UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

Lying within Thiruvananthapuram, in Kerala, India, is a grand structure known as Padmanabhaswamy Temple, with the name derived from the word Padmanabha, meaning “One emerging from the lotus.” Dating back to at least the 6th century and steadily renovated throughout the 16th century by the Kings of the Travancore Royal Family, it is one of the 108 temples of Vaishnavism, or the worship of Vishnu, one of the main deities of Hinduism. Indeed, the lavish temple prominently displays an enormous statue of Vishnu depicted in an unusual reclining position upon the five-hooded serpent Anantha, or Adi Sesha, with the whole thing measuring 20 feet square and carved from a single vast slab of stone. This is already quite a grand place, with its unique architecture, its massive statues and ornate sculptures, and copious amounts of gold leafing and a gold plated exterior. It also holds a dark and ancient mystery that has remained unsolved to this day, and mysterious doorway that has remained sealed for centuries and leads to the unknown.

Padmanabhaswamy Temple has featured heavily in lore and literature, especially within Sangam Tamil literature and poetry, where it was often depicted as having once been a wondrous place full of vast riches and with walls crafted from gold, and known as one of the the richest temples in the world. Yet in addition to its sheer splendor, it is also a place of great mystery, with its exact year of founding unknown and much of the complex unexplored or kept secret from the outside world for hundreds of years, and in recent times it has been found to be even more impressive and mysterious than it already was.

Padmanabhaswamy Temple

In 2011, the ancient temple was finally explored more thoroughly after long being mostly closed off entirely from the outside world by the secretive royal family of Travancore, and it was found to house 6 massive sealed underground vaults, labelled A to F, and all closed off with ornately designed solid iron or granite doors that were locked tight and seemed to be utterly immovable. It appeared that they had never been opened by the priests of the temple, and it was completely unknown as to what was there in the ancient darkness beyond. At the time these doors and the mysterious vaults that lie behind them captured the public imagination, and the media watched every new development carefully as preparations were made to enter and catalogue the contents of these forgotten places. Much speculation swirled at the time as to what would be discovered within, with ideas ranging from that they would find mere dust and bones, others who surmised they held unfathomable riches, and others still certain that they held curses or even the secrets of the universe. Nobody knew as crews began trying to open them.

Getting the formidable vaults open would quickly prove to be easier said than done. Starting from vault A it was immediately apparent that these were protected, forbidden places not meant to ever be opened, and very likely intentionally sealed for the rest of eternity, and it took nearly a full day of nonstop effort with modern equipment to pry the first vault open, which held within it a vast trove of treasure beyond perhaps anyone’s expectations. There glittering in the murk were jewels, coins, gold and silver bars, solid gold idols and figurines, diamonds, gemstone encrusted artifacts and ceremonial garb, ornate jewelry, over 2,000 pounds of gold coins, and a massive gem and diamond studded golden throne. One of the members of the government committee sent to oversee the project would say of the breathtaking sight:

When the granite slab was removed, almost absolute darkness prevailed behind it – it was diluted only by a dim ray of light from the doorway. I looked into the black pantry, and I saw an amazing sight: like stars shimmered in the sky on a moonless night. Diamonds and other precious stones flashed, reflecting the faint light coming from the open door. Most of the treasures were stacked in wooden chests, but eventually the tree turned into rubbish. Precious stones and gold simply lay in piles on the dusty floor. They were not really arranged systematically. There were baskets, some earthen pots, some copper pots, and in all these things, these things were kept. It was a magnificent experience. There are no words to describe it. I have never seen anything like this.

Other vaults in the temple would prove to be equally as hard to open, yet also bursting with mind-boggling amounts of lost treasure, until an estimated $22 billion dollars’ worth of loot was eventually catalogued from the vaults, all thought to be the result of the accumulation of thousands of years of donations and gifts to the temple and its deity from Kings and dynasties across the land. Yet for all of this amazing wealth uncovered, although 5 of the vaults were opened, one remained stubbornly resistant to all efforts to disgorge its secrets. Vault B, also called Bharatakkon Kallara, is unique amongst the others, considered to be a Holy repository closely associated with the Deity Vishnu and with an exceptionally sturdy solid iron door lacking any nuts, bolts, locks, knobs, or latches, and adorned with the image of two gigantic cobras on each side denoting it as a special and sacred place indeed, and it is not even included in the official temple inventory. Initial efforts to open Vault B met with failure, and indeed its secrets remain sealed away to this day.

There are many strange stories, rumors, and legends associated with the mysterious Vault B. One is a legend that states that the door is impossible to open by any earthly means, that it had been in fact sealed by a mystical spell and mantra that could only be undone by the one who had cast it or an equally powerful priest. If a proper counter spell called a “Garuda Mantra” is uttered, it is said that the door will magically unlock and open to disgorge its secrets. Additionally, anyone who tries to forcefully open the door is rumored to be cursed for trying, and that to actually force it open is to flirt with unimaginable catastrophe. Indeed, it has long been rumored that many of the original committee tasked with trying to divulge the chamber’s secrets have met with freak accidents and misfortune, further bolstering the idea that the vault is cursed.

Another persistent rumor is that the vault is protected by a spell called a Naga Bandham, or “snake binding spell,” which is said to conjure up the protection of serpent deities. According to this tale, anyone who tries to enter the inner sanctum of the chamber will incite the fury and wrath of these snake spirits, and there is one unverified account of this in action. In the 1933 book Travancore; a guide book for the visitor, author Emily Gilchriest Hatch describes a harrowing incident in which some people visiting the temple tried to pry the vault open in 1931, only to find it crawling with countless venomous snakes that sent them running in terror. In this curse, it is said that a particular set of soundwaves at a specific frequency is to be aimed at the inner lock mechanism, which will supposedly disengage the curse and open the door.

Yet another rumor is that the door to the vault issues forth the sounds the crashing waves of the sea, leading to the idea that it is attached somehow by a secret tunnel to the ocean. According to this story, opening that door could very well unleash a catastrophic flood that would inundate all of Kerala, and that it is best left untouched. In every one of these scenarios we have curses, misfortune, death, cataclysm, and deadly snakes, but while these may just be legends the fact remains that Vault B has never been opened. What lies within it? Some say that it holds a treasure the likes of which the world has never seen, and there is also the theory that is contains tomes of magical and esoteric knowledge, but no one really knows. The only one said to understand the secret of this mysterious locked chamber is Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma, the head of the erstwhile royal family of Travancore, and he has vowed never to reveal it.

The soundtrack of Indiana Jones is playing in you head now, isn’t it? For now, the mysterious Vault B of Padmanabhaswamy Temple keeps its ancient enigmas buried within it, and it is one of the most heavily guarded and monitored places on the planet. Here heavily armed guards and state of the art surveillance equipment keep watch on it and the other vaults, although despite this it is estimated that millions of dollars’ worth of treasure has “disappeared” from here since it was made known to the outside world, and it is even believed that Vault B may have very well been raided in past eras through some as yet undiscovered subterranean tunnel. What will happen if this ancient place is ever opened? Will we find treasure beyond our wildest dreams, or curses, cataclysm, and black magic? Can it even be opened at all by any means we possess? We may never know.

Throughout human history there have been those mysterious books, artifacts and relics said to hold some sort of vast powers or mystical knowledge. History is steeped in such tales, and there have been many who have spent their whole lives trying to find these lost artifacts. One such item that has managed to elude clear understanding is an ancient text etched upon stone, which would go on to become one of the most influential manuscripts on the practice of alchemy and a basis for much occult knowledge, but which remains buried in the mists of time. It is an item of alleged great power, holding secrets of magic, alchemy, the human mind, and possibly even the universe itself.

One of the cornerstones of early alchemy was a mysterious tablet said to contain a vast trove of secrets of magic and the universe and which would go on to become one of the most revered and sought after pieces of magical documentation in all of Western Occultism. Referred to variously as the Smaragdine Table, Tabula Smaragdina, or more commonly simply the Emerald Tablet, this elusive object is said to be one or even a series of rectangular green plaques, onto which are etched various symbols and inscriptions that spell out all manner of magical knowledge, in particular having to do with alchemy and the transmutation of matter from one form to another, as well as the method for creating the legendary Philosopher’s Stone and for manipulating the very matter of the universe itself. It is even said to hold the secrets to transforming one’s own consciousness and attaining a sort of enhanced conscious state and enlightenment.

While the appearance and the secrets contained within are mostly agreed upon, the tablet has a murky history wreathed in the unknown, which has obfuscated its true origins and author. The most commonly cited version has it that the tablet was originally written by the father of Hermetic magic and alchemy himself, the legendary 5th century philosopher and priest Hermes Trismegistus, back in ancient Greece. Hermes supposedly wrote the Hermetic Corpus, a series of sacred texts that are the basis of Hermeticism, and the Emerald Tablet is said to have been his masterpiece. Other myriad theories include that the tablet was written by the son of the biblical Adam and Eve, Seth, that it was discovered clutched in the priest’s dead hands in a tomb under the statue of Hermes in Tyan in the 8th century by an Arabic mage named Balinas, that it was unearthed by Alexander that Great in an Egyptian tomb, or even that it was created by Thoth, the king priest of Atlantis a full 38,000 years ago.

Whatever the case may be, legends flock to and surround the tablet and where it went off to. One common tale is that it was buried under the Pyramids in Egypt, while others claim it was sequestered away within the Ark of the Covenant or that is was returned to the buried ruins of Atlantis. With so many legends and myths spiraling about the Emerald Tablet, it is hard to say who wrote it or when, or where it is now. What is known is that it was first translated into Latin by Hugo von Santalla in the 12th century, and that at least in this version Hermes Trismegistus is credited as the author. It is also known that the alleged writings upon it were highly influential in alchemy at the time, and this makes it all the more curious that no evidence of the actual physical existence of the lost tablet has ever been uncovered. We only know of it from written accounts and various translations, and some of these were from highly influential people, including Roger Bacon, Michael Maier, Aleister Crowley, Albertus Magnus, Eric John Holmyard, Julius Ruska, and Carl Jung, who claimed to have been visited by the tablet in his dreams.

A reconstruction of what the Emerald Tablet might look like.

None of these translations is exactly the same and may or may not be based on what was actually written on the physical tablet, and further complicating matters is the fact that interpretations of what is written vary from writer to writer. Perhaps the most well-known and intriguing of the various translations and commentaries on the Emerald Tablet was penned by none other than the English scientist, mathematician, astronomer, theologian, and philosopher Sir Isaac Newton, who actually wrote a surprising amount of work on the subject of alchemy. Newton allegedly spent much time working with the text of the tablet, and managed to produce one of the more famous translated sections, which reads:

Tis true without lying, certain and most true.

That which is below is like that which is above and that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing

And as all things have been and arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.

The Sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse.

The father of all perfection in the whole world is here.

Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth.

Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry.

It ascends from the earth to the heaven and again it descends to the earth and receives the force of things superior and inferior.

By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.

Its force is above all force. For it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing.

So was the world created.

From this are and do come admirable adaptations whereof the means (or process) is here in this. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world

That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished and ended.

The meaning seems very open to interpretation, but Newton purportedly was very impressed by the knowledge and processes written of on the tablet, and it has been postulated that it could have even had an influence on his theories of the laws of motion and universal gravitation. He is also said to have believed that the tablet contained the literal recipe for creating the legendary Philosopher’s Stone, and that if one could comprehend the text and its intricate, arcane messages and geometrical patterns then they would acquire the ability to fashion the stone. Newton was by many accounts actually quite obsessed with the Philosopher’s Stone, writing much about it, and he believed the Emerald Tablet was the key. He also supposedly found within the text all manner of alchemical secrets, which he believed to be not merely symbolic, but that these were literal processes that could be carried out and performed in a laboratory setting. He would write of the tablet:

I am a skeptic by nature but I have no alternative than to offer subjective support to the claim that the Emerald Tablet has transformative properties. There are other things besides the transmutation of metals which none but they understand.

Isaac Newton

Did Newton gain any secrets from the tablet and did it indeed influence his work? No one really knows. It is all very intriguing, but in the end there is no certainty that any of those who have translated the tablet ever even saw the actual tablet themselves. It seems more likely that they worked with alleged transcripts of the original tablet, and that there is a very good chance that much of the information was changed or corrupted over time and through subsequent translations throughout history. There is also the possibility that this seemingly almost mythical tablet may have never even existed at all, that this is all merely a legend that has taken on a life of its own. Considering all of the conflicting and often confusing information on the Emerald Tablet, as well as the uncertainty over who actually supposedly wrote it or where it came from, we are left with very little that is concrete, and cannot adequately unravel the myth from any possible reality.

We are in the end left with many questions and few answers. Was there ever this mystical Emerald tablet upon which were emblazoned profound secrets of the universe? How did this come to be such a foundation for alchemy throughout history? Who wrote this and where did it go to? What exactly did it contain, and was it literal methods of alchemy and magic or merely symbolic? Did any of it actually work and if so, how? Did the tablet ever even exist at all? The possible answers to this historical enigma are varied, but we will likely not know until that mysterious green tablet is finally found, buried out there somewhere and lost to time.