Enochian Abrahamic Animism
How this lost scripture unifies monotheism, polytheism, and animism.
My intuition had recently compelled me to read the infamous Book of Enoch for a second time. I was not sure why. I had already read that book before and found it strange, ultimately not living up to its hype. But upon finishing my second reading, I noticed that there are a great number of subtle details that can elude even a careful reader that point to astonishing realities that are relevant to all spiritual seekers in our time. In this article, we will discuss the benevolent spiritual beings who serve God within the context of the Book of Enoch and its implications for how we ought to think of the relationship between God and the gods.
For those of you who don’t already know, Enoch is a mysterious character from The Book of Genesis who lived in the antediluvian world. He stands out from all of the names in the long genealogical fifth chapter of Genesis because he doesn’t die and is instead taken by God to live with Him. There is never any explanation given for why he alone of all the postlapsarian humans escapes the doom of death that is ordained for all descendants of Adam. Enoch is the main character. In this text, written three hundred years before Christ and quoted numerous times by The Apostles, we get a chance to learn about the life of this ancient prophet.
But that’s not the main draw of the book. In the sixth chapter of Genesis, we learn that “the sons of God” (Angels) mated with daughters of men and produced Giants. These giants are presumably wiped out during the global flood that takes place in the next few chapters of Genesis, leaving us to wonder about these giants. The Book of Enoch is primarily known for what it reveals about The Nephilim, aka The Giants. The narrative of the giants actually only takes up about 1/6th of the book, and it is followed by Enoch’s visions about Judgment Day related to us in the form of poetic parables interspersed with Enoch getting a tour of the cosmos with the guidance of angels. Each of these sections is interesting in its own right, but naturally the giants tend to get all of the attention.
I think much of what is written online about the giants is actually very superficial. The startling implications of what Enoch reveals about the antediluvian giants only start to become apparent once we understand the cosmological and eschatological aspects of the book, which indeed make up the majority of the book. In fact, the book begins and ends with cosmology and eschatology, not with the epic narrative of the giants that most hone in on exclusively when reading this book due to how flashy that is. The Book of Enoch must consider cosmology and eschatology most important if it devotes most of its pages to them, and without understanding the unique cosmological and eschatological context that the narrative of the giants takes place in, we can’t really understand it. We will save the discussion on the giants for a later time.
Mainstream Abrahamists, from what I’ve seen, ignore the cosmology of The Book of Enoch because it flatly contradicts their neat theological systems. The Enochian cosmology, which is clearly older than any mainstream Abrahamic view, is far more similar to The Aryan Dharma worldview that we have explicated in this newsletter.
Monotheism is the worship of one Supreme Being above all else, and polytheism is the worship of the plurality of deities that rule over specific aspects of reality, such as the elemental forces of Nature or more abstract ideations that are no less a part of nature, like wisdom, love, war, etc. We typically think of these two theistic systems as being in opposition to each other due to the tragical history of the last 1,500+ years of Abrahamic monotheistic religions striving to eradicate the older polytheisms. But originally, before even pagan polytheism was prominent in an age that only few can dimly remember, monotheism and polytheism existed together in harmony and were integrated into one system: The One Supreme Panentheistic Being was served by a pantheon of gods who ruled over their specific aspects of the reality that He made at His behest. All of the pagan religions we can think of were like this originally. They worshipped The Supreme Being spoken of in a very peculiar way in The Holy Bible in ways fittingly unique to themselves, but the majority of their spiritual activity was devoted to venerating the gods, who were seen by them as being more approachable as The Supreme Transcendental Lord was often viewed by them as too remote and distant. They gradually forgot The Most High Creator God in varying degrees and for different reasons, and as they did so, all they were left with were the pagan gods who had attracted their attention. Many, even the majority, of Pagan societies were still rightly ordered and Dharmic for the most part, even though this spiritual ignorance had crept in, because though they were not ordered towards The Supreme Panentheistic God, they were still ordered towards the next highest order of beings in the cosmic hierarchy: the gods. The gods, while not perfect like The Most High, are utterly resplendent and powerful beings who serve God. To become gods who serve God ourselves is our destiny, my dear reader, if we walk the eternal spiritual path in our own lives.
The “Hindu” religion, while suffering from distortions in very serious respects, preserves this primeval worldview of gods who serve a panentheistic God in its scriptures. Krishna, a Divine Avatar of the Supreme Being, tells Arjuna that even the gods serve Him, and though the gods are worthy of praise, it is most wise for a man to worship The Supreme God which even the gods do.
This primeval worldview of polytheism seamlessly integrated with and subjected to monotheism is a part of the original and eternal religion from which all religions alive in the modern world ultimately spring from, though always in a distorted way due to the follies of man and the ravages of time. This worldview is present on every page of The Book of Enoch. As early as the second chapter, we are told that the sun, moon, and earth are ceaselessly steadfast in obeying God. Man is then exhorted to obey God with just as much steadfastness. These elemental and cosmic forces are not just repetitiously doing God’s will like a wound-up machine, but they are faithfully obeying Him in the way that clearly only living things can. Later on, in the 18th chapter, this idea is developed further when Enoch is on his tour of the cosmos with the angels. The titular prophet is introduced to a place where he sees a mysterious abyssal wasteland. He sees seven stars there and inquires as to what this place is, and the angel he is with says to the curious prophet that this place is a prison for the stars that did not obey God by rising at their appointed times, and that those stars must suffer there for ten thousand years before having a chance to rise again. Ten thousand years is the length of time it takes for them to expiate their sins. Further into Enoch’s cosmological journey, he sees the sun and the moon and says of them that they praise and give thanks to God, and that in that worshipful activity is their rest. Indeed, it is true that life is so intrinsically theocentric that every being everywhere in the universe fulfills their existential purpose through devotionally loving and serving God, even the very suns, moons, and stars throughout all the galaxies.
We see here in The Book of Enoch what can only be described as an Abrahamic animism. The forces of nature, like the stars, are literally alive. In mythologies and religions, the spirits that rule nature are sometimes understood to be personages separate from what they rule, as they are in polytheism, but other times the forces of nature are literally themselves the bodies of spirits as they are in animism. Typically religious scholars say that animism is older than polytheism, and what is professed in these chapters of Enoch is clearly animistic. The sun, moon, stars, and earth, even in all their physicality, are conscious entities who choose to obey God just as faithful humans do. Historically, Abrahamism displaced animistic and polytheistic religions, but in The Book of Enoch which predates the displacement of those religions by Abrahamism we see animistic ideas fully integrated with all of the quintessentially Abrahamic ideas, like a coming day of judgment, a supreme monotheistic God who guides History and announces His Will through prophets, etc. Even the elemental forces of nature face judgment at the hands of the Supreme Omniscient Judge with subsequent punishments and rewards.
Every sufficiently spiritually awakened person comes to detect that there are many powerful spiritual presences in the elemental forces of Nature, and that spiritual forces that are no less natural than water or earth, such as eroticism and warfare, also have such presences within them. Such presences are detected because they are real, of course. All of the gods are literally real, but whether they are to be understood as beings separate from what they have rulership over, as in polytheism, or if they are themselves the forces they are identified with, as in animism, is a complex issue. In many mythologies, polytheism and animism bleed into one another, and there is not much of a sharp difference made between them, which I take to be the correct view. Apollo is at once The Sun and a being that rules over it. This is also the case in The Book of Enoch, because in the 60th chapter we are introduced to a plethora of angels who rule over aspects of Nature but who are themselves clearly not literally the elemental forces they rule over within the context of this specific chapter. This plethora of angels, or we could say pantheon of gods in pagan terms, is made up of wonderful beings such as the spirit of the thunder and the spirit of the lightning, the spirit of the mist, the spirit of the sea, the spirit of the hoar-frost and the spirit of the hail, the spirit of the snow, the spirit of the dew, and the spirit of the rain. These dwell in special chambers that are located within the Garden of the Righteous, which in Enochian cosmology is the same Garden that Adam and Eve were exiled from and which all of the righteous will enter after The Day of Judgment. Though they have their own separate chambers, they have dominion over their respective aspects of nature. So here we have a kind of Abrahamic polytheism, with the important caveat that in the Enochian worldview, The Supreme Being alone is worthy of worship. But though they are not the primary focus of the Enochian worldview, we should not be confused into thinking that these wonderful angels of the forces of nature are unworthy of due respect and veneration.
In the 69th chapter of this book, in the latter section of that chapter, there is an oath made with the help of Michael the Arch-Angel wherein all the elemental forces of this world make a solemn oath. It’s not clear if this oath had been made from eternities past or if it was made in response to the rebellion of the fallen angels. But in any case, in this oath, the forces of nature make oaths to uphold their duty to each other. Through this oath these wonderful beings who govern nature swore, the sea does not transgress its boundaries with the earth, the sun and moon complete their courses regularly without interfering with each other, and they are all faithful to God’s Word.
An oath is the same essential type of thing as a covenant, and any astute reader of the Abrahamic Scriptures will tell you that God makes covenants with humankind, culminating in The New and Everlasting Covenant sealed with Jesus’ own sacrifice. But here the elements of nature themselves make an oath, a type of covenant with each other and with God, and it is this oath that holds the world as we know it together. Should the spirits who rule nature freely choose to do so, the Earth will no longer be gently held up by the Sea but the sea will swallow it whole, or the sun and moon shall fall and rise at irregular times thus disrupting the whole cycle of Nature. But the oath they took to each other and to God restrains them from doing this. The intuition of ancient man was that the spirits who rule Nature are supported by us making sacrifices to them on their behalf (you see this all over The Rig Veda, I mean almost literally on every page) so that they can continue to maintain the order of the world, The Dharma, that Man’s existence depends upon, and Man making these sacrifices is itself a component of The Dharma, the cosmic order that upholds all things, his direct own participation in the same qualitative type of cosmic order that ensures the coming and going of the sun and moon.
Many of you have made great strides in rejecting the sterile mechanistic view of the cosmos, but the final overcoming of that worldview in your heart is not accomplished until you understand that the consistency in the world you know is not upheld by the laws of gravity but by The Dharma. Everything around you is the result of an ancient network of relationships wherein all lovingly fulfill their unique essential nature in serving God, and miserific chaos for all results in anyone of these beings in the vast network not fulfilling their purpose. As you fulfill your own particular Dharma you become more divine, and this results in you ascending the cosmic hierarchy, where you enjoy more bliss and power but also more responsibility. The harmful chaos caused by not maintaining your Dharma is in proportion to how high up the hierarchy you are. The Sun rises in the dawn and humbly makes way for the moon not because of the mechanistic laws of gravity but because it is personally obeying God, fulfilling The Dharma. The seasons turn because they strive to fulfill their Dharma out of love for God. The sea respects the boundaries allotted to the earth because it loves and fears God, as we too ought. When any creature in the universe is not fulfilling the Dharma allotted to it, we all suffer, The Enochian worldview suggests the night sky itself is not as bright as it could be because it is missing the stars who chose to rebel, though they will return to their proper place at the right time. You too, my dear reader, darken the entire universe by not living up to your true potential as God asks of you, and when you do as God commands by fulfilling your own particular Dharma the whole universe becomes a brighter place. The Cosmic Covenant between the angelic gods of thunder and lightning, sun, earth, moon, stars, and wind provides the necessary stability for you to be able to fulfill your own particular covenant. When you earnestly and lovingly fulfill your duties in life and do what God asks you to do, you are fulfilling your own Dharma, maintaining The Cosmic Order.
In the 69th chapter, the beings who control Nature are sometimes described in an animistic sense as they were in the second chapter of Enoch, and at other times in that very same chapter they are described in a polytheistic sense as they are in the 60th chapter. So we see a blending of polytheism and animism when it comes to the spirits who rule Nature, and then they are all subject to the Supreme Monotheistic God. This seamless blending of Monotheism, polytheism, and animism is what the original religion of Man is when you go far enough back into prehistory. If you go further back then even that, you won’t find religion in a conventional sense at all because Man knew God and the gods on such intimate terms that there was really not as much need for formalities. You and I will know that glorious existence again, my dear reader.
Given that the wonderful spirits that rule Nature are literally alive, it is a normal intuition to want to honor them through heartfelt songs and veneration as well as to propitiate them through offerings and sacrifices. Thus we see paganisms and animisms all over the world. It is indeed the case that you can secure a safe naval voyage by propitiating the sea, and why not thank the sun for its life-giving rays by singing a beautiful song, even offering back some of the plants and animals you have thanks to his work? But you can just as well ensure The Sea will be calm for your voyage by asking for the help of The Supreme God to ensure you have safe travels and our honourable companion The Sun is honoured whenever you thank God for the benefits you receive from The Sun. He made Sun and Sea, after all, and has ultimate dominion over them and indeed over all things. You can just as well honour The Sun by thanking God for making he who rules the day. May He have mercy on us, my dear reader.
I remember once I was hiking through the woods near where I live here in Canada. It was a beautiful fall afternoon. The sun was shining on the leaves such that they seemed lit up and made of gold or rubies or topaz. As I walked through this crystalline forest, the sound of the wind rushing through the leaves struck me as more of an audible pleasure than any music I have ever heard. As I relished the arborical orchestra, a feeling welled up in me to love the trees around me. I knew they were living entities like myself. I wanted to connect with them. I let this feeling take hold of me so it could take hold of me and express itself through me organically. I wound up closing my eyes, clasping my hands as in a prayer, and thanking them and wishing them well. When I had finished doing this, a tinge of guilt started to creep into my consciousness because I was afraid that I had dishonoured God. A relic of my Protestant past. I was never one to base my whole worldview on blaming Christianity for all of my problems, and I appreciate my Christian heritage, but at that moment I was irritated that the Christianity that had come down to me had forbade the type of sacred action that had come to me naturally.
As I have worked through this and discovered The Eternal Aryan Dharma, I have come to understand that what I had done was not only good but also was originally a normal, though historically de-emphasized, aspect of Christianity as well, though this had been forgotten through the ignorance of man over time. It is good to keep in mind that Nature is mysteriously alive with beings who can help us during this time where Man’s divinely established connection to Nature is so severely threatened. By connecting with the spirits of Nature, we can feel more energized and more peaceful because these spirits are closer to God than we are. They can help us to serve Him too, and indeed, they are always eager to do precisely that!
How much should these spirits occupy our attention? I can’t say I have figured this out fully. This question reminds me of the question of honouring saints and spiritual teachers. Roman Catholics and East Orthodox love to pray to saints, but some may say that this takes away attention from God. But when we honour those who honour God, we are indeed honouring Him, and so it is also with the gods. Strictly speaking, one with a correct understanding of The Transcendental God honours the gods when he honours God and thanks Him for all that He made. God is more powerful than the gods, so it makes sense to just make Him the center of your pious attention. Indeed, the gods themselves honour not other gods but only God. So since we are meant to become gods, it is fitting that we too primarily honour God. But it seems precisely impious to go our whole lives without honouring the various beings that, in their service to God, provide the necessary condition for us to be able to realize the fullness of our eternal spirits, so I honour them every once in a while, whenever the spirit moves me to do so.
The Abrahamists, in their excessive zeal for the particular manifestations of The Supreme God made known to them, essentially cut off Man from the nature spirits and destroyed their ancient altars everywhere, which was a grave error with grave consequences that contributed towards the darker dimensions of the industrial revolution that unleashed a new wave of demonic tyranny on this planet. Western Man would not have caused as much environmental devastation as he has caused and made the rest of the world follow suit if he understood the spirits of nature are worthy of our active veneration. But many pagans had been deceived by demonic entities that were only posing as gods, and most of the pagans, in their excessive love for the gods, had forgotten The Supreme God from whence they came and thought only the gods themselves were the highest of beings. So Pagans and Abrahamists are both gravely wrong about the nature of reality in certain respects as well as right about certain important things.
The Book of Enoch shows that originally Abrahamism was quite “Pagan.” The terrible error of severing Man from Nature shows we ought not honour the spirits of nature deficiently, and the superstitious depravities that many Pagans fell into show what happens when you honour the spirits of nature excessively.
The Book of Enoch also enforces the idea that Christianity is actually the most correct of the three currents of Abrahamism (Muslim, Judaism, Christianity) and the most true to its original intentions and origins. Jewish and secular apologists will tell you that the belief in Judgment Day resulting in either Heaven or Hell was never a part of the beliefs of the Old Testament, but that belief is one of the major themes throughout this book, which predates The Birth of Christ. They will tell you also that the belief in angels and demons is a foreign import into the Israelite belief system, but that belief is present everywhere in this Pre-Incarnation book from start to finish. Indeed, the specific ways in which angels and demons are present are very different from any mainstream contemporary iteration of Abrahamic belief but are quite close to the Dharmic religions, even close to “Hinduism.” The Book of Enoch shows that originally Abrahamism was quite “Pagan.” Most importantly of all for any debates on Christianity, all throughout this book the Messiah that Israel is expecting is encountered by Enoch numerous times and said to be older than the world itself, sitting always at God’s right hand and known as The Elect One who will judge all mankind, just like God does; thus, God and The Messiah have some kind of common function, if not common identity. Christians will recognize this as a prototype of the idea of God having a special, eternally preexistent son. The theology of Enoch’s book is at least binitarian, as The Elect One is referred to with similar grammar to The Supreme Being known throughout this book as The Lord of Spirits.
Though I know it utterly flies in the face of all judgments within mainstream Christianity, I have zero doubt in my mind that The Book of Enoch is a divinely revealed scripture. It speaks volumes that though the angelology and cosmology of The Book of Enoch differs from mainstream iterations of angelology and cosmology in any mainstream Abrahamic belief system, it is more in harmony with the beliefs that came before and more sophisticated just in general. It has a sort of spiritually quickening quality to it that, if you approached it only academically, as most do and as I did at first, you may not be able to pick up on. If you read the book in a prayerful and meditative state, the power of this book will really purify and strengthen your spirit. The book often has a high aesthetic quality to it (though repetitive at times), which makes it powerful to read out loud in prayer. To those who say, “You are a heretic for rejecting the infallible judgment of the church who decided the church canon!” I simply say “Which church?” because The Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo Church has always considered The Book of Enoch to be just as canonical as familiar books like The Book of Genesis or The Gospel of John, and it too considers itself to be an infallible church like every church does. Though always known to the Ethiopian Church, The Book of Enoch was thought lost by Western Man until it was rediscovered by Western Man at, I believe, a divinely ordained time in his history. God has decided to restore this lost book of scripture to us at precisely the time when he has become severely disconnected from the living powers of Nature by the negative effects of the industrial revolution. God wants us to know we can recognize that the spirits of nature are indeed alive, that we don’t have to lie to ourselves about this obvious truth and don’t have to restrain ourselves from putting it into practice because of thinking that doing so offends Him. By connecting to the gods, we better serve God.
**
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this article, please like and share to increase my reach. If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave a comment below.
The Book of Enoch is a great treasure and I intend to share more gems from it with you in the future. If you’d like to explore mysterious eternal spiritual truths in these dark modern times of ours with me, consider becoming a subscriber so you can receive my writings directly into your mailbox. You may also like to consider becoming a paid subscriber for $5/a month or $50/a year, which will give you access to all of the writings behind my paywall which are for paying subscribers only. I am very grateful to those of you who are already paying subscribers. I couldn’t begin to express how grateful I am and how surprised that my little newsletter has grown so fast. I think it is indicative of a real spiritual hunger in the people of our time.
May God and the gods bless you! Aum / Amen!