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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Saturn's Children

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…

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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.

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John Dee and the Angels

In the book, Living with Angels, author Theolyn Cortens says that Christopher Marlowe based his play The Tragical History of Dr Faustus on the misadventures of Dr John Dee, the court astrologer of Elizabeth I.

Like Christopher Marlowe, Dr Dee was also said to be a Government spy. According to this site, John Dee was the original 007 and that was his coded signature for his secret correspondence with the Queen. The double zero ‘00’ stood for two eyes meaning that he was the secret eyes of Elizabeth I with Lucky number 7 guarding the two eyes.

John Dee was a brilliant scholar who was obsessed with the paranormal. He was not clairvoyant but he recruited a medium called Edward Kelley to assist him with his work.

Edward Kelley was able to contact what he referred to as ‘angels’. They communicated with him in an unknown language. Linguistic experts have verified that this language is authentic with its own grammar, number and alphabet system. They believe it was unlikely that Kelley was able to devise this language by himself.

In his lecture on The Origins of Evil, astro-theologian, Michael Tsarion referred to these entities as Macrobes.

In return for giving away alchemical secrets, these entities made many requests. One described as a child spirit (in some accounts referred to as the Archangel Uriel and in other accounts a spirit called Madimi) instructed that Kelley and Dee should share all things - including their wives.

Dee and Kelley complied with the wife-swapping demand “with much anguish”. And things spiralled downhill for Dee from then on.

Like Marlowe’s Faust, Dee paid a heavy price for attempting to use paranormal forces for material gain and ended up dying in poverty and social disgrace.

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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.


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Don't They Know It's the End of the World

Last night, there was a documentary on TV about a ten day End of the World Bus Tour.

A group of tourists convinced that the End is Nigh embarked on a tour of Israel, got baptised near the River Jordan and - the highlight for many - paid a visit to the Valley of Armageddon.

Based on a very literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation, they are convinced within the next five to ten years, Jesus/God is going to appear in the sky in Israel.

Apparently Man and Satan will rise up against God in a Phillip Pullman-esque fashion and embark in a futile war which God will inevitably win.

Before the apocalpyse takes place, all the good Christians will vanish in the Rapture while the rest of the world is subjected to the wrath of God.

One tourist likened the Rapture to the scene at the end of The Matrix where Neo rises up into the sky. "I could be wrong," he said. "I could be right."

They also had a disturbing attitude towards those they considered to be God's enemies - those they believe want to annihilate Israel.

When they weren't prophesising the End of the World with a disturbing relish, the tourists seemed to be very pleasant, amicable, lucid and of sound mind which makes it even weirder.

The film-maker, David Clews, was a sceptic and told them that their vision of God seemed divisive and egotistical.

"I guess it does seem egotistical," said one lady. "But he's God so I guess he can be."

These End of the World visions remind me a bit of that scene in the film The Birds where the townspeople are all putting forward theories to explain why the birds are attacking them.

Among them there is the scientific sceptic bird expert who doesn't believe that birds would attack anybody despite evidence to the contrary. Then there is the drunk in the corner joyfully declaring that it's the end of the world and quoting Bible passages.

There is also the hysterical mother who blames the blonde stranger who she thinks started it all. ("Where are you from? Who sent you? You're evil!" etc. etc.)

It's not just a portion of Christians that the believe the end of the world is nigh for humanity. Many believe that the forces of Nature will prove to be our undoing. Others believe that the end will be caused by an elite race of aliens/reptiles/secret societies who will enslave and destroy humanity.

Many seem to think we deserve the End either because they believe that we are evil or they think we are too dumb/sheeplike/easily manipulated to see what is really going on.

Although diverse groups of people are interpreting their vision of the End of the World from very different perspectives, they are all basically singing from the same hymn sheet united in a Chorus of Doooooooooommmmm.

Tonight there is a Cutting Edge documentary on Channel 4 called Baby Bible Bashers about pint-sized 8 year old preachers. You couldn't dream it up.

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Portraits of the Beast

Portraits of the Beast

The Beast, The Devil, Lucifer, Satan - whatever people choose to call the phenomenon- has always wielded a paradoxical fascination over the human psyche.

Some view the Beast as an actual entity, a fallen angel or agent of evil.

Others see the Beast as the evil part of humanity that has been projected and externalised into the Ultimate Bogeyman.

Whichever way you choose to look at it, the Devil continues to cast its spectre over the popular imagination and appears wearing diverse guises and masks in literature, theatre and the movies.

Here are a few of the more recent and more (relatively) benign faces of the Beast:

As an angelic(ish) looking child in The Omen (1976):

"Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six."

As a lawyer in New York in The Devil's Advocate:

"Who can deny that the 20th century has been entirely mine?"


And as "just your average horny little devil" in The Witches of Eastwick:

An ambiguous figure, suggestive of the Devil, appears as a charming conman in the controversial Dennis Potter play Brimstone and Treacle which was originally banned by the BBC. The conman is played by Michael Kitchen in the banned television version and by Sting in the movie version.



These are some of the more accessible, less scary portraits of the Beast. But perhaps these more palatable portraits (the approachable New York lawyer, the blue-eyed child etc.) makes him/her/it all the more insidious.

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