated by researchers in some of the most bizarre conspiracy theories that exist - from being called a "child-eating reptilian shape-shifter" by Stewart Swerdlow and David Icke, to being accused of heralding the Antichrist himself by Barbara Aho.
But despite anything said about him or his theories, the fascinating ancient connections explored by Gardner spawned an entire philosophical-alchemical approach to the study of Monoatomic Elements, as can be seen from this compilation on Ascension Alchemy. Inquiring minds will also not want to miss Barry Carter's excellent article about this from 1999, "ORMUS and Consciousness", and Brian Allan in "Worlds within Worlds - Monoatomic Elements and Alternate States of Being", about parallel worlds and alternate realities, as well as a recent book on the subject, the 2005 "Myth, Magic & Murder of ORMUS", by H. Alfred Goolsbee. It should also be noted, however, that others have posted lengthy warnings about the use of "white powder gold".
A most interesting aspect of David Hudson's ORME's, is that their behavior is said to resemble that of particles in quantum states of matter known as "Bose-Einstein Condensates" (BEC's). In such states, extremely strange events are said to occur at the quantum level of sub-atomic particles, such as their disappearance in one place and reappearance in another. This article from early ORMUS researchers makes a fascinating link between the BEC condition and the behavior of particles within a part of our cellular structure called "microtubules".
This connection has been explored in recent years by researcher and neuroscientist Dr. Stuart Hameroff, who has "spent twenty years studying how computer-like structures called microtubules inside neurons and other cells could process information related to consciousness." Hameroff sees the presence of such structures within the very cytoskeleton of our cells, as clear evidence that our brain can function as a mega-computer on the neural level. He has shared some of his findings in the recent sensational movie "What the Bleep Do We Know", which many believe had provided ample evidence for the possibility of influencing our reality through the use of quantum models and structures.
All in all, it would seem that ORMUS has managed to find his way into some extremely pertinent cutting-edge research in modern times. This certainly perpetuates the ancient alchemical legacy of this concept.
7. The Norman Snake
Having already encountered this word in so many different contexts, we continue to be surprised by finding that this is not the end. It seems that the root "Orme" or "Orm" is also incorporated into the names of not less than thirty locations in England and Scotland, the best known of which is the Great Orme's region in northern Wales.
According to etymologists, the term "orme" in this context comes from the old Norse word for "sea serpent", which word is phonetically transliterated into English as "orm". It is said that the Vikings gave this name to the Great and Little Ormes in Wales, because they thought the two looked like great sea-serpents when viewed from the water.
The tradition of Orme as the Snake appears to have carried on into the modern day, as I have been described a ritual called "The Sleeping Princess" conducted regularly by Druidic adherents at the ancient site of the Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis, which involves an invocation of "the Thirteen Coils of Ormus".
It has further been determined that "orm" as a snake is also the origin of the English word "worm". It is related to dragons in Norse legends, and is seen as the earliest reference to these beasts in Northern Mythology. Perhaps it is also significant that "orm" is coincidentally present in the adjective "Norman" itself - although this word obviously stems from "north man". And since the English word "worm" is probably also related to the Latin "vermis" - this begs further research into the "snake" relationship between "vermis" and the Norse "orm".
A general look at the origins of the surname or place-name "Orme" in America, reveals that most people who bear this name are of Scottish or Norman descent, and feel that it signifies a dragon or snake (with a minority stemming from the French "elm".)
8. The Copper Mines
An important point in our survey seems to be the fact that the region of Great Orme in Wales contains a long system of ancient mines, used continuously for the past 4,000 for extracting many minerals, primarily copper (see the website of the Great Orme Exploration Society.
This fact is noted by researcher of Sacred Geometry Dan Winter, on his page about "phantom DNA". Winter comments that copper's superconductive qualities evidently made it useful as a genetic contributor to certain bloodlines.
We have here then not only another fascinating linguistic link between "orme" and "snake" (from the Norman name of the Great Orme), but also another connection with the Sumerian god Enki.
The word for "snake" in Hebrew is "nakhash", whose root has multiple definitions. ;;As noted by Zecharia Sitchin in "The Cosmic Code" (1998) , "the term has not just the two meanings that we have already mentioned ("Serpent," and "knower of Secrets") but also a third one - "He of Copper," for the Hebrew word for copper, Nechoshet, stems from the same root. One of Enki’s epithets in Sumerian, BUZUR, also has the double meaning "He who knows/solves secrets" and "He of the copper mines."
This would seem to imply still more strongly, that the root "orme" in its many variations possibly represents a facet of Enki, which somehow got incarnated in different forms throughout our history. It is widely believed that Enki became known as Thoth in Ancient Egypt, and later as Hermes in Greece and Mercury in Rome (though Sitcihn himself maintains that the latter three were in fact incarnations nor of Enki himself, but of his son Ningishzidda.)
9. The Alchemical Hermes
Some researchers have commented on the apparent similarity between the name Ormus and the above Greek messenger-god, Hermes. His symbols were his famed winged sandals and helmet, as well as the Caduceus staff - whose intertwined serpents had been an emblem of Enki in antiquity. There is a linguistic point here that has been missed, however.
The word "hermes" is considered to stem from "herma", which meant a "stone heap" in early Greek and thought to've been originally used as a boundary marker. This word is undoubtedly related to the Hebrew "arema", which means "heap" or "pile". And what is most interesting, is that although there would be several ways to spell this word in Hebrew, "arema" is in fact spelled identically to the previously mentioned word "orma" or "craftiness" - with the four letters, Ain, Resh, Mem and Heh.
We thus have another fascinating relationship here, between a word which probably spawned the name Hermes, and another apparently unrelated word, "orma", which ties to our Gnostic Sage Ormus through several layers of meaning - through its sound, through its identification with the Biblical Snake, and through its definition as "craftiness", a quality certainly exhibited by this personage.
A mythical figure called "Hermes Trismegistus" (or "the thrice-great") was reputed to be the writer of several arcane philosophical texts known as the Corpus Hermeticum, which brought many important Gnostic and ancient arcane doctrines into Europe, and led to the birth of such major movements as Medieval Alchemy. He was supposedly an incarnation of the Egyptian god of Wisdom, Thoth. This had caused the formerly frivolous and playful Greek god Hermes to become viewed as the Father of Alchemy, and led to his name spawning words like "hermetic", meaning "hidden". His Caduceus staff became a symbol of hidden "alchemical" knowledge.
Our Ormus can certainly be said to be possessed of many "alchemical properties" as well. His achievements in this regard have been best explored in perhaps the most comprehensive work in recent times about this aspect - the formidable "Qadosh: The Johannite Tradition" by the esoteric researcher Jonathan Sellers, which presents an incredible journey into our little-known but immensely influential mystical traditions.
Sellers follows the earlier assertions of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" (on p. 113) that the name Ormus is a kind of an acrostic diagram, which combines a number of key-words and symbols. The emblem was depicted as a stylized "magic square":
Several of the possible combinations of letters in the square make words with highly significant meanings, such as "OR", meaning "gold" in French, and "OURS", which means "bear" and is a reference to Arcadia, the Merovingian bloodline, and the Arthurian Grail legends. "Orm" of course is the "elm", for the Gisors Elm, as well as a reference to the Norman snake and Gisors' Norman descent. The enclosing M, drawn as a symbol of the astrological sign of Virgo, stands both for Mary Magdalene, the Keeper of the Sacred Bloodline, and the Sacred Feminine of the Earth, which the sign of Virgo represents.
Sellers says that when drawn in this way, "Ormus" becomes "Virgo and ORUS", where "Orus" is a corrupted form of "Horus", which was used by Alistair Crowley in his 5th Degree Ritual of the Ordo Templi Orientis.
Writer Gary Osborn, in his amazing essay "Gate of God", comments further that the word Ormus contains the letters R and U to the sides of the Virgo-M, which spell the word RU. This word denotes the oval-shaped symbol at the top of the Ankh hieroglyph, symbolizing the cosmic egg and the eye of Horus as a portal between worlds. And further to the sides stand the letters O and S, making OS - a stylized expression of Osiris. Together with Isis as represented by the Virgo sign, the name Ormus itself also represents the ancient Egyptian triad of Osiris/Isis/Horus.
The triad is also an echo of Trismegistus, the "thrice" Great, as well as a reflection of a Pyramid's face. In addition, MUS means "mound" in Latin, which together with OR for gold and ORM for snake can make "gold serpent mound", or "a serpent mountain where one becomes gold", which connects with Osborn's theories about the Serpent Grail and the meaning of the Great Pyramid as the archetypal World Mountain. Altogether, we already have a great deal of "alchemical connections" here. But there is still more.
Both Osiris and Horus were "sun gods" in ancient Egypt. On this note, Beau Berger points out (citing Jean Markale's 2003 "The Templar Treasure at Gisors") that the society called "Sages of Light", which as we recall was founded by the Alexandrian Gnostic Ormus and was the predecessor of the modern Rosicrucians - was in fact based on the Persian "Sons of Light". In the Zoroastrian religion of Persia, the Sons of Light were said to be descendants of Ahura-Mazda, their god of Light. And as we have seen, "Ahura-Mazda" or "Ormuzd" is of course the origin of the Persian name for the Kingdom of Ormus/Hormus.
These "Sons of Light" are probably none other than the "Shining Ones" of researchers Gary Osborn and Philip Gardiner, as outlined in their 2003 and 2006 book by that name. The two authors show that these "Sons of Light", who get a prominent mention in Essene literature, are also behind the Alexandrian Gnostic groups, and persistently appear in the most diverse settings, such as in Viking myth or with the Irish "Tuatha de Danan". The message of this work is basically that an ancient "secret group" is trying to perpetuate its precepts through the ages, under various guises.
Putting together everything we have learned on this subject so far, it becomes apparent that if we accept this hypothesis for a moment - then the agency of "Ormus" was undoubtedly one of the primary vessels for the propagation of this ancient knowledge and tradition in Europe through the Middle Ages and to the modern day.
All these connections and interrelationships serve to point out very poignantly, that in addition to the similar phonetics and the etymological origins of their names, Hermes and "Ormus" also seem to share a big penchant for the practice of Alchemy, a discipline which is based on combining many ingredients into multiple layers of meaning and branching spheres of influence.
10. The Conclusion
Having taken a good look at the various aspects of Ormus, it thus seems that a possible conclusion as to this concept's greater meaning can be reached.
We have encountered this term or its variants in a wide array of sub-contexts, each with its own arcane backgrounds and associated levels of mystical connotations. The common thread running through them all appears to be a continuous connection with the entity Enki/Thoth/Hermes. As noted, this being's ancient symbol was the snake, best known to us from the Caduceus, the staff of Hermes, which became the symbol of Medicine in modern times.
Let's make a quick summary of what we have discovered.
A very similar term is used in the Bible in reference to the Snake in the Garden Of Eden story, and its meaning of "craftiness" is the same as one of the meanings of the Hebrew word for "snake". It is spelled in Hebrew in the exact same way as the Hebrew word for "heap", which as "herma" in Greek is the origin of the name Hermes.
The Kingdom of Ormus in Persia occupied a location just south of Enki's ancient city of Eridu, at the tip of the Persian Gulf. The ancient Persians had conquered Babylon, and became heirs to the great Chaldee legacy of Sumer. The name Ormus derives from their deity Ahura Mazda, who was seen as the personification of the Light principle. The Biblical book of Genesis is considered by latest secular research to have been written either in Babylon or in Persia around 550 BCE, where Jewish sages flourished under many subsequent rulers of both.
Light represents "enlightenment", and as such was also one of the epithets of the Egyptian god of Wisdom and Writing, Thoth. The Persian "Sons of Light" of Ormuzd became the "Sages of Light" in later Egyptian Gnosticism, the organization founded at the turn of the Common Era by the Gnostic Ormus.
The "Corpus Hermeticum" of "Hermes Trismegistus" served as a major instrument of Enlightenment during Europe's Dark Ages, and the Medieval Rosicrucians were seen as heirs of that ancient tradition. Many centuries before their emergence, it had been the Knights Templar who were said to be carrying on the ancient "alchemical" knowledge of Babylon and Egypt. After an "ormus" event involving the Gisors Elm, part of this legacy was later hidden by the elusive "Priory of Sion". Both the "Rosicrucians" and the "Priory", under one guise or another, are held to be responsible for many major political events in the world.
All of these groups had used the Red Cross as their emblem. As has been pointed out by Zecharia Sitchin, the cross in ancient Sumer was the pictographic sign of Nibiru, the "Planet of the Crossing" from which the Annunaki Gods came, Enki's home planet. Researchers like Andy Lloyd have noted that Nibiru's reddish color further indicates that it is represented by the Templar/Rosicrucian red cross. This same red cross is said to have been used by the Egyptian Ormus. And the modern Red Cross is a medical organization, connected with the modern medical symbol of the Caduceus, the Staff of Hermes.
The "medicinal properties" of Ormus are perhaps the chief aspect of the most recent incarnation of this name as the Monoatomic Elements. Regardless the true import of these substances, their discovery places them as top contenders in the list of modern heirs of the Hermetic Alchemical Tradition - because of the Quantum Mechanics ramifications inherent in their properties, which evidently reflect a structure of our own brain cells.
It would seem then, that "ORMUS" is indeed one of the many-shaped disguises under which the ancient tradition of Enki-Thoth-Hermes has been perpetuated throughout our history, perhaps the most effective one of all.
If this is a real flesh-and-blood being, as maintained by Sitchin, of if there really exists an "ancient secret brotherhood" like the "Shining Ones" of Osborn and Gardiner (or perhaps the "Shy Aliens" of Illuminatus Rex) - then this is how "he" or "they" had preserved their legacy, and made it evident for subsequent generations.
Having determined this, it now remains for us to dot the i's - namely decide what exactly does it mean for us today. An attempt to do something similar has been made in a recently published book, "Ormus: The Missing Link/Sexual Androgyny" (2006), by Prof. A.D. Borda, known as "Dr. Dominic" from some esoteric forums. It is hoped that compilations like the present one will prompt further researchers to continue this quest.
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References used in the article, by order of appearance:
1. Different definitions for Ormus from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ormus_%28disambiguation%29
2. Wikipedia on "Kingdom of Ormus"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ormus
3. Another article on Hormuz/Ormus
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/HIG_HOR/
HORMUZ_Hurmuz_Ormuz_Ormus_.html
4. John Milton - "Paradise Lost"
http://lib.luksian.com/texte/poetry/023/
5. Wikipedia on "Rosicrucians"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosicrucian
6. AMORC - the Rosicrucian Order
http://www.rosicrucian.org/home.html
The Rosicrucian Fellowship
http://www.rosicrucian.com/index.htm
7. Manly P. Hall - "Rosicrucian and Masonic Origins"
http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/roscrucian_and_masonic_origins.htm
8. Mike Jay, "Lusus serius: The Rosicrucian manifestos and the 'serious joke' "
http://www.nthposition.com/lususserius.php
9. History of Rosicrucianism
http://www.aaez.biz/default.asp?t=Rosicrucian
10. Albert C. Mackey, "Encyclopedia of Freemasonry", the letter M (Marconis)
http://www.standrew518.co.uk/ENCYC/MacEncM1.htm
11. Wikipedia on "Memphis-Misraim Rite"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_Memphis-Misraim
12. E.J. Marconis de Negre, "Brief History of Masonry"
http://www.sovereignsanctuary.org.uk/ssmemdoc3.htm
13. Nesta Webster's "Secret Societies and Subversive Movements", 1924
http://ellhn.e-e-e.gr/books/assets/secret_societies.pdf
Also see:
Johathan Sellers, "The Johannite Legend of the Templars" in "Qadosh: The Johannite Tradition "
http://www.lulu.com/content/468285
14. Mackey's encyclopedia, under the letter R (Rose-Croix)
http://www.standrew518.co.uk/ENCYC/MacEncR.htm
15. Excerpts from Picknet and Prince, "The Templar Revelation"
http://formofmoney.com/xTemplarRevelation.html
16. John Weisse, "The Obelisk and Freemasonry"
http://www.famousamericans.net/johnadamweisse/
17. Michael Howard, "The Occult Conspiracy", 1989, quoted in the article "How the West was Won"
http://korea.humanists.net/hak/essays/download/How%20the%20West%20Was%20Won.doc
18. Dr. Lenny Horwitz, "The American Double-Cross"
http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/apocalypse/red_double_cross.html
19. The Rose+Croix of the Orient
http://rosecroixdorient.tripod.com/rco.html
20. Crystalinks page on Cutting of the Elm
http://www.crystalinks.com/prieuredesion.html
21. Tracy Twyman, "The Cutting of the Orm", in Dabogert's Revenge Magazine
http://www.amazon.com/Arcadian-Mystique-Dagoberts-Revenge-Magazine/dp/0976170426
22. Beau Berger, "Mars, Rennes-le-Chateau, and the Hall of Records"
http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2005/10oct/rennes.html
23. Steven Mizrachs, "The Mysteries of Rennes le Chateau and the Priory of Sion"
http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/rennes-sion.html
24. Mark Amaru Pinkham, "The Real Secret Society Behind The DaVinci Code"
http://www.gnostictemplars.org/articles/Article_-_The_True_Secret_Society_Behind_the_Da_Vinci_Code.pdf
25. Wikipedia article on Albigensians/Cathars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensians
26. Barbara Aho website - "Watch Onto Prayer"
http://watch.pair.com/
27. Aho, "The Merovingian Dynasty: Satanic Bloodline of the Antichrist and the False Prophet" http://watch.pair.com/merovingian.html
28. Mark Naples, "The Dark Web: Sauniere's Secret Society Connection"
http://www.maknap.com/MysteryTV/places/rennes_le_chateau/
articles/ssre_13_secret_societies.htm
29. Barbara Aho, "Francis Bacon and the KJV"
http://www.cephas-library.com/bible_controversy_francis_bacon_
and_the_kj_bible_1.html
30. Wikipedia article on John Milton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_milton
31. Daniel Ward's Halexandria page on ORME
http://www.halexandria.org/dward466.htm
32. Barry Carter, "Ormus and M-State Definitions"
http://www.life-enthusiast.com/index/Education/Ormus/ORMUS_Definitions
33. The Library of Halexandria website
http://www.halexandria.org/
34. Daniel S. Ward, "Golden Tear in the Eye of Horus"
http://halexandria.org/dward505.htm
35. Homeopathic properties of Monoatomic Gold, from Gem Elixirs Database
http://www.crucible.org/gem_elixir4.htm
36. Zero Point Technologies - Alchemical products
http://zptech.net/
37. The Official Home Page of Laurence Gardner
http://www.graal.co.uk/index.html
38. Laurence Gardner, "Star Fire - The Gold of the Gods"
http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/starfire1.html
39. Wikipedia article on Prince Michael of Albany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Lafosse
40. Report on the Pedigree of Michael Lafosse, styled Prince Michael of Albany
http://homepage.eircom.net/~seanjmurphy/chiefs/lafosse.htm
41. David Icke, "Sir Laurence Gardner & William F. Buckley Jr., Raptilian Shape-Shifters?"
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/laurencegardnershapeshifter.shtml
42. Barbara Aho, "Holy Blood, Holy Vomit"
http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/prophecy/bloodvom.htm
43. Ascension Alchemy - White Powder Gold, Monoatomic Gold, since 1990
http://www.asc-alchemy.com/mono.html
44. Barry Carter, "ORMUS and Consciousness"
http://members.aol.com/yggdras/paraphysics/BCarter.htm
45. H. Alfred Goolsbee, "The Myth, Magic & Murder of ORMUS"
http://tribes.tribe.net/ormus-online/thread/
c22b9028-dcf6-4004-8ace-a0831660a0a2
46. Brian Allan, "Worlds within Worlds - Monoatomic Elements and Alternate States of Being (2004)
http://www.ellisctaylor.com/worldswithinworlds.html
47. Ken Adachi, "Monoatomic Gold - Think Twice"
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/monoatomicgoldthinktwice15aug05.shtml
48. Wikipedia article on Bose-Einstein Condensates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose-Einstein_Condensate
49. ORMUS - The Quest for the Philosopher's Stone
http://www.lyghtforce.com/WhiteGold/ormus.htm
50. Wikipedia article on Microtubules
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtubules
51. Quantum Conscionsness - Website of Dr. Stuart Hameroff
http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/ ;;
52. Wikipedia article on The Great Orme region
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Orme
53. "What's in a name?" The meaning of Orme
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/DBY/NamesPersonal/Orme.html
54. Orme Genealogy and Family History database
http://distantcousin.com/SurnameResources/Surname.asp?Surname=Orme
55. The Great Orme Exploration Society
http://www.goes.org.uk/index.html
56. Dan Winter, "How doth the woim toin" in "Phantom DNA and Orme"
http://www.soulinvitation.com/ensoulment/
57. Excerpts from Zecharia Sitchin, "The Cosmic Code" (1998) http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sitchin/sitchinbooks06_02.htm
58. Wikipedia article on the "Corpus Hermeticum"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Hermeticum
59. Stephan A. Holler, "On the trail of the Winged God"
http://www.gnosis.org/hermes.htm
60. Jonathan Sellers, "Qadosh: The Johannite Tradition" (2002)
http://www.lulu.com/content/468285
61. Gary Osborn, "Gate of God, part III"
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/article-print-1552.html
62. Beau Berger, on Atlantis Rising Forums
http://forums.atlantisrising.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000822.html
63. Gary Osborn and Philip Gardiner, "The Shining Ones" (2006 re-edition)
http://www.phil.fah-designs.com/shinningones/index2.html
64. Andy Lloyd, "The Rosy Cross"
http://www.darkstar1.co.uk/rosicrucian.html
65. Illuminatus Rex, "Why are Aliens So Shy"
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/article1654.html
66. Prof. A.D. Borda, "Ormus: The Missing Link/Sexual Androgyny" http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~27454.aspx
Article from: http://www.book-of-thoth.com/article1662.html
