More on Fallen Angels, Enoch and Where Lust Went Wrong

Found the most wonderful store in Burlington, which I suspect I will never visit again ... not because of them, but because it was near the Lahey Medical Center ... The Used Book Superstore, at 256 Cambridge Street.  I could have bought out huge swaths of the entire store, but restrained myself.

One of the books I found was the Forbidden Mysteries of Enoch – even though the book was written by cult leader and thoroughly distasteful (not to mention amoral and hypocritical) Elizabeth Clare Prophet – it does provide something useful:  an annotated copy of the Book of Enoch, which I’m finding very helpful, and some other avenues of research:  the writings of Origen, for example.  The rest of her thesis – that those same fallen angels are still around, causing all of the world’s financial, social, military and other ills (riiiiight) – we’ll just toss onto the crackpot conspiracy theory bonfire, shall we?  Why yes, I believe we shall.  As soon as she starts babbling about “the elect” – you know, only “those few of us who know anything”! - you know she’s up to her eyeballs in a pathetically misinformed idiocracy.

Origen is a hoot to read.  The christian terror of sex is nowhere more evident than in the ramblings of this guy, who – although there are a few historians who raise one skeptical eyebrow at the story – took Matthew 19:12 literally ...

“For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” Matthew 19:12, King James Version (KJV)

... by which I mean that he promptly castrated himself so as not to be corrupted by those evil women who brought down the angels mentioned in Enoch.  Unfortunately – possibly due to pain and blood loss -  he didn’t have the common sense to turn up his nose at the actual women who did the “dirty deed”; instead, he basically blamed all women for it ... and I have to say, if I’m going to be blamed for something merely by virtue of being female, I should have at least had the fun of getting passionately deflowered by someone who fell so in love with me from the stratosphere he just had to drop 80,000 feet straight down and pay me a visit.  “Ooooh, c’mere and flutter those BIG  wings, you ethereal hunk, you ...!”

The story of Origen castrating himself – and can we say, “Ouch!” for those days without general anesthesia? – makes one strongly suspect that he had a few serious psychological and emotional issues involving the fairer sex even before he decided that chopping things off was the best way to restrain himself, leaving him probably not the best person to make any comments at all on the story in the Book of Enoch.  Just my own personal opinion.    But pardonez moi while one member of that fairer sex – by which I mean moi – bursts out laughing at him.  The story came from Eusebius in his Historia Ecclesiastica.  And this is the guy christians think is a great theologian?

As for the story of the fallen angels itself?  Origen’s big issue with the tale was that the fallen angels taught women – who might not have been able to attract REAL men any other way – to “adorn” themselves, they had taught the women, “operations of metallurgy, and had divulged the natural properties of herbs, and had promulgated the powers of enchantments, and had traced out every curious art, even to the interpretation of the stars—they conferred properly and as it were peculiarly upon women that instrumental mean of womanly ostentation, the radiances of jewels wherewith necklaces are variegated, and the circlets of gold wherewith the arms are compressed, and the medicaments of orchil with which wools are coloured, and that black powder itself wherewith the eyelids and eyelashes are made prominent.”

So Origen’s great grievance over the tale was that the fallen angels taught women to look so sexy and so attractive wearing make-up and jewelry that he felt compelled to join the ranks of the castrati?

Ladies, next time you’re in front of your make-up mirrors, you know who to really thank for the final result.

But, accurate or not – and I really wish this woman would cite her sources! – she introduces her thesis with this:

“Back in the first few centuries after Christ, the Church Fathers were philosophizing on the origins of evil in God’s universe – especially on earth.  All agreed that evil was rooted in the angels who fell from heaven – the familiar scriptural account about an archangel’s rebellion against the Almighty and the angels who were cast out with him.”

“All agreed”?  Really?  So – they had all forgotten about the other story – remember Genesis and the Garden of Eden?  Eve and the apple?  The serpent?  Yes, THAT story of where evil originated.  Now we have another one.  True, both stories, it seems, point fingers at independently thinking, make-up wearing women flashing their jewelry as the true culprits responsible for the downfall of mankind, but how had we gone from Genesis to a bunch of men identified as “Church Fathers” - one of them apparently newly capable of singing soprano with the Vienna Boys Choir – all agreeing that the fallen angels were responsible for everything?  Yeah, I’m thinking she just plain ol’ made that up!

Her unfortunate point of view is evident from the start:  “They taught the women sorcery, incantations and divination – twisted versions of the secrets of heaven.”  Huh?  Those are EXACTLY the “secrets of heaven”, you dimwitted ignoramus!  Tapping into the quantum sea?  Creating one’s own reality?  Following one’s subconscious directions?  Sounds like you’re the one with the twisted versions of things, not Samyaza and his men.  I really don’t like stupid women.  Or maybe you haven’t noticed that?

She complains that the angels “developed an insatiable lust for the daughters of men” – and again, you’re thinking:  really?  What exactly is the issue here?  Corporeal vs. incorporeal?  You have an entire pantheon of gods and goddesses pre-dating this story who actually personified love and lust and all the most glorious aspects of human nature – look at Eros, Anteros, Venus for starters – where did this start to become so ... ugly?  When did a desire for intimacy become so worthy of condemnation?  Prophet doesn’t seem to question her own judgement, although – if you read her online biographical sketches, you learn that lust was a significant part of her own psychological make-up, as she apparently bedded a large swath of men in her cult without blinking - or bothering her husband or their wives with the gory details.  Hypocrisy, thy name is Prophet, apparently.

As for me – I don’t get it.  When did “lust” – a hunger for sexual intimacy – turn so ugly?  This story has so many key components missing, it’s frustrating.

The research continues ...