Divine Encounters - Zecharia Sitchin-pages

Page 199 of 384

Page 199 of 384
Divine Encounters - Zecharia Sitchin-pages

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195 ing on the tablet, and Shubshi can read it: "in the waking hours, he sees the message." He regains enough strength to "show the favorable sign to my people." Miraculously, the "illness was quickly over." His fever was broken. The headache was "carried away," the Evil Demon was banished to its domain; the chills were "flowed away to the sea," the "clouded eyes" cleared up, the "ob- structions to the hearing" were removed, the toothache was gone—the list of afflictions that disappeared when the myste- rious-miraculous tablet appeared goes on and on, leading to the punch line: "Who but Marduk could have restored the dying to life?" The tale ends with a description of the libations, sacrifices, and offerings by the hero of the tale in honor of Marduk and his spouse Sarpanit as the erstwhile sufferer proceeds to the great ziggurat-temple via the sacred precinct's twelve gates. The ancient records include additional instances that belong in the Twilight Zone, where objects—or actions—that are part of the dream-vision dimension appear in the ensuing awakened reality. Though they lack the clear-cut pictorial evidence available in the case of the tablet with the temple's plan, the other reports suggest that the phenomenon, though rare, was not unique to Gudea. Even there, though Gudea himself does not hold them up for posterity to see, we know from the text that at least two additional objects—me mold and the Brick of Destiny—also materialized into the ratio- nal dimension. Physical objects and actions that transcend the boundary are also encountered in the dreams of Gilgamesh. The "hand- iwork of Anu" that descended from the skies is reported in Tablet I as seen in a dream; but when the episode is repeated in Tablet II of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the dream becomes a vision of real happenings. Gilgamesh struggles to extract the artifact's inner whirring part, and when he finally succeeds he takes the mysterious object to his mother and puts it at her feet. Later on, as Gilgamesh and Enkidu encamp at the foothills of the Cedar Mountain, Gilgamesh falls asleep, has three dreams, and each time a dreamed-of action—a call, a touch— is transformed into real action mat awakens him. The call, Visions from the Twilight Zone