Sumerian Mythology, Seas of Octagons and Nobel Prize Concerts

Ahhhh, December. The month that makes you cringe because you should be doing stuff in preparation for the end of the month, but you’re not. I am slurping down a delicious split pea soup, though. One of the advantages of colder weather: you can enjoy all sorts of thick, hearty soups you normally don’t eat when it’s warmer.

A sudden onslaught of readers from Sweden (21 of them in one day) and the Netherlands (2, ditto) had me thinking, "Wha ...?" until I remembered the Nobel Prize concert, 3 days from now, in Stockholm. Well, hello, Sweden and Netherlands!

Anyway, It’s December. I’ve just finished reading Samuel Noah Kramer’s Sumerian Mythology* as preparation for the second "book" of poetry: "Paradise Lost" turned upside down.

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.
*Kramer, Samuel Noah. Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C. Harper & Brothers, New York. 1961, Revised Edition. First published in 1944, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

I was reading the story of Ashnan (the much beloved and very ancient Sumerian grain goddess, "the wise") and Lahar ("the cattle god"). Ashnan, by the way, was ancient enough that She first appears in the Sumerian Early Dynastic period (2900-2350 B.C.E.) according to Black, Cunningham, Robson and Zólyomi in 2004. As I read, I came across this sentence: "in those days, in the creation chamber of the Gods ... Lahar and Ashnan were fashioned." (page 73). I stopped reading and said, "creation chamber ...!"

Okay, that may not have specifically referenced a "sea of clear octagons in a soul nursery", but that was the closest I’d come in my studies to something I had seen in my dreams.

Even more fascinating was seeing the earliest cosmological stories that found their way into the three major religions of that region, and knowing that so many people thought they had "the only correct belief", without any awareness of the origins of their belief systems. While quite a few people know that the deluge story did NOT originate with the Book of Genesis, but with the Epic of Gilgamesh,  many have no idea how important it was that their primary patriarch - Abraham, present in all three - was  Sumerian.

Abraham the Sumerian was the primary patriarch of at least three major religions; I’m guessing that not a soul within those belief systems knows that Abraham’s father was a powerful oracle within the Sumerian religion - basically a priest in the Sumerian magickal system. I’m also quite sure that no one within those belief systems understands that when they refer to the "God of Abraham", they are referring only to a household God within Abraham’s pagan household. One of the greatest Gods within the Sumerian system was certainly not an insignificant household god in one household, even though the patriarch of that household (Abraham’s father) was a powerful psychic and oracle in Sumer. No, one of the greatest Gods of Sumer at the time would have been the God that the bible trashed repeatedly: Marduk.

More later.
 

Piero Barone and his Marshmallows, Fallen Angels and More Coincidences

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, you thought I meant the OTHER angels?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Next day]

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

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

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

1. Samyaza (Aramaic:

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

Taught enchantments and divination.

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

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

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

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


More later

We Are Love, and More from Enoch

Ahhhhhh. Why do I keep forgetting from year to year how exhausting cooking a big meal is? Pause for a breather. All I have on the menu is the turkey, whipped potatoes with gravy, fresh green beans, a molded gelatin salad and poppy seed cake for dessert ... and as uneventful as that menu is, I feel like I’m serving an 8-course meal! Gelatin salad just went back into the fridge to finish setting up. Need to start the potatoes boiling and the giblet gravy in a new minutes ... and my least favorite part: turning the turkey over and praying I don’t drop it. Knowing me? Bets are being taken at the betting window.

So apparently I wasn’t the only listener who thought Il Volo’s We Are Love cd was an unbelievable second album.

Il Volo We Are Love Album Review

Sylvie Lesas on November 20, 2012

"Il Volo is back with their second album We Are Love. Co-produced by Grammy winning producer Humberto Gatica and Tony Renis, this cd sends chills down your spine from beginning to end. It is clearly a masterpiece.

Beautifully interpreted , the album is emotionally intense. Il Volo shines on the entire cd, offering perfect duets with Placido Domingo on Il Canto and Eros Ramazzotti on Cosi’ which is magnificent. They just take every song to another level. The harmony is flawless. The passion in their voices is pure delight whether on U2 cover Beautiful Day or the splendid version of the Aerosmith/Diane Warren Hit I don’t want to miss a thing. It is often even better than the original because the trio brings their unique touch of creativity. They also did justice to classics such as my first favorite Historia De Un Amor that tells the suffering after the death (or the loss) of a love. Just poignant.

Written by Diane Warren, I Bring You To My Senses is an upcoming hit. Non Farmi Aspettare is another highlight of this album and ends the album as strong as it began.

So We Are love is one of 2012 best albums. With their incredible voice on their debut record, they have conquered the world. With We are Love, Il Volo is going to dominate it."
http://evigshed.com/il-volo-we-are-love-album-revie/
Oooo, dominate. Yessssss. "One of 2012’s best albums"! I love it!

But moving forward:

This is the place. Stand still, my steed,

Let me review the scene,

And summon from the shadowy Past

The forms that once have been.

The Past and Present here unite

Beneath Time's flowing tide,

Like footprints hidden by a brook,

But seen on either side.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "A Gleam of Sunshine", 1846

Just finished reading a series of product reviews on Amazon and have a prediction to make:

My Prediction: In a very short time, scriveners will again become popular and useful in the United States. Start making your business cards now!

(Scriveners were the literate few who used to read letters to and write letters and other legal documents for, their illiterate customers). Just sayin’. I have never read so many garbled comments from so many people completely incapable of composing a literate sentence in my whole life. It’s mind boggling.

And speaking of idiots, back to my newly formed campaign to FREE THE INCUBI from the clutches of the christian and wiccan church ladies!!! (see last entry). Hmmm. I really need a better catch phrase than that, come to think of it. I might free the succubi, too, if I had some idea where they originated. Incubi I suspect may have originated with the angels described in Enoch, but succubi? I’m not sure yet. I read a website with stories of succubi, but all of the stories seemed to be about horny clerics blaming succubi for their own lust – after christians had already taken over the village and stomped around telling people they were sinners for doing what came naturally. Supposedly, Lillith was the first succubi, but I don’t know where that myth came from.

But back to Enoch and the the first band of angelic lovers. If you read this self-righteous judeo-christian tale of woe, you’re pretty much left with two conclusions: (1) angels are no more intelligent than the average human being (and that’s not saying much), and (2) their deity has the emotional maturity of a sulking, spoiled toddler, and that’s not saying much, either.

CHAP. VII [SECT. II]

1. It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful. [Why, thank you very much, yes we are!]

2. And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamored of them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children. [Now I realize this doesn’t particularly support the claim that incubi started here. If they did start here, you’d be reading that the angels said, "Wow! Check out those hooters! Let’s go have hot steaming sex with them after they go to sleep!" Instead they actually (oddly) want to get married and beget children. So, at this point, you’d think that wanting to get married and have children instead of deflowering virgins in their sleep would be a GOOD thing. But no.]

3. Then their leader Samyaza said to them; I fear that you may perhaps be indisposed to the performance of this enterprise;

4. And that I alone shall suffer for so grievous a crime. [Nowhere are we being told – yet – what the grevious crime is that Samyaza is convinced he’ll have to answer for. If I were a maiden and an angel visited me and asked for my hand in marriage, I’d certainly be surprised, but I might accept this as a compliment, not a crime. But what do I know?]

5. But they answered him and said; We all swear;

6. And bind ourselves by mutual execrations, that we will not change our intention, but execute our projected undertaking. [There are those who might think that this phrase, ‘mutual execrations’ means something like "mutual oaths", "mutual promises". But according to every dictionery I checked, the word ‘execration’ means a "curse", and not just a curse, but a curse combined with loathing. Enoch has apparently already passed a hideous judgment on these guys even before their deity did.]

7. Then they swore all together, and all bound themselves by mutual execrations. Their whole number was two hundred, who descended upon Ardis, which is the top of mount Armon.

8. That mountain therefore was called Armon, because they had sworn upon it, and bound themselves by mutual execrations. [Mount Armon is now known as Mount Hermon (photo), located on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights. In honor of the "curses" sworn there, Israel has built a ski resort and a motorbike trail. That would do it, I imagine. If the newly formed "Free the Incubi Group (FIG)" had a sacred ground, this might be it. Nah. Still don’t like the group title.]

9. These are the names of their chiefs: Samyaza, who was their leader, Urakabarameel, Akibeel, Tamiel, Ramuel, Danel, Azkeel, Saraknyal, Asael, Armers, Batraal, Anane, Zavebe, Samsaveel, Ertael, Turel, Yomyael, Arazyal. These were the prefects of the two hundred angels, and the remainder were all with them. [More on them later.]

10. Then they took wives, each choosing for himself; whom they began to approach, and with whom they cohabited; teaching them sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees. [A-HA!!! Now we start to get some idea of what happened!! They turned the women into witches!!! I hope a mega-watt lightbulb just went on in some wiccan heads.]

11. And the women conceiving brought forth giants,

12. Whose stature was each three hundred cubits. These devoured all which the labor of men produced; until it became impossible to feed them;

13. When they turned themselves against men, in order to devour them;

14. And began to injure birds, beasts, reptiles, and fishes, to eat their flesh one after another, and to drink their blood.

15. Then the earth reproved the unrighteous. [I realize it’s to my own advantage to not believe this tale as it unfolds, but let’s toss some logic at this, shall we? Nowhere in this story does it say that the wives of the angels died screaming in agony as they were giving birth or trying to nurse these offspring. So, "brought forth giants" seems a bit of a stretch. True, the children could have shot up during puberty, but I’m going to put a bit more credence in biology and human DNA than the lack of logic we’re looking at here. But in a minute you’ll see why this story was invented. Version #1 of "THE FLOOD" is about to be written down. Enjoy.]

CHAP. VIII

1. Moreover Azazyel taught men to make swords, knives, shields, breastplates, the fabrication of mirrors, and the workmanship of bracelets and ornaments, the use of paint, the beautifying of the eyebrows, the use of stones of every valuable and select kind, and of all sorts of dyes, so that the world became altered. [Logic problems again. Enoch just finished saying the men were being eaten up by all of these so-called giants. Now he’s teaching them the art of warfare? Which sentence is actually true?]

2. Impiety increased ; fornication multiplied ; and they transgressed and corrupted all their ways. [Ahhh. That old bugaboo: fornication. Which was, I’m sure you’ll agree, the method that resulted in all of the "begetting" the judeo-christian text is so full of. What, every middle-eastern woman was capable of immaculate conception? No, dearies: begetting after begetting after begetting is a direct result of fornication. You may not like it, but you have to live with it.]

3. Amazarak taught all the sorcerers, and dividers of roots:

4. Armers taught the solution of sorcery;

5. Barkayal taught the observers of the stars

6. Akibeel taught signs;

7. Tamiel taught astronomy;

8. And Asaradel taught the motion of the moon.

9. And men, being destroyed, cried out; and their voice reached to heaven. [Again with the screwed up logic. How were the men destroyed? By their own recently-learned warfare, or by these so-called giants, who apparently did NOT destroy all the men, as Enoch said. Sounds to me like they did it to themselves. In any event, after a lot of military orders in Chapter Nine ("Michael! Gabriel! Go kick some angelic ass!"), here’s a line from Chapter Ten: "all the earth shall perish; the waters of a deluge shall come over the whole earth, and all things which are in it shall be destroyed."]

Ahhh, yes. The Flood. So which version is correct? This one? That one? Another decision to be made by people other than me, I suspect. I am discussing Angels who have sex with women.

If you look at the list of things they taught us – and by "us", I mean the women they turned into happy, sexually fulfilled witches – you can see why it is beneficial to christians to perpetuate the stories of these angels being demons. And they do to this day! In fact – and I find this astonishing! – even Satanists are happy to perpetuate the myth that Incubi are demons, and they’re the first people to jump up and down, claiming to be misunderstood! They are, actually, but they seem to be doing the same thing.

Next: the individual prefects of the 200 angels who love women.
 

Incubi come from Watchers?

Am relaxing this day before Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Thursday with a White Fluffy: 1 oz. marshmallow vodka, 1 oz. dark chocolate liqueur, 2 oz. cream, all poured over ice and garnished with marshmallows and cocoa powder. Yum. Tomorrow I’m going to taste absinthe for the first time – have my own glasses, sugar cubes and spoon! – expensive as hell, but supposedly heavenly. But first ...

Il Volo released their latest cd. (I would have said "second", but they released so many variations of #1 – Continental, Global, Spanish, French, Takes Flight/Live in Detroit – and I suppose the christmas mini-cd counted as something – I’m not sure what number this actually is). Anyway, they just released their latest cd.

You get so used to groups or solo artists releasing their first cd, a spellbinder, and then falling flat on the second ... even someone as talented as Vittorio Grigolo, whose classical crossover career fizzled as fast as an open bottle of coke in a desert ... but not so this one.

My jaw dropped again – this is actually better than the first one, and I didn’t think that was possible, because I adored the first one! Holy crap, these guys are awesome! I can’t even find a "least" favorite, and I could on the first one – ("Smile". They sang it beautifully, it was just a snoozer of a song).

Mr. Signpost tossed out one of the Native American Plagiarist’s insipid tweets again: "Unusual sights can fill the heart with great joy. Keep your eyes open for the odd and different." Well, okey-dokey dear! And you have a real Tinkerbelle Day too, ‘kaaaaay?

Of course, the very next thing I saw was this photo:

<---------------

of the members of Il Volo goofing off while getting ready for a concert in Los Angeles.

Keep in mind that this was one of their last concerts at the tail end of a long, three-month straight, country-wide tour of the states. They were three exhausted and punch-drunk teenagers, eager to go home ... so silliness was perfectly understandable to those of us who had working brains.

Ah, but America is so lacking in working brains and so overstuffed with pretentious church ladies, the reaction of the American Hissy Fit Society was utterly predictable. "Eeek!" "Put your pants back on!" "Ohhh NOOO!" "Can’t we just... sing?" ...

Perfect example of the puritanical nonsense most American women spew all over the place to the point where your fingers are literally itching to slap them silly. European women wouldn’t have even blinked; American women – some of them, anyway – were all in this flutter of despair that "da boys" had turned into lusty old men on them. I’m sorry, I started laughing so hard I almost fell out of my chair at some of their prissy, condescending church-lady nonsense.

***********************

Lost my train of thought. Incubus. I arrived back at the incubus question via the direct and roundabout way: a while ago, I discovered that I really missed my daily sonnet burning its way out of me – and while the agony that provoked them has lessened somewhat, the comfort derived from creating them has not. I decided to start writing again.

I thought I would venture off in a different direction with the second poetry series. My inspiration was found in Milton’s Paradise Lost – although when I say "inspiration", I actually mean that the more I read of it initially, the more I wanted to slap him too for allowing himself to be sucked into a mass delusion. On the other hand, the more I read about him, the less I was sure as to what he did believe. Some day, I may get around to reading a biography. Meanwhile ...

This is the bit that bothered me:

Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme

I do realize that the line directly after "Aonian mount" was a nod to either or both Matteo Maria Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato or Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso but my irritation was his reference to the Greek gods and their creation being far inferior to his "Adam and Eve" story.

For the more under-educated readers, "Aonian mount" is a another way of saying "Ionian mount" which is another way of saying, "Greek mountains, such as Mount Olympus, which was the home of the Grecian deities." He’s basically saying, "They sucked; I win!" So, yes, he more or less comes across as the literary Sheldon Cooper of medieval poetry.

Second point being: a complete refutation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost is also possibly among those "things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme" (I suspect not but wouldn’t lay down a wager on it), but that’s the direction I wanted to go. I began this attempt a few weeks ago. And as I have decided that I also want to look down my upturned nose at poetry that doesn’t have a rhyming structure ... I ridicule him for his complete rhyming failure as well! BWAH-HA-HA!

So, speaking of Paradise Lost, and the urgent need christians have to demonize human sexuality ("Bad incubus! Bad! Bad!"), it made me wonder how many other spiritual beings were respected and even loved by the pagan world, and then turned into sexualized demons by christians.

For example, The Horned God was so demonized he appears regularly on your TV as Hellboy with his horns shaved off ... (and actually, I love Ron Perlman’s interpretation of him, so I’m not picking on Hellboy, believe me). But the Horned God was absolutely beloved in the pagan world, not made into something evil, as christians have done. Rather than draw from a variety of sources, I’ll quote from Wikipedia that the horned god was "associated with nature, wilderness, sexuality, hunting and the life cycle." I’m not sure this was one of the sources of sexuality and demons, but it certainly contributed. I’m not sure how far back that goes.

In the Book of Enoch. ("the wha ...?") we read an interesting story about The Watchers. The Book of Enoch is dated back to somewhere in the 3rd century B.C. Some of the mythology in Enoch is found in judeo-christian texts, but the larger version is only in Enoch. What makes Enoch interesting as far as research into incubi and sucubi is concerned? Angels falling in love with women and mating with them. But even that isn’t the whole story.

This may be one of the first mentions of situations which christians now call an "attack by an incubi". Basically, so Enoch reports, angels fell in love with human women, mated with them, and the resulting offspring were ... not particularly human, to put it politely.

But I’m not sure that was essentially correct. Enoch lists the band of angels who fell in love with mortal women; their leader’s name was Samyaza or Semjâzâ.

And here’s what I think may be the real source of the demonic attribute: "And the Lord said unto Michael [ this is Michael the Archangel]: 'Go, bind Semjâzâ and his associates who have united themselves with women so as to have defiled themselves with them in all their uncleanness."

Read that one again. They’re fallen angels not because they're evil or demonic, or have done anything awful or unlawful, but because they consorted with women ... who are UNCLEAN! Fallen angels? Demons. According to your local judeo-christian hate-spreader, THAT may be the real reason why incubi are demons: they are attracted to and have sexual relations with women!! My jaw dropped when I found this – if anyone else has any other ideas behind incubi being demons, I’m all ears.

In the meanwhile, I'm thinking we need to free the incubus and succubus from christian clutches and treat them with respect again.

 

A (Real!) Lust Provoking Spell from Ancient Greece

One of my favorite examples of a (legitimate!) Grecian love spell that incorporates all of the power of Eros, and definitely not the reason and sanity of Anteros: the passion, the insanity, the desperation, the urgency. Key players are: Apalos, who had the spell cast for him, and Karosa, the object of his uncontrollable lust. Try not to read this like the pursed lip wiccan church ladies, with one eye searching for a contemporary restraining order, and the other trying to remember the twitter account of the Wiccan Inquisition. (Dollars to doughnuts they’ve already given the Wiccan Inquisition my name anyway, so you have nothing to worry about.)

Instead, read it with one eye on the Eros-inspired erotically urgent desire that provoked this spell:

"Aye lord demon, attract, inflame, burn, cause her to swoon from love as she is being burnt, inflamed. Goad the tortured soul (psyche), the heart of Karosa, whom Thelo bore, until she leaps forth and comes to Apalos, whom Theonilla bore, out of passion and love, in this very hour, immediately, immediately, quickly, quickly ... do not allow Karosa herself, whom Thelo bore, to think of her own husband, her child, drink, food, but let her come melting for passion and love and intercourse, especially yearning for the intercourse of Apalos, whom Theonilla bore, in this very hour, immediately, immediately, quickly, quickly."
Source: Faraone, Christopher. Ancient Greek Love Magic. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA), London. 1999. Spells for Inducing Uncontrollable Passions (Erōs), page 59.

Now ... did Karosa, the object of this spell, actually spin on a dime, run away from her husband and child and run to Apalos’ home for a wild and crazy night of never-ending sex?

"Of course she didn’t!" snaps a pretentious know-it-all from Yale. "They didn’t even HAVE dimes in ancient Greece!" (*sigh*)   See, and this is exactly why you Yalies get beaten up all the time.

It is this sort of spell that has today’s wiccan women all a-twitter. They insist that Apalos, by not asking Karosa’s permission to cast this spell, has interfered with Karosa's free will - proving that none of them have any idea what true "free will" actually is - and messed up his own karma, completely forgetting that:

(1) his karma is none of their business and none of them are in any position to judge or evaluate such things in the first place, and,

(2) Karosa had plenty of options available to her as well, and her "free will" is fully intact. Karosa (assuming Apalos was more or less an overheated weirdo following her around and drooling unattractively) could just as easily have had someone whip her up a counter curse designed to rebound HIS spell.

Here’s an example: "May Apalos’ lust be reflected off of me and be turned in another direction, and cause him to fall madly in love with a crazed bull."

Source:  Me!  I made it up!  Just now!!

We’ve just come up with our very own restraining order, and Apalos is now entertaining the townsfolk being chased by a crazed (and seriously pissed off) bull through the local pasture.

If, on the other hand, Apalos was a serious stud, Karosa might have chosen to let herself be caught up in his wild, insatiable lust. Could be fun! And what would have happened if either one of them had stopped to ask the other for permission? 

If any bad karma is going to rebound on anybody, I’m guessing it’s going to land squarely on the heads of the dainty, inept little twinkie witches of the 21st century for failing to impart any real power or strength to the budding witches they should be training properly, and for turning nights of wild,  crazy, lustful and passionate sex into a frowning old biddy lecture on mathematically calculated possibilities, requiring a frown, a slide rule and a protractor. No wonder Eros is depressed these days.

More later.
 

Incubi, Demons, Dumb Witches and True Spells

Regarding the comments:  to those who submitted legitimate comments - thank you.  If you'd like to complain that you didn't get a response, complain to the host of the blog, not the owner:  I just found these comments in my inbox yesterday (the 15th of November) and some of them had been written back in September!

In an attack of whimsy, I hung my three framed autographed photos of my young Italian tenor on the wall and, beside them, hung a much larger framed print of a rather gloomy – but aesthetically pleasing - Phaedra. Without going into much more detail than that – walking by the wall "statement" several times a day makes me smile. At least I find the humor in it, anyway. And, fortunately, keeps my ... obsession from rearing its Phaedric head again.
 
I am still on my quest to figure out why the incubus and succubus were so dramatically carried over from the christian horror of sex into the wiccan women’s horror of sex ... in other words, witches who seem to forget the fact that the christian demonic entities don’t exist in the pagan world are still squeaking, "Bad! Bad! Bad incubi!" at anyone who asks a question about them. (No joke!) Well. Correct that. The precursors to the character of, for example, Satan do exist in the Pagan world, but not the christian version of him. Satan is entirely theirs and they’re welcome to him. Because christians were (and still are) so overwhelmed with the desperate fear of sex, they created all sorts of sex demons to explain their own lust. Here’s a terrific example:

Since demons, according to the traditional wisdom, were only spirits and had no corporeal form, the incubus was presumed to come upon his physical form in one of two ways: he either reanimated a human corpse, or he used human flesh to create a body of his own, which he then endowed with artificial life. Especially mischievous and clever incubi were often able to make themselves appear in the persons of real people - a husband, neighbor, the handsome young stablehand. In one case, a medieval nun seem to have been sexually assaulted by a local prelate, Bishop Sylvanus, but the bishop defended himself on the grounds that an incubus had assumed his form. The convent took his word for it.
http://www.whiterosesgarden.com/Nature_of_Evil/Demons/List_of_Demons/H-I-J-K_contents/incubus.htm

Of course it would have been nice if, once again, someone had provided a citation for that.  From one christian writer to another, medieval or contemporary, the definitions of demons and devils and lewdness vary, so merely trying to wade through their nonsense becomes a test of your sanity.

All manner of things are happening this month as I whisper ‘sweet dreams’ to my dogwood, already missing her full parasol of leaves and flowers over my head: my guilty pleasure – the last installment of Twilight - is arriving in the theaters this month on the 16th. To heck with Teams Edward and Jacob, I’m Team Gil Birmingham and Jackson Rathbone, really. Il Volo’s sixth album "We Are Love" (counting the first one, the Spanish one, the French one, the Christmas one and the ‘Il Volo Takes Flight’ one) is due out on the 19th. The Spanish version is due out in January, so of course everyone will buy two of them – again. Blake’s Pledge cd just arrived. Mr. Signpost appeared in Cambridge on the 9th, but there was no way I could stand on line, as much of a crippled gimp as I am ... but he’s coming back to Cambridge in January, so hopefully I’ll be able to stand for longer than two minutes by then. Back to the endocrinologist on the 21st. Thanksgiving on the 22nd. Don’t know if I plan to make an effort – probably not.

Second guilty pleasure at the moment: bypassing the novels and becoming addicted to HBO’s "Game of Thrones". Absolute favorite character: Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion Lannister. He just lights up every scene, in that series – what an awesome character! And I can easily see why he won "Best Supporting Actor" for the role.

Back to my complaint about witches trying to pass nonsense off as traditional witchcraft:

I have been utterly fascinated with Faraone’s Ancient Greek Love Magic, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation (edited by Hans Dieter Betz), Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (John G. Gager), Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (Faraone) and Magic, Witchcraft and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman World (Daniel Ogden). There are more, a wealth of legitimately traditional spells, curses and magical herbs, ointments and charms.

Now, there are many of these spells which would be difficult if not impossible to perform accurately. Most of us can’t come up with, say, an upper tooth of a spotted heifer to wear as an amulet, to use an example from Ancient Greek Love Magic. So this would be the debatable portion of the spell: what would I substitute and why? What was the use of the upper tooth of a spotted heifer? What did spotted heifers represent to this society? What did cows mean? How can I accomplish the same result with something I can find today?

Not only should that be clearly written out as part of the spell for documentation purposes, it should be written out as part of the spell so that an intelligent wizard could pick up the spell, read it and say, "Wait. I have a better idea." If I provide all of the document source material, I have spared him having to go through all of the original research again, which is what just about every witch or wizard with a witchcraft book in print has done to everyone else. Wasted everyone’s time, and dumped a lot of hoohah on them.

But spells such as these should – SHOULD but aren’t – be familiar to anyone learning witchcraft, presented with respect, thusly:

1. Here is the original traditional spell (source cited). These witches MUST go back to an original source, confess they made it up themselves or be charged with fraud. In case someone missed it the first 5 times I said it, I’ll repeat: I have no issues with witches inventing their own spells. I do have issues with witches inventing their own spells and claiming or implying they’re traditional when they clearly are not. THAT is fraud.

2. Here is my variant of that spell, in detail.

3. I substituted these following ingredients or components for THOSE ingredients or components and – here’s an important part of that! - this is why I did it.

4. Herbs and other ancient references: the Greeks (or Romans or Sumerians or Egyptians or Italians or Anglos or Saxons or Irish) may have known the herb as "X"; how would we know it today? Requires "RESEARCH" and most women writing contemporary twinkie witch manuals are too dumb, fat and lazy to make the effort.

Optional inclusion: the personal Book of Shadows details: results, who the spell was used on ... those sorts of things.

I have to add that the bibliographies and source references of all of these books are awesome ... why witches writing books today got the idea that these weren’t necessary I have no idea, but most of them should be slapped upside the head ... I’d curse them with stupidity, except it appears that has already been done.
More tomorrow.

Tossing out More Witchcraft Books

Ahhh, ze blessed San Pellegrino!

Not the church in Vatican City, the sparkling water. I blame Piero for this, since he (and his unofficial brothers Ignazio and Gianluca) handed out bottles of Ferrarelle at New York City’s Beacon Theater and I promptly fell in love with the stuff.

I’ll never forget the sacred moment. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, choirs were transcendentally choiring and with reverence in my heart I lifted "Piero’s Holy Water" to my parched lips, took a hesitant sip of the sacrament – which I was sure he had collected, bottled and shipped singlehandedly – and said (my utter obsession with him at the time notwithstanding), "Wow, this is pretty good."

OK, FINE. It was 9:00 at night, hot, steaming, any birds there were had been drowned out by traffic, and the choir was in my head. The water was still first rate, though.

The only sparkling water I’d had until that moment was something cheap with carbon dioxide injected into it, and I had immediately choked on it. This was infinitely better. Not even just infinitely better but in another category of water altogether. It was heavenly. But they neglected to mention that Ferrarelle was only available in restaurants; you couldn’t go to the nearest store and buy some. Thanks for the heads up, guys.

But you know me: the minute you tell me I can’t have something, I absolutely have to have it, so next I tried San Pellegrino. It was also superior to the Eau du Carbon Dioxide I’d had when I was a child, so I went out and bought ten 1-quart bottles of San Pellegrino with the expectation of carrying them off to the office to drink. Italy turns out the best stuff, and now I’m absolutely addicted to it ... to the point where I suspect they spiked the stuff with something deliciously and actually medically addictive. Am guzzling a bottle as I write.

Meanwhile ... as we recover from Superstorm Sandy rolling up the east coast, blowing us off the map, drowning everything in sight and squashing us like bugs ... I’ve decided to slide ever so discreetly back into "semi-normal" mode. For me, "normal" means being so overwhelmed with office work and overtime and work-consumed weekends, I can’t can’t get anything else done. "Semi-normal" means it’s easing up a bit, and I’m finally able to read books again.

* * * * * * * * * *

Ahhh, ze blessed historians!

True, most citizens of the United States – given our notoriously poor educational system that left us at #17 in the math and science skills, and even lower in the literacy skills – would have no idea how to maneuver their way through the "arcane jargon of professional scholars" without falling asleep, or drooling in dumfounded bewilderment. In fact, three-fourths of the country couldn’t even maneuver their way through that last sentence without going cross-eyed.

Fortunately for me, I was educated both in an excellent New York suburban school system (Pelham, NY) and majored in history at the University of Michigan, so I’m quite familiar with the "arcane jargon of professional scholars", having needed to employ it myself for various papers and theses.

*Note: I did not coin the phrase "arcane jargon of professional scholars", I just reached over and swiped it because I liked the sound. Credit where due: Christopher Faraone.

The more I read, the more I’m convinced that one’s sacred texts must be self-composed and created; and definitely not a scrap-pile of hoohah written by other people - with their own beliefs and their own inspirations and their taboos, all of which are considerable. So much of what I read conflicts with other texts, or is presented so self-righteously and so dogmatically it might as well have been written by a charter member of the Spanish Inquisition. So many wiccan writers aren’t even aware of how bound up they are by their own former beliefs that it overshadows anything they present. I know that’s true of me as well ... rarely can writers see their own binding ropes.

So ... back to the serious objection I have against getting permission from people before you cast spells on them. I’m sure I sound obsessed by this point, but ... this is important, dammit!

I have read so much ridiculous finger-wagging at readers from so many girly-girly so-called witches who are – in all honesty – imposing their own puritanical christian nonsense on everything they write that it’s beginning to make me nauseous. They do this because it feels safe and comfortable to them, and that’s fine – as long as they recognize what they’re doing and claim it. As soon as they start telling you it’s traditional witchcraft, you should feel so infuriated that you zap them with a counter-spell, like – say – intense and long-standing writer’s block, topped off with a few boils and warts on their genitalia, and why should you do that? Because they’re lying. They’re also depriving an entire generation of witches of their power and their strength, and turning them into Tinkerbelles. You wanna be Tinkerbelle? Fine. Go be Tinkerbelle. But Tinkerbelle isn’t a witch.

Ultimately, I find it sad that I need to read serious history textbooks to learn what REAL witches should be teaching me and aren’t.

"In this regard, according to Christopher Faraone (1999), on the one hand, Athenian male citizens employed love magic in attempts to transfer their erotic suffering from the affliction of Eros onto the love-objects to whom they felt so vulnerably attracted. On the other hand, with the exception of courtesans, Athenian women and male slaves employed erotic magic not in order to project and thereby displace erotic suffering but in the hope of calming and controlling their angry and passionate male superiors."
Stephenson, Craig. Anteros: A Forgotten Myth. Routledge, London and New York. 2012. p. 15.

Nowhere in this paragraph is there mention of anyone dialing up the person they were shooting love spells at, and asking for their "permission" to do it. And the magic of Ancient Greece IS "traditional". The crap that the girly-witches (be they male or female) are feeding people now is NOT traditional, and never was. They’re lying to you. Now - if these ladies and gents want to re-write wicca to conform to contemporary standards of PC-stained morality, I have no problem with that.  Really!!  There is a lot of fully traditional witchcraft I couldn't bring myself to perform - good example:  animal sacrifices.  But I would never try to tell you that my variant (i.e., "no animal has been harmed in the performance of this spell!") is traditional witchcraft.  It most certainly is not.  My problem is that too many writers claim that their way is traditional, when it absolutely isn't.  It is the reader who should be deciding which "ways" they want to adopt, not the writers.  And writers are not owning up to their own variants of witchcraft inserted into their books, claiming it to be the real one.

Along those same lines, they're not owning up to their own variants of so-called "morality", either.  Taboos differ across locales, boys and girls.  One person's sense of "morality" is not the same as another's.  While there may be some taboos that cross cultures, don't make the assumption that your ideas of morality should be adopted by everyone.  Makes you sound, as I said, just like a charter member of the Spanish Inquisition, wearing a pointy hat.

By the way, Christopher Faraone’s brilliantly readable and and well-researched history book mentioned above – complete with an awesome bibliography - is Ancient Greek Love Magic. Back to that next entry.

To digress briefly, and because of the perception of Eros in the above quote, I’m finding Anteros fascinating. For those who don’t know, Anteros is Eros’ younger brother, conceived because Eros – after he was born – stopped growing. His mother, Aphrodite, asked for advice and was told to conceive another son with Ares, the god of war – and as soon as Anteros was born, Eros began to mature.

There is a primary difference between the two, I think: Eros is the god of love and sexual desire; the "madness" of love; you’re shot full of arrows, and are staggering about, clutching your chest, pining for your beloved ... who may or may not feel the same way. Usually not, which makes you crazy. Eros is the insanity, the longing, the desperation, the madness; Eros is Dante idolizing Beatrice from afar, Petrarch aching for Laura ... this is the pain of often unrequited love that sends you into near death spasms when it has passed the point of reason.

Anteros was the stabilizing force that tempered and perhaps (or perhaps not, hard to say) matured the insanity, the lust of Eros: he is the god invoked when requited love is desired, also the deity who punished those who scorn love and the advances of others, or ‘the avenger of unrequited love". He was sometimes mistaken for Eros, but can be identified by his long dark hair and butterfly wings. "He has been described also as armed with either a golden club or arrows of lead."

One of the most laughable cases of mistaken identity: christians insisting that the Shaftesbury Memorial in Piccadilly Circus (above right) is actually the The Angel of Christian Charity.

Riiiight. Half naked guy with his (quite attractive) muscular bare butt hanging out, wielding a bow and arrow and sporting butterfly wings. Christian charity. Okay, after we all finish laughing ...

I guarantee that any minute now one of those same christians is going to pop up and squeal, "We call it that because he symbolizes the selfless philanthropic love of the Earl of Shaftesbury for the poor!" Riiiight. He couldn’t think of a more appropriate way to express that, could he? He had romantic and sexual feelings for the poor? Little bit weird, idn’t it?

The rest of the time people who aren’t idiots poo-pooh the Angel of Charity nonsense and assume it’s Eros. It isn’t. It’s Anteros. Look at the butterfly wings.  I find it interesting though, as did Stephenson, that Eros and Anteros regressed to childlike and infant-like proportions only after christianity gained a foothold in people’s bedrooms and proceeded to make people feel like crap for being utterly normal, enjoying the sensation of lust, and falling in love with other people.

Eros and Anteros were originally muscular young men. When you look at the art of the Renaissance, and the art of the romantic era, the young men have disappeared, replaced with one or two chubby infant(s), floating in the air and preparing to shoot things with bows and arrows. In fact, those two somewhat violent chubby infants show up today on 9 out of 10 valentines.

Think about it. Why????? You want to capture the eye of a hot hunk and the best way you can devise to turn the guy into a panting love slave drooling for your naked and lascivious body is a ... card with a fat baby on it??? Did you actually give that some thought before you sent that card out? Why?????

If there were anything more representational of the christian horror, fear, loathing of (or ultimately desperate hunger for) sexuality and fulfilled desire, that would be it: turning Eros and Anteros into harmless and chubby little babies. (Explains a lot, doesn’t it?)

For another example, under the "Why, oh why did I buy this appalling book?" category, I started reading a translation of the Corpus Hermeticum, "a powerful fusion of Greek and Egyptian thought", according to the back cover. Title:  The Way of Hermes. And yet, on page 1 we read the following:

‘I wish to learn,’ said I, ‘the things that are and understand their nature and to know God".

I stopped dead in my tracks at that. God. Capital G. Singular.

Ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphics which contained no "capital letters", and worshiped multiple deities, even in the "Ra" era. Ancient Greeks worshiped multiple deities, and usually identified them by name. God???

This was a gang of translators sticking their big, hairy christian rumps right in the middle of a critical pagan text translation, undermining any trust I might have had in it. And dollars to doughnuts these fools thought they did a great job on this book. Whatever happened to editors? Serious peer review?

I had no choice. I screamed in outrage, pulled out my handy pistol and shot the book... er, which I propped up out of sight against the computer screen (see graphic, right). Oh, yeah. One of the authors is on the board of directors of a group of private schools in England being investigated for child abuse. (Brutality in their caning of small children). Tossed THAT book right over my shoulder in disgust.

More stuff being passed along as "Wiccan tradition" when it isn’t. From an article on Wiccan meditation techniques:

Gerald B. Gardner found Wicca in the mid-20th century after claiming to have been initiated into a coven of Witches. Gardner admits that his information on Witchcraft was fragmentary and that he had to reconstruct it by incorporating other materials. Before founding Wicca, he was an acquaintance of Aleister Crowley, involved with Freemasonry and the Rosicrucian Order. These involvements, as well as more than 30 years spent living in Asia, heavily influenced and inspired Gardner as he formulated Wiccan rituals.

Wicca Meditation Techniques | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_4572037_wicca-meditation-techniques.html#ixzz28aRXsKNW


 
Not at all sure where Mackenzie Wright, who wrote the above came by his or her her information, but given the amount of nonsense a lot of wiccans repeat without any traditional sources behind it, I’m not even remotely surprised.