What is your take on "fallen" angels?

Spirits, Evocation & Possession
1

Dear denizens and friends,

Recently I’ve caught myself thinking that there is no such thing as “fallen” angels and that the term stems from JudeoChristian programming rather than anything else.

We as magicians acknowledge the existence of demons and angels, and of course, have some concept of what “God” (in the traditional sense) may be.

As for me, I consider this said God to be not an entity as depicted by major religions (creator being who gets pretty pissed about everything and would rather fling you off into eternal torment rather than talk things first). In my opnion it is both a:

  1. Creative force rather than being, a self-perpetuating cosmic event that helped define and change the non-existent state of the primordial Universe (aka “place we live in” for lack of better explanation/understanding on my behalf).

  2. The permeating pattern in which things exist in some way or manner.

  3. Also a state of being or becoming which is more or less the goal of the Right Hand Path.

I do not, and will never, accept the idea that God is a malevolent and vindictive entity that cast out his first creations because of such petty things like pride and the like.

I do understand that back at the time, like now a days, the Middle East was an autism-ridden Hell-hole and that simple acts as the total and catastrophical failure of city-states due to very bad logistics were interpretated as divine punishments, and that well, we all know the obvious advantage of monopolizing thought and behaviour through obssessive and murder enforcement of monotheism.

SO, what is my take on “fallen” angels is that they are any of the following:

  1. Entities spawned by faith and magickal operations (egregores, basically, that reached the pinnacle of autonomy)

  2. Entities that represent and embody primal aspects of human desires and more or less what drives human life. Just as we have planetary intelligences and spirits who work with, maitain or enforce planetary ideals (Mars = Strife masculiity, etc…), we get similar beings who rule on concepts such as attaining riches, satisfying lust, self-exaltation, etc…

You may say “But 333, how come they rule over the same things as certain angels or planetary inteligences do?” Well first of all, I didn’t make it, so I dunno fully.

Second of all, to me so called “demons” are active agents in the sense that they will steer your ife towards your goals. They are immediate and amoral providers because the desire of the magician kinda binds them on their acts, unlike angels who in some manner upkeep the balance of cosmic forces (mind that I just think they do, never got any confirmation).

If you would ask an angel to provide for certain needs, he would surely do so within certain measures, such as not harming anyone or actively disregarding your request under the consideration that you may actually not need it. A demon on the other hand would not care for such things unless specified against (example: Want money? Someone nearby who is loaded loses his wallet - obviously I am spinning a bit of fiction here, not preaching).

  1. Some actual exalted humans whose birth was influeced heavily by these entities, like the myths surrounding Asmodai, which paint him as being the cambio son of a spirit-man union (I don’t believe he was three-headed or freakishly shaped during his life, but I like to believe he became powerful enough that after his death he has lingered ever since, like an ascended master from Hindu or Buddhist systems would).

CONCLUSION: They are “fallen” because they cater to and understand human needs. They are the other side of working with restraint and balance. Not evil in their own nature, but agents of change unlike angels who are static agents of balance.

“Fallen” because their modus operandi is centered around desire and the removal (or placement) of obstacles in this, our mortal life, in opposition to what angels do which is approaching the magician towards the understanding and harmony of the cosmos.

Please keep in mind that I am not saying that these forces actually oppose each other or engange in that wanton fiction of “angels warring demons” bullshit. As far as I’ve attained, they are an integrated part of existence, “cogs of the same machine” if you will, not beings that despide each other and run a battle for “the human soul” like some would like you to believe.

Calling a demon evil would be like saying that a bonfire is malicious. You call the fire, the demon obeys, it is just that at times we become drunk with power and by so disregard the rights of others. Not saying that sometimes, disregard and defiance are the only ways to work with.

SO, what are your thoughts? :smiley:

2

One thing I want to throw in for consideration is that all of this assumes that modern homo sapiens are the primary life-form around which the entire world of spirit revolves, and yet we know that evolution happened quite slowly with a lot of various human species cropping up along the way, who may have had comparable mental capacity such as the neanderthals.

And before that, we had a long era with “just” animals and nothing with a complex neocortex (that we’re aware of anyway) - before that, for aeons we had dinosaurs, and even before life began, the planet was here, and resembled for a very long time the flames and stinking blackness we associate with the kind of ambience and decor some demons appear to favour.

I’ve had the experience that crystals and rock formations have a soul, both personal to each structure and a kind of species oversoul or personality, and the same with metals - in other words, not all spirit life is organic in nature, nor do all nature spirits stem from a living physical form like a cat spirit or tree spirit.

So I’m making the proposal that some “demonic” spirits are spiritual lifeforms (aka gods) that were native to earth prior to the evolution of physical life, some of the “reptilian” seeming ones may have more links to the era of the dinosaurs, and that animal spirits, nature spirits and elementals, who are encountered and worked with a lot in healing metholdogies like core shamanism, never were in need of some cosmic moral battle over the soul of the “children of Adam” (offshoot of a small middle eastern sect anyway as I’ve mentioned before) to form their paths and desires, and nor do they need human worship to feed them, egregore-style, and that they existed before humans and can function and exist without us even knowing about them.

I’d go so far as to say that’s why some demons are completely inhuman and indifferent to outcomes for humans, beyond when it gives them a chance to do something they enjoy - they’re nothing whatsoever to do with the human race.

We probably feel the same indifference towards an insect, we might help one out if we didn’t have any reason not to, and it was trapped, but their lives really mean nothing to us (most of us anyway) and we can’t understand their internal state of mind or how they actually think. Only the difference would be even more vast…

So I basically (respectfully) reject any view of these beings that relates to a Judeo-Xian viewpoint, which is so narrow, as though one small tribe somehow had all the answers, and also anything that’s predicated on the idea there were no spirits or gods or angels before the evolution of modern homo sapiens.

It’s my UPG that angels exist as part of the framework of the universe (one told me that they “sing the universe into being constantly”) and unless you go the young-earth creationist route, that means they existed for billions of years before small groups of primates attained abstract thought and the ability to co-create them.

Also, what about the neanderthals? All the evidence is beginning to suggest they had high mental capabilities, so what of their gods, their egregores, their spirits or concepts of what the sun and moon were, etc.

I just want to throw this in as an expansion of the idea that all the beings named in the Goetia (for example) are probably not fallen angels that god made around the same era as Adam and Eve and which feel from grace for some reason connected to a small tribe of homo sapiens.

The rest of the human world also has gods that are nothing to do with that pissy jealous little desert troll-god (“Ooh here’s a fruit - don’t eat it! Oooh here’s sex - but don’t have it!” etc) and I don’t think they just made that stuff up… :wink:

Some graphics:

Links:

Human family tree: [url=http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-family-tree]http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-family-tree[/url]

Important milestones in human species: [url=http://sciencemax.pbworks.com/w/page/26024715/f/humanMilestones.jpg]http://sciencemax.pbworks.com/w/page/26024715/f/humanMilestones.jpg[/url]

Dinosaurs dominated the earth for 135 million years: [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur[/url]

3

GOD DAMN IT I TOTALLY FORGOT THAT THERE WERE THINGS THAT LIVED WAY BEFORE MANKIND. ALL WHICH YOU JUST DID WRITE, LADYEVA, TENOUTTATEN.

Sorry, my brain went into auto-pilot half-way through typing all of that and forgot the fact that yes, demons (and angels) have been around way before than the advent of even hominids.

And that of course, I should’ve pointed out that there might have been other lifeforms capable of coherent thought and hence be responsible for the causal creation of egregoric entities that one day became autonomous forces.

What I totally forgot to mention is that WHILE they cater to some human needs and wants, it isn’t only because it is in their nature, but because they have some mastery and affinity to those aspects (such as Belial being the cardinal king of the East and ruling over the earthen element and at the same time behaving or representing the bravery and unruly independence known to the star sign Taurus).

IN CONCLUSION:

Yeah, I just wanted to dispell the notion that there is no such thing as “fallen”, but that the notion itself was either completely false or that it actually meant something entirely different than having lost a position of grace.

I seem to have fallen into the common error of needing to pin down everything within a certain category and completely forgot that some things belong to no order :smiley: at all. You know, the usual impulse of "if angels are pertaining to certain spheres and planets, well ALL demons must absolutely fit into categories too!)

Btw, what do you think of the possibility that some Goetic entities or otherwise are exalted human beings? If memory serves:

  • Asmodai is refered to be a cambion in some myths (never asked him, don’t think I will anyhow).

  • Belphegor (Ba’al Pe’or) is said to have been worshipped by granting him virgin slaves which he enjoyed in the temples when he walked the earth as a demigod (I must find the source, because it is transcribed literally).

Any possibility that thi

4

At it’s inception, a major part of the organisation of christianity has always been political - ie behavioral control of the people via a moralistic system of good-vs-evil ( perception of which was never actual but merely spin doctoring to the enth degree, the best to serve the interests of the powers that be) is it any wonder that those entities which give control back to the individual have been ( literally ) demonized, whereas entities that uphold the social status quo are considered holy?

5

Maybe, WE as “people” are the fallen angels.

At a bear minimum, I consider us descendants of them.