I seem to be circling around again, revisiting past topics. Reason: the assignment this month for my class was reading and meditating about protective shields and talismans, and making charms. I’m required to make a charm and infuse it with intent, which brought me back to the issue of beneficial, protective and wonderful spirits being laden with the false label of “demon” because,
(1) Renaissance-era christians didn’t translate the Greek designation “daemon” (i.e., spirit) properly – the rise of humanism during the Renaissance was inspired by the translation of ancient Grecian, Roman, Egyptian, near eastern etc., documents and papyri, and
(2) the sadistic viciousness of the Vatican and their inquisitors prevented anything other than circumspection and secrecy; magi from this time period – one eye fixed nervously on the fate of men such as Giordano Bruno - needed to easily defend their works if needed, and what better way than to point at their continued use of the wrong translation of the Greek word for spirit as proof of their genuine piety. (“See? I’m on YOUR side!”)
My perfect example has always been Enoch’s so-called “fallen angels” and the incubus/succubus who, I’ll be the first to admit, may include spiritual beings whose readings on the “Morality-O-Meter” may be a negative number, but you can’t assume that this is true of all of them, or even the vast majority of them. If you read the lists of things these beings are known for, rarely do you find mention of murder and mayhem. Primarily it’s answering questions and teaching … or helping you with love issues. Hardly the sort to send you running for the nearest fire alarm.
It turns out that most of those are cheerful, friendly, loving, lusty spirits whose only interest is to make you happy. REALLY happy. Dancing-in-the-rain singing “On The Street Where You Live” happy. Bad guys? Hardly. In fact, they’re better to have around than many human beings, when you think about it. But because some christian heard the word sex and lost his or her marbles in prurient, squealing horror, they’re all painted with the same brush.
I truly believe that is the job of THIS generation to un-paint them, so to speak. Most of them deserve to be revisited, with an open mind.
The sad part is that, following in the heels of these sexually repressed and thus sadly perverted christians are the (see my previous posts on this) wiccan twinkies with pursed lips (or as I like to call them, the church ladies with pointy hats) squealing “Witches shalt NOT do this and that!” and the guys (they always seem to be nerdy guys) who thought they’d rebel against mommy and daddy by reading Anton LaVey in the basement, not realizing that the only thing they’re accomplishing is reinforcing the christian rule-book in their creation of opposites. In other words, they buy into the christian list of “demons” by invoking and worshiping them as demons. None of them stop and question the judeo-christian point of view at all. But then – as I said – they’re all in dark basements, sulking and whining and pretending to be bad boys. Sad, really.
The same may be true of the retelling of the King Solomon mythology: he obviously was quite familiar with magick and the use of invocation, and the story of him invoking all sorts of beings to help him build his temple is well known. So, many of us are familiar with faux Solomon’s grimoire, chock full of beings with the word “demon” and “hell” written after them, whether or not they deserve such designations. I personally think the vast of a lot of them don’t, because there is no indication that any of them ever did anything to deserve the label.
I mean, think about it: we pre-christians (pagans, witches, streghone, whathaveyou) have no use for “satan”, “demons” and “hell”, although christians seem to enjoy wildly tossing the concepts about. They should – they invented them and their emotional discards (the Anton LaVey crowd) continue to perpetuate them. After all, it’s what they use to keep their followers in line, shaking pitifully in their boots and swooning at the theater unspooling of “The Exorcist”. Extremely useful, true or not, when you’re in the business of scaring the crap out of people and then telling you their deity is “full of love”. May be, but you’d never know it, listening to their apocalyptic banshee wailing, would you?
So. Back to charms and talismans. Protection. I already have the cimaruta – so shiny and beautiful I love it! – so I’m not sure why I need to make another one. Perhaps to prove that I know how. Okay.
I sat around this weekend thinking about Sekhmet and Enki and Zepar and how to represent them on charms and talismans. I have never figured out why Zepar in particular wound up with that label. After all, HE never firebombed entire cities just because some creep behind its walls pissed him off, and the christian deity sure did. HE never initiated and perpetuated the Spanish Inquisition, probably one of the more horrific and sadistic acts in christian history. HE never ordered the Trail of Tears. HE never did anything remotely as awful as christians have done, and he got the big “D” label? Hypocrisy, anyone? As far as I’m concerned, he isn’t one.
There is another reason I think that. And that is because not that long ago I saw him turn his head and look at me. Astonishing and unexpected mini-vision in the midst of a daydream about something else entirely.
He was sitting somewhere, leaning forward with his forearms arms resting on the tops of his thighs, listening intently to someone who was speaking to him. I thought, “What the … who is that?” and then inhaled in shock and thought, “Why, that’s Zepar!” At that, his head whipped to the right and I was absolutely rooted to the ground, immobilized by the intensity of his eyes. He looked at me for about five seconds (during which time I felt as though I’d been scanned to the core and whatever secrets I thought I had inside of me were laid bare and trembling. I didn’t know what to do). Then – his eyes softened ever so slightly … and the corner of his mouth twitched as though he wanted to express amusement – but he didn’t – and then he turned his head back and the vision was gone. I was as big a wreck after that unexpected moment as I was when that invisible someone closed his hand over my ankle. Same someone?
No, he didn’t strike me as the type to stay invisible and grab women’s ankles for his own entertainment. He struck me as … POWER. Coiled, exquisitely controlled, lion-esque power. Not easily distracted but easily bored. I also think he’s confident and perhaps even arrogant enough to send someone else – one of the men under his command for example – in his place, when he has no use for the conjuror. He only allows himself to be summoned when HE wants to be summoned, for reasons all his own.
Embarrassingly enough, I panted for a good ten minutes after that happened, tingling from head to toe and back again. Oh my goodness, what a good looking man!!
By the way, it wasn’t as though I had some image of him in my head before I saw him – I didn’t. Only afterwards I went into Google and looked up “images of Zepar”, hoping someone else with artistic talent had seen him and managed to capture him: not a single image in that mess of nonsense looked anything like him. Not even REMOTELY. Animae? Hardly. Everything in there came out of the minds of wide-eyed animae sketch artists and (as I said) pimply little boys with christian demons still lodged in their tighty whities. Made me want to seriously apologize to him for the abject stupidity of the human race. I recognized the red breastplate (which he did have), but the rest of that utter nonsense in Google images? Not him. Not the being who transfixed me with his gaze. He’s awesome and wonderful and powerful. Even if I never see him again, I will always remember the sensation. Unbelievable.
Oh – and it just occurred to me that if some conjuror had one of those appalling images in their head when they summoned him – just, as I said, for his own amusement – I could see him saying, “OK, if that’s what you really want.” and showing up like that, just to scare the scrap out of them. And then having a hearty brewski and riotous laugh-fest with the spirits under his command later, roaring his ass off at their panicked expressions.
Nope. Those images aren’t the Zepar I saw. None of them. I almost want to say that his eyes are … or maybe they were reflecting something else I couldn’t see? Dark purple-ish black? Almost the color that an eggplant has – aubergine? Except they had lights in them. I do remember seeing infinitely deep purple-ish starry lights in them – yet another reason I was awed. But they go right through you like a laser. He can just root you to the ground with them.
I can’t tell you anything about his voice, because he never spoke – I’ve read somewhere that he has an unearthly voice, or an unusual voice. But he didn’t speak, so I can’t confirm.
Needless to say, that – his sigil - was one of the ideas I immediately thought of, when we were asked to come up with protective talismans. Will definitely try to sketch one – when I can get my hands to stop trembling.
[Addendum: no, I haven’t seen him since I wrote that, and no, I haven’t heard his voice either. But he did give me something of a revelation, by way of a question posed to me when I was thinking about him this morning. The question wasn’t posed to me in words, so I’ll have to give my own voice to it; it basically appeared within me as though I’d had my crown opened, and the question poured in, full-blown, like watery light. Basically it was this: “WE ARE ALL ONE. You KNOW we are all one. How could I be something outside of that one unity?” [*blink!*] Eureka. Answer was: he couldn’t. Wasn’t possible. THAT’s why all of those Google images were so wrong, and so sad. They were drawn by artists who still didn’t realize that WE ARE ALL ONE. The Zepar they drew couldn’t look like the hideous, ugly or pitiable monsters they were drawing, because we would all look like that, if he did.
He may have a [far] more evolved skill set than I do – true – but ultimately he is cut from the same cloth of stardust and divine intent. I experienced such a surge of joy when I realized that.
The occasional ones you find in grimoires with unpleasant skill sets are no different than the dumb criminals you see every day on reality TV – those boringly moronic nitwits who always get caught because they’re so mindlessly stupid.
Judeo-christian-islam adherents, of course, don’t believe that – they believe in a narrow patriarchal hierarchy and a divisiveness – their deity is outside of them, because they believe themselves to be full of “sin” or something outside of the “one unity”; they can’t see themselves as godlike. (I would almost feel bad for them, if they weren’t so bent and determined to exterminate me). Ah well.
Looping back into Lupercalia and Imbolc. I don’t celebrate either one, Imbolc because I’m not Celtic, and although I’d be be more likely to celebrate Lupercalia, the Romans (pause while I ka-pooey on their collective memory, at least on this topic) sacrificed a dog and a goat for Lupercalia. And I feel the same way about that awful stunt as I do about the judeo-christian insistence that they are superior to all animal life and therefore perfectly justified in killing them with machine guns. Personally, I’d rather sacrifice a weekend hunter, his John Deere cap AND his cooler of Budweiser than an animal, I don’t care what anybody says. Really. No loss. Just sacrifice the bleep and leave his severed head in the middle of the woods - like the Blair Witch project! – to scare the wits out of any other hunter that wanders by. Heck, it would be worth it just to watch the lot of them run screaming out of the woods, weeping hysterically after spying that severed head in its John Deere cap, tripping drunkenly over their rifles and shooting themselves in the nuts.
Ooooh ... having a crabby day, are we???
Well .... yeah. Sorta. But it would still be funny. In any event, this is historically the day when everyone celebrated the return of the Sun – the light – because now is about the time one is eminently aware that the days are getting longer. Heck, I notice it just taking the commuter rail home at night. The sun has returned!! So one celebrates joyously. The christians – as always – unable to pull together an original thought in their heads at all, swiped this one from us pagans and strega as well and called it Candlemas. This is yet another stolen holiday, but most christians today are either too stupid to know it, or too vicious to care.
The other talisman I considered was Enki’s. Zecharia Sitchin aside, I really like Ea/Enki as a protector God. So, given the christian habit of announcing that every deity or spirit but theirs is demonic, I went and pulled a .pdf copy of The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, by Reginald Campbell Thompson of the British Museum (1904). Semi-interesting, if you can ignore his ironic references to indigenous cultures as “savages”. I say “ironic” because while he finds the “words of power” used by Assyrian or Babylonian “priests” perfectly acceptable, the same words of power used by others, is termed, “the customs of many savage tribes”. At some point, you struggle against the urge to also call him a “moronic pinhead” and stop reading. Ahhh, the joyful and incessantly clueless stupidity of 1904. I wonder if I can find a spell to resurrect him just to slap him senseless. Hmmm.
Showing posts with label incubi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label incubi. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Piero Barone: After Damiana Tea and Dressed in Black, He Looks like a Hot Cross Between a Priest and a Gunslinger
Ahhh, another day at Salisbury. No sunburn this time. No obnoxious brats. Peace. Closed-eyed tranquility. Refreshing. I was going to say, “no bird-brained women”, until I remembered the two morons who left a plastic bag of snacks laying on their beach towel before wandering off – completely forgetting that seagulls aren’t stupid. For those two women “bird-brained” would have been a compliment. The resulting squabble among the gulls over who got the last piece of red licorice (who knew gulls liked red licorice and cheesy-bites?) was pretty funny ... as was the expressions on the faces of the two dingbats when they returned and found their food bags spread out all over the sand – minus all the food. Gulls looked happy, though.
For those wondering about Piero’s version of “No puede ser” – I’m guessing if you asked Carlos Marin of Il Divo, he’d know exactly what you were talking about – “No puede ser” is one of Spain’s most favorite tenor arias from the zarzuela world, and Carlos came directly from the operatic and zarzuela world himself, so you know HE was familiar with the number.
Think Gilbert and Sullivan – operettas with a common touch; that’s the Spanish art form known as the zarzuela. One of the most popular zarzuelas is La tabernera del puerto, by Pablo Sorozábal, written in 1936, with libretto by Federico Romero and Guillermo Fernández Shaw. Christopher Webber of Blackheath, London, UK provided the full synopsis of the zarzuela, providing the context of “No puede ser”. Some background: Marola is the beautiful barmaid, Leandro is the handsome young sailor (who is madly in love with Marola), and Leandro has just been told an untruth: that Marola is using him as bait to smuggle illegal drugs. Leandro (wise little cutie that he is ... or maybe I’m thinking of Piero) doesn’t believe a word of it, and sings “No puede ser” ("It cannot be!") Lyrics and translation follow:
"No puede ser" (Leandro)
¡No puede ser! Esa mujer es buena.
¡No puede ser una mujer malvada!
En su mirar como una luz singular
he visto que esa mujer es una desventurada.
No puede ser una vulgar sirena
que envenenó las horas de mi vida.
¡No puede ser! porque la ví rezar,
porque la ví querer,
porque la ví llorar.
Los ojos que lloran no saben mentir;
las malas mujeres no miran así.
Temblando en sus ojos dos lágrimas ví
y a mi me ilusiona que tiemblen por mí.
Viva luz de mi ilusión,
sé piadosa con mi amor,
porque no sé fingir,
porque no sé callar,
porque no sé vivir.
TRANSLATION
It cannot be so! This woman is good.
She cannot be a bad woman!
In her look, like a strange light,
I've seen that this woman is unhappy.
She cannot be a cheap siren
who has poisoned every moment of my life.
It cannot be so! Because I've seen her pray,
because I've seen her love,
because I've seen her cry!
Those eyes that cry don't know how to lie.
Bad women do not look like that.
Glinting in her eyes I saw two tears,
and my hope is, they glint for me.
Vivid light of my hopes!
Take pity on my love!
Because I cannot pretend,
because I cannot be silent,
because I cannot live!
http://www.zarzuela.net/syn/taberna.htm
And here’s another example of l’uno e solo singing it, this time in Phoenix.
Update: Witchy Brew (haha) Evaluation
Now, this is not the same thing as the Damiana aphrodisiac steeped in alcohol. I need to find a container for that. This was the damiana tea: equal parts Damiana, Angelica root and Saw Palmetto berries. Instructions are to take one cup per day for two weeks. “Seems to have stimulating effects on sexual performance.”
It actually sorta worked after one cup, so I am seriously looking forward to 14 cups. By “sorta worked”, I mean that I was actually involved in something else an hour after I drank the tea, which was actually delicious. Really! I think it was the angelica root that added the very delightful and distinctive flavor to the tea – it was excellent! In any event, I was in the midst of packing, when all of a sudden I found myself thinking about ... sex. I actually thought, “Why the &*^& am I thinking about ...?” and then I looked at the clock. One hour exactly. I have to admit, I burst out laughing.
Of course the general state of arousal could have also been encouraged by Piero posting another photo of himself – dressed all in black, looking like a cross between gunslinger and a priest. Or, to put it another way, if you’re an Italian tenor, “sembra lei un incrocio tra un pistolero e un sacerdote”. Mmmm-mmmmm! I almost lost consciousness he looked so hot: the dangerous bad boy crossed with the [supposedly] unattainable.
Lucky for me he isn’t the latter, or I would have been moved to confess all the lustful thoughts I have had about him since he was 17. And thank goodness he isn’t the former, either, or he might have shot me. And someday he wants to have 6 kids?? Some woman is going to be delirious with joy when he starts THAT program!
And so, back to the Incubus.
It occurred to me ... and I have no idea why it took me this long ... that it didn’t matter what christians thought of incubi, or what qualities they attributed to incubi, or even what Enoch said about them. The ONLY thing that mattered was what I – me – myself – thought about incubi. If I (me-myself-I) did not believe them to be bad news, then they weren’t. It was that simple. They were bad news only if I bought into the nonsense spewed out by the church ladies with the pointy hats brigade.
It’s getting near bedtime again. Back to the teapot, and some lovely experimenting!
For those wondering about Piero’s version of “No puede ser” – I’m guessing if you asked Carlos Marin of Il Divo, he’d know exactly what you were talking about – “No puede ser” is one of Spain’s most favorite tenor arias from the zarzuela world, and Carlos came directly from the operatic and zarzuela world himself, so you know HE was familiar with the number.
Think Gilbert and Sullivan – operettas with a common touch; that’s the Spanish art form known as the zarzuela. One of the most popular zarzuelas is La tabernera del puerto, by Pablo Sorozábal, written in 1936, with libretto by Federico Romero and Guillermo Fernández Shaw. Christopher Webber of Blackheath, London, UK provided the full synopsis of the zarzuela, providing the context of “No puede ser”. Some background: Marola is the beautiful barmaid, Leandro is the handsome young sailor (who is madly in love with Marola), and Leandro has just been told an untruth: that Marola is using him as bait to smuggle illegal drugs. Leandro (wise little cutie that he is ... or maybe I’m thinking of Piero) doesn’t believe a word of it, and sings “No puede ser” ("It cannot be!") Lyrics and translation follow:
"No puede ser" (Leandro)
¡No puede ser! Esa mujer es buena.
¡No puede ser una mujer malvada!
En su mirar como una luz singular
he visto que esa mujer es una desventurada.
No puede ser una vulgar sirena
que envenenó las horas de mi vida.
¡No puede ser! porque la ví rezar,
porque la ví querer,
porque la ví llorar.
Los ojos que lloran no saben mentir;
las malas mujeres no miran así.
Temblando en sus ojos dos lágrimas ví
y a mi me ilusiona que tiemblen por mí.
Viva luz de mi ilusión,
sé piadosa con mi amor,
porque no sé fingir,
porque no sé callar,
porque no sé vivir.
TRANSLATION
It cannot be so! This woman is good.
She cannot be a bad woman!
In her look, like a strange light,
I've seen that this woman is unhappy.
She cannot be a cheap siren
who has poisoned every moment of my life.
It cannot be so! Because I've seen her pray,
because I've seen her love,
because I've seen her cry!
Those eyes that cry don't know how to lie.
Bad women do not look like that.
Glinting in her eyes I saw two tears,
and my hope is, they glint for me.
Vivid light of my hopes!
Take pity on my love!
Because I cannot pretend,
because I cannot be silent,
because I cannot live!
http://www.zarzuela.net/syn/taberna.htm
And here’s another example of l’uno e solo singing it, this time in Phoenix.
Update: Witchy Brew (haha) Evaluation
 |
| Love Potion #9 |
Now, this is not the same thing as the Damiana aphrodisiac steeped in alcohol. I need to find a container for that. This was the damiana tea: equal parts Damiana, Angelica root and Saw Palmetto berries. Instructions are to take one cup per day for two weeks. “Seems to have stimulating effects on sexual performance.”
It actually sorta worked after one cup, so I am seriously looking forward to 14 cups. By “sorta worked”, I mean that I was actually involved in something else an hour after I drank the tea, which was actually delicious. Really! I think it was the angelica root that added the very delightful and distinctive flavor to the tea – it was excellent! In any event, I was in the midst of packing, when all of a sudden I found myself thinking about ... sex. I actually thought, “Why the &*^& am I thinking about ...?” and then I looked at the clock. One hour exactly. I have to admit, I burst out laughing.
Of course the general state of arousal could have also been encouraged by Piero posting another photo of himself – dressed all in black, looking like a cross between gunslinger and a priest. Or, to put it another way, if you’re an Italian tenor, “sembra lei un incrocio tra un pistolero e un sacerdote”. Mmmm-mmmmm! I almost lost consciousness he looked so hot: the dangerous bad boy crossed with the [supposedly] unattainable.
 |
| incrocio tra un pistolero e un sacerdote |
Lucky for me he isn’t the latter, or I would have been moved to confess all the lustful thoughts I have had about him since he was 17. And thank goodness he isn’t the former, either, or he might have shot me. And someday he wants to have 6 kids?? Some woman is going to be delirious with joy when he starts THAT program!
And so, back to the Incubus.
It occurred to me ... and I have no idea why it took me this long ... that it didn’t matter what christians thought of incubi, or what qualities they attributed to incubi, or even what Enoch said about them. The ONLY thing that mattered was what I – me – myself – thought about incubi. If I (me-myself-I) did not believe them to be bad news, then they weren’t. It was that simple. They were bad news only if I bought into the nonsense spewed out by the church ladies with the pointy hats brigade.
It’s getting near bedtime again. Back to the teapot, and some lovely experimenting!
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Magickal Circles and Pitiful Class Notes
Fortunately, the instructor decided to tape the workshop, so I’ll listen to it this weekend and try to catch some clues as to why it was I scribbled incomprehensible nonsense about apple pies and citrus.
Found another wonderful witch in support of anti-Twinkism. Twinkiism? WHATEVER! This one from Zsuzsanna Budapest in The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries. Now, obviously she’s not in favor of running up and down the west coast zapping everyone who ticked her off with some swishes and flicks of her wand ... or the entire coast would be one gigantic mass of boils, warts and broken bones, and all of Hollywood’s special effects make-up artists would be out of business. But she is, thankfully, completely in favor of empowering witches with the ability to zap people when they need to. Such zaps should be well thought out, definitive, done with courage and a willingness to face whatever consequences there may be.
“A witch who cannot hex,” sayeth she, “cannot heal.”
My first reaction? Just what you might expect: THANK YOU!!!!!
I hadn’t realized that there was a name for what I had been slowly doing over the last several years – more or less: Pagan Reconstructionism is the general term for insisting on going back to the original historical source material. Drew Campbell in Old Stones, New Temples described Reconstructionism as preferring:
• The primacy of historical precedent regarding deities, worship and symbolism. (And yes, I can see from here those readers who have witnessed me blowing up time and time again when this hasn’t happened, nodding energetically at that one.)
• An insistence on cultural specificity and rejection of eclecticism. (Say wha ...? Took me a while to figure out what that meant. Basically: pagan reconstructionists are not in favor of picking and choosing deities or rituals from various cultures and combining them. I’m not sure I do agree with that one. Sounds too much like “rules and regulations” to me. Why couldn’t I combine a ceremony honoring Sekhmet with a ceremony honoring Aphrodite? They both have sexuality, lust, love and sensuality as characteristics, although there are differences in nuance, I think. Other examples: An and Ki, Nut and Geb playing much the same roles).
• The rejection of Mesopaganism (e.g., revival-era druidic groups, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, ceremonial/ritual magick) and Christic influences on modern pagan religions. Another definition: “A term coined by Robin Goodfellow and used to refer to a religion which attempts to revive any of a various form of a paleo-pagan religion but are unable to completely give up judeo-christianity. Some examples are Masonic Druidism, Thelemic and some eclectic wiccans who still attend a xian church.”
• An emphasis on “hard” polytheism, and skepticism regarding modern unifying theologies, particularly (1) Wiccan duotheism (“All gods are one God; all goddesses, one Goddess”) (2) the triple goddess paradigm of Robert Graves (Maiden-Mother-Crone); and (3) Jungian archetypism. The unifying theology sounds to me much like the mesopagan definition.
• A respect for personal gnosis (individual spiritual inspiration) coupled with a clean distinction between practices derived from intuition and those based on historical precedent.
Now, not every single one of those points pertained to me. I hadn’t rejected ceremonial or ritual magick, mainly because it seemed somewhat useful in the “Let’s Learn About Incubi!” side of things, and I found Crowley’s work with ritual magick – or was it ceremonial magick? – fascinating. I did realize it didn’t quite fit in with everything else I was learning, though.
I haven’t stopped searching for methods ways to invoke incubi, which I consider the same as the angels from the Book of Enoch. I think Ida Craddock’s spirit husband was more of a very talented ghost than anything else. But to invoke one of those angels, there are a lot of skills I need to pick up first.
About the Christic influences? Definitely! That always stuck out like a sore thumb, it was so obvious when you saw it. Every time I went nuts over yet another “church lady in a pointy hat”, spouting rules, regulations and puritanical anti-sex crap at everybody, that’s what I was rejecting. Far too many of those running around, pretending they were witches, or, even worse, actually thinking that they were witches.
I’m not ready yet to run headlong into pagan reconstructionism, though, mainly because there are so many directions in which to run. Towards Sekhmet? The Sumerians, Assyrians? The Italians? The teachers I’ll be learning from focus on the Celtic, which I suspect is not where I want to go – I’m not Celtic, for one thing – and some of the Gardnerian foundation bothers me. Still, if the recent class was any indication, there is so much to be learned from them. Once you respect the teacher’s basic skills and intelligence, it doesn’t much matter what tradition they seek for themselves, as long as they have the ability to teach you the skills you need to learn to seek your own. Basic classes begin in September.
Woke up a week ago SCREAMING. Charleyhorses in both calves, tendon cramps on the outside of both feet, and the inside of both feet, ankle level; cramps in both thigh muscles; tendon cramps on the backside tendons of both thighs. All simultaneous. At that point I was beyond crippled, beyond immobile and howling with pain. I couldn’t even move to massage the cramps in both legs; all I could do was lay flat and scream into the pillow until I was hoarse, and try to WILL my muscles to unclench. It took five to ten minutes of horrific agony until I could try to roll over and push myself up, and by that time I was nearly blacking out from the pain. Even that slight movement set my legs off again – and me into another bout of pillow screaming. Took me a full thirty minutes before it was even remotely bearable. By four in the afternoon, Saturday, I could still barely walk, that’s how awful the damage was. Both of my eyes were bloodshot from the screaming.
There has to be some way to get rid of these things! The medication they gave me works most of the time, but is also beginning to give me tremors – slight ones, although every once in a while my hand will suddenly fling itself off to the right or something, and my pen flies across the room. My legs do the same thing every once in a while, too, and thank goodness I’m usually sitting down when it happens.
While I recovered from the horrible leg & foot cramp experience, I read more detail about the cimaruta in The Evil Eye : an account of this ancient and widespread superstition by Frederick Thomas Elworthy, 1895, London: John Murray. If you can stomach the sneering christian condescension and nastiness ("superstitition"?), it’s available on Google Books for downloading. Really. It’s nauseating. The next time a christian whines about all the anti-christian sentiment directed at people like her who are obviously saints, wave the book under her nose as a good reason why she and her ilk had it coming.
Still. If you can ignore the appalling rudeness, the book is vaguely useful when it comes to historical practices – even without the information on cimarute, the work is full of the ancient symbols and talismans employed in classical civilizations – although, you have to admit, it didn’t much save them from the onset of the Dark Ages from which we’re still suffering, although fortunately, the dark Age of Pisces is fading away, brought on by ever more ugly scandals perpetuated by christians and their deeply repressed lust.
The cimaruta is always made from silver, which is sacred to Diana and is always created with three branches, sacred in all sorts of ways: maiden/mother/crone (see, there’s that Robert Graves thing again. I should probably read his book); three-road intersection; the three sisters, the three wyrd sisters, the Triple Crown ... okay, forget that last one, but you get the idea.
Early morning nooner with a FWB and went flying over the moon – twice. Second flight so intense it felt as though it lasted 5 minutes. Afterwards, he was so sure he was responsible for the experience, strutting around so puffed up and impressed with himself I didn’t have the heart to remark that, in actuality, a Piero fantasy – both times – was responsible. The second fantasy was just a little more inventive than the first. I consider myself lucky I didn’t scream Piero’s name out loud and destroy the FWB’s ego for life.
Oh, the shameful deliciousness of it.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
The Earth Collides with the Moon ... and I Think of Sex
Flipping through the March 2013 issue of Astronomy, we find an interview with Professor Sarah T. Stewart of Harvard who would, I am quite certain, be none too pleased to find herself in a magickal blog between fallen angels and incubi. But – oh well, tra-la-la, she’ll have to get over it. The details originally appeared in Science.
Along with SETI scientist Matija Ćuk, Professor Stewart has proposed a solution to the disputed notion that in Earth’s earliest formative period, she was part of a monumental collision, sending ejected material out into space – which eventually coalesced into the body we know as the moon.
If we temporarily set aside the mythology and only look at the science, some of the data raised by scientists in support of the collision theory include
(1) the volume of water on the planet – they believe the volume better matched a planetary body further away from the sun, which would be explained if a huge collision moved Earth closer to the sun that it had been originally. Another clincher:
(2) the earth and the moon contain identical isotopes.
As for the original story of the collision – I do remember the mythology: Earth and a planet called Tiamat (others say Theia) collided in a gigantic explosion, returning the earth to its molten state and sending a big chunk of itself rolling and spinning out into space, where it became the moon.
But how did the Sumerians know this? Not sure … I want to say that Zecharia Sitchin credited the inhabitants of the supposed Planet X itself – called the Annunaki - with passing the info along, but don’t quote me on that, either.
I may have had lot of respect for the Sumerians, but did I believe Zecharia Sitchin’s Planet X/ Nibiru/ Annunaki story?? No, I did not – or at least, not the “we’re all gonna die!” version of it you see all over the internet. Mainly because of the fact that if Sitchin were correct, we would have seen the planet approaching, coming in out of its 3,600 year-long orbit a long, long time ago. I mean, really, some of these conspiracy theorists are too silly – they seem to believe that a gigantic planet would appear in the skies out of nowhere, and only start causing havoc all over the place when it got within a few miles of Earth. Ain’t gonna happen that way. Hasn’t anyone read the reviews of the movie Melancholia? Every scientist on the planet – not to mention a lot of laypeople as well - made fun of the (complete absence of) astrophysics behind it.
There are telescopes on satellites from every civilized country out there in immediate orbit around Earth – even if the U.S. government decided to keep it a big secret, you don’t think other countries would go along with us, do you? Ha! Trust me, we’re not THAT well liked.
Besides, trying to keep it a secret would be futile anyway: NASA is correct – it would be visible to the naked eye while still a huge distance away, and would be the brightest object in the night sky – again, while still a long, long way away. It could not “hide behind the sun” – given our own orbit, we would have seen it a long time ago. Things that big don’t just “show up” out of nowhere. Nobody could have kept it a secret.
But if you’re interested in the original article on the theory of the moon being spun off from earth following a collision:
Ćuk, M., S. T. Stewart. Making the Moon from a fast-spinning Earth: A giant impact followed by
resonant despinning. Science, 338 (6110), 1047-1052, doi:10.1126/science.1225542, 2012.
And now … ahhh, the joy of returning to the topic of sex.
“GOOD LORD! IS THAT ALL YOU CAN THINK ABOUT??” you shriek.
“Why, yes. Yes it is,” I reply calmly. “That’s all I EVER think about. Morning, noon, night. Always. Sex, sex and more sex. It’s constant. It’s relentless. It never ends. It’s the exclusive focus of my entire existence. A perpetual Dionysian drool-fest, born of desperation and wanton craving. I’m completely overwhelmed with white hot passion, twenty-four hours a day. I hunger with desire, from sunrise to sunset; I am submersed in raw, untrammeled, raging lust!!”
[PAUSE]
Okay, not really. But why do you even CARE?
Ahem. As I was saying … ahhh, the joy of returning to the topic of sex.
So I was reading the The Plant Spirit Familiar, by Christopher Penczak. Not the first book you would open, were you to be researching incubi, and in fact, I wanted to read about people who could hear plants, trees, flowers, etc. Last time I brought up this topic, I was the only one who could hear trees scream, because, thanks to christians, I had to endure that misery almost every year.
“Oh, PISH-POSH!” snaps the know-it all from Yale. “How could they scream? They don’t have vocal cords!”
(*SLAP!!!!*) (Heh, heh. I always wanted to do that, just slap a pretentious Yalie upside the head, for the fun of it. Don’t worry, Harvard, you’re next).
“The ‘scream’ is my interpretation of what I feel when I’m near a christian christmas tree lot, Yalie boy,” sayeth I in annoyance. “Pressure. Frantic pressure. The urge to run, to escape. Panic. To cover my ears or to cry. Physical pain. It’s horrible; a horrible sensation. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It’s the christians who aren’t emotionally or mentally – or spiritually - evolved enough to be aware of the damage, destruction and death they cause to other living beings. And then they dress the corpse up like a Las Vegas showgirl and prop the dead body up in their living rooms. It’s horrifying. How can those evil christians not HEAR what they’ve done? When I was a child, I’d actually throw up.”
But I digress.
All of a sudden I flip open the book, see a chapter on “Sexual Congress with the Green”, and I’m reading about incubi. I’m sure your first thought (as was mine, I’m ashamed to say, so I can’t really pick on you) is, “He’s having sex with PLANTS?!?” No, he is not, so you can stop trying to imagine the logistics and visualizing yourself covered in grass stains with thorn scratches in peculiar places on your body – unless you enjoy that sort of thing. (And not that there’s anything wrong with that!) What he IS talking about are spirits associated with various trees and plants.
Before that, however, he devoted a paragraph to the history of the incubi/succubae. Made me smile.
“Modern psychologists speculate that the mythos of the succubae/incubi stemmed from religious guilt over erotic dreams and men’s nocturnal emissions, and provided an explanation for both sleep paralysis and pregnancy out of wedlock. The concept of something evil seducing one into the pleasure not normally allowed to them by those who felt it was wrong to experience and enjoy such things, provided them with the opportunity to have the experience but ultimately take no responsibility for it, though such confessions usually led to other problems, such as clergy believing such people were bewitched. Some even speculate that the mythos acted as a coping mechanism to help people deal with issues of rape and sexual abuse, particularly when the clergy themselves were the perpetrators. Devout parishioners couldn’t face that fact, so the myth of sexual demons was created.”
Penczak, Christopher. The Plant Spirit Familiar: Green Totems, Teachers and Healers on the Path of the Witch. Copper Cauldron Publishing. 2011. Page 262.
THANK YOU!!!!
Although actually, I tend to think that last speculation on clergy being the perpetrators came from the historical record I published here earlier of a nun’s complaint against a priest and his response that an incubi who looked like him had done the deed, not him. (And the convent believed his version of the story over the nun’s “That letch humped me like a dog!” version. Oh, what else is new?)
What Penczak does point out – and I now want more information on this:
“If you go into surviving tribal shamanic traditions, you will find the concept of the shaman’s spirit lover, or spirit wife, as a primary inner world tutelary spirit and initiator. You will find a similar concept in the Celtic faery traditions of a Faery Lover, Faery Bride and every Faery Queen/King mating,”
and …
“Sexual union of this nature, i.e. the transmission of such energy between incarnate and discarnate entities, was both initiatory and sacramental, benefitting both entities in their spiritual evolution and development. Only in a dark age, where such knowledge is lost, would potentially holy contact with the spirit world be interpreted as demonic.”
THANK YOU!!
I hadn’t thought of these days as “The Dark Ages”, but from our perspective they really are, aren’t they? Those westerners whose beliefs pre-dated or stood outside of monotheism really were made to suffer for a long, long time. Only now are we regaining any space for our own beliefs, and grudgingly at that. In the news as I write this are the stories of Fox News jumping up and down and squealing hysterically over a decision made by the University of Missouri:
Students at University of Missouri don't need to cram for exams that fall on Wiccan and Pagan holidays, now that the school has put them on par with Christmas, Thanksgiving and Hanukah.
The university’s latest “Guide to Religions: Major Holidays and Suggested Accommodations” — designed to help faculty know when and when not to schedule exams and other student activities — lists eight Wiccan and Pagan holidays and events right alongside more mainstream occasions. It's all part of the school's effort to include everyone's beliefs, although some critics say listing every holiday associated with fringe belief systems is a bit much.*
(*And by “some critics”, Fox News meant, of course, Fox News, “the official mouthpiece of the lower intellectual echelons of christian fundamentalism”).
Penczak also wrote The Green Lovers, which I want to read next.
Finally, another idea I hadn’t thought of is learning the skill of creating an “artificial familiar”. Also known as a “tulpa” in Tibet, or a “thought form”, this is basically a being that you create with your own mind and will for a specific purpose. We already know what the specific purpose is; now, we need to learn how to do it.
More later!
Along with SETI scientist Matija Ćuk, Professor Stewart has proposed a solution to the disputed notion that in Earth’s earliest formative period, she was part of a monumental collision, sending ejected material out into space – which eventually coalesced into the body we know as the moon.
If we temporarily set aside the mythology and only look at the science, some of the data raised by scientists in support of the collision theory include
(1) the volume of water on the planet – they believe the volume better matched a planetary body further away from the sun, which would be explained if a huge collision moved Earth closer to the sun that it had been originally. Another clincher:
(2) the earth and the moon contain identical isotopes.
As for the original story of the collision – I do remember the mythology: Earth and a planet called Tiamat (others say Theia) collided in a gigantic explosion, returning the earth to its molten state and sending a big chunk of itself rolling and spinning out into space, where it became the moon.
But how did the Sumerians know this? Not sure … I want to say that Zecharia Sitchin credited the inhabitants of the supposed Planet X itself – called the Annunaki - with passing the info along, but don’t quote me on that, either.
I may have had lot of respect for the Sumerians, but did I believe Zecharia Sitchin’s Planet X/ Nibiru/ Annunaki story?? No, I did not – or at least, not the “we’re all gonna die!” version of it you see all over the internet. Mainly because of the fact that if Sitchin were correct, we would have seen the planet approaching, coming in out of its 3,600 year-long orbit a long, long time ago. I mean, really, some of these conspiracy theorists are too silly – they seem to believe that a gigantic planet would appear in the skies out of nowhere, and only start causing havoc all over the place when it got within a few miles of Earth. Ain’t gonna happen that way. Hasn’t anyone read the reviews of the movie Melancholia? Every scientist on the planet – not to mention a lot of laypeople as well - made fun of the (complete absence of) astrophysics behind it.
There are telescopes on satellites from every civilized country out there in immediate orbit around Earth – even if the U.S. government decided to keep it a big secret, you don’t think other countries would go along with us, do you? Ha! Trust me, we’re not THAT well liked.
Besides, trying to keep it a secret would be futile anyway: NASA is correct – it would be visible to the naked eye while still a huge distance away, and would be the brightest object in the night sky – again, while still a long, long way away. It could not “hide behind the sun” – given our own orbit, we would have seen it a long time ago. Things that big don’t just “show up” out of nowhere. Nobody could have kept it a secret.
But if you’re interested in the original article on the theory of the moon being spun off from earth following a collision:
Ćuk, M., S. T. Stewart. Making the Moon from a fast-spinning Earth: A giant impact followed by
resonant despinning. Science, 338 (6110), 1047-1052, doi:10.1126/science.1225542, 2012.
And now … ahhh, the joy of returning to the topic of sex.
“GOOD LORD! IS THAT ALL YOU CAN THINK ABOUT??” you shriek.
[PAUSE]
Okay, not really. But why do you even CARE?
Ahem. As I was saying … ahhh, the joy of returning to the topic of sex.
So I was reading the The Plant Spirit Familiar, by Christopher Penczak. Not the first book you would open, were you to be researching incubi, and in fact, I wanted to read about people who could hear plants, trees, flowers, etc. Last time I brought up this topic, I was the only one who could hear trees scream, because, thanks to christians, I had to endure that misery almost every year.
“Oh, PISH-POSH!” snaps the know-it all from Yale. “How could they scream? They don’t have vocal cords!”
(*SLAP!!!!*) (Heh, heh. I always wanted to do that, just slap a pretentious Yalie upside the head, for the fun of it. Don’t worry, Harvard, you’re next).
“The ‘scream’ is my interpretation of what I feel when I’m near a christian christmas tree lot, Yalie boy,” sayeth I in annoyance. “Pressure. Frantic pressure. The urge to run, to escape. Panic. To cover my ears or to cry. Physical pain. It’s horrible; a horrible sensation. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It’s the christians who aren’t emotionally or mentally – or spiritually - evolved enough to be aware of the damage, destruction and death they cause to other living beings. And then they dress the corpse up like a Las Vegas showgirl and prop the dead body up in their living rooms. It’s horrifying. How can those evil christians not HEAR what they’ve done? When I was a child, I’d actually throw up.”
But I digress.
All of a sudden I flip open the book, see a chapter on “Sexual Congress with the Green”, and I’m reading about incubi. I’m sure your first thought (as was mine, I’m ashamed to say, so I can’t really pick on you) is, “He’s having sex with PLANTS?!?” No, he is not, so you can stop trying to imagine the logistics and visualizing yourself covered in grass stains with thorn scratches in peculiar places on your body – unless you enjoy that sort of thing. (And not that there’s anything wrong with that!) What he IS talking about are spirits associated with various trees and plants.
Before that, however, he devoted a paragraph to the history of the incubi/succubae. Made me smile.
“Modern psychologists speculate that the mythos of the succubae/incubi stemmed from religious guilt over erotic dreams and men’s nocturnal emissions, and provided an explanation for both sleep paralysis and pregnancy out of wedlock. The concept of something evil seducing one into the pleasure not normally allowed to them by those who felt it was wrong to experience and enjoy such things, provided them with the opportunity to have the experience but ultimately take no responsibility for it, though such confessions usually led to other problems, such as clergy believing such people were bewitched. Some even speculate that the mythos acted as a coping mechanism to help people deal with issues of rape and sexual abuse, particularly when the clergy themselves were the perpetrators. Devout parishioners couldn’t face that fact, so the myth of sexual demons was created.”
Penczak, Christopher. The Plant Spirit Familiar: Green Totems, Teachers and Healers on the Path of the Witch. Copper Cauldron Publishing. 2011. Page 262.
THANK YOU!!!!
Although actually, I tend to think that last speculation on clergy being the perpetrators came from the historical record I published here earlier of a nun’s complaint against a priest and his response that an incubi who looked like him had done the deed, not him. (And the convent believed his version of the story over the nun’s “That letch humped me like a dog!” version. Oh, what else is new?)
What Penczak does point out – and I now want more information on this:
“If you go into surviving tribal shamanic traditions, you will find the concept of the shaman’s spirit lover, or spirit wife, as a primary inner world tutelary spirit and initiator. You will find a similar concept in the Celtic faery traditions of a Faery Lover, Faery Bride and every Faery Queen/King mating,”
and …
“Sexual union of this nature, i.e. the transmission of such energy between incarnate and discarnate entities, was both initiatory and sacramental, benefitting both entities in their spiritual evolution and development. Only in a dark age, where such knowledge is lost, would potentially holy contact with the spirit world be interpreted as demonic.”
THANK YOU!!
I hadn’t thought of these days as “The Dark Ages”, but from our perspective they really are, aren’t they? Those westerners whose beliefs pre-dated or stood outside of monotheism really were made to suffer for a long, long time. Only now are we regaining any space for our own beliefs, and grudgingly at that. In the news as I write this are the stories of Fox News jumping up and down and squealing hysterically over a decision made by the University of Missouri:
Students at University of Missouri don't need to cram for exams that fall on Wiccan and Pagan holidays, now that the school has put them on par with Christmas, Thanksgiving and Hanukah.
The university’s latest “Guide to Religions: Major Holidays and Suggested Accommodations” — designed to help faculty know when and when not to schedule exams and other student activities — lists eight Wiccan and Pagan holidays and events right alongside more mainstream occasions. It's all part of the school's effort to include everyone's beliefs, although some critics say listing every holiday associated with fringe belief systems is a bit much.*
(*And by “some critics”, Fox News meant, of course, Fox News, “the official mouthpiece of the lower intellectual echelons of christian fundamentalism”).
Penczak also wrote The Green Lovers, which I want to read next.
Finally, another idea I hadn’t thought of is learning the skill of creating an “artificial familiar”. Also known as a “tulpa” in Tibet, or a “thought form”, this is basically a being that you create with your own mind and will for a specific purpose. We already know what the specific purpose is; now, we need to learn how to do it.
More later!
Saturday, January 19, 2013
The History of Italics and Perfect Music
Okay, I was wrong. "Italic" actually does have something to do with "Italy" – so named because the guy who happened to invent the slanted Italic typeface was Aldus Manutius, a Venetian printer. But still, the word "italic" does not mean, "having to do with Italy", it means, "having a slanted typeface." So I was at least partially right.
But then ... I confronted yet another OCD moment generated by a dumb re-tweet:
"You shall move forwards the moment you cannot accept failure any longer, for success comes to he who accepts nothing less."
See, now - THAT was "italic". But to continue: ARGH! No, no, no, no!!! The word is FORWARD! FORWARD! FORWARD! Singular, singular, singular! [BLAM! BOOM! KER-SPLAT!!] [Pause] [Blink] [panting heavily] Hey, what happened to "she"?
Back to business. I seem to have run off in a hundred different directions lately ... at the moment, I’ve just finished reading Graham Phillips’ The Marian Conspiracy, not because the topic has much to do with the direction of this blog, but more because every once in a while, a good old-fashioned "whodunit" conspiracy theory is entertaining.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t all that entertaining. Completely lacking in logic (you have no idea), filled with wild guesses, haphazard and bizarre suppositions, and historically inaccurate and ludicrous leaps of fancy passing for reason. Among the many problems with the book: he never even addresses any of the other "conspiracy theories" – such as the "ben Pantera" story, or the other Mary’s – i.e., the Joseph of Arimathea and Mary Magdalene story. In the blink of an eye, we jump over to England where he announces he has located the resting place of King Arthur, so it appears he’s trying to wrap up every myth in Western Europe.
Has anyone ever looked at a map? He’s trying to tell us that Joseph of Arimathea with Jesus’ mother Mary in tow (keep in mind the woman had to be in her 50’s or thereabouts) jumped into a small boat, rowed the entire length of the Mediterranean Sea, through the Pillars of Hercules, up the Atlantic Ocean, past all of France, Spain and Portugal, rowed past the mouth of the English Channel, up the western shores of England and sidled up to a wild, unfriendly island off the coast of a country that we now know as Wales?
WHY?? Just because Romans were unhappy with the irritating new cult of christians? Hell, christians have managed to irritate everyone (when they weren’t slaughtering them) since Day One , so if relocating to Wales was the answer, the island would have sunk into the sea by now from the population overload. What, the two of them couldn’t have moved to a village where no one knew them? (I had the same question when it was theorized that Joseph traveled all that way with Mary Magdalene. And she was relatively young.)
One fully expected the author to leap to his feet and declare that – eureka! - he had also solved the mysteries of the Loch Ness Monster, Area 51 and Mothman while he was at it. His big proof for Mary being buried in Wales? An ancient tombstone slab with the astrological sign for Virgo on it, despite the fact that ten to fifteen years after the crucifixion – an estimated time of death for her - no one on the planet gave her a moment’s thought, or thought she was a virgin at the time of his birth. This virginity thing was wholly an invention of the church, quite some time later.
Really. By the last paragraph you’re banging your head on the nearest hard surface in frustration.
So next: Sephir Yetzirah (or The Book of Formation). This text, written somewhere between the 3rd and 6th centuries, was somewhat misrepresented at first as another medieval text on the creation of the earth (much like Genesis), but is more a reflection of the creation of the Kabbalah. Maybe they’re the same thing, but this is the first text I’ve read where a Creator is actually defining the parameters of the Universe – bringing the Universe into being and setting its borders, that is - with musical sounds and letters.
Another coincidence of belief. I tend to think there is something to the musical sounds. Going back to my first mention of my dream about the Sea of Octagons – the Soul Nursery – the other thing I mentioned was the music. Thursday, December 6th:
"I’ve written the first seven sets of verses, which, in my theological world, began with a dream. Difficult to explain: an endless field of octagons, brightly lit from within, moving gently, and within each, twin souls, wrapped around each other, like a "yin" and a "yang" symbol, but not exactly. The souls were cared for, but I have no memory from that dream of anyone or anything beyond what I’ve described: a distant view of the nursery, the knowledge that I began there and the touch of my soul mate. This was my "memory" of a "soul’s nursery". I also remember the music in this dream, which could never be recreated, as it consisted also of sounds and notes which don’t exist in our world, so I can’t even describe them, other than to say that the sound was the very source of bliss."
Actually, I can describe it more accurately in words than in music. Picture a few bars from a beloved symphony on a page. Doesn’t matter which one. Now imagine that the page is transparent. The musical notes on that page don’t merely progress from left to right on a scale, there are also variations of those notes behind the notes you see on the clear page, and notes behind those notes, and on and on, to the far reaches of space. BUT – there are even more notes lifting off the page towards you (the viewer/listener), through you and past you. And – here’s the kicker – all of those infinite notes are in perfect harmony, with each other. Or at least, that was my understanding of what I was hearing, in that dream, a perfect symphony. Notes I’d never heard before; music I’d never experienced before. Blissful was the only way to describe my reaction to that music. No composer alive could recreate that sound – it vibrated all the way through you and made you whole. Now THAT I could believe (because I have never forgotten that awesome dream): that all of reality was created with the use of sound.
It seemed that perhaps the mystical arm of the Kabbalah had snuck its way into the old testament – primarily because when I started reading about the first emanation, I was reminded of, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God." (John 1:1) – followed by page after commentary page of (christian) nitwits annotating the sentence with the nonsense that the "word" behind the creation of the entire Universe was the "Good News of the Gospel" (riiiiiiight. Bet Buddhists and Hindus would be just thrilled to hear THAT!), which had to send everyone with a working brain up the walls, or with (jewish) nitwits insisting that anyone who interpreted the concept of evil in the kabbalah structure in any way but theirs were "heretics".
Source: www.learnkabbalah.com/evil_kabbalistic_views/
But you know me and my dead-eyed squint at the different ways people look at evil. I have very strong opinions about the sorts of things I consider to be "evil"; not everyone shares them. That doesn’t make me wrong and everyone else right, or the reverse – it means we differ on the definitions and examples of "evil"- who and what it is.
I am STILL trying to figure out what was so awful about incubi.
But then ... I confronted yet another OCD moment generated by a dumb re-tweet:
"You shall move forwards the moment you cannot accept failure any longer, for success comes to he who accepts nothing less."
 |
| The Grammar and Spelling Psycho Police Squad |
See, now - THAT was "italic". But to continue: ARGH! No, no, no, no!!! The word is FORWARD! FORWARD! FORWARD! Singular, singular, singular! [BLAM! BOOM! KER-SPLAT!!] [Pause] [Blink] [panting heavily] Hey, what happened to "she"?
Back to business. I seem to have run off in a hundred different directions lately ... at the moment, I’ve just finished reading Graham Phillips’ The Marian Conspiracy, not because the topic has much to do with the direction of this blog, but more because every once in a while, a good old-fashioned "whodunit" conspiracy theory is entertaining.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t all that entertaining. Completely lacking in logic (you have no idea), filled with wild guesses, haphazard and bizarre suppositions, and historically inaccurate and ludicrous leaps of fancy passing for reason. Among the many problems with the book: he never even addresses any of the other "conspiracy theories" – such as the "ben Pantera" story, or the other Mary’s – i.e., the Joseph of Arimathea and Mary Magdalene story. In the blink of an eye, we jump over to England where he announces he has located the resting place of King Arthur, so it appears he’s trying to wrap up every myth in Western Europe.
Has anyone ever looked at a map? He’s trying to tell us that Joseph of Arimathea with Jesus’ mother Mary in tow (keep in mind the woman had to be in her 50’s or thereabouts) jumped into a small boat, rowed the entire length of the Mediterranean Sea, through the Pillars of Hercules, up the Atlantic Ocean, past all of France, Spain and Portugal, rowed past the mouth of the English Channel, up the western shores of England and sidled up to a wild, unfriendly island off the coast of a country that we now know as Wales?
WHY?? Just because Romans were unhappy with the irritating new cult of christians? Hell, christians have managed to irritate everyone (when they weren’t slaughtering them) since Day One , so if relocating to Wales was the answer, the island would have sunk into the sea by now from the population overload. What, the two of them couldn’t have moved to a village where no one knew them? (I had the same question when it was theorized that Joseph traveled all that way with Mary Magdalene. And she was relatively young.)
One fully expected the author to leap to his feet and declare that – eureka! - he had also solved the mysteries of the Loch Ness Monster, Area 51 and Mothman while he was at it. His big proof for Mary being buried in Wales? An ancient tombstone slab with the astrological sign for Virgo on it, despite the fact that ten to fifteen years after the crucifixion – an estimated time of death for her - no one on the planet gave her a moment’s thought, or thought she was a virgin at the time of his birth. This virginity thing was wholly an invention of the church, quite some time later.
Really. By the last paragraph you’re banging your head on the nearest hard surface in frustration.
So next: Sephir Yetzirah (or The Book of Formation). This text, written somewhere between the 3rd and 6th centuries, was somewhat misrepresented at first as another medieval text on the creation of the earth (much like Genesis), but is more a reflection of the creation of the Kabbalah. Maybe they’re the same thing, but this is the first text I’ve read where a Creator is actually defining the parameters of the Universe – bringing the Universe into being and setting its borders, that is - with musical sounds and letters.
Another coincidence of belief. I tend to think there is something to the musical sounds. Going back to my first mention of my dream about the Sea of Octagons – the Soul Nursery – the other thing I mentioned was the music. Thursday, December 6th:
"I’ve written the first seven sets of verses, which, in my theological world, began with a dream. Difficult to explain: an endless field of octagons, brightly lit from within, moving gently, and within each, twin souls, wrapped around each other, like a "yin" and a "yang" symbol, but not exactly. The souls were cared for, but I have no memory from that dream of anyone or anything beyond what I’ve described: a distant view of the nursery, the knowledge that I began there and the touch of my soul mate. This was my "memory" of a "soul’s nursery". I also remember the music in this dream, which could never be recreated, as it consisted also of sounds and notes which don’t exist in our world, so I can’t even describe them, other than to say that the sound was the very source of bliss."
Actually, I can describe it more accurately in words than in music. Picture a few bars from a beloved symphony on a page. Doesn’t matter which one. Now imagine that the page is transparent. The musical notes on that page don’t merely progress from left to right on a scale, there are also variations of those notes behind the notes you see on the clear page, and notes behind those notes, and on and on, to the far reaches of space. BUT – there are even more notes lifting off the page towards you (the viewer/listener), through you and past you. And – here’s the kicker – all of those infinite notes are in perfect harmony, with each other. Or at least, that was my understanding of what I was hearing, in that dream, a perfect symphony. Notes I’d never heard before; music I’d never experienced before. Blissful was the only way to describe my reaction to that music. No composer alive could recreate that sound – it vibrated all the way through you and made you whole. Now THAT I could believe (because I have never forgotten that awesome dream): that all of reality was created with the use of sound.
It seemed that perhaps the mystical arm of the Kabbalah had snuck its way into the old testament – primarily because when I started reading about the first emanation, I was reminded of, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God." (John 1:1) – followed by page after commentary page of (christian) nitwits annotating the sentence with the nonsense that the "word" behind the creation of the entire Universe was the "Good News of the Gospel" (riiiiiiight. Bet Buddhists and Hindus would be just thrilled to hear THAT!), which had to send everyone with a working brain up the walls, or with (jewish) nitwits insisting that anyone who interpreted the concept of evil in the kabbalah structure in any way but theirs were "heretics".
Source: www.learnkabbalah.com/evil_kabbalistic_views/
But you know me and my dead-eyed squint at the different ways people look at evil. I have very strong opinions about the sorts of things I consider to be "evil"; not everyone shares them. That doesn’t make me wrong and everyone else right, or the reverse – it means we differ on the definitions and examples of "evil"- who and what it is.
I am STILL trying to figure out what was so awful about incubi.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Following Up on Last Year's Issues
"The practice of magic was omnipresent in classical antiquity."
One of my favorite opening sentences in a textbook – possibly ever. Bibliographed. Footnoted. Cited. Loved it.
Graf, Fritz. Magic in the Ancient World. Philip, Franklin, trans. Harvard University Press, 1997.
Ah, the utter joy of discovering legitimate magickal traditions and not the nonsensical burbling of Tinkerbelles and Twinkies claiming to be witches when the truth is they have half of their sizeable rumps ensconced in local churches, singing "kum bah yah" around campfires just like they did in childhood bible camp. I’m serious, most of those women have deprived so many students of legitimate power in favor of "feel good" silliness, they should be run out of town on a rail.
I know, I shouldn’t be singling out christians devolving into christian-wiccan idiots for their disastrous leaps of logic that send them flying into the nearest abyss. Great example: (tune up the violins); "Every time I hear a newborn baby cry ... I believe." They even put that one to music. One of the most inane voids of logical course ever devised. Really??!!?? You believe ... what, exactly? That infants of any species are born with an inherent ability to express their basic needs? That proves evolution in the art of survival if anything, not a deity.
But that logical failure crosses all belief systems. I was also reading H.P. Blavatsky’s preface to the first volume of Isis Unveiled: "Prove the soul of man by its wondrous powers – you have proved God!" – in her "ex nihilo nihil fit" discussion, raising again the problems with idiots not realizing they are giving a sole deity a capital "G" ... raising all sorts of new issues. This is the same designation used by "an unspiritual, dogmatic, too often debauched clergy; a host of sects, and three warring great religions; discord instead of union, dogmas without proofs, sensation-loving preachers, and wealth and pleasure-seeking parishioners' hypocrisy and bigotry, begotten by the tyrannical exigencies of respectability, the rule of the day, sincerity and real piety exceptional." (same source) So why use the term?
But setting that aside for the moment in favor of the (il)logical leap, above: noooooo, (assuming you can conclusively prove the existence of a soul of man by any method, in the first place) you have only proved that men have souls. Can’t even prove that women do, according to Blavatsky, which seems an odd premise in a book written by a woman, but no matter.
(And by the way, for those who never bothered to pick up some elementary Latin: "ex nihilo nihil fit" means "nothing comes from nothing". And here you thought Rodgers and Hammerstein invented that, when they wrote the lyrics for "The Sound of Music". Ha! Not likely.)
Or this, in a discussion of Plato:
And the greatest philosopher of the pre-Christian era (i.e., Plato) mirrored faithfully in his works the spiritualism of the Vedic philosophers who lived thousands of years before himself, and its metaphysical expression. Vyasa, Djeminy, Kapila, Vrihaspati, Sumati, and so many others, will be found to have transmitted their indelible imprint through the intervening centuries upon Plato and his school. Thus is warranted the inference that to Plato and the ancient Hindu sages was alike revealed the same wisdom. So surviving the shock of time, what can this wisdom be but divine and eternal?
Oh, I dunno..! Knowledge which had survived the "shock" of time might not be automatically "divine and eternal", but (logically speaking) "very, very old"? I really hate stuff that is supposed to be passing for logical deduction failing in an "epic" fashion, to use a contemporary adjective. Point being that if Ms. Blavatsky had something worthwhile to say, we might never know about her message if we can’t bring ourselves to progress in her book beyond the preface after reading nonsense like this.
I would dismiss this with, "So much for the theosophists" were it not for her basic, underlying premise that there is one "universal" truth and that all of earth’s belief systems contain one facet of it. I can’t swear that’s true, I just suspect it is; still, she hasn’t proved that in Isis Unveiled, or ... at least not so far. All she’s done is irritate me with logic failure.
I also basically agree with her overall opinion of Plato and the influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries on him, although – again – have problems with her logical deductions.
"The philosophy of Plato, we are assured by Porphyry, of the Neoplatonic School was taught and illustrated "in the mysteries". Many have questioned and even denied this; and Lobeck, in his Aglaophomus, has gone to the extreme of representing the sacred orgies as little more than an empty show to captivate the imagination. As though Athens and Greece would for twenty centuries and more have repaired every fifth year to Eleusis to witness a solemn religious farce!"
In this, I actually do agree with her, but I wouldn’t use the "twenty centuries" length as a source for logic, unless it was used by some christian to prove the veracity of their faith. I’ve actually seen them try this: "It HAS to be true. It has lasted for 2000+ years!" Then, of course, you ran roll your eyeballs at them and bring up the Eleusinian Mysteries, or even this quotation, just to watch their heads explode, trying to discredit it without discrediting their own mythologies. To come up with strong proof that the Mysteries were legitimate, it would be required to recreate them, as it appears no one broke the law and wrote down their experiences. Or at least we haven’t found a document thus far.
Although, you possibly could remind them that actual manifestations were recreated at every initiation, which might stump them for a while – until they start singing (tune up the violins); "Every time I hear a newborn baby cry ... I believe." And at that point, I give you full permission to slap them. Initiates in the Mysteries had lots more foot blisters but lots more fun – read about the recreations of Baubo and her dirty jokes sometime.
I know I haven't finished the list of fallen angels in the incubus/succubus discussion, but I did run across an interesting discussion on the word "demon", which does possibly explain the change in the word in the christian era into something exclusively malevolent, when it was not intended that way in ancient Greek:
"DAIMONION is a diminutive of DAIMWN, which originally meant something like "dispensing power" and which was often used of a god whose name was either unknown or not deemed important to identify in this instance. DAIMONES are nameless supernatural powers, generally thought subordinate to the Olympian pantheon. Bauer cites in particular a celebrated passage from the Symposium of Plato where Diotima is trying to define EROS as a supernatural power that mediates between humanity and the gods. If you want to understand what is meant by that phrase there, you really ought to look up that passage in the Symposium and read more of it. DAIMWN and DAIMONION can mean so many things across such a range that I don't think it would be fair to venture any simple account."
Source: a 1998 discussion, now archived, on http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
Moving forward: January. The month of Janus, the God of beginnings and transitions. From the online etymology dictionary:
"January (n.) late 13c., Ieneuer, from Old North French Genever, Old French Jenvier (Modern French Janvier), attested from early 12c. in Anglo-French, from Latin Ianuarius (mensis) "(the month) of Janus," to whom the month was sacred as the beginning of the year (see Janus; cf. Italian Gennajo, Provençal Genovier, Portuguese Janeiro). The form was gradually Latinized by c.1400. Replaced Old English geola se æfterra "Later Yule." In Chaucer, a type-name for an old man.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=January
One of my favorite opening sentences in a textbook – possibly ever. Bibliographed. Footnoted. Cited. Loved it.
Graf, Fritz. Magic in the Ancient World. Philip, Franklin, trans. Harvard University Press, 1997.
Ah, the utter joy of discovering legitimate magickal traditions and not the nonsensical burbling of Tinkerbelles and Twinkies claiming to be witches when the truth is they have half of their sizeable rumps ensconced in local churches, singing "kum bah yah" around campfires just like they did in childhood bible camp. I’m serious, most of those women have deprived so many students of legitimate power in favor of "feel good" silliness, they should be run out of town on a rail.
I know, I shouldn’t be singling out christians devolving into christian-wiccan idiots for their disastrous leaps of logic that send them flying into the nearest abyss. Great example: (tune up the violins); "Every time I hear a newborn baby cry ... I believe." They even put that one to music. One of the most inane voids of logical course ever devised. Really??!!?? You believe ... what, exactly? That infants of any species are born with an inherent ability to express their basic needs? That proves evolution in the art of survival if anything, not a deity.
But that logical failure crosses all belief systems. I was also reading H.P. Blavatsky’s preface to the first volume of Isis Unveiled: "Prove the soul of man by its wondrous powers – you have proved God!" – in her "ex nihilo nihil fit" discussion, raising again the problems with idiots not realizing they are giving a sole deity a capital "G" ... raising all sorts of new issues. This is the same designation used by "an unspiritual, dogmatic, too often debauched clergy; a host of sects, and three warring great religions; discord instead of union, dogmas without proofs, sensation-loving preachers, and wealth and pleasure-seeking parishioners' hypocrisy and bigotry, begotten by the tyrannical exigencies of respectability, the rule of the day, sincerity and real piety exceptional." (same source) So why use the term?
But setting that aside for the moment in favor of the (il)logical leap, above: noooooo, (assuming you can conclusively prove the existence of a soul of man by any method, in the first place) you have only proved that men have souls. Can’t even prove that women do, according to Blavatsky, which seems an odd premise in a book written by a woman, but no matter.
(And by the way, for those who never bothered to pick up some elementary Latin: "ex nihilo nihil fit" means "nothing comes from nothing". And here you thought Rodgers and Hammerstein invented that, when they wrote the lyrics for "The Sound of Music". Ha! Not likely.)
Or this, in a discussion of Plato:
And the greatest philosopher of the pre-Christian era (i.e., Plato) mirrored faithfully in his works the spiritualism of the Vedic philosophers who lived thousands of years before himself, and its metaphysical expression. Vyasa, Djeminy, Kapila, Vrihaspati, Sumati, and so many others, will be found to have transmitted their indelible imprint through the intervening centuries upon Plato and his school. Thus is warranted the inference that to Plato and the ancient Hindu sages was alike revealed the same wisdom. So surviving the shock of time, what can this wisdom be but divine and eternal?
Oh, I dunno..! Knowledge which had survived the "shock" of time might not be automatically "divine and eternal", but (logically speaking) "very, very old"? I really hate stuff that is supposed to be passing for logical deduction failing in an "epic" fashion, to use a contemporary adjective. Point being that if Ms. Blavatsky had something worthwhile to say, we might never know about her message if we can’t bring ourselves to progress in her book beyond the preface after reading nonsense like this.
I would dismiss this with, "So much for the theosophists" were it not for her basic, underlying premise that there is one "universal" truth and that all of earth’s belief systems contain one facet of it. I can’t swear that’s true, I just suspect it is; still, she hasn’t proved that in Isis Unveiled, or ... at least not so far. All she’s done is irritate me with logic failure.
I also basically agree with her overall opinion of Plato and the influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries on him, although – again – have problems with her logical deductions.
"The philosophy of Plato, we are assured by Porphyry, of the Neoplatonic School was taught and illustrated "in the mysteries". Many have questioned and even denied this; and Lobeck, in his Aglaophomus, has gone to the extreme of representing the sacred orgies as little more than an empty show to captivate the imagination. As though Athens and Greece would for twenty centuries and more have repaired every fifth year to Eleusis to witness a solemn religious farce!"
In this, I actually do agree with her, but I wouldn’t use the "twenty centuries" length as a source for logic, unless it was used by some christian to prove the veracity of their faith. I’ve actually seen them try this: "It HAS to be true. It has lasted for 2000+ years!" Then, of course, you ran roll your eyeballs at them and bring up the Eleusinian Mysteries, or even this quotation, just to watch their heads explode, trying to discredit it without discrediting their own mythologies. To come up with strong proof that the Mysteries were legitimate, it would be required to recreate them, as it appears no one broke the law and wrote down their experiences. Or at least we haven’t found a document thus far.
Although, you possibly could remind them that actual manifestations were recreated at every initiation, which might stump them for a while – until they start singing (tune up the violins); "Every time I hear a newborn baby cry ... I believe." And at that point, I give you full permission to slap them. Initiates in the Mysteries had lots more foot blisters but lots more fun – read about the recreations of Baubo and her dirty jokes sometime.
I know I haven't finished the list of fallen angels in the incubus/succubus discussion, but I did run across an interesting discussion on the word "demon", which does possibly explain the change in the word in the christian era into something exclusively malevolent, when it was not intended that way in ancient Greek:
"DAIMONION is a diminutive of DAIMWN, which originally meant something like "dispensing power" and which was often used of a god whose name was either unknown or not deemed important to identify in this instance. DAIMONES are nameless supernatural powers, generally thought subordinate to the Olympian pantheon. Bauer cites in particular a celebrated passage from the Symposium of Plato where Diotima is trying to define EROS as a supernatural power that mediates between humanity and the gods. If you want to understand what is meant by that phrase there, you really ought to look up that passage in the Symposium and read more of it. DAIMWN and DAIMONION can mean so many things across such a range that I don't think it would be fair to venture any simple account."
Source: a 1998 discussion, now archived, on http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
Moving forward: January. The month of Janus, the God of beginnings and transitions. From the online etymology dictionary:
"January (n.) late 13c., Ieneuer, from Old North French Genever, Old French Jenvier (Modern French Janvier), attested from early 12c. in Anglo-French, from Latin Ianuarius (mensis) "(the month) of Janus," to whom the month was sacred as the beginning of the year (see Janus; cf. Italian Gennajo, Provençal Genovier, Portuguese Janeiro). The form was gradually Latinized by c.1400. Replaced Old English geola se æfterra "Later Yule." In Chaucer, a type-name for an old man.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=January
Sunday, December 23, 2012
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".
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".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)