#086 Ethiopia: Ancient Land of Mystery, World War and Rediscovery of The Lost Books of Enoch

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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Now of course, this was in my younger years, maybe not quite a shift in bubble wrap, but

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Just in case of the zombie apocalypse, I'll have some save back, because I would not want

after a door exists in a post-apocalyptic world without my CBD from the God-Sap.

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