...And The Angels Fell To Earth

For quite some time now I have attempted to understand the nature of evil.  The question of evil is so profoundly important yet thus far no philosophy, either in the east or west, have been able to thoroughly address the question beyond conjecture.  Many in the spiritual/new age community take it to the next level of insanity by claiming that good and evil are things we simply need to grow out of because they represent an archaic though process.  Any serious inquiry into the evil that has afflicted the world, particularly in the state-sponsored massacres of the last 150 years, reveals that evil is very real and cannot be easily swept under the carpet.

Modern philosophy for the most part will always stop short of accepting a metaphysical or initiatory history that might illuminate the matter of evil, its causes and etc.  By “initiatory history” I simply mean a history of the world that does not leave out the supernatural realities of history, which are in fact the very substrate of history. This term will become more clear as this post goes on.

It is very easy to blame God for the ugly things that sometimes happen in this world.  Because the worst evils in modern history have occurred over the last 150 years via communism and egalitarianism, it is only obvious that humanity in some capacity will begin to despise the very idea of God or the sacred.  Atheism and agnosticism, which are more prevalent now than ever before, are ultimately reactions to the overwhelming presence of evil in this world and the seeming absence of God in these times. Modernity has done nearly everything in its power to deny the presence of God, even making it into one of those topics of conversation that tend to inflame people.

Whether people realize it or not, the modern state has become the new God of this world, particularly in “Amurrica” where the common mentality is everybody can get something by doing absolutely nothing.  The state bestows all the freedoms illusions of freedom.  Without it we could not work, eat, or live.  We cannot walk through the park or purchase a gallon of milk without the state knowing what we are up to.  It knows our friends, our interests, and whether or not we are viable humatons.  From the time of the French Revolution onward, the jacobin spirit was hard at work creating the paradisaical state that sought to destroy the very idea of divine hierarchical structure replacing it with a God called “The State” and its new religion called egalitarianism, where all unique expressions of the divine are annihilated outright, particularly when they are at odds with the State.  What people don’t know is that the destiny of the created world has been leading up to this point.  All evil is being manifested and that is why people are beginning to lose trust not only in the state, but in nearly every facet of the so-called “ordinary life.”

It is safe to say that this world is defective.  The simple fact that there is suffering and death reveals that the very fountain of eternity is lacking here.  So much so that not only do people die in the physical world, but so does everything else.  Nothing here can last forever.  We may attempt to romanticize this by saying that our lives are sacrifices for those new lives entering into the world.  However, that still doesn’t explain the most monumental problem:   This world is filled with suffering and confusion.  And to top it all off our days are ultimately numbered.  To add insult to injury, we are born into an absolute unknowing having no idea of where we came from, how we got here, or what this is all about.  In a word, we are incomplete.

So here we are.  It is fair to say that something isn’t right.  Something is deficient.  How can a world such as this even come to be?  And more importantly, what can we learn from our ancestors who lived closer to the time when a seeming cosmic catastrophe occurred that lead to the present state we now find ourselves in?

In Christendom, particularly in the streams that have not been tainted by modern Christianity, there is a very complex belief in fallen angels.  Most Christians today would only say that these fallen angels are now demons that simply roam the earth wreaking havoc and leading souls to their eternal doom.  However, when one studies the peculiar writings of William Law and Jacob Boehme among others, men that penetrated quite deeply into the mind of God, a very coherent picture comes to light that reveals a kind of secret history of the world.  What is very interesting is that very similar initiatic histories exist within certain circles that are not available to the public at large. The writings of men like Graham Hancock are a very corrupted and somewhat new age version of these initiatic histories.  These types of writings tend to only touch the surface of ancient culture, and even there they are flawed.

In this post I will attempt to use the ideas of both Law and Boehme, even though they don’t entirely agree in every place.  Essentially their writings reveal what is very likely the true story behind the somewhat deficient nature of the physical domain. But before I do this, I need to explain something that is very important, that is God’s innocence and meekness in the face of all of these revelations.  Without understanding this, one can never understand why in Christendom salvation was impossible unless once again became innocent as a child.  Nothing that is ugly, dark, or imperfect can ever enter into the Pleroma without fleeing in shame in the same manner Man fled in shame upon the realization (of good and evil) that he stood naked before the light of the Godhead.

Among serious Christians, particularly those on an inward and solitary path, there is an understanding that God is light and there is no darkness within him whatsoever.  In a word, nothing evil can emanate from God.  Evil only comes into play when a created being that is secondary to God in that previously mentioned hierarchical structure (men, angels, etc.), having a free-will and individuality all their own, decide to no longer reflect the divine image of God upon their being, but instead argue for their own autonomy and authority.  This is often called the sin of pride that lead to the casting out of Lucifer from “Heaven”. Instead of freely and joyfully accepting the divine currents that flow freely and meekly from God to those that descend from God, these autonomous beings reject that light (and life) and become inflamed and hostile to it.  From this total rejection of God’s meekness and love, all evil and deficiency comes to pass in the physical domain.  While God is always good, and can only will good to those reflecting his divinity freely, those outside of this grace are gradually consumed by their own  antithetical and selfish nature.

According to William Law and also to Jacob Boehme, this rebellion in Heaven actually lead to the creation of the physical domain, which is a mixture of light and darkness, suffering and health, life and death.  While all things once existed in a pristine form in the Pleroma, this rebellion changed everything.  Evil caused by an archetypal selfishness opposing the Godhead existed within these autonomous and eternally wicked beings.  These opposing forces had to eventually be “worked out’ so that a return to the original and angelic state could eventually occur.  To put it in simple terms, once the evil was overcome, the physical domain would once again return and be reconstituted within the Pleroma.  This reconciliation and dominion over evil was the sole purpose of Adam who was to “replenish” the Earth and have dominion over it.

We envision Adam as a kind of physical man living in a jungle in a very natural and primitive state.  However, this is a misunderstanding.  Adam or “primordial humanity” was far more angelic in nature than human.  In fact, humanity at that time was a clear and profound image of God having full communication with every order of its existence from the Pleroma to the physical.  Adam’s sole duty was to overcome the earth, which had to be tamed.  But because he possessed the light and meekness of his maker who had protected him with divine innocence, he was not immune to the subtlety of those people who were living in “the garden” and represented physically the fallen angels in the manner Adam represented the image of God.  By eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, instead of having dominion and authority over the earth, the earth gained authority over mankind.  In that single moment we fell.  We lost our communion with the divine and fell into the grasp of death.  This was only reconciled through the death and resurrection of Christ who became the bridge back into the divine world and to God’s grace.  By God becoming a man through Christ, this rift was destroyed and a bridge back to the divine was established.  True Christianity, which is sacred Christianity is an incarnational faith.  Through it a person becomes the medium upon which the Pleroma is reflected, like an obsidian reflecting the light of the Sun.

Satan falling to earth was not merely an evil presence inhabiting the earth as many Christians today tend to think. The very remains of this rebellion are programmed into physical reality. Therefore the influence of this primordial event goes to the very heart of reality in this world. This was a cosmic process, with evil literally being one of the constituents of matter itself, a constituent that is the antithesis of God having no real existence and therefore reserved for darkness forever.  In a similar vein, the physical domain is illusory in nature having no existence in comparison to the infinite source and fountain of its existence, which is the Pleroma.  As solid as the world may appear to be, the more we magnify matter the more we find that matter is actually not present.

By travelling within and having dominion over oneself, the doorway to the Pleroma is opened within.  At such   a point a person begins to see “Heaven” shining into the earth and the Pleroma manifesting in the physical world.  This is what it means to conquer.  While a person may merely catch glimpses of this now, the reality of this will eventually come to fruition, nothing that is unreal can last forever.  Even before the time of Christ, Parmenides and Zeno realized this truth, but were unable to express it fully because the time hadn’t yet arrived.