Rollan's Censored Issues Blog

[On June 26th, against media expectations the Ethiopian Patriarch would only confirm the authenticity of the Ethiopian Ark of the Covenant, denying it would be unveiled to the public. Personally I must admit I have never believed the Ark is in Axum but my article retains validity as regards what it says about factors at work at any time the Ark and facts about it, true or false, would be a public issue]

THE ARK OF THE COVENANT SOON ON VIEW

This Friday at 2pm in Rome the Patriarch of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church will announce that after centuries, even millennia, the hidden Ark of the Covenant will finally be soon open to public display – in a museum and for the time being anyway. Ethiopians believe it must ultimately be returned to Israel as an offering to the Messiah who will rule in Zion. The new policy could thus imply Ethiopian belief the church age is drawing to a close and Christ is expected to return to rule the millennial kingdom. What is all this about? There’s more than one answer.

MESSIANIC SIGNS

In a small corner of an exhaustive study of the astrology of Christ that I should have published for this Christmas I make a very special claim. I propose that something in the data likely points to the mystery of the Ark (recall that Jesus called himself the Temple) but we could only know this for sure at such time as facts (whether true or false) about the Ark come before the public in a major way. Only then would the relevant part of the pattern be exactly affected…. or it wouldn’t. Now that the Ark is suddenly news just what I suspected would be triggered is so - to the day. So, apart from what this may be saying about the Ark itself, events are again proof of having the true pattern for Christ’s birth which is an ongoing predictive tool for Jesus issues across history.

I’ll paste last here the relevant section of my ms, but first some facts about the Ark and whether Ethiopia’s Ark can be considered even genuine.

THE ARK OF THE COVENANT IN ETHIOPIA OR WHERE?

There are many claims and theories regarding the Ark’s whereabouts – underneath the Temple Mount, beneath Golgotha, inside Mt Nebo, put there by Jeremiah and supporters (the apocrypha states as much), hidden around Qumran etc. Ethiopia doesn’t seem too likely especially if one is to put faith in a non biblical story that an alleged child of Solomon and Sheba who became Menelik 1st in Ethiopia secreted the Ark away to avoid Solomon’s paganism. Biblically the Ark appears to have been in Jerusalem well after Solomon and disappeared only before the Babylonian invasion centuries later around the time of King Josiah and the prophet Jeremiah. Josiah assumed the Ark was still in Israel and told the Levites to return it to the Temple (2 Chron. 34:28) from which it had probably been withdrawn during the Temple defilements of King Manasseh; Jeremiah forecast a time would come when the Ark would be forgotten and no longer important (Jer 3:16). Certainly the Ark didn’t get placed in the Second Temple when exiles returned from Babylon and so wasn’t rescued from Mt Nebo if Jeremiah and his supporters ever hid it there. So why the Ark in Ethiopia and is it even possible? It’s just possible in two ways.

It could be that:

a) Jews who fled to Egypt prior to the Babylonian invasion and who made an imitation temple there at Elephantine Island also made an imitation Ark that ultimately went further south,

b) the true Jerusalem Temple Ark fell to the possession of the Ethiopian Egyptian Pharaoh, Necho, with whom King Josiah inexplicably and secretly went to war - perhaps to regain the Ark the Levites never returned to the Temple? – and from Egypt the Ark then went south for protection to the homeland of this Pharoah’s ancestors. There is at least one prophecy in Zephaniah some believe indicates that the latter days will see something precious brought (literally carried as the Ark was carried) to Jerusalem: “From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants, my scattered ones, shall bring my offering” (Zeph 3:10).

WHAT COULD BE THE “REAL” ARK OF THE COVENANT?

It’s also possible Ethiopia hasn’t exactly got the Ark - which should be an oblong box originally containing the tables of the Law, a pot of manna and Aaron’s rod that budded -but something associated with the original Ark.

No one knows what the Ethiopian Ark is meant to look like and even the imitations found in Ethiopian churches for ceremonial purposes are well covered over like the original. However, a strong advocate of the Ethiopian Ark, Graham Hancock in The Sign and the Seal, says what he has seen of an imitation is a tabot, not a box. This makes him think a table of the Law could be involved. I prefer a theory it could be what covered the Ark, namely the crucial Mercy Seat on which rested the cherubim who carried the glory of the divine Presence. Being all gold this would be less perishable than the Ark on which it rested. The Mercy Seat would be an important enough relic even if the Ark is still under Mt. Nebo or has long since been destroyed.

CHRIST AS TEMPLE AND THE CURRENT RELEVANCE OF THE CHRIST DATA

If Jesus understood himself in some sense to be bodily the Temple and its high priest then the mystery of Temple and Ark should register in his true birth data and it apparently does so. The asteroid, Tempel (German for Temple) is found in his first house of the body and in the same sign and degree it will occupy at the time of Friday’s announcement – an indication if nothing else that, even if false, the announcement challenges Judaeo-Christian belief.

Because the high priest enters to commune with God in the Temple’s Holy of Holies and Aaron was first high priest I long ago suspected that asteroid, Aharon, (also near Tempel in Jesus’ house of the body), held some significance. Exactly opposite asteroid Aharon on the same axis and in religion sign, Sagittarius, I found asteroid, Acacia – the Ark was made of Acacia wood though lined inside and out with gold. I suspected therefore that the axis of 16 Gemini-16 Sagittarius represented an astrospeak phenomenon pointing to the Ark and involving what astrologers call “sensitive degrees” that events can trigger across centuries if need be. Just this happens on 26th June. On Friday as the announcement is made Mercury (any news, and media issues) is exactly conjuncting Jesus’ 16 Gemini Aharon triggering off the sensitive axis.

THE ISRAEL/TEMPLE DATA

Earlier this year astrologers were speculating on what the very spiritual conjunction of religious Jupiter with mystical Neptune and wounded healer Chiron would bring us. It now looks like it includes issues around Temple and Ark. In Israel’s 1948 foundation chart, asteroid Tempel falls in Israel’s sector of the land and what’s inherited and it does so in the sign of shocks, surprises and controversies, Aquarius. The mentioned “spiritual” conjunction presently falls across Israel’s Tempel which is at 25 Aquarius though it’s specifically “wounded “ Chiron that most nearly conjuncts Tempel. An ancient wound and loss of Israel’s coming to light!? But this pair is also conjuncting asteroid Jeremias. Might this be indicating Jeremiah is somewhere too ignored within current claims?

The time of announcement is wonderfully descriptive in more ways than I can describe here but Libra, sign of Laws, rises for the 2pm announcement and at that on what’s called a critical degree, 13 Libra, and one that happens to be very important in Christ’s natus. For medieval astrologers this degree in Christ’s natus would have included The Part of Rumours True and False - which seems relevant enough here.

I am troubled about true and false in this case. The mentioned Jupiter, Neptune, Chiron conjunction because it includes ambiguous Neptune opens the possibility of some illusion. Asteroid Israel from a hidden place in the announcement pattern is in a difficulty aspect to the important Tempel/Chiron/Jeremiah contact. I am therefore forced at this stage to conclude:

Either the Ethiopian claim will be found to be false

or

It is valid, even if perhaps for an aspect of the Ark only, but something to do with especially Jeremiah traditions about the Ark might yet need to be discovered.

But, whatever the case, it’s likely that:

The stress factor to Israel in the announcement pattern suggests the postponed, prevented or ignored quests for the Ark (a hot political issue because of the contested Dome of the Rock area and some Muslim denials the Jewish Temple ever existed beside the Dome or anywhere) will be resumed with renewed zeal. And I think the proposed Third Temple for which all this could be a crucial issue can be considered very much on the way. Remember the current Temple relevance for Israel of the conjunction I mentioned. The day after the first news of the Ark was heard in Rome on 17th June, clerics in Jerusalem launched a debate and plans regarding the re-building the Temple.

MY ORIGINAL JUSTIFIED SPECULATION

The following is what I wrote about two years ago. It’s from a long chapter which considers the position of 350 asteroids in Christ’s birth data, some of the data so remarkable that when I wrote it the following seemed at the time almost trivial by comparison. It’s nevertheless a comment on our times that publishers and agents have been disinterested even to look at any of this controversial research material or will tell you they just don’t nowadays “deal in religion or spirituality”. As a published author and doctor of religious studies I should be given more benefit of the doubt.

(excerpt)
Asteroids Aharon (Aaron) and Aaronson , Acacia and the Ark of the Covenant.
Jesus was not descended from Aaron, Moses’ high priestly brother and upholder of the Law, so we shouldn’t expect vivid connections here and we don’t find them. Aharon is not conjuncting Musa (Moses) while another asteroid, Aaronson is not notable unless in an aspect to Pluto - possibly implying how, prior to Jesus, Israel’s main link to God (Pluto) was understood to be through Aaron and the line of priest sons he represents. Still, the chart is not about Israel but about Jesus for whom Aharon falls in his first house of the body and image at 16 Gemini. Again nothing notable here unless perhaps Aharon’s loose conjunction to the Temple asteroid at 19 whose first house position reflects how Jesus will bodily become the Temple (and is, in his way, high priest identified too). However, materially, Herod’s Temple still stood during Jesus’ lifetime and within the Holy of Holies was a space where formerly stood the now lost or hidden First Temple’s Ark of the Covenant. Made of acacia wood this Ark had contained the two written tablets of the Law (Gemini sign of the Two and of writing), a pot of manna and Aaron’s rod which budded. So the close challenging opposition to Aharon of a suggestively ark linked asteroid, Acacia, and in faith/religion sign, Sagittarius (the challenge of things difficult to believe round Aaron?) is the sort of coincidence to make astrologers suspect astrospeak here and that 16 Gemini/16 Sagittarius could be a degree axis permanently sensitive to issues round the ark. If the ark is discovered, or if the Temple is rebuilt in our times, we might hope to certify if such is the case.