Descriptions:
Video Description
This Bible study opens with what the channel calls its new Testimonials segment, a short run of listeners describing how reason pulled them out of what one voice calls churchianity. Then Ammon Hillman turns to the man he names as Dracula’s poet warrior. That is Michael Marullus, a Greek poet living through the time of Vlad the Impaler, who wrote cult hymns in unusually clean Latin. Hillman reads the opening of the hymn to Pallas Athena as evidence that the old mystery never died during Vlad’s century.
The key is a single line. Near the end of the invocation, Marullus calls Minerva not merely wise but fanata, which Hillman traces to Fanes, the revealer, and reads as an invocation of the light bringer. She is called virago, a Latin word he unpacks as vir (man) plus ago (to lead or drive), the androgynous perfection of masculine and feminine. That is the goddess, he says, whom Vlad’s circle would approach for purification before building a templum. Afterward the study moves to the women-only rite of the Thesmophoria (Θεσμοφόρια) and its law-giver Themis (Θέμις), the calyx-faced maid Hillman calls the Korah.
From a hymn to Melinoe (Μηλινόη), the chthonic nymph born of Persephone, Hillman pulls what he calls the secret of the vampires. A translator renders one phrase double-bodied, but Hillman reads the Greek line as an image of drawing out and sucking the flesh of the god, the same act in the maenads’ raw feasts. He closes the circle with Aeschylus, where Clytemnestra dreams of a serpent drawing clotted blood mixed with milk from her breast. The secret of the vampires, he says, is a woman and her haima (αἷμα) — blood. The episode reports the claim and leaves the Greek on the table.
Full Video Transcript
Take me to that happy hour I never had.
Show me the girl I never met.
I want it so bad.
Is that golden palace?
Is that whore called destiny?
I think she ran on without me.
Thanks for coming back to Lady Babylon.
We have our Wednesday night Bible study.
And tonight’s topic will be a little bit dark and spooky.
We’re going to look at some coded language within myth that is used in cult, cults with vampires.
In order to warm up tonight, I thought I would introduce a new segment.
It’s called Testimonials, and I’m so humbled at the responses that people have had to the material
that I thought it would be important for you to hear their voices or to hear your voices.
um i’m going to ask these people all the same questions and if i didn’t get you in tonight
don’t worry um it’s because the question wasn’t yours um but the question that we have tonight
is how has reason freed you from a call me out the web of the churchianity that had been
strung around it. So I reasoned out of that and just saw the flaws in it and understood
that worship of the Bible, which is what Christianity is, is just a false god, right? Because they
want every word to be true, they want somehow God is exonerated because the Bible is true
and when you realise all the holes in that, that is reasonable and that got rid of that
So I was left on my own to discover this.
And so my family encouraged me.
They’re like, well, we ain’t going to tell you what to do, but try to go to a church.
And so I went to some several churches and I had a bad experience at a Catholic church where I remember where they wanted to baptize me.
It took me in a back room and I ran out.
I remember being like 12 years old.
And it was some years later that, you know, once the family situation got cleaned up and all the bad kids, the older siblings were in jail and have you.
my father converted to jehovah witness and they would come over to the house and you know i had
long hair then because i was rock and roll and they used to tell me you got to cut your hair
you got to shave your head you got to cut your hair and i showed them the the magazine the watch
tower track society you know they would have these little magazines they’d bring the jehovah witness
and i said well jesus had long hair and i showed them the picture and i go why can’t i be like that
and they said well that was different and that’s what set me off on my study
of what is Christianity who is Jesus and where do these books come from so yeah
basically what happened with me is as a young person in high school I got
involved with evangelical Christianity through youth groups and through friends
and I became very heavily involved into that religion and way of thinking and it
became quite abusive and even after I left because of abuse that was happening I was still in that
kind of mindset for a long time and it wasn’t until I got into academia and I went to the roots
of these texts like in the bible and I realized what these people were telling me was wrong
and that they were lying and I started to embrace this reason approach and I started to think about
and face reality as it is and I realized that for me the reason why I fell into this trap of
abuse of religion is because i was looking for some kind of magical answer you know i was denying
the reality that was staring me in the face so i i think it’s a huge important thing that we
we embrace reason and we think about and approach the world from from that perspective like we’re
looking at things as they really truly are because you don’t you open yourself up to be lied to
and exploit it you know thank you so much everybody who participated in that round of questions
we’ll have more to come in the future tonight i want to start by turning to the friend poet
warrior who created the hymns that were used um in at a period of time in history when
Vlad the Impaler was doing his thing. This is Mike Maroulis. Mike Maroulis, I want to bring
in tonight. He’s the first ghost that we bring. Mike, can you tell me from your century, can you
tell me, Mike, where is she? Where is the Minerva? I wanted to go with a little bit of the Etruscan
tonight, because we’re going to be looking at some coded language, and I want you to be able
to absorb that from the Etruscans. So let’s go to Dracula’s Poet Warrior. Let’s go to Dracula’s
Poet Warrior. This is Mike Maroulis, his hymn to the palace. His hymn to the palace. If we can
bring that up, that first reading, please. Thank you. Oh, it’s gorgeous.
Te, te, suprema maximi proles joves, inupta pallas inuoco.
Let me take my position here.
Inupta pallas inuoco hastae potentem nobilis viraginem,
quam forcis asperat ferox cum multilingue sibilis
quasans caput procul profanus submovet.
and with those words the orphic way is begun with purification she stands there this minerva
she stands there with her many languages in civilizations just bringing out this tone that
causes all of us to uh be purified it prevents it prevents the arrival of what they call the profane
the profane fantastic i want you to go to the next uh page of this then um this is the end near the
end of the in of the invocation this is i just wanted you to read this is round line 64. i want
you just look at line 64 and see the latin word fanata fanata you that should sound familiar to
those of you who have ears to hear wait a minute he’s calling minerva fanata no he’s not just
calling minerva fanata or fanes he is invoking the light bringer yes he is fantastic fantastic
Eadem virgo, virago, excuse me, mas eadem, eadem furor sapientiaque, eadem et quies. She is the virago. She is that masculine, feminine form in its perfection with complete sapientia, with that wisdom. That’s her.
This is the person that we, if we are with Vlad, that we are approaching to bring a cleansing, to bring us to the place that we can establish our templum and its practice.
Yes. And did anybody smell the Etruscan connections? And by the way, there’s Etruscan bits and pieces all over being spread with the mirrors, looking through the mirrors into both the Asia Minor influence, the influence within modern day, what you call Ukraine, Thrace, down into just following the coast, right?
and down into this all starts with those people in the on those horses it’s all those people on
those horses you know yeah wonderful wonderful stuff and it ends up it ends up in romania
yes it ends up in romania after years just blossoming blossoming under vlad well done
well done vlad and i might remind you for those of you who can’t taste the difference this is
is wonderfully classical latin wonderfully um the latin surrounding that came before this is
terrible it’s terrible it’s oh god medieval latin sorry medievalists out there but i’m a classicist
and your latin is terrible yes um you you might be good at it don’t get me wrong you might be good
at that terrible latin um okay i’d like to go to the next hymn we’re going to continue on and bring
dawn, right? This is Eos the dawn. And I just want you to see that in the first two lines,
cluthi thea, remember the images that we’re putting into your mind, are the images of the
thasmophoria, right? You’re here if you’re a man, you’re dressed like a woman so you don’t get
kicked out. If you’re a woman, you’re here because your rights are the oldest. Oh, and that makes me
want to make the goddess dance like every mystagogue does and that brings us back to the
hymn to dawn and here she is in these first two lines i just want to read them for you
oh isn’t that isn’t that beautiful um yes what is it about dawn that we must enter into her
worship in order to perform this mystery. It’s because she is bringing the mystery itself. She
is that one that brings that light. She is the one. Let’s go to who follows her. Who follows
light? Well, since we’re in the Thesmophoria, next text, please. We’re going to be looking at
Themis because the Thesmophoria is all about Themis. You thought this was Bible studies.
it is bible studies because you’re here to watch you’re here to witness an actual mystery if you
don’t understand what a mystery is how can you possibly ever read the bible think about it yeah
how can you ever read the bible how can you pretend to read the bible i’ve had seminarians
tell me i was right you can’t you can’t you have to you have to jump into the crime scene you have
to look around you have to take things there are clues here i’m going to give you the clues now
let’s look at the clues and follow it let’s go to themis why are we at the thesma for you to honor
themis themis and if you’ll notice
excuse me
Take it off.
That calyx-faced Korah is who we’re talking about with Themis.
Who is Themis?
Themis is what we bring women in the rites of the Thesmophoria.
Yeah.
Remember, we’ve beaten all the men away with sticks.
But can’t come, right?
Why?
I don’t know.
Maybe it’s because only you can do it.
This is Lady Babylon after all, right?
So we’re all here, and we’re looking at these bringing her, Themis, into a reality.
And I just want you to notice in that second line, that calicopita, that face.
What is her face?
What is her alps?
It is the face of the bud, the calyx, protecting that bud, right?
the new fresh famous the corey right here it’s cool um uh do the dialect right yeah and why is
this so important bring up the text one more time i just want you guys to see this you have to see
this look at that third line hey prote cut edex brotois monday on agnon isn’t that nice isn’t
that nice she is the first to show to mortals what the mantic holy right yes next next page of her
what else is she going to bring us she’s going to bring us the actual mysteries right she is
she is that one who rules by the power of nicks she brings that she is the one look at the third
line from the bottom, . Yeah. Notice the word musteria there. You see that word musteria?
She is the one who brings the honors. She’s the one who brings the Holy Mystery. You can’t have it
without this korah you cannot have the mystery the mystery operates around her yeah makes you wonder
why mary didn’t jump in before it was too late let’s go to hephestus because i want to show you
the key to opening up the head um of the of the god of jehovah opening up the head of jehovah to
bring her out. How do we do that? We do that through Hephaestus. And who is Hephaestus? Just
look at the bottom line here. Phosphore. You know who else they call Phosphore? The devil, right?
He is the bringer of that Phosphore. Yeah. Lucifer or Lucifera, the male female. Minerva
is the devil.
Wonderful.
Take us to the
two
Malinoe, please.
Isn’t that nice?
Look at the very bottom line. Who is she on the top? First of all, for those of you who want to know, Malinowee, Malinowee is the Chthonian Nymphae. What is that Nymphae? It is that stage immediately preceding marriage. Chthonian. She’s not just any Nymphae. She’s the Chthonian Nymphae, right? She is that Chthonian nymph.
and where was she born and who was she born to? Persephone, excuse me. You’re not supposed to
say that. You’re supposed to say Cora or Corwa if you’re coming from the Mycenaean side. You’re
never supposed to pronounce her name. Yes, interesting. Look at the last line in that
very same hymn right there. Look at this. This is caused, I usually don’t bring up translators,
personal translator because they try they try to do their job but this time I’m going to bring up
the most excellent translator of the Orphic Hymns who is Athanasakis and he does a fantastic job
typically except here in this last line
oh the translation here he translated
desomatones dual bodied or double fleshed which would be great if it was dis plus omatone but
we know the root soma is in there so the prefix really here is d not dis dis means twice but d
as lactantius tells us is the beginning of the word
sea boulay. Sea boulay. Who is the sea boulay with the sea beanies? She is the one who brings the
boulay, the council, the rule of the sea or as we’re told D. Through an Etruscan loop we get to
the sea. Wait a minute. Are we in northern Italy? Yes. Are we in modern day Turkey? Yes. Are we in
Ukraine? Yes. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Remember, I warned you about getting taken out back. A lot of the
stuff that they have in academics is meant to kind of, you know, come here, come here, little person.
And one of those big things that’s used as a lure, big candy for the kitties, is the Indo-European.
and the Indo-European, the Proto-Indo-European, that do not exist, tend to obscure our understanding
of the linguistics of antiquity. What do we know from the Greeks? That they’re this group,
there’s this group, this ethnic group, the Pulaskians, and there’s some of the old, old,
old generation that comes, that is part of these Bronze Age migrations. So we get their
groups scattered in different places with different people claiming to be the ancestors of
that original group of pulaskians and um you can you can put your connection to the etruscans right
there so um what is happening in the language what is happening in the language the um bring us up
that last hymn line again do thank you chewie yeah um how is this translated yeah it well it’s
translated terribly here i’ll just read to you i’m sorry dr athanasakis but you know you can take it
you can take it um you know here’s his translation whose skin when she was pregnant he mangled in
anger yeah he’s trying to form this but wait he’s trying to i’m sorry but he’s trying to form this
to his preconceived notion of the myth you know this is done all the time don’t worry about it
it’s translators have to try to make sense of things but if this is desomatone from the
etruscan side and it’s leaking in here then what which makes sense in the right right to write for
the quora then um what is the espasa um that really is the word for drawing yes yes for drawing
or sucking drawing out drawing out what what’s happening someone is drawing out the god bodied
sustained flesh the god sustained flesh and it’s whose flesh it’s the chorus flesh
and where is this flesh going it’s going sumoy it’s going into the into the breath
into the understanding yeah yeah so here we have a reference to some kind of consumption of
something some kind of well here’s the fun thing about classics if we know that we’re in the
context of a hymn and we know that this hymn is being sung during performance during a cult
performance and we know these mysteries and that we can get just a little tiny look inside the
mysteries you thought you guys were getting the mysteries right weren’t you for 55 95 that’s not
how it works or if you’re going to harvard you’re paying you guys are paying sixty thousand dollars
a year right anyway um you can’t sell it so let’s look inside let’s look inside just for a moment
inside this this hymn that we’ve gotten it’s opening up for us what is the background of
what’s being performed in the song what’s happening um and when we get there we find
that somebody is consuming the flesh of the god okay everybody cool everybody cool with that all
you bachans all you mean ad women who got together you have this thing where you descend from the
mountains and you take out human beings and maraud through villages and you tear apart men who
shouldn’t be messing with you and you consume the flesh you you um you go into the homophagy
yeah those you guys won’t be offended by any of this but let’s look at the let’s look at the
language and we’ll give you a chance to look right into the religion now so what is what happens he
um we’re drawing the flesh of this we’re sucking the flesh of this where else do we see this draw
we see this drawing Aeschylus go to the last text here um not that one yep oops here we go got this
here is the translation by Smythe I just want you to see it’s uh an engagement in the um libation
bearers um two of the coiferoi two uh between orestes and chorus and you can see the top he
says and where does the tail end and what is its consummation the chorus says she laid it to rest
as if it were a child in swaddling clothes oh i forget to tell you this is clytemnestra and she
dreamed she gave birth to a serpent okay she dreamed she gave birth to a serpent and what
does she do she put it in swaddling clothes yeah um what uh what food did it crave the newborn
viper and the course is in her dreams she offered it her own breast and arrest he says surely a
nipple was not wounded by the lust and beast and the chorus says the line relevant to us in our
hymn no it drew the clotted blood with the milk it drew the clotted blood with the milk and this
is the last line at the bottom yeah and it says she’s drawing up she’s sucking that excuse
me that serpent is sucking up this clotted blood congealed with in the milk that’s fine you can
take it off in the milk yes um drawing up this clotted blood in the milk in this act yeah um
gorgeous what is happening we know the galena is drawn from the breast so there we have a uh
there we have a reference a balancing of our dote and our antidote um right in the hymn it’s nice
that it’s right there snug and in the context of the drugs great now how do we take this and apply
it one step more outward so that what’s the utility of this so that we can see our own
reality look here at the top it says adam said this is now bone of my bones and sarks of my
sarks flashing my flesh right she will be called gune she will be called gune because from the man
she was taken yeah yeah from the man she was taken from elefthane is the greek here and people will
say wait a minute wait a minute i thought the the old testament was written in hebrew right you’ve
been paying those guys at harvard too much um you you thought it was written in hebrew right okay
well let’s see if it was because in the greek the idiom doesn’t work she’ll be called gune because
she was taken from the man but the man’s name doesn’t have anything to do with gune so why is
it saying she’ll be she’d be called this because she was taken from man how linguistically doesn’t
work out, right? Okay, must not be written in Greek. Greek must be a translation. That’s what
we’ve all thought for so long. The problem is the Hebrew is ish and ishah. The ah on the ishah is
just a feminization. It has nothing to do with the verb for pulling out of or coming from. So once
again, it doesn’t make sense. The only language that it makes sense is the Latin that uses the
Etruscan old words. We find old words in Latin that are from Etruscan, like poculum,
that special cup that you drink the ceremonial potion is. That’s a poculum. Yeah. And here we
have one as well. We have a word that’s coming through the Etruscan tradition here. Yeah. And
that is weirago and it means from led from man weir is man and ago the agroot in latin is the
the word for leading or driving so what’s funny is this statement she’ll be called woman because she
was taken from man makes perfect sense if the word weirago is used but it makes no sense either way
in native greek or in hebrew now there’s no way this etruscan tradition is coming through the
hebrew the words are different but the words overlap the roots overlap in greek so what is
likely to be happening your septuagint your greek old testament is the original and it is conveying
as greek does aptly etruscan ideas that’s as close as we can get to that original source
now you were told that this doesn’t this isn’t how the world is put together and you will have
somebody come to you a semitic study scholar and they will throw the 10th century at you yes and
you can tell them you can tell them that you’re looking for that original that original is the
secret of the vampires yes it’s the secret of those who suck the haima yeah it’s the secret
that is both medical and individual and personal their secret is a woman yeah and that makes me
want to make statues dance thank you for coming tonight um now that we know the secret
of the vampires is a woman um let’s um next time we meet we’re going to traipse through in the
bible study we’re going to traipse through the renaissance and we’re going to follow those
who also followed her isn’t this nice i want you to see the saturnian rights
through time i want you to see the dragons who protected those rights i want you to see the order
that was established and what exactly the vampires moved into what they became and what they did
and how your history is not a history of of bram writing about a guy in a box there are real real
roots of Dracula out there and these are preserved for us thanks to the thanks to the people like
Mike you know who was able to write down and perfect possessed Orphic Latin him was able to
write down exactly for you the description of her yes beautiful beautiful have a good night thank
for coming tonight and for all of you who are asking me questions i’m getting to my emails
i’m getting to them as quickly as i possibly can but i uh i just want you to know again how nice it
is to be conversing with people who are stepping up and who are saying oh well you know what let’s
go investigate this let’s go look at this and using their reason so thank you thank you and
And thank you for your time tonight, everyone.
Source: Lady Babylon