Saytan Dun It!

The co-worker from North Carolina called on Monday. "Saytan!" she screeched. "Saytan dun it! Ah’s been cryin’ and cryin all weekend!" Since she’s about as hard, cold and inflexible as a pile of rocks, I was (to put it mildly) skeptical. Sure she’s been crying and crying all weekend. Even her own mother wouldn’t have believed that one.

She’s referring to the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

"Really? I wasn’t aware they’d finished the investigative report already." Impressively fast conclusion to a criminal investigation that just happened this week and was supposed to last about six months. I wondered where the Police Chief in Connecticut was going to write that in whatever report it is they pull together at the end of an investigation: "SAYTAN DUN IT!"

How I despise fanatical christians. She swears all mental illness is caused by demons, which should make the parents of infants born with Down’s Syndrome or the families of depressives or of teenage schizophrenics happy. At least it wasn’t anything the parents did. SAYTAN DUN IT! DEMONS DUN IT! She’s probably going to blame the fallen angels next. Why do I even talk to this woman? Oh yeah, my job requires me to. Since the manager is also a nutball christian, there’s no one I can complain to about the constant proselyting. I suspect the same thing happens in the military, which has been seriously infected with dark and evil christian fanatics.

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading all sorts of things.

Lon Milo Duquette’s Key to Solomon’s Key, despite a few inexplicable leaps of "logic" I couldn’t follow, was actually somewhat interesting, although it did take us in a roundabout way back to the Knights Templar. Duquette is a Mason, btw.

In this version, the Templars did not uncover a descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, but something that conclusively proved that David and Solomon didn’t exist (more to follow) AND that the genuine church was based in Jerusalem and not Rome, under the auspices of Jesus’s brother James and not under Paul. Duquette didn’t say this, but it occurred to me as I was reading him, that the Roman church obsessing over Paul would be certainly bolstered by their supportive obsession with Mary’s perpetual virginity ... in other words, Jesus wouldn’t have had a brother to be the legitimate "rock" at the foundation of a conflicting version of christianity, if his mother never had sex. And no one gave Jesus’s mother a micro-second’s worth of thought until about the 5th century.

Although I’m still wondering when the Masons will suddenly wake up and wonder why they’re carrying on misogynistic behavior from the BCE era, along with everything else. And no, the Eastern Star – or, more accurately, the "wives of the vastly more important people" adjunct organization – doesn’t count, since it only exists to stop the whining on the distaff side when portly geriatric men march out of their castles to mill and mumble and congregate and play with compasses.

Back to the point of which I was unaware: that there is no independent, verifiable proof that the biblical kings David and Solomon ever existed, and in fact, the archeological evidence there is proves that the great "nation" of Israel at the time those kings were to have lived was little more than a tribal village. First thought: is that right? Went and did some rudimentary research. Yup. He was correct – nothing. Besides the usual yahoos screaming, "I duzn’t need no stankin’ PROOF!" (yeah, okay), and one line out of Josephus. Also irrelevant. Josephus was a Jewish historian-slash- propagandist who wrote a history of the jews that christians re-re-wrote after he kicked the bucket. The christian mis-transcriptionist (I’m guessing an evil and unscrupulous monk) had a Jewish historian proclaiming enthusiastically something to the effect that Jesus was the Messiah (!!!), which provoked so much laughter after the Christian Inquisition was over and it was safe to laugh hysterically without being tortured, murdered and burnt at the stake, that I think there was even a wanted poster out for the revisionist. And christians STILL try to provide that silliness as "proof" because they don’t know any better. Anyway, my jaw basically dropped. Wow. Who knew?

Invoking the Scribes of Ancient Egypt. Normandi Ellis, Gloria Taylor Brown. An irritatingly mis-titled book if there ever was one. A gaggle of grey and white-haired well-to-do women and one poor guy, some dizzily channeling Helen Roper’s personal caftan stylist, take a guided tour of Egypt, shopping for more caftans and writing down uninteresting little personal stories as they go. ("Oh, MY! I got divorced and SURVIVED!") The worst insult is one horrifying christian who squeaks "Praise Jesus!" at every stop, insulting all of the gods and goddesses whose altars and temples she visited. And the dumb cows actually wrote that down, as though the very act of recording it showed how open-minded they were. How appallingly disrespectful they were is more like it; I’m surprised their Egyptian guide didn’t toss them all into the nearest airlock and have them all deported. By the end of the book you have your finger down your throat and are hurling into the nearest toilet. I’m trying to figure out how to get a refund, as no ancient Egyptian scribes were invoked at any time.

Then I located another Paradise Lost and was again stunned. I had been laboring (on my second book of poetry) under the serious delusion that John Milton had written the only "Paradise Lost". I was wrong! Milton, it seems, had stolen the title, and even the idea practically in its entirety from a much earlier poet, who wrote in Anglo-Saxon. I’m reading it now, or at least, I’m reading the translation of it now.

According to William H.F. Bosanquet in 1860, The Fall of Man or Paradise Lost by Cædmon, "was first printed in 1655 [in Anglo Saxon] without a translation, "the year in which Milton is supposed to have made his first sketch of Paradise Lost." (!!!!) Lovely.

Next book: Dictionary of Demons, by Michelle Belanger, and back to the Fallen Angels. Normally, I like Michelle Belanger – she seems very down to earth – not surprising for a Capricorn. That said, reading her entry on Shemyaza, the leader of the 20 I’m listing for you here, in her Dictionary of Demons is a little irritating – "he was guilty of the SIN of lust?" That isn’t what the Book of Enoch said. He was condemned for being enamored of human women who were unclean. You’da thunk that if anyone would regard such misogynistic text as offensive and highly questionable, it would be Michelle Belanger, but no – she just repeated the same judeo-christian nonsense without even paying attention to Enoch – which she referenced in her definition!! Didn’t anyone actually READ Enoch before repeating the fallen angel crap?? I read her entry, hoping to learn something interesting, and sighed heavily. Onward with the list:

7. Daniel is a fallen angel, the seventh mentioned of the 20 Watcher leaders of the 200 fallen angels in the Book of Enoch, who taught the "signs of the sun" to humans. The name is translated by Michael Knibb as "God has judged." Conversely, according to Francis Barrett in The Magus, Danjal is the name of one of the 72 holy angels bearing the name of God, Shemhamphorae.

8. Chazaqiel was the 8th Watcher of the 20 leaders of the 200 fallen angels that are mentioned in an ancient work called The Book of Enoch. The name means "cloud of God", which is fitting since it was said that Chazaqiel taught men the knowledge of the clouds, meteorology. Michael Knibb translates this angel as being the "Shooting star of God".

9. Baraqiel was the 9th Watcher of the 20 leaders of the 200 fallen angels that are mentioned in an ancient work called the Book of Enoch. The name means "lightning of God", which is fitting since it has been said that Baraqiel taught men astrology during the days of Jared or Yered. Some scholars believe that he is Sanat Kumara of theosophists such as Benjamin Creme and Madame Blavatsky; others believe that Sanat Kumara is a separate being. It has also been proposed based on a reconstruction by Schniedewind and Zuckerman that Baraqiel was the name of the father of Hazael, mentioned in the 9th century BCE inscription from Tel Dan. The biblical figure, Barak, known from Judges 4 is a shortened version of this longer name.

10. Asâêl, teacher of forbidden knowledge.

11. Armârôs was the eleventh on a list of 20 leaders of a group of 200 fallen angels called Grigori or "Watchers." in the Book of Enoch. The name means "cursed one" or "accursed one". The name 'Armaros' is likely a Greek corruption of what may be an Aramaic name; Armoni is possibly the original. Michael Knibb, Professor of Old Testament Studies at King's College London, lists the meaning of his name as being "the one from Hermon".

12. Batriel was the 12th Watcher of the 20 leaders of the 200 fallen angels that are mentioned in an ancient work called the Book of Enoch. The name is generally believed to be "valley of God" bathar-el and Babylonian in origin. Michael Knibb lists the translation for this Angel based on the Ethiopic Book of Enoch as "Rain of God".