Notes: "From the Ashes of Angels"

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

Material covered:

"From the Ashes of Angels: The Forbidden Legacy of a Fallen Race" by Andrew Collins

An interesting piece of pseudohistory. Lots of good stuff for worldbuilding. Feels like the base for a Lovecraftian paper. 

• "There is the angel who wrestles all night with Jacob at a place named Penuel, or those which he sees moving up and down a ladder that stretches between heaven and earth. Yet other than these accounts, there are too few examples, and when angels do appear the narrative is often vague and unclear on what exactly is going on. For instance, in the case of both Abraham and Lot the angels in question are described simply as 'men', who sit down to take food like any mortal person." 

"Influence of the Magi"

• "It was not until post-exilic times-- i.e. after the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon around 450 BC-- that angels became an integral part of the Jewish religion. It was even later, around 200 BC, that they began appearing with frequency in Judaic religious literature. Works such as the Book of Daniel and the apocryphal Book of Tobit contain enigmatic accounts of angelic beings that have individual names, specific appearances and established hierarchies." 
• "These radiant figures were of non-Judaic origin. All the indications are that they were aliens, imports from a foreign kingdom, namely Persia." 
• "These included not only Zoroastrianism, after the prophet Zoroaster or Zarathustra, but also the much older religion of the Magi, the elite priestly caste of Media in north-west Iran. They believed in a whole pantheon of supernatural beings called ahuras, or 'shining ones', and daevas-- ahuras who had fallen from grace because of their corruption of mankind."
• "Although eventually outlawed by Persia, the influence of the Magi ran deep within the beliefs, customs, and rituals of Zoroastrianism."

"The Book of Enoch"

• "The Book of Enoch tells the story of how 200 rebel angels, or Watchers, decided to transgress the heavenly laws and 'descend' on to the plains and take wives from among mortal kind. The site given for this event is the summit of Hermon, a mythical location generally association [sic] with the snowy heights of Mount Hermon in the Ante-Lebanon range, north of modern-day Palestine..."
• "The 200 rebels realize the implications of their transgressions, for they agree to swear an oath to the effect that their leader Shemyaza would take the blame if the whole ill-fated venture went terribly wrong." 

"Heavenly Secrets"

• "The 200 rebel angels spent their time imparting the heavenly secrets to those who had ears to listen." 
• "Their leader, Shemyaza, is accreddited with having taught 'enchantments, and root-cuttings', a reference to the magical arts shunned upon by most orthodox Jews." 
• "These lines concerning the forbidden sciences handed to humanity by the rebel Watchers raises the whole fundamental question of why angels should have possessed any knowledge of such matters in the first place. Why should they have needed to work with metals, use charms, incantations and writing; beautify the body; employ the use of spices, and know now [sic] to abort an unborn child?"
• "In my opinion, this revelation of previously unknown knowledge and wisdom seems like the actions of a highly advanced race passing on some of its closely-guarded secrets to a less evolved culture still striving to understand the basic principles of life." 
• "The first leader, Shemyaza, is hung and bound upside down and his soul banished to become the stars of the constellation of Orion. The second leader, Azazel, is bound hand and foot, and cast for eternity into the darkness of a desert... Upon him are placed 'rough and jagged rocks' and here he shall forever remain until the Day of Judgment when he will be 'cast into the fire' for his sins. For their part in the corruption of mankind, the rebel Watchers are forced ti witness the slaughter of their own children before being cast into some kind of heavenly prison, seen as an 'abyss of fire'."

"Seven Heavens"

• "The patriarch Enoch then enters the picture and, for some inexplicable reason, is asked to intercede on behalf of the incarcerated rebels. He attempts to reconcile them with the angels of heaven, but fails miserably."

"The Dead Sea Connection"

• "The Book of Giants continues the story told in the Book of Enoch, relating how the Nephilim had coped with knowing that their imminent destruction was due to the improprieties of their Watcher fathers." 
• "Reading this ancient work allows the reader a more compassionate view of the Nephilim, who come across as innocent bystanders in a dilemma beyond their personal control." 

"Visage Like A Viper"

• "The text goes on to say the Watcher possessed a visage, or face, 'like a viper'. Since he also wears a cloak 'many-coloured yet very dark', I had also to presume that he was anthropomorphic, in other words he possessed human form.... How many people do you know with a 'visage like a viper'? For over a year I could offer no suitable solution to this curious metaphor." 
• "Story goes that the musicians would take the stage and play long hours [in the "Viper Room"], prolonging their creativity and concentration by smoking large amounts of marijuana. Apparently, the long term effects of this drug abuse, coupled with exceedingly long periods without food and sleep, would cause their emaciated faces to appear hollow and gaunt, while their eyes would close up to become just slits. Through the haze of heavy smoke, the effect was to make it seem as if the jazz musicians had faces like vipers, hence the name of the club." 
• "Was this the solution as to why both the Watchers and Nephilim were described as walking serpents? It seemed as likely a possibility as any, although it was also feasible that their serpentine connection related to their accredited magical associations and capabilities, perhaps even their bodily movements and overall appearance." 

"The Appearance of Feathers"

• "White skin (often ruddied 'as red as a rose'), tall stature and facial radiances 'like the sun' all recur frequently in connection with the appearance of angels and Watchers in Enochian and Dead Sea literature." 
• "Yet what was this reference to their dress having 'the appearance of feathers'? Might it relate in some way to the 'cloak' worn by the Watcher named Belial... which was said to have been 'many-coloured yet very dark', precisely the effect one might expect from a coat of black feathers, like those belonging to crows or vultures perhaps?"

"Bird Shamans"

• "If the Watchers had indeed been human, then they may have adorned themselves in garments of this nature as part of their ceremonial dress." 
• "The use of totemic forms, such as animals and birds, has always been the domain of the shaman, the spirit walkers of tribal communities... This idea [of the soul taking the form of a bird] may well have stemmed from the widely-held belief that astral flight could only be achieved by using ethereal wings..."
• "To enhance this mental link with his or her chosen bird, shamans would adorn their bodies with a coat of feathers and spend long periods of time studying its every movement. They would enter its natural habitat and watch every facet of its life-- its method of flight, its eating habits, its courting rituals and its actions on the ground. In doing so they would hope to become as birds themselves, an alter-personality adopted on a semi-permanent basis." 
• "Totemic shamanism is more-or-less dependent on the indigenous animals or birds present in the locale of the culture or tribe, although in principle the purpose has always been the same-- using this mantle to achieve astral flight, divine illumination, spirit communication and the attainment of otherworldly knowledge and wisdom." 
• "Elsewhere in the same Enochian text Mahawai is said to have adopted the guise of a bird to make another long journey." 
• "Angels were originally a culture or tribe who practiced a form of bird shamanism, perhaps associated with a dark carrion bird such as the crow or vulture." 

"Angels in Paradise"

• "Since we now know that the legends of the fall of the angels probably originated in Iran, more precisely in the north-western kingdom of Media (modern-day Azerbaijan), then there is every reason to associate these traditions with the mountains beyond Media." 
• "After his ascent to heaven the patriarch Enoch spent the rest of his life 'among the angels' in 'paradise'. Although the term 'paradise' is used in some translations of the original text, the actual word is 'Parwain'. I was therefore quite stunned to find that among the ancient traditions of the Mandaeans, a Magi-linked religion found mostly among the Marsh Arabs of Lower Iraq, 'Parwan' is a holy mountain apparently located in the vicinity of Media in north-western Iran. Futhermore, both 'Parwan' and 'Parwain' would appear to derive their root from the old Median word 'Parswana', meaning 'rib, side, frontier', used to describe the peoples and territories beyond the borders of Media." 
• "This enormous, mostly desolate part of the earth, home in the most part to wandering nomads, bands of warring rebels, isolated religious communities and the occasional village, town or city, is known to the world as Kurdistan-- the cultural and political homeland of the much troubled Kurdish peoples."

"Eastwards, in Eden"

• "Interestingly enough, the Bundahishn, a holy test of the Zoroastrian faith, cites Angra Mainyu, the Evil Spirit and father of the daevas, as assuming this same role [of tempter], and like the Watchers he too is described as a serpent with 'legs'."
• "So where was Eden? All we know is that it was situated among the Seven Heavens, a paradisaical realm with gardens, orchards, and observatories in which the angels and Watchers reside in the Book of Enoch."
• "Turning to the word 'paradise', I found that this simply inferred a 'walled enclosure', after the Persian root pairi, 'around', and daeza, 'wall',"
• "The English word 'heaven', on the other hand, is taken from the Hebrew ha'shemim, interpreted as meaning 'the skies'. It can also refer to 'high places', such as lofty settlements. Moreover, the Hebrew word-root shm can mean 'heights', as well as 'plant' or 'vegetation', implying that the word 'heaven' might be more accurately translated as a 'planted highlands'."
• "This quick round of simply etymology, in my opinion at least, conjured the image of a walled, agricultural settlement with stepped terraces placed in a highlands region." 
• "So is this what Eden was-- a 'walled, agricultural settlement' placed among the mountains of Kurdistan?"

"The Rivers of Paradise"

• "Other sources, particularly the Armenian Church, accepted the Euphrates and Tigris as two of the four rivers of paradise, yet chose to associate the other two, the Pishon and Gihon, with, respectively, the Greater Zab, which rises in Turkish Kurdistan and empties into the Tigris, and the Araxes, which rise in Armenia and empties into the Caspian Sea. Had the Armenian Church been right to do this? Possibly yes, as they were the inhabitants of the geographical region in question and may well have been privy to local traditions unavailable to the outside theological world." 

"The Heavenly Mountain"

• "The mythologies of both the Sumerians, who ruled the various Mesopotamian city-states from around 3000 BC onward, and their eventual conquerors, the Akkadians, placed the homeland of the Gods in this exact same region." 

"The Search for Dilmun"

• "More curious is the knowledge that, as in Hebrew and Iranian myth, there would appear to have been a fall of the Gods of Anu, the Anannage. Whilst 300 of their number remained in heaven, some 600 others, under the leadership of Nergal, God of the underworld, settled among mortal kind. Here they provided mankind with everything from basic agriculture, to astronomy, land irrigation, building technology and structured society... These rebel Anannage lived 'in the earth', a reference to an 'underworld' realm connected with the ancient city of Kutha, north of Babylon. In this 'House of Darkness' lived 'demons' and Edimmu, giant blood-sucking vampires who would return to the surface world after dark to steal the souls of the undead." 
• "Could these infernal beings be a distorted memory of the rebel Watchers and their monstrous offspring, the Nephilim?"
• "Might these fallen angels have lived underground cities after their descent on to the plains?"

"The Bodies of Birds"

• "In the story of the Goddess Ishtar's descent to the underworld, preserved in Assyrio-Babylonian tradition, the 'chiefs' of the 'House of Darkness' were said to have been 'like birds covered with feathers', who 'from the days of old ruled the earth, (and) to whom the Gods Anu and Bel have given terrible names'."
• "They are said to have waged war on an unnamed king for three consecutive years and to have had the appearance of: Men with the bodies of birds of the desert, human beings with the faces of ravens..."
• "These 'men with the bodies of birds' were looked upon as 'demons'. They would appear only once a storm-cloud had consumed the deserts and would slaughter those whom they took captive, before returning to some inaccessible region for another year. There seems every reason to suggest that these fierce 'demons' were not incorporeal spirits at all, but beings of flesh and blood adorned in cloaks of feathers and bird paraphernalia." 

"Uncertain Forces"

• "Nobody knows their true origin or where exactly they may have obtained the seeds of knowledge that helped establish the various city-states during the fourth millennium BC. Yet the Sumerians themselves were quite explicit on this point. They said their entire culture had been inherited from the Anannage (the Anunnaki), the Gods of Anu, who had come from an ancestral homeland in the mountains. To emphasize this point they used an ideogram of a mountain to denote 'the country', i.e. Sumer, and built seven-tiered ziggurats in honor of these founder Gods." 
• "Archaeologists have no problem accepting Kurdistan as the cradle of Near Eastern civilization. Shortly after the recession of the last Ice Age, c. 8500 BC, there emerged in this region some of the earliest examples of agriculture, animal domestication, baked and painted pottery, metallurgy and worked obsidian tools and utensils." 
• "Curiously enough, from c. 5750 BC onwards for several hundred years the trade in raw and worked obsidian throughout Kurdistan seems to have been centered around an extinct volcano named Nemrut Dag on the south-western shores of Lake Van, the very area in which both the mythical lands of Eden and Dilmun are likely to have been located." 
• Mehrdad R. Izady: "The inhabitants of this land went through an unexplained stage of accelerated technological evolution, prompted by yet uncertain forces. They rather quickly pulled ahead of their surrounding communities, the majority of which were also among the most advanced technological societies in the world, to embark on the transformation from a low-density, hunter-gatherer economy to a high-density, food producing economy." 
• "They unearthed a number of goat skulls placed alongside a collection of wing bones belonging to large predatory birds. All of the wings had been hacked from the bodies of the birds in question, while many had still been in articulation when found. Carbon 14 dating of the organic deposits associated with these remains indicated a date of 10,870 years (+/- 300 years), that is 8870 BC." 

"Shaman's Wings"

• "She [Rose Solecki] suggested that the wings had almost certainly been utilized as part of some kind of ritualistic costume, worn either for personal decoration or for ceremonial purposes." 

"A Goat for Azazel"

• "The Pentateuch records how each year on the Day of Atonement a goat would be cast into the wilderness 'for Azazel', carrying on its back the sins of the Jewish people. Moreover, Azazel, one of the two leaders of the fallen angels, was said to have fostered a race of demons known as the seirim, or 'he-goats'. They are mentioned several times in the Bible and were worshiped and adored by some Jews."
• "This clear relationship between the Watchers and he-goats is so strong that it led Hebrew scholar J. T. Milik to conclude that Azazel 'was evidently not a simple he-goat, but a giant who combined goat-like characteristics with those of man'. In other words, he had been a goat-man-- a goat shaman. So it seemed that not only were the Watchers 'bird-men', vulture shamans indulging in otherwordly practices, but also goat shamans."

"The Peacock Angel" 

• "Kurdish scholar Mehrdad Izady also sees the predatory bird remains of the Shanidar cave as evidence of a shamanistic culture whose memory influenced the development of angel lore." 
• "Kurdistan is home to three wholly indigenous angel-worshiping cults-- the most notorious and enigmatic of these being the Yezidis of Iraqi Kurdistan."
• "Melek Taus, the 'peacock angel' who is venerated in the form of a strange bird icon known as a sanjaq. These statues, which sit on a metal column similar to a candlestick, are usually made of copper or brass. More curious is that the oldest known sanjaqs are clearly not peacocks at all, showing instead a bulbous avian body and head with a hooked nose. Izady has suggested that the sanjaq idols are more likely to be representations of a predatory bird like those apparently venerated by the shamans of Shanidar, in other words either the vulture, eagle or bustard." 

"The Jarmo People"

• "If it was these vulture shamans who had carried this superior knowledge to the gradually developing communities of the lower foothills, then perhaps they really were the truth behind the myth of the Watchers who imparted the heavenly sciences to mankind." 
• "It almost appeared as if the Jarmo co,munity enjoyed capturing images of the world around them, in much the same way that we take photographs today. Yet if this was the case, then how can we explain the presence among these small figurines of several anthropomorphic heads with elongated faces, slit eyes and clear 'lizard', or more correctly serpentine features?"
• "Was it therefore possible that the neolithic people of Jarmo were depicting in partially abstract form the viper-like faces of the tall strangers in feather coats who would pay them uninvited visits?"
• "We can only speculate, but it is worth pointing out that obsidian tools found at Jarmo are known to have been fashioned from raw material obtained from the base of Nemrut Dag on Lake Van. Did the Watchers deal in obsidian?" 

"The Serpent People"

• "The statuettes were either male or female (although predominantly female), with slim, well-proportioned naked bodies, wide shoulders, and strange reptilian heads that scholars generally refer to as 'lizard-like' in appearance. They bear long, tapered faces like snouts, with wide, eye-slits-- usually elliptical pellets of clay pinches to form what are known as 'coffee-bean' eyes-- and a thick, dark plume of bitumen on their heads to represent a coil of erect hair..." 
• "The infant's left hand clings on to the breast, and there can be little doubt that it is suckling milk. It is a very touching image, although it bears one chilling feature-- the child has long slanted eyes and the head of a reptile. This is highly significant, for it suggests that the baby was seen as having been born with these features. In other words, the 'lizard-like' heads of the figurines are not masks, or symbolic animalistic forms, but abstract images of an actual race believed by the Ubaid people to have possessed such reptilian qualities." 
• "Since most of the examples found were retrieved from graves, where they were often the only item of any importance, Sir Leonard Woolley concluded that they represented 'chthonic deities'-- that is, underworld denizens connected in some way with the rites of the dead." 
• "That these figurines were found specifically in grave sites suggests that they were connected with some kind of superstitious practices involving the rites of the dead. What were the Ubaid attempting to achieve by placing such strange images alongside their deceased relatives? Were they trying to ensure the safe passage of the soul into the next world, or were they attempting to protect the corpse once the urial had taken place?" 

"The Underworld"

• "Beneath the plains of Cappadocia in eastern Turkey there are no less than 36 underground cities, the most famous being the one at Derinkuyu which is estimated to have housed some 20,000 inhabitants. Those cities explored so far penetrate downwards for anything up to a quarter of a mile. They have streets, complex tunnel systems, living quarters and communal rooms and areas. Each one can be sealed off from the outside world by rolling into place huge circular doors, while on the surface the only visible sign of their presence are upright megalithic stones marking the positions of deep wells that double-up as air shafts to the various levels." 
• "They are at least 4000 years old, while tentative evidence suggests they were constructed as early as 9000 BC, when the final thrust of the last Ice Age was about to bring arctic-style conditions to the Middle East. At the same time rains of fire spewed out of active volcanoes, and when the Ice Age finally receded floods comparable with the deluge of the Bible wreaked havoc in low-lying areas. Moreover, Persian myth records that the ancestors of the Iranian race had escaped the long winter of snow and ice by building a var, a world denoting an underground city (curiously, the word ark means 'city' in the Persian language)."
• "The memory of such subterranean worlds are also likely to have been behind the Judaeo-Christian belief in Gehenna and Hell-- the fiery realm into which the fallen angels were cast as a punishment for their interference in the affairs of mankind." 

"Cappadocia's Lunar Landscape"

• "In the same general vicinity as the underground cities of Cappadocia is a virtual lunar landscape made up of enormous rock cones whittled into shape by fierce winds over many thousands of years. Local tradition refers to them as peri bacalari, the fire chimneys of the Peri-- beautiful fallen angels born of Iblis, the Arab-Persian form of Satan. These 'fairy chimneys', as they are inappropriately referred to in English, are today said to be haunted by the djinn, spectral relatives of the angels who also once lived in heaven before their fall." 
• "The oldest contain many fascinating images beyond the accepted iconography of the Early Church. These include recurring geometric designs and, in one case a stylized bird-man, which may well reflect an art-style found in the 8000-year-old vulture shrines at Catal Hayuk." 
• "Remember too that in the story of Ishtar's descent into the underworld, the Goddess encounters beings 'like birds covered with feathers', who 'from the days of old ruled the earth'."

"Children of the Djinn"

• "Where might these strange shamanistic cultures have originated? Did it simply develop in Turkey and Kurdistan shortly after the end of the last Ice Age, or had its original ancestors migrated from some foreign land?" 
• "The angel-worshiping cults of Kurdistan see themselves only as descendants of the patriarch Noah, the savior of humanity whose direct family settled in their land. In contrast, the Kurdish Jews preserve a very curious story concerning the origins of their gentile neighbors, whom they refer to as 'children of the djinn'. " 
• "They say that long ago King Solomon ordered 500 djinn to find him 500 of the most beautiful virgins in the world. They were not to return until every last one was in their possession. The djinn had set about their immense task, going to Europe to seek out the maidens. Finally, after gathering the correct number, the djinn were about to return to Jerusalem when they learnt that Solomon had passed away. In a dilemma, the djinn decided what to do. Should they return the girls to their rightful homes in Europe, or should they remain with them? Because the young virgins had 'found favor in the eyes of the jinn, the jinn took them unto themselves as their wives. And they begot many beautiful children, and those children bore more children... And that is the way the nation of the Kurds came into being'."

"Mountain of the Madai"

• "Although their [the Mandaeans] direct ancestors are said to have come from a mythical location known as the Mountain of the Madai in Iranian Kurdistan, before that their most distant ancestors apparently originated in Egypt. Even though this might seem a mere fantasy on the part of the Mandaeans, it is a fact that their language contains various words that are undoubtedly of ancient Egyptian origin." 
• "They believe that after death the soul flies north (i.e. towards the mountains of Kurdistan) where it enters a mythical domain known as Mataratha, the place of judgment. Here the intelligences of the neter, the watch-houses, can be found." 
• "The term neter can be used as a noun in some Near Eastern languages to mean 'watchers', the very name of the first angels given in Enochian and Dead Sea literature, while in the ancient Egyptian language this same word is used to define the semi-divine beings who lived in a golden age known as zep tepi, the First Time." 
• "Was it possible that the Watchers of Kurdistan were descendants of the neter-Gods of Egypt?"

"The First Farmers"

• "There is strong evidence that they ["agriculture, animal domestication, precision tool manufacture and structured community lifestyles] were all present at various sites along the Nile in southern Egypt and northern Sudan as early as 12,500 BC. These advanced communities continued to develop at a steady pace until 10,500 BC, when suddenly they ceased farming for no obvious reason." 
• "Scholars have put this complete and utter cessation of a sophisticated agricultural-based lifestyle among the Nilotic peoples down to the extremely high Nile floods which occurred during this epoch."
• "It almost seemed as if those who had taught the Nilotic peoples the rudiments of an agricultural lifestyle had suddenly departed the scene, leaving their obedient pupils to return to primitive hunter-gatherer lifestyles more familiar to the age in question." 
• "It is therefore interesting to note that after its apparent disappearance from Egypt c. 10,500 BC, agriculture does not reappear again until it blossoms in Kurdistan a full 1500 years later." 
• "Who exactly were these hypothetical agronomists and what made them leave the cultivated steppes of palaeolithic Egypt for pastures new?"

"Tragedy of the Fall"

• "Egypt's Elder culture never made it into the pages of history. The memory of their apparent descendants, the Watchers of Kurdistan, is but a hollow victory on their part. Being remembered as beautiful angels who fell from grace, or as immortal Gods and Goddesses, or as lustful demons who corrupted the minds of mankind, hardly befits their incredible achievements in astronomy, agriculture, geomythics, building technology and structured society. It was almost certainly the descendants of the Egyptian Elder culture who paved the way for the growth of civilization in the Old World." 
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