Creation

So you think you were created by a God and put on this planet to serve him and die? Think again.

I was going to do an in depth report back on studies that I have made on our origin as peoplekind but have decided against it. The christian page took me 4 years to compile and I do not have the energy for all that again. Instead I am going to give you bits and pieces of info that will grow from time to time so watch out for the 'Last Updated' dates. I will also give more references to books of which you will have to go and read yourself after I have created the interest.

Something off the topic: These 'Information pages' are created to rid people from bullshit and lies. I am trying to give you a clean idea on existence so you can write your own story and be happy with it. There are too much deceit going on in this world, hello christians, hello freemasons, hello the rest of you.

I am tired of reading historical facts and see them being ignored or twisted in real life. How many masons know they might never know what is in their libraries, how many christians will never know what is locked away in the Vatican?

How many people know that if you take all the scriptures from thausands years ago and put them together you will realise that a) all of them compliment each other and b) their are only two 'beliefs'. One from the so called fallen angels and one from the so called nice angels.

And as you might have guessed, the fallen angels are not necessarily spreading evil and the risen angels are not necessarily telling the truth either.

We will in the end of the day end up without God and without Satan, or what ever names you want to give them (and yes, I am not an atheist or christian or satanist).

The responsibilities have always been on on us and us alone.

Grab your bible(King James) and move closer.

'In mythology angels are beings of great beauty and intelligence - messengers of God who fell from grace through lust and pride. yet other religious text speak of how angels, known as Watchers, lusted after mortal woman who gave birth to giant offspring called Nephilim. They also record how these physical beings revealed to mankind forbidden arts and sciences. - transgressions that led to their destruction in the Great Flood.

What do these stories present? What, or who are the angels and Watchers of heaven?

In 'From the Ashes of Angels', Andrew Collins demonstrates how the legends behind the fall of the Watchers echo the faded memory of real events in a distant epoch when human angels openly trafficked with mortal kind. In a personal quest across the Middle East, the author traces the existence of a powerful lost race neglected by the [ages of history.

He also shows that these human angels - described as tall, with white hair and viper-like faces - originated in Egypt and constructed the Great Sphinx and other megalithic monuments along the Nile ate the end of the last Ice Age.' - end quote -

Some of you might be laughing by now, some of you might think, "impossible!!" .... ?

Let's open our bibles:

Genesis Chapter 6 verses 1-2: 'And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God (correctly translated as 'sons of gods') saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all that they chose.'

Verse 4: 'The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them: the same were the mighty men which were of old, the men of renown.'

Are these 'sons of gods' just plain god fearing humans or angels? Neither.

In the end of this book it turns out to be that we are one nation made up from two kinds of people. The enlightened ones and the ones that were fed lies both were 'educated' by a forgotten and ignored race that lived on this planet a very long time ago. There are books that have been written thousands of years ago by both two sides and it is up to you to decide who is right and who is wrong, if any.

On which sides are the mormons? What side is the christians on?

Who talks about God and who talks about the ancient race?

Do I have your interest? Well then let’s start again……

From the Ashes of Angels by Andrew Collins:

More on the Book of Enoch

'Ashes To Angels' and deals with the Book of Enoch and other Apocryphal writings, & the mysterious 'Watchers' I don't necessarily agree with it all, but I did find it quite interesting reading.

I HAVE BEGOTTEN A STRANGE SON

And after some days my son, Methuselah, took a wife for his son Lamech, and she became pregnant by him and bore him a son. And his body was white as snow and red as a rose; the hair of his head as white as wool and his demdema ('long curly hair') beautiful; and as for his eyes, when he opened them the whole house glowed like the sun ... And his father, Lamech, was afraid of him and fled and went to Methuselah his father; and he said to him, 'I have begotten a strange son. He is not like an (ordinary) human being, but he looks like the children of the angels of heaven to me, his form is different, and he is not like us ... It does not seem to me that he is of me, but of angels...'

These words form the opening lines to what must be one of the most astonishing yet chilling fragments of religious text ever written. They are the assertions of the antediluvian patriarch Enoch as he describes the sheer distress and horror that accompanied the miraculous birth of a son to his grandson, Lamech. The passage is taken from the Book of Noah, an ancient script of Hebrew origin appended to the more famous Book of Enoch, a pseudepigraphal (i.e. falsely attributed) work, considered by scholars to have been put together in stages during the first half of the second century BC. The predicament conveyed by these revealing lines seems manifestly clear: Lamech has recently taken the hand of a woman who has given birth to a child that bears no resemblance whatsoever to its immediate family. His appearance is entirely unlike other 'human beings', for his skin is white and ruddy, his long curly hair is white and 'beautiful', while his eyes mysteriously enable the whole house to 'glow like the sun'. From this specific appearance, Lamech can only conclude that his wife has been unfaithful, since the infant resembles 'the children of the angels' who are 'not like US'. This seems an extraordinary conclusion on the part of Lamech, and a very strange subject for a religious scribe to invent without good reason. If it can, for a moment, be accepted that this account records an actual event in the history of human kind, then it implies that the strange appearance of this child matched the offspring of angels, and must by inference have been the product of the union between a mortal woman and a divine 'messenger', a 'heavenly intelligence' in the service of God himself. Surely this is impossible, for according to Judaeo-Christian tradition, angels are incorporeal, having neither form nor substance. They are certainly unable to reproduce by immaculate conception. If this is correct, then the story of the birth of Lamech's strange son is in direct contradiction to the rabbinical teachings of Judaism and the creed of the Christian faith.

Yet here it is, in print for all to see - heretical words implying that angelic beings were able to produce children by cohabiting with mortal women. For any reader with an open mind, this is a perplexing enigma further deepened by a more personal portrayal of the birth of Lamech's son, which is to be found in a poorly preserved fragment of religious text, discovered with many other rolled-up brittle scrolls inside a cave overlooking the Dead Sea in 1947. Known to scholars today as the Genesis Apocryphon, this unique work was written in Aramaic, the Syriac language adopted by the Hebrew scribes following the Jews' exile in Babylon during the sixth century BC. Dating back to a similar age as the Book of Enoch, the Dead Sea Scroll in question would have originally contained an alternative, fuller account of the events featured in the Book of Genesis; however, it was so badly damaged when found that only the birth of Lamech's son, an account of Noah's Ark and the biblical Flood, along with the wanderings of the patriarch Abraham, have been preserved. The fragmentary text was translated by Nahman Avigad and Yigael Yadin in 1954 and published under the title A Genesis Apocryphon two years later by the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

With respect to the account of the strange birth of Lamech's son, it differs principally from the version given in the Book of Enoch, in that the narrator has altered from the patriarch Enoch to Lamech himself - it is he who recalls the scene in his own words. The narrative begins just after the strange birth as Lamech starts voicing his suspicions concerning the suspected infidelity of his wife, here named as Bathenosh - and referred to also as his sister - for he says: 'Behold, I thought then within my heart that conception was (due) to the Watchers and the Holy Ones ... and to the Nephilim . . . and my heart was troubled within me because of this child.' Turning to his obviously distraught wife, Lamech makes her swear by the Most High that she will tell him the truth and admit if she has lain with anyone else. In reply she beseeches him to accept her word, saying: 'O my lord, O my [brother, remember my pleasure! I swear to thee by the Holy Great One, the king of [the heavens] ... that this seed is yours and that [this] conception is from you. This fruit was planted by you ... and by no stranger or Watcher or Son of Heaven ... I speak to you truthfully.'

It is clear that Lamech is accusing his wife of sleeping not with angels in general, but with having had relations with a specific race of divine beings known in Hebrew as 'irin' ('ir' in singular), meaning 'those who watch' or 'those who are awake', which is translated into Greek as 'egregoris or grigori', meaning 'watchers'. These Watchers feature in the main within the pages of pseudepigraphal and apocryphal works of Jewish origin, such as the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees. Their progeny, according to Hebrew tradition, are named as Nephilim, a Hebrew word meaning 'those who have fallen' or 'the fallen ones', translated into Greek as 'gigantes', or 'giants' - a monstrous race featured in the Theogony of the hellenic writer Hesiod (c. 907 BC). As in the biblical account, this ancient Greek work focuses on the creation of the world, the rise and fall of a Golden Age, the coming of the giant races and finally a universal flood. Bathenosh's touching plea of innocence to her husband and brother Lamech comes across as most convincing, and provides tantalising evidence that this ancient account may contain some grain of truth. Somehow it could just be based on a real-life event that occurred in a past age of mankind. If so, then exactly who, or what, were these Watchers and Nephilim who could lie with mortal women and produce offspring recognisable by their physiological traits alone? Are there any grounds whatsoever on which to consider that these apocryphal stories were based on the miscegenation between two different races of human beings, one of whom has been misidentified or falsely equated with the angels of heaven? If not, then exactly what were such stories meant to convey to the reader?

The Book of Enoch seems to provide an answer. Lamech, fearful of his predicament, consults his father, Methuselah, who, unable to alleviate the situation, embarks upon a journey to find his own father Enoch, who has withdrawn from the world and now lives among the angels. After Methuselah has tracked him down in a far-off land (referred to in the Genesis Apocryphon as 'Parwain' or Paradise) and conveying the fears of his son Lamech, the ever-righteous Enoch throws light on the situation when he states:

'I have already seen this matter in a vision and made it known to you. For in the generation of Jared, my father, they [the angels] transgressed the word of the Lord, (that is) the law of heaven. And behold, they commit sin and transgress the commandment; they have united themselves with women and commit sin together with them; and they have married (wives) from among them, and begotten children by them ... And upon the earth they shall give birth to giants, not of the spirit but of the flesh. There shall be a great plague ... and the earth shall be washed clean (by "a deluge') from all the corruption. Now, make known to your son Lamech that the son who has been born is indeed righteous, and call his name Noah, for he shall be the remnant for you; and he and his sons shall be saved from the corruption which shall come upon the earth ...

So the lid is finally lifted as the reader of the Book of Enoch is told that some of the angels of heaven have succumbed to carnal sin and taken wives from among mortal women. From this unholy union have come flesh-and-blood offspring, giant in stature, who, it must be presumed, match the description of the child born to Bathenosh.

This betrayal of the heavenly laws of God was seen as an abomination that would bring only corruption and evil to the human race, the punishment for which was to be a deluge to cleanse the world of its wickedness.

The Sons of God

Theologians are more or less united in their opinion that the widespread accounts of fallen angels cohabiting with mortal women, like those included in the Book of Enoch, the Genesis Apocryphon and similar texts, are no more than fanciful expansions of three verses to be found in Chapter 6 of the Book of Genesis, squeezed between a genealogical listing of the antediluvian patriarchs and a brief account of Noah's Ark and the coming of the Flood. The first lines in question, making up Chapter 6, verses 1-2, are indelibly imprinted in my mind and read as follows:

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all that they chose.

By 'sons of God' the text means heavenly angels, although the Hebrew original, 'bene ha-elohim' , should really be translated as 'sons of the gods', a much more disconcerting prospect (and something to be returned to in a subsequent chapter). In verse 3 of Chapter 6, God unexpectedly pronounces that his spirit cannot remain in men for ever, and that since humanity is a creation of flesh, its lifespan will be shortened to 'an hundred and twenty years'. Yet in verse 4 the tone suddenly reverts to the original theme of the chapter, for it says:

The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them: the same were the mighty men which were of old, the men of renown.

In the hundreds of times I have read these isolated words out aloud I have wondered to myself.- what could they possibly mean? There is no consensus in answer to this question, and scholars, mystics and speculative writers have all given their own interpretations over the past two thousand years. Theologians agree in general that such accounts are not to be taken as literal fact, but only as a symbol of humanity's fall from a state of spiritual grace to one of conflict and corruption in the days prior to the Great Flood. What the texts are saying, the theologians would argue, is that if evil and corruption on this scale does occur in the world, then only those of the purest heart and spirit - individuals exemplified by Noah and his righteous family - will be spared the wrath of God. It is therefore a purely allegorical teaching intent on conveying to the reader the inevitable consequences of wickedness. The references in verses 2 and 4 to 'the sons of God' coming unto the daughters of men', so the scholars believe, demonstrate how even those closest to the purity of God can become infected by corruption and evil. It was usually accepted among religious teachers that any such unholy union between angels and mortal women could only, because it was against God's will, lead to the creation of monstrous offspring. It was this thought-provoking concept which had, according to the early Church Fathers, inspired the creation of various apocryphal and pseudepigraphal works dealing with the fall of the angels and the corruption of mankind before the time of the Great Flood.

Celestial Mafia

So much for the theological debate, but is it correct? Is this all there is to know about the origins of fallen angels? And what about the adherents of the Jewish and Christian faiths? How were they able to interpret such 'myths'? The majority would probably have been unaware that these problematical verses even existed in the Book of Genesis. Others, who did have some knowledge of the matter, are unlikely to have been able to expand on it, while only a very small minority would have believed in the actual existence of fallen angels. Many commentators would have been unable to explain exactly how such stories related to the physical world we live in, while other more fundamentalist Jews or Christians have seen such corruption and wickedness as the actions of bloodline descendants of those first fallen angels who cohabited with mortal women before the time of the Flood. Such suggestions may seem far-fetched, but in the United States there is an organisation known as the Sons of Jared, who take their name from the patriarch Jared, the father of Enoch, during whose age the Watchers were said to have been 'cast down' from 'heaven'. In their manifesto, the Sons of Jared vow 'implacable war against the descendants of the Watchers', who, they allege, 'as notorious Pharaohs, Kings and Dictators, have throughout history dominated mankind'. The Jaredite Advocate, the voice of the Sons of Jared, quotes lavishly from the Book of Enoch and sees the Watchers as 'like super-gangsters, a celestial Mafia ruling the world'. Is this simply a view gained from dogmatically accepting the fall of flesh-and-blood angels of heaven? How many individuals have the Sons of Jared accused or persecuted, believing them to be modern-day descendants of the Watchers? Some academic scholars, on the other hand, while unable to accept any basis in fact behind the concept of fallen angels and their monstrous offspring, the Nephilim, would be willing to admit that the original authors of the Book of Genesis (traditionally accredited to Moses the lawgiver) based their material on previously existing folk legends, probably from Mesopotamia (the country known today as Iraq). The historian S. H. Hooke, for instance, in his book Middle Eastern Mythology, accepts that:

Behind the brief and probably intentionally obscure reference in (Genesis) 6:1-4 there lies a more widely known myth of a race of semi-divine beings who rebelled against the gods and were cast down into the underworld ... The fragment of the myth here preserved by the Yahwist was originally an aetiological myth explaining the belief in the existence of a vanished race of giants ...

This might well be so, but accepting Genesis 6:1-4 as the product of far older Middle Eastern myths allows for the possibility that, sometime during a bygone age of mankind, there existed on earth, presumably in the bible lands themselves, an elite and probably superior race of human beings. These people presumably achieved a state of high civilization before degenerating into a corruption and wickedness that included the taking of wives from among the less civilized races and the creation of monstrous offspring of disproportionate size to their immediate family. It might also be suggested that a series of global cataclysms thereafter brought fire, flood and darkness to the earth and ended the reign of this race of giants. Should we see accounts like Lamech's torment at the miraculous birth of his son Noah, and untold others like it, as tantalizing evidence for the idea that fallen angels were something far more than simply incorporeal beings cast out of heaven by the archangel Michael, as the theologians and propagators of the Christian, Islamic and Jewish faiths have taught during the last two thousand years? Could their very existence be confirmed by making an in-depth study of Hebrew myths and legends and then comparing these with other Near Eastern and Middle Eastern religions and traditions? Most important of all, might evidence of their physical existence on earth be incidentally preserved in the records of modern-day archaeology and anthropology? Such thought-provoking possibilities were worth further consideration. If, at the end of the day, it was found that no such evidence for the existence of a now lost race in the bible lands could be discovered, then at least an age-old enigma would have been investigated thoroughly. On the other hand, if there really was firm evidence that angels and fallen angels once walked among mankind as beings of flesh and blood, no different from you or me, then it could change our perspective of world history for ever.

Fear of Fallen Angels

There are clear signs that the concept of angels and fallen angels as corporeal beings of flesh and blood, who lived in a distant antediluvian age and left as a legacy an intimate knowledge of many things forbidden to humanity, was once widely accepted by certain elements of the Jewish population. These included the devout religious communities that lived a pious existence in the hot, rugged terrain on the west bank of the Dead Sea from about 170 BC to AD 120. Known to history as the Essenes, their main centre is thought to have been at Qumran, where archaeologists have uncovered extensive evidence of occupation, including a massive library room where many of the Dead Sea Scrolls are thought to have been written. Historical works from this period suggest that the Essenes not only accepted the Book of Enoch as part of their canon, but also used its listing of angels to perform rites of exorcism and healing. Recent studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls have also shown that the Essenes possessed an almost unhealthy interest in Enochian-style material featuring the Watchers and Nephilim. Although many of these works date only to the second century BC, the hidden teachings found among the Qumran community and known as Kabbalah imply that the Enochian and Noahic scriptures were passed on by word of mouth for thousands of years before finally being set down in written form by the Essenes themselves.

With the advent of Christianity, the Book of Enoch and other such similar works became generally available for the first time. Many of the Early Church leaders, from the first to the third centuries AD, used and quoted openly from their pages. Some Christian scholars held that mortal women had been responsible for the fall of the angels, while Paul in Corinthians 11:10 advocated - according to the Church Father Tertullianus (AD 160-230) - that women cover their heads so as not to incite wantonness in the fallen angels who liked unveiled women with beautiful hair. Even more remarkable was the general acceptance among many prominent theologians that fallen angels possessed corporeal bodies. Indeed, it was not until the age of the Church Fathers, from the fourth century onwards, that such matters were seriously questioned. For these people, fallen angels were not flesh-and-blood beings, and any suggestion that they might have been became tantamount to heresy. This attitude led to the suppression of the Book of Enoch, which quickly fell out of favour. Most bizarre of all were the comments of St Augustine (AD 354-430) in respect of the antiquity of this pseudepigraphal work. He claimed that on account of it being too old (ob nimiam antiquitatem), the Book of Enoch could not be included in the Canon of Scripture. What ever could he have meant by suggesting it was 'too old'? It was a most extraordinary statement to be made by a respected Church father. Curiously enough, the Book of Enoch had also fallen out of favour among the Jews, after Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai, in the second century AD, cursed all those who believed that the Sons of God mentioned in Genesis 6 were truly angels. This was despite the fact that the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, uses the term 'angelos' in place of 'sons of God'. The Church Fathers then went further in their attempts to stamp out the strange fascination with fallen angels among early Christians bv condemning as heresy the use of the many hundreds of names given both to angels and fallen angels in various religious works. No longer was the Book of Enoch copied by Christian scribes, and those copies remaining in libraries and churches were either lost or destroyed, denying the world any knowledge of the work's true contents for over a thousand years.

Subsequently, on top of all this, it became the policy of Catholic theologians to eradicate firmly from the teachings of the Church any notion that fallen angels had once been seen as material beings, a situation typified by this quote from the New Catholic Encyclopedia: In the course of time theology has purified the obscurity and error contained in traditional views about angels (i.e. the belief that they were corporeal in nature and cohabited with mortal women). Yet why should such beliefs have become so abhorrent to the Christian faith after the great leaders of the Early Church of Jerusalem had preached so openly on this very controversial subject? It simply did not make sense, and suggested there must have been extremely good reasons for forcing this strain of thought underground, for that was exactly where it went - underground. From the extraordinary evidence collected together by the author, and presented in this book for the first time, there emerge firm grounds to suggest that initiates and secret societies preserved, revered, even celebrated the forbidden knowledge that our most distant ancestors had gained their inspiration and wisdom, not from God or from the experiences of life, but from a forgotten race remembered by us today only as fallen angels, demons, devils, giants and evil spirits. Should such a view prove in any way correct, then it must indicate one of the greatest secrets ever kept from mankind. But where was I to start? How was I even to begin the quest to unveil the forbidden legacy of this apparently fallen race? The answer lay with its main sourcebook, the Book of Enoch, for only by understanding its obscure origins and absorbing its bizarre contents could I ever hope to uncover the true picture behind humanity's lost heritage.

THE SEARCH FOR THE SOURCE

My quest to understand the importance of the Book of Enoch began with the man who single-handedly revived the scholarly world's interest in this previously lost piece of Judaic religious literature. His name is James Bruce of Kinnaird, and in 1768 he left England en route for Abyssinia, modern-day Ethiopia, in search of something, and it was certainly not the source of the Blue Nile, as he claimed at the time.

Bruce was a Scottish nobleman, a direct descendant of one of the most powerful families of Scottish history. He was also an initiate of Freemasonry, which in Scotland could trace its roots back to the so-called Rite of Heredom, first instituted in early medieval times and later incorporated into the Royal Order of Scotland.' This in itself was a chivalric military order of honour and valour founded on the rites of the Knights Templar by James Bruce's own illustrious ancestor, Robert the Bruce, following the celebrated defeat of the English at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Bruce himself was a member of the Canongate Kilwinning NO. 2 lodge of Edinburgh, known to be one of the oldest in Scotland, with side-orders and mystical teachings entrenched in Judaeo- Christian myth and ritual. Freemasonry is an organization with innumerable secrets, and many of these would have been known to the extremely know- ledgeable James Bruce. For instance, he would have been aware that in Scottish Masonic tradition the patriarch Enoch, Noah's great-grandfather, was looked upon as one of the Craft's legendary founders, since he was accredited with having given mankind the knowledge of books and writing and, most important of all to Freemasons, to have taught mankind the art of building.'

The Antediluvian Pillars

Enoch had many associations with early modern Freemasonry, or speculative Masonry as it is known. According to one legend, Enoch, with foreknowledge of the coming Deluge, constructed, with the help of his son Methuselah, nine hidden vaults, each stacked one on top of the other. In the lowest of these he deposited a gold triangular tablet (a 'white oriental porphyry stone' in one version) bearing the Ineffable Name, the unspoken name of the Hebrew God, while a second tablet, inscribed with strange words Enoch had gained from the angels themselves, was given into the safe-keeping of his son. The vaults were then sealed, and upon the spot Enoch had two indestructible columns constructed - one of marble, so that it might 'never burn', and the other of Laterus, or brick, so that it might 'not sink in water.' On the brick column were inscribed the 'seven sciences' of mankind, the so-called 'archives' of Masonry, while on the marble column he 'placed an inscription stating that a short distance away a priceless treasure would be found in a subterranean vault'. Enoch then retired to Mount Moriah, traditionally equated with the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where he was 'translated' to heaven. In time, King Solomon uncovered the hidden vaults while constructing his legendary temple and learned of their divine secrets. Memory of these two ancient pillars of Enoch was preserved by the Freemasons, who set up representations of them in their lodges. Known as the Antediluvian Pillars, or Enoch's Pillars, they were eventually replaced by representations of the two huge columns named 'Jachin' and 'Boaz', said to have stood on each side of the entrance porch to Solomon's Temple. What exactly the nine hidden vaults constructed by Enoch were meant to represent is completely unknown. They might well refer to the nine levels of mystical initiation contained in the hidden teachings of the Kabbalah, accepted among the Dead Sea communities. On the other hand, perhaps the legends of the hidden vaults referred to actual underground chambers located somewhere in the Holy Land and constructed to hide sacred objects of importance to the future of mankind.

Walked with God

The patriarch Enoch's legendary status among both Jewish mystics and modern-day Freemasons stems from a very strange assumption. In the Bible, Chapter 5 of Genesis contains a genealogical listing of the ten antediluvian patriarchs, from Adam down to Noah. In each case it gives only their names, their age when they 'begat' their first son, and the age at which they died, with one notable exception - Enoch. In his case, he is twice said to have 'walked with God', an obscure statement elaborated only in the second instance with the enigmatic words: 'and he was not, for God took him.' Whatever the writer of Genesis had been attempting to convey by these words, they were taken to mean that Enoch did not die like the other patriarchs, but was instead 'translated' to heaven with the aid of God's angels. According to the Bible, only the prophet Elijah had been taken by God in a similar manner, so Enoch (whose name means 'initiated') had always been accorded a very special place in Judaeo-Christian literature.

Indeed, Hebrew mysticism asserts that on his 'translation' to heaven, Enoch was transformed into the angel Metatron. What does it mean: 'translated to heaven'? As we know, people are not carried off to heaven by angels while still living their life on earth. Either these words are metaphorical or else they need drastic reappraisal. Might Enoch have been simply taken away from his people by visitors from another land who were looked upon as angels by the rest of the community? And where was heaven, anyway? We know it is deemed to be a place 'in the clouds', but did this literally mean somewhere beyond the physical world in which we live? Once in this place called heaven, Enoch would appear to have made enemies immediately, for according to one Hebrew legend, an angel named Azza was expelled from Paradise - the alternative name for the heavenly domain - for objecting 'to the high rank given to Enoch' when he was transformed into Metatron. All these legends and traditions concerning Enoch show that the patriarch was highly venerated in Jewish mythology because of his trafficking with the angels. This position led many scholars to believe that apocryphal works, such as the Book of Enoch, were imaginative stories based on his much celebrated translation to heaven, where he now lives in the presence of God.

The Search for the Book of Enoch

James Bruce of Kinnaird was one giant of a man, 'the tallest man you ever saw in your life - at least gratis', or so said one woman who met him. He was fluent in several different languages, including some no longer spoken. These included Aramaic, Hebrew and Geez, the written language of the Ethiopian people. Even before his travels in Abyssinia, Bruce had journeyed far and wide, visiting Europe, North Africa and the Holy Land, exploring ancient monuments and searching out old manuscripts ignored by all but a few inquisitive Westerners. In spite of his Blue Nile story, the noble Scotsman would appear to have spent much of his time in Ethiopia within the libraries of ramshackle monasteries, fingering through dusty volumes of neglected religious works, many hoary with age and in a state of advanced disintegration."

So what had he been looking for? After nearly two years of constant travelling, Bruce arrived at the sleepy monastery of Gondar, on the banks of the vast inland sea named Lake Tana. Having convinced the abbot of his integrity, he was admitted into the dark, dingy library room, where he found, and was finally able to secure, a very rare copy of the Kebra Nagast, the sacred book of the Ethiopians. It told of a romantic love affair between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the legendary founder of the kingdom of Abyssinia, and of the birth of their illicit son Menelik, who had conspired with his mother to abduct the fabled Ark of the Covenant from Solomon's Temple. According to the story, the Ark had been carried off to Ethiopia, where it remained to that day.

Had Bruce in fact been searching for a copy of this obscure but very sacred book to take back with him to Europe?

THE SEARCH FOR THE SOURCE

Despite its rarity, the Kebra Nagast (or 'Book of the Glory of Kings') had long been known to exist, while its wild claims concerning the Queen of Sheba and the Ark of the Covenant were seen by Western scholars as having been concocted to give Ethiopian Christians an unbroken lineage and national identity stretching back to the time of Adam and Eve. Even so, there is compelling evidence to suggest that the Ark really did reach Ethiopia (although not at the time of King Solomon) and that James Bruce was well aware of this fact and even entered Ethiopia in 1768 with the express intent of bringing it back to Britain."

So was this the answer - a quest for the lost Ark of God? Had Bruce been the Indiana Jones of his day? Perhaps. Yet beyond his interests in the Kebra Nagast and the Ark of the Covenant, Bruce could hardly have been unaware of the rumours circulating Europe regarding the existence in Ethiopia of the forbidden Book of Enoch. Indeed, during the early 1600s a Capuchin monk visiting Ethiopia had secured a religious text written in Geez which was at first believed to be a long-lost copy of this very book. The find caused much excitement in European academic circles. Yet when it was finally studied by an Ethiopian scholar in 1683, the manuscript was identified, not as the missing Book of Enoch, but as a previously unknown text entitled the Book of the Mysteries of Heaven and Earth.'

No one really knew what the Book of Enoch might contain. Until the 1600's, its contents were almost entirely unknown. Yet its title alone was so powerful that at least one person attempted to learn its secrets from the angels themselves. This was the Elizabethan astrologer, magus and scientist, Dr John Dee, who, working with an alleged psychic, Edward Kelley, used crystal balls and other scrying paraphernalia to invoke the presence of angels. The spirits told Kelley they would provide him with the contents of the Book of Enoch, and there is evidence to suggest that Dee did actually possess a 'Book of Enoch' dictated through Kelley's mediumship." It is not, however, thought to have in any way resembled the actual work of this name. In addition to this, Dee and Kelley whole written language, complete with its own 'Enochian' script or cipher, from their trafficking with angels. This complex system of magical invocation survives to this day and is still used by many occultists to call upon the assistance of a whole hierarchy of angelic beings.

Scaliger's Discovery

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, a major breakthrough occurred in the search for the lost Book of Enoch. A Flemish scholar named J. J. Scaliger, having decided to study obscure Latin literature in the dimly lit vaults of European libraries, sat down one day to read an unpublished work entitled Chronographia, written in the years AD 808-10 by a learned monk named George Syncellus. Having ploughed through lengthy pages of quite mundane sayings and quotes on various matters appertaining to the early Christian Church, he then came upon something quite different - what appeared to be extensive tracts from the Book of Enoch. Handwritten in Greek, these chapters showed that Syncellus had obviously possessed a copy of the forbidden work and had quoted lavishly from its pages in an attempt to demonstrate the terrible transgressions of the fallen angels. Scaliger, realizing the immense rarity of these tracts, faithfully reproduced them in full, giving the world its first glimpse at the previously unknown contents of the Book of Enoch. The sections quoted by Syncellus and transcribed by Scaliger revealed the story of the Watchers, the Sons of God, who were here referred to by their Greek title 'Grigori'. It told how they had taken wives from among mortal women, who had then given birth to Nephilim and gigantes, or 'giants'. It also named the leaders of the rebel Watchers and told how the fallen angels had revealed forbidden secrets to mankind, and how they had finally been imprisoned until the day of judgement by the archangels of heaven.

We may imagine the conflicting emotions experienced by Scaliger - on the one hand excitement, and on the other horror and revulsion. As a God-fearing Christian of the seventeenth century, when people were being burnt as witches with only the most petty charges brought against them, what was he to make of such claims? What, moreover, was he to do with them? Angels lying with mortal women and the conception of giant babies? What could this all mean? Was it true, or was it simply an allegorical story concerning the consequences of trafficking with supernatural beings such as angels? Merely by making copies of this forbidden text, he ran the risk of being accused of practising diabolism. Yet this incredible chance discovery begged the question of what the rest of the book might contain. Would it be as shocking as these first few chapters appeared to suggest? Bruce must have been aware of the controversial nature of the sections of the book preserved for posterity by Syncellus in the ninth century. He must also have been aware of the enormous implications of retrieving a complete manuscript of the Book of Enoch. It was perhaps for this very reason that he spent so long talking to the abbots and monks at the Ethiopian monasteries. In the light of this supposition, it becomes crystal clear that one of the primary objectives of Bruce's travels must have been to secure and bring back to Europe a copy of the Book of Enoch. And Bruce's efforts did not go unrewarded, for he managed to track down and obtain not one, but three complete copies of the [Book of Enoch]. One Book of Enoch, with which he returned to Europe in 1773, was consigned to the National Library of Paris, one he donated to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and the third he placed 'amongst the books of Scripture, which I brought home, standing immediately before the Book of Job, which is its proper place in the Abyssinian Canon.'

The earth-shaking consequences of these gracious acts of literary dedication can scarcely have been realized by Bruce himself during his lifetime, for they would ultimately lead to the recirculation of heretical stories concerning humanity's forbidden trafficking with the fallen race. And yet from the very moment of Bruce's return to Europe with his precious Ethiopian manuscripts, strange events were afoot. Having deposited the copy with the Paris library, Bruce made tracks to return to England, where he planned to visit the Bodleian Library at his earliest convenience. Even before he had a chance to leave France, however, he learnt that an eminent scholar in Egyptian Coptic studies, Karl Gottfried Wolde, was already on his way from London to Paris, carrying letters from the Secretary of State to Lord Stormont, the English Ambassador, desiring that the latter help him gain access to the Paris manuscript of the Book of Enoch, so that a translation could be secured immediately. Permission was duly granted to Wolde, who after admission into the National Library wasted no time in making the necessary translation of the text. Yet as Bruce was to later admit in his magnum opus on his travels to Ethiopia 'it has nowhere appeared.'

What therefore were the motives behind this extraordinary urgency in translating the Book of Enoch, before even the Bodleian Library had received its own copy? The absurdity of the situation lies in the fact that no outright translation of the valuable Geez text was to appear in any language whatsoever for another forty-eight years. Why this delay? Why should such an important piece of lost religious literature have been ignored for so long, especially since there were now not one but two extant copies available to the theological world? This ridiculous situation must have infuriated James Bruce after he had gone to all the trouble of finding and securing these manuscripts in the belief that they would be presented to the public domain in a translated form before the expiry of his own life (he died in 1794). Tempting as it may be to evoke the idea of some kind of organized conspiracy behind these extraordinary actions on the part of Wolde and the English Secretary of State, the truth of the matter was far more mundane and lay in the economical and political climate of the time. The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw a massive decline in the popularity of the Christian Church in many parts of Protestant Europe. Attendance at church services was dwindling, and churches everywhere were being neglected and left to fall into ruin under the impact of Newtonian science and the arrival of the Industrial Revolution. ln an age of reason and learning, there was little place for the alleged transgressions of angels, fallen or otherwise. Most of the general public were simply not interested in whether or not angels had fallen through grace or lust, while any theological debate as to whether or not fallen angels possessed corporeal bodies was simply not a priority in most people's minds.

THE SEARCH FOR THE SOURCE

Fuelled by Fallen Angels

The Book of Enoch remained in darkness until 1821, when the long years of dedicated work by a professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford were finally rewarded with the publication of the first ever English translation of the Book of Enoch. The Reverend Richard Laurence, Archbishop of Cashel, had laboured for many hundreds of hours over the faded manuscript in the hands of the Bodleian Library, carefully substituting English words and expressions for the original Geez, while comparing the results with known extracts, such as the few brief chapters preserved in Greek by Syncellus during the ninth century. It is fair to say that the publication of the Book of Enoch caused a major sensation among the academic and literary circles of Europe. However, its disturbing contents were not simply being read by scholars, but also by the general public. Churchmen, artists, writers, poets all sampled its delights and were able to form their own opinions on the nature of its revelations. The consequences of this knowledge passing into the public domain for the first time were to be enormous in many areas of society. Romantic writers, for instance, became transfixed by the stories of the Sons of God coming unto the Daughters of Men, and began to feature these devilish characters in their poetic works. A little later, Victorian painters started portraying this same subject matter on canvas. One might even be tempted to suggest that the Book of Enoch was a major inspiration behind the darker excesses of the so-called Gothic revival, which culminated in such literary works as Bram Stoker's Dracula, in which the eponymously named character is himself a fallen angel.

Why should such satanic subjects have inspired or repulsed people to this extent? Why are people so fuelled by stories of fallen angels? It also seems certain that the Book of Enoch was readily accepted as a work of great merit among the Freemasons, who used it to revive their ancient affiliation with the antediluvian patriarch; indeed, my own 1838 copy of Laurence's translation once belonged to the library of the Supreme Council 33, the highest ranking enclave of Royal Arch Freemasons in Britain. There is even a rumour that the third copy brought back to Europe was presented by Bruce to the Scottish Grand Lodge in Edinburgh. Gradually, as the Oxford University edition of the Book of Enoch reached wider and wider audiences, scholars began checking in library collections across Europe, the result being that many more fragments and copies of the Enochian text in Ethiopian, Greek and even Latin were found tucked away in neglected corners. New translations were made in German and English, the most authoritative being that achieved in 1912 by Canon R. H. Charles." Even a sequel to the original text entitled the Book of the Secrets of Enoch was found in Russia and translated in 1894. Since that time, the authenticity of the Book of Enoch has been amply verified with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Many fragments of copies written in Aramaic have been identified among the hundreds of thousands of brittle scraps retrieved over the years from the caves on the Dead Sea, where they were placed in around AD 100 by the last survivors of the Essene communities at Qumran and nearby En-Gedi.

The Ethiopian copyists had kept true to the original Aramaic text, which had probably passed into their country in its Greek translation sometime during the second half of the fourth century AD. For generation after generation, the Book of Enoch had been copied and recopied by Ethiopian scribes, the old battered and torn manuscripts being either cast away or destroyed during the many bloody conflicts that took place in Abyssinia over a period of fifteen hundred years. The fact was that somehow the Book of Enoch had survived intact, despite its heavy suppression by the Christian Church, and it was to the authoritative English translation made by Canon R H. Charles in 1912 that I would next turn to discover for myself the dark secrets within its pages. Only by absorbing the obscure contents of this unholy treatise could I begin to understand why its forbidden text had become abhorrent to so many over the previous centuries.

DEMONIC DOCTRINE

Reading the Book of Enoch for the first time was quite an unnerving experience, which on more than one occasion sent unexpected shivers down my spine. Here was perhaps one of the oldest accounts of mankind. It had been passed down orally from one storyteller to the next over thousands of years. Finally it became a book in its own right sometime after 200 BC, almost certainly at the hands of the Essene community at Qumran on the Dead Sea. Yet what were its contents, and why had it caused so much consternation to the Jewish rabbis and the Early Church of Christianity? I found the Book of Enoch to be a colourful but often confusing and contradictory patchwork of material that required extensive disentanglement before any cohesive picture could be gleaned from its contents. Much of it appears to have been written - originally on sheets of fine animal skin - during or shortly after the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king who ruled Judaea at the time of the Maccabean revolt of 167 BC. Among its 108 short chapters is irrefutable evidence of the battles fought and won against the hated Syrian ruler by the Jewish reactionary movement, the Zadokite Hassidaeans, under the leadership of Judas Maccabeaus. Other parts were written shortly after this period, while some passages even reflect an age postdating the commencement of the Christian era. So what does it contain? What element is it that so offends its opponents?

In the opening chapters the narrator reiterates the story told in Genesis 6 concerning the Sons of God coming unto the Daughters of Men and taking wives from among their number. The reader then learns how, 'in the days of Jared', two hundred Watchers 'descended' on 'Ardis', the summit of Mount Hermon - a mythical location equated with the triple-peak of Jebel esh Sheikh (9,200 feet), placed in the most northerly region of ancient Palestine. In Old Testament times its snowy heights had been revered as sacred by various peoples who inhabited the Holy Land; it was also the probable site of the Transfiguration of Christ when the disciples witnessed their Lord 'transfigured before them.' On this mountain the Watchers swear an oath and bind themselves by 'mutual imprecations', apparently knowing full well the consequences their actions will have both for themselves and for humanity as a whole. It is a pact commemorated in the name given to the place of their 'fall', for in Hebrew the word Hermon or herem, translates as 'curse'. Why the two hundred angels should have picked this location as opposed to any other to make their descent into the lowlands is never made clear. Yet this is what they do, travelling down to mix and mingle among humanity in the hope of sampling the delights of mortal women. The reader is then introduced to Shemyaza, the leader of the Watchers, while eighteen of his minions are also named; these, it says, are 'their chiefs of tens.' At this stage, I will not question the authenticity, origin or reality of this curious narrative, but simply continue with the story as told in the Book of Enoch.

After the Watchers find themselves wives and 'go unto them,' the women give birth to the enormous Nephilim babies, who grow up to become barbaric in every way possible. The words here are pertinent and must be quoted in full: 'And they [the mortal women] became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells: who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood. Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones.' The height of the Nephilim, here given as 3,000 ells, with one English ell being the equivalent of forty-five inches, is an exaggeration of the sort so often found in Jewish myth. It is used only to emphasize a specific point, which is to record that these 'gibborim', or 'mighty men', were of great height and possessed enormous appetites. More disconcerting is the suggestion that the Nephilim turned against their mortal families and engaged in what can only be described as cannibalism. 'Sinning' against 'birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish' could either mean that they were consumed by the Nephilim as food, or that the giants committed barbaric sexual acts with them, perhaps both. Whatever the answer, they would appear to have developed a lust for drinking blood, which must also have been viewed as abhorrent by the communities in which they were born and raised.

The Secrets of Heaven

The narrative then tells how the rebel Watchers who walked among humanity revealed the forbidden secrets of heaven. One of their number, a leader named Azazel, is said to have 'taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals (of the earth) and the art of working them', indicating that the Watchers were the first to bring the use of metal to mankind. He also instructed them on how they could make 'bracelets' and 'ornaments' and showed them how to use 'antimony', a white brittle metal employed in the arts and medicine. To the women he taught the art of 'beautifying' the eyelids, and the use of 'all kinds of costly stones' and 'colouring tinctures', indicating that before this time the wearing of make-up and jewellery was unknown. Through this unforgivable act, the Daughters of Men were believed to have been 'led astray', and because of it they became 'corrupt', committing fornication not only with the Watchers themselves, but also, it must be assumed, with men who were not their regular partners. Azazel also stood accused of teaching women how to enjoy sexual pleasure and indulge in promiscuity - a blasphemy seen as 'godlessness' in the eyes of the Hebrew story-tellers. Linguistic experts believe that the names Azazel and Shemyaza probably derive from the same source, but were made into two separate fallen angels before their introduction to the Book of Enoch; however, since they both have quite independent legends attributed to them, each will be dealt with separately as and when they appear.

Other Watchers stand accused of revealing to mortal kind the knowledge of more scientific arts, such as the knowledge of the clouds, or meteorology; the 'signs of the earth', presumably geodesy and geography; as well as astronomy and the 'signs', or passage, of the celestial bodies, such as the sun and moon. Shemyaza is accredited with having taught men 'enchantments, and root-cuttings', a reference to the magical arts shunned by most orthodox Jews, but accepted to some degree by the Dead Sea communities. One of their number, Penemue, taught 'the bitter and the sweet', surely a reference to the use of herbs and spices in foods, while instructing men on the use of 'ink and paper', implying that the Watchers introduced the earliest forms of writing. Far more disturbing is Kasdeja, who is said to have shown 'the children of men all the wicked smitings of spirits and demons, and the smitings of the embryo in the womb, that it may pass away'. In other words, he taught women how to abort their babies.

These lines concerning the forbidden sciences handed to humanity by the rebel Watchers raise the whole fundamental issue of why angels of heaven 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 antimony, and know how to abort an unborn child? None of these skills are what one might expect heavenly messengers of God to possess, unless, that is, they were human in the first place. In my opinion, this revelation of previously unknown knowledge and wisdom seems more 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. A comparison might be drawn with the way in which supposedly civilized cultures of the Western world have introduced everything from whisky to clothes, firearms, [file corruptioon] to indigenous races in remote regions of the world. If such is what really happened - members of one highly advanced race passing on its knowledge to a less evolved culture still struggling for survival?

Plight of the Watchers and Nephilim

One by one the angels of heaven are appointed by God to proceed against the Watchers and their offspring the Nephilim, described as 'the bastards and the reprobates, and the children of fornication'. Azazel is bound hand and foot, and cast for eternity into the darkness of a desert referred to as Dudael. Upon him are placed rough and jagged rocks and here he shall forever remain until the Day of judgement, when he will be 'cast into the fire' for his sins. For their part in the corruption of mankind, the Watchers are forced to witness the slaughter of their own children before being cast into some kind of heavenly prison, an 'abyss of fire'. Although the Watchers' leader, Shemyaza, is cast into this abyss alongside his brothers, in other versions of the story he undergoes a more dramatic punishment. Since he was tempted by a beautiful mortal maiden named Ishtahar to reveal the Explicit Name of God in exchange for the offer of carnal pleasure, he is to be tied and bound before being made to hang for all eternity between heaven and earth, head down, in the constellation of Orion. The suggestion that the rebel Watchers had to look on as their children were murdered hints at a form of infanticide in which those born of the union between fallen angels and mortal women were systematically rounded up and slaughtered as their fathers watched helplessly. If this supposition is correct, then it could explain the fear and revulsion instilled in Lamech and Bathenosh at the birth of their son Noah, who apparently resembled a Nephilim baby- their horror being connected not simply to their own son's strange appearance, but to the fact that the offspring of the Watchers were being murdered by those angels still loyal to heaven.

Following the incarceration of the rebel Watchers, Enoch is summoned to 'heaven' and addressed by the archangels, who are also, confusingly, referred to as Watchers. They request that he intercedes on their behalf and puts to the rebel angels the crimes they have committed against mankind. Enoch accepts this task and goes to see them in their place of incarceration. On his approach, he finds them 'all afraid, and fear and trembling seized them'. Fear of punishment is surely a human tendency, not the emotions one might expect of incorporeal messengers of God, and where was this prison, so accessible to Enoch? The text suggests it was near the waters of Dan, to the south of the west of Hermon. 'The waters of Dan' refers to one of the tributaries of the river Jordan in northern Palestine. The root of the Hebrew word dan means 'to judge', and Canon R. H. Charles in a footnote to this particular reference in his widely accepted translation of the Ethiopian text, concedes that this location was specifically chosen 'because its name is significant of the subject the writer is dealing with, i.e the judgement of the angels [author's italics].' The geographical positioning of this story is therefore symbolic and not actual. Clearly the author of the Book of Enoch is attempting to create some kind of sound geographical perspective to the narrative, in this case establishing the rebel Watchers' place of incarceration close to the location of their original descent upon Mount Hermon. In other words, many of the sites given in the Book of Enoch were chosen simply to give credence to the stories it contains.

The corruption still left in the world after the imprisonment of the Watchers, and the death of their Nephilim offspring, is to be swept away by a series of global catastrophes, ending in the Great Flood so familiar within biblical traditions. In a separate account of the plight of the Nephilim, this mass-destruction is seen in terms of an all-encompassing conflagration sent by the angels of heaven in the form of 'fire, naphtha and brimstone'. No one will survive these cataclysms of fire and water save for the 'seed' of Noah, from whose line will come the future human race. This is how the Dead Sea communities and the earliest Christians understood the Book of Enoch, yet never is there any insinuation that the rebel Watchers were beings of flesh and blood, only that they assumed physical form in order to lie with mortal women. Having read and reread the story of the fall of the Watchers several times over, I began to realize that such a view of events could be seriously challenged, for there seemed compelling evidence to suggest that the rebel Watchers - and, by virtue of this, the angels of heaven themselves - might originally have been a race of human beings who existed in the Middle East at a distant point in history.

If this were so, then memories of these monumental and quite horrendous events would appear to have been distorted and mythologized across the passage of time, until they became simply moralistic folk-tales in a slowly evolving religious history adopted by the Jewish race during Old Testament times. Did this provide a valid answer? To me it appeared as credible as any. Yet if my solution was incorrect, then what were the alternatives? There were two. Either the reader can accept that religious literature of this nature is pure fantasy, based on the deep psychological needs and values of a God-fearing society. Or he or she can accept that incorporeal angels not only exist, but that they can also descend to earth, take on human form and then couple with mortal women, who afterwards give birth to giants that grow up to become ruthless barbarians of the sort portrayed in the Book of Enoch. Which of these solutions seems easiest to accept? Which of these choices feels most right to accept? And even if the rebel Watchers were once human beings of flesh and blood, where did they come from, in what time-frame did they live, and what was the true fate of their progeny? Did they all either perish in the mass genocide orchestrated by the angels still loyal to heaven or die in the cataclysms which culminated in the Great Flood? Did any survive? The Book of Enoch provided no immediate answers, though my mind lingered over one particular passage in Chapter 15 concerning the final fate of the Nephilim: ... because they are born from men (and) from the holy Watchers in their beginning and primal origin; they shall be evil spirits on earth, and evil spirits shall they be called ... And the spirits of the giants (will) afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble; they (will) take no food, [but nevertheless hunger] and thirst, and cause offences. And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded (from them).

The text here speaks of 'evil spirits' - demons and devils might be more appropriate terms. Yet if it could for one moment be assumed that 'blood descendants' is what was originally intended, then these enigmatic lines imply that those born of Nephilim blood are, by virtue of their ancestral 'spirit', destined to 'afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth'. These are chilling thoughts indeed, yet in the puritanical words of the Book of Enoch these corrupted souls are also destined to become the damned, who will 'take no food, [but nevertheless hunger] and thirst'. The djinns, the malevolent spirits of Islamic tradition, are said to 'suffer from a devouring hunger and yet cannot eat, while in East European folklore, as well as in popular romance, there are likewise supernatural denizens that drink blood yet can 'take no food, [but can nevertheless hunger] and thirst', and these are, of course, nosferatu - vampires. Whatever the reality of such beings in anthropological terms, vampires live on in the dark, sinister world of Gothic horror, which, as I had already realized, owes much of its character to the way in which the initial publication of the Book of Enoch in 1821 influenced the inner visions of the poets and artists of the romantic movement. Perhaps the 'spirit' of the fallen race does therefore live on in the collective unconscious of modern-day society. Perhaps the descendants of the Nephilim, the hybrid offspring of the two hundred rebel Watchers, are still inside us, their presence hinted at only by the unsettling knowledge that our dark past holds hidden truths which are now beginning to reveal themselves for the first time -secrets that only a few enlightened souls have ever realized are preserved in the heretical Book of Enoch, this 'demonic doctrine', as it was aptly described by the Canon R. H. Charles.

Descendants of Noah

Despite the Book of Enoch's extraordinary material concerning the story of the Watchers, much of its later chapters appeared to be unconnected with my search to discover the origins of the fallen race. Indeed, they seemed to have been written by a different hand altogether. This supposition was confirmed when I realized that the chapters featuring the fall of the Watchers, the birth of Noah and the Flood narrative had all been taken from the much earlier, now lost, apocalyptic work known as the Book of Noah. It would simply confuse matters if I were to start referring to the Book of Noah instead of the Book of Enoch, but knowledge that Noah, not Enoch, was the original narrator of this story is important indeed and may well provide the key to understanding the reasons behind the Essenes' interest in this demonic literature. Because of the covenant Noah had made with God at the time of the Great Flood, the Dead Sea communities accredited him with having been God's first bringer of rain, or rainmaker, and saw themselves as direct lineal descendants of this rain-making line - a point emphasized again and again in their religious literature.

Many Jews in the last two centuries before Christ actually believed that wandering holy men, or zaddiks, 'the righteous', were direct descendants of Noah and could therefore perform rain-making feats - a divine virtue bestowed upon them by birthright. Renowned of the rainmakers in Jewish tradition was Onlas the Righteous, also known as Honi the Circle-drawer. His daughter's son, Hanan the Hidden, and another grandson named Abba Hilkiah, were also able to repeat their grandfather's rain-making feats. >From research into rain-making traditions, it seems probable that the priests would achieve these inexplicable weather changes by retiring from the community and drawing rings of sand on the ground. They would then stand in the centre of this magic circle and perform their supernatural conjuration - the effectiveness of such wild talents never being doubted. When they were not drawing down rain, the Zaddiks would live wild existences, crossing great distances on foot and spending long periods among the harsh, rugged hills on the west bank of the Dead Sea. Here they would enter into the isolated caves and spend long periods deep in meditation and contemplation. More important, however, was the knowledge that these wandering Zaddik-priests, who walked freely among the Dead Sea communities, were the teachers of the Kabbalah, the arcane knowledge passed on orally from person to person. With their great understanding of the Kabbalah, and their claimed descent from Noah, it seemed extremely likely that it was these wandering holy men who had first conveyed knowledge of the Watchers' story to the Essenes. If this theory was correct, then who were these wandering Zaddiks? Why did they believe themselves to be direct descendants of Noah? And where and when did they obtain these stories concerning the fall of the Watchers? Until I could answer these questions, the authenticity of the Book of Enoch must inevitably remain difficult to assess as historical fact. For the moment, I needed to understand more about the roots behind the story of the Watchers, how their 'fall' came about and, most important of all, its point of origin.

INSANE BLASPHEMY

Not everyone agreed on what the Sons of God coming unto the Daughters of Men actually represented so far as the accepted history of the Bible was concerned. By the late fourth century, the Syrian Church had begun to circulate a brand-new religious text claiming to give a true rendition of the lines in Genesis 6. In this variation of the story, the Sons of God are no longer dark angels but the Sons of Seth, a righteous community of men and women who reside in peace on the Mountain of God. This mythical location lies beyond the Gates of Paradise, out of which humanity's First Parents, Adam and Eve, had been cast many generations before. Living among the Sons of Seth are the now familiar antediluvian patriarchs, such as Jared, his son Enoch, his grandson Methuselah and his great-grandson Lamech. In their midst is the entrance to the so-called Cave of Treasures, within which lie the earthly remains of the first men and women, including Adam and his wife Eve, as well as the Three Gifts of God. These latter are caskets containing the frankincense, gold and myrrh destined to remain in the possession of Israel and Judah until they are finally presented to Christ at the time of the Nativity. Elsewhere in the enormous cave burns a perpetual flame symbolizing the light of God given to Adam in his darkest hour. Down in the lowlands lives a somewhat more primitive culture that, without the just guidance of God, leads depraved lifestyles of sin and corruption. Among them are the Daughters of Cain, the progeny of Adam's first son, Cain, who, according to Genesis 4, slew his brother Abel and was cursed and 'sent out' by God to dwell 'in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.'

The Daughters of Cain are easily led into unbridled debauchery, a vice that conjures the manifestation of Satanail, i.e. Satan or the Devil. Convinced that he can take advantage of their wicked ways to lead astray the Sons of God, the arch-fiend hatches a cunning plan. He convinces the naive Daughters of Men to wear make-up and adorn themselves with fine jewellery and exotic garments. Satanail then directs them towards the Mountain of God, where the Sons of Seth lead their pious existence in the presence of the Most High. The women try to convince the religious men to come down from the heights so that they may be tempted to commit gross acts of fornication and indecency. To this end the Daughters of Cain approach the base of the mountain and begin playing musical instruments, dancing wildly, singing loudly and calling to the 520 Sons of God to come and join them in sweet pleasure. Hearing the women's enticing voices, many of the men descend the holy mountain and indulge in carnal delights. Onlv the most righteous - in other words, figures such as Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech and his son Noah - refuse to be tempted by this gross iniquity. As a result of their unholy union, giants are inevitably born unto the godless women, and the 'fallen' Sons of Seth are prevented by God from returning to their mountain retreat close to the Cave of Treasures. The Most High then unleashes a great tempest and deluge to purge the world of all wickedness and corruption, as in Enochian and Old Testament tradition.

This alternative rendering of the enigmatic lines of Genesis 6 appears at first to provide a major breakthrough in their interpretation, and this was the opinion shared by a great number of biblical scholars right down to the Middle Ages. Removing any reference to fallen angels nullified the story of the fall of the Watchers as it was portrayed in a convincing and quite unnerving manner within the Book of Enoch. No fallen angels - no truth to the Book of Enoch; this was the philosophy of those who believed in the reality of the story of the Daughters of Cain coming to the Sons of Seth. It was an easy demolition of the ancient text, if it could be accepted that the Cave of Treasures story was the word of God.

Unfortunately, however, these early Church Fathers, who mostly belonged to the Syrian Church, overlooked one tiny point. The Book of the Cave of Treasures, as it became known, was almost entirely the creation of an early Christian writer named Julius Africanus (AD 200-245), and written more out of pure ignorance than deliberate design. He observed that the term 'elohim' was used in the Old Testament, as well as in other apocryphal works, to denote 'foreign rulers' and from this it was concluded that the 'bene ha-elohim', the 'judges' Sons of the Elohim, were none other than the early patriarchs, the descendants of Adam's third son, Seth. The deduction was made despite the more obvious fact that the term 'bene ha-elohim' was also used with reference to heavenly hosts, or angels. In spite of the text's clear failings, the early Church Fathers quickly adopted Africanus' concept of the fall of the Sons of God and pronounced it the only true and authentic interpretation of the Genesis text.

Yet even this did not stop the spread of wild accounts concerning the deeds of the fallen angels. The story of the Daughters of Cain coming unto the Sons of Seth was very often placed alongside alternative material concerning the fall of the Watchers, taken either directly or indirectly from the Book of Enoch. An outstanding example of this is the account of the fall of the angels contained in the Ethiopian Kebra Nagast. Here, next to a precis of the Cave of Treasures story, is a somewhat shocking reference to the enormous size of the Nephilim babies and the way in which they entered the world: And the daughters of Cain with whom the angels had companied conceived, but they were unable to bring forth their children, and they died. And of the children who were in their wombs some died, and some came forth: having split open the bellies of their mothers they came forth by their navels... Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, the eminent Egyptologist and literary scholar who translated the Kebra Nagast into English, openly admitted that this gruesome passage showed that the unborn babies were so large that they could not be born in the ordinary way, but had to be removed from the mothers by the umbilicus. In other words, because of their immense size, the Nephilim children could only be born by using the surgical operation we know today as Caesarian section. This was a disconcerting thought, which, although not confirmed anywhere else in Hebrew literature, will be encountered again in connection with the birth of giant children in another Middle Eastern country (see #9)

Mani the Ignorant

Even though the Book of Enoch had fallen foul of the developing Christian Church during the early fourth century, there are firm indications that some individuals had studied its contents and had, as a consequence, begun extolling its dire consequences for mankind. One such indication of this situation comes from a tract on the Book of Enoch written by St Jerome (AD 342-420), a Syriac Church Father of renown and scholarship, who had this to say on the subject: 'We have read in a certain apocryphal book [i.e. the Book of Enoch] that when the sons of God were coming down to the daughters of men, they descended upon Mount Hermon and there entered into an agreement to come to the daughters of men and make them their wives. This book is quite explicit and is classified as apocryphal. The ancient exegetes have at various times referred to it, but we are citing it, not as authoritative, but merely to bring it to your attention ... I have read about this apocryphal book in the work of a particular author who used it to confirm his own heresy ... Do you detect the source of the teachings of Manichaeus, the ignorant? just as the Manichaeans say that the souls desired human bodies to be united in pleasure, do not they who say that angels desired bodies - or the daughters of men - seem to you to be saying the same thing as the Manichaeans?'

Manichaeus 'the ignorant', or Mani as he is more commonly known, was a much-hated prophet of Parthian stock who had a huge impact on the development of Christian heresy from the third century right through till the end of the Middle Ages. And St Jerome was right. There is firm evidence to show that Mani devised his holy scriptures and teachings after studying the Book of Enoch. Mani was born in the Babylonian town of Ctesiphon, near modern-day Baghdad, in the year AD 215. Both his mother and father appear to have been directly related to the exiled Parthian Iranian tradition, by the prophet Zarathustra, the Greek Zoroaster, sometime during the sixth century BC (see Chapter 8). Perhaps influenced by the knowledge that Zoroastrianism acknowledged whole hierarchies of angels and demons, or daevas, Mani appears to have fully accepted the Enochian account of the fall of the Watchers. As a consequence, he formulated his own dualistic, gnostic creed, complete with its own holy scriptures and creation myths. In his sacred books he portrayed the material world not as the dominion of God, but as the domain of the Rulers of Darkness, in other words of Satan and his fallen angels. All that remained of God was the divine spirit trapped inside the physical body, and only by striving to find oneness with God could humanity hope to achieve a promised afterlife in the heavenly paradise. According to an anathema of Manichaeism written by its Christian opposers, Mani believed Adam to have been the outcome of a fertilized embryo, produced bv the intercourse of male and female fallen angels, then swallowed by Satan, who subsequently coupled with his spouse to bring forth the First Man. Such a pessimistic view of life meant that Mani and his followers saw the very roots of humanity not just as evil, but as rotten to the core.

Mani preached a synthesis of different faiths, including aspects of Buddhism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Mandaism, a strange religion native to Iraq and Iran. His faith became extremely popular for several centuries and was carried by his dedicated disciples and followers across the Orient, reaching as far east as central Asia, and as far east as India and Tibet. Manichaeism was quite obviously seen as a huge threat to the other major religions of the age. It was therefore condemned as outright heresy by the ruling Sassanian dynasty of Persian kings as well as by the early Church Fathers of Asia Minor. Followers of the faith were denounced as heretics and put to death, while a more horrific fate awaited Mani himself at the hands of fanatical Zoroastrians at jund-i-Shapur, in south-west Persia. In AD 277 he was accused of preaching false doctrines, and as a consequence was thrown in prison, where he was bound by chains, tortured to the point of death and left to die. His exhausted body was then publicly humiliated in the most gruesome manner: his skin was flayed and stuffed with straw before being strung up on the gates of the town as blood still issued from his warm carcass, which was decapitated and erected on a pole for all to see. Instead of quelling the growing unrest against Manichaeism by the Persian people, the death of Mani incited a sanguine crusade against his followers, who were rounded up throughout the empire and slaughtered by Zoroastrians - the price, it seems, for believing in the fall of the angels and their corruption of mankind.

Unorthodox Thoughts

The existence of heresies such as Manichaeism and other forms of Christian gnosticism once again raised the whole fundamental issue of the corporeal nature of fallen angels and the Sons of God in the minds of the most eminent theologians and churchmen of the day. One Church Father, St John Chrysostom (AD c. 347-407), the archbishop of Constantinople, spoke out vehemently against the Book of Enoch, stating indignantly that it would be 'folly to accept such insane blasphemy, saying that an incorporeal and spiritual nature could have united itself to human bodies.' It had become blasphemous and highly heretical to preach, circulate or support the doctrine contained within the Book of Enoch, or indeed any other apocryphal or pseudepigraphal work. In no way did the Church want the spread of Jewish traditions completely at variance with its gradually emerging corpus of scripture, especially if these concerned alternative views on the fall of mankind and the descent of the angels. Such subjects needed to be kept strictly out of bounds. Is it possible for us to understand this fanatical zeal towards the unorthodox - a zeal that persisted in the name of religion throughout the Middle Ages and probably cost the lives of countless hundreds of thousands of individuals accused of heresy and witchcraft? Why should the Christian Church have been so paranoid about a narrative concerning a group of two hundred angels who fell from grace and lusted after the Daughters of Men? Surely not all the heavenly messengers of God were perfect, so why has there been this blanket suppression of anything even remotely promoting such radical ideas even through to the present day?

Serpents That Walked

Part of the answer lies in the fact that there seems to be a clear overlap between the story of the fall of the Watchers and the account of the temptation of Eve by the Serpent as portrayed in the Book of Genesis. Since this is such an important subject in our quest to understand the origins of fallen angels, it will be worth recalling exactly what happened on that day in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve, the idealized first man and woman in Christian, Islamic and Judaic mythology, live in a state of innocence and grace within the garden until the Serpent of Eden questions God's authority by telling Eve she will not die if she eats the forbidden fruit of the 'tree which is in the midst of the garden', for, it says: 'God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.' Accordingly, so Genesis informs us, Eve saw that the fruit of the tree 'was good for foodí' and pleasant to the eyes, and that it was 'a tree to make one wise [author's emphasis]'. She then picked and ate of the fruit, giving it also to her partner Adam to eat; the result being that their eyes were 'opened', enabling them to realize that they were naked. In other words, eating the fruit of the tree had somehow managed to allow them to gain the knowledge and wisdom to understand their predicament in the idealized world -all thanks to the 'subtil' serpent who 'beguiled' Eve into eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. For this heinous crime against mankind, the Serpent is then: 'cursed [by God] above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: and I will put enmnity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.' Adam and Eve are also cursed by God, for to Eve he says: 'I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee' - mortifying words which have loomed over the heads of Western women ever since. In Adam's case, God rules that 'in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life' referring, of course, to the forbidden knowledge the couple have gained through eating of the tree. In order that Adam and Eve, with their new-found 'wisdom', do not want of the garden's other tree, the 'tree of life', and become immortal like gods, they are cast out of Eden 'to till the ground from whence he (Adam) was taken'.

This is the story of the so-called 'fall of man', as well as the roots of the misery and suffering humanity is forever forced to suffer because of this act of disobedience. As a consequence of the sin committed by our First Parents, we are deemed to have inherited a corrupt nature, with a prevailing tendency towards evil, the very stance adopted by Manichaeism and many of the other more obscure gnostic cults that thrived during the first four centuries of the Christian era. The fall of mankind was obviously compared by religious scholars with the angels' fall through lust and pride, while the Serpent of Temptation was commonly believed by theologians to have been the form taken by Satan to corrupt mankind. Satan's chosen guise as a serpent to beguile Eve was thought to have been because of its sly and cunning ability to hypnotize its prey into submission. The snake's loathsome and frightful appearance also made it an ideal totem of the darkness, and thus of the Devil himself.

All these explanations are, however, somewhat naive, for the snake is a very ancient symbol that represented the conveyance of sexual desires, hidden wisdom and secret knowledge in many different Middle Eastern faiths and religions. The serpent makes an appearance in a great number of creation myths featuring the first humans and is often portrayed as a wise benevolent spirit, not a beguiling messenger of temptation and evil. Moreover, the serpent has an intrinsic association with the first woman in these myths, a fact confirmed in the knowledge that the name Eve is synonymous with both the word for 'life' and 'snake'. For instance, in Hebrew hawwah, i.e. Eve, means 'she who makes live'. It is also related to the word 'hevia', signifying a female serpent. Furthermore, in Arabic 'serpent' is 'hayya', which is itself cognate with 'hayat', meaning 'life'; the Arabic for Eve being 'hawwa'. In other accounts from Jewish lore, Eve is actually seen as the ancestral mother of the Nephilim, who were themselves described in Hebrew myth as 'awwim', meaning 'devastators' or 'serpents'.

Angels, too, are integrally linked with the form of the serpent: one of the principal classes of angelic being in Hebrew lore is the Seraphim, or 'fiery serpents', who are 'sent by God as his instruments to inflict on the people the righteous penalty of sin'. The link is further strengthened by an occasional statement here and there in the Book of Enoch. In Chapter 69, for instance, where it outlines the forbidden arts taught to mankind by the Watchers, one angel known as Kasdeja is accused of showing men how to take away 'the bites of the serpent, and the smitings which befall through the noontide heat (i.e., sunstroke...) 'the son of the serpent named Tabaet'. Although the exact meaning of these lines is now lost, it clearly mentions 'the son of the serpent named Tabaet', a reference, it seems, to a Nephilim born to a 'serpent', or Watcher, named Tabaet. So if the Watchers are intrinsically linked with the symbol of the serpent, the conveyers of sexual desire, hidden wisdom and forbidden knowledge, then how do they relate to the Serpent of Eden? One tantalizing clue to this perplexing enigma is to be found in Chapter 69 of the Book of Enoch, for included among those Watchers who have revealed the heavenly secrets to mankind is Gadreel, identified as the fallen angel who 'led astray Eve'.

The fallen angel who 'led astray Eve'? Here is a very revealing statement. What is it supposed to mean? And how might it be equated with our knowledge of the Fall of Man in the heavenly paradise? If this particular passage is contemporary with the book's original construction during the first half of the second century BC, then it firmly associates the rebellion of the two hundred Watchers, during the age of the patriarch Jared, with the beguiling of Eve and thus with the corruption of humanity. Despite this realization, it would be foolhardy to accuse one Watcher alone of this most heinous of crimes, for it seems clear that at some point in the distant past the Watchers were collectively seen as 'the Serpent' who divulged the hidden wisdom and knowledge to the First Parents, a metaphorical reference to humanity in general. In doing so, it caused them to commit the first sin, the act of self-awareness. As a consequence of this interference in human affairs, our ancestors were forced into a material existence over and beyond the natural evolution and progression it would presumably have achieved had the Watchers not intervened to change the course of destiny. That was certainly the way it was beginning to look, and, if correct, then it meant that the story of the 'Fall of Man' in the Garden of Eden was merely a highly abstract expression of the way in which the Watchers supposedly corrupted the minds of humankind. If so, then which story influenced the other? And were we to assume that, because of the Watchers' interference in humanity's affairs, humanity now bears within it the seeds of eternal corruption and evil? And what of the connection with Satan, the Devil, God's greatest adversary? How did he fit into this gradually emerging picture, and what was his association with the Watchers of the Book of Enoch?

The Devil in Disguise

The name Satan comes from the Hebrew ha-satan, meaning 'the adversary'. In the Old Testament this term is used exclusively to describe either the enemies of God or the enemies of the Israelite race in general. Never is the Devil referred to as the evil one. Not until the advent of the New Testament, the collection of books and gospels relating to the period subsequent to the birth of the Christian era, does the term ha-satan take on this all-important role. At this point Satan becomes an angel fallen from grace and expelled from heaven, along with his fellow-rebels, by the archangel Michael. References to Satan's own fall appear in passages such as Luke 10:18, where Christ is said to have 'beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven'. It is, however, only in the Bible's final book, the Revelation of St John the Divine, written during the first century AD, that the full story of Satan's fall is revealed for the first time. In Chapter 12, verse 9, it proclaims: 'And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, he was cast down to earth, and his angels were cast down with him.' And then again, in Revelation 20:2-3, it says: 'And he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more.' This is all that may be gleaned from the holy scriptures concerning the fall of Satan, although it is clear that St. John the Divine based his visions of Satan and his fallen angels on the story of the Watchers contained in the Book of Enoch; an assertion supported by the fact that this apocalyptic work was freely circulating among early Christians around this time. Having established Satan as God's arch-enemy, the Christians adopted him as the root of all evil in the world, and any trafficking with either him or his fallen angels was seen as black magic, heresy, sorcery and, of course, witchcraft - acts that were punishable by death throughout Christendom until comparatively recent times. In medieval times, theologians, such as Peter Lombard (c. 1100-1160), 'saw Satan in the guise of the serpent tempting Eve', while other scholars, such as the ninth-century Bishop Agobard, held that 'Satan tempted Eve through the serpent.' Either way, such ideas became mainstream in the Christian philosophy of the Middle Ages and a general acceptance of this assumption has helped to mould religious thought right through to the present day.

So, was Satan behind the story of the Serpent of Eden? Perhaps the medieval scholars actually got it right, realizing that the references in the Book of Revelation to the casting out of heaven of Satan and his adversaries was one and the same story as the pre-Christian account of the fall of the Watchers, alluded to in the story of the Sons of God coming unto the Daughters of Men in Genesis 6. Satan is referred to in Revelation as 'the old serpent', a synonym that seems quite clearly to refer not just to the Serpent of Temptation but also to the rebel Watchers of the Book of Enoch. Since the revealing to humanity of the hidden secrets of heaven by the Watchers appears to have been the impetus behind the rise of civilisation as we know it today, and Satan and his fallen angels are to be identified with the fallen angels of the Book of Enoch, then it implies that, in Christian terms at least, the genesis of the civilized world can be attributed not to the will of God, but to the intervention of his antithesis - the Devil. Mani's dualistic world must have been full of contradictions - on the one hand he was preaching the purity of God and the wav of the Holy Spirit, and on the other he taught that the roots of evil lay within us all. Was this why the early Church Fathers so vehemently condemned the Book of Enoch's portrayal of the fall of the Watchers as 'insane blasphemy'? The answer is no, since they themselves came to accept this very doctrine that St Augustine named as 'original sin', which placed the blame not on the Watchers but on Eve. It is interesting to note that Augustine, who condemned the Book of Enoch as 'too old' for inclusion in the Canon, had himself at one time been a Manichaean. It is more likely that those heretics, such as Mani, who wholeheartedly accepted and preached the demonic doctrine outlined in Enochian literature, were always persecuted in such ghastly ways for this reason alone. What justification could there be for such crimes against humanity, and, more importantly, just what is it the world fears so much about fallen angels?

VISAGE LIKE A VIPER

Many people believe the Old Testament to be littered with references to the appearance of angels, but this is simply not the case. In fact there are relatively few accounts featuring angels, and when they do crop up, there is often no real indication of what exactly is taking place. For instance, in Genesis there are the three 'angels in the guise of men' who approach Abraham as he sits at his tent door by the Oak of Mamre, near the ancient city of Hebron in southern Palestine. They confirm the imminent birth of a son to his elderly wife Sarah and announce their planned destruction of Sodom, the city of iniquity by the Dead Sea. The Bible says that a feast was prepared for them, and that Abraham 'took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat [author's emphasis].' 'And they did eat...' Angels eating food? Surely incorporeal beings would not need to consume earthly sustenance. Then there are the two angels who visited Lot and his wife in Sodom, immediately prior to the city's destruction. They are said to have entered Lot's house, where he 'made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and', as in the case of the Abraham story, 'they did eat'.' Men of Sodom surround Lot's home, calling upon him and shouting out 'where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.' In other words they wanted to have sex with them. It is, of course, from this bible passage that we gain the term sodomy, or anal penetration among males. Did the inhabitants of Sodom want sex with all strangers who visited the city, or was there something noticeably different about these 'men'?

Then we have the angel, or 'man', with whom Jacob wrestles in hand-to-hand combat at Penuel, or the whole host of angels whom Jacob sees moving up and down a ladder that stretches between heaven and earth as he rests at a place known as Bethel. Are these really accounts of angels of heaven, or are they of mortal men? Angels gain their name from the word 'angelos', the Greek rendition of the Hebrew 'malakh', meaning 'messenger', since they act as mediators between God and humanity. They are undoubtedly incorporeal beings, although, to allow for stories such as those concerning Abraham, Lot and Jacob, it has generally been accepted by Judaeo-Christian theologians that angels could take on physical form to carry out special tasks on earth.

Whatever the actual nature of the angels of the Old Testament, to both the Judaic and Christian faiths they are purely that, angels, messengers of God, unconnected with the fallen angelic race of both Genesis 6 and Hebrew apocryphal tradition. At no time are the angels of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, ever equated with the Sons of God, the Watchers or the Nephilim, and there is never any insinuation that it was two hundred of their heavenly companions who took on physical form to lie with the Daughters of Men in the generations prior to the Great Flood. It is almost as if the writers of the Pentateuch either have no apparent knowledge of the connection between angels and the fall of the Watchers, or else they are deliberately avoiding the subject altogether. Who, then, were the angels, whether heavenly or fallen? Where did they come from? Where did they live? What did they look like? Only by establishing these facts could I go on to speculate on the true origins of this apparent race or culture - lost to the pages of history. It seemed imperative that if I was further to widen my knowledge of the fallen race, then I would need to uncover and study whatever had been written about them, not just in recorded Hebrew folklore and mythology, but also among the more recently translated Dead Sea Scrolls, which contained much new material on the nature of angels and the fall of the Watchers.

The Testament of Amram

It was this last area of study that in 1992 provided me with a vital piece of evidence which altered my whole perspective of the Watchers. In a reconstructed apocalyptic fragment, translated by the Hebrew scholar Robert Elsenman and referred to as the Testament of Amram, there is a rather unnerving account featuring the appearance of two Watchers to Amram, the father of Moses the lawgiver. The relevant section reads as follows: '[I saw Watchers] in my vision, the dream-vision. Two (men) were fighting over me, saying ... and holding a great contest over me. I asked them, 'Who are you, that you are thus empowered over me?' They answered me, 'We have been empowered and rule over all mankind.' They said to me, 'Which of us do you choose to rule (you)?' I raised my eyes and looked. [One] of them was terrifying in his appearance, like a serpent, [his] cloak many-coloured yet very dark ... [And I looked again], and ... in his appearance, his visage like a viper, and [wearing. . .] [exceedingly, and all his eyes ...]' The ancient text then identifies this Watcher as Belial, the Prince of Darkness and King of Evil, while his companion is revealed as Michael, the Prince of Light, who is also named as Melchizedek, the King of Righteousness. It was, however, Belial's frightful appearance that took my attention, for he is seen as terrifying to look upon and like a 'serpent', the very synonym so often used when describing both the Watchers and the Nephilim. If the textual fragment had ended here, then I would not have known why this synonym had been used by the Jewish scribe in question. Fortunately, however, the text goes on to say that 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. 'Visage like a viper. . .'What could this possibly mean? How was I to interpret this metaphor used in connection with the terrifying appearance this being must have instilled in the minds of those who originally trafficked with the walking serpents of the Book of Enoch? 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 riddle. Then, by chance, I happened to overhear something on a national radio station that provided me with a simple though completely unexpected explanation. In Hollywood, Los Angeles, there is a club called the Viper Room. It is owned by actor and musician Johnny Depp, and in October 1993 it hit the headlines when the up-and-coming young actor, River Phoenix, tragically collapsed and died as he left the club, following a night of over-indulgence. In the media publicity that inevitably surrounded this drugs-related incident, it emerged that "All the Viper Room gained its name many years beforehand when it had been a jazz haunt of some renown. As the story goes, the musicians would take the stage and play long hours, 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, caused their emaciated faces to appear hollow and gaunt, while their eyes closed 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. This diverting anecdote sent my mind reefing and helped me to construct a mental picture of how a person with a 'visage like a viper' might look: their faces would appear long and narrow, with prominent cheekbones, elongated jawbones, thin lips and slanted eyes like those of many East Asian racial types. Was this the solution to why both the Watchers and Nephilim were described as serpents? It seemed as likely a possibility as any, though it was also feasible that their serpentine connection related to their accredited magical associations and capabilities, perhaps even their bodily movements and overall appearance.

Wingless Angels

A separate account of the appearance of two Watcher-like figures, this time to Enoch as he rests in his bed, closely parallels the way in which they appeared to Moses's father, Amram, and seems to throw further light on their apparent descriptions: 'And there appeared to me two men very tall, such as I have never seen on earth. And their faces shone like the sun, and their eyes were like burning lamps; and fire came forth from their lips. Their dress had the appearance of feathers: ... 'purple, their wings were lighter than gold; their hands whiter than snow. They stood at the head of my bed and called me by my name.'

I knew it was taking an enormous gamble to assume for one minute that these textual accounts from Judaic apocalyptic and pseudepigraphal works actually recorded true-life descriptions of a [missing word] that in theory never existed outside the minds of the original storytellers. On the other hand, I felt I would be better able to investigate any historical origin if I could discover a cohesive pattern among the religious literature under study. So what could be learnt from this second account? I could begin by stripping away the angels' golden wings, for this part of the text was undoubtedly a very late addition, since angels were rarely deemed to possess wings until well into the Christian era. In the Old Testament, for example, only heavenly hosts such as the Cherubim and Seraphim are ever described as having multiple wings, four or six being the usual number. This feature is thought to have been a borrowing from the iconography of Assyria and Babylonia, where sky genii and temple guardians were depicted with very similar sets of wings.' Yet Cherubim and Seraphim were never strictly angels or 'messengers of God' who almost certainly received their wings at the hands of early Christian artists and scribes influenced by classical iconography, which often portrayed mythological beings with wings. For most of us, our view of angels is typified no better than in the vivid detail of Pre-Raphaelite paintings by such artists as Edward Burne-Jones, Evelyn de Morgan and John William Waterhouse, and by the ornately carved statues of angels found in ecclesiastical buildings, including churches, cathedrals and minsters. These convey to us idealized impressions of angels which contain the notion that they must have had beautified wings, like those of the finest swans. This vision, however, bears little resemblance at all to accounts of angels that appear either in the Old Testament or in the earliest Judaic religious literature. For confirmation of this, one has only to reread the account of the appearance of the Watchers to Amram - there is no mention of wings. Even in the Book of Enoch itself, there is concrete evidence to show that wings were grafted on to existing accounts of angels sometime after the first century AD, since earlier renditions of the text make no mention of wings at all.

As Tall as Trees

If we take away the wings we are left with two tall men, 'as I have never seen on earth'. Why is there this obsession with height in connection with the fallen race? Was there some deep-rooted psychological need for Judaeo-Christian angels to be of enormous stature? In the stylized art of Ancient Egypt, the Pharaohs, considered to be incarnations of the god Horus, were always depicted larger than any other figure around them, including their consorts and courtly entourage. Symbolic art of this nature makes perfect sense, since it instantly elevates the Pharaoh to a position higher than the rest of his subjects. In this way we can understand why divine beings, such as angels, should be portrayed as larger than life in religious iconography, but why were both the rebel Watchers and the Nephilim repeatedly described as giant in stature, or like 'trees' as they are metaphorically referred to in some accounts? Surely their great size must convey something more than simply misappropriate iconography. Could we possibly be dealing with actual human beings of greater stature than their contemporaries? Was this one of the features that made them stand out from other people?

Shining Like the Sun

The skin on the hands of the angels who appear to Enoch is described as 'whiter than snow', which seems to be another feature common to the fallen race. Elsewhere in the Book of Enoch, the Watchers are referred to simply as 'like white men', while, in the account of the birth of Noah, the infant is seen as possessing a body white as snow and red as a rose.' This suggests a type of complexion not dissimilar from that of white Caucasians of today, who often experience a ruddiness of the skin when exposed to harsh outdoor weather. Is this a clue to the Watcher's place of origin - an environment that suffered much harsher climatic conditions? Since the Book of Enoch was written by olive-skinned Jews in a hot sunny climate, this type of reference is not to be regarded lightly. In the same vein, the faces of the two 'men' who visit Enoch are described as shining 'like the sun', a metaphor invoked to denote Watcher-like beings in Hebrew myth and legend. What could the Jewish scribes have meant by using such a term? Was it simply to convey the divine nature of the beings in question, in a similar manner to the way in which saints and holy men are depicted with halos or nimbuses in Christian art, or was there another, more supernatural, explanation for such statements?

Some light is thrown on the matter in one fascinating account that follows shortly after the two men's appearance to Enoch. Having been transported to the various heavenly realms by these angelic beings, the antediluvian patriarch arrives at the seventh and final heaven, where he encounters the Lord seated upon a great throne. In the Lord's company are hosts of Cherubim and Seraphim, and Enoch is greeted by the archangels Gabriel and Michael, who are also described as Watchers in the Book of Enoch. The humble prophet is then made to undergo a form of ceremony in which he is anointed with oil by one of the archangels: 'And the Lord said to Michael: 'Go and take from Enoch his earthly robe, and anoint him with My holy oil, and clothe him with the raiment of My glory.' And so Michael did as the Lord spake to him. He 'stripped me of my clothes and anointed me and clothed me, and the appearance of that oil was more than a great light, and its anointing was like excellent dew; and its fragrance like myrrh, shining like a ray of the sun. And I gazed upon myself, and I was like one of His glorious ones. And there was no difference, and fear and trembling departed from me.'

Seeing beyond the highly religious overtones of these lines, it is difficult not to question the nature of the ceremony which Enoch undergoes. Stripped of his clothes, he is anointed with an oil that has a fragrance like myrrh. It makes him shine 'like a ray of the sun', so that he appears no different from the archangels, making all fear and trembling depart from him. Is there any possibility that the archangels, who obviously bore a close resemblance to Enoch in the first place, covered their bodies with a type of oil that made them shine 'like a ray of the sun'? Considering for a moment that we might well be dealing with highly distorted recollections of actual encounters between earthly individuals, then why should these exalted ones need to cover their bodies in oil? Was it simply for aesthetic or ritualistic purposes? Or was there some other more practical reason behind this act? It is too easy to jump to conclusions here, especially in the knowledge that the skin of the Watchers is, when described, almost always spoken of as 'white as snow' and ruddy in appearance. Yet might it be remotely feasible that the body oil was used to protect the skin from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation, in much the same way as we use a sun-block today? Such usage would undou