St. Augustine on Incubi, Succubi, and the Nephilim

May 22, 2010 Leave a comment

By: Jay

I wrote an old artilce on Sacred Tradition and the Book of Enoch, and it’s always interesting to see what St. Augustine said on a subject. In his masterful City of God he speaks of the issue of incubi, succubi and the Nephilim.  He was, of course, the first father to rigorously oppose the idea of the “giants” in Genesis 6 as being the offspring of women and fallen angels, causing it to fall into ill favor until the Middle Ages.  Instead, following the lead of a minority of earlier fathers, he argued instead that the Nephilim were the godly line of Seth which had apostatized by inter-marrying with the ungodly line of Cain, wit the enduying moral disintegration bringing God’s wrath in the flood. 

It was 10 years ago when I read the City of God, so I didn’t recall this, but oddly, St. Augustine makes the same argument I made for Sacred Tradition in my article mentioned above on Jude and the Book of Enoch, although, of course, he views the texts status as apocryphal.  Oddly, on another note, while admitting the existence of incubi and succubi, fauns and satyrs, he will not admit that the angels could have mated.  However, while there are difficulties as to how an angel could produce offspring considering that the angelic nature is different from human nature, Nicholas Remy, the famed late medieval Inquisitor and statesman discusses this at length in the first 20 pages or so of his classic update of the Malleus Maleficarum, titled, “Demonolatry: the Historical Practice of Witchcraft” which has now been reprinted and become available from Dover Books for those interested.  Remy agrees with St. Augustine that they cannot actually produce offspring, but the text contains lengthy footnotes by certain Domincans of his era that argued in favor of the angelic offspring which are enlightening. Read more of this post

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“Weird Science” – 80s Alchemy Based on Gnostic Myth

April 16, 2010 1 Comment

By: Peter Parker

Although the idea that Weird Science is rife with occult underpinnings might, at first, seem a ludicrous contention to some, on closer examination of the text numerous esoteric currents begin to emerge. The film and by extension the music video make use of numerous cultural artifacts that have their origin in the western occult tradition, whether the film/video makers themselves were fully aware of it or not.
Most people will immediately be able to identify Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as one of the primary keys to fully appreciating the film. Anyone unfamiliar with Frankenstein will miss the central parody of the movie. Though the idea of Frankenstein can be reinterpreted as a critique of scientific or occult hubris, it is difficult to discern whether this was the intent of Mary Shelley herself. The novel’s protagonist Victor Frankenstein (based, to some degree on Mary’s husband Percy) starts out a vociferous reader of alchemical and occult authors, such as Agrippa and Paracelsus. After attending Ingolstadt University, birth place of the infamous Bavarian Illuminati, a fact that goes unmentioned in the novel, (serving, essentially as a wink to the knowing reader) Victor’s schoolmasters teach him that his occult heroes were full of unscientific hogwash. Despite this he swears to carry on the spirit of their great work using the tools of modern science. To this end he creates a golem out of expired human body parts, in what is a perverse imitation of both the creation and resurrection of Man. The story perfectly encapsulates the ethos of the Romantic Revolutionary, who rejected Christianity yet sought some manner of spiritual ground beyond Enlightenment Materialism.

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The Truth of Transformers 2: Esoteric Analysis

April 13, 2010 1 Comment

Note the Egyptian symbology

By: Jay Dyer

Yes, I admit it, I went to see Transformers 2. It was so bad I was hoping it would transform into a different movie. But what can you expect from Michael Bay. While this movie had almost nothing good about it, there are a couple conspiratorial/esoteric elements worth mentioning. Shia Labeouf’s character moves off to college and happens to fall in with a band of annoying preppy, frat-boy “conspiracy theorists” who run a website devoted to exposing the truth about government cover ups. This was clearly a reference to yours truly (just kidding). What is interesting about this was the portrayal of the “conspiracy.” The theorists had been speculating along with others about the existence of aliens among us. What we find out is that the “alien Transformers” are really ancient deities with super advanced technology and they are among us – some protecting, others seeking to destroy. But between the hour-long explosions and the 75 trademark Michael Bay lense flares, we can perceive a deeper meaning.

What we have with this variation on the ever-popular alien theme is an insight into the real conspiracy – that there are aliens, but not what Hollywood thinks. The “aliens” who are contacting us are not benevolent space brothers, but demons. Now, not all phenomena related to UFOs are demonic – much of it is merely advanced human technology mixed with instances of imaginative abductees. I don’t think Roswell is anything special. What is real is that there is a fallen angelic hierarchy (as well as a good angelic hierarchy), and these beings are as real as you and I. They do not exist in our dimension, but in the next – the spiritual realm. The Bible is very clear about these beings, and they are truly invoked by and aid humans, be they evil “gods” or good angels. Just as there is an angelic liturgy, so there is a demonic. Famous exorcist and writer, Fr. Malachi Martin, in his classic The Keys of This Blood noted that the pedophilia scandal was not just some random phenomena of perverts, but was actually the workings of a network of underground Satanists who see pedophilia as the culmination of the “Fallen Angels’ Rites.” Indeed. Read more of this post

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Angels and Demons: Or, How the gods Are Real

April 6, 2010 1 Comment

By: Jay Dyer

A couple years ago I wrote a note about the reality of the spiritual realm and that it was far more diverse than we tend to assume in modern western Christianity. Judaism and Eastern Christianity, in their mystical traditions, share an understanding of this diversity. What is often ascribed to superstition is simply what others have overlooked. Not always, of course, but frequently this is so. I’m not going to argue for the inspiration or inerrancy of the texts – I am assuming that to be the case. Instead, I’m going to make a case for some deeper issues that are rarely, if ever, mentioned.

To begin with, I think the only sensible and honest view of the text in Genesis 6 is that there is a real interchange between the bene Elohim, the sons of God, and the daughters of men. The traditional Augustinian idea of the ‘godly line of Seth’ is the least coherent and most textually odd. Nowhere in the OT is bene Elohim used of men and there is no reason to assume ‘giants’ means anything other than giants. Further, later books like Deut., Numbers (13:33) and Joshua (12:4, 17:15) make it clear that descendants of these half-breeds continue somehow even after the flood. We are told in Deut. 3:18 that Og king of Bashan’s bed was the equivalent of about 20 feet. Goliath is said to be a descendant of these giants, too. Thus, the Rephiam and Nephilim somehow continued to be ‘produced’ even after the flood. It’s more likely that the angel/god/entities were able to continue to do this somehow after the flood than that half-breeds somehow survived the flood. Further, this matches up perfectly with the ancient myths of the Titans. Read more of this post

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