The Birth of Noah

The children in The Midwich Cuckoos novel reminds me of the creepy oft-quoted passage about the birth of Noah (of Ark fame).

From the Book of Enoch or Book of Noah, depending on which source you read (I find it all a bit confusing):

Baby Noah is described as having skin as white as snow and as red as a rose. His hair is white and like wool and his eyes glow like the sun.

His disturbed father Lamech says, “I have begotten a strange son, diverse from and unlike man, and resembling the sons of the God of heaven; and his nature is different and he is not like us and his eyes are as the rays of the sun…And it seems to me that he is not sprung from me but from the angels…”

Lamech ponders whether his wife Bathenosh has been “lying with the angels”.

Some people interpret these angels as being aliens.

Other people are merely perplexed that angels are being perceived by Lamech as beings of flesh and blood with the ability to have intercourse with humans.

And some people think the passage means that the suspicious (but modest) Lamech is just shocked that he has sired a beautiful child.

As with all things, it all depends on how you look at it.

Related Posts

Village of the Damned

Saturn's Children

Doctor Who and the Breath of Life

Continuing the look at creation myths and stories, here's one from last Saturday's episode of Doctor Who entitled The Doctor's Daughter.

"In the Beginning, the Great One breathed life into the universe. And then She looked at what She'd done and She sighed...That Sigh [was called]... the Beginning of Time and was kept as the Source...Whoever holds the Source controls the destiny of this planet."

The Source was mystically known as the Breath of Life. But the Doctor (in a scientific rant) labelled it a Bubble of Gases.

The episode was set on a planet where the inhabitants had "mythologised their entire history" and where a war, which they said had been waging for generations, had only been waging for seven days.

"Your whole history is just Chinese whispers getting more and more distorted as it is passed on," said the Doctor - before releasing the Breath of Life and creating a Whole New World, in his usual breezy manner.

Related Posts

Legends of the Fall - Part Two

The Multiverse in Comics

Pandora's Box

The Creation of Man

Lucifer Lost (in Translation)

Lucifer, a Latin name which originally meant 'light bringer' (Lux - light Ferous - carry) became a synonym for the Devil or Satan, apparently through a translation error.

Lucifer makes a rare appearance in the Old Testament in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 14, Verse 12 in the Latin version of the Bible.

In the New Jerusalem Bible, this phrase is now translated as: "How did you come to fall from the heavens, Daystar, son of Dawn?"

So how did the Star come to be known as the Devil, a being that is believed to have existed from the Beginning of Time and who is often equated with the Serpent in the Garden of Eden ?

The Isaiah text refers to the death of a king of Babylon and the Daystar was a metaphor for the downfall of this king. The Christian concept of the Devil did not exist at the time that the Isaiah text was composed.

In the 4th century St Jerome translated the phrase 'Daystar, son of the Dawn' as 'Lucifer' for the Vulgate (the Latin version of the Bible).

The translators for the King James version of the Bible based some of their revisions on St Jerome's Vulgate rather than on the original Hebrew texts.

The Isaiah verse is apparently the seed for the legend about the rebellious angel in Paradise Lost who was cast out of heaven and whose name became synonymous with darkness instead of light.

The expression Daystar or Star of the Morning pops up in the Bible a few times more, for example in the Book of Revelation. On these occasions, the translators have decided that Lucifer is a reference to Jesus Christ rather than the Devil.

To confuse matters further, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:14, "...even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light."

Those who choose to believe that the Bible is the literal infallible word of God and not metaphorical or astrological teachings, must surely concede that even if the Biblical Word of God is literal and infallible, his translators are probably not.

Related Posts

The Lucifer Connection

Legends of the Fall - Part Two

The Lucifer Connection

Some thoughts on Eve, the Marys and Venus:

The name ‘Lucifer’ means ‘light bringer’ or ‘light bearer’ and was the alternative name of Venus, the Morning Star.




The Morning Star was called the Light Bringer because it heralded the arrival of the sun at dawn, the sun being the ultimate source of Light and Life.

For some reason, the Light Bringer and Knowledge became equated with Evil and “Lucifer” was also the name that has been given to the rebellious fallen angel who defied God in some traditions.



In the previous post, I discussed Edgar Cayce’s interpretation of the Garden of Eden story.

If you interpret his story symbolically rather than literally, it can be viewed as a reference to feminine intuition and wisdom where the Light Bringer shows Eve how to gain access to knowledge and her divine identity.

In Cayce’s version of the story, Eve is a soul who incarnated many times. Cayce believed that her last incarnation was that of Mary, the mother of Jesus.




The figure of Mary, whether it is the Immaculate Conception, (virgin) or the Magdalene (whore), is often linked with that of the goddess Isis, also known as the Black Madonna (mother).





And Isis is sometimes equated with the goddess Venus.

The goddess Venus was believed to be a powerful female creational force, a source of light and love. (Although as with all things, she also had a dark side or negative aspect) However, in this context, Lucifer/Venus, the Light Bringer is a source of enlightenment, universal love and illumination.



Throughout history, Lucifer, women, knowledge and the serpent (the symbol of wisdom) have all, at one time or another, become equated with Evil in the collective unconscious and suppressed in order to be replaced with the darkness and violent mysteries of the patriarchal religions.

Related Posts

Lucifer Lost

Legends of the Fall – Part Two

Pandora’s Box of Tricks

Legends of the Fall - Part Two

Continuing with the look at different stories and myths about the creation of humanity and evil, an interesting version of events is provided by Edgar Cayce a.k.a. the sleeping prophet.

According to Cayce, God, together with a collection of Souls and an assortment of angels collaborated to create the universe.

Fallen Angels

The Souls were given the gift of Free Will which made some of the angels jealous, among them the one that eventually become known as "Lucifer", who allegedly stormed off in a huff to do his own thing.

With the gift of Free Will, some of the Souls began to experiment with matter and energy projecting themselves onto the physical plane and creating many hybrid creatures.

These creatures remain in our collective unconscious as half-memories and are apparently the source of legends about centaurs or mermaids etc.

Some of the Souls descended into matter and became so entranced that they couldn't return to the realm of energy and forgot where they really came from.

Amilius and the Master Plan

One of the unfallen Souls called Amilius (apparently the first Soul that God created) volunteered to descend to the Earth and bring the Fallen Souls back.

God agreed but also devised a plan which involved reincarnation, forgiveness and karma which meant that the Souls had to earn their way back home.

Amilius incarnated on the physical plane as Adam and the twin soul Eve. These were the first humans who were part energy and part matter.

But descending (or falling) into physical matter meant that they too could not remember their true origins.

Forbidden Fruit

However Lucifer was apparently skulking in the wings ready to thwart God’s plan to release the souls from Earth. So he disguised himself as a serpent and told Eve that she could save the fallen souls much faster if she would only eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil because then they would be like God.

Adam wanted to play the long game but Eve eventually persuaded him to eat the fruit so that they could take a shortcut and redeem the souls faster.

The rest is as in the Book of Genesis with Adam and Eve getting found out by God and banished.

Many Lives, Many Masters

But then, according to Cayce, Adam (and Eve) continued to incarnate on Earth for many more lifetimes to continue their attempts to bring the Souls back to the realm of energy.

Some of these Adam-personalities are well-known figures from the Bible like Joshua and Enoch. Others are less well-known or completely unknown figures from the past.

The most well-known figure who was an incarnation of the first man Adam (according to Cayce) was that of Jesus Christ, hence titles given to Jesus such as the ‘First Born’, ‘Son of God’ or ‘only begotten Son of the Father’.

And the most well-known figure who was an incarnation of the first woman Eve was Mary as the Mother of Jesus.

An account of Cayce’s theory about the incarnations of Jesus can be found in the book Lives of the Master.

Related Posts

Pandora's Box of Tricks

Legends of the Fall

Legends of the Fall

The Garden of Eden is one of those stories that can be interpreted on several different levels.

It’s often said that parents never forgive their children for growing up.

The Garden of Eden is often viewed as a metaphor for childhood. Adam and Eve exist in an idyllic paradise. Their parent is an all-powerful, infallible loving being that gives them everything they want.

However there are conditions to the parent’s love. They must keep the one ground rule and not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

In other words, they must never grow up. And they must remain in a state of unquestioning obedience.

Eve is tempted by the Serpent (peer pressure, curiosity, self awareness, hormones) to eat of the fruit of the Forbidden Tree. “…you will be like gods, knowing good from evil.”

The adolescent is eager to become an adult, thinking that they will be all-powerful, all-knowing and that they can do whatever they want.

Once Adam and Eve eat of the fruit, “the eyes of both of them were opened and they discovered they were naked”. In other words, they discover sexuality, free will and rebellion. They discover that their choices can have far-reaching consequences. They also see their parent as the Man Behind the Curtain.

Once they discover the facts of life, they can never return to an innocent idyllic state and are banished from the Garden. The banishment represents the exchange of childhood for the harsh reality and grim responsibilities of everyday life – hard work, childbirth and domestic unbliss.

The “great winged creatures” and the “fiery flashing sword” barring the way back to the Garden of Eden can represent the idea that once you leave childhood, you can never really return.

As you grow older, you look back on the garden of childhood with the forgiving eyes of nostalgia, perhaps believing that it was better than it really was.

Related Posts

The Curse of the Divided Self – Part III

The Creation of Man

Saturn's Children

Panspermia

“Panspermia is the hypothesis that "seeds" of life exist already all over the Universe, that life on Earth may have originated through these "seeds"…”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia

These seeds refer to organisms such as bacteria and other life forms.

Panspermia comes from the Greek meaning 'mixture of all seeds' (pan meaning all – and Spermia seeds).

Extraterrestrial Interpretation

Panspermia is often confused with exogenesis.

In these theories, human life originated on another planet, such as Mars, and was then transferred to planet Earth either by Nature or by alien intervention.

Metaphysical Interpretation

Panspermia can be interpreted as the seeds of the Divine (the great all), the spark of life from the Universal Creator that is within every living creature on Earth, within our cells which are often called the Building Blocks of Life.

Mythical Interpretation

Then we have the god Pan, who is sometimes depicted with an erect phallus and sometimes associated with the incubus, sowing his wild oats everywhere.

Related Posts

The god Pan

Pan in Astrology

Pandora’s Box of Tricks

Readers and Writers

Do books belong to readers or their writers? It's difficult to say.

A good story, film, myth or piece of art can be interpreted in many ways, on many different levels which may or may not be in tune with the author's original intention.

Sometimes authors can get irritated if readers are seeing things in their work which was not part of their own vision. In many cases, a reader's interpretation can be completely at odds with what the author had been trying to say.

Something can resonate deeply and in a different way for the reader because of their own personal experiences and background.

Of course, the author's intention colours the work and is the dominant force in determining and influencing how readers accept their work.

But at some point, I think when any artist gives birth to a work and sends it out into the world, in a sense, the work now exists independently of the author. And how people choose to interpret the work is not a reflection of the author, but more a reflection of the reader.

Saturn's Children

The mythical figure Saturn is also known as the Lord of Karma, Dweller on the Threshold, the “Grim Reaper” and Old Father Time.

In astrology, Saturn corresponds to father or authority figures.

According to the Gnostics, the biblical concept of the patriarchal God or Jehovah came from the image of the tyrannical Saturn.

Saturn and Jupiter

In mythology, the god Saturn became the ruler of the Universe after he castrated his father with a sickle (?!).

Saturn received a prophecy that he would be overthrown by one of his sons. So each time his wife Rhea gave birth to a child, he would eat them to avert the threat.

Saturn managed to eat five of his offspring. But Rhea swapped the sixth child, Zeus, for a stone and wrapped the stone in “swaddling clothes”. Saturn ate the stone and Jupiter was spirited to safety.

Saturn was eventually overthrown by his son Jupiter who is known as Zeus in Greek mythology. Zeus started off as a kind of saviour/Jesus type when he overthrew his tyrannical father and ushered in a new order.

Saturn has Lunch

Francisco Goya aptly painted his famous picture of ‘Saturn devouring one of his sons’ directly onto his dining room wall.

In Goya's painting, Saturn has a look of terror in his eyes as he eats his child. He seems to be horrified by what he is doing but compelled to do it anyway.

Saturn Figures in the Bible

The child-eating Saturn myth can be likened to the paranoid babykilling kings that feature in the Bible.

In the Old Testament and the story of baby Moses, the Pharoah was afraid that the Hebrews would one day take over Egypt so ordered that all newborn Hebrew males be drowned in the River Nile.

Similarly in the New Testament, there is the Slaughter of the Innocents when King Herod received the prophecy about the newborn Messiah and ordered that all boys under the age of two be killed.

There is also the idea of fathers sacrificing their sons. Abraham is prepared to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, because God has commanded him to.

In the New Testament, God sacrifices his own son Jesus who cries out during his crucifixion, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)

To return to astrology, as Saturn’s children, the physical bodies of the people of the Earth are consumed by Time and then eventually by Death. And on that cheerful note…

Related Posts

Saturn: Moons and Myths

Pan in Astrology

Pandora's Box of Tricks

Humans have created many myths to explain the somewhat unexplainable origins of evil on Earth.

One of the themes of the origin of evil has been the Creation of Woman.

This belief is deeply entrenched both consciously and unconsciously in most cultures not only in religion or social mores but also in myths, jokes (e.g. God said, "Woe unto you, man." And created Woe-man.") and proverbs (e.g. "A woman has the form of an angel, the heart of a serpent, and the mind of an ass.")

Eve and Pandora

In the culture of Christianity, Eve, and thus all women, have been blamed for plunging mankind into a vale of tears, because she listened to the serpent in the Garden of Eden and ate of the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

In the Genesis version of the creation of humanity, Eve is fashioned from one of Adam's ribs. Whether viewed symbolically or literally, this has been interpreted as woman being subordinate and inferior to man.

In the similar Greek myth, Pandora was the first woman on Earth. Unlike Eve, she was not fashioned from one of man's ribs. She was created from water and earth by the god of craftmanship. She was given the gift of beauty from Aphrodite, the gift of music from Apollo, the gift of cunning from Hermes plus gifts from all the other gods.

Because of this, she was called All-Gifted. (pan - 'the great all' dora- 'gifted')

Some of the gifts bestowed on Pandora were rather dubious (such as the 'gift' of foolishness from Zeus and the 'gift' of curiosity from Hera).

The Pandora Legend

Unlike Eve, Pandora was not created to be a companion to man. Rather she was created by the gods expressly to be a punishment to mankind.

Pandora's unconscious purpose was to bring misery to the human race.

Before she was sent to Earth, the god Hermes gave her a beautiful jar (or box as it is now more famously known) and was instructed never to open it (but Hermes gave her the key anyway).

She was sent as a kind of 'honey trap' to the brother of Prometheus.

Curiosity Killed the Cat

Against his brother's advice, Epimetheus was seduced by the beauty of Pandora and accepted this gift of a wife from the gods.

Pandora hid the jar so that she wouldn't be tempted to open it. First she put it in a storeroom, then she put it in a chest in the storeroom, then she buried the chest in the garden. So she did try.

Finally Pandora could no longer restrain herself and decided to peep into the box/jar.

The gods had each put a nasty gift into the box. So once opened, all kinds of sorrows were unleashed unto humanity: Sickness, Insanity, Pestilence, Vice, Greed, Crime, Death, Theft, Lies, Jealousy, and so on.

But all was not lost. Pandora managed to close the box before Elpis, the gift of hope could escape.

Alternative Versions

Just as the gods had all bestowed Pandora with divine gifts, each god had put a blessing in the box such as peace, abundance, health and so forth.

So when Pandora opened the box, all these blessings flew away and there was misery upon the earth.

There is also a version similar to Eve enticing Adam to eat of the forbidden fruit. In this version, Pandora persuades Epimetheus to open the box.

Related Posts

The Lucifer Connection

Saturn: Moons and Myths

The Creation of Man

The Curse of the Divided Self - Part III

Legends of the Fall - Part II

The Creation of Man

Ancient Adam and Eve joke that I remember reading on a TV message board years ago:

Wandering dejectedly in The Garden of Eden, Eve told God, "I'm lonely and I'm tired of eating apples all by myself."

"Okay," God said, "I'll create a man for you."

Eve said, "A man! What's that?"

"He's a creature with aggressive tendencies and an enormous ego. He won't listen very well,he'll get lost easily, but never stop to ask for directions. However, he is big and strong, he can open jars and hunt animals. And he'll be fun in bed."

"Sounds great!" said Eve.

"Oh, and one more thing," God said. "He will want to believe that I made HIM first."

Another version of this tale together with more alternative creation stories here.

Related Post

Pandora's Box of Tricks

The Curse of the Divided Self - Part III

Saturn: Moons and Myths

In astrology, the negative aspect of the planet Saturn (named after the Roman god of agriculture) is said to be one of destruction, darkness and chaos.

Some of the names of Saturn's numerous moons reflect the dark side of this planet.

Prometheus was discovered in 1980.

This moon is named after the man who stole sacred fire from the gods and gave it to humankind. Zeus punished him by chaining him in Caucasus where an eagle (or vulture) would eat his liver. Each day his liver would be renewed so the punishment continued until the bird was killed.

Pandora was discovered in 1980.

This moon is named after the lady with the box.

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman on Earth sent by Jupiter (Zeus) as a punishment for Prometheus' theft of fire. She brought with her a box which contained illnesses, death and strife. When she opened the box out of curiosity, she unleashed a plague of disasters onto humanity.

Atlas was also discovered in 1980.

This moon is named after the Titan who is forced by Zeus (yes, him again) to bear the sky/heavens on his shoulders after he attempted to storm the heavens.

Janus was discovered in 1966.

Janus is named after the two-faced god of gates and doors (similar to Capricornus) . Janus is also the god of beginnings and endings. In Roman mythology, Janus sheltered Saturn when he was fleeing from Jupiter.

Mimas was discovered in 1789 and is named after one of the Titans. It is also known as Saturn I. Its nickname is "The Death Star" because of its resemblance to the Death Star in Star Wars movies.


Related Posts

Pan in Astrology

Pandora's Box of Tricks

Saturn's Children

The Curse of the Divided Self - Part III

Pan in Astrology

The god Pan corresponds to the Planet Saturn and the star sign Capricorn.

Pan is the name of one of the moons of the planet Saturn. It was discovered in 1990 and it is known as a shepherd moon. Pan is the closest moon to Saturn. It is also called Saturn XVIII.

Capricornus (Latin for "horned male goat"), is one of the constellations of the Zodiac. The stars of this constellation can be connected to form an image with the head of a goat and the tail of a fish. It is often called the Sea Goat.

In Greek mythology, Capricornus was viewed as the "Gateway of the gods" and it was believed that human souls passed through Capricornus after death.

On the positive side, like the god Pan, Capricorn represents nature and the abundance of the Earth.

On the shadow side, Capricorn also represents governments, elitist hierarchical structures and excessive control.

The sign Capricorn is ruled by the Planet Saturn viewed by many as a force of destruction and chaos.

Related Posts

The god Pan

Saturn: Moons and Myths

Saturn's Children

The Curse of the Divided Self - Part III

God created man in the image of himself,

in the image of God he created him,
male and female he created them.

Genesis 1: 27

In many myths about the birth of humanity, the first human was said to be an androgynous creature being both male and female.

The removal of one of Adam's ribs could be interpreted as a symbol of the separation of the androgynous human into two genders rather than the Creation of Woman.

In Greek mythology, Zeus, the ruler of the gods, created androgynous human beings. Because their masculine and feminine energies were in perfect balance, these humans were powerful and godlike.

When these humans plotted to overthrow the gods in Mount Olympus, Zeus split each being into half - not into two separate beings but two halves (male and female) of the same being.

In their new state, these half-humans lacked the vitality and power of their original whole selves.

So (in mythological terms) the quest for romantic love is really a quest to find the other half of one's self and restore the original harmonious balance of innate energy and power. Hence the "you complete me" nonsense.


Related Posts

Pandora's Box of Tricks

The Curse of the Divided Self - Part I

Just the Three of Us: Charles, Camilla and Di

A furtive glance at Prince Charles' bizarre triangle of lurve:

The TV movie, Whatever Love Means, implied that it was Camilla (the “crocodile wife” as Mohamed Al Fayed affectionately calls her) who selected Diana as the ideal wife for Prince Charles believing that the young girl would be dutiful, silent and turn a blind eye to their clandestine relationship. (“We’ve got to find you a wife, Charles!”)

It’s also been said that during their marriage, Camilla would give Diana advice about how to handle Prince Charles.

I’ve no idea whether Camilla did choose Diana for Prince Charles in reality or whether this twist was invented solely for dramatic purposes for the film.

But it does give an extra significance to Diana’s famous: “There were three of us in that marriage."

In his equally famous speech at Princess Diana’s funeral, her brother, (the other Charles) said, "It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this - a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age."

Here's another irony. In Roman mythology, Camilla, the Virgin Queen of the Volscians in ancient Italy, was a favourite of the Goddess Diana.

The goddess Diana says of Camilla, “There is not a girl in Italy that I love more, and have loved ever since she was a child.” (The Aeneid for Boys and Girls)

During her life, Camilla (the Virgin Warrior, not the “crocodile wife”) rejected the idea of marriage in favour of remaining faithful to the goddess Diana.

The god Pan

Peter Pan is named after the god Pan in Greek mythology.

Pan was the god of desire, magic, creativity, sexuality, pan-ic and nightmares. He was said to haunt caves, mountains and streams and watch over shepherds. He also seduced young men with his pipes (pan-pipes, that is).

Pan’s father was the god Hermes (Thoth) and his mother was a wood nymph.

The word ‘Pan’ means ‘all’ or ‘everything’. He is also believed to be an aspect of the Green Man.

Pan had horns, hairy lower limbs and the feet of a goat.

The images of the god Pan later became the model for visual image for the Christian concept of the devil.

Related Posts

Portraits of the Beast

Pan in Astrology

The Lost Boys

Winston Churchill Didn't Exist

According to several news articles and Sky News, an alarming number of Brits think that:

• Churchill, Florence Nightingale and Charles Dickens are myths


• Sherlock Holmes was real and really lived in Baker Street


• Mahatma Gandhi, Cleopatra and Richard the Lionheart didn't really exist either

If this trend continues, perhaps in two hundred years time, people will think that:

• Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush were the figments of an author's disturbed imagination


• J.R. Ewing and Harry Potter were historical figures


• Desperate Housewives was a fly-on-the-wall documentary

In these days of soap operas and reality TV, the line between fact and fiction, myth and reality is becoming increasingly blurred...or maybe we're just getting dumber.

Related Links

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skynews/20080204/tuk-brits-think-churchill-didn-t-exist-45dbed5.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/04/nhistory104.xml

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=512087&in_page_id=1770