Forbidden Knowledge

Unveiling Ancient Symbols: The Labrys, Earth Goddess, and Shifting Spiritual Paradigms

• Nathaniel Heutmaker

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In this Bonus episode Nathaniel Heutmaker shares a a recording that he sent to his mother as a gift. It is a sneak peak into other topics that will be brought up on this podcast and the deep significance of symbolism. 

What if the ancient symbols that shaped human spirituality still have a profound impact on us today? Unlock the secrets behind the double-headed axe, or Labrys, and its deep-rooted connection to the Earth goddess, predating even the rise of Indo-European culture. We'll uncover how early societies intertwined kingship with the divine feminine, seeking to maintain harmony through ancient rituals. Discover the transformation of symbols like the Labrys and the enduring concepts of Mother Earth and Father Time that have withstood the test of time.

Join us as we trace the rise of patriarchal societies and the decline of matriarchal traditions, influenced by the spread of Indo-European culture. We'll explore the significance of the Earth Goddess cult in Turkey, its ties to Minoan civilization, and the myth of the Minotaur. Learn how patriarchal forces co-opted female power symbols and delve into the often misunderstood practice of tantra, revealing its deeper spiritual meanings. This episode invites you to explore ancient teachings and their relevance in today's spirituality, challenging conventional wisdom and sparking a deeper understanding of our shared human heritage.

Speaker 1:

However, if you were a really bad king, you would just be flat out killed. So being king was not necessarily the best position to be in and whatnot because you had to do a very good job. This was not about power if you were king. This was about choosing who the people believed to be the best for them in order to appease the earth goddess. So I wanted to tell you this in person whenever you got the gift, but, based upon your timeline of not having time to talk to me until you get back in February, I will have to do this voice recording instead, which I think in a way, works out better, because then you can always refer back to this voice recording whenever you want to have more information about the gift that I'm giving to you. And so what it is is a pendant. It's a double-headed axe known as the Labrys, and it has a lot of significant meaning, both completely separate from the Indo-European groups, which includes the Vedic tradition as well as the Nordic tradition, but also is part of that and goes back way before that. So I assume you're familiar with the Venus figurines, mainly because I think the first person I ever heard about them from was you, and so we will have to start there in order to make the story that I'm fitting everything into make sense.

Speaker 1:

And the Venus figurines there are actually older ones than the ones that have been found that are between 35 and 40,000 years old. Most mainstream scholars do not like to talk about them because it completely destroys their worldview and it goes against all the evidence of which they have anything to do with whatsoever. To my knowledge, the oldest one that has ever been discovered. That is controversial, but only controversial due to its age, not because of any techniques that were used to date it or any of these other things with it. I forget exactly the location from it, but it was somewhere near the Caucasus region and whatnot of 800,000 years old. Even if they don't like that one, there's another one that was found in Morocco that was 350,000 years old, and both of these are older than the accepted time frame for humanity being as Homo sapiens, one by about 50,000 years and the other by about 500,000 years, by about 50,000 years and the other by about 500,000 years. And so this is very telling. Because even 800,000 years ago, we as a species not necessarily as Homo sapiens sapiens, but as some earlier version of it, you know, even had some idea that the Earth was a goddess and that she was the one that gave us everything that we needed and all that other stuff and that she was the most important being that there was of any sort whatsoever.

Speaker 1:

You might be wondering what this has to do with the double-headed axe. I promise we'll get to it, you just have to bear with me for a moment. And so she is still talked about to this day. We call her Mother Earth or Mother Nature and whatnot, and so kernels of story and understanding of things that go back a minimum of 800,000 years from an archaeological record standpoint to this day is rather insane. This would make it the oldest known kernel of story, as well as viewpoint, if you will, spiritual viewpoint, that there is point, if you will, spiritual viewpoint that there is period. And so the great goddess, as she was referred to, as is the one that's in charge of everything, and she is the originator of everything and gives birth to everything, and we all go back to her, no matter how you look at this and whatnot, and she's the one that had power over dominion of everything.

Speaker 1:

Fast forward to about 100,000 years BC, so 102,000 years ago. You get the first known double-headed axe, also known as a labrys, that shows up somewhere in Greece, and it is a symbol of the great goddess. She's the one that wields its power, and the reason for this is because it has a multitude of meanings. So, first off, it's double-headed because she's the one that dictates between life and death, so she gets to make it so one side is life and one side is death. On it it kind of seems to form an infinity symbol.

Speaker 1:

But it also has to do with the moon and the crescent and timekeeping and all that other stuff which actually, just to be clear, all ancient time periods that I'm aware of when I've studied this, the sun was originally a goddess, the moon was originally a god, and then only when patriarchal societies came in to those regions, wherever it was, did it become reversed. Even in certain patriarchal societies it never became reversed. A perfect example of this is Old Norse society, where the sun goddess was the one that was still there and the moon was still a man, even up in all the way up through Viking times. Even so, it has to do with the marking of time and all that other stuff. Our ancestors used the moon as the first marking of time before they figured out because they could see the phases of it go through that that didn't actually work out correctly and it was the sun that we needed to do with it and whatnot. And then they made calendars based upon both and they have a lunar and solar calendar. That has been going on. You know, most people use the solar today, but there's still aspects of the lunar that we use, even in modern times, having to do with, you know, certain dates like easter, as an example in western culture, um, and then there's southern. That's the same way for them, and china, india uses it, the. You know, jews use the calendar.

Speaker 1:

Anyway. This is where you get mother earth and father time from, because he was the one that was in charge of the time of things with it in the beginning, for where it was, and he's up in the sky and this is where we get the sky father idea from. So that's part of what's the double-headed axe represents. Yeah, it also represents, um, the labia, which is part of the reason where it has its name, for what it is, and it has nothing to do with sex for what's going on there, although kind of does in another way. It has more to do um with the shape of the folds of the labia, which is partially where that comes from, but it also has to do with the fact that the mother goddess, is the one that gave birth to everything, and so where birth comes from is from a woman, of course, and it comes out of her vagina, and this is where it is, and you get birth to everything else that comes into this, for what's happening, and so it's a representation of the cycle of birth as well. So birth, death, reincarnation, all are tied into her power.

Speaker 1:

The double-headed axe also represents the two-folded path that can be taken when you die. On one side, you would make it so that way you could go through the reincarnation process again and whatnot, and on the other, which is the soul. This is the journey that basically all entities, all souls, took on one side or another, but on the other side, you would make it so that way, eventually, you could go and reach a version of enlightenment, and it makes it so that way. What happens is that there's a whole world of stuff that's surrounding this, which I'll touch on in a moment for how this plays out. Four things but at some point the great goddess became supplanted and she's the one that lost the double-headed axe and it became a male deity that took it over, and it became a male deity that took it over.

Speaker 1:

We see this in India in the Vedic texts, and we see this inside of the Nordic traditions. We see this inside of the ancient Indo-Iranian traditions or what's going on Greek traditions, etc. And it has to do with a group of people that you probably know as the proto-indo-european people, but most people today either refer to as the kurgan people or, more frequently now, with modern scholarship, the yanmaya people. These people came from around the black and caspian seas we don't know exactly where, although we're narrowing in more and more with DNA and other evidence that's coming from it and that kind of thing. They had a Earth Mother and a Sky Father and whatnot, and they came into being in terms of their language that we understand it as today, around 8,000, 10,000 years ago, and then they started to spread out to the rest of the world. About half of all spoken language, about half of all the speaking people today, excuse me, use a language from the Proto-Indo-European group of some sort.

Speaker 1:

So this should show you their power and influence, and the reason why they had this power and influence has to do with the fact that they were able to do a few things that they were very good at, and this led to a diaspora from them and a complete reshaping of an entire world forever. The first thing they were very good at is horse taming. They were the first ones, as far as we can tell, to actually be able to tame horses and use them. If everything else you're doing is on foot and another group of people is on horseback, then in terms of movement, they win. That's how they were able to outpace everybody and move out everybody from one thing to another. That's thing number one. Thing number two is they were very good warriors. Now, you don't have to have the best warriors. If you have more, you can still win. But if you have warriors on horseback versus warriors that are not on horseback or warriors that are a mixture of horseback and not, then you you know that already helps out a lot with you too. And number three, which is probably the most important, other than the horse part, we've combined the whole horse part idea. That's good for what's happening.

Speaker 1:

They were very good at farming. This is a very key point, because not only were they allowed to spread everywhere, they were allowed to stay where they were at and be able to continue to grow things. So if you've got good farming, you've got good horses, you've got good warriors for what's going on? Well, of course you're going to go far, you can travel far, you can maintain your population once you get there, because you can do the farming and whatnot and you can fight any resistance that you might find on the way. And so they started to spread all over and along with them, their culture started to spread all over, and then they started mixing with things. And so this is why you start getting the male-dominated thing that starts coming into being, because the male-dominated side of things is from their culture.

Speaker 1:

Beforehand, most cultures were either matriarchal, which was kind of rarer, meaning that the women were in charge, or they were kind of having nobody in charge, meaning neither male nor female. They had maybe different gender roles that they took on, but they were equal in power and they just played different roles based upon what their society needed. And, of course, a lot of societies even allowed for, um, what we would call today gender differences that would go through one side of the other and whatnot, and play roles in between, etc. Although they were rarer, not because of the fact that there was anything wrong with it, but because their President Hall ideology promoting it today. It was just something that if you were that it happened naturally and if you weren't, then it didn't happen naturally kind of idea for what's going on Now, you know. Kind of like a transgender idea, although the people didn't go through the actual physical process of doing so in any way, shape or form. It was more gender roles that had to do with it, although some people did because of diseases and things like that. Not important for my discussion. I'm just letting you know that this was all over the place and that has to do with the gender identity, which will make sense for what I'm coming back to in a moment.

Speaker 1:

Um, and so the earth goddess cult. Don't take that in a negative way. The word cult like it is today, it just means people who believe in the earth goddess and whatnot. That's a different scholar uses it differently than how modern people do, and they were in the area of Turkey and they had an area that was there that was devoted strictly to her. These people moved 20 miles away from where there was water or anything else in order to do their art and to create artwork associated with her and all this other stuff at the about the same time that the yamaya group, the proto-indo-europeans, came into being. But they couldn't stay there if they wanted to continue to do stuff with her, and so they left and they went to a different area and whatnot, and they eventually ended up, uh, and what we know today as crete or, and the minoan civilization, which is where we get to see all the double-headed axes show up there more, and you also get to where you get, the labyrinth, and so both of these things are directly associated with her.

Speaker 1:

And there's other labyrinths that have been in existence that are associated with her too. Another one is in Egypt, as an example. Most people just don't talk about it or know of it. There's other places that are done with the labyrinth too, because it has to do with the searching for um, one's soul and whatnot, and to make sure that you get into contact with it and make it so that way you become one with it and align with the overall over soul and become enlightened and go to the other world and grab it and whatnot, which is also what the thread thread of destiny that's used when he goes in and the hero goes in and kills the minotaur.

Speaker 1:

The minotaur is a half man, half bull, uh, idea. And you have to slay the bull, representing the assuming, representing your ego here, and she is helped by a female figure that has given the thread for him to be able to find his way into the labyrinth, which represents multitude of different things. That, since it's red, it represents the bloodline, but it also represents, um, the fluids that come out during the certain time of the month and whatnot that make that happen, because it has to do with when people would be at their highest fertility, since this has to do with birth. Again, to a certain extent it's taken from the name that's going on with it and she's. The threads also have to do with the threads of fate that have been done for a long time, and so this is kind of where this civilization culminates, with things with it.

Speaker 1:

Eventually, because of what happens in menorah, crete, due to a climate disaster, the volcanoes and other things with that, they have to leave there and they go into other parts of the world. But at this point the entirety of things has become patriarchal, instead of it being free for where they're surrounded by with it and eventually the cult is lost after so many thousands of years and whatnot. However, it still survives directly for stuff with it. So the male powers took it over. We see this with Thor's axe that he has. It's double-headed and it has to do with her power and he actually comes and it literally represents the life force. You see this happen in the Vedic tradition with Indra. The Sky Father takes it over, or one of the Sky Father gods does, and he uses it and he uses it as his command and power with his thunderbolts and whatnot. And this is true of all the proto and I mean of all the indo-european gods that they take her power, they take her, they supplant her and they make that happen.

Speaker 1:

Now, I don't know if this is true in other cultures that are, that are indo-euroEuropean of some sort. I do know that it happens in other places, such as Egypt, as an example, but they were never part of the Indo-European group. But I do know, in two places specifically, that the goddess tradition was still very much alive and that they could not get rid of it and they had to make certain concessions to it. The two major places that this is the case for is the nordic world and the vedic world and their traditions, and in the Vedic tradition there's a goddess that's called the great this and she, all of the goddess. There's all these other goddesses that are after her, but they're all just emanations and elements of her, and all the gods even go back to her. And I bring this up because the Disir, which is Nordic, and the great Dis or Dasana in the Vedic traditions are directly linked to one another, not just from cultural but also etymological roots and all these other things that go along with it. And so there was a great goddess inside of the Nordic tradition as well, and this makes it so that way inside of it that she used to have power.

Speaker 1:

And the tradition and texts that survive to this day mainly the Poetic Edda, as it's called it is very clear when you start reading it that the female powers were the ones that were actually really truly in charge of things and that the male gods were not to be trusted to a certain extent and whatnot, but they still had their own power for what was going on, and that the people who wrote the Edda, they were somebody who was the last survivors of this particular cult, even Stori Storsson, who was the final person to write any poetry regarding this stuff in the 1200s. He said that there was a cult of Freyja which I don't know if that's the actual dis itself or not inside of the Norse one with it, although it's highly plausible that it is because her name means the Lady Sovereign or the Sovereign Lady. So it could be that that's the case with it for her, although there's evidence that there could be other ones. Uh, two, it's kind of hard to tell because they're all emanations from each other, but anyway, uh, that it was still alive even though christianity had come into power in iceland, uh, and completely wiped it out. 200 and something years after the conversion to Christianity, they're still being practiced and this book survives because these people keep it hidden away from authorities for over 400 years. Now that the new Christian religion, at least new to Iceland, is no longer threatened, most people aren't practicing stuff. There might be some folklore and folk traditions that are still there, but they're mainly Christian now in terms of their overall worldview.

Speaker 1:

Somebody brings the book out, hands it to a priest, who ends up sending it and shipping it back to the king of Denmark, because Iceland is under the control of Denmark in this era, in 1647, when the book is finally released, and what also ends up happening is that the book survives because of this, and it's the only real source that we have that's of other than a handful of poems that survived and other sources. It's the main source that survived, that has all the stuff inside of it, and it has to do with the goddess cult. I bring this up because, interestingly enough, during that same time period, within a couple years, the water in Denmark had finally gotten down to a lower level where a temple to a great goddess to the great goddess again, in this case Nahalena had finally been revealed. And so the timing of it for both of them coming together kind of, is interesting for what's going on. And so, if we go back to the Vedic tradition, for what's going on, you know they believe in oversoul, for what's happening and whatnot. The male tradition of it is Brahman, but in the female tradition, which is by far the older tradition not even a contest for what it is, at least in terms of its roots it's the great Dasana and everything that comes from her, and she presides over life, death, rebirth, everything that's going on with it, and she's the one that has all the power. She's the one that has all the power. And so why am I giving this to you? Well, because obviously, part of it has to do with your own belief system, your own traditions that are going on with it, the Vedic slash Hindu traditions. Part of it has to do with what I'm studying now, of course as well, but it also has to do with your trip to India and the funeral rites that you're doing while you're there.

Speaker 1:

With it. It's a symbol of eternity, it's a symbol of reincarnation, it's a symbol of life and death and rebirth. It's a symbol that has to do with the power of the earth, goddess, the original goddess that everybody believed in at one point. Um, because we all go back to mother earth. This is why, in the text uh, regarding buddha, when he becomes enlightened and they, he says the earth is my witness. He's saying that the mother earth, the being that gave birth to all of us, is a witness to it. And part of this one part I didn't really touch on too much is part of the sexual aspect of things with it, and I'm not talking about just from a birthing part, I'm talking about another, actual sexual aspect of it. This is where the Hyros-Gamos idea comes from. There's a couple variants of it, but I'm just going to give two major categories with it here.

Speaker 1:

It has to do with the Sky Father and the Earth Mother coming together, and so you see this in various different rituals that have to do with the king, and the king has to be selected by the great goddess, who is represented by some sort of priestess, and there's a ritual that goes along with that. And in ancient times, if you were a king and you failed at your job as a king, the best you could hope for is that you would be removed as king because you originally were elected it doesn't matter where this is true everywhere that we have records for and someone else would be put into place for you. However, if you were a really bad king, you would just be flat out killed. So being king was not necessarily the best position to be in and whatnot, because you had to do a very good job. But this was not about power. If you were king, this was about choosing who the people believed to be the best for them in order to appease the earth goddess. To make it so. That way she uh had abundance and for crops and fertility and for life in general and whatnot. And it was believed the king was injured because he was in a relationship with the land and represented the land, that the land would be harmed, and so they would need to get a new king to be in charge of things with it.

Speaker 1:

And then the other one has to do with another version of the Hieroscamos and it has to do with the male and female coming together in order to make it so. That way you can have the power come into being for yourself. And there were these things called bridal chambers that people would go into and they would have to go through this initiation. And in order to become initiated into these mysteries with it, you would have to find your soul again with it, and this process is described as having a sexual union with your own soul, so to speak. Now, in certain traditions it's if you're a woman, it would be that you're looking for your husband. Still, in other traditions it doesn't matter. It's always a woman that you're doing things for. But it still has to do with the soul being found, illumination, enlightenment, going into the other world and discovering things with it.

Speaker 1:

And originally the great god is for stuff, for what's happening. So this is how we get a version of it in terms of seeking it out. That seems to kind of this is where you get a version of it. That makes us that way. It's corrupted and everything to um where you get tantra. Now, it doesn't mean that you can't find stuff through tantra and whatnot, but they seem to have misunderstood some of the uh teachings that was going on to make it so that way.

Speaker 1:

Uh, it wasn't so much about actual physical sexual union, that it had deeper meanings behind it, and there's been other issues that go along with that for what's happening, and so there's stuff that fits that side of it too. If you have any questions regarding this, we can probably talk about it more when you get back. But this is the symbolic understanding, the meaning, the history and the power of the gift that I have given you and whatnot in terms of its representation. Anyway, I hope that this has been interesting at least, and that you understand why I did it and having to do with the funeral rites and the control of things and giving the spiritual illumination afterwards and all the other stuff that goes along with it and the power of the great goddess and how she was supplanted and everything else along with that. Have a safe trip to India, and I will speak to you again in February. Thank you.