Piero Barone and his Marshmallows, Fallen Angels and More Coincidences

To one confused commenter/question-asker/truth-seeker (unpublished, because apparently I’m now the "Font of All Weird Miscellany That Has Nothing to Do With this Blog", don’t ask me why):

No, Piero Barone did NOT sing a song called, "Marshmallow for Toasting", the song you’re looking for is, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year", a popular Christmas song written in 1963 by Edward Pola and George Wyle – so sayeth Wikipedia. Look for Il Volo’s mini-Christmas CD on Amazon. And actually, the line is "marshmallowS (plural) for toasting", I think, unless marshmallows are inexplicably scarce in Sicily, and Piero couldn’t imagine toasting more than one of them.
 

----------->

Not that I believe in coincidences...but if you knew anything about Mr. Signpost, you’d see the connection. Not only with "The Hobbit", but with both of them being in the same place at the same time. Why does it feel like everybody’s connected?

The second best part of Thanksgiving: the leftovers. Yum! A lot of the main meal is even better the next few days and even further if frozen. So, while I slurp up some egg-drop-leftover turkey & rosemary infused kale soup ... don’t ask for the recipe; I made it up as I went along and couldn’t recreate it even if I wanted to – let’s get back to the angels.

Less than one week after being released, Il Volo’s latest cd We Are Love went gold ... certainly on its way to platinum relatively shortly. I’m pretty sure they’re filming a performance video in New York, or at least they asked for NYC fans to check in for a private invitation to a performance. I am SO in the wrong state!! Argh.

But I still had to link to the first public performance of "Beautiful Day" - done on the Tonight Show.  My GOD, can that boy sing!  And they're all still teenagers!!

Oh, you thought I meant the OTHER angels?

I didn’t really explain my conclusion in my previous entry of the fallen angels being idiots and their deity acting like a spoiled two-year old, so I’ll do that now: the angels because, at least according to Enoch, they failed to react when their offspring ate all of the crops, and then started on the livestock, the wildlife and then the people.

These were the angels who taught people sorcery, astrology, geomancy, husbandry, plant division, etc., among other things – and they couldn’t figure out how to sow larger fields of crops to feed the offspring? They were magical beings, and couldn’t get the kids to stop gnawing on human bones? Riiiight. Another reason I doubt the story: all the way into the 18th century, human beings were spreading false rumors that their enemies were cannibals ... I’m guessing the Book of Enoch is where that habit got started?

Following this disaster, their deity’s reaction was ridiculous. "WHAT?? You wanna have sex with human beings? You’re damned to hell for all eternity and I don’t care how much you beg, I will NEVER ever ever forgive you!"

Well, okey-dokey, then! This deity apparently has real issues with sex, even though, according to the judeo-christian-mohammedan mythology, sexual relations was pretty much the only method by which human beings could manage to obey the directive to "be fruitful and multiply". And then, before they even got rolling on that directive, it became such a horrifying and sinful thing to do, it got Adam & Eve tossed out of Eden and got the angels sent to hell for eternity, no matter how much they begged for forgiveness. Nah, I suspect that the terror of women and sex came straight out of the so-called "minds" of middle-eastern men (who carry it around with them to this day) and into the quills of sex-starved and depraved monks and priests in the Middle Ages, writing flowery hymns about loving their fellow men ... while simultaneously cursing women as the source of original sin.

Things that make you go "huh?", to borrow from an oldie but goodie. Talk about your irrational temper tantrums from the deity who wants his followers to learn about "forgiveness" and "mercy", huh? Lovely. He sounds like an insane serial killer to me. Another reason I’m not thrilled with this source.

On the other hand, a lot of detail from this source made its way into the christian bible, so we might as well take it seriously as a reason for incubi being thought of by christians and their ilk as demons, rather than benevolent and helpful angelic beings who can make a woman deliriously happy at night and teach her all sorts of wonderful skills ... which, I must confess, is how I’m starting to view them.

Enoch did us at least one favor in the midst of his illogical ramblings: he listed the chieftains of the 200 angels, leaving out the part where he explains why angels actually NEED chieftains or whatever they’re called in the first place (what? they don’t have a direct line of communication to the Home Office? They’re bleeping ANGELS! Let me shoot the computer screen again):

And in doing so, enabled those of us paying attention to recognize that there is a grimoire of Turiel – one of the angels – out there somewhere. But then, I still get confused by grimoirian diagrams.

And these are the names of their leaders: 1. Sêmîazâz, their leader, 2. Arâkîba, 3. Râmêêl, 4. Kôkabîêl, 5.Tâmîêl, 6. Râmîêl, 7. Dânêl, 8. Êzêqêêl, 9. Barâqîjâl, 10. Asâêl, 11. Armârôs, 12. Batârêl, 13. Anânêl, 14.Zaqîêl, 15. Samsâpêêl, 16.Satarêl, 17. Tûrêl, 18. Jômjâêl, 19. Sariêl. These are their chiefs of tens."

R. H. Charles translation, The Book of the Watchers, Chapter VI.

OK, let’s not mention the fact that he only listed nineteen leaders, including Sêmîazâz. So we have eighteen leaders of 10 men (180 so far) and Sêmîazâz or Samyaza who led the 18 – for a grand total of 198. We’re missing 2. Anyone wanna explain the math of this? (Looking at watch). That’s OK, I’ll wait.

[Next day]

Wow, no wonder the United States is #17 in science and math. None of you could explain the illogical math! Just for the fun of it, I raised the same question to some Illuminati to see if THEY could explain it. Interestingly enough, this group of Illuminati have a different interpretation than Dan Brown’s best seller did. I distinctly remember Tom Hanks explaining the Illuminati being scientists bent on revenge in the "Angels and Demons" film where Ewan McGregor set himself on fire. The group I asked believes the Illuminati are the descendants of the Angels and women mating ... although this would not explain how they all survived the flood which was supposed to have destroyed them, and why they’re not still giants. I’ll let someone else figure THAT contradiction out.

[Next day] You don’t want to know what nasty pinheads THEY were.

Meanwhile ... I don’t really want to identify and explain all 19 angels in this one entry, so perhaps we’ll spread it out.

1. Samyaza (Aramaic:

שמיחזה, Greek: Σεμιαζά) also Semihazah, Shemyazaz, Sêmîazâz, Semjâzâ, Samjâzâ, Shemyaza, and Shemhazai is a fallen angel of apocryphal Jewish and Christian tradition that ranked in the heavenly hierarchy as one of the Grigori (meaning "Watchers" in Greek). The name 'Shemyaza[z]' means 'infamous rebellion', the combination of 'shem' [meaning 'name' or 'fame' {whether positive or negative}] + 'azaz' [which means 'rebellion' or 'arrogance' as a negative particle]. Michael Knibb lists him as "the (or my) name has seen" or "he sees the name". The interesting thing about the second interpretation is there is a tale about Semjâzâ knowing the explicit name of God and making a deal with a human Istahar to tell her the name.

Taught enchantments and divination.

Some suggest that Samyaza is most likely another name for Satan (Heb: 'the adversary'), who was originally an entity created in the service of God; he was the caretaker of God's throne, but later fell from the heavens because of his pride according to some Abrahamic traditions. Jesus states that he saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning in Luke 10:18.

Others say that Samyaza should not be mistaken for another name for Satan, who some believe was "cast out" from the heavens because of his refusal to bow down to Adam as written in the Qur'an (7:11) and the pseudepigraphical Gospel of Bartholomew (IV:54-56).[2] This interpretation points to Rev. 12:9 and Gen. 6:4 as depicting two separate falls from heaven, one of Satan being cast down, the other of the sons of God choosing to come to earth to take human wives.

[I’m personally of the opinion that any ‘refusal to bow down to Adam’ – the ol’ cornerstone of the ‘men should rule the whole worrrld!’ society - should be met with a standing ovation and a promotion to the corner office, but that’s just me. Also, "pseudepigraphical Gospel of Bartholomew" refers to a text understood by most to be apocryphal (i.e., written well after the fact by a few centuries), describing a supposed conversation between Jesus and his followers over his descent into hell or Hades.]

2. Arakiel (Aramaic: פלא פקתן, Greek: ‘Αραθάκ Κιμβρά), also spelled Arâkîba, Araqiel, Araqael, Araciel, Arqael, Sarquael, Arkiel or Arkas, is a fallen angel ... who taught the "signs of the earth" (which suggests geomancy) to humans during the days of Jared. Arakiel is also called Aretstikapha (meaning "world of distortion" [the combination of arets + kaphah]) in Chapter 69. His name is generally translated as "earth of God"; the combination of araq-earth (Babylonian in origin) and El-God. Micheal Knibb lists him as a combination of two names "the land of the mighty one" or "the land is mighty".


More later