Friday, February 24, 2012

Four

Among the jinn there were those that didn't chose sides. For those that didn't, hiding out almost became essential, and for those that did decide they weren't totally on the same page with God(Allah), they ended up enslaved by Solomon.

As I understand it, and some of this [i]is[/i] from angelics I know elsewhere, with the remainder being from various texts, some of the indecisive angels ended up being turned into djinn. Then again, Iblis/Azazel/Lucifer supposedly suffered the same fate, although I don't think of him as being the embodiment of evil that he's typically given "credit" for being. For that matter, his very name means light-bringer, and most of the bad wrap stems from associations with that term being given to a King of Babylon in Isaiah. In Peter, the same name refers to the Morning Star, and in Revelation Jesus refers to himself by the title Morning Star.

How would this be possible? Well, if you believe the Johannites, Jesus was never the messiah and snatched the position away from the person the title should have belonged to, John the Baptist. This would explain accounts of Salome receiving John's head, the fact Herod was scared of John (but never mentions being so of Jesus), and John's repeated uncertainty about Jesus being "The One". It also helps explain why a man supposedly without sin, would need to be baptized by another man. In that time period, receiving baptism was the equivalent of entering into being a follower of that particular leader, which would have Jesus becoming a follower of John. 


But so, if Jesus usurped the position, he could be doing one of at least two things: accosting John's ministry, and his bringing John's flock into being his own or pulling a Sophia-doing something that would seem odd to us (being the bad guy), in order to bring about the maturity of civilization, in order that it might eventually recognize the duality of the divine. While it would be nice to believe the latter, I tend to lean toward it being a case of the former. Based on other information, it seems like Jesus had a political agenda, and needed to reinforce his numbers somehow. This would give a reason for the fish and loaves gathering, which we are given to understand, only included men.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Three

Something occurred to me a few days ago, but I haven't had time to sit down and really flesh it all out. At the most basic level, I just wanted to point out that in many cultures around the world (albeit mostly in North Africa and the Middle East), djinn are seen as still existing. They're not only beings of the past, and events as late as the mid 2000s have included hospital, police, and therapist records from individuals that believed djinn are always around, and very active. I just thought it was important that I bring that up, because I think it also influences my own perspective on the concept of death and the afterlife, not to mention what may happen at the end (i.e. possible ascension).

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Two: Part II

I suppose it would be possible for angels to not have free will, and still end up having a revolt, if God wanted them to have one for some reason. I tend to follow a lot that is in apocryphal writings, especially the ones that were extant for a long period, and then suddenly tossed out after the Council decided something in them was heresy. I mean, there are multiple versions of Genesis in the existing Bible, and it's described that God originally told Adam and Eve that he would kill them if they ate from the tree. Kill them. The serpent had them eat so they could have knowledge, and explained that God wanted to hoard it for himself. God relented after the eating, and just threw them out. But if God had allowed them to remain, mankind would never expand its experience, and sometimes that is more important than knowledge (as it ends up creating a knowledge all its own). So perhaps he was doing the same with angels. Give them some rope, and see if they hang themselves. Otherwise, if God didn't want them to exercise free will, then they couldn't (assuming God was all-powerful).

As for Solomon, whose better good? He enslaved a race of beings in order to build a temple, to honor a deity, that gave him the ring that allowed him to enslave the race for that single purpose. And why were they enslaved? Because they didn't want to just build it for him; they wanted to exercise their free will. It's too much like the serpent incident, and hence, why I typically believe of a egoistic demiurge. Then, once the temple was built, he went on to use them for his other projects (such as the harem). The twisted thing is, one of his wives was believed to have been the offspring of a human and a djinn.

What happened to the djinn? Well, I tend to think that some of them are still off in the desert, or their otherwise allocated location for their type, doing their own thing. 

Friday, February 3, 2012

Two: Part I

The idea of the djinn pre-dates Islam, but that is where most of the source material available comes from right now. God created angels and djinn (presumably at about the same time), with angels going to heaven, and djinn going to earth. The explanation in the Qur'an is that one angel later rebelled, and was turned into a djinn, becoming one of the problem ring leaders of his new group. No explanation is given on how it was physically possible, nor is it explained how an angel (which in Islam do not have free will, unlike the djinn), managed to rebel. 

Muhammad said that was how it was, and no questioned it. Then again, Muhammad thought he was inspired by a djinn, not God, and it was his family and friends that convinced him otherwise, struggling for power control after he died. It was in their best interest not to question the man, however much his ideas might run contradictory to one another. 

I've looked at images of Mt. Hermon, which is currently best known for its skiing, while I remember a place that is sandy and arid, with not much vegetation except on the fringes. There were sandy pillars covered in writing, and the whole thing was on a platform that balanced itself (not unlike the one that shows up in the second National Treasure movie). From that platform, we could see the world below, but it took going down to humans for us to interact and we were often disinclined to do so. I've scoured over images of alphabets and languages as well, with what I remember being somewhere between cuneiform and extremely basic heiroglyphics.
Last, but not least, my memories oh my own physicality don't match up with those of the others here. I don't recall having six wings, just two, and I distinctly recall being a large feline around humanoids that were closer to what we'd consider Nephilim than Seraphim. The djinn are one of only three groups said to take on that kind of feline, winged form. 

Now, the only other human life I recall having, that man could easily have passed for an angel taking on a human form. He had long red hair, was tall (about 6' 4"), muscled, very pale (redhead, you know), but he had the same eye color I do (amber). He was a soldier, but I sometimes suspect my memories of the actual war were just the present-me placing him in a context I understand (the American Revolution).