Tag Archives: possession

Shaft of the Abyss

Posted on by
Reply
Another fresco from Mt. Athos that illustrates the Apocalypse. Here we see the attack of the demonic locusts described in chapter 9, the “first woe” of three to be unleashed by the angels faithful to God. These locusts, an allusion to the 8th plague that struck Egypt at the Exodus, are allowed to torment–but not kill–the people of the earth.

I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given a key to the shaft of the abyss. He opened the shaft of the abyss, and smoke came up from the shaft like smoke from a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft. Out of the smoke came locusts… (Apoc. 9:1-3)

A fallen star is a fallen angel. Hence, the star is “he” and given a key to the abyss. Stars–in apocalyptic writing–are always angels, whether good or bad, faithful to God or not. The tradition of fallen angels is ancient though it does not appear in the oldest layer of biblical writing; the story of the angelic fall is told in 1 Enoch 6-13, an expansion of Genesis 6:1-4. Jesus also refers to the fall of the angels: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18).

The “abyss” is the usual Greek translation of “the deep” (ex. Gen. 1:2, Psalm 105:9, 107:26); it is also used to refer to Sheol (Job 41, Romans 10). In the Apocalypse, the abyss-the deep-sheol is the provisional prison of Satan and the fallen angels. In the gospel, the demons beg Jesus not to send them there (Luke 8:31). In this chapter of the Apocalypse, a shaft leads to the abyss-the deep-sheol and a fallen angel is allowed to unlock it.

Out of the abyss comes a great cloud of smoke and ash; from the smoke and ash come the monstrous locusts that attack people but are not allowed to attack the earth itself, unlike natural locusts. These supernatural locusts attack and torture but cannot kill; they can sting like scorpions and have a king (the word is more usually translated as “emperor”), unlike natural locusts (Proverbs 30:27).

Is the Apocalypse comparing the locusts to the imperial Roman system by using the Greek word for “emperor” rather than “king” to describe their organization? If so, then the Roman state–and any political system that is in opposition to God–can attack and torment the faithful but cannot destroy or overwhelm the Kingdom of God. I have recently discovered the work of Walter Wink, who writes about the demonic aspect of human political systems. As my friend Daniel says, “Phenomena like The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror do occur, but the real danger is from beings that assume power over humanity in the form of nations, corporations, political ideologies, and economic systems.”

Happy New Year: Shofars and Possesions

Posted on by
Reply

 

A man blows the shofar.

A man blows the shofar.

This year the Jewish celebration of the High Holy Days falls in very early September. Considered the birthday of Adam and the “Days of Awe” during which God judges the world to decide who will live or die during the coming 12 months, the celebration of the New Year and Day of Atonement are especially solemn. One of the most noted New Year’s practices is the blowing of the shofar during the New Year services. When the walls of Jericho fell, it was in response to the blowing of shofars by the army of Israel. Hebrew folklore also indicates that blowing a shofar was used to implore God to bring rain during times of drought and serve as a warning blast to the people when a disaster was looming on the horizon. It was a heavenly shofar that sounded when God gave Moses the 10 Commandments on Mt. Sinai and it is a shofar the angels will blow to announce the End of the World.

Because of the association of the High Holy Days with repentance, judgement, and death it also a time when the division between the living and the dead is considered thin indeed. One way the dead or other spirits interact with the living is by possesion. Some spirits that attack the living are ghosts but others are demonic entities. Some demons are fallen angels but according to some Kabbalistic thought, a man who masturbates, has a “wet dream,” or has a seminal emission under other unhallowed circumstances, his semen gives birth to “spiritual children” which gravitate against him [and his family] as negative spiritual forces. The man may redeem these spiritual children through remorse and repentance and end their damaging influence upon himself and his loved ones.

A ghost that posses the living is called a “dybbuk.” The term first appears in a number of 16th century writings, and earlier accounts of possession (such as that given by Josephus) were of demonic possession rather than that by ghosts. The 16th century accounts advocated orthodoxy among the populace as a way to prevent possession by a dybbuk. For example, it was suggested that a sloppily made mezuzah or entertaining doubt about Moses’ crossing of the Red sea opened one’s household to dybbuk possession.

There are also other accounts of soul transmigration in Jewish mythology. In contrast to the dybbuk, the “Ibbur” is a positive possession, which happens when a righteous soul temporarily possesses a body. This is always done with consent, so that the soul can perform a good deed, known as a “mitzvah.” Some kabbalists put forth the idea that a soul must live through many lives before it gains the wisdom to rejoin with God.