Lucifer Plots to Pull Plug on God, & a Pertinent Poem.

This is "Lucifer Plotting Against the Government of God." I don't know who the artist is, but I like the headband, the toga, & the attitude. And the giant, glowing lightbulb in the background fits in with one of my poems:

Short Circuit

The city's streets are walled & sealed,
The system & the circuit closed;
The towers are the terminals,
And all the roads that run to Rome
In charge, are currents bearing loads
In potentia to the central dome
Of Caesar's palace without peer.
He need fear no short circuit here.

But through a short-cut or a gap,
Catiline came unsubdued
To pull the leads from Caesar's plug,
And all the polis came unglued.

In Search of the Biblical Lucifer, 1. Who Is the Son of the Morning?

The Fall of Lucifer is one of the most haunting, mysterious themes in literature, fraught with enigmatic meanings. Yet the myth from which it comes, & its origin, are themselves mysterious. In this multi-part series, I will investigate what the Bible & other ancient texts have to say about this intriguing figure. My thesis is that the Lucifer story reflects an ancient Near Eastern tradition about a fallen god-king, with possible connections to an older document, The Curse of Agade. I'll be looking at it from the point of view of archaeological, historical & literary scholarship, as well as occult symbolism.

It's commonly assumed that the Bible tells the story of Lucifer's rebellion and fall. Actually, this narrative is never given in a complete form in the Biblical text. Instead, it was pieced together retrospectively from a number of passages in different Biblical books, written at different times by different authors. It is unlikely that they were really all talking about the same thing. The story we now have is a composite -- and indeed there are multiple interpretations about where, when & how Lucifer's rebellion occurred.

First of all, it may surprise you to learn that the name "Lucifer" occurs only once in the entire Bible, in Isaiah 14:12.

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!"
The Official King Jame Version Online, Isaiah Chapter 14:12

In fact, "Lucifer" doesn't even appear in the original text. It's a Latin name which comes from St. Jerome's Vulgate, & has been carried over into later translations.(1) The meaning is "bringer (or bearer) of light". Some sources say it is the name of a minor Roman god representing Venus as the Morning Star, son of the dawn goddess Aurora.(2) Others say that it was only a poetic epithet for Venus, or a title of one of the other light-giving deities, such Apollo, Hekate & Diana.(3)  It's possible that the word has been used in all these ways at different times.

 

Venus from space

The original Hebrew name that appears in Isaiah 14 is Helel ben Shahar. "Helel" is often translated "Daystar" or "Shining One", "ben" is a relational term, and "Shahar", which means "Dawn", is the name of a Canaanite god.(4) It's often assumed by scholars that Helel, too, was a Near Eastern god, but nobody is sure exactly who he was. From the reference to Shahar, "Dawn", Helel is often said to be the god of Venus,  the Morning Star.

Some modern translations eliminate the name "Lucifer" & just say "Daystar", "Morning Star", "Shining One" or "Venus". However,  scholars are not even sure which planet or celestial body Helel represents. .Venus is the most popular candidate, but he's also been ascribed to the Moon (Arabic hilal, new or crescent moon), Sun, Jupiter, or Halley's comet.(5)

Halley's Comet

From the Isaiah 14 passage, Biblical scholars have tried to reconstruct an earlier myth on which it may have been based. The gist of it is that a minor god, Helel, tries to usurp the place of the head honcho god, El or Elyon (names which were appropriated by the Hebrew YHWH), but fails & is cast down. However, although similar elements appear in various Near Eastern myths, no story exactly like it has ever been found. As Hugh R. Page said, "It could very well be that Isaiah 14 is…reflective of a tradition whose Canaanite prototype has yet to be discovered.” (6)

It is a sobering thought that all the literary documents from ancient times we now possess are but a tiny fraction of all those ever written, whether on papyrus, clay, stone or wax. Thousands of others have been lost in the crumbling sands of time. And our view of history has been shaped by the selection, partly deliberate & partly random, of the ones that happened to make it through.

And so, it is perhaps both fitting & hauntingly ironic that this story of a great Lost Archangel may itself be based on a lost legend.

Next: Who is the King of Babylon?

Lucifer by Liza Veronin

NOTES:

(1) More about the translation history of this word can be found on this page:
Warfare: Part Two: Chasing Lucifer by haRold Smith, a citizen of the Commonwealth
(Ephesians 2:12)

(Note that Smith's claim that Satan (as opposed to Lucifer) was never a personified character in pre-Christian Hebrew writings is not accepted by most scholars.)

(2) Lucifer (classical mythology) -- Encyclopedia Britannica

(3) The Demonization of Apollon | Beloved in Light

(4) A detailed study of the etymology is found in:
LUCIFER,  WHO  OR  WHAT? (.pdf)
ROBERT  L. ALDEN,  PH.D.

(5) THE CONTRIBUTION ANCIENT NEAR EAST BACKGROUND MATERIAL MAKES TOWARD UNDERSTANDING AND INTERPRETING ISAIAH 14:12-15
© 2004 Andy Woods

(6)  Page, Hugh R. The Myth of Cosmic Rebellion. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996.139-40.
quoted in Woods.

On "Non Serviam".

The title of this blog, Non Serviam, means "I will not serve." According to Christian -- specifically, Roman Catholic -- tradition, it's what Lucifer said to God, presumably right before he took a nosedive.

You just don't tell the Boss "I quit."

However, let's look at the phrase more closely. It actually comes from St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate text of the Old Testament, Jeremiah 2:20. The words are put into the mouth not of Lucifer or Satan, but of Israel, personified as a harlot who "spreads her legs":

From New Jerusalem Bible: Jeremiah 2:
"It is long ago now since you broke your yoke, burst your bonds and said, "I will not serve!" Yet on every high hill and under every green tree you have sprawled and played the whore." [or, more literally, "On every high hill, and under every spreading tree, you spread your legs."  Dee Brestin, "The Punishment for Adultery".]

Also see:  NEW ADVENT BIBLE: Jeremiah 2. which contains the Latin in the right-hand column alongside the English version (which is a bit more polite than the.literal Hebrew.)

As can be seen from the rest of the chapter in Jeremiah, the sexual imagery is not meant literally, but refers instead to idolatry,  the worship of foreign gods. (1) The hilltops & trees were places where such deities, like Baal & Asherah, were worshipped. (The mention of Egypt & Assyria (2:18) suggests that political alliances with other nations may also have been involved.) Israel is held to be a prostitute, or adulteress, because she places her trust and reliance in foreign powers & deities rather than in her One God.  In a common OT trope, idolatry is associated with sexual transgression, and this is linked to the defilement of the land itself. (2)

But this idea is not limited to the Bible alone. In terms of evolutionary psychology, this is an example of the purity taboo, in which a group and its territory are imaged as a giant body whose boundaries must be protected, lest it be contaminated by foreign influences. As a biological factor and an archetype, we all have this primal fear lurking within us. Here is an interweaving of gender, power & sexuality, with levels of evolutionary development overlaid upon one another, the primitive with the more sophisticated. Satan, too, is a symbol of such dreaded contamination.

And so, somewhere along the line, the Biblical image of a woman spreading her legs became juxtaposed into that of a male archangel defying his divine Father. In the process, the original female voice was silenced as her bold, defiant words were transferred to the male speaker. From a feminist perspective, this is an obvious example of the vanishing & repressed feminine. But it also shows the mutability of such gendered concepts; how, over time, one sex can easily slip into the other (no naughty pun intended. Honestly.)

The words "Non Serviam" have also been appropriated by a number of radical political & countercultural groups, most notably Anarchists.

Most of those who employ the phrase as a slogan are making reference to Lucifer, the male hero, rather than the spreadeagled woman. But she, too, the Great Whore, is the one who says "I will not serve." Complementary to Satan's phallic rivalry, her act of transgression is a receptive one, spreading herself to receive her lovers. As a promiscuous polytheist, she opens herself to new perspectives, inviting the many forms of the Divine, however strange & foreign, to enter within her. From a Left Hand perspective, she represents the courage to violate the most primal taboos, when doing so is warranted by reason.

So Hail to Her: Babylon, the Great City; Asherah, Queen of Heaven; Astarte, the lady of the many breasts flowing with milk & honey, who is also Astaroth pied black & white, whose throne is set beside that of Lucifer.

(1) Some of the "heathen" gods worshipped by the Israelites may not have actually been foreign at all, but indigenous to the Israelite community. Richard Wright discusses these religious origins in The Evolution of God.

(2) See the discussion of territory, adultery & purity taboo in Regina M. Schwartz, The Curse of Cain.

Blast Off! Introduction to "Non Serviam".

The War in Heaven, in a nutshell:

Lucifer: Daddy, I want to be just like you when I grow up!

 God: ***WHACK!!!***

That about sums it up, doesn't it?

Seriously, though...

In this blog, I will investigate the War in Heaven from a number of angles: mythology, literature, symbolism, occult metaphysics, & the possibility that it represents some actual event, or cluster of events, going on in the real universe -- perhaps a war in space, or a conflict at a deeper level of reality.

There are a bewildering array of different versions & interpretations of this story. Some of them blatantly contradict each other: for instance, many Christian fundamentalists believe that all space aliens, or at least the ones whom humans encounter, are really fallen angels in disguise, while some ufologists believe that fallen angels are really extraterrestrials. Then there are those, ranging from C. S. Lewis to Urantia, whose worldview is broad enough to encompass both angels and extraterrestrials.

I will explore a variety of this material, motivated -- I will admit frankly -- by what interests me the most. My intent is not a purely objective approach but one aligned with my personal spiritual quest.

With regard to which: I, the author of this blog, consider myself on the side of the rebels, or at least one particular faction of them. Specifically, I am an Anarchist & Suitheist. I believe in the right of all beings to create their own reality, spiritually, socially, & politically.  I'm not sure exactly what's happening outside the Earth (or on it, for that matter), but at least I know where I stand.

And, whatever may be going on in other realities, I believe that, for human beings, what we do here & now is the really important thing.

Therefore, I encourage an open-minded, rational-intuitive attitude, balanced between credulity & skepticism. There are many things out there which people passionately believe, & which may be valid in terms of their personal experience, but which cannot possibly all be true in the literal sense.

Nonetheless, I think that the War in Heaven is one of the most fascinating myths around, & one which resonates with a lot of people nowadays. If you feel drawn to this subject too, please feel free to join me here on this site. Got input? Email it to decoherence1638@gmail.com.

~ Myrna Sabor