Friday, December 30, 2016

The Christian devil as non-metaphor (video)

Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; FED, 12/16
"The Last Judgement" as devas descend on asuras/yakshas (Jacob de Backer, circa 1580)
Buddhism's Sakka, King of the Devas, drubs the Asura rebel leader Vepacitti: Christianity's St. Michael defeats rebellious Lucifer/Satan on Earth after tossing him out of a lowly heavenly plane where he was making trouble (Luca Giordano's Archangel Michael and Fallen Angels, 1666).

 
Satan's secrets exposed by former Satanist, self-described agent of the devil
The Buddhist "Mara" (Defilements, Obstacle, Killer, Destroyer) may be more metaphorical than real, but it's hard to dismiss that many sutras also speak of real maras. The same seems to be the case in the Abrahamic faiths -- Evangelical Christianity and Roman Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism.

We're taking over heaven!
So let's hear what "the devil" doesn't want us to know.
  • NOTE: It's easy to discount that there's a devil, and a great History Channel documentary (see below) shows the evolution of the characteristics and theory of Lucifer/Satan/Devil exists. But let us remember the words and testimony of American cultural anthropologist Dr. Michael J. Harner in The Sound of Rushing Water: An Amazonian Jivaro shaman never believed in the devil of Westerners, particularly the one spread worldwide by Europeans and Americans until, in an ayahuasca (DMT) haze, he saw him himself -- a powerful demon or spirit up to no good, frightening those otherwise rational skeptics, agnostics, and atheists in North America. See Wisdom Quarterly's set of recent articles exploring who in the hell world the "devil" (Mara) is.
The devil as peta or yakkha (Jacob de Backer)
You may be shocked to hear what this former agent of the devil Satan has to say: He reveals how he himself served Satan in New York City to cause the destruction of lives, carry our secret rituals, and even sat with Satan in human form conversing with him.

He goes on to detail how he saw many lives taken, consented to kill for the devil, and how he fought believers and was ignored by an agent/crusader of the Christian god. He also tells how he was eventually "arrested" by the Christ.

Mashu's drawing of the white man's devil
Watch to the end, FED suggests, to learn something new about an abused and neglected child's spiritual journey to the Christian god the whole society is forced to esteem and fear.
  • Many times the Christian missionary had told [the Amazonian shaman and ayahuascero] Mashu of the devil feared by white men, But since he had never seen the spirit, Mashu remained skeptical. Some time later, after drinking natema [a form of ayahuasca], Mashu was confronted by this figure of the "white man's devil." Since that time, Mashu has remained convinced of this spirit's reality. - Dr. Harner, U.S. Ph.D. More
  • VIDEO: Pres. George W. Bush's real dad, Satanist Aleister Crowley
Who was "Satan" in history?
 
Zoroaster invented me (Codex Gigas)
(History Channel) "The History of the Devil" is wickedly good, informative, and concise.
 
A no-frills Welsh film produced in association with SBS Australia and distributed by Siren Visual, it's less than an hour in length but packs an amazing amount of history into its slim running time.

The documentary is made up of mostly still images alternating sporadically with talking heads, Christian religious scholars, theologians, and reverends.

Directed by Greg Moodie and written and produced by Dave Flitton, it was researched by Eibhleann Ni Ghriofa, Deirdre Learmont, and Craig McGregor.

It's an impressive and very open-minded account that offers some fantastic insight into the evolution, the hows and whys, and the specter of the Devil as he has existed and morphed through the ages from the dawn of civilization through to the new millennium.

Despite its relatively low-fi approach, the richness and diversity of its imagery; the historical plaques, plates, engravings, illustrations, paintings, drawings, and the occasional staged re-enactment (some dude dressed up in rather bemusing demonic attire), keeps the documentary at a high level of beguilement.

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