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Randall sits down with longtime friend Scott Engle, a passionate scholar of the Book of Enoch since childhood. Joining them is Scott's friend Jonathan Wickham, documentary filmmaker and author, who recounts their epic 2023 journey to Ethiopia. Scott shares new insights on the Book of Enoch and the ancient Ethiopian traditions that preserve it today. Meanwhile, Jonathan traces his father's footsteps in Ethiopia during WWII—inspired by an old photograph that sparked a mission to uncover what truly happened during his father's 1941 wartime deployment.
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Hello, I'm Randall Carlson, the host of Scrooge to Circle.
Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with an old friend, Scott Engel, and a colleague
and friend of his, Jonathan Wickham, a documentary filmmaker to hear about their journey to Ethiopia
in 2023.
Scott has been a student of the Book of Enoch for many years, and Jonathan's father served
in Ethiopia during World War II.
As a result of finding an old photograph of his father, Jonathan, was inspired to undertake
a voyage in an effort to uncover his father's story during the war about which he knew
very little.
The discovery of the photograph was followed by several years of research in which Jonathan
learned that in 1941, his father was a 24-year-old British sergeant who participated with British
forces allied with Ethiopian resistance fighters to expel the Italian fascists under Mussolini
who were occupying the country.
This alliance was successful in driving the fascists out of Ethiopia at the Battle of
Gondar, their final stronghold.
Jonathan made the decision to visit Ethiopia to follow in his father's footsteps and recover
the story of his wartime experiences.
Knowing of Scott's interest in Ethiopian history and his longtime study of the Book of Enoch,
Jonathan invited Scott to accompany him in a journey to trace the history behind this
little-known series of events and his father's role.
The Book of Enoch is an extraordinary work in the traditions of apocalyptic and apocryphal
literature.
It emerged from obscurity through a number of ancient references that traced its origins
back as far as the 4th century before the common era.
Down to the present day, it has been preserved as part of the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.
Its modern recovery, we owe to Scottish traveler and Freemason James Bruce, who spent six
years in Abyssinia, the former name for Ethiopia, who returned to Europe with three copies of
the book written in the Ethiopian variant of an ancient Semitic language.
Jonathan and Scott's adventure commenced in the immediate aftermath of a bloody civil
war.
The instability still reigning required them to hire AK-47 wielding guards as they trekked
and drove the battlegrounds and sites of resistance, which Jonathan's father took part in.
In addition to a grand history lesson, we are introduced to some of the extraordinary
temple architecture and the modern rituals and traditions that have deep roots into the
Ethiopian past.
Scott and Jonathan share some striking photos and visuals of their travels.
Jonathan's book, Ten Days to Shook My World, Searching for My Father in War-Torn Ethiopia,
which chronicles their adventures is going to be released near the end of March, 2026.
So join us on squaring the circle for this interesting and stimulating discussion that
will also serve as a prologue to later explorations into the history, meaning, and symbolism of
the extraordinary Book of Enoch.
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All right, Scott, good to see you again, ma'am.
Yeah, we go back way back, 35 years maybe, something like that, yeah, and he's still just
as good looking as he was when I met him.
Jonathan, hello.
Yeah, very good to meet you.
Good to meet you, thank you so much about you.
Oh, from that could be bad or good, but hopefully, mostly, most of it was good, right?
Oh, it was all good.
Oh, good.
Okay.
I want, where's my wife?
We need her to hear that.
So today, we're going to be talking with you guys primarily about an excursion you made
in 2023.
That's correct.
To Ethiopia.
That's right.
And how long were you in Ethiopia?
Well, we were there for 10 days, which is how come I call my book, 10 days that shook
my world, although I also am paying homage to John Reed's famous book, 10 days that shook
the world, which is in the count of the October Revolution.
But we were in sense going Ethiopia, it was a troubled place and I actually, I finally
got the sort of go ahead to go there from a friend of mine who was already in Gondor and
he said, you know, come in March.
And so I immediately sent a text to Scott here and said, oh, people.
Yeah.
And I literally, I sent him a text saying, I know this is short notice, but if you want
to find out about James Bruce, search his search for the Nile and how he came across
the lost book of Enoch, this is your chance because I'm going to Ethiopia.
And he said he had all the right buttons and so how long did it take you to decide about
five seconds?
Okay.
Yeah, we got together shortly after that.
I think mainly to just, for me to tell him why I was going, which was that.
So why out of all people, Scott, you guys previously knew each other?
Yeah, yeah.
In fact, you had journeyed together, right?
Yeah.
We went to Egypt further up the Nile, 2000 I think is when we worked out it was on the
tracks of the money.
That's right.
Yeah.
There was a mummy here in Atlanta at the Coloss Museum at Emory University, right?
Scott.
Yeah.
The thought that this was a royal mummy.
And so the question was, well, was that the case and this was that's what the film was
going to be about.
We were seeing it at the time, weren't you?
No, I was with.
That was for Nova.
Okay.
That was for Nova.
Yeah, they were curious about the story.
So did it turn out that the mummy was Royal?
Well, you know, yes and no.
You know, the thought was that DNA was going to provide the answer or a sort of definitive
answer.
But they discovered that getting DNA is out of mummies is a problematic thing.
So ultimately, the circumstantial evidence suggests that yes, this is the style of mummification,
the pose of the mummies got his arms thrust.
It all seemed to point to that.
They did x-rays, which they compared between that mummy and seti the first, which would
have been his father, I'm sorry, his son.
This is Ramsey's the first, followed by seti the first, followed by Ramsey's the second
and the guy we've all heard of.
So where's that mummy now?
It's back in Egypt.
Okay.
It was returned by the Carlos Museum to Egypt.
So you can now see it at Luxor.
So now I would have to fly almost halfway around the world where how many years ago I could
have gone 10, 15 minutes.
You've been over here and seen it every day.
I missed my chance.
That's what I'm getting out of this.
I had my chance and I blew it.
Well, I still have the more mummies over there, so you can see that a look.
But yeah, that was actually a big deal because, you know, Emory immediately agreed to repatriate
this mummy and that made Egypt, the Egyptian and Tiqui's department very happy and that
put Emory in very high standards with them and they were given, I think, a few things.
Yeah, they've had two or, yes and two or, they were given like first bid and where things
would come from.
And so Emory got very good standing with the Egyptian department of intelligence.
Good for Emory.
But I want to backtrack just on, you know, when Jonathan sent me the text about Ethiopia
and, you know, I decided pretty quickly, this is right at my alley, you know, but then
I had to break this to my wife and I said, you know, I told her, you know, I wanted to
go to Ethiopia and she said, you want to go where?
Isn't there a war going on there?
And yeah, there is actually.
But don't worry, there was a ceasefire and everything's going to be fine.
So I had to diplomatically explain this to my wife, Krista, that we'll be okay, but
this is a tricky relationship I should come on.
It certainly was.
But did she come around to support your trip or was it okay?
Yeah, yeah, kind of reluctantly, but she, she, and you're blessing with him.
And she relieved upon your return.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
That's interesting because you guys, I mean, we've got some photographs we're going to look
at here shortly about your adventures over there.
And my impression here is there was very much an adventure.
Oh, it was.
Yeah.
I mean, it started off, the adventure began when I found this photograph.
Yeah, let's hear about that.
Yeah.
It was 2019 and it was June and my mother just died.
Literally, I was on the way over to see her and my brother calls me when I get to the
airport there and says, you know what?
Unfortunately, she's passed away.
And so I was looking through her stuff.
I was, you know, a friend of mine had said to me, you know, you're never really ready
to become an orphan and that's true.
And so I was looking for something.
You have this desire to hold on to something.
And I remembered these photographs I'd seen of their, of my father and my mother, their
wedding.
And so I had this in my mind and I was going through these, it was this old doctor's bag,
you know, the ones that they used to put their sort of stethoscope in.
Yeah.
I visualized it perfectly.
Okay.
And I found these photographs which I knew were around and I started pulling them out
and I couldn't find, you know, the ones and I came across this envelope and these ones
were bigger and I opened it and the first one showed this truck, this military truck in
Africa.
Obviously there's a bearbap tree behind it and the one underneath that is four guys.
The guy in the middle in the front is my father and he's in military uniform and I had never
seen him in military uniform in my life before.
And there he was.
And I mean, I knew next to nothing about his military career because like most, most
World War II veterans, they were very reticent to talk about what happened to them.
Can we look at that picture?
Sure.
Let's do.
I got it right here.
That's right.
I couldn't know.
Yeah.
He's looking at me with this expression, this light rise smile as if to say, huh, what took
you so long?
That was my impression.
And you should also mention you grew up partly in Africa.
That's right.
Well, it's the beginning of the Africa, how my family go to Africa.
Yes.
Yes.
He was newly arrived in Africa.
He was, he was supposed, this is, okay, so he arrived in what was then, what's now Malawi
and is now Naisaland, sorry, was then Naisaland was now, now Malawi, he arrived there in probably
about mid-1941.
To the warhead.
To the warhead.
To the warhead.
To the warhead.
Oh, yeah.
War was happening.
Yeah.
But there, there's, it took me a bit of, sorry, there he is.
That's right.
He's the one in the middle.
When the middle.
When the middle of, that's his arm here.
Looking straight at me.
Yeah.
This is probably in Nairobi, as best as I can tell.
Because it's obviously here.
This is right here.
This is 1941.
This would be, oh right, early in the war.
This would be about September, 1941, as best I can join the war.
Well, as you'll hear, they were going to Ethiopia.
And they liberated the Battle of Gondor, kick Mussolini out of Ethiopia.
And so, Ethiopia became the first country to be liberated from the Axis powers.
And that was ten days before what significant event for a harbor, that's right.
It meant it kind of got, you know, the, nobody knew about it, got about it.
Yeah.
Because it was, and also there was already, Rommel was already in threatening Egypt.
And in fact, Mussolini said to his general in Gondor, you know, it's going badly for the,
for the, for all the allies, you know, Hitler is about to take Moscow.
And already the Japanese were, were, I mean, they had moved into parts of, of, of, of,
of, they're already in China and they were moving into further south.
And then next, next stop is going to be Pearl Harbor.
So it was a bad time for the allies.
It was probably the darkest days of.
So you mentioned Gondor, so let's go back to there and we can see Gondor right up there
at the top.
That's right.
That's right.
And you explained it to me.
Mussolini was trying to take over the entire Horn of Africa.
Yeah.
That's a base.
He had.
He literally had, and Ethiopia was like the last piece of a puzzle.
Well, he, they, Eritrea was Italian.
So they moved into Ethiopia.
In, in October 1935.
And he also went into Somalia, as, well, Somalia was Italian too, but that chunk above
where you see Berbera, that was Somali land, which was a British protectorate and he took
that.
So he basically got all of this right here, this bit further to the right, the gray area
is, is Somali land right there.
Okay.
Let's go to the Gulf of Aden, so he's got all that Eritrea, so this is here Somali land
and Somalia is all there.
Got it.
Yeah, got it.
And so, so the British had to react very fast and they came up from the south from Kenya,
from Sudan, into Eritrea, and there was a third sort of guerrilla force, more, it was
run by this guy, major ord Wingate, and you, who have heard of Wingate, if you've done
anything, anything about action in Berbera, because he was responsible for the long-range
penetration groups that would go and fight behind Japanese lines, that was his, he was
very much a, Churchill liked him because he used to think outside the box and of course
the rest of the army hated him because they thought he was, you know, a loose cannon
literally.
But he pioneered his, his guerrilla tactics in Ethiopia, anyway, that, so the last
area that to be, that was still in Mussolini's hands was the area up in the Highlands around
Gondor, and he was saying to his general there, hold on because rumble is coming into Egypt.
And we can, you know, if he, when he captures Egypt, you know, the whole empire is back
on again.
We're going to hold on to our, our, um, East African empire is what he called it.
So the Ethiopians, though, they rallied, didn't they, they, I mean, they've done that.
I mean, they're, they're known for being warriors when they need to be, right?
That's a very fierce warrior.
That's a very fierce warrior.
A great country that's never been, African country that had never been colonized.
Good point.
Yeah.
For only African country that was never colonized.
That's good.
Except for the brief occupation by the Italians, other than that, and they got kicked out
by your, your dad went in there and kicked him out, right?
Along with the, actually, the coalition, right, the Ethiopians called them the Arbegnotch,
and it means Patriot fighters, okay, those were the groups that formed around Wingate,
and, and, and actually highly Salasi came in with them too.
He'd been in exile in the UK, but he came back, and he actually, so he left Ethiopia in
May of 1936, and on May of 1941, he came back with a, with a, they, they, um, motorcade.
He was in the car, actually, had, and, and some of these troops that, um, the, the guerrilla
troops, they led the way into Alis Ababa, and that left Gondar still to be, to be, um,
overcome.
This is why you guys were in Gondar because you were following into footsteps of your father.
That's right.
Yeah.
So, once I had, the, the first thing I had discovered actually was what unit was he in,
because I didn't know.
I mean, I got that picture, you know, and I knew, I knew he was in the artillery, but I
didn't know what unit it was, and to get, to access to the records in the UK National
Archives.
I had to, that's like the, the magic key, you know, you need to know the name of the,
the thing, that way you can find the war diary and, and the records of the, of the group.
And I, I did find through a history book, I came across this very cryptic sentence where
they were describing the situation in Gondar, and they said that it was a, basically, up
in the north, there's a very narrow mountain, mountain pass, which gets into the city from
the north.
And that's the only road, there are only two roads in Gondar, one is through the north
through those mountains, and there's another one through the south, through equally narrow
passes.
And so they said, we got to have more artillery here, because, you know, we're outnumbered.
And it said that there was a sentence, which said, so there was a pause while they waited
for the 54th N.Y. field battery to arrive.
And I was, I was born in, what was then Nyasaland, and I, I'm the cars, you would have N.Y.
And then a number.
And so N.Y.
It's got to be Nyasaland.
So that's what I knew, once I got that, I could go to the UK archives.
I found the wood diary, and more importantly, too, I found that incredible artillery map,
which you also had, a picture of, which shows where they were on the day of the battle
and what their targets were.
We'll pull that up in a minute here.
Should we, you've got some other photographs, too, from that era, let's pause here for
a second.
Yeah.
There you are, searching for my father in war-torn Ethiopia.
Yeah.
That's, now where is that picture taken?
I think we have that coming up more in higher lands, but we...
That's actually very close to where the artillery battery was positioned.
Over to the picture right is Gondar, and this is on a ridge to the east of the city where
they could...it was A, the Italians were expecting to come there, because I described
there were these other two roads north and south.
This was east, so they surprised them in the end by coming.
They found a track down there, which they could make accessible.
Okay, and in this...that guy...
Yeah, this Scott right there.
I can't kill him.
And there's the village that came out, well, some of the village.
You can also see that there's a couple of guys with AK-47s on their shoulders.
Oh, yeah.
The one of them that's over my left, my right shoulder, is actually the guard that we hired
because as Scott mentioned, the ceasefire happened in November, and we're there in March.
Okay.
If you wanted to go, what that meant was if you wanted to go outside the city, you had
to have your own security because things were still a little fragile piece.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, let's go on.
We'll come back to that guy.
That's James Bruce, and he has an important role to play.
We'll come back to that.
So what do we got here?
So this is them on their way probably coming up, either from the coast into Ethiopia
or it could have been while they were still, they actually mobilized in Kenya first, and
then took a ship round to a port called Masawa, which is on the Red Sea, and from there
it came and drove up to Gondar.
Now this is the very truck that they used in Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Is it really?
No.
Look, to me.
It probably is an American truck.
That's the first thing I thought of when I saw it.
I think that didn't look like a scene out of it.
Okay.
So all right.
So if you go to the next picture, that is your father here?
I don't think so.
I can't tell from here.
Okay.
This is unit in the picture.
Yeah.
So he might have been one taking the picture.
Who knows?
Well, he, this is, they came from him the pictures, so.
Okay.
Yeah.
So this is where we were standing, Scott and I, with the villages around us.
Oh, okay.
That's, that's where that is.
So this is Iber Ridge, and they're pointing towards Gondar, and this is one battery.
You can see four guns sort of going, echelon back, and there must be another one out of the
frame on the left that's pointing in the same direction.
So this is on that map, you'll see two different, different setups, and literally, they came
down there the day before, they came down this track, which we followed them down, and the
villagers, the artillery unit, the 54, okay, they came down the same track that we did,
we followed them down that track.
And I see.
And they had arrived the day before the battle here, and they set up for an event, so was
the Italian shooting back?
No, because they had, the Italians were, they had counted on them either coming through
that pass or coming up from the south, they weren't counting on them coming, and they
had, they had no air cover at that point, so they couldn't see what was going on there.
There were one aircraft that was still functioning, was grounded for those couple of days.
So would these have been considered long range guns in these days?
Maximum range, this is called a 25 pounder, palletzer, and it has a range of up to about
nine miles.
Okay, these guys were about eight miles away.
They were about six miles from that church, which we're going to see later on, Scott
was talking about.
And then nine miles from the furthest target, which was, and those were where the Italian
defences were, and they would be similar groups there, i.e. artillery machine guns.
So your dad foiled the plans of Mussolini, it sounds like.
Hello, with the Ethiopian Patriots, because they always get shortchanged in a lot of these
accounts, the groups who fought on the Ethiopian, all right, what do we got here?
Well, this is that view, which you said you like, the panoramic view.
I think that's what that is, and I think that's what my father took.
So it's on, you go along that road, which goes into Gondar on one side, it has this spectacular
light.
I call it my grand canyon view.
I mean, that's what that sort of, you know, it drops off very severely, isn't it?
You go to this edge of this.
Orlando, with your geological knowledge, what is this, the area of, with the African
rift, what I've heard that term, you would know them, what geologically, this is not the
rift here.
This is not the rift, but I'm definitely seeing some pretty major erosion there, I would
say, and I'm just thinking I'm going to have to do a little bit of research onto the geology
because I'm sure there's an interesting story, no doubt, because that whole region has
gone through some extraordinary changes just within the last 20,000 years, 30,000 years.
The whole North African, you know, the Sahara Deserts, you know, I mean, in the geological
timescale, it's just not even an eye blink, it's just, it was a fairly lush place, 7,000
years ago, and then it was desertified somewhat earlier than that, and then earlier than that,
it was relatively lush with huge rivers and lakes all over.
And so I'm sure Ethiopia was part of that whole shift, because we're seeing the map,
there was a lake, which I would be willing to bet, here we go, right?
That's a lake time.
There it is, yeah, yeah, that was probably a much larger lake once upon a time, and it
looks to me like, what are these, what are these, well, those are the rivers, going down
in the east, up to the northeast there, you can just see it on the top of the map.
So this is essentially a large catchment base in here, isn't it, and all of these rivers
are feeding into it, yeah, and then where is the discharge point that then becomes the
nile?
It's down in the south, okay.
It's the, they call it the Abe, a, b, b, b, and so on, yeah, right there, it comes out,
you can see it coming, well, actually, but for this, there, yeah, that's it.
So it comes out, and then it kind of goes south for a while, and then it curls west,
and goes up, meets the white nile at Cartoon.
And so that's what Bruce was, he was actually, he was a little late, his book is called
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, but he wasn't the first.
Andrew Pais, who was a Portuguese Jesuit, who arrived there in 150 years before Bruce,
he was the guy, he was the guy, he found it.
So now, is it the lake here?
Yeah, that's it.
That's it, right there.
Yeah.
Okay, so it's in the Highlands, so I'm going to do a little investigation here, but I will
bet money that, at one point, this was a much larger body of water, and it was probably
overflow, then, of this lake that led to these huge floods down the Nile at the end of the
last ice age, where it was running 100 to 200 feet above the modern floodplain.
Well, interesting, also, the blue Nile produces like 70% of the flow into the Nile, because
it gets, it's rains that feed that, the rain season.
So this is where it all starts, folks, right there with this lake, but let me get the pronunciation
of that lake.
Tana.
Just Tana.
Lake Tana.
Tana.
Okay, Tana, that's easy enough.
Yeah.
I can even pronounce that.
Tana.
Tana is at about 7,000 feet.
It's what?
Tana is about 7,000.
Seven thousand feet above sea level.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
And the typography that would probably make sense.
And you've mentioned James Bruce a couple of times.
Let's look at him.
And besides the fact that I think he looks like he's wearing lipstick, which might have
been the fashion in those days, I don't know, but he was actually quite an audacious explorer,
right?
Yeah, he was.
You know...
Well, the amazing thing is, do you remember what we discovered at that museum in Gondor?
Yeah, memory items that he had brought gifts to the royal family and
Yeah, there's this amazing pewter dish
With what looks like
Thistles on it and Bruce was Scottish so of course it made sense that this was a gift that he gave
And he actually gave it to
He was called Ras Mikael Sehul and he was actually a
Ras means prince so he was from Tigray but he was actually the guy who was controlling who was emperor at that time
He was the the man in charge in in
The Imperial capital which which Gondor was at that time and so
Bruce was wanting to get on his good side
Because you know, he wanted to have
He actually was concerned that he not get
Kill while he was there, you know, that's always a good guideline when you're traveling. Yeah, so how many years was he there?
He was about about two you got there in 1777 to learn the language. Oh, yeah, actually he spoke
Fluent
Tigrayan
And Geese even which is the sort of medieval version. Yeah
Yeah, now he was he was a real skull. He's a he's a real
What are you calling a renaissance man, you know, he had
Lots of skills. He was a great horseman. I'm just about to ask was your horseman
I just about to ask because I
In fact
The the deal that he made with the Ras Mikael
Sehul he made him an honorary member of the of the imperial cavalry
Oh, he was there and that became his kind of passport to go
Wherever he won. He had the blessing of the of the now there was something that I know
We know that he was a Freemason he there's a record of the lodge even that he was initiated in
Did you want to address that and then I have a question
Which is that
You know, did he arrive in Ethiopian discover parallel system of initiation by any chance
um, I know there are stories about
American and English explorers
Scottish explorers coming to North America and discovering that the Native American tribes many of them had
rituals very similar to the Masonic rituals
um, and I wouldn't surprise me if there were overlaps, but of course, I guess you you haven't
Studied into Freemasonry too much. So you perhaps might have seen something that would have been
Very similar, but not necessarily recognized that it was Masonic, but that's something I'm wondering now
That's fascinating and I
Because you did say that possibly a Templar connection
Yeah, there are some theories about the churches of lolly vella that they detected certain
Templar imagery
But I don't know the source of that. I just heard rumors. I've seen a little
Okay, but
And those were hundreds of years before Bruce arrived, but I'm quite curious that
Knowing he was a Mason and they had a tradition already
In masonry of initiations and you know, I wonder how much in his mind
If you know on the surface he's claimed he was going to look for the source of the blue Nile
But I wonder if he also had some kind of
inner
radar detector that could lead him where
He ended up discovering the book of Enoch
Well, and you know, I mean the legend of Enoch is plays an important part in the Masonic ritual. Oh, absolutely
Yeah, and the whole anti-deluvian sequence
And Enoch's physician within that his connection with Lamack and Methusel and Noah
Yeah, that's all part of this grand mythic pageantry
Which it sounds like from everything I've been learning from you at least some element to that is preserved in the Ethiopian traditions
Oh, well, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, well, I mean he did
Come back with four copies and three three copies. Okay, he found three copies of Enoch
So he was obviously, yeah, I'm sure he's looking for
Did he know enough of geese to like look at that Ethiopian cannon and flip through the pages and go? Oh my gosh
That's Enoch or did he have that some guide? I mean that that is to me a big mystery like to get to the roots of that
but
It's no coincidence in my mind that he was a Mason
There was this Enoch tradition in Masonry and he loved when he'd be called he finds the quote-unquote lost book of Enoch
As he searches for the sort of the blue Nile and that's not the only text he brought back
He brought back these
Extremely valuable Nostoc text they're called it's called the Bruce Codex. Okay
It these were some of the first Nostoc text to be made available to the general
Awareness of you know Western scholars and these that he got he purchased those in and upper Egypt not in Ethiopia
So the Bruce Codex is almost of equal value to the the book of Enoch when it in terms of Nostoc
Scholarship these Bruce code the Bruce Codex is a treasure trove of the first some of the first Nostoc text that
Scholars got their hands on so he brought back
Some really valuable, you know
Things that have just been a treasure for for scholars
Enoch and the Bruce Codex which has these Nostoc text
So again back to you know
Jonathan sent me that text though, you know
When I looked at the text and I see a
door Enoch and James Bruce
And do you want to go with me and boom I'm on that trope
And so I had to get ready, you know, I had a short well like three weeks or something like that. Yeah, it wasn't like I passed the
Yeah, I remember you know that
Negotiations with my wife and then you're we're you're going where yeah
Then I had to do research and so I started diving into okay, so at this point
All I knew about Ethiopia. I knew two things. I knew that the book of Enoch was discovered there and I've been just
Studying the book of Enoch since my youth. I've been immersed in just the whole western as the terror tradition
And Enoch is a big part of that because as anyone knows who's
studying
You know has any familiarity with the western left
As the terror tradition
So I've been studying that book for ages
On and off, you know, not like consistently and whatever
But yeah, that was one data point the other thing I knew about Ethiopia is that rostopharians
Who's your highly salassy the last emperor of Ethiopia and that's always been like what is going on with that
That they literally worship him as a god
And that's all I knew that the rostopharians and then they looked at Ethiopia's like the promised land
high salassy was his god and
And that the book of Enoch does discover in Ethiopia and that's all I knew
So I started doing a deep dive on everything I could get a hold of you know like watching youtube documentaries and on the whole
this
stuff of learning about the Ethiopian church and
and
The traditions in Ethiopia to this day and lo and behold I discovered so many
Yeah, one amazing thing after another like
The Ark of the Covenant every Ethiopian believes that they have the Ark of the Covenant that it was brought to Ethiopia
In biblical times and where no other country in the world has that tradition
the Ethiopian people trace their lineage to
King Solomon
Every royal dynasty of Ethiopia calls or they they're called the the Solomonic dynasty
And that saw how he slassey was the last of the Solomonic dynasty and then they go all the way back
to King Solomon
Where does that come from what does that tradition come from and I started winning all these things
I just kind of blew my mind buddy Ethiopia. I really
Okay, I've uncovered something here
I was not aware of the extent of just this land of mystery and then
Well, you know that that the Freemasons trace their origin back to King Solomon
In the building of King Solomon's temple and the three grand masters. Oh, yeah, who are
presiding there there's that connection right there. Yeah, yeah
Ethiopia and there is definitely a Templar connection now and with with Scott Walters new research and work that we
interviewed a few weeks ago when he was here
really does show that there was a Templar
Masonic connection
two to three hundred years earlier than
Tudasional I'll say that
Established accounts of the origin of Freemasons we recognize because there's legends enough that would indicate that it goes back at least to the middle ages
In the building of the cathedrals and to the time of the Templars
But the problem was is that the Masonic order had to exist in secrecy because of
Charges of heresy. I mean they saw what happened the the you know the fate of the Templars
And so in order to avoid that themselves
They went very secret and was not until like post-scientific enlightenment and
Renaissance that they felt comfortable enough to actually come out of the
Out of the woodwork and consolidate so in 1717 you had the consolidation of four
lodges
In throughout the British Isles that it existed more or less independently and pretty much secretly and in 1717
They came out and consolidated as the grand lodge of Britain
But there's there's there are scattered pieces of evidence like
the initiation of alias ash alias ashmo
in
What was it late mid to late 1600s
and
So and there's other circumstantial evidence that they would have existed back to
The middle ages and their formation of the guild lodges was roughly equivalent or corresponding in time to the
The Templar the formation of the Templar order in the 1100s and early 1200s
But again, what was missing was documentary evidence to confirm that now what Scott brought
Is not confirmation or proof
But it's very highly
Indicative of a connection going back to the 12th or 1300s between the Templar order and between the
Masonic order and the the royal families of Scotland the weens and the
Unless precisely when the churches of lawla bellow were built in that interesting precisely there. Yeah
But but going back to this
National
I don't want to say myth but belief that they trace back to to King Solomon
There the the national epic of
Of Ethiopias called the cover Nagas
Okay, it's written what glory of the kings 14th century 15th century
But it has the entire story of the psalmonic dynasty and how it arrived in Ethiopia and the story goes
You know in the in the book of kings or in the story of King Solomon
And and Queen the queen of Shiva. Yeah, it's just about to ask where where was the queen of she would she for me the open? She was Ethiopia
So all kinds of that is one of the most famous romantic stories and in all of the Bible right and she hears about this wise king in
Jerusalem and she goes with her train of
attendance to
Jerusalem to me this wise man and
And you know and then their romances is in the song of Solomon
You know in mystical Jewish circles that's considered to be the most sacred book of the entire Bible
holistically, it's the key to the whole thing
But anyway, so
A parent the kebren of goss picks up kind of where the biblical story leaves off
So out of this romance they had
Uh, she goes back to Ethiopia and she has a baby
She's pregnant from King Solomon from this
And his name is menileck menileck. Okay, so there's menileck. Yeah
He becomes the the first
Patriarch of the psalmonic royal dynasty of Ethiopia
So every ruler from then on traces their lineage to King Solomon through menileck
Oh, but the story doesn't end there
Menileck grows up according to the kebren of goss the national epic of Ethiopia
At around the age of 19 19. Okay. Yeah
Uh, he he wants to meet his famous father in Jerusalem. So his wife or I mean his mother
Shiva
allows him to go gives him a train of attendance with you know camels and donkeys whatever sets him off and
To go meet his father he arrives in Jerusalem
And he's there at court for a period of time
And do you remember any more details? Well, he basically
He wants to absorb some of his father's wisdom to learn that and he spends about I think about a year from what I remember
And then he basically decides. Okay, I got it
Um, but all these kind of recognitions occur at the court
Then he said he wants to go back to Ethiopia, but he wants to take something valuable with him
and he
Fastens on
The art of the covenant and by then he's he has got he's made alliances with prominent
um
family members key people in the
church hierarchy or
Royal hierarchy of Solomon's house. Yes, so he's going to they're going to go with him and he
He basically gives them the idea. Hey, we want to take the art with us
Okay, and so he let's rather than him be the somehow
He's such a fugue exactly with the arc and they go back
And and this is before and out course the destruction of the temple. Yeah, this is during the time
Yeah, time of the King Solomon
So this is hundreds of years before the destruction. So when the Romans destroyed the temple where they perhaps
Looking for the art. Well, wait a minute. There's two destruction to the time. Right. So the Romans were the second
Okay, this is okay. Yeah, there's what's called the first temple and the second temple. Yeah, the first temple
The Romans didn't exist at this time. Right. This is Nebuchadneus or Babylonians. This is five 79 BC
Yeah, so this is six hundred years seven hundred years before Rome
Yeah, before the destruction of the second temple with the 70 AD. So the Babylonians destroyed the first temple of Solomon
and take prisoners take captives slaves and whatever and
And that's the destruction of the first temple. So there
our
Counter rumors that the Ark of the Covenant was taken at
What when the temple the first temple was destroyed?
But according to the Kaverna Gauss it was taken while Solomon was still alive to Ethiopia
And it was never taken by the Babylonians. Yeah, and then the Ram Hancock goes into all these different legends
Yeah, yeah
And so anyway, so that's how the Ark get arrives in Ethiopia
and according to the
Kaverna Gauss
And interestingly
So one of the churches in Gondor the most famous church in Gondor is called
Debrae Beahan Solasi
Debrae Beahan was another
city in in
I guess ecclesiastical city in Ethiopia
Originally it was built to be the new home of the Ark. Right. Yeah, that was in the video
Right, so but it didn't
The Ark was they weren't going to let it go from that soon
So they brought a replica of the Ark from
Beahan, which was the other the other city
To that church in Gondor, which is the most famous church. I knew you guys visited that church
So we'll be seeing pictures of it here photos. Yeah, okay, and
What's interesting about it is in the
I'm pretty sure it's in the in the 19th century there was a modest
Invasion
Because from Sudan, so the the the modi we know the modi of
Killed Gordon. I've got caught too
This is the one
For a lot for for the faith we're trying to
Take over
Ethiopia because it had been it was Christian. Well, it was also they were in convert all the
Right and and they were allied with
The British too, which meant that they were not
Anyway, they as you said they invaded
Ethiopia and they sacked
Gondor they burned all the churches except for
Debrae Beahan and the legend was that
They were arriving with their torches at Debrae Beahan
To burn it and the swarm of bees came and drove them away
And and that church is is I mean has these amazing
portraits of
Saints of of of of Mary
the whole royal
Yeah, the family though, but interestingly the reason we went there because I mean
I was there to find out
Where my father
Where he'd been in these places and on that
artillery map
Debrae Beahan is marked there
And so I knew that from there we could access there was a path that would lead us to the where the first
Ridge which was to fetch a ridge
Okay, so that's the one
That one there with the square on it. You're right. You've landed right on it
Yeah, and the Debrae Beahan is just
Bit beyond it right there actually those words that you got the arrow on that says Debrae Beahan
So that's where we were and that's where we got our first guards because we were going to go out of
The city so we had these two guys with AK-47s to be with us and to make sure we didn't get into trouble
And so we we walked from Debrae Beahan to where that square is and that looks
It was actually pretty vertical
It was it was a real hike up
And these guys these Ethiopian gods who were with they just went up. I mean they didn't kind of zigzag
It was like there was it was Alamo and Johannes with the two and Alamo was the older guy and he always led and so
You'd see you'd get behind him and he'd be we'd have these
The his his AK-47 over his shoulder like this and he's kind of crumbling up the mountain
And so there we are. This is on
That was actually day three
We arrived day one arrived day two was the the facilitas
Day three we went up there to Debrae Beahan and on to the Feature Ridge and
Is that the day we walked by the funeral? Yes, exactly
So so their target where the Italians were
Hold up was over here. That's one of them. They had four targets. They had that. That's the nine-mile
That's the nine mile and so your father was here. No, no. He's over to the right where it says
You see there you go. Oh, that's okay. That's high by Ridge and you see that dorsid line which goes up that yeah track
This that you can see going all the way up to where the road is right at the top coming across and going off the map
Okay, that's about 13 miles
Just to give you a sense. Okay, and so that's what um
The first day we went to Defeature Ridge in other words the target that they were aiming at the one the first
Square that you pointed at up here. No, no down here. That's it. That's the feature
That's where we went and we found
The remains of the Italian block house there fact found two of them
Um, do you remember when we the first one was kind of almost overgrown and the last one was further down
Which is we found it where the the can and round actually hit the walls and there still holes in the wall
That was debris be a hunt church because when we were at the church the guy the gatekeeper of the church
Um, our guide who we see talking
He's he found out that his father was one of these patriot fighters
Ethiopian patriot fighters and he said that a shell from
From the artillery had hit that outer wall of the church
Churches and Ethiopia always have walls around and sort of like fortresses
And and they took us around and there was this kind of blackened
Part of the wall hadn't been destroyed
So it wouldn't have been a 25-pounder that had hit it because those those shells would have would have
Stroyed that but it could they had some other smaller um
The reason that
They wanted these 25-pounders at my father and the 54th night assaland feel battery were because of the size
They had smaller guns which could be
Taken apart and put on mules and they'd sent some of those and that could have been what caused that
Mm-hmm
But that was so that's where we went up and found the first actual evidence of the uh
Of the Italian defences and I think
We were probably the first people in 80 years to actually
Investigate the battlefield like that
Well, we should probably look at some photographs. Yeah, sure
Like when we go down then we go down that um pathway
That I that pointed out on the map. That's basically what we look at
Well, this is this is
Faciliters castle it's uh gondola was actually the first
permanent
Imperial city prior to that it was a sort of
um
It it was a sort of itinerant courts kind of like um others in
They would move around to different places, but faciliters
Actually built the first
Castle in gondola in 1632 this one here
Yeah, and
Does somebody occupy it or is it what what is it function now? Is it well? It's a you know, it's a museum
It's a museum
Yeah, I mean you can go in and they're the interesting features like they
The king would not have um with them emperor would not have an actual direct audience with the
With with people because they were slightly afraid of them
So he they would there was a sort of he'd sit
um behind this uh
It was like a hole in the wall and he would be behind that okay, so he had some some kind of defense from
um
So it looks like there's some
Ruins or some remnants here of yeah something well
Actually one thing that uh
That
Somebody said was that it it was
British artillery shells that had created that but I think it actually predates
that the the the
The city was um
Particularly this part was in in a state of ruins because it was built in the I mean this is built in the
17th century
It's it would start it to fall apart by then and they
moved the capital to further south
Okay, what's this?
Okay, yeah, now is this near the castle? Yeah, this is this is um
This is Chris quam palace
Chris quam was the palace of the by then she was the dowager
Empress
mental lob
she was um
Her emperor husband and died, but she continued to be the sort of
The power there okay
She was a read she acted as a regent for her son
but this is
supposedly she's buried with
Her grandchild and a child and this is where
James Bruce kind of comes in because there was this um
Uh smallpox
plague when he got there
Is that what got to got them or got this child anyway some of them he she didn't die because of that she she was still alive
But but but he helped he basically just
Said open the windows
Got in some fresh air
So
But there was there weren't one thing that that um
There were this this this is in ruins to quiskam palace and
Initially we thought that that was the furthest target on that map you remember I said the the furthest target
Yeah, nine miles away
We thought that was that's called dunquam and we thought that the the British had got
Ghost quiskam and dunquam confused on their map
That wasn't the case we would find out, but that's that's what they thought
Okay
Um, this is the
This is close to the quiskam palace. Okay, this is actually
Quarters for students who are there for bible study basically they'll spend a couple of more
So this is kind of like the Ethiopian version of a dormitory. Yeah, that's what you
Also, as I should mention
Ethiopian is like steeped in just religion and mysticism. Yeah, they're over 600 monasteries any Ethiopian 600
Active active and let me tell you here. I'm enjoying a cup of organic sumatran coffee right here and every morning
And sometimes later in the day. I will have a cup of coffee and I will sweeten it with about a half of a teaspoon
of
The pure wave energized honey
So this is pretty much what I'm exclusively using as a sweetener now and
There's a number of reasons why I'm really enthusiastic about it. One is it's completely raw
It hasn't been heated. It's unprocessed
So it won't
crystallize also the fact that it's
harvested from an area in Canada that's a very pristine ecosystem
So there's it's been independently tested. I've checked this out. It has no impurities
No glyphosate in it
Which I definitely like and as you know, we've had conversations before we ever met the for our bees people
Talking about the the crisis amongst bees
And how important breed bees are to a functioning healthy ecosystem almost three quarters of
of the food that we eat
Ultimately depends on
Polynesian polymerization by the bees our friend Brent that we interviewed earlier
in a scaring the circle
Told us about his work with electromagnetic fields and found that by using certain geometric configurations
related ultimately to sacred geometry interestingly
Could definitely improve the the life
the health and lifespan of colonies and
reduce the amount of
colony collapse
and then
by using the same
System of electromagnetic fields in this
Energizer hexagonal energizer that uses magnets
in a configuration in a tree of life configuration
They found that they can actually energize the honey and in this energized honey
Is the stuff that I've been using and it's
Seems to be really good stuff
And
And a lot of them are at Lake Tana. They're on the islands of Lake Tana. They're surround Lake Tana
And I know of no other country in the world other than like maybe to that
That has
That is steeped in this just kind of mystical you know culture that's just
Ingrained in the culture you see monks every all over the place these priests and
these colorful robes and
And it was just striking just feeling you know, I've done a lot of travel. I've been the you know
East and West. I've been to Tibet several times in Asia and
and this struck me as as
Comparable
And that's why I think of it as the Tibet of Africa
There's so much deep mystical you know energy and history and
Coming out of Ethiopia with like 600 monasteries. That's that's that's that's pretty large
Kear number, you know, yeah, and it's a poor country and they just have a top priority and and
You know and supporting the monks and the priests and
And keeping that these deep traditions coming. Okay
Okay, well here we've actually
Gone hiking down the trail
It's actually called Sutherland Lane if you look at that okay
But there was this this track that they was just a mule track which they turned into passable to
To trucks that could pull the artillery and so they went down there and this is
Was surrounded by the villagers who came out to meet us
In iber is the name of the village and and the one really extraordinary piece of evidence that we got there when we first met with the
village headman
He said he was we were literally on this edge of this field and pointed over his shoulder and he said this is called
Jambo field and
And
And this is where the the the british forces camped and
Afterwards, I realized that the word jambo does not exist in um harrick
So this was kind of like oral tradition to
Communicating the fact that this is probably the word that they heard because
The troops in my father's unit he was he was a white guy
But he was commanding
African gunners from niaciland now malawi and also from kenya
And particularly from kenya they would have spoken swahili jambo means hello in swahili and so
It's it's the oral tradition preserving the fact that the
The the british
African troops came there okay, that was I mean that just
Struck me as an amazing piece of to what are you pointing out here?
I'm pointing at gondar at their targets
So the ones that we walked into feature ridge
Deva
The one don't quam the furthest one and the last one maldeba those were the four targets that they okay
Systematically took out over the course of the of the day
Yeah
So um, I think you've got we got some pictures of us
With our these are this is back in gondar looking the other direction so that behind those that furthest ridge behind those kids faces
That's where we were
Uh-huh, we're pointing towards this direction. I see. Yeah, we're back in we're basically on the edge of gondar here
Yeah
Large crowd everywhere
These exotic creatures that they probably hadn't seen people like us in years and some of these villages
I don't think they've seen
Tourists or you know white people, yeah, that's pretty much how I've always characterized your sky
So exotic creature
The whole village would come out and just start following us and
you know
It's pretty crazy. It's fun, you know, yeah, okay, that's the we were like this pre-show that arrived on the scene
Well, that was
So this like wasn't a local gang that was about to assault you
No, we just interrupted there
football game
We asked him what the name of the ridge was there behind it to see if they knew oh, okay, and they did
Yeah, you see this boy has a cross right there. Yeah
Okay, oh, yeah, well, this is um
These are a nun and a monk in the
saffron robes
And this was actually we went there during lint and
But they have this this tradition of
Ethiopians. It's you don't fast
40 days straight you get the weekend off or watch so
um and then and they drink this this
alcohol called teller della
And that's what those she's been she was offering us this this is actually the end of our
um hike up to that that furthest target
Uh-huh, we did actually find our way up there
and found the
equivalent of the of the
of the defense fortifications up there that the Italians have built and that was a pretty
um
To me actually that was one of the most poignant moments because yeah because well what it was it realized when we were on iber ridge
Well, this is what my father was and he was firing uh-huh now we were at the target itself and on the map there's this it's written
um
19 fired 19 shells and guns were silenced
And you know silences one of those sort of euphemistic words. What does that mean?
Did it mean that
You know the lack of the shells landed nearby and so the you know the Italians took off or did it was a direct hit
And so you know it was just body parts and
The cannon just destroyed
And that that was to me at least was the most
Like okay
This is where water plays
Yeah, yeah
Is this I think I got early this is a residence the people live in this thing. What is this function of this building?
It is now is that would be a family
No, no, that's the that's the monks quarters. Well, that's the monks quarters. Okay. Yeah behind us where the camera is is the church
Oh usually linked to the church and and and that's what I mean he mentioned that there
I think it's 400 active monasteries still. That's what bit were to bit were dead
The guy we met
Okay, well anyway, I mean that that is the extraordinary thing is that you keep running into these sort of
It's like the past and the present are like still continuous
Because overlap between because of monks and monastery tradition
Traditional and modernity all kind of yeah, and is that a dog in the background there the priest in the white
Yes, what's this?
So that is a dog okay
But you can see the priest in the yeah in the age of the frame the right yeah right there
His cross and and every priest has his own cross
And there are many many elaborate different times across it. I have a variety. I don't know if you can get a shot of that at some point
We yeah, we would like to see those
We would definitely like to see that there's a cross for each church and and each city
Each holy site has a its own cross unique cross
And in the priest, you know carry them under their under their cloak and then when you would
I think the open would approach a priest they would stop and kind of bow and the priest would take the cross out and give them a blessing and then put it back into their
And they would kiss the cross
You know like with our armed guard our guards every time we came across a priest as we're out in the field
They would go up to the priest and they would take out his cross. They would bless them and
Well, I think we have some documentary
Supporting evidence that you're telling the truth about that
So let's go on
Here we're inside the church. Yes, we should have started to the outside, but we were
Hurrying to get these loaded up so we can get going here and record, but this is the inside of church now
These the the imagery here. What did you tell me earlier Scott about this?
imagery and those are saints and angels and
This is again one of the most famous churches in all of Ethiopia
You can see posters and postcards of the very scene of the ceiling
The one thing that is interesting is it's that
but church design now is always and has been for a couple of hundred years circular and this is this is a
rectangular yeah, and it's it's it's it's supposedly
It's the shape of the ark
Is why they are
I see roll. Yeah, okay, and there's um
So that's what that's one thing um the other thing is that they have
The outside has nine or twelve
Towers around the exterior wall for twelve apostles
At the beginning the that gate is shaped in the form of a lion
um
Which is the sort of the the god and also it's the sort of imperial
Mm-hmm emblem to
Lion of judo is right. Yeah, right. Right. Right. Hi Silassie's time in that the whole
Lion of the tribe of judo plays an important part in the Masonic ritual
So I need to also mention every Ethiopian church has a replica of the ark
And they keep it behind curtains and no one's allowed to go back there other than the priest
even though it's a replica. Uh-huh, and
they're there they're
Certain festivals certain times of year when they take the art out
And they'll parade around with it and inside of each ark is what are called the tathets. Yeah, yeah
They're like these stones. Yeah, these sacred stones that are kept inside these
Reflecos of the ark and and only one time a year
in the Ethiopian
religious calendar are they allowed to take these out and
Let the people see them and then they have to go back and then they're put back behind the curtain and know a lot of go behind the curtain
Yeah, now there's a style here isn't there of this art form. Yeah, she's a uniquely Ethiopian
I kind of graphic style of art. You know, it's
It starts it goes way back
We're gonna see another example of that
Introduction of Christianity. Those are all angels. I should also explain the Ethiopian
Canon
I have the next figures in my head. I think
The regular Christian Canon and Catholic or Protestant
Canon has I think 64 books something like that. The Ethiopian Canon has like 88
All these extra
canonical books that are not found in any other
branches of Christianity among which is the book of Enoch
Yeah, not which is the book of Enoch
So they have books on angels angelology is a big study in
Ethiopian scholarship
Books just about angels and categories of angels and in their positions and their roles and all that
so you're seeing there
Is uh would come from one of these holy books of angels and and
And then the iconography would come from that so who are these three guys?
I
I think that they were the the tradition is that
Christianity was brought to Ethiopia by I think Syrian monks in like the third century. Okay
And they became an Ethiopian became like the first
Country to can become Christian. It's like the oldest church I believe
Almost as old as the Church of Alexandria
There's I'm not clear about that
But it was these Syrian monks and and the church develop as a result of the schism
I think it was the council of chalcedon and like the third or fourth century AD
There's a schism and and
The Ethiopian church been developed in its own very unique way and and the the bringers of
Christianity I that may be the representative of these these Syrian monks that came from Syria
That introduced Christianity
Ethiopia
Hmm
Yeah, here we are about to set off down southern lane
All day so we're back in the this is going to the
To the the batteries position and what is amazing is that
The road today is probably in worst shape than it was
During World War II
I mean they had some engineers who managed to make it possible for trucks
This is where we this is as far as we could go by our four-wheel drive vehicle
And we'd previously had to there was a bridge which was just gone and we had to kind of go down into the riverbed
Climb back up the other side
But here was he they just said okay
Now you're on your own you're on foot
So the last three miles down to that village where
You know that ibar where the the groups came out to to meet us
With that's three miles away from here
So we're about to set off with alamou and yohanis or two
Alamou is under left alamou is on the right. He's the older guy. He has a he had I actually interviewed him
after after you left
um
He he he fought first of all he's been a soldier all his life since about the age of 18
And he fought there was this long war that
Ethiopia fought against Eritrea mm-hmm, which was
ended in
2020 that's when
Abbi abbi Ahmed got the Nobel Prize for ending that war
He's the current president. Yeah prime minister. Yeah. Okay, so um
He he say he was in that and he was in and he was was um
Sort of invalidated out he got a grenade in the chest
So but he he got back and he's so now currently he's in the gondar militia. That's where these two
Work that's their day job and this was their additional job. Okay. Yeah
We had met the villagers and the the
The headman had explained. This is where
This was jumbo field back where those guys behind us are and he said okay
I'm gonna take you to where the the battery was positioned and we set off towards the edge of that
Ivor Ridge and that's where they're taking us and these these are basically just villagers and the the numbers just
Get increased that the the closer we got. Uh-huh
We don't know where yeah, they just materialized out of nowhere and they're the crowd would grow
And some of them were
Yeah, it was little kids. It was all guys with sticks who were
Like one of these white dudes doing here and these two guys with guns. I mean, it was like
The occasional woman walking with something on her like a big basket on her. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a senior right out of a
Yeah, right out of a movie. Yeah
Okay
I don't know this is uh
I mean, this was the first one. This is in the gold door like Tana. Yeah, that's right
Yeah, and he's covering up some sacred art there and it looks like
These are these are precious paintings that go way back. Yeah, look at the days of Christianity. Yeah, this is 14th century
Yeah, so this would be the previous one with all the angels up on the ceiling
That's 16th century. This is this is earlier. So let's marry with the
Yes, so they keep fresh child
They're sacred. They're they're covered and they
Uh-huh usually and then they'll reveal them in certain
times of the year or whatever
There we go. There we go
And so there's there's Jonathan getting his daily blessing from priest
Well, better than that. This is the 135-year-old monk. Yeah, 135
Yeah, 135-year-old monk
Still a month. He's a bit younger than Enoch, but he has 35 years of his hope that I don't
I like that because that makes me feel not so old because
135 that's what they told us
135 that's amazing. Yeah, I want it to be true
Yeah, he looks like a fairly jovial fellow
He had this sparkle in his eye that you know, you know, I noticed when you guys were walking that you had this kind of this glow around you
Yeah, it's been almost two years
That's it and that was just the residual right? Yeah, right. Yeah, we have to go back for a recharge. Yeah
Well, I had this dream last night that I was out and it probably was
Had something to do with talking to Scott. I was out with somebody and I can't remember who it was but some
person and we're walking across this open land and
We're walking he says well if we walk just this much further will be there
And then the next thing I know is I kind of rise up and I go well, why walk if we can float
So I was floating and he was walking wherever it was and uh
I would imagine that's what was going on with you after this moment here, right? You were
Floating to your next destination. I was becoming the flying African
So is he holding holding it up to your face? What's he doing? What are you doing? Yeah?
Put it to your cheek. Oh to your cheek. Oh, the side of you
Okay, yeah, both sides
Yeah
Now by contrast so we go from there. He's got the it's it's across like thing, right? Yeah, something like that
Okay, good. Yeah, let's there we go
I brought back a whole variety of these crosses. I would like to look at some of those and this is as good a time as Amy
You know that they have them under their cloak and then they pull it out
Mm-hmm you go up and you
He touches you on your head and you're
And then uh, you know you kiss it and uh, it's a soul virtual formality and uh
Can I hold it and the design of the crosses you need to what each particular place each region each church each
Green
Area, you know, can you zero in on this row and give it to us. Yeah, give it back to Scott. Okay
So there would be a name for the exec cross this design. It's all very precise. I can see that iconography is very precise and there
There's like a code. Oh, I love it math. I do rates. Yeah here and there you can go online that they're
Hmm scholarly studies of these crosses and eat what each one means and all that with each region where it would come from
Oh, like this one
Rollin won't you come and hand them? Yeah, yeah, sorry
So
So this I believe is a
It's either a gondor or a lollybellic cross and it would be on top of the staff
Oh, okay, so the stick would go in here and see what this this one yeah
And uh, I think this one you got in gondor
Wish one this one
Okay, the market this might be a lollybellic cross. Yeah, yeah, and it has you know, it's a very distinct
shape and every if you know opian
But no, it's happy with what these crosses
And where they came from how they were used
And a very elaborate ornate. Yeah, yeah, I see the fall
And
We sort of that looks like animals looks like almost some kind of foul water fall almost. Yeah
Yeah, oh, yeah, these are definitely
And gondor I think there's a lot here. Yeah, we got these in the market
You could wear these around your neck raise them up just a bit. Yeah
Yeah, I've got you before these is your rings
Yes, sorry, I apologize. God. No, this is nice. That's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if you can
Yeah
So you guys had to smuggle these out of the country
Oh, okay, never mind
We got almost everything out that I wanted to bring back and with with uh had a little snag. Oh, just a little one
Yeah
You know, I appreciate all this stuff
Yeah, they're they're very concerned about looting
You know, people have been coming Ethiopia for
Sure, I get that that made the monastery stealing manuscripts. Yeah, Ethiopian manuscripts are these priceless. Yeah, you know, they they are
There's a manuscript tradition in Ethiopia that
Hasn't been broken since the middle ages. Uh-huh
Where the hand they hand copy all these these these holy books and they're all different sizes and and and like I said
They're all these none these other books that are not in the
Regular Christian canon they have all these other canonical books, you know, so
Ethiopia's been a target of looters and black market
And looting the monasteries. It's a very poor country
And uh, you know, they they do everything they can to stop this
So they're they're pretty strict and about what you can take out of the country and they want to know what to lead in the country. So
Uh, I'm kind of getting ahead of ourselves, but when we're on I I thought you know these these crosses here
And some other items and I I purchased these these paintings these these scrolls of
Right from from the actual
Painter
And uh, I got them in lolly vella
And these beautiful long, you know, uh, goat skin paintings with all the same iconography you saw in the
Roof of the I think we all have a picture of that artist, don't we?
Yeah, I yeah, we you'll see a later
And there's a painting school and a school of icon painting
And uh, so I had a bunch of this stuff in in my uh in my bag
We're literally at we're at the airport in
Osabab already head back
And our plane is literally loading. We had to go through various checkpoints. I got through everyone no problems
You know, and they looked at you know open the bag and uh
We get the last checkpoint and and and and he's a hit yeah, I was ahead of you
So I had to go through this just last like little check checkpoint here. I thought okay, everything's great and
The plane is literally loading and and
This woman opens my bag and she sees my paintings in there these they were rolled up these little tight little rolls here
And did you have papers of this? I said no, I mean I got this right from the the priest artist who
Repainted them on in front of the churches of lolly vella. He didn't he didn't hand me a receipt or anything
I just ate for only that was it
I couldn't show proof that I wasn't taking them from like looting one of the monasteries that these were
National relics that they had to say in Ethiopia. She confiscated them from me
just
Prove my heart blew my mind. So
But I got all this other stuff back and uh
Then then then just became a whole ordeal. I it seems like landed in Washington, DC
I went right to the Ethiopian consulate to tell him what happened. I wanted my paintings back
I wouldn't take any out of the country illegal. I'd purchased them from the artist and
And I I'm able to that they had the consul of
of
And DC where we had to stop and DC to go back to Atlanta
He was going to try to get them back. He was contacting the security the airport
And he had no luck in the back in Atlanta. Anyway, long as short short of it
I had to contact my guide in lolly vella. I told him what happened
So he went back to that artist and had them any commissioned paintings for me
And I got an actual painting of Enoch as as a result of this which I'll show you later
And he
It took about a year to arrange and wow back and forth and I had a wire money and and and and there's a war and the internet's down
And we can't and there's no communication and this is going on for almost a year
And like so they they paused the war to get you your painting
Well, it was literally the whole internet would be down in
And lolly vella for like a week and I wouldn't hear anything and then it would come back up
And then there was bombing over here and he would send me these horrible like he sent me a video of a news video from like BBC
He had like a bunch of friends that read a bus stop
And and and they were a mass occurred by a drone strike
All this in this insurgency going on. Yeah, it's just awful. I got I ended up
Getting six new paintings
six you went back. Well because that's what I was really I confiscated
Oh, he went back to the original artist told him about what happened and then and I said I tell him I want a
An icon of Enoch, so we painted it especially for me just that
You know painting
Anyway
Oh, that's so ended happily ever after about after about a year
Good
Well, we better continue on here because I think we got 20 minutes left
All right, so we see one of your guard guards here. Well, yeah, I mean, I think what I should do is probably because kind of
As I said we've talked about you know here the battery got down
To this part on Iber Ridge where there are four targets. So
by four o'clock that day
all of those four targets had been destroyed and
the combination of
British
That were British Commonwealth troops so they're Africans primarily from
Kenya from Uganda from
Malawi from West Africa even
They
moved in
Into towards gondar because the defences were folding
But actually the first group to get into gondar and we went to the it's the old
Italian town hall that's still there and that's where general nazi who was the Italian commander
That was his headquarters and this
Group of they're called the wallabanda they were
Basically patriot fighters and they
made it
with there was a
I mentioned way back and when we started that this guy wingate had created this yeah, so one of his
British officers was in command of this wallabanda group and they
Just went hell forever they're supposed to be a two-day battle gondar
They they captured some forts further down from the ones we saw and then they just took off and they went all the way into the city
and they forced
General nazi to surrender
He actually wouldn't surrender to them, but this armored car group who had been
Came up late sort of shortly afterwards
They surrendered to them because the Italians didn't want a surrender to a
Ethiopian force
Um, it was you know, they needed to surrender to europeans and that was what that was
At that point the last message went out from
That you know gondar was on on the radio
misalini heard that you know, we cannot resist any further. It was what
so so
So they recaptured they recaptured gondar that that afternoon
and at that point
Ethiopia since it was the last
Um stronghold that was me we had at that point Ethiopia was free
So here's some more artwork
I'm trying to see what we are actually looking at here
You guys probably don't know this is back at that gorgora
church the real one
I'm pretty sure
This is not a lot of the other
Okay, well, let's just keep going here
Okay
This is alamoo
That's alamoo there and you know one really interesting thing he said
when we were on that first
Ridge the first when we went hiking up
We got to the side and we went to look down to where the
The british
Commonwealth troops came out and that was the hardest the hardest rich to capture
They just ran into all kinds of
of Italian fire
There were booby traps and what have you
But they managed but the but the um
The 54th Naisland field battery managed to
Send out 76 shots in like a matter of minutes and destroyed that that fort
And this guy when I when I told him this story about you know why I was there he said
He said
Your father
Fort beside our father's that day
Oh, wow
Yeah
So that was him
Beautiful panorama
Does this came you never name
Wunania
Okay, it's what it's called and I don't know what that means
I remember just looking at that distance feeling
Yeah
Yeah
Ages and Wunian millions of years, you know, just picture
Yeah
Yeah, and that's
Back up on iber Ridge with the the village surrounding us
They're all out there to see the see the freaks
Yeah, you know, I felt a bit like the you know the pide piper
Going out there and you hope you wouldn't want you to disappoint people
But uh
Kimber and my guide he actually showed them that photograph of my father with his oh really
He we had a big you know sort of this size of a
Of a picture that I had no did they think that Scott was a movie star
Yeah, so yeah, it's just got me only with these young kids as well. I wasn't just you know, you know
Yeah, it was a real mixture
And I would see and so that's with Wunania behind us
Okay, yeah, that was the end of this was a definitely a climactic day going down that that
um
That track and finding you know jambo field
And all the
He had this man he said at the end of it he said
Beats going on a cruise
Yeah
All right, so then we go to La La Bella La La Bella and that's where the
Okay, here's
Scott about to get on the airplane in in bark for
La La Bella. Yeah, yeah, well, I should explain. Okay, I I learned about La La Bella before
I went on the trip. Yeah, when I did my crash course and you think of yeah about these
churches that were carved out of solid stone
straight down into the earth
Yeah, we got to see those before we
Yeah, and I
Never heard of this and I realized if I'm going to Ethiopia, I've got to see these things
So I go into Egypt and not go into the pyramid
So uh Jonathan had to stay in gondar he had to do have more work and research to do
And there was I've got a couple in our hotel
Yeah
Two couples what a couple from
Austria
Husband wife and then a mother and son from Slovenia
Like adventure travelers had it come
Ethiopia in the middle of a forest you know like crazy people to do something like either the only other
European white people with seeing literally the whole time we'd been there and we kind of
You know
Just connected at the hotel lobby a neighbor
I wanted to go to La La Bella
And they were ready to go when they asked is I probably would join them is that perfect?
So we went down and just bought a plane ticket, you know
Went to have a good downtown and
Uh got the next flight there was only like one flight a week and it just happened to be the next morning
And we'll get on the flight to La La Bella
So I was just okay very happy about that and this is
Your hotel it's from the balcony from home. Oh my gosh look at that
Yeah, I'm just extraordinary
This is the morning
No, I think that was sunset sunset. Okay
All right wow
It looks greener than gondar
Yeah, it was
And how long were you here in La La Bella for four days four days, okay
And this is what we saw on day one and this is what what is happening?
The scene just right out of the assessment. I couldn't believe my eyes. I couldn't believe I was seeing
This was not assessor me to melt. It's not a movie set. This was absolutely authentically real
Uh, we arrived on it on
There are many holy days in the Ethiopian
Church, uh, this was St. Michael's day
So these were pilgrims who would
Many had walked by foot. I mean literally how long you know by bus by walking and like whatever
To gather at the
Holy day might say Michael's day and we just have to get there
At that time and uh, it was so fortunate that
And the time it was just perfect
And we hadn't planted this way
Me and this this other people I was with
There we were and uh, just
I was just without words like
The feeling of where you know, you're walking around and you know this church
They uh, this is so interesting that they have rituals and ceremonies that that predate Christianity
uh, you know, there
Were many many Jews living in Ethiopia that practice a form of Judaism that goes back to the first temple of Solomon
Creates the the the the so-called you know called second temple Judaism
They have religious practices and and rituals
And observances that go back directly to the first temple of Judaism, which is King Solomon's temple
so
They're uh, and this Ethiopian church
Has also these rituals that go back even to ancient Egypt that are not even a pre-Christian
So it's like a time capsule that is preserved in all kinds of stuff
So i'm just thinking here, you know, you guys went over there
Like I see that you you know, you got on the airplane and you flew from gondar to lollibala and then i'm thinking by contrast, you know, James Bruce
How did he travel? Oh, yeah, by horse of course worth
so
We're in a kind of an interesting time now because not too many generations ago just
To be able to travel and participate in in this this society
Would have been much more difficult
The Ethiopian yeah, I mean
I mean because of violence because well no not so much just because
They didn't have roads we didn't roads and airplanes and boats and
The stuff that we can travel now, you know, I just was at the Azores. Oh, sure and you know
100 years ago
There were no flights to the Azores. I would have had to take take a boat for three to four weeks minimum
and
Yes, so what's happening I think is we're seeing these this this kind of
cross-cultural
fertilization going on here
That's I think very interesting and hopefully in the long run will
Turn out to be a very positive thing that you know
So much of it, you know like well in a sense you guys going there. We're in a way. We're almost like ambassadors
All these people probably you guys were the first white people a lot of them would seem right maybe
The children
Tourism over the years yeah, but like those kids
Yeah
And you guys leave and hopefully you've made a favorable impression on these people and
Next time some more white people come. No, you know
I think that's a good thing. I really uh
Admire you guys for making this trip
Actually, I need to backtrack real quickly and tell something that happened on like Tana of Roman. Could you give me that book?
The plan. Yeah
The plan that one yeah, okay, all right
So everywhere we would go whenever it was appropriate
You know, I brought my book of Enoch with me. Yeah, yeah
Hard-bound cover beautiful cover
That's written in Geese script, you know, and I I've got this for many many years
And I brought this with me to Ethiopia and whenever it was appropriate, I would bring it out. I'd show it to the priests, you know
But no, I was interested in Enoch and uh, you know, I'd like to see what the reaction would be and what they could tell me
And when we were uh about to
When we're going to Lake Tana, you know
Samandaba monastery. Yeah, there was a
Sort of peninsula. Well, you wanted to explore the ruins of the castle. Yeah, and
And that was a sort of the base for the Jesuit priests. That's right. It's just St. Joseph's palace
So yeah, the Vatican or whatever
It sent Jesuits to Ethiopia to try to reconvert them back into Catholicism, you know
and and
so
On Lake Tana it does on this one island where these ruins that was like a Jesuit
Yeah, it was a combination
palace and
Like you said, Jesuit
Center for further for proselytizing
But before we uh board of the book we we were touring that that
Church monastery there, and then I you know, I brought out my book of Vienna
That was the priest and we sat down and I showed him my book of Enoch and then uh and
The keeper of the monastery was there. He was like the abbot the abbot
He saw me do this and then we then we walked down to the the doctorate on the boat
And the abbot came came with us on the boat and and it was a two-hour boat ride to get to this island
Two hours one way and then two hours back so about an hour into it
Uh, he saw my interest in in the book of Enoch
And he started talking he spoke okay English and he started talking and he said
I need to tell you something um
The book of Enoch is is a very precious book in in our culture
And oh yeah, and my curiosity was like where was the original book of Enoch kept the one to then Bruce
copied when he visited Ethiopia
Like the original manuscript
But just as a reminder, James Bruce was the one who brought the the books of Enoch
Out and introduced him to the western world to say
Jesus to him brought him back to you
Gave one to Oxford one to it
Paris
Okay, three of them and this was the build of a bombshell of the time like the Dead Sea scroll
That discovery in the 1940s
It was huge so um so my curiosity was where was the original manuscript that
Bruce saw in which he copied the these copies that he brought back to Europe
And you know, I wouldn't dare ask that that question, you know to because it
I realized it was such a priceless, you know, kind of a
Mm-hmm, you know, topic and it's touching topic too because people, you know, they have to keep these things hidden from the public now
So anyway, we get on the boat. We're about an hour into into it and it's that I need to tell you
Uh, the book of Enoch is one of like four or five very holy books that we have
That need to be protected at all costs
And he said each one of these books is entrusted to among
Who guard literally guards it with his life
He takes that man in that manuscript and he rotates
between
Forward islands different islands or different monasteries with his book. He's assigned this book for
For life and he has to protect
And he has to rotate with these other monks who have these other manuscripts
Between these different monasteries
So no one knows exactly where they are at any given time
Hide them from any looters or any
The outside world
And we told me this I thought oh my god. He's telling me something that it's like very highly classified information
This is incredible
And he's because he saw it was genuinely interested in this, you know, so
Uh, I thought this is
Very very interesting that he's telling me this this information
We finally get to the location this island. We explore the the ruins there and before we leave he said we uh
Oh, by the way, would you want to stop on the way back to to the car at this monastery that that's a I think it was a little out of the way
It wasn't I know our itinerary
Mike Mike Emory. Mm-hmm. I said, well, I'm sure we should do let's do this right
So
Yeah, we go in the boat we go to this oh on the way back on the back. Yeah, he brought it up
Yeah, yeah, would you like to stop in a monastery?
Yeah back and it was not part of the itinerary. I said sure. Let's do it. Let's go there. Yeah, so we get there
We uh, there's a big monastery on the island and we meet me but they had priests there
And Richard chatting and he's telling us about the you know that we're in the history of this particular monastery
And I brought my show to my my book and you know I wrote it out there
And the head avid of the monastery said to me
The original book of Enoch we is at our monastery right now. We have it here
Yeah, and more than that he said that but you can't see it because somebody tried to break in and steal it
So we've had to put it
It's not in our quote museum now. We're getting have to build a more secure location for
Yeah, so it's we it's current we currently have it here
The original manuscript. He said yes, we have it here
So and and I didn't dare ask to see it because I didn't sure for it right and then he said to me
You looked at my book he said
Can I have this
Can I have your book and I and I thought of for me and I said okay, I'll trade you my book for your manuscript
And then we all had a good laugh
We got on the boat and went back to the back to the door
So I it just
Since we're running out of time, it's just it's too bad
We don't really have the time to dive into the book itself
Maybe at some point Scott you'd be willing to come back and
And we can do that
Do part two. Yeah, do part two if you're you know your studies have go back for years
into this book and
I like I told you I read it into 70s and I don't remember hardly any of it
But then when I started reviewing it to kind of get prepped for this it's some of it started coming back to me
And I'm remembering some of the stuff and I'm thinking
You know when I was looking at this forward was I 18 19 20 years old
So I need to really take another dive into it because I think I would see things that I completely wouldn't have seen
Uh, and already just from what I've looked at I started seeing some things that
Was started ringing bells from other, you know, I've read some of the other apocryphal texts and the Nagamadi books and the dancing scrolls
but had not
taken a
Reloq at the book of Enoch
But now after all of our conversation and knowing the role that it plays that Enoch plays in the Masonic ritual and you're okay
I got some homework to do. It's like a key. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. It's crucially important
And when Bruce brought it back to Europe that was like the beginning of
of a whole new
era and level of
The biblical scholarship and unlocking some of these mysteries. Yeah
Revival of the mystery tradition kind of and then it needs to be seen in the context of well who produced this material
You know, as we mentioned there there are three books of you know
This is the most famous because it's quoted verbatim right in the New Testament. Yeah, so this is
The Ethiopian Enoch. There's also what's called the Slavonic Enoch and then the Hebrew Enoch there and it was
There
It was a whole body of literature that was very important. It was produced
You know, there's a lot of scholarship now about this and the pieces are starting to come together
Awesome stuff. Well, let's we gotta get we gotta look at these churches
Even if what takes us another five minutes, we gotta look at these churches now
My first glance when I was seeing this as a thumbnail
I
Couldn't see the little the the people standing on the edge of the of the cliff there and it looked to me like you were standing next to something that was like
the size of a
Coffin or something. Yeah, it was it was misleading. It looked to me like it was five feet wide, you know
And then when I got the full picture I go way that man. No, no, this is some other perspective here
But now we'll go into some of the other pictures where you can really begin to see the scale of this thing now
this is not
A typical constructed edifice here is it not
And that is a single piece of stone that it's cut out. Yes. It's cut out of the virgin rock
That's incredible inside that is a complete temple a complete cathedral with
You know cathedral ceilings and doorways and chambers and it's a like like a Gothic cathedral
Side carved out of one single block of stone one single block of stone. So it's not stone on stone right
You make one mistake. You just how do you fix a mistake like that? You can't just get rid of a stone and find the
I've cut another one. This is one single block of stone. You gotta get it right the first time
There are 11 of these churches at Lollabella. They were built in the 12th century by King Lollabella. Okay
And as the story goes they were being besieged by by
Arab Muslim invaders and
The Christians of Ethiopia were no longer allowed to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem
So King Lollabella wanted to build his own new Jerusalem in Ethiopia so they didn't have to risk going to
Jerusalem
Okay, at least
And that the story goes in 23 years with the help of angels
They carved out these these 11 stone churches in solid block with the help of angels
That's the story. Okay now what in the world could the origin of that tradition be if we assume that there's
some reality behind that
What what does that mean? I don't know. I you know, but they are a testament of what they are there in stone
Like the great like the pyramids of Egypt. They they're there now. The same about there in a very short period of time
How did they do that? They don't have a clue that it's mind-boggling. Oh, by the way under these this whole complex is these underground labyrinths
The tunnels and labyrinths that in real oh, yeah, and they're still discovering
passageways and one
Tradition is that these were built to house the Ark of the Covenant
Originally at one time it was and it was secreted in these passageways and one in these temples and then
But no longer there that that was one of the the
Legends about the why
Built in the first place was to house the Ark. Well, I think there's a couple more, but you know in our hurry
Because we were short on time and I was loading up the the presentation
They got a little out of order, but I believe this guy was
Icon painter I bought the paintings from
School and those are his students
They're all learning you know, they're reading from sacred books and they're chanting it here
Okay, I have a video that goes with that and you can hear them all singing. Yeah, I took this is still from the video and
It's a painting school. Okay. He's teaching how to paint these this style of icon. He'll be in iconic style. Okay
I think we got here's here we go. Here's the interior of the church look look at the angles the perfect
Yeah, yeah, that's out of one single block of stone
What type of stone is it
For God the soldier some it's some it's really hard. Yeah, it's a hard stone. It's not easy. It's not easily
Carp sandstein
How did they do that with what kind of instruments could have got you know architectural
You're calling my favorite pictures on the left. I just love that picture. It's like it's one of the priests. Yeah
And what's this guy doing? This is a ceremony that I stumbled into in one of the churches
Of the woman giving birth. Yeah, they're well. She'd already given birth. She's given birth like like a day or two before and her and her her her
Women's sister's were now coming to get blessings. I forgot where they had come from they'd walked for like you know two days or some
Infant to get blessings from this priest that this uh, I think this was the church of St. George. That's the church in a shape of a cross
Okay, and
Yeah, this is the I have video that goes along with that and that's incense
So this is the blessing of the child
Okay, so they were allowed you in there to wait this and they allowed you to video and they yeah, I just had to be kind of discrete
But I was just so yeah, okay
Yeah, this woman here she might be like
Who's this guy, but they they just let me
Okay, and again, I was the only white person
And around
Actually, I was by myself at this point
Teletravelers were not with me and I was there for like this one on for like 45 and so this is another these are these are priests
Chandie from holy books
Inside one of the temples
This is one of those carved churches. Yeah, like they think that they're inside of here wow in the car churches inside one of the chamber one of the rooms
Okay, and these churches had multiple rooms and levels and okay
This is one of the one of the car churches now that one has the outer facade is actually
Recent because they're trying to preserve these
Right, and you can see it's actually stone on stone and that was a recent addition
To help preserve yeah, there's an interesting story about this one
so
Highly salassy the the last sort of major battle that really
um
Was sort of the end for etiopias independence from the Italians was at a place called my two
I think it's called which is in the north of etiopia and
after the battle he
Went to this church and spent several days there
basically
Trying to decide what to do and he spent
After those days he left he went back to
To add us and then he left the country
But he did spent several days in in um
In in this church here. Yes, and at that point were the
With the pillars constructed around it at that point or is that one recent?
No, they look pretty pristine, but I can't
I see this has been here since the sixth one is it lily beller is the 13th?
No, no that that outer facade of pillars that was recent
That's recent like French archaeologists
And you can see the metal structure that yeah up above it
You can see the covering and you preserve these churches
So I believe I was told that those outer pillars were done, you know
Not that long ago
Help preserve it
And this is some of the carving on the pillars
Did I understand that correctly? Yeah, this is inside. Yeah
I think the church of St George the one in the shape of a cross. Okay
That's looking straight up that the one on the left is looking straight up into the yeah
I can see that. Yeah, so this is this is actually the column here those are two columns
Uh-huh, and this is the archway. We're looking up into the bottom of the arch. Got it. Got it. Yeah wow
Hmm
And that's when you are now
You are being initiated into the priesthood and you'll soon be going back to
Assume your duties
High priesthood of the temple
Okay, but look at this over here on the left. That's inside. Yeah
That's pretty amazing
All carved out of a solid block. I believe it was in some of the windows if I'm not mistaken that they detected some temple or imagery
Okay, I'd like to know more about that. I definitely would
So okay, and here you are and
Well, this book here you're holding this book or something vaguely familiar about this book. You're okay
This priest uh, this is a
You know, we had a guide and and this is when I was with the rest of the group and
So we we've gone through the various
rooms and chambers and everything and then he we went into this one room that there was big curtain
There's some chairs there and we just all sat down and then
He asked to our translator we had a guide if we had any questions
so
I asked okay
The book of ENO because has been part of the Ethiopian canon
For from the beginning I wanted to know
How is it studied in the monasteries because it's it's obviously a living tradition
It's not a lost book in Ethiopia
So we started to explain to me how how the training happened goes on in the monasteries and he told me that there are
The monks there there are ten levels of training
And then the novitiate which is the
You started defer and at each each level of these ten levels
Uh, when you complete each level you acquire a paranormal power
As you go through this monk this is the monastic training
And you go through level one he said after you fit complete level one you can actually read the minds of other monks
This is what he told me
Level two you acquired this level three and in each level of study you are studying different books and texts and holy books in your
Your daily regime is like you're a monk in any monastery you're you're praying you're doing
You know
You're uncertain you're
The daily routine ritual meditations all of that
When you get to the
10th level that's when you study the book of Enoch is reserved for the monks the highest 10th level
that
And he said the book of Enoch is called the star of the Ethiopian canon
star
And when they reach the 10th level and they study the book of Enoch
If they complete that
The power they get is they can by locate
That would be a kind of a cool power to have. I didn't know what to make of that information
See then if that would solve the problem we were talking about earlier if I could just like by locate to the azores
Sure or
I never heard of anything like that and this kind of captures what you were talking about earlier this this juxtaposition of
The modern and the traditional. Yeah, I tell there they are you know with the with their cell phones, right?
Just like you go in and glasses
And
And there's your icons
Yeah, I bought a bunch of those
Uh-huh that were then confiscated at the airport
They were confiscated at the airport and they had the new ones that took about a year to get new ones sent to me
Here we go. I exterior shot. You can really get the scale of this thing
This is Saint George's right
Yeah, and then and that's King Lollabella
That's King Lollabella there
Yeah, and who's this we don't know
Okay, well, I think that's it. Oh, yeah, there you are. You're getting blessed
Okay
I have one last thing that I don't yeah, please
It's just a quote that I have at the very beginning of my book
Yeah, let's uh your book is available now. It is. Oh, no, it's not. It's actually the release date is March 31st
Okay, so so it's
Six weeks away six weeks away cool, but it will be available. I'm looking forward to reading that book
Yeah, and so what I have I have two quotes at the beginning, but one of them I think is is
It's really stuck with me. Okay. It's from Nelson Mandela. Okay. He's long walked to freedom and what he says is
Ethiopia has a special place in my imagination
And the prospect of visiting Ethiopia attracted me more strongly than a trip to France, England and America combined
I felt I'd be visiting my own genesis
Unearthing the roots of what made me an African
And I think that he he kind of strikes this sort of there's something unique about Ethiopia that
um
I guess
You any other place I've been to sort of like it as Egypt
Mm-hmm. So it's got this sort of intrinsic quality or of its own. Yeah, and I think that's what
affects you by going there
Okay, I think we're good. Yeah
All right, well
It's good for me too because I am an African
We'll get to talk about this more. I hope
Scott
Yeah, the book of the watchers the machinery of the cosmos
Wow
I'm guessing
Yeah
I think that's
Could be Jonathan
Did you go ever go native and don the national garb
Like you know Lawrence or Arabia did yeah, yeah
I can't say I have, but why not
Well, all right gentlemen. This has been great very informative
Well, I hope this put it
Put Ethiopia on people's maps. It's all right. Well, I think we'll get you know
People don't think about it. Right. They don't
Much awareness of it. It's been a war-torn country for years
So it's also the second largest
Capacumptory by population in Africa. Oh, I see I didn't know that
120 million plus. Oh wow
But it has these spiritual treasures, isn't waiting for us to yeah, yeah, like you said like sort of like the Tibet
Yeah, it's it's like Africa one treasure after another as I dug into it and then experienced it. I still
You know
Of what I've been stuck right in and some so now very interested in there because said they've got all of these books
The the powerful texts that are not part of the traditional canon. I really want to dive into that
Yeah, and let's start with this one. Yeah, right back to Solomon. Yeah, yeah
Okay, well gentlemen Jonathan
Thank you spend a pleasure
Scott always good to see you again old friend
Yeah, okay
All right, well, thank you everybody for joining us and hanging in there and
We will see you on the next episode of squaring the circle

Squaring The Circle, A Randall Carlson Podcast

Squaring The Circle, A Randall Carlson Podcast

Squaring The Circle, A Randall Carlson Podcast