NEPHILIM (Continued - Chapters 2, 3 & 4)
Nephilim
(Continued)
Chapter 2
The Connection to the Book
Enoch walked with God;
then he was no more,
because God took him away.
The Book of Genesis 5:24
On the plane, Abelard sat next to a man who was reading a book with great interest. After a while, they both realized they were acquaintances. The man exclaimed: “I can’t believe it… I must be dreaming!”
Abelard said, “It’s impossible! Is that really you?”
The man asked back: “Abelard Ramez II, is that you?”
Abelard replied, “John Birdie! You haven’t changed a bit! Long time no see!”
“Thirty years, I guess,” John Birdie said. “We played soccer at the Bulldozers neighborhood team, remember? What a coincidence, Abelard!”
Abelard replied, “There are no coincidences, John. It is only an incidence.”
John said, “You used to be mystical when we were younger, and you still are.”
“You still read a lot, don’t you?” Abelard asked.
John answered, “I sure do, especially a book like this.”
John talked about their old friends and said he was still in touch with some of them. He said that he, too, had become interested in spiritual matters, and he was a member of a secret group.
Abelard found it strange and asked what the group’s name was. But John said if he revealed the name, it would no longer be secret. Abelard felt a bit ridiculous and remained silent as he stared at his friend.
He examined John’s face, looking for signs of happiness and for old moments that seemed erased by time. Then he asked, “What are you reading, John?”
“This is The Book of Enoch. Have you heard of it?”
“I read it many years ago, but I wasn’t prepared for it.”
“What do you mean, Abelard? You always seemed to be prepared for all kinds of readings!” John Birdie remarked.
Abelard explained, “Well, I studied Theology, and my professors had some reservations about the book of Enoch. It was wise to know about the book, but it was risky to like it.”
John said, “Well, a friend of mine, who lives in the rainforest, gave it to me. I’m almost done with it; you can keep it if you want.”
Abelard asked, “Is it a gift or a loan?”
“It’s a gift,” John answered, “Unless you tell me we won’t meet again in another thirty years.”
They kept on chatting about their lives. Abelard told him about the latest news in his life, including the fact that the woman who had donated her heart to him liked the book of Enoch. John Birdie asked, “What do you remember about the Book of Enoch? Is your memory still good?”
“Pretty good. How could I forget about such a book? Enoch was the seventh in Adam’s genealogy and was taken away from the Earth before the Great Flood, in order not to face death.”
John asked, “What else do you remember?”
Abelard said, “Theoretically speaking, I know a lot.”
“What, for example?”
“I know the book of Enoch says that between the creation of the human being and Noah’s world’s cataclysm, there was an angels’ rebellion.”
John added, “The second great universal fall — the second, Abelard!”
“I know, but why the emphasis on the fact that it was the second fall?” Abelard asked.
“Because the first, which was Lucifer’s, was due to mere conceit.”
“The second too, John. It was only another type of narcissistic fall, stirred by desire and lasciviousness.”
John asked, “Do you think that to every angels fall there is an equivalent human fall?”
“Good question. I don’t know. I’ve never thought about that. If I had to answer, I’d say ‘yes’ and ‘no’.” Abelard said.
John looked a bit puzzled. “What do you mean by ‘yes and no’? I can tell you still like ambiguous answers.”
Abelard said, “I do like ambiguous answers. Since Adam’s fall it’s been impossible to be human without being ambiguous.”
John insisted, “OK, but you haven’t answered.”
“First, I’d say ‘no’ because the true fall, Adam’s, was in fact our nature’s fall. In that sense, after Adam we are all fallen,” Abelard said. “Second, I’d say ‘yes’ because with the falling of the second group of angels we fell too, but not as before; it was a fall of our behavior. I think that this matter of angels trying to become flesh was deeper than we can imagine.”
“In what sense was it deeper, Abelard?”
“The Book of the Beginnings says that something scary happened after the second fall of angels,” Abelard answered. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the Earth. This was said only after the fall of the angels, who mixed with human flesh. Then, the Great Flood was announced. Interesting, isn’t it?”
“It sure is. Do we find it impressive for the same reasons? Why do you find it interesting?” John asked.
“John, the fact that the angels committed iniquity with the daughters of man was an attempt at incarnation. There is no other incarnation but that of the Name, who is Emanuel, and means ‘God with us’. Maybe that’s why the verse ‘The Name came in flesh to destroy the works of the devil’ sounds so crucial to the world of the spirits.”
When he heard that, John Birdie got nervous. He stood up, walked down the aisle and had a glass of water. Then he went back to his seat a little pale and asked on the spot: “Do you remember the names of the fallen angels and their leaders?”
“Why do you want me to say that, John? Is this a memory game?” Abelard asked.
“Yes, let’s put it that way. Let’s say it’s a memory game. Do you remember their names?” John Birdie insisted.
Abelard replied, “They were the Universal Watchers.”
“And do you remember how they fell?”
“Sure. They were saint until the day their leaders Azazyel and Samyaza lustfully desired women. We talked about this a minute ago, before you stood up.”
“I know, but I need to comment on that. That’s the way things happened: a strange energy flew in their beings when they saw the naked women, bathing, amused by their own beauty, caressing their hair, or when they became astonished at their faces reflected in the waters they used for bathing.”
“My goodness, John! This is really intense to you, man. You speak as if you’d been there or as if you were reading a text. You seem to know it by heart,” Abelard said.
“And who said I wasn’t there?” John replied. “I know all about the story. I know it by heart, from the heart.”
“And what else do you know, John?”
“After setting eyes on women, they ignored the Creation. They only had eyes for women. The Creation was abandoned.”
Abelard asked, “And do you remember what they did to seduce them?”
John replied, “Hey, I was the one asking questions here, Abelard!”
“I know,” Abelard said. “But tell me what they did to seduce them.”
“They were spirits. So, they had to use their materialization power for women to see them. They had to look as human as possible. As angels, they knew how to do it. The Book of Books mentions the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation…”
As he listened to John’s narrative, Abelard remembered many of the reports about angels who battled for the people of God, ate sunset meals and temporarily experienced the human condition. He remembered the warning for people not to neglect hospitality, because many would unknowingly entertain angels. Then he said, “After being with an angel, women would lose desire for men, right, John?”
“Azazyel, Samyasa and many other Watchers became irresistible,” John agreed. “I wouldn’t blame those women for their choice. Angels must be better!”
“Yes, buddy. Then the world changed on Earth as well as in Heaven!”
While looking out of the plane window, Abelard thought how amazing it was that deeds in Heaven could change things on Earth, and how tragic it was that things on Earth could provoke Heaven, either for good or for evil. He thought about how human beings forget things as essential as this one. Further: How could such a fascinating story be almost forgotten by Humankind? “How do you interpret this story, John?” He asked.
“You know the story, Abelard. Why do you want me to interpret it?”
“I don’t know, but tell me anyway, will you?”
Then John said that as the Watchers had defiled the daughters of men, the Earth became corrupt. In their anxiety to deepen their erotic and hypnotic control over women, the angels learned how to seduce them. They developed perfumes extracted from natural essences, made jewelry and ornaments out of precious stones taken from the heart of the earth, played sophisticated music with advanced musical instruments, devised gigantic architectonic projects and had them built as places for passion, seduction and prostitution on the Earth.
He also said that the Watchers excelled in the art of extracting roots, mushrooms and other herbs from the Earth. These elements, alone or mixed, produced the most fantastic perceptions in the human beings, especially women. They literally had out-of-this-world sensations. Their sight would turn golden and a flaming life sensation would give their bodies a feeling of a kind of quenched thirst.
As if his memory had unlocked and enabled him to remember many things he knew and had been stored in his unconscious, Abelard interrupted: “The beings who were born from the sexual relations between angels and women were giants called Nephilims, which means the fallen ones.”
“Boy, can you imagine such a thing? The world went crazy!” John exclaimed.
Abelard said, “Sure did! Natures mixed up. It was the start of a reengineering process of the forbidden essences.”
“It was more than that, I tell you,” John remarked. “It was much more than that, Abelard.”
“I didn’t finish yet, John,” Abelard replied. “I was about to say that it was the first act of physical intervention in the psychophysical stratus of the Creation. As I said, it was also a blasphemy and attempt at incarnation.”
“Man, it is really good to talk to you. You know the implications. I miss our crazy talk… I really miss it, Abelard!”
“This is not ‘crazy talk’, John. Existence opened itself to be reproduced against the nature of the created species. The product of this re-creation was something that could not be. In other words, it was without being.”
“So, only a flood could purge the Earth. That’s why I like this book. It’s about cause and effect, ” John said.
“Sure! The Creation assaulted the Creator; what else could happen?”
“And there’s more to it,” John said. “Punishment came. He banned the fallen Angels from the heavenly hosts. This story is tremendously hard.”
“Yes, it is a hard story, indeed. They became fallen beings, traitors of their own nature and talent.”
“But did it have to be like this? I mean, why a punishment for eternity?” John asked.
Abelard explained, “Only one is eternal, John: The Eternal. Eternity is a characteristic of the Eternal; eternity begins and ends in the Eternal.”
“Are you trying to say that eternity has no beginning or end?”
“What I mean is that only the Eternal has no beginning or end. He just is.” Abelard replied.
John remarked, “I hope eternity has an end.”
“Yes, eternity has an end if it began with the Eternal. Who comes first, eternity or the Eternal? In my opinion, eternity is the environment of the Eternal. But the Eternal is greater than eternity,” Abelard said.
“Wait, wait, wait... Hold your horses, Abelard, please. Sorry, I don’t get it,” John begged.
Abelard smiled and replied, “Hold my horses? Sounds like sports. All right, we can talk about horse races if you want.”
“Aw, c’mon…”
“Just kidding, John.”
“OK, tell me one thing: Why do you think the Eternal is greater than eternity?” John asked.
Abelard replied, “Eternity is, but it doesn’t know that it is. The Eternal is, and He knows that He-is. Eternity is impersonal. The Eternal is the person from whom we come. In addition, other existences are and don’t know they are. Take the sun: it is but it doesn’t know it is. Besides, there are many eternities.”
“For heaven’s sake, you have gone too far! What is this thing of ‘many eternities’? Isn’t one enough?” John said.
Abelard recited, “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God — this is what I believe. Also, the Eternal’s love is from everlasting to everlasting…”
John interrupted, “Abelard, this is like discussing the sex of angels; it’ll lead us nowhere.”
“Hey, I thought you liked ‘the sex of angels’. The Book of Enoch is literally on the sex of angels!” Abelard replied.
“What I mean”, John said, “is that this talk has nothing to do with the here and now.”
“Really? How do you know that? Maybe this is the great issue: ‘here and now’. Anyway, who knows what is the ‘here and now’? I don’t.”
John said he was not feeling well and needed to go to the lavatory. Meanwhile, Abelard decided to read some writings on what they had been discussing in the Book of Books.
First he read the Book of Jude:
And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way,
Then he read the Book of Peter, the fisherman who became an apostle:
For God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment; he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness.
He was also reminded of a text about the Name who visited, in spiritual triumph, those who fell before the floodwaters:
Also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.
He thought: “He’s clearly talking about the rebellion of the fallen angels who entered into prostitution and how the floodwaters came on the Earth”.
He looked out of the plane window. Everything was green down there. All of a sudden, his eyes dived again into the scenes that the book of Enoch was drawing in his mind. He realized he was connected to that story. It was as if he had a key to those old times scenarios.
John came back from the plane restroom and said emphatically, “The fallen angels had to take possession of that new nature. Then, they began eating live animals and drinking human blood. The Earth became the set of a terror movie. The fallen angels attacked men in the darkness, in the middle of the night. The next day, they would be bitten, torn to pieces or completely bloodless. The Nephilims drank human blood because they knew that blood and life would have the same visceral connection.”
“What a mystery… What a mystery, my friend John.”
“What are you talking about, Abelard?”
“To me, flesh and spirit can only get married in the chapel of the soul. Without the soul, a being that is only flesh and spirit is doomed to exist divided and divorced from itself forever.” — Abelard explained.
John said. “Buddy, this is profound; I’ll think of it. ‘The Chapel of the Soul’ — how interesting!”
Abelard said, “As far as I remember, the book of Enoch says that the Nephilims became evil, dominating beings.”
John remarked, “That’s only natural: The pain of being neither completely angels nor humans possessed them.”
Abelard asked, “Are you trying to justify the fact that they became the great despots of that historical period, ‘the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown’?”
“Your memory is amazing!” John exclaimed. “Keep the book. Cedar told me to give it to someone who had a soul and warned me never to forget this: If it seems absurd, then it’s very possible.”
“I don’t believe in that,” Abelard replied.
“What do you believe in, then?” John Asked.
Abelard stated, “For what is impossible for man is possible for God. This is my belief.”
“Cedar told me this was another version. Whatever it is, keep the book,” John said.
Abelard asked, “Who’s Cedar?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Abelard repeated, “Who’s Cedar?”
“A giant, my friend; Cedar is a giant,” John said.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing, dear Abelard.”
The answer did not bother Abelard. He gazed at John Birdie and hugged him. They heard the crew announce that they were about to land on the capital of all rainforests.
q q q
Chapter 3
Isaac Porto, the Caboclo
See that you do not despise one of these
