Etymology Of The Word "God" ~ This Is Amazing

I just happened across this, and found it interesting with specific reference to PGM-inspired “assumption of godforms” and also out-right LHP theogenesis:

god (n.) Old English god "supreme being, deity; the Christian God; image of a god; godlike person," from Proto-Germanic *guthan (cognates: Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Dutch god, Old High German got, German Gott, Old Norse guð, Gothic guþ), from PIE *ghut- "that which is invoked" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic zovo "to call," Sanskrit huta- "invoked," an epithet of Indra), from root *gheu(e)- "to call, invoke."

But some trace it to PIE *ghu-to- “poured,” from root *gheu- “to pour, pour a libation” (source of Greek khein “to pour,” also in the phrase khute gaia “poured earth,” referring to a burial mound; see found (v.2)). “Given the Greek facts, the Germanic form may have referred in the first instance to the spirit immanent in a burial mound” [Watkins]. See also Zeus.

Source: etymonline.com

NOT “all powerful sky man who sends people to hell” - not “being who demands worship, and grovelling”…

That which is invoked, called, poured into, immanent within - implying pre-Christian users of the term may have had a concept of godhood (single or multiple, and it probably varied as much within a tribe or village as we personally do here) that was about the vital moment of interaction, and not a proper name for a specific being.

It’s as major as the difference between the proper name Mark, and the verb mark, as in, “I marked this with ink.”

Personally, I think this is a game changer: I’m definitely not a linguistics expert, nor do I pretend to be, but the things described there (call, invoke, pour into, immanent within) are all so close to the magickal and LHP concept of godhood, that I’m quite astonished no-one has mentioned this before?

It also confirms my belief that the desert troll-spirit went round acquiring any and all terms of power and made people believe that they were names belonging exclusively to itself, a bit like if someone made every domain name in the world point to the same web content.

If this is the case, then it makes me wonder if that is possibly true for the words demon and nephilim… Spirit and fallen ones… Being a magickal act or state, in addition to entities. Like a critical point in how the energy flows into and around you when you tap it. Perhaps it is also a state of awareness and ability to act from that state. That really is an important difference from traditional notions of “god”. Nice!

I love etymology, but you have to understand that sometimes knowing the etymology of a word doesn’t quite change its meaning, necessarily. Because Yahweh originally existed in Hebrew, there are some ideas that are incapable of translation. Eloheim doesn’t mean god, per se. Eloheim is a title for a group of 72 beings called Elohe who rule over a part of the earth, Elohe most closely relates to the idea of the summit of power. The Jews wrote Yahweh as the chief of the Eloheim because he did what no other God had done in the Exodus. He went into the territory of another Elohe, defeated him, and brought them out. At least, that’s what the Torah says which was written about 800 years after the fact, and certainly not by Moses.

These things get lost in translation. It’s a pity that no one knows. I can read ancient Greek, and ancient Hebrew I’m sorta kinda half fluent in. I would love to read and understand the Quran in the original Arabic, or the Gitas in their original Hindu, or learn ancient Chinese dialects and read the Tao te Ching and all the other ancient oriental scriptures. To read, to understand, to learn.

The Greek concept of God is a lot like our own, though most of the titles are used as a reaction to the emperor. The New Testament builds Jesus as a new emperor, ruling over a different kind of kingdom that is renewing the world. Jesus is kyrios and theos, but those are titles of Caesar. The original Christians were radical in their proclamation.

Every language has an inner context, and things that don’t translate.

Yes, we can never know with absolute certainty what ancient people thought.

My argument in favour though is that some experiences are universal, like the joy of music, love of children, of sharing food with others, things like that, and the words which are the origin of the word God are so closely tied to the widespread experience of magick, as discovered by people from all belief-systems, and none (and by no means exclusive to people with LHP views), that the parallel is striking.

That got somewhat locked down into the belief you called demons and commanded them by the authority of an external god, or that magick as a whole was evil so you’d better just pray and hope, but the PGM for example have sections about identifying with the gods that perfectly fit the “pour into/invoke” thing.

So that’s my proposal for why this is important. But obviously, lacking a time machine, one can’t ever say for certain. :slight_smile:

Experience is the best teacher :wink: with that being said though… there are a vast array of personal experience going on… perhaps the belief of we are “God” experiencing itself holds some value…

I wasn’t saying that this particular discovery of what the pre-Christian Germanics understood about reality was wrong, in fact, I agree with it. I was just pointing out that the original idea of god from a Judeo-Christian sense has been warped by time, and translation. And how the concept of god in the original sense has been swallowed up by the modern concept.

I was agreeing with you, but from a different angle.

I didnt know anyone on the forum could read ancient greek. Were you preparing to enter the priesthood through a seminary? My religious teachers in school were pretty much required to learn the ancient greek and hebrew. Thats actually pretty neat.

Can you cite a reference for there being 72 Elohe? Because that would have pretty cool implications concerning Goetia and the Tetragrammaton.

Yes, I can read ancient Greek and Hebrew, not completely by myself but I have many resources if I find a word I don’t know. I learned Greek when I was at Bible College trying to become a pastor, that didn’t work out so well. I self-taught myself Hebrew.

72 Eloheim, each one is a Elohe. 'm is a suffix that makes a noun plural. 72 Elohe is like saying 72 Apple. It doesn’t make good grammar.

But, yes, I can cite references. It goes back to the fact that the original Jewish people were very much henotheists. They considered Yahweh to be unique, and the head of the Eloheim, but they did believe in a council of 72.

So, first there are four main texts we have for the Old Testament. The earliest document we have is the Masoretic Text (MT), which is the current Hebrew Bible in use by the Jews, this has undergone massive change. The second earliest document we have is the Vulgate (Vul.) which is the Latin translation of a 3rd century Hebrew Old Testament. The second latest document we have is the Septuagint (LXX) which is the Greek translation of a very old manuscript of the Hebrew Testament and has various changes between it and the modern MT. And the oldest document we have are the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) which are crazy old.

In both the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls documents of the Old Testament Deuteronomy 32:8-9 says, “8 When the Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God [DSS says sons of God]. 9 And his people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, Israel was the line of his inheritance.” So, Yahweh, according to this verse, set the bounds of the nations, and each nation got an angel of God (or a son of God) to rule over it, except Israel, which got Yahweh (kind of). And we know from Genesis 11 that after the flood there were 72 nations, and that’s what Jewish literature tells us is how many there are, mystically speaking (there’s also a lot of crazy connections with that number itself, but we won’t go there).

So, Psalm 82 has a bit in it about the Eloheim, I’m going to zoom in on only a couple of verses than the whole Psalm. This is my personal translation from the Hebrew. Psalm 82:1, “1 Eloheim stand in the congregation of El; among the Eloheim, he judges.” And then verse 6, “6 I said of you Eloheim, you are all sons of the Most High [Elyon-Kulakem].”

So, the Eloheim are described here as sons of Yahweh, though likely mistakenly. Similar language is used in Psalm 58. Them being described as sons of God are curious because in Genesis 6 when the sons of God mated with the daughters of men and produced Nephilim, shit hits the fan. (As a random aside, demonic spirits are not fallen angels, they are the spirits of deceased Nephilim.)

So yes, we have the 72 nations being allotted to the sons of God. We have the sons of God having a council. And lastly, Daniel 10. In this chapter, Daniel is praying and fasting for three weeks when a man appears “His body was like topaz, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude (Daniel 10:5-6)”. This man says that he would have come much sooner but he was delayed for three weeks by the “Prince of Persia (Daniel 10:13)”, but was helped by “Michael, one of the chief princes (Daniel 10:13)” (Jewish tradition considers Michael to be the chief angel guarding Israel). Later, the man warns Daniel that soon the “Prince of Greece (Daniel 10:20)” will join the Prince of Persia to make war again Israel.

So, yes, this is the basis of the 72 Eloheim.

It doesn’t connect neatly the the Goetia because Yahweh is one of the Eloheim.

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Ashtkerr this is very interesting.According to Lobsang Rampa books each nation has a manu-soul-overself and he states that they’re something like rational angels.I’ve found this term also in Dion Fortune’s books.
The greek translation of the word elohim is something like the verb ‘‘ελοχευω’’ which means someone who’s watching-lurks.
He also says that elohim were the watchers who came to earth with their shiny vehicles to watch over the new race of humans…
Then according to Enoch the elohim were not spiritual beings because they were mixed physicaly with the womens of earth and the race of Nephilim was born(giants)…

Sorry for the ufo-alien thing again.Just some food for thought.

Yes, that ties in very nicely to concept of exceptional mortals being very capable of arising into godhood, which was a major high-caste (priestly-warrior) function of the kinds of sacral-sovereign elites that were often buried in actual mounds within the Aryan (Indo-European if you’re squeamish) cultures speaking all of the languages mentioned, at least in their most primaeval times (that we know of).

Following on that, to be well and truly pedantic I must stress that these etymological meanings only -do- carry weight within those cultures that spoke those particular languages (or are related to the hypothetical ‘proto-languages’ preceding related languages) - as a magitian, I profess to understand the language(s) we speak to be indicative of the extent of ‘reality’ (realities?) that we can grasp.

For instance, I’ll bet that the (non-IE) Ancient Aegyptian word for ‘god’ bears a completely different set of underlying associations, and I for one would be very interested in knowing them since they were (to my knowledge) the first known civilization on this earth to highly structure the Ascent of their rulers as gods (in my UPG the physical and metaphysical structure of the Pyramid is a sign and a template in this). Likewise in common with many early civilizations they shared similar views on the signifance of language to mine, and Thoth was said to be the instigator of language as a magickal expression. Well, just food for thought.

The final part of this post should be prefaced with a major UPG ALERT because it is purely my personal and highly subjective input on the final paragraph of the OP, and since I had the main dream inspiring it (I’ve been working with Nyx and several of her children in succession lately, especially in terms of gaining insight even while I rest) the night before seeing this thread I want to at least include it in case the synchronicity provides some little inspiration to someone or some someones who might need to run across it. If you don’t feel like this getting any weirder, please stop here. :smiley:

Once again, UPG ALERT: the information to follow is at its most relevant only within the events and patterns within my individual life and those most immediately close around me, especially how they may present themselves in terms of ‘cosmology’, ‘Weltanschauung’, or ‘big picture’ - even I myself don’t think of them as literal absolute truths the way many so-called prophets have done with theirs. To my belief, they are -signs- and -symbols-, little refractions of the even bigger picture that our own limited attempts at rationalization then attempt to assign meaning to (sometimes more than is due) - they are -one- single angle or side of the thing to view, and not truly indicative of the whole - often I feel that I just perceive what I’m currently able to, no more, and I do not ascibe absolute Truth to them but only what I’m capable of understanding and acting on at the time. I believe true inspiration is to be a living and growing thing, not codified in some withered and arid book of the dessicated desert. So much for UPG. If you’ve read this far already and have had about enough of me not shutting to hell up and finishing my overlong sentences, I also beseech you: turn back - before it’s too late!

A couple of more things might need a little clarification to the casual reader (is there such a thing, that will make it all the way through?) before launching into the vision itself. First, there will be some mention of a ‘Śaktic principle’ given the convenient masque of ‘NYX’. This bears out a Tantric-informed conception of our universe that has stood up well under the scrutiny of my particular experience of testing the bounds of this thing we inhabit. The extremely simplified mangling of this elegant metaphysical understanding might be summarized as two principles - a regally static masculine embodiment of Form that we might call Śiva gravitating in the direction of a spiritual principle, and a powerfully active feminine embodiment of Energy that we might call Śakti gravitating in the direction of a material manifestation - eternally creating the Kosmos through the ‘dynamic tension in ascent’ of their sexual union. Just as ‘Śakti’ itself is nothing more than a convenient name (a masque) for a broad principle echoed so aptly in von Goethe’s ‘Ewige Weibliche’ in the conclusion of his Faustus, so is ‘NYX’ in my own UPG, a particular ‘form’ through which my mind can best, at present, grasp contact with this ‘Śaktic principle’ (just as the masque ‘Óðinn’ has proven my mind’s best grasp of a greater ‘Śivaic principle’). Does this make them absolute, “objective” truths? Of course not - they’re furtive glimpses from where we humans whirl and spin in a solar system that you just may realize along with me to be a very dark corner of a smoky and noisy room. Which does not, in my experience, disqualify them from manifesting as very personal and personable entities to some of us.

When I say that this is my third vision of this entity, I reveal it alone for what I think are good reasons. The first vision was beautiful, breathtaking, glorious in storm and stress as it was in scope and scale - but baffling and mysterious on all but the most vague and distant implications - in other words, useless, at least right now. Pretty pictures and a wonderful illustration of what the human mind can connect to, but not practically good for anything other than yet another apocalyptic vision useful only for being misunderstood and re-interpreted by every religious imbecile too lazy to have their own experiences. The second was eminently practical, but by and large very personal - I will briefly return to it at the end of my account of the third vision to present a final curiosity, but the entirety of that vision is not exactly ‘for the public’ just yet. Which leaves us this, and the ‘practicality’ of even this one, I imagine, will only be for a few. But even if it speaks to just one…

The following is quoted from my journals, and will be a bit rough but, believe it or not, briefer than it would be otherwise because of this:

"This is the most recent of a few visions I’ve had about the ‘Old Testament God’, that I personally have ended up calling Ialdabaoth just to keep my preferred distance. I do not personally go for the title Demiurge any longer, because like Lady Eva opines in her OP I have come to (currently!) understand his role as not truly creating even in a demiurgic capacity but trying to absorb, lie about, and take credit for pre-existing things which he encounters, all as a part of some disturbing gluttonous psychosis to always engorge on more and more, which I’ll explain ahead for anyone actually interested. This thing (I have rather old-fashioned standards of manhood, and think that the male characterization has been about as truthful as anything this entity has presented to its dupes) has displayed to me the ambitions of an usurper, and it wants to become a true Monotheos - it wants to destroy and scatter and suppress other gods, depending on their strength relative to the Pretender.

"I haven’t really fixated on this ‘issue’ in the past, I’ve thought Gnosticism was an elegant classical attempt to make sense of Christianity but didn’t really think of any of this Middle Eastern stuff as anything to spend my precious time on, it really wasn’t important to me other than when the beliefs of the masses have affected my plans. But, and again this is only my personal gnosis, this has been presented to me as an issue, and that by some very powerful gods in their own right, many more powerful than Ialdabaoth (and much as I don’t care for the fact, my recent UPG obliges me to admit that this Middle Eastern Monotheos is certainly powerful and utterly without scruple or shame) but still recognizing it as a considerable obstacle to be worked around in this world and this time.

"Last night I saw again the attempting Monotheos, this time in the guise of an insatiably ravenous pig-like beast. It did not create anything truly original, but it rather sought to swallow whole all of existence, dooming whole universes within itself in an attempt to glut itself ever more. Even its eyes were mouths, for no sooner did it have sight of something than it needed to devour it. Indeed, whole universes continued to function in a slow death-throe wind-down within the horrible holy potbelly for, relativistically speaking, vast spans of ‘time’ - doomed nonetheless. In cases of sentient life whose galaxies had been so gobbled, the ‘digestion’ process was often aided by ‘breaking down’ complex life forms into baser, simpler component elements, and true (not fashionable, faux) individualism integrated with high culture was the greatest impediment to this digestive dissolution, which often took the form of a ‘trend’, ‘movement’, or ‘tendency’ among the devoured organisms and their societies that tended to the breaking down of individual and cultural complexity of structure.

"[we’ll call this person Henricus] and I were in one such swallowed star system, with a natural aversion to the trends induced for the sake of complete digestion, although by this point in the dream we had no wider recollection of the vaster picture I described before. Those under the control of the trend to digestion were influenced to try pressuring us to submit to the process they, in all likelihood, lacked true consciousness of. Knowing that we would not be a part of their sickness willingly (though they no doubt thought themselves paragons and arbiters of health, of morality, even!), the group of infected instead invited us to talk to our friend, [we’ll call this person Mattathias]. Warily, we accepted.

"We were led into an area under the control of those wholly devoted to the ultimately-suicidal impetus, and while that space’s material comforts and refined luxuries were displayed prominently for our temptation (I say this not as a pleasure-condemning moralist, but someone who is convinced he saw a trap or a ruse), those who went through the motions of “enjoying” those things lacked to us any semblance of individual awareness or vibrancy of life. Finally, we saw [Mattathias] seated at a table, but much changed. He certainly looked powerful and commanding and certain where to an extent he had lacked those qualities before, in the waking (?) world. He even seemed to retain a degree of individual awareness that the vast numbers of his fellows lacked, although it was strange - the eyes still betrayed just a hint of the personal identity that we knew, but it was as if through the thick haze of drunkenness or fever or pain. He seemed simultaneously in the flush of euphoria and the last ghastly vitality of a nervous illness, and when he spoke it was very disturbingly like something very much else was speaking through him.

"He spoke mainly of how much better off he was now, that placing his allegiance with the ‘only real’ power of the world had easily granted him all that he could have wished for. But it was not truly him, and I did not think anything good had happened to him. [Henricus] and I shared a troubled look, but knew that we had to be very careful here in this stronghold of this unnatural and unwholesome power. I said that we certainly had a lot to think over, and we stood up to leave, maintaining a high reserve. There now appeared to be a ring of other soulless flesh puppets around us, and the one that had delivered the invitation said that yes, we did. They were not going to let us leave, but seemed in no hurry due to their fanatical assurance. At this point in the dream I remembered NYX, and the Śaktic Darkness both superior and anterior to the desolating abomination I now knew as Yahweh or Ialdabaoth. I told [Henricus] that I could secure our escape and began using the Darkness to twist a ‘hole’ through which to exit the trap, but [Henricus] was taken aback and could not believe that following me through this inexplicable tunnel through his perceived reality was any better than the hopeless and horrifying situation in which he already stood at bay. I entreated him earnestly to follow me to safety and actually be able to do something about the abomination, but he continued to balk and refuse, sealing his doom. I escaped, and he did not, as far as I know.

“After this, I was somewhere else entirely, continuing the process begun in the last dream of NYX (a kind of crash course in ‘becoming a [decent] god’).”

Once again, I don’t claim that’s the truth - but I think it is one particular ‘slice’ or ‘angle’ of it, and these slices when received separately and compared together lend themselves to this view, in my opinion, like my initial dream meeting with NYX after first pacting with her (and some other complementary entities, my ‘personal pantheon’ in an ongoing project that I hope to be able to share more about to anyone who doesn’t balk overmuch at my particular degree of insanity), where Ialdabaoth was rather a party-crashing outcast barging into a meeting between the goddess and I as his desperate and painstakingly planned seizure of (obvious/apparent, at any rate) power. In this instance NYX revealed that she was both older and far more powerful than Ialdabaoth, and he did not dispute this or her ability to destroy him: instead he revealed a certain base but practical (for one such as him) stratagem he had enacted, which I should not go running my mouth about publically. NYX gave me a hint (since Ialdabaoth was present) about how to undo this at the right time, and left assuring the Usurper that the bounds of Time extended far beyond his individual Destiny, and when he was no more she would remain, and Existence would not miss him. Angry but consoling himself with the pride of victory, he did not even care when I left, since I was only a mortal, and he planned on being the -ONLY- god.

So you see, I’m not saying that we’re literally in a kind of Matrix consisting of some jealous Jewgod’s stomach - only that that was considered one apt comparison, of many, in illustrating a major spiritual ailment of our world (that some of you may think is not really a bad thing, and that’s fair!) that I was not really concerned with but apparently demands attention in -my- life and Path, at least. The skillful means of the doctrine of the burning house in the Lotus Sutra certainly bears some thought, here.

On this note, using the Devourer as an allegory, the proper method for ‘breaking free’ involves, to my personal understanding, cultivating true individualism (complexity). That alone can serve as a resistance to the allegory of digestion. Actually ‘breaking free’, though (this is still firmly in UPG territory), required the -heights- reachable via a high culture whose primary orientation or civilizational goal is Ascent - and getting back to my peculiar architectural obsession, the Pyramid was suggested to me as a highly appropriate manifestation of this drive, much as the first dream saw NYX telling me that the best way to defeat the Usurper was to become a god myself, and encourage others to do so. Finally, to finish up with making this really weird, this particular bizarre bit of UPG also sees NYX and many (or perhaps all; my gnosis really limits itself to entities that I work with heavily, or when entities are spontaneously presented to me it’s an indication that they are -becoming- important in my work) of the ‘old gods’ as outside this (allegory of…?) universe-swallowing, and (yep, still UPG) of having origins very similar to all of us and (certain of them, at least) to have a passion and drive to make contact with us even ‘on the inside’, to see if some of us will ‘break free’. But I don’t pretend to sanity, only to having some strange ideas to present that may hopefully be of interest or spark a productive chain of wondering among some of you! Don’t worry, I’m not taking any of it literally and opening the doors of my very own UFO cult. Yet?

Since many here are interested in and several practice the LHP, I hoped this might be interesting, as well as its uncanny co-inciding with Lady E’s last paragraph in the OP.

If you actually read this, thank you for your time and patience, and if the OP deems any potential discussion on this in particular as veering too far away from the original intent, it can either be split into another thread or discussed via PM, although I am super super busy with some personal projects right now and will continue being very scarce on here beyond lurking in some of the subfora relevant to what I’m working with right now.

Happy run-ons from hell,
Claidheam

EDIT - For cleanup and clarification, in anticipation of being referenced in an upcoming Bigass Index of UPG and Personal Practice

There are also powerful Godforces that exist hidden transiting Between Ialdabaoth and your own realm. It is part of the same force that led you there and in turn led Ialdabaoth to where he is as well as leading him to you. But such Godforces are difficult to capture with simple names and only Creativity and Evolution could hope to grasp such forces. But to think that there is such forces that could walk in any world, Ialdabaoth was the one thinking he was The Eagle whom swalled such a Force trying to take over as the original (this is the true source of craziness, insanity are those whom try to take place of The Original, as they themselves are lost to themselves)…but little did Ialdabaoth know that by attempting to Devour such a being (partaking of the blood and body of the original) it was he or IT itself that was being Devoured from the Inside out.

Fuck me, this is almost identical to what I’ve been told since I was NINE - so no, as “OP” :smiley: please keep with it, almost ALL my work at this point is related to changing that situation, I’m certain we all see certain details of it that pertain to our own lives in different ways, but basically stuff I was swearing (on the way to school, and calling on Hathor for help that day) to do for “my” gods and spirits, aka the non-Xian ones who actually helped me and supported me, is kinda covered in your post above.

Mind? BLOWN! Cool stuff! :slight_smile:

I would like to thank Claidheam for this post (truncated obviously). I came across it almost a week ago while doing research on yahweh attempting to discover or glean more about just who, or what, this jew/xtian/moozle deity actually was that is worshipped servilely by half the planet.

Coincidentally, my notion of it (yahweh) was straying towards the realm of what Claidheam describes in his post, and his post cinched it all together for me placing a lovely capstone upon my conceptualization of this being as an insidious cosmic abomination, as I called it in another thread.

So, thanks, Claidheam, for making that post. I know you say its UPG and just your opinion, but I think its much more than that.

If one person gets genuinely excited to make discoveries and gain power from some little thing I’ve felt foolish to even try to share, every single banned troll and preacher has been worth it.

Thank you for your kind words about that post, and may you gain wisdom and power both from it.

EDIT - The above post in question now updated for cleanup and clarification, in anticipation of being referenced in an upcoming Bigass Index of UPG and Personal Practice

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