Dumuzid's Descent and Return: a Blueprint for Cosmic Balance With his Beloved

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Yeah, I've got the uh I've got all the
translations, all the varioussongs of Duma Zit up, and like
I'd remembered that they werevery passionate.
I'd forgotten how blatantlypornographic a number of them
are.
Yeah.
It's uh it's a little bit like,oh man, is one all about it's

(00:21):
churning butter.
Ishtar comes over becauseDumasid's gonna churn her butter
real good.
And it's all about churning thebutter.
Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 (00:36):
Well I'm gonna use a different tradition that I've
noticed that has many parallelshere, that I'm much more well
versed in, in the sense thatlike I've studied it much deeper
than I've done the Sumerian onesat this time.
I am I have read many of theseSumerian and Babylonian stories

(00:57):
and myths and songs and thatkind of stuff, but it's been
years, and my knowledge andunderstanding of things has
grown substantially since thattime period.
And you'll see why I'm comparingit in so many different ways
here for a moment in a moment.
So I'm gonna use Nordicmythology and I'm gonna use

(01:18):
Baldur and his wife, Nana, whichshould already give you a hint a
little bit for where some ofthis is going.
There's something called in thepoetic edda, Baldur's dreams.
Hmm, I wonder if there's anyparallel inside of the
Mesopotamian traditionwhatsoever.

SPEAKER_01 (01:43):
Nobody knows.
The only Balder I really knowmuch is Baldur's Gate.
And I didn't even play the thirdone.
That's a different thing, Isuspect.

SPEAKER_00 (01:55):
So, what we do know on top of this is that if you
look at it, Balder is someonewho's having dreams, much like
what we're gonna be talkingabout later on, that has to do
with Dumuzi's dream, I assume,in one of them, that has to lead
to his you know fall into theunderworld and whatnot.
And it's all a premonition ofwhat's going to be happening to

(02:18):
him, and he has to have itinterpreted and that kind of
thing.
And everybody knows what it is,and there are actions that are
taken to try to prevent this.
And uh eventually, of course, itfails and ends up in the
underworld, and someone is sentthere to resurrect him, to come
get him back, and whatnot.
And in that particular notion ofthings, they are told that you

(02:40):
could uh the goddess of theunderworld, another parallel
that's there.
Her name is Hel, H E L, right?
And she informs the we'll say,what's the best term for it,
messenger of the gods that havecome in in the stead of these
other people and whatnot, muchlike the creations that Enki

(03:05):
made for Inana and and that kindof thing.
Because you have to, he has touse a horse to jump over the
gates instead of going throughthe gates like they did with
phantom or fly or whatever thedeal is.
And he takes Odin's horse here.
So another wise being takingover that.
The parallels just keep addingup and up, which is why I'm
gonna go under what I think someof that stuff you're talking

(03:26):
about with what the sexualcomponents are in a moment.
When you get to this, you alsorealize that Baldur represents
like summer, all right?
And you want summer if you're inthe Nordic countries, because
summer is the time period whereeverything's much easier to
survive and deal with and allthat other stuff.

(03:47):
Whereas inside of Mesopotamia,it's the opposite.
You don't want summer, at leastin the case of Demuzi, because
that's when the milk spoils.
It's when it can't have it staythere and whatnot.
So it's just an inverse in termsof the times, but it's the exact
same notion of things for whenone dies and when one comes back
for it, and that kind of stuff.

(04:08):
In one of the stories related toBalder, he is competing for his
wife, Nana, just like howDemuzid had to do so with the
farmer for what's going onthere.
And eventually we know who wins,of course, but Nana ends up with
Balder and that kind of thing.
But not before they get intothis huge rabble back and forth

(04:31):
and blah blah blah.
That's one of the majordifferences between it uh on
there, and it is that at the endof the dreaming, uh excuse me,
at the end of the marriage onewith the Nana, and then you
have, you know, where they kindof end up as friends at the end
of it and all that other stuff.
Whereas in one variant of thestory where they're fighting for

(04:52):
her attention, they literallyare actually physically fighting
for her, uh, and and that kindof thing.
And again, she has to beconvinced to go with Baldur over
her first choice, which is theother one, Hodr, inside of it,
which is just like what happensin that.
So here's another parallel thatpops up.

(05:14):
And there's also the crying andthe lamenting of things with it.
When Demuzid is dead in anunderworld, there's supposed to
be all these tears for him andblah blah blah.
While the condition in which tobring Baldur back from the dead
is that there can be not onething, there can be nothing in

(05:34):
the entirety of the universesand all the various different
aspects in the Nordic mythologythat do not weep for his return,
Baldur's return.
If that does not happen, then hehas to stay dead just like
everybody else in theunderworld.
So you see this that thathappens there on that.
There's a lamented thing withit.
And the point is that if you goover and over and over, even

(05:57):
more further and stuff with it,you start seeing all of these
parallels that are justabsolutely bizarre in terms of
like how much there are with it.
It's not just like, oh, there'sa handful of them, you know,
whatever.
That's true of most mythologies.
No, no, there's like a detailedlist of things that are
basically the same.
It's really, really bizarre forwhat's going on there on that
front.
And inside of the Nordictradition, they have this the we

(06:22):
have Odin, okay?
And if you take Odin, Iin isliterally just the suffix and
whatnot, and then you have theprefix, which is odr, something
along that for how it'spronounced, and whatnot, which
means like frenzied or ecstasyor the spirited one, something
like that.

(06:42):
And when you combine the two ofthem together and that kind of
stuff.
So if you look at it from acompletely allegorical sense,
Odin represents this divinefrenzied state.
Sometimes sexual in nature, it'scompared to that, sometimes
battle frenzy and nature becausenature because he is a battle
war god and whatnot.

(07:03):
But in other words, itrepresents this altered state of
consciousness, of this divinefrenzy that works through that.
And as I've talked to you aboutbriefly before, that's what
happens inside of like thisliving resurrection tradition
that I'm studying and working onand that kind of stuff with it,

(07:24):
is that there's this divinealtered state of consciousness
that comes in from that.
And the best way that mostpeople can understand this, no
matter which gender that theyare, for the representation of
this particular part, is to makeit so that way they go with some
other very altered state ofconsciousness that most people

(07:45):
partake in, which in this caseis sexual in nature.
And so sex and any of the sexualmetaphors, while they can
actually mean that on a on avery, you know, very much a
straightforward, yes, that'swhat it is level, it can also
imply this altered state offrenzied, divine-frenzied

(08:06):
consciousness that they'retalking about here that you get
when you you go like people gointo trances or when they have
outer body experiences, aspeople have talked about in
ancient traditions and that kindof stuff, regardless whether we
believe that to be true or nottoday.
I'm just talking about what theybelieved, how it worked, and all
that other stuff with it.
And so that's kind of what Ipersonally believe when I was

(08:27):
rereading some of these storiesnow, and and that kind of stuff,
that yes, there's definitelytrue actual sexual elements that
are in there that are 100% onlysexual, but there's also the
deeper meaning of this frenziedstate, this divine frenzied
aspect of altered consciousnessof some sort that seems to also
be playing through as well,would be my general explanation

(08:51):
for these things.
With it, and in the case of theNordic tradition and how it
plays directly with theMesopotamian one, we know
through migratory patterns thatthe farming groups of people and
whatnot, they came from thatarea of it, and and and then
moved up into the Nordiccountries.

(09:13):
We can trace this throughdifferent traveling.
It took thousands of years forthat to happen and whatnot, in
order to introduce farming tothat area.
So, in order to make it so thatway people saying you can't have
the same group of people that'sdoing it from that space or time
and that distance and whatnot.
That's not necessarily true.
I'm not saying it happened.

(09:33):
That's that's proving what I'msaying is much different than
saying that these stories werebecause of what happened in
Mesopotamia and they ended upthere.
But I'm saying to say that itcan't have happened is is not
true either, is the point.
We don't know.
There is that element, and early20th scholars, 20th century
scholars thought that that wasthe case for it.

(09:54):
Then the mid-20th to late 20thcentury scholars kind of
dismissed that notion due tosome of the things already
brought up, and now it's goingfull circle again because of
genetics and migratory and otherarchaeological finds that have
happened and whatnot, that it'sbecome a possibility again.
Not saying it occurred, but thatit is at least that with that,

(10:17):
and so you could have Balderpotentially representing Demuzid
or something similar to Demuzidin a lot of ways, and then you
have Nana being Inana.

SPEAKER_01 (10:27):
So that's interesting.
I'd be very interested, becauseI don't I don't actually know
much about Balder.
And that's not just Baldur'sGate jokes.

SPEAKER_02 (10:40):
I'd no, I got you is uh I'm trying to remember.

SPEAKER_01 (10:46):
I'd I'd and in fact, instead of me trying to remember
anything at all about him to seeif there's stuff going similar,
it might be good if wereintroduce Dumasid, because
we've talked about him before,but we didn't talk about him in
his full context.

SPEAKER_00 (11:07):
Right.
That's why I wanted to kind oflead into that and kind of also
give a little bit of an outlinein where things might be going a
little bit.

SPEAKER_01 (11:14):
Yeah.
So Dumuzid's really interestingbecause of course he ends up
being famous as the husband ofInanna or Ishtar.
And that's sort of a laterdevelopment in the Dumuzid myth.

(11:36):
And you have sort of this quitenatural progression of the
character through the stories.
Of course, all of his storiesare so old that even the mature
ones, we see the mature Inanna'sdescent into the underworld,
Dumuzid's already a very maturecharacter.

(11:59):
He's very well known throughoutthe Sumerian region.
And this is these are storiescoming out like at the dawn of
writing.
And so what happened before thedawn of writing, who knows?
Nobody knows.
Could have been anything.
Oral tradition, wild, eroticoral traditions.

(12:24):
So Demuzid is a it's hard to saythat he starts as a god because
he does he's in a sense he'salways divine, but in the
earliest incarnations, he seemsto be not so much a god as an

(12:45):
archetype.
He is the pastoralist.
He is like what everyone wouldwant a pastoralist to be.
He is what pastoralists wouldwant themselves to be.
He is and so of course they theydo.

(13:10):
Yeah, they he he becomes divinefor anybody who wants their
flocks to increase.
Hey, I want flocks like Demuzid.
Hey, I want butter like Demuzid,I want cheese like Dumuzid,
things like that.
But there's so much You see, thepre-writing period in Sumer is

(13:41):
it seems to have been thisperiod of really forming an
identity where the farmers areforming an identity and the
pastoralists are forming anidentity as because before that
everyone had just been the samething.
I mean, agriculture had beendeveloping for a while, but it

(14:05):
seems like the cultural idea ofbeing a farmer, being a
pastoralist, or the third optionbeing a fisherman, uh, which
ties in a little bit here, thosethree lifestyles in Sumer are
becoming identities.

(14:26):
And this is where you getthere's a famous debate poem
where the the grain goes upbefore either on or enki or
enlil, one of the two, but thethe idea of grain goes up to the
gods, and the idea of sheep goesup to the gods, and the two of

(14:50):
them debate about which isbetter.
And in that one precursor toCain and Abel as well.

SPEAKER_00 (15:01):
Yes, absolutely.
Yep.

SPEAKER_01 (15:03):
And the just farmer versus pastoralist, I mean it's
it's kind of a meme now on theinternet because of some
anthropological work people aredoing.
Oh, farmers versus herdsmen.
And I guess I mean you go backnot that long to you've got the

(15:24):
the ranchers and the farmers outwest.
It's a very long-runningconflict.
Yeah, it's a conflict, it's atheme.
But this is really the originswhen people are coming to
understand themselves as eitherfarmers or pastoralists.
And this is where you get thestory you already mentioned with

(15:47):
Dumasid and Enkimdu, who isdifferent from Enkidu.
Some people, I've seen somepeople mix them up.
It's very easy to mix them up,but Enkimdu is kind of Dumasid
for farmers, much less famousbecause he's much less sexy.

(16:07):
And I do mean that quiteliterally.
He is a he's usually called agod just because we don't have
the human aspect to him the waythat we do with Dumasid, just
because his stories don'tsurvive the same way.
But he's very much a god ofcanals and fertile fields,

(16:28):
irrigation canals and fertilefields and having the land for
growing grain.
And so Dumasid as the excellentpastoralist and and Kim Du as
the excellent farmer, they havea story where they are competing

(16:52):
to win the heart of Inanna, whois the passionate, lovely lady
that every everyone would liketo win her heart until you win
it, and then you realize you'rebetter off not winning it.
But the the the progress of thatuh debate is pretty much the

(17:14):
same as the grain versus sheepdebate.
And if you think there was anextended version of Cain and
Abel where they were where theywent into more detail about what
they were offering up to God,the the fruits of the field or
the animal sacrifices, if youthink there was a greater debate

(17:38):
there, which some people haveclaimed, then it's it's part of
that larger tradition.
But DumaZid wins because he haseverything that women want.
He specific, not just because hepersonally is great, but he, as
the pastoralist, has everythingwomen want.
And this is like he has butterand milk.

(18:02):
This is like an economic thingto a large extent.
He has animal wealth, which isat least at this point, more
highly thought of than landwealth, at least in the cultural
sphere.

SPEAKER_00 (18:17):
That's another parallel that's true for the
Nordics at this time period aswell.
You see this with the runicscript, Fehu, the first rune
there, with it.
It means cattle or movablewealth, quite literally, for
what's going on there.
And on that same front, sincewe're talking about the her
meaning Inanna choosing herhusband, but Utu's suggestion, I

(18:39):
guess you could say, it's moreof a pestering, but as in my
opinion, this is where we we usethe term animal husbandry today.
And this is that's actually adirect connection to Demuzid
becoming husband of Inanna.
And of course, she's thegoddess, and she's the one that

(19:00):
has that, and they're going forher divine favor, just like Cain
and Abel are going for thedivine favor, favor of Yahweh.
So there's another parallel onthat front as well.

SPEAKER_01 (19:11):
So yeah, and but it's not just that he has the
desirable thing, he's got animalwealth, so he's rich.
He's got milk and wool, both ofwhich are like domestic
comforts.
Yep.
It's it's uh especially.

SPEAKER_00 (19:35):
But the milk, because you can only be there
for a certain amount of time,otherwise it spoils.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (19:41):
And it's it's it's very comforting milk and wool.
It's soft and warm and pleasant,and these are nice things that
that ladies want, especially,and this is important,
especially young unmarried womenlust after Dumasid.

(20:01):
And another part of that is justit's generally thought that in
this part of history thepastoralists were probably
physically healthier than mostagriculturalists.
And I've seen that in a bunch ofdifferent ways, a bunch of
different places.
But the idea is Dumasid as apastoralist is just a taller and

(20:27):
buffer than his farm than thefarmers that he's competing
against.
And he's got wealth, he's gotlooks, he's got these comfort
gifts that he can give out tothe ladies.
And so Inanna picks him Inannaas the stand-in archetype of the

(20:51):
unmarried lady.
That's that's why her brotherUtu Shamash has to uh push her
to get married.
Because I mean, this when youread the love story of Inanna
and Dumasid, it's so modernbecause it's very modern.

SPEAKER_00 (21:11):
When we when we No, it is, and I'm just laughing
because I agree.

SPEAKER_01 (21:15):
Yeah, when we look at marriage from the perception,
from the from the standpoint ofwhat was in the law, what was in
the religious rituals, what arein the proper and appropriate
customs, from that standpoint,we really get the idea that

(21:35):
nearly all marriages in theancient world were arranged
marriages for economic, socialreasons.
And of course they were.
But then there's you read aboutInanna, and there's there's one
poem, probably a song, whereDumasid comes up to Inanna while

(21:57):
they're courting.
This is separate from theEnkimdu rivalry.
There's a million songs of justDumasid and Inanna courting at
various ways.
And Dumasid goes over toInanna's house, and even though
they're gods, in a lot of thepoetry, they are very explicitly

(22:18):
cast as just people in a regulartown or village of ancient
Sumer.
And so you could just replace itwith random young boy goes up to
random young girl, but the butInanna and Dumasid become these
archetypes there.
Anyway, Dumasid comes up toInanna or to her house and like

(22:40):
whispers over the wall, heyInanna, come with me, let's go,
do things that your parentsaren't going to approve of that
might result in children.
And Inanna's like, oh my, Iwould get in so much trouble if
I do that.
And Dumasid's like, look, allyou got to do is tell your

(23:01):
mother that you saw some of yourgirlfriends out dancing in the
street and singing, and you werejust out with them for a couple
hours dancing in the street, andthen they won't suspect
anything, and we'll just go offto some shed somewhere and uh
and make passionate love.

(23:21):
And it's like the boyfriend, theirresponsible, the the
attractive but non-sociallyfitting in boyfriend archetype.
He's a little bit older, he'she's independent, he's got his
own means, he's got coolpresents, he brings, you know,

(23:45):
he smokes cigarettes orwhatever.
The bad guys uh and and he'slike, hey, let's go lie to your
parents and let's go uh sleeparound.
It's it's very modern, it'sfantastic.
But that's that's him as thatmasculine archetype, but a very

(24:09):
specific kind of masculinearchetype, not a generic man, a
it's it's a a young girl's firstcrush is very much how I've how
I've equated it in other places.
And I don't know if Baldur islike that, but I'd be
interested.

(24:29):
I'd be interested if Baldur'svery attractive or not.

SPEAKER_00 (24:34):
Almost all of the Asiar gods are are attractive,
and what's to put it this wayfor what's going on very
briefly, there's another hybridcharacter.
I say hybrid because she's was aJotanar, then became a goddess
after she marries one of thegods and that kind of stuff for

(24:56):
what it is.
Her name is Scotty.
And by the way, it's potentiallythe entirety of Scandinavia,
Scotty, Scott, Scandinavia, isnamed after her, which would
mean Scotty's island, whichwould mean shadow island or harm
island or injury island orsomething like that for what it

(25:17):
is, because people used to thinkit was an island at one point,
way back in the ancient timeperiods, and when that when
scholars are writing some ofthese maps and stuff down.
So it's a this particular beingis so important that potentially
the entirety of the Scandinavianpeoples are named after her.
Just to put this intoperspective, and that she's the

(25:39):
one that represents the land.
Anyway, what happens is verybriefly the the gods, uh her her
father ends up stealing Edunafter Loki causes a bunch of
problems for them, and Edun withher life-giving apples make it
so that way the gods arecontinuously renewed for youth

(26:00):
and all that other stuff.
So they're very much importantfor what it is.
They Loki eventually gets Edunback and makes it so that way in
the process, Scotty's father iskilled.
Alright?
Now, one of the things thatshe's there ready to do war with
with the with the Asgardians.
That's what she's ready to dowith this.
And but they convince her thatthey would they don't want to do

(26:22):
war, that they don't want anymore bloodshed and all that.
They'd rather have a truce, andthey would rather give her
recompense for what's going onthere, alright?
And and and and and repayment toher.
And she hears them out what theyhave to say and in an agreement
to it.
And the the conditions were ahusband of some sort that was

(26:43):
going on.
We'll come back to that one in amoment.
The other one was to make it sothat way you have to do
something to make her laugh.
And then as an added bonus,which wasn't part of the
conditions, they take herfather's eyes, put them into the
heavens as stars, and so he'simmortalized that way forever.

(27:03):
That wasn't a rear part of thearrangement.
There's a couple other things,but anyway, so you have to get
her to laugh, which as she'slike this battle hardened you
know, Jotinar, which is usuallytranslated to giantists, it's
not actually accurate, it's itsown separate thing, but we'll go
with that for the sake ofsimplicity here.

(27:25):
And she you have Loki whodecides to go and get a goat.
So this also potentially has todo with some of this pastoral
stuff that we're talking aboutin a roundabout way, and he ties
he he ties a rope around it andhe ties the other end around his
testicles.

(27:46):
And they give this yanking backand forth thing until he falls
into Scotty's lap, whicheventually makes her laugh.
So that condition one has beenmet.
Now, condition two, they agreethat she is allowed to choose a
husband for herself, but she hasto do so only by making it so

(28:08):
that way she sees the feet ofthe gods that are there and
whatnot.
So basically you can see fromlike the knee down, is basically
how it plays out for what it is.
And she chooses one, it turnsout not to be Baldur, but the
key point for why I'm bringingthis up is that she says that
has to be Balder because there'snothing ugly on Balder and

(28:28):
whatnot.
There's nothing, there's no partin any way, shape, or form.
It turns out to be another godnamed Nordr or Nerthus,
depending upon how it plays outin certain certain things or
what's going on in certaintraditions.
And when you look at it fromthat perspective, it is very
clear, even in that small story,that like, bro, he is the god of

(28:49):
gods in terms of how he looksand all that.
He is literally like, what isthat?
He's he's he has all thisshining light coming from him
and all this other stuff.
When you look at he he just hasthis like charisma off the
charts for what it is for it.
He's impervious to everythingexcept mistletoe.

(29:10):
Nothing can even harm him.
That's how powerful he is.
You could you could take youcould take you know a nuclear
weapon in today's world and haveit dropped on his head, and he
would just laugh it off like itwas nothing, supposedly, if you
follow the stories for what'sgoing on there.

SPEAKER_01 (29:26):
So yeah, I think very much the that's actually
pretty interesting becausenearly every god is attractive,
of course, and unless they'respecifically for some reason.

SPEAKER_00 (29:40):
Whatever the story purposes are, yes.

SPEAKER_01 (29:42):
And nearly every god in at least the Mesopotamian
tradition has praised hymnsabout their strength.
They are their oh, it's allabout how strong it talks about
how strong they are because youknow, being strong is just Like
being good for them.

(30:03):
It's it's it's just part ofgoodness is strength.

SPEAKER_00 (30:08):
But they need that too in the Nordic slash Germanic
peoples as well.
100% warrior culture.

SPEAKER_01 (30:14):
You don't have that as much with Dumasid,
interestingly, which is why Ithink so many people equate him
with a human that is just likesomehow in a human archetype
entangled in the divine.
That's what Baldur too.

SPEAKER_00 (30:32):
He wasn't he's not very strong and all that.
Yes, I mentioned he's imperviousto things basically, but he
doesn't fit the he's not awarrior like the other gods are
that are that are male gods.
He just doesn't, he doesn't dothat, like in in terms of the
action mythology, not in termsof like how video games portray
him or whatever else and thatkind of stuff.
He he just he's not, he isn't,he's not a fighter, he's not a

(30:52):
fighter at all.

SPEAKER_01 (30:54):
That's interesting because so what does happen for
a sort of I don't want to saybrief period of time because
we're talking like fivecenturies, but in the grand
sweep of Mesopotamia, that iskind of a brief time.
Yeah, yeah, compared tothousands upon thousands of
years, yeah.

(31:15):
Uh you have the the rise of theAmorites, which my book, History
and Myth from Babylon and theAmorites, covers this exact
period, though I don't I don'thave this story in there.
Yeah, bonus content.
There we go.

(31:36):
The story of Dumasil, the theAmorites are a nomadic
pastoralist people.
They come in and they sweep awaythe old Sumerians, they beat
them, take over their cities,and they sweep away most of the
Akkadian cities to the pointthat nearly every king by the

(31:59):
every important king by the1800s BC is an Amorite for a
while.
And texts from this the old,what we call the old Babylonian
period, which is Hammurabi, thegreat lawmaker, he's an Amorite.
And from this period, you startto see Dumazid actually being

(32:20):
praised for his strength.
But it's not for his strengthspecifically.
You see him praised as thingslike commander of the chariots,
captain of the hosts, becausebeing a pastoralist for these
certain centuries, I mean, beinga pastoralist, you're always
fighting raids.

(32:41):
You're always a raider.
Yeah.
And but in these centuriesspecifically, these pastoral
raiders have taken over theworld, basically.
Or at least the part of theworld they care about.
And this is when you see Dumasidreally start to become

(33:06):
identified not just with as apastoralist, but as a king.
So Dumasid in the Sumerianperiod and the earlier period,
he was one guy who had marriedInanna.
Inanna's had a bunch ofboyfriends, a bunch of husbands.
She is the the communitybicycle, and uh ever and uh

(33:33):
Dumasid is important in that.
But Dumasid's important in that,and he does get identified in
the Descent to the Underworldnarrative.
But the royal kingship idea ofDumazid doesn't come in until

(33:53):
the Sumerian period has ended,wiped out by these Amorites, who
seem to sort of self-identifywith Dumasid.
And at that point, Dumazid'smarriage to Inanna becomes
emblematic for the Amorit king'smarriage to uh sacred marriage
to Inanna.

(34:14):
They're taking the Inanna royalwedding tradition from the
Sumerian kings.
The Sumerian kings of especiallyof Uruk had been marrying Inanna
for at least a thousand years,if we were.

SPEAKER_00 (34:28):
I don't think forever at this point, forever.

SPEAKER_01 (34:32):
But they hadn't been doing it as Dumasid.
They had been doing it as theking of Uruk, and Inanna loves
Uruk.

SPEAKER_02 (34:40):
Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 (34:41):
When the Amorites show up, now they are
increasing, it's increasinglythe case that the king of the,
or the the most one of theimportant kings of the Amorites,
when they do marry Inanna, theyare doing it more as Dumasid.

SPEAKER_00 (34:57):
Right, the archetype of Dumasid.
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (35:00):
And so that he becomes he becomes a kingly
archetype at that point, morethan he was before.
So now he is lover and king, andthat's when you get the full
melding of the sex poetrytradition.

(35:21):
And my favorite example, ofcourse, of Inanna and Dumasid
sex poetry is Song of Solomon inthe Bible, which is an Aramaic
text from I want to say 400 or300 BC, way after Solomon.
But it's Solomon somehow ends upbeing identified with Dumazeb,

(35:48):
because of course theIsraelites, as part of their
identity, they retain the wewere desert wanderer nomad
peoples.

SPEAKER_00 (35:59):
Well, you get the shepherd king idea for what's
coming out of it.

SPEAKER_01 (36:03):
David the shepherd king, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (36:05):
You get that for what's happening with it.
And so if you play that,obviously Dumazid is that, and
so there's clearly that that'sbeing played out with it, and
then you have which would areare the precursor to a lot of
the the Hebrew people andwhatnot, you have the Hyksos and
their shepherd kings for what'sgoing on with that.

(36:26):
We know that this is the casefor it when they go and invade
lower you know, excuse me, upperEgypt, uh, for what it is, the
the the you know up in the up inthe Delta region.
That is lower Egypt, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (36:37):
Yeah, because it's it's backwards from constantly.

SPEAKER_00 (36:39):
That's right, it's backwards, yeah.
So when they they go and dothat, they they make that happen
for for what's going on there.
And and so, you know, they theyhave that, and that's where some
of these people go in there fora while, and and the point is
that yeah, it makes completesense that they would do that.
I mean, they even have in the inthe Jewish uh calendar and and

(37:00):
whatnot the month of Tammuz,which is just literally
Demuseed.
It's literally Demuzeed, is whatit is.
So, yeah, makes sense to me.
On on that front, if you look atthe uh the the evolution of the
Jewish timeline very brieflyhere in order to help put this
in further perspective uh forwhat's going on, is that you

(37:22):
have probably a mistranslation.
I say probably because there'sstill some debate about this,
but it doesn't say like for iidols and idolatry and that kind
of stuff, it doesn't claim thatthere's like physical objects,
or like you know, Anubis backhere on my on my tapestry or
whatever is is problematic.
No, it actually is in the senseof that it's saying that they're

(37:44):
shit gods, that they're notimportant gods, as if we would
say, Oh, that's shit today,that's the absolute bullshit
today, or whatever it is.
That's how it actually be withit.
So not to follow these othergods.
So, in other words, it's notsaying that these other gods
didn't exist.
It's saying that they're notworth going after and that you
shouldn't worship them.
So, in the very earliestversions, even inside of what's

(38:05):
still left, uh, that's beencanonized inside of the Bible as
we know it today, they neverclaimed originally, if this
theory is correct, which isgaining ground on it in terms of
the etymological roots of stuff,that other gods didn't exist.
And you can see that they evenmention the Egyptian gods, they
even say that they were real andsome of the stuff or what was

(38:25):
going on, that to help back thistheory up, that they didn't
exist, it's just they're notworth worshiping, they're not
real true gods, is what it is.
And like they're they're lowerlevel, forget them.
I'm the top god, basically,worship me, is how this plays
out.
Now, why am I bringing this up?
Well, because David and Solomon,etc., they were still following
the ancient traditions thatyou're talking about with the

(38:48):
Song of Songs of having Ashtartbe inside of it, or Asherah
being inside of their temple forwhat's going on and being a part
of that particular thing withit.
And if you trace that back, itgoes back to Ishtar, which of
course is Inanna for what'sgoing on there.
It's the same thing, and sothat's my guess as to why it's
just uh it's like what they didwith uh with with Marduk and

(39:12):
Babylon and replacing him withthe god beforehand that was in
there for the creator god Enliland that kind of stuff, right?
So with with the Numa Elish,it's just the same thing.
Okay, well, it's the same story,we like the story, but we don't
want these characters hereanymore.
We want these characters, andwe're placing them there because
they're also part of ourtradition, and they're doing
basically the same thing, somight as well.
That's my an understanding of itfrom the and the very brief form

(39:36):
that I can give here.
There's obviously a lot more toit, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (39:40):
The only thing I'd say is that David probably David
seems to have been a Yahwehsupremacist, it would have been
Solomon bringing the paganworship back into the temple,
though it wouldn't have beenvery far removed.

SPEAKER_00 (39:56):
No, I mean he was David was definitely pushing it
a lot more, but even he stillhad the divine feminine goddess
in terms of the temple that hewas there for.
It was the one thing he keptfrom it and that was left over,
and then obviously, like yousaid, Solomon really really
brought it back type type dealfor what's going on there.
So, anyway, not that that's notour main focus and topic, so

(40:18):
we'll go back to what we'refocusing on, but yeah, it's an
interesting parallel for sure.

SPEAKER_01 (40:24):
Yeah, I'm not really sure because yeah, just the
evolution of DumaZid from beingthe bad boy, the bad boy that
all the girls want, to being theI'm the king, shepherd king, uh
married to Ishtar, married toInanna.

(40:47):
That's that is sort of his uhhis grand arc.
I should probably note somepeople if they're if they're
into the uh mythology thing,they may have seen uh Dumazid
the fisherman and that is and orthe Dumasid in uh the Sumerian

(41:07):
Kings list.
And I will say this actually hadconfused me uh for quite a
while.
The Dumasid in the SumerianKings list is almost certainly
not meant as a reference to uhthe uh shepherd god Dumuzid.
He is probably someone whosename was Dumuzid from what gets

(41:33):
called the Sea Land, which isthis swamp that's sort of near
the end of the Persian Gulf.

SPEAKER_00 (41:38):
Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (41:40):
And he would have been a fisherman, because he's
from this sea land.

unknown (41:44):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (41:45):
Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 (41:46):
And it seems that he conquered the city of Uruk for a
period of time and may haveruled over it for a while until
he was defeated.

SPEAKER_00 (41:56):
And he's also supposedly an anti-diluvian
king, if uh memory serves mecorrectly, and he's the fifth
one of the anti-diluvian kingson the Sumerian list.

SPEAKER_01 (42:08):
Oh no, he is after the flood because in the list of
the floor.

SPEAKER_00 (42:15):
Right, it's anti, not pre-deluvian, anti-deluvian.

SPEAKER_01 (42:18):
Oh, anti-flood.
He is where exactly I don'tknow, but in the he fits in the
he's clearly at the peak ofUruk's power because he fits in
between the great Uruk kingsEnmerkar and Louis and Gulbanda,

(42:41):
and then you have Gilgamesh,either one or two or two just
immediately after that.
So he's some nobody from thefisherman lands that seems to
have come and conquered Uruk fora little while and seems to have
claimed Inanna as his wife, andthen he gets overthrown, and

(43:02):
then the rightful order isrestored, politically speaking.
But he is that is a separatemythic cycle, and it's
interesting because, of course,being a fisherman, he's not a
pastoralist, he's not a farmer,he is this sort of third-way
kind of thing.
And you'll see oh, what's thename?

SPEAKER_00 (43:25):
I think I have fishing goes back further than
any of these things with it.
We know we have found fishinghooks that go back at least
70,000 years ago.
Oh, it might even be furtherinside of that in terms of
archaeological evidence.
I'm I'm not sure.
I haven't looked into thatspecific one in a while, but the
point is fishing has been donevery long time.
And if you're going with thethree identities here, it is by

(43:49):
far the oldest of them.

SPEAKER_01 (43:52):
Oh, yeah.
His name is also Goo Dam,G-U-D-A-M.
And I remember, I don't rememberif it's Rosicrucian or one of
those related esoteric things.
They have something about GooDam as like an esoteric

(44:13):
fisherman mystic sort of thing.
So he may have had his ownesoteric tradition at some
point, but it's not related tothis DumaZid.
I only vaguely remember itbecause I haven't done I haven't
done that stuff in quite awhile.

(44:39):
Yeah.
But yeah, so Doomazid pastoralarchetype god, and he's every
woman's dream.
He makes your flocks wealthy, orhe makes your flocks increase,
which is wealth.

(45:00):
He's got cosmic roles justthrough his divine kingship and
also through his tie-in to theunderworld story.
And I guess he's got a sister,and the sister is quite the
character all to herself,because the sister is really

(45:24):
kind of sad.
There's there's a praise poem tothe lovers Ishtar and Dumasid,
and it briefly mentions oh, I'vegot to find it.
Let me it briefly mentions thatGeshton Anna just has a real

(45:49):
hard time of it all the time.
Oh, her eyes were lacerated, hermouth she lacerated her mouth,
she lacerated her place notspoken of to men, and she just
cut herself all the way up.
Then she went to the palacetavern and she was looking

(46:09):
everywhere for Dumasid.
She couldn't find Dumasid, shewas so distraught because she
couldn't find her brother, butshe was just cutting herself all
over the place, and then shelike walks around town like this
ghoulish cut-up figure inmorning clothes, bleeding out

(46:33):
everywhere, and she's justasking everybody, do you know
where my brother is?
And then in the meantime, itseems that her brother Dumasid
is oh, just with Inanna, partyparty, and his sister is just
distraught out of her mind, andthat's like I don't actually

(46:55):
know how to make sense of it, tobe completely honest, but it's a
very striking image.

SPEAKER_00 (47:00):
I have I have an idea of what might be going on
there, but in order to put intocontext, we also need to be
looking a little further on withthings, which is actually when
Demuzid has been taken into theunderworld as a replacement for
stuff.
Do you remember when I wastalking about how I was saying

(47:20):
Geshtinana, Bellile, and Inanawere playing the role of the
tripartite goddess type thing?
I am absolutely certain thatthat is what's going on there
now after reviewing thisinformation that I haven't in
years, like I talked about totalk about this again uh here
today with you.
And if you go and you look atit, that three-part is showing

(47:41):
up again.
You have Gesti Inana, you haveInana herself, and then you have
his mother showing up, andthey're playing all three roles
again, lamenting him while he'sin the underworld and that kind
of stuff.
So if all three of them areactually the same being in some
fashion or another, in terms ofplaying the ultimate goddess,

(48:02):
let's say, and they're all justlike parts of that notion
because of the maiden, the wifeslash mother, and then the you
know, crone, uh, old crone andold woman type thing with it,
and they're all just aspects ofa much bigger archetype of the
overall goddess figure forwhat's going on there, then it
you put that into perspectivefor what's happening.

(48:25):
This would also explain a lot ofother parts of this mythology
that's going on there.
If you have it to where, as Ihave said before, Gestanana
actually represents Inanna inher maiden form before she gets
married and that kind of thingfor what it is, then it would

(48:46):
also be that she's looking forher brother.
If you go back to Utu slashShamash, that's there with it,
it's heavily implied in the verybeginning of stuff with it that
he wanted to marry Inana himselffor what's going on there.
Realizing that that's not gonnawork the way he wants with it,

(49:06):
then he goes into the story ofthe other two that we've talked

about already (49:10):
the pastoral versus the farmer idea, and
trying to get them her to choosebetween one of them and and
whatnot.
Now, the reason why I'm bringingthat up is because, you know,
they're Utu slash Shamash is thebrother of Inanna.
And if you play this sameconcept out, you have the Muzid

(49:30):
being the brother of Gestinana.
So it's almost as if they'retrying to tell you that this is
the same idea that's beingplayed out in another way that's
going on there for the maidenconcept.
So her lamenting and wonderingwhere's her brother at, and that
kind of stuff.
It's not just because it's herbrother, it's also her lover.
And her being upset that he'sgone with Inana, the other

(49:55):
variant of her, that's still thesame archetype that we're
talking about here, makes it sothat way it actually answers
that question to a certainextent.
It would also make it so thatway it becomes very clear on the
fertility aspects for what'shappening there, meaning the
story that has to do withobviously Demuzis is only there
for six months out of the year,and the other six months are

(50:16):
with Gestianana, that in a wayit's going on in the underworld
that's going there for that.
And we also know that Geshtananais somebody who is a scribe in
the underworld that's happeningthere, and does certain aspects
that are going on that.
So there's the aspect of hergoing in there for her own

(50:37):
purposes that she needs to bewith it.
So when Inanna comes to thegates and her sister, I mean uh
the queen of the underworld,excuse me, Ereshigol is there
wondering why the hell are youhere?
Basically, could it also bebecause she was in another
variant of herself the scribethat was supposed to be there to
take care of something?
Oh no, I'm not here for that.

(50:57):
I'm here for these otherpurposes.
Uh-huh.
Right.
I don't believe you.
Something's wrong for what'sgoing on here.
And it could also lead to thefact of her wanting to take the
throne for herself on top of it,because it's a very it's a
different aspect of Inana that'swanting to go and do that
particular front that's going onwith it.

(51:19):
I'm not saying you have to agreewith it, I'm just saying I have
a possible explanation that goesalong with that.
Interestingly enough, if you goback to the Nordic tradition and
that kind of thing with it, ifyou go and play this, it's the
same themes are played out withanother couple that are very,
very likely the exact samebeings, as that on a different

(51:41):
form for what it is.
So you have Baldur and Inanna,which would be in this uh
variant, Dimuzid and Inanna, andthen in a higher level you have
another couple that's Freyer andFreya, and that kind of stuff.
Now, Freya is very interestingbecause she's also associated
with Venus just like Inanna is,and she's also associated with

(52:03):
other things just like Inannais, and her name literally means
the lady.
Okay, the lady of heaven, thequeen of heaven type idea that's
going on there.
You have Freyer, which means theLord, and their brother and
sister, in fact, that they'retwins in this instance for
what's happening.
And Freyer wants to marryanother variant of Freya named

(52:26):
Gerter, which is it's obviousthat it's her.
It's not even like no m mostscholars don't debate this for
what's going on there.
And so it seems like it'splaying out in another
roundabout way, and it giveseven more potentiality for the
fact that this these ancientthemes came for the Nordic
tradition, came from ancientMesopotamia, you know, through
thousands of years of travel,and then got morph because you

(52:49):
can't make it so that way, well,summer is bad when it's actually
the good one for the Nordics.
You have to change certainelements just to the environment
and whatnot, but the same cornerthemes are there.
Is this actually true or not?
I don't know.
That's not something I cananswer here in this question.
I just know I have a potentialaspect for what's going on, and
I'm 100% the tripartite goddess.

(53:11):
I'm convinced of that is true ofthese characters and and
whatnot, playing out.
I'm just not saying that it isexactly the same thing.
I would need to investigate thisangle further to say one way or
another.
But this is the first thing thatpopped off my head based upon
what you you know, rememberingof what I remember of it, what
you're telling me, as well aswhat I did in the last couple

(53:33):
weeks here since we last met up.

SPEAKER_01 (53:35):
So see, I still think that's interesting, but it
seems really bleak, if I have tobe completely honest, because
Geshton Anna is just the mostmiserable figure in Mesopotamian
mythology.
There's one story where soDumasid and Inanna are married

(54:01):
and they're living on a ranch.
And because that's that's whatyou do, apparently.
And see, and and because they'reliving on a ranch, they've got
their extended family there.
So Geshton Anna is also livingin the house with them, and
that's that's normal enough asit is.

SPEAKER_00 (54:23):
Yeah, that's pretty normal for that time period.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (54:26):
And Geshton Anna is always portrayed as very doting
on Dumasid.
She's very motherly in a sense,very considerate and helpful,
and just a great, a great sisterall in all.
And so Dumasid gets up frombeing with Inanna and says, Oh,

(54:51):
I'm gonna go out and just getsome desert air, some nice
desert air, and he invitesGeshton Anna out with him.
And they go to the barn, andthey you know they do some other
stuff, and then they go to thebarn where all their sheep are.
And Dumasid says, Look at thatlittle baby lamb, what is it

(55:16):
doing to its mother?
And I assume this is divinepower, he's making this happen
or something.
I don't really know what whatall is going on, but the the
baby sheep is mounting itsmother and in a very
pornographic way.

(55:37):
And Dumasid keeps poking atGeshton Anna and says, What's
that sheep doing to its mother?
What's it doing?
And she's like, Well, I guess Iguess he's I guess he's just you
know copulating with his ownmother, but she doesn't quite
get it.
And then at the end of thetablet, which thankfully is

(55:59):
damaged and we can't really readwhat's going on, he is then
like, hey, if that lamb ismounting its own mother, I
should be mounting my ownsister, and then he he violates
her violently in the in theshed.
And this is the brother that sheis going to endure extreme.

(56:28):
And she is constantly sufferingfor her brother.
And I that's the part that Idon't because it's so she she
suffers when she lives with him,she suffers when he's not there,
and he she continually harmsherself when she's not when he's
not there because she's lookingfor him and she's just cutting

(56:51):
herself out of grief.
And then when he's being takenby the demons to be taken down
to the underworld, she istortured round after round,
never says a word.
Perfectly loyal.

SPEAKER_00 (57:07):
So this also adds another layer to what I was
talking about for theexplanation, but you have to get
to another point for it.
Obviously, we have no ideatruthfully what order these
stories go in.
Okay, I'm letting the audienceknow this ahead of time.
We don't know.
There's been theories, there'sbeen speculation on it.
Some of it is pretty concrete,some of it's like very much just

(57:30):
guest work and hypothesis andwhatnot.
We we don't know 100% for what'sgoing on here.
So, for the sake of myparticular theory that I'm
putting forward, which I don'tsee anybody else doing, I'm not
saying nobody else has, I justhaven't read this from any
scholarly stuff for what's beengoing on there myself.
So here's what I see on thisfront.

(57:51):
If you go with Geshtanana, isthe maiden, the younger version
of Inana.
Then you have Inana, becauseshe's getting married, so he's
no longer going to be a maidenhere for what's going on, which
is why I've chosen her.
Technically, you I guess youcould flip it around.
The only one that's not true isBellily and of course, uh, you
know, the mother figure that areliterally Demuzud's mother.

(58:14):
Those are the old crones, okay?
They're the older ones that havealready done it.
We already know that.
That that's not arguable in thetripartite part for what I'm
bringing up here for this, okay?
But I put Geshtanana as theyounger version.
It even fits with her beingyounger than Demuzid to begin
with, and other things thatwe've talked about here for what
it is.

(58:35):
We also have where Inki isgiving all the various Mies out
to the various different godsand goddesses and that kind of
stuff to do with that.
And Inanna doesn't have any.
And she goes to him and says,Well, what the heck?
I don't I didn't get any.
And he says, You don't need any,you already have it.
As if he already knows what herdestiny is supposed to become,

(58:58):
and all that to begin with,which is quite clear.
I mean, that's nothing.
Inki knows destinies of so manyother things, that that doesn't
mean shit.
That's like, okay, great.
That's pretty obvious that hecould know something like that.
Fine.
I don't need to give you one,you already have one.
Trust me, dear, you don't needto worry about this.
So if you take this same conceptfor what's going on, you have to

(59:22):
where it's actually her role asthe beginning portion where she
is supposed to be in that stateall of the time.
And this is what sets off Inannatrying to go and take back power
for herself to make it so she'sno longer Gestinana, she's just

(59:44):
Inana that's going on with it.
And this sends her off to goconquer and do all these other
things and get all this powerand all these other things that
are going along with that.
And so when you come to thepoint again, where at the end of
it, she's conquered all thesedifferent places.
Places.
She's gotten all these Miesunderneath her that she has
control over and whatnot.

(01:00:05):
And now she's going into theunderworld to go conquer
everything.
She's conquered Earth.
She's conquered heaven.
There's only one realm left thatneeds to be taken over for her
and whatnot.
And to sit on the throne thatEreshikal holds.
And if she does that, she's doneeverything.
She is the penultimate goddessand god that exists inside the

(01:00:25):
Sumerian pantheon.
No one can say anything becauseshe has all three realms, right?
Out of the three major realmsthat there are.
So that's what she goes andtries to do, supposedly in this
variant of the understanding ofthe story.
And while she does that, sheobviously fails.
She knows she's going to diedown there.
That's why she sets it up aheadof time.
But she's going to do somethingthat nobody else has done.

(01:00:47):
She's going to conquer deathitself by coming back through
the help of Enki and whateverelse the stuff goes with.
But she's going to do that forwhat's going on there.
Now, what happens in thisparticular point of it is you
have where all of these otherpeople that the gala demons come
up with, and they they, youknow, to to they go to

(01:01:10):
Ninshabur, they go to theseother ones that are all of her
son and another, you know,another priest and all that
other stuff that's going on withit.
She all tells them to go away.
Why?
Because they're all doing theproper thing of following the
divine order and doing whatneeds to be done, the
lamentations, all that otherstuff with it.
But her husband isn't.
Her husband, at least in oneversion of the story, is sitting

(01:01:35):
on her throne with slave girlsthat are entertaining him.
Okay?
This is the final straw forGestonana in this particular
instance for what's going on.
Because now she's become Inana.
She's no longer doing any ofthat stuff beforehand in order
to try to claim power forherself.

(01:01:55):
She's done with it.
You have betrayed me for thefinal time.
You've caused me this pain forthe final time.
I'm done with it.
You didn't follow me in thedivine order of things.
You tried to absurp my power forwhat's going on here.
I'm completely done with yourbullshit.
You're going to the underworld.
That's what's happening therewith the I don't want to play

(01:02:17):
this game anymore.
I'm tired of it for what'shappening.
Now you might be thinking, well,why does Gestanana then go and
do all this stuff to try toprevent him from happening and
go going in there and justsuffering all the torture and
all that other stuff that goesalong with that?
Again, it's because it's threedifferent parts of the goddess
all at the same time that aregoing there with it to kind of

(01:02:37):
explain it.
It's not just one, it's like youhave to look at three different
characters here that are allplaying it, that are making that
happen.
So her role in that story is toshow the suffering, the abuse,
and all these other things withit, in order to make it show the
next variant of her that doesn'tallow that to happen, that
doesn't want any part of it inany way, shape, or form, that

(01:02:59):
doesn't want to make it so thatway she's at, and she becomes
this all-powerful deity, as atleast as powerful as she can get
for herself and that kind ofstuff, that's going and creating
her own destiny.
It's the exact foil to the otherone that's going on on that
front for what's happeningthere.
This is my personalinterpretation of things with
it.
We also see going back to likethe earth goddess concept that's

(01:03:22):
there, like the you know, andthe divine priesthood and all
that other stuff that'shappening uh with it, and then
lowering of the rights down fromheaven to men and that kind of
stuff.
You also see this part play outfor what it is.
They're now reliant upon her,meaning Inanna, for their powers
and that kind of stuff.

(01:03:43):
So it's a complete reversal ofthings with it, the taking away
of patriarchal power and andthat kind of thing, with it, and
then the patriarchy trying totake it back through Dumazeed
and that kind of stuff, and thenultimately failing, at least at
that stage, for that, uh, andthen her coming back into her
own power, and then going andsharing that power and trying to

(01:04:07):
have balance at the end of it,to where Gustinana is in the
underworld for half the year, heis in the underworld for half
the year.
They both get to be above andnot in the underworld and that
kind of stuff and be in controlof it, and to try to share and
come back and make it so thatway that's a case for it.
She feels guilty from that oneof her aspects of herself with

(01:04:28):
it.
She doesn't just want to dothat, her more wiser self, the
the crone at the end and allthat other stuff, also wants to
make it so that way he's broughtback in order to make it so that
way they can re-establish aproper balanced order of things
where everything is fair forboth sides for what's going on
with it.
This also, of course, doesn'tjust this also doesn't touch

(01:04:52):
upon like the cycles of theseasons and all that, but that's
all part of it for the balancedside of things with it, too.
I'm just looking at it throughthis one particular lens right
now, just to be clear for what'sgoing on.
And so this is my current, I'mnot saying it can't change with
new evidence that pops up, or mystudying more things with that,
but my current understanding ofthe of this situation that's

(01:05:13):
going on here and why it's beingdone this particular way.
Doesn't mean I'm right,absolutely not.
There's no doesn't mean that,but it is an explanation that
actually does explain thisvariant, which I haven't seen
anybody else explain it.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:27):
So no, there's something there's something
psychologically valuable there.
It's a it's sort of a templatebecause especially when you see
Dumasid as an archetype andDumasid's relations with women
as templates for not necessarilythe best relationships always,

(01:05:51):
but in fact it might be that allof his relationships are
disordered in a sense becausehe's very often courting Inanna
inappropriately or excessively.
He is uh often taking takingmarital rights before the

(01:06:15):
marriage has happened.
Though there is a time wherethey are married for a while.
There is there is happy lovepoetry with Duma Zeb.
But when you look at Geshtanana,she is I mean, you you you have
to know that there was there wasa male on female abuse in

(01:06:37):
families in the ancient times.
And especially if you doidentify her partly with Inanna
and have sort of a fluididentification there, then you
have the sense of, hey, yes,there are women who are being
traumatized by the men in theirlives in a variety of ways, in

(01:07:01):
in Inanna being usurped afterher death, in Inanna being in
having her death celebrated, orin Geshtin Anna's many
sacrifices and direct abuses.
But then the resolution whereyes, you really want Duma Zid

(01:07:22):
dragged down by a bunch ofdemons, but at the same time,
Geshton Anna is also defendinghim to the last.
And that but then in the end youdo find resolution in a cycle
that's not really that great tospend half the year in the
underworld in order to have halfthe year of normal life.

(01:07:47):
It's not a great resolution, butI think especially with the
stuff you were talking about,there's there's possibly in that
an archetype for ancient womento find uh resolution to various
traumas.

(01:08:09):
I don't know.
That's just what I was thinkingwhile you were talking.

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:12):
Well, the other part of it is if you look at who's
the one that says it's it'sInana that dictates hey, this is
the new, this is what I decree.
You will be there for half theyear, and you will be there for
the other half of the year forwhat's going on.
It's like the older version ofherself that's become slightly
more wise, slightly more thing,but the telling Demuzi, this is

(01:08:34):
our relationship now, this isthe other one, it's a balanced
one.
We are no longer going to bedoing the old way of things for
what's happening.
So, in that instance, if youplay it as the character as
different variants of it andtime as well, it actually adds
to what you're bringing up rightnow, too.

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:51):
So yeah, and for the woman in this to have dictating
authority, whether as a queen oras a wife, that's something you
just don't see anywhere else inMesopotamia.
Well, I don't want to sayanywhere else, but very rarely
in Mesopotamian literature atall.

(01:09:14):
It's very patriarchal, butDumasid is such a problem for
the ladies around him that thatI guess it becomes culturally
acceptable at a certain pointfor the woman to say, to be
through this myth, to be allowedto say, hey, I'm not taking that

(01:09:36):
anymore.

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:36):
Right.
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (01:09:38):
And that's also I don't know if it's true or not.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:41):
I don't know if that's actually how they viewed
it or not.
Because the problem is we'relooking at from something that
was probably much olderoriginally in terms of say oral
tradition before it got writtendown.
And we're talking aboutsomething that happened over
thousands of years ofstorytelling, and I'm someone
that's looking at it from my ownmodern sensibilities and my own

(01:10:01):
understanding of things that aregoing on, and I don't have the
full picture of what thesepeople believed in terms of
their religion, in terms oftheir politics, and all that
other stuff that's going onthere, their day-to-day lives,
and all that other stuff.
Do I have some inkling of what'sgoing on?
Yeah, because I've studied thisstuff, I've studied other
cultures that are similar, timeperiods, and all that other
stuff with it.
And so, you know, it could becompletely fabricated theory

(01:10:25):
that's just based upon my ownunderstanding of archetypes in
general and wanting a betterresolution for stuff for it.
But as I also see it, there isnothing that I'm bringing up
that, at least in the literarysources, the actual that with
it, I'm not talking necessarilysome other aspects of

(01:10:45):
archaeological findings orwhatever, but just that has a
logical internal consistencythat's going on there that
doesn't detract or take awayfrom any of the other parts of
the story in any way, shape, orform.
And just it gives a full itgives a full fleshing out of a
of a variant of a theory that'sgoing on there.

(01:11:07):
To to put this in anotherperspective for what's going on,
I'm sure you're at leastsomewhat familiar, I mean
tangentially, maybe it's notyour main stuff with it, like
with Homa and Soma, and theGreek god Dionysus being
associated with wine for hisstuff with it, and like mead and
other things that are like thatthat are playing with it, well,

(01:11:28):
something with the underworld,and then you know, if people who
drink that they they gain somesort of resurrection or
spiritual illumination orsomething along those lines with
it.
Well, Geshtinana literally she'sassociated with wine, she's the
grape, she's the vine of thegrapes that are there for what's
going on with it.
So that's another parallel tookay, who is the one that goes

(01:11:50):
and conquers death in thestories?
It's Inana that does.
If that is still the samepersonage, it's just in a
different person, same person,but with a different
personality, a differentarchetype that's playing out
there with it.
It's her before she ferments andbecomes the wine that she's
supposed to be for what's goingon on that front with it, and

(01:12:11):
making it so she can resurrectand do all these other things
that are going on there, whichwould also fit, like I said
before, with Inki saying, youdon't need it.
You've already been given yourdomain.
You will be the one who conquersdeath, you will be the one who
does all these other things thatnobody else can touch upon for
what's going on when he's nothanding out the me's to her,

(01:12:32):
because like you don't need it,you don't need it for what's
happening.
This would also explain, both ona political level as well as
this archetypal level that we'retalking about here, why she gets
him drunk, meaning in key withit, and then steals all the meas
and gets all the powers fromwhat's going on with it.

(01:12:53):
He wants them back originally,but then agrees to just let her
have it for what's happeningbecause he realizes uh later on
that, like, hey, you know, she'sshe's fulfilling her destiny
now, the way she's supposed tobe, that I had foresaw whenever
it was that he foresaw in termsof the stories and that kind of
thing with it.
I'm just gonna let it go, I'mgonna let it be type deal for

(01:13:15):
what's going on on that front.
And then, of course, you getintoxication that comes from
this that we were talking aboutearlier, with the divine
ecstasy, the divine frenzy thatwe're talking about.
Drunk and being drunk anddrinking like you would with
wine and that kind of stuff,puts you into that altered state
of consciousness again, which isanother metaphor for this type

(01:13:39):
of stuff that I've brought upearlier and and whatnot.
And so it all just kind of tiestogether on this particular
front again.
Again, I is it true?
I don't know.
I'm not trying to pretend that Ido on this.
Again, it just fits with all thedata points that I have that I
can see on this front for what'splaying out there for this, and

(01:14:02):
and therefore I view it as atleast a valid hypothesis of not
saying it's factual.
I'm saying it's a validhypothesis in my mind, though.
And if you go with Enki beingthe patriarch and the one that
controls all the meas, which arebasically just various different
powers of that each of the godshave in some form or another

(01:14:23):
that they're associated with,and he's kind of the one that
gives them out, that would bethe patriarchal figure again,
the father figure, the malebeing in charge of things with
it, and then Inanna having totrick in some form or another,
using, you know, getting himdrunk and that kind of stuff,
and then taking the meas awayfrom him.

(01:14:43):
It's it's another way ofshowcasing that she's coming
into her own power and thatwomen have another way out of
this if they are able to makethat occur and make it happen.
So anyway, I won't ramble on,I'll get your thoughts at this

(01:15:06):
stage.

SPEAKER_01 (01:15:11):
I think there's a lot there.
I think I think what we have issomething of a modern
interpretation, but I also don'tthink that makes it wrong
because we've got apsychological and we've got an

(01:15:31):
archetypal view going on, and Ithink that both can be affecting
the oral tradition, even withoutsomeone sitting down and saying,
Hey, let's write something thatis archetypally relevant to the
Vikings, or or whatever, orlet's write something that is a

(01:15:56):
reflection of the trauma that Ifeel from losing my husband or
whatever.
I think it might still be there.

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:10):
I have a question for you before we go any
further.
It just really popped into myhead that it was important.
I don't know if there was a casefor this or not.
Do we know if if there are anysurviving like manuals on poetry
for like their rules that theyhad?

SPEAKER_01 (01:16:31):
Oh, how like how to write poetry?

SPEAKER_02 (01:16:34):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:16:35):
No, almost it's it's a shame because almost all the
methodology was strictly oral,and they write down findings and
things like that.
Do you know who SnorriStuhlerson is?
Snorri Stoulerson, no.
That's okay.

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:56):
He's a 12 1200s, well, 11, late 1100s, early
1200s writer, Icelandic writerand chieftain.

SPEAKER_01 (01:17:04):
Oh, he's the the edda, the poetic edda.

SPEAKER_00 (01:17:07):
Yeah, poetic edda is its own separate thing for
what's going on with it.
Now, the reason why I bring itup is because he himself was
good.
This is again for the Nordiclens here, specifically.
But if we're using this as aokay, this could also be
translated to other ones, whichI know for a fact it can.
I'm not saying it is forspecifically Sumeria, but it can

(01:17:29):
be translated to other ones thatwe've seen.
That's not even a question.
We know that that's the casefor.
He explicitly states that in therules of poetry, and the reason
why he, at least according tohim, for why he was writing
this, is because even thoughpeople were forgetting their own
history, they're forgettingtheir own poetry, they're
forgetting their ownunderstanding of things, the
youth had forgotten how tointerpret it and what was going
on there.
So he was writing a manual ofnot only did it have certain

(01:17:52):
poems of the deities in it, theNordic pantheon, but but also
like the explanations as to whatwas going on at the very end of
it, called the Skald SkopperMall.
He was writing it.
That's what he claims for whathe was doing it.
Whether that's true or not, youcan leave that up for your own
debate.
I don't care.
I'm just talking about for whathe claims that he was writing
this particular thing with it.
In it, though, he says you canreplace a god or goddess with

(01:18:16):
any other god or goddess, andyou can know it by their
attributes, their me's, theirpowers, and whatnot.
So if I say tear's hammer andwhatnot, we know the hammer is
associated with Thor and thatit's not Tyr, but you might use
Tyr as the replacement for thatparticular deity in order to

(01:18:37):
meet match all the rhymingschemes and the meters and all
that other stuff that need to bethere for what's going on.
Because the whole point of oraltradition in terms of the rules
for it is to make it so that wayit's easy to remember because
you're having to remember allthe different things with it.
In fact, someone that's a verygood scald, a bard, if you will,
and whatnot, they can memorizeand the Mahabharata, okay, in

(01:19:01):
terms of its length and whatnot,which would be literally this
freaking big if it weretranslated over their lifetime,
and it's it's massive, it'sthousands upon thousands of
pages long.
They have to remember line afterline after line.
It takes years and years to getto that point, of course, but
that's what they would do uhwith it as the memory keepers of
the lore and whatnot.
So the reason why I was askingabout the poetry thing is if

(01:19:24):
there was, then we could usethat as a definitive yes or no
for some of these ideas that Ihad put forth for what's going
on there.
Because it's quite clear, eveneven with Snorri, that he he
takes Odin as an example forwhat's going on.
And Odin is explicit explicitlyby him broken up into three

(01:19:44):
different parts of himself.
High, just as high, and mosthigh is what it is in one of his
particular examples for what'shappening.
So the tripartite god in termsof what's going on there.
Well, the tripartite goddesstheme that I've been trying to
bring up and kind of explorehere.
If we could find that that isthe case for it, then yeah, if

(01:20:05):
we see that that's been provenin poetry, then my my theory
becomes much more plausible.
I'm not saying it is the case,but it's like, okay, now we have
backing up for that, hence why Iwas asking on that particular
front for uh for things with it.
And of course, one thing we doknow is that very clear, that
they make very that Snori makesvery clear is that the way the

(01:20:29):
rules are, you you have to makethings and metaphors, you have
to make it so there's multiplelayers of meaning for what's
going on with it, and that youcan't just like let's say I'm a
I'm a Viking who's also a skullwho was had some ships that came
over uh to to attack us andwhatnot.
I I can't just say the shipscame and attacked us because
it's not poetry for what's goingon there.
I have to use a ferocious thingthat gives a dread of it.

(01:20:54):
Okay, so the sea wolves, well,sea wolves is still a little too
like ships that are coming overthat uh that was what's another
name for the sea.
So I would use Egger's wolves,he's one of the gods that's in
charge of the sea for what'sgoing on with it.
All right, wolves a little toothing with that.
Oh, how would I do with that?
Egger's Frenrer, let's say.
Frenrer is the main wolf thatkills Odin and Ragnarok and that

(01:21:16):
kind of thing.
Ah, it's still a little too uh,it doesn't fit with the rhyme or
meter that I'm going for.
So you keep changing and keepchanging it and keep changing it
when you're writing it toeventually if you don't know the
rules of poetry and you don'tknow like the landscape that
everybody else is used to interms of how they think, in
terms of their religion, interms of that with it, you're
not gonna understand it.

(01:21:36):
It gets so lost.
And without Snori and his thissurviving thing, we wouldn't
understand shit today about theNordic.
We we'd be we'd be back in the1800s still in terms of our
understanding of stuff withthis.
It's not an exaggeration,besides maybe some
archaeological findings, but interms of like the history and
the poetry, we'd be we wouldn'tknow shit without him, and quite
frankly.
And so why I'm bringing this upagain is because I know it's

(01:22:00):
translatable to other Germanicpeoples and that kind of thing,
100%.
I also know it's you knowtranslatable to other
Indo-European groups, it's thesame concept that's there for
what's going on.
You can see this with theGreeks, you can see this with
the various different Celticpeoples that are going on.
They're just as brief examples.
You can see this with what theIndus Valley civilization and

(01:22:22):
the Vedic traditions and allthat, but these people, the Indo
the Indo-Europeans, are separatefrom the Sumerian ones, and the
Sumerians weren't part of it.
So I don't know if that samegeneral concept, I'm not saying
the exact same rules for all ofthem, because they don't have
all the same rules.
We're talking thousands uponthousands of years, but the same
general trends can be applied toSumeria, and if they can, well

(01:22:47):
then definitely have another uh,you know, another way of looking
at things that can really trulydeep dive this for us.
That's why I was wondering ifthere was any such thing that we
knew, even if it's not liketheirs, maybe there's a
Babylonian version that was inlike the library of Anbershapal
or whatever, however youpronounce it, and that kind of
stuff that survived that theyclaim came from.

(01:23:08):
Okay, maybe it's not 100%accurate, but we know some parts
of it are definitely going to beaccurate, so you get where I'm
coming from.

SPEAKER_01 (01:23:13):
So yeah.
No, they they gave us verylittle methodology, intellectual
methodology.
They clearly had intellectualmethodology, but it seems to
have either not survived or morelikely been purely oral.

SPEAKER_00 (01:23:32):
That'd be my guess is the second uh second one, the
oral tradition for what it is.

SPEAKER_01 (01:23:37):
Yeah, I don't know, but no, it's there's a lot
there, that's for sure.
I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 (01:23:48):
I'm looking through and again, this might be my own
bias of pulling from so manydifferent sources that I'm using
techniques that you can use inone field that don't necessarily
apply to this field.
You get where I'm coming from?

SPEAKER_01 (01:24:00):
Yeah, I mean it is it is Semitic poetry, which has
its own and I mean the Sumeriansare not Semitic, obviously, but
the Akkadians and Amorites thatmost of it filters through is
Semitic, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:24:14):
And then the Sumerians and of course the
Semitic peoples did end uphaving where the Indo-Europeans
did come and influence them atsome point.
We know that.
So we do know that at least saya couple steps removed from
Sumerian stuff that's come downfrom us, it is possible that

(01:24:35):
some of those archetypes andsome of this we're talking about
is completely there, which iswhy I ran with thinking it's not
impossible.
It's not impossible.
If it's impossible, I wouldn'teven know that thought.

SPEAKER_01 (01:24:46):
Yeah, the the Indo-Europeans come in end of
the Middle Bronze Age,basically.

SPEAKER_00 (01:24:53):
For those of you can you give a time period for
people who aren't familiar withthat?

SPEAKER_01 (01:24:57):
Um you're looking at about 1600 BC.
Uh plus or minus a couplecenturies.

SPEAKER_00 (01:25:05):
I couldn't remember exactly.
I was putting it around4,000-ish years ago to 3,800
years ago.
So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:25:12):
Yeah, it's and and by then a lot of the archetypes
in the broader Mesopotamianmythos have solidified bunt.
That doesn't mean they don'tshare archetypes, either because
of some deeper underlying, moreuniversal human traditions, or
yeah, or just because humanswrite the same kind of stories

(01:25:36):
all over the place.
Both of those are options.
Aliens are, of course, alwaysthe third option.

SPEAKER_00 (01:25:43):
Uh I mean I I but I'm 100% convinced that there's
other intelligent life forms outthere in the universe.
All right.
It would, it's justastronomically improbable we're
the only ones.
Okay.
It's just like there's nothing.

SPEAKER_01 (01:25:59):
Oh, for sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 (01:26:00):
I just don't think the only question is whether
they came here and did anythingthat like influenced our society
or not.
That's the only real questionfor what's going on there in my
mind, uh, for what's happening.
And if they're still visiting ustoday, let's say, you know, that
type of deal for what it is.
You know, for all we know, we'rejust a fun experiment for them

(01:26:22):
to see how their owncivilizations came and arose and
that kind of thing.
Or we're the insane asylum ofthe uh galaxy that everybody
comes and checks out becausethey're all well past where
we're at, and they don't have alot of these wars and problems
that we still have, and they'rejust like, well, when are they
gonna figure it out?
When are they gonna figure itout?
Like we're a giant Truman showfor them or something.

(01:26:43):
I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 (01:26:44):
I'll bet they're taking they're taking bets on
all of our wars, probably.
How much are the Assyrians gonnaexpand?
I'll bet you 50 global credits.
I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 (01:26:59):
I don't know.
I don't know.
I I do know that there arecertain mythologies that are
very, very clear that yes, therewere these alien beings that
came here.
Extraterrestrial,extraterrestrial, we'll say.
Does that make them physicalbeings, though?
Because extraterrestrial, in myuse, it's could also mean from
another realm or dimension, andso they could have been

(01:27:21):
contacting spiritual entitiesand whatnot.
That's the other part of it forwhat's happening.

SPEAKER_01 (01:27:27):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 (01:27:29):
There's there's a lot of depth there, and I mean
it's not the main focus, butit's fun to think about a little
bit.

SPEAKER_01 (01:27:39):
Yeah, I say we don't have any methodology from the
Mesopotamians, but like I talkedabout last time, we the one
methodology that we do get fromthem in their commentary
traditions is so esoteric and soalien to how we think of things

(01:28:01):
that it just baffles, as far asI could tell everyone who
studies it, where they chop theword up like I was doing with
that into these etymologies.
But it's not just etymologies,it's not straightforward.
I mean, there there is astraightforward layer of these

(01:28:24):
etymologies, but then it getssuper esoteric, and it's like,
what's going on?

SPEAKER_00 (01:28:33):
And you can forward me the information regarding
that, or it doesn't have to belike the act, like the actual
like PDFs or whatever, but likewhere I can grab that.

SPEAKER_01 (01:28:42):
So I can't I think I might even have that.
It's there's a a cuneiformcommentaries project put through
by Yale.

SPEAKER_00 (01:28:53):
Because this would be something that could help
either prove or disprove mycurrent thoughts, you get where
I'm coming from, if I coulddeeply study it.

SPEAKER_01 (01:29:01):
Oh, yeah, and I haven't actually looked at it in
because you know they're Iassume they're continually well,
I say they're continuallyupdating it, but it looks like
they might not have updated itin a couple of years.
But I'll send it to you.
I'll put it down in thedescription box for anybody else
who is interested in cuneiformcommentaries, because they do

(01:29:26):
get interesting to say.

SPEAKER_00 (01:29:28):
Do I need to know cuneiform at all in order to
understand it, or do they put itin modern English for us?

SPEAKER_01 (01:29:35):
At least some of it is translated.
How much is translated?
I don't even remember.

SPEAKER_00 (01:29:42):
But yes.
At least some of it is I can goin and look at the material
that's available there and belike, okay, is this still a
possibility?
And if I see that there'sconnections there that I've seen
with other traditions that I'maware of, and be like, yeah,
this is still a possibility,then I can keep running with the
theory.
If not, it's like, nah, I'mcompletely wrong.
I'm I'm Insane person, let'smove on.

(01:30:02):
Well, it's like what I talkedabout before with the guest
inana thing, where it was like ayou got inana, and obviously
that's very simple, it's stillthe other character with the you
got guest guest, which meansear, and if you take the symbol
from it and whatnot, thesymbolic understanding, it means
wise.
So therefore, you got wise inanafor what's happening there.
Maybe there's more to it.
I'm just talking about thesimplicity that I remember off

(01:30:23):
the top of my head for that, andand that kind of thing.
So if you do all that, okay,great.
You already know that there'ssome connection there for what
it is.
What's true, what's not, that'sa different story for what's
going on with it.
Again, this is not necessarilyhow the Sumerians would have
done it, but this is definitelyhow the Babylonians would have
done it.
And the Akkadians and stuff likethat from that time period, if

(01:30:46):
I'm not mistaken, correct?

SPEAKER_01 (01:30:49):
Possibly.

SPEAKER_00 (01:30:51):
But like I mean, like how they would have broken
it down, the the cuneiform part.
Not not necessarily that that'scorrect, but that's how they
would have done it, right?

SPEAKER_01 (01:30:58):
Yeah, that's I mean that's thank you.
Yes, it's sort of like it's sortof like if we had one history
textbook from nowadays, and it'sjust a Marxist history textbook.

(01:31:22):
And then a thousand years from,you know, like if if a thousand
years from now, archaeologistsare looking, how did people
nowadays do history?
And all they have is one Marxisthistory textbook from communist
China, and they're like, oh, themethodology was to assume this

(01:31:42):
grand system that that predictedall of everything.
And it's like, well, that was amethodology in use in our time,
but it's not the only one.
There's all the other ones.
Right.
There's this whole that that'sthe hard thing with making too
many generalizations.

SPEAKER_00 (01:32:00):
I'm not trying to say it's a generalization, I
just want to make sure that I'mnot so off-kelter that it isn't
even a methodology for that timeperiod.
Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 (01:32:08):
It is, yeah, definitely.
All right.

SPEAKER_00 (01:32:10):
So my theory can stand at least for the subset of
people minimum.

SPEAKER_01 (01:32:15):
Yeah.
Yeah, it's at least one way ofthinking about stuff.
And there's just yeah, there's alot going on there.
Probably take more than a lot ofpeople.

SPEAKER_00 (01:32:26):
We'll say at least from the esoteric group of
people, the more mysteryschool-oriented tradition group
of people for what it is.
What I'm saying is definitely aplausible explanation.
A plausible explanation.

SPEAKER_01 (01:32:40):
It's definitely possible.

SPEAKER_00 (01:32:42):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:32:45):
I think we've done more on Dumasid than most people
ever bothered to.

SPEAKER_00 (01:32:52):
I would agree on that, at least from what I've
seen.

SPEAKER_01 (01:32:57):
Yeah, I think I've gone.

SPEAKER_00 (01:32:59):
To me, I I feel like I you and I are just kind of
scratching, I wouldn't say thesurface, but like just below the
surface and what that there's somuch more that could be talked
about here.
You know, if you look at it fromlike uh the iceberg perspective,
most people take the top five,10%.
I feel like we've gotten tomaybe like 20, 25% or something
like that.
There's still another anotherall these other little details

(01:33:20):
and elements that we're likenowhere near touching and that
kind of stuff.
Because we're not uh we're notdevoting our lives to this one
specific topic like some peopledo, so yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:33:30):
No, I th I feel like to get deeper into DumaZid, you
would need to look at magic andritual, which is not ever
something that I've reallyspecialized in.
And I don't actually know Idon't know how much DumaZid

(01:33:51):
ritual there is.
I'm not an expert on it, but Ido I can't remember seeing too
much Dumasid magic in thevarious things I've read.
But I would say that would bethe getting deeper would be
that.
Yeah, I would say getting deeperwould be looking at Dumasid as

(01:34:14):
it relates to practice.
Um because this is all this isat the mythic and archetypal
level, and praxis would get youfurther, and then it would
reinforce your mythic andarchetypal understanding, or
does it and then it would yeah,and then it would that would

(01:34:36):
feed on it would feed on itself.
I don't think it would dismantlemuch of what we have, too much
of what we have, but that's howyou would go further, and I'm
not equipped to go furtherbecause I'm not gonna sit there
and read magic because it'sboring.

SPEAKER_00 (01:34:56):
Hey man, depends on the magical system.
That's all I'm gonna say.
That's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 (01:35:00):
Mesopotamian magic.
Mesopotamian magic has the magicpower to put me to sleep.

SPEAKER_00 (01:35:07):
No, when on on that on that notion of things in
terms of the the magical systemidea and and whatnot, it's it's
quite clear that there arecertain traditions that are
like, whoa, that's fascinating,and that kind of thing.
How does that work?
And you know, regardless whetheryou believe in it or not, it's
just like, huh, that's reallycool.

(01:35:31):
On that front, though, therewere pockets that have been
reported surviving in in Iraq ofthe Dumasid cult up until the
1800s.
So it might actually be verypossible to reverse engineer
that a lot more than say someother traditions that didn't

(01:35:54):
survive past a certain point atall.
We also know that in general itsurvived uh up until the 1100s
and that kind of thing, and inlarge swaths.
So in this instance, there's alot more written from other
traditions, too, that could be aglimpse that could give us all
the way back down into thatsystem, much more so than say

(01:36:15):
other ones where it's like,yeah, we don't have a chance of
actually re redoing this, wejust don't.
It's all more or lessspeculation for what's going on.
It's not like a livingtradition, say like Shintoism or
uh Hinduism or something likethat, where it's like, okay,
maybe it's changed somewhat overthousands of years, but there's
enough here that we can go andfigure out what has changed, you
know, from the texts that areleft and whatnot.

(01:36:37):
So I, you know, I'm not sayingI'm gonna do that.
That's not something I intend todo.
I'm not saying I won't do iteither, but it is something
that's at least plausible to do.
It's not impossible.
Like some of the other stuff.
It's like, yeah, let's let'sbring back a resurrect
resurrected tradition that'sbeen gone for thousands of years
that we know next to nothingabout.
Say, like a mystery schooltradition.
Now, some of them you can't,there's lots of evidence for

(01:36:59):
them on the archaeologicallevel, and even some written,
but other ones, like, there'snothing, there's literally
nothing, you know, like theOrphics as an example.
There's way more on them becausethe Orphic hymns than say on
some other ones that wrote downliterally nothing, and all we
have is archaeological stuff andmakes that way it's way more
guesswork than than other ones.

SPEAKER_01 (01:37:16):
So at least in Mesopotamia, we still find texts
every day.

SPEAKER_00 (01:37:21):
Yes, so yeah, because they wrote on clay, so
we can at least we can stillwrote down so much that we're
grateful for that that we canfill in a lot of history for
what's going on.
Thank you for for you guys doingthat stuff, and unlike other
places where it's like, man, Iwish there were so much more.
The guys are interesting.

SPEAKER_01 (01:37:43):
The moral of the story is if you want something
to last, carve it in stone.
And stone carving tools are notexpensive now.
You could do it in yourbackyard, write whatever you
want on a big old rock.

SPEAKER_00 (01:37:58):
No one's gonna last potentially thousands upon
thousands of years, and youcould become even more just like
the person who made a complaintto somebody else from the
Sumeria that's that way today,and it was probably one of it's
the oldest recorded complaint inhistory that we have of in terms
of writing a review for theirproduct.

(01:38:20):
Yes, that's the you could dothat too.

SPEAKER_01 (01:38:24):
Yes, write up that that mean old bully from high
school, say this guy's a bully,he's a terrible person, and
people will remember it, peoplewill find it someday.
Yeah, that's the joy, that's thejoy of of the the ancient stuff

(01:38:46):
is that some of it's so strangeand some of it's so very human.

SPEAKER_00 (01:38:50):
Human.

SPEAKER_01 (01:38:51):
It's uh oh, it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 (01:38:53):
Some things never change, other things are like do
change, and it really showcaseswhat are what's human, what's
what's what's constant, andstuff, and other things are
like, man, that was justcompletely bizarre.
That's gotta be just situationalto them, or that or that time
period.

SPEAKER_01 (01:39:08):
And yeah.

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