The supreme deity of ancient Babylon — the god who slew the primordial chaos monster Tiamat, built the world from her body and received fifty divine names as his reward. Marduk is also the thread that runs, unbroken, from the temples of Babylon through Hermetic philosophy, Kabbalistic tradition and into the most persistent conspiracy theories of the modern world.
How to read this section: Marduk is simultaneously a historical deity, a mythological archetype, a magical system and the centrepiece of some of the most elaborate conspiracy theories in circulation. This section covers all four dimensions honestly — making clear what is historically documented, what is mythological, what is genuine occult tradition, and what is modern speculation.
The honest answer is that the influence of Babylonian religion on Western civilisation is both vastly underestimated and vastly exaggerated — underestimated by mainstream history, exaggerated by conspiracy culture. Both errors are corrected here.