The Devil's Advocate (revisited)

In Harmonic_Concordance@yahoogroups, Carolyn D wrote (in a reply to Chandara):

With regards to Satan, my understanding of the christian mythology is that as Lucifer he was once the highest created being, entrusted with the education of Man, but when he realized that Man was destined to become a greater creation he became jealous, decieved (sic) and brought about the downfall of man; and Jesus was then entrusted to take his place. In that regard, he would certainly be considered an adversary or opponent, but that in no way implies equality to God.

[Note: All sections in italics are quotes from Ms D's original email]

Dear Carolyn D,

Our opinions are largely derived from early inputs, the books we read or sermons we heard, only too few are from personal experience or direct insight, so methinks it's a good practice to not get overly attached to even our most cherished opinions - especially the ones institutionally imprinted in our circuits or inherited as prejudice from our ancestors.

With that little preamble out of the way, let's look at scary names like "Lucifer" and "Satan" and see where they come from. For good measure we'll throw in "The Devil," "Beelzebub" and "Mephistopheles."

LUCIFEROS is Latin for Light-Bringer, a poetic tag for the planet Venus (whose esoteric symbol is the pentagram or 5-pointed star). Also known as Prometheus in Greek mythology - a young Titan from an earlier evolutionary epoch who irked the usurping Olympian gods by taking fire from the heavens and bringing it to a benighted humanity. For this terrible "crime" Prometheus was chained to a rock and had his liver eaten by an eagle during the day; at night his liver would regenerate so that the whole gory punishment could proceed all over again ad infinitum, ad nauseam, till the end of Time! This is rather revealing of the cruel and vengeful Olympian psyche which labelled Lucifer/Prometheus as a traitor or whistle-blower (the Olympians didn't want humanity to have Fire or Light so they could forever exploit us as slave labor). Bear in mind, the leader of the Olympian gods was Zeus (later Latinized to Deus), also known as Jupiter or Jove, which derives from Yahweh or Jehovah.

Indeed, it's easy to draw a mythic comparison between Prometheus/Lucifer and Yeshua/Jesus: both upset the Status Quo and threatened the Powers That Be simply by shedding their Light in dark places - and for that were severely punished by crucifixion on the cross of Matter. Both were cult heroes with one significant difference: the admirers of Prometheus/Lucifer continue to be labeled "subversives" till this very day, while the followers of Yeshua/Jesus were abducted and mind-controlled by MK-Ultra Agent Saul of Tarsus (aka St Paul) into believing they were still loyal to the ideals of their hero when, in truth, they had been deactivated and turned into docile tithe-paying citizens of the "Holy" Roman Empire under King Constantine and his best crony the Pope. In Hoc Signo Vinces. The politician unites with the priest under the sign of the cross to conquer the world.

Now from the viewpoint of humanity, Lucifer/Prometheus is a cult hero - a cosmic Robin Hood, Daniel Berrigan, Julian Assange or Edward Snowden - whose love for humanity (or justice and truth) overrides his fear of the Olympians' wrath. Imagine some Deep Throat from within the White House leaking some confidential information that could topple the regime. Fire is a metaphor for Intelligence, Knowledge, Technology, Illumination, Cosmic Gnosis. What's the connection with Venus? Apart from being the brightest visible planet, Venus is reputed to be the home of the Kumaras and the Hathors - spiritual guides to an evolving humanity. It so happens that Venus is the Roman name for Aphrodite, Greek goddess of erotic love - that's right, the source of our sexiness. In effect, the female aspect of Lucifer/Prometheus is Aphrodite, Goddess of Love. And we know how terrified of sex the patriarchal god of Abraham was (and still is) - note the many taboos against "carnal knowledge" unless "sanctified" by the Church through "marriage." And where does the Serpent come in? That's right - he encourages Eve to taste the Forbidden Fruit from the Tree of Immortality.

Notice how the serpent in indigenous mythology is invariably associated with the Life Force, with the Kundalini, as the Guardian of Secret Lore and Wisdom - while it's viciously reviled by all the patriarchal Book Religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). The Serpent also happens to be the emblem of the House of Enki, while the Eagle represents Enlil, in Sumerian mythology - but we won't delve into the subject of sibling rivalry for now or the story gets too complicated.

My point is: when you study the etymology and mythology of the names "Lucifer" and "Prometheus" it's impossible to pin anything "evil" on this archetypal entity. Indeed, it's fairly easy to end up admiring Lucifer's heroism in defying the Johnny-come-lately "deity" or local administrator known as Zeus/Yahweh/Jehovah/Jove.

Let's elaborate on what Lucifer/Prometheus's fate means: to be chained on a rock (a dense planet called Earth), liver devoured (lifetime after lifetime, the liver symbolizing the seat of the soul) by an Eagle (interchangeably a Phoenix or Scorpion, all symbols of resurrection) suggests that the defiant and rebellious Light-Bringing Spirit became imprisoned within the 3D Matrix and had to experience multiple incarnations within the physical realm... and yet could never really die because it would rise again repeatedly like the phoenix. Doesn't that sound pretty much like what all of us have had to endure? Are we not the descendants of Lucifer, still imprisoned by the Frequency Fence installed by an insecure Anunnaki godling named Enlil, later called Eli, Allah, Yahweh/Jehovah (or J. Edgar Hoover)? And are we not, like Yeshua/Jesus, perfectly capable of liberating ourselves from the illusion of death, resurrecting our bodies, and transmuting them into ascension vehicles of Light fueled by Love?

Moving on to "Satan": the word derives from the Arabic/Hebraic shaitan which simply means "nemesis" or "opponent." In effect, anyone playing opposite you in a friendly game of ping-pong can be described as your shaitan or Satan. Yup, Satan is your chess partner. And, remember, to your opponent, YOU are "shaitan."

In short, the naming of "Satan" as the opponent of "God" could well be a surreptitious insert contrived by a special committee appointed by King James I some time in the 17th century, when the Old and New Testaments were first translated into English - based on the Latin version, translated from the Greek which in turn had been translated from the Hebrew, drawing on fragments of the original Aramaic documents inscribed by the Essenes from a multitude of oral traditions going all the way back to Mesopotamian times and the Enuma Elish - and eventually made available to the masses through the newly invented Caxton press. God knows what idiosyncratic modifications, omissions or mistranslations found their way into the Authorized King James Bible - used as the basis for most "modernized" editions published by various evangelical factions with different agendas. (Indeed, just to further complexify the issue, Mormons say that the tabernacles revealed to Joseph Smith in the 19th century by the ascended master Moroni are the missing chapters of the "unwholly" Bible. The original Tabernacles inscribed on gold plates apparently vanished soon after Smith had copied them into his journal).

How about "The Devil"? Where does THAT come from? The dictionary says it's etymologically derived from the Greek diabolos (one who curses God). But the word may also have its obscure roots in the Sanskrit deva and devi - meaning "god" and "goddess" but oftentimes applied to the overlighting Spirit of a particular area, element, or species. The gross distortion probably originated in the Zoroastrian era when the word deva became associated with the Asuras - an invading race regarded as barbarians and therefore "demonized" as an "evil" force. Even the word "demon" has its source in the Greek daemon (which in New Age circles would be described as a spirit guide or Muse); only in the 19th century did the concept of daemon acquire a negative connotation when its spelling was changed to "demon." Spelt backwards, the Devil merely comes across as one who has Lived!

And Beelzebub? What's the etymology here? Ba'al or Bel (from which the French word "belle" may have derived) was the tutelary spirit of the Philistines - a non-Semitic tribe that came into conflict with the Israelites and therefore got seriously badmouthed. Today a Philistine refers to someone totally uncultured, just as "barbarian" originally meant someone from Barbary (northwestern Africa). "Ba'al Zebub" (Lord of the Flies) is just a literary epithet for someone extremely scruffy and unwashed - which is how the bourgeois nouveau riche often views their rural brethren. Interestingly, words like "pagan" and "heathen" originally referred to the peasantry - in other words, plain-living, unsophisticated countryfolk.

As for Mephistopheles (possibly a combination of "mephitic" and "anopheles" - meaning "foul-smelling" and "unprofitable"), the name was coined by the anonymous 16th century author of Faustbuch who inspired Christopher Marlowe's - and later Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's - world-famous Dr Faustus from which we get that exquisite metaphor, the Faustian pact of Hi-Tech Man (or as George Harrison sang: "We were talking/About the world that's gone so cold/And the people/Who gain the world and lose their soul...") In this instance, Mephistopheles is clearly the personification of Scientific Materialism - or the twisted notion that "Man was created to have dominion over Nature."

So... who, what, where is God's Adversary? Perhaps those Doomsday Preachers who deceive and stupefy In Her Name - all the while raping and pillaging Her beauty and bounty!

The Essenes and gnostics considered that the creator of the world, called the "demiurge", was the equivalent to the jealous, punitive god of the Old Testement (sic) and was not the highest authority in the universe ......

Yahweh or Jehovah is indeed a junior godling, a sort of regional administrator who botched up big time (in all fairness, perhaps through bad advice from a bunch of mediocre intellects with severely aberrated reptilian egos, just as GWB, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton have served the secret government as a front for hideously arrogant and stupid ambitions). But we live and learn – or soon get demoted.

Whether Satan exists in actuality or allegory, or both, I don't know; but I do know his cult following is something you don't want to mess with.


It all begins as a "cult" - and when there are enough followers, it becomes an entire "culture." Take blood sacrifice and flag-worshiping for instance. A bunch of demented wannabe teenage "magicians" sacrifice a black cat in the woods - and there's a huge brouhaha when they get caught. But put them in public office and let them sacrifice thousands, even millions, of human beings in nonsensical wars - and they get hailed as Conquering Heroes, Loyal Nationalists and Empire Builders! You're quite right, Carolyn - you don't want to mess with this sort of coldblooded cult or they'll rocket-bomb you in bed.

I rest my flaming suitcase.

[First posted 2 February 2007, reposted 11 June 2014, 9 November 2016 & 4 November 2021]

Mythicopolitical surrealism redefined ~ "I, Pet Goat" by Heliofant

I, PET GOAT (2012) 

 ABOUT HELIOFANT: Based in the beautiful Laurentian mountains just north of Montreal, Canada, Heliofant is a nascent independent computer animation studio focused on creating experimental and challenging content. Bringing together artists from the fields of dance, music, computer animation and visual arts, the company is very interested in exploring the common ground that underlies many spiritual and philosophical traditions in a lyrical form.

[First posted 31 July 2012]

FROM ROME TO AMERICA (revisited)

Illustration by David Dees

AMERICA is today considered by many the only global superpower in terms of economic and military might. What led a former British colony, with an independent history of just over 200 years, to become “the most powerful nation on Earth” – even if some might view it as a “rogue” nation, feared and loathed by a staggering majority of human beings?

A quote from American Dream, Global Nightmare by Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies (Icon Books, UK, 2004):

America’s efforts to rule the world and to see its own history as the destiny of all humanity are intrinsic to its mythology. Its lethal righteousness, its claim that its model of democracy is the only model, and the linking of democracy to free markets are all an integral part of its worldview. In other words, America has turned its mythology into pathology.

On planet Earth, the perception of POWER has long been confused with FORCE. All empires were founded at swordpoint, and ruled with an iron hand through sheer terror. Every empire has risen and fallen with the waxing and waning of the authority and might of a specific ruler or dynasty. Each empire has left a cultural and ideological legacy – first through the spread of a language, then through the spread of a religious belief system - and both of these factors inevitably influence the evolution of civilizations and cultures.

Constantine the Great (Gernot Keller)

From Sumeria to Babylon, and from Phoenicia and Egypt to Greece and, subsequently, Rome – the pattern of earthly power is clearly traceable as it migrates to ever greener pastures, in search of natural resources, more equable climates, and room to expand. With the decline of Egypt, Persia and Greece, Rome became the new center of the imperial drive. But even as its military influence began to fade, Roman law and Latin as a language of the ruling elite became firmly entrenched in Europe and Britain.

A few centuries down the line, the Roman eagle – symbol of the predator from on high – migrated across the Atlantic where it became the American eagle; and the indomitable legions of Roman centurions gave way to the efficient and portable killing machine called the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Marine Corps. The degree of destructivity has grown by quantum leaps – from stone-hurling catapults, arrows and spears, to smart missiles armed with nuclear warheads, and a criminally insane arsenal of biological, chemical, electromagnetic, psychological – even climatological - weapons in less than twenty centuries.

HAARP electromagnetic beam transmitter

THE LUNATIC DREAM of world domination has destroyed billions of lives and our dreams of universal peace and harmony - and brought us to the very brink of ecosystemic collapse. Where does it originate, this mad impulse to rule over all instead of oneself? This gross misunderstanding of the meaning of Mastery – which is authentic only when it takes the form of Self-Mastery, but becomes a travesty when the “master” acquires vampiric power through enslaving less aggressive individuals and other lifeforms. Some erroneously believe it is an intrinsic part of “human nature” – but what we label “human nature” is really just a set of inculcated beliefs, prejudices, and legally sanctioned behaviors genetically and socioculturally instilled in each new generation. In effect, what passes as “human nature” is simply a pre-programmed Operating System chromosomally installed in our biocomputers. As such, it is possible to customize, modify, or enable and disable specific functions once we learn the encoding language.

Whether you call it an aberration in the evolutionary impulse, or a defect in the genome of the species Homo sapiens, the impulse to dominate has certainly become a counter-survival program deeply embedded in the DNA of all territorial organisms. We see it clearly manifest in primate behavior, wherein the mark of an “alpha male” is invariably the length of its fangs, and the capacity and ferocity of its will to subjugate others. And yet these very qualities are held up as the unmistakable signs of “leadership potential” and political power has long been in the hands of those most unfit to rule, their genetics being the most acutely distorted by this violent and aberrant implant.

We call it an “implant” because it certainly was never part of the original blueprint of existence. How do we know this to be so? Simply by entering into the primordial consciousness encoded in our DNA and accessible through our own neurology. From that quintessential perspective, it is impossible to conceive of ever creating any evolutionary program that would ultimately bring about such an intense degree of pain, suffering, and sheer abuse upon one’s own progeny. In other words, the original blueprint of existence is purely Edenic – the quest for ever more intimate and expansive degrees of self-knowledge is always predicated on the pleasure principle – never pain! Whatever interrupted and disrupted the original evolutionary program planted the seed of criminality and miscreation within the primordial genetic thread – which is in itself immortal and indestructible, though highly mutable and thus susceptible to unwholesome modification and mutation.

"There were giants upon the earth in those days..."

Those who have read Zecharia Sitchin’s interpretation of the Sumerian cuneiform tablets conclude that it was indeed the Nibiruan ETs (the Anunnaki or Nefilim) who introduced this “master-slave” dominant-submissive polarity into the nascent human psyche when they manufactured the “Adama” in their Earth-based genetic laboratory. Sitchin’s calculations locate the beginning of Homo sapiens at approximately 240,000 years ago. However, paleoanthropologists have found hominid remains dating back at least a couple million years. In effect, there is no immutable data available that allows us to draw any exact conclusions as regards the origins of the present human species.

Nevertheless, we may safely assume that many counter-survival behaviors were deliberately “hardwired” into our neural circuitry – mainly to prevent us from eventually figuring out how the 3D Matrix works and thereby shortcircuiting the frequency fence that keeps our awareness hemmed in, and our bodies trapped within a prescribed set of limitations. Even the aging program is essentially just a built-in mechanism triggered by a preset endocrinal clock.

THE CONCEPT OF AMERICA itself is an ingenious marketing ploy packaged as an extreme form of “brand loyalty” wherein every child raised in the United States is methodically brainwashed into believing he or she lives in “the world’s greatest country.” This is why the typical American grows up totally insulated from any real understanding or knowledge of the world beyond the U.S.A. There is a huge gap between domestic propaganda about America being “the Land of the Free, and Home of the Brave” and America’s ignoble foreign policy - as implemented through covert CIA activities which destabilize and undermine independent local governments, while installing and propping up political stooges friendly to U.S. capital interests. This strategy of world domination through bribery and quiet coercion constitutes the thrust towards “globalization” – really an euphemism for economic and ideological colonization carried out through the clever manipulation of mass communications, thereby molding “public opinion” via the powerful tools of advertising and public relations.

Five hundred years ago, mastery of the high seas was the key to world domination. The British Empire was founded on the colorful maritime exploits of swashbuckling buccaneers who earned their knighthoods by plundering, pillaging, and planting flags in the ruling monarch’s name. By the second half of the 20th century, however, the key to world domination lay in mastery of the airwaves – control of the mass media, and thereby the power to manipulate perceptions on a global scale.

Photo: Richard Lund

This is where America came into its own in the battle for the hearts and minds of the human population. Through the Hollywood Dream Factory and slickly produced TV entertainment packages, America rose to pre-eminence as the world’s biggest purveyor of canned information. Children in far-flung former British colonies grew up watching American-made movies and television programs, and were painlessly indoctrinated into accepting the American cultural idiom as their own. The U.S.A. advertised its own crass, consumeristic brand of “democracy” as the superior way of life – wherein citizens could vote every four years for Tweedledum (Republican) or Tweedledee (Democrat), while choosing from a bewildering array of TV stations and a dazzling kaleidoscope of detergents and shampoos. The American Dream was sold to the whole world under the guise of globalization. America billed itself as the de facto leader of “the Free World” during the so-called Cold War years that marked the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the Third World War – a battle of belief systems, marketing strategies, and corporate propaganda waged by professional “spin doctors” on behalf of their clients, the über-elite Old Boys’ Network that owns 99% of the banks and mass media.

HOWEVER, behind (and beyond) the Great American Marketing Machine – and way below the radar of public perception – lurks an insidious influence that has been called a variety of names, none of which comes anywhere close to describing the disease. Some conveniently label it Zionism, the Illuminati Conspiracy... or the Lucifer Effect, alluding to the allegory of how God’s most brilliant Archangel undertook the onerous task of establishing Free Will by leading a revolt in Heaven, thus creating a deep schism in the Universal Mind, splitting Energy itself into negative and positive poles.

This tragicomic dualism of the embattled and “divided self” generates perpetual conflict between our public and private personas, portrayed so memorably in Robert Louis Stevenson’s story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – or J.R.R. Tolkien’s Smeagol and Gollum. Indeed, it can be said that all drama emerges from the interplay of Light and Dark - from the animated shadows on the wall of Plato’s Cave to the buffalo-hide puppets of Javanese wayang kulit, Magic Lantern shows, and Dreamworks’ 3D digital imaging masterpieces.

When we are fast asleep, life is but a dream (alas, sometimes a hideous nightmare). In German, “dream” is rendered as Traum – just one letter short of Trauma. The tug-of-war between Good and Evil, Angel and Demon, Left and Right, Male and Female, Rich and Poor, Arab and Jew, ceases the moment we reconcile and reconnect our inner and outer selves – thereby redeeming and reinstating Lucifer as “The Light Bringer” to his Heavenly Throne - and rejoining the famous Siamese twins, Yin and Yang who, separated at birth, grew up erroneously believing themselves to be archrivals and sworn enemies.


[First published 17 January 2007, reposted 28 August 2013. Extracted from an unpublished manuscript, THE (UNFINISHED) BOOK OF JOHN ~ Confessions of a former Christian fundamentalist]

John Lamb Lash is indeed the true successor of Joseph Campbell, unraveler of myths!

Published 1 Feb 2017

Spoken commentary on Sophia/Lucifer Part 2 - The Satanic Distortion:
In this discourse John Lash debunks 'Salon Satanism,' and talks about how to delete the contaminated files of 'Satan' & 'Satanism' in order to utilize the Super Learning Event provided by Gaia Sophia through the Maitreya Process.

Recorded on 28th January 2017

Unravel the biggest mystery of all time... with John Lamb Lash!

The True Lucifer is Gaia Sophia
Uploaded 9 October 2016

John Lamb Lash has been called the true successor of Mircea Eliade and the rightful heir of Joseph Campbell. Unlike those two world-class academics, John is a self-educated free-lance scholar who combines studies and experimental mysticism to teach directive mythology: that is, the application of myth to life, rather than its mere interpretation.

He is a leading exponent of the power of myth to direct individual experience and drive historical events over the long term. An expert on sidereal mythology, naked-eye astronomy, precession, and the World Ages, he also teaches the critique of belief-systems.

On metahistory.org, he presents a radical revision of Gnosticism, with original commentaries on the Nag Hammadi codices. He also presents the only complete restoration by any scholar of the Sophianic myth of the Pagan Mysteries, the sacred story of Gaia-Sophia, recounting the origin of the earth and the human species from the galactic core.

[Brought to my attention by Arjuna Bandlow]