If you read your whole Old Testament, you never see a demon being cast out of anyone. Ever. How in the world when Jesus shows up and he starts doing that? Did people automatically in their heads think: “Well, this is what the Messiah is supposed to do! This is a sign of Messiahship.”
Where does that come from? Psalm 91. Which, you know, in recent days, you’ve heard this quoted a lot: “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty… he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge… You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness.” In the corona environment, this passage gets quoted a lot.
And unfortunately, in some cases deeply out of context to suggest that well, you know, Christians can do whatever they want here because God will protect us and we won’t get sick and. Okay, that is not what the passage is about. The passage is much cooler than that. It’s more sinister too.
Psalm 91 is a psalm that was discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls in a jar with four other Psalms that are not in the Hebrew Bible. There are extra Psalms among the dead sea scrolls, we have 150 in the Hebrew Bible,
But this one that is in the Hebrew Bible, obviously, was put in this jar with four other ones. All four of those other ones are exorcism Psalm. So well, why would they lump Psalm 91 in there? That doesn’t look like an exorcism to me,
I’m, you read the whole thing and there’s no like casting devils out or anything like that. Well, if you read it in Hebrew, and you were a literate Israelite, you would know that words like pestilence (Deber). Okay, there’s pestilence there. Deber down here, Qeteb (destruction), “the arrow that flies by day.” Okay, right here.
This whole motif of the arrow flying by day and the tear of the night. Right here; Pahad. These are names and titles and epithets of Canaanite deities, all of them. To an Israelite, a Canaanite deity was a demonic, a sinister and evil spirit, you know, a power of darkness. That’s why Psalm 91 was lumped into that
Because this is a prayer of protection and thwarting of powers of darkness in ancient Jewish thought. What else is interesting is this psalm in the Hebrew Bible, you notice there’s no superscription. There’s a psalm of whoever. In the Septuagint, it’s a psalm of David. Okay, also in the Septuagint, there are certain different wordings,
The Septuagint would have been based on a Hebrew text. Is a translation of Hebrew, that don’t always align with a traditional Hebrew text. But in the Septuagint, where it’s a psalm of David, there are a couple of psalms that use specific words for the Psalms, and the hymns and the,
I want to use the word spell, because that’s what it means, or can mean, of David and Solomon. Okay, that in the poetry, the literature, they produced, some of that stuff uses vocabulary that you will find in exorcistic material in the Second Temple period. And so this answers an important question.
And here’s the question. And maybe you’ve wondered this. If you read your whole Old Testament, you never see a demon being cast out of anyone. Ever. There’s actually only two references in English Bibles to demons; Shedim is usually translated demon, which isn’t the greatest translation,
But we’ll run with it for the sake of the illustration, Deuteronomy 32. And then there’s a Psalm. Okay, but you never see a demon or a hostile evil spirit cast out of anyone. How in the world, when Jesus shows up, and he starts doing that, did people
Automatically in their heads think: “well, this is what the Messiah is supposed to do! This is a sign of Messiahship.” Where does that come from? It comes from what I just described. It comes from certain Psalms being associated with David, and a few with Solomon. In the Second Temple Period
There was the belief that David and Solomon had power over evil spirits. And so if the Messiah is a descendant, he is The David, The Son of David, he should be able to do that too. So this is something that we wouldn’t get because we’re not living in the culture.
And we’re not familiar with how Psalm 91 in particular was viewed. But when Jesus shows up and starts doing this, the bells and whistles are going off in people’s heads. This is an important thing he does to convince them that he’s the Messiah. And Isn’t it odd that Satan would choose Psalm 91
To quote to Jesus, in a temptation, and he quotes the part, down here, “he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” So what’s really going on here is Satan is fishing for information.
He’s got Jesus in front of him, he knows who he is, he knows why he’s there. His silly Kingdom of God stuff, okay. But he doesn’t know what the plan is. So he’s there to tempt Jesus. Try to shortcut the thing. And you know, the last one is the worst because it’s idolatry.
It’s just kind of a terrible attempt. But this one’s interesting because let’s say that Jesus looks at Satan and says, “Yeah, that’s a good quotation. Yep. Yep, you know, that’s a, that’s an exorcistic psalm. And I’m the son of David, and I’m supposed to be able to cast out demons.
And if that’s true, then the rest of the stuff in the song must be true too. So go ahead, it’ll take me up to the top here, I’m going to throw myself off.” What happens? Okay, let’s say the angels catch him. What is Satan learned? He can’t kill him,
So we’ll take killing the Messiah off the strategy plan. But Jesus knows, that’s exactly what needs to happen. “So I’m not going to demonstrate anything for you. You’re not going to learn anything in this conversation.” He just tells him that you hit the road, “you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”
And that could be a reference to himself. But it could also be another way of saying; “You shall not try to convince me to let God show you the hand that he’s going to play.” He has to die. He must die. Again, it’s an interesting tit for tat conversation
between these two. And again, my take on it is that Satan actually was fishing for information. It’s not a worthless conversation. And the fact that he quotes Psalm 91 I find really interesting because of its nature. You know, the servant (Israel) out in the wilderness. I mean, let’s think of Jesus
Now as the representative of the corporate nation. Did Israel in the Old Testament pass the test of being God’s servant? Well, yes, and no. You know, they get to the promised land? Sure, after they fail, and then they wander around for 40 years. So there’s that checkered past. They don’t really complete the conquest.
They ask for a king to replace God as the one who fights for them. And then three kings later they go off and start worshipping other gods and end up in exile. So probably no, they really don’t pass the test of being God’s representative son and his servant, but Jesus does.
He passes the test. And now it’s Game on. His ministry begins.
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video, we’re going to discuss Lilith, the queen of hell, mother of demons, angel of prosti.tution, killer of pregnant women and infants, Adam’s first wife, and seducer of men. We’re going to start off
By looking at a couple of allusions to her in the Old Testament. Following that, we’re going to look at early influences that originated in Mesopotamia, and finally, we’re going to look at the tide of information presented in various works published throughout the Middle Ages. Let’s get into it.
Lilith barely features in scripture: she’s absent from the Quran and doesn’t appear in the New Testament; it’s only in the Old Testament that she’s included, and even then, her inclusion depends either on the translation or on the interpretation.
In the Book of Genesis, which is the first book of the Old Testament that describes the Cosmogony (the creation of the universe) and the anthropogony (the origination of humanity), the creation of women is described twice, each with different wording,
Which has led to some interesting theories and stories that endeavor to reconcile the two. The first instance reads as follows: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
One interpretation of this passage is that God created the first man and the first woman simultaneously, which, by this reckoning, places it at odds with the second instance in which the creation of the first woman is described. Here’s the passage that describes the second instance:
“And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man,
Made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.” To reconcile the two accounts, one version, such as the one given in the Alphabet of Ben Sira,
Which we’ll expand on later, explains that the woman created at the same time as Adam in the first passage is a different person than Eve, the woman created from Adam’s rib in the second passage. Moreover, this version holds that the woman created in the first passage
Is actually Lilith, making her Adam’s first wife. Again, we’ll cover this part of lilith’s story in greater detail later in the video. The other mention of Lilith in the Old Testament is given in the Book of Isaiah, though her inclusion by name depends on the language and the translation.
In the JPS parallel Hebrew and English version of the Tanakh, Isaiah 34:14 reads as follows: “And the Wild-cats shall meet with the jackals, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, the night-monster shall repose there, and shall find her place of rest.”
Night monster is indistinct and ambiguous, but many other translations, either of the Tanakh or of the Old Testament, have seen various monsters and animals substituted in, including: Lilith, night specter, night creature, night hag, Lamia (a female monster of Greek origin that
Preys on children), night bird, and screech owl. This last is especially interesting because it parallels a detail of the Queen of the Night plaque, which is nearly 4,000 years old, made in ancient Babylon sometime between 1800 – 1750 BCE. It depicts a winged woman
With talons for feet standing on two lions flanked by a perched owl on either side. Who this figure is isn’t known for certain, but the list of possibilities has been whittled down to just a few candidates: Ishtar, goddess of war and sexual love,
Ereshkigal, ruler of the underworld, or the demon Lilitu, who became later known as Lilith. And this takes us into the part of the video that looks at Lilith’s origins. Lilith, a female demon infamous for preying on infants and pregnant women,
And for copulating with sleeping men, thereby birthing a plethora of demons into the world, is a central figure in Jewish demonology. You could say that Lilith, as conceptualized in Jewish lore, is but one expression of an archetype, that of the demon who targets infants and pregnant women,
That seems to rear its head across cultures and millenia, particularly in the near East. If this is tracked backwards through time, it looks as though Lilith’s origins can be connected back to ancient Mesopotamia. She briefly features in the Epic of Gilgamesh,
A Sumerian work, and she’s identified with Lilu and Lilitu, respectively, male and female spirits of ancient Babylon – both of them notorious for attacking infants and women in labour. Another figure who shares this MO is Lamashtu, either a goddess or demon, who endangered women during
Childbirth and even abducted infants as they suckled at their mother’s breast. In appearance, she was a hideous amalgamation of many animals, having the head of a lion, the talons of a bird of prey, the teeth of a donkey, a body covered in hair, blood-stained hands, and long fingers with
Long nails. Another variety of demon germane to Lilith is the Ardat-Lili, which rendered men impotent as a sort of revenge for itself not being able to copulate. Sometimes women were also targeted and rendered infertile. In appearance it looks like a wolf with a scorpion’s tail.
Much of the best known information surrounding Lilith comes from the Alphabet of Ben Sira, a work thought to have been written sometime in the Geonic period, which lasted from the late sixth to the mid-eleventh centuries CE. The third part describes Ben Sira recounting 22 stories to
Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. One of these gives an alternative anthropogeny. Rather than Eve being created from one of Adam’s ribs, it describes Lilith, not only as the first woman, but also as being created from the earth just as Adam was. Unfortunately, their relationship is
Characterized by acrimony and incessant fighting, and ultimately, Lilith refuses to submit to Adam; so she invokes God’s name and flies away. Three angels, Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof, are sent after her, and they eventually catch up with her; but she negotiates
Her way out of the encounter, promising to be repelled by any amulets bearing their likeness, which is why thereafter such amulets were used to ward her off, safeguarding those she preyed on: pregnant women and infants. Furthermore, she also accedes to 100 of her children perishing each day.
Here’s a quote that describes this: “He also created a woman, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith immediately began to fight. She said, ‘I will not lie below,’ and he said, ‘I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you
Are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.’ Lilith responded, ‘We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.’ But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the
Ineffable Name and flew away into the air…. The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea… They told her God’s word, but she did not wish to return. The angels said, ‘We shall drown you in the sea.’ “‘Leave me!’ she said. ‘I was created only to
Cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days.’ “When the angels heard Lilith’s words, they insisted she go back. But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God: ‘Whenever
I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant.’” In one account, after the fall of man, which resulted in the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the
Garden of Eden, the first man and the first woman became separated for 130 years. During that time, Lilith returned to Adam and copulated with him in his sleep; supposedly the son that resulted from their coupling turned into a frog. Another account, the one given by Rabbi Eliezer in
The Book of Adam and Eve, claims that at one time Lilith was bearing Adam 100 children per day. The Zohar depicts Lilith as “a hot fiery female who at first cohabited with man”, who “flew to the cities
Of the sea coast” when Eve was created. The cabala portrays her as the demon of Friday, who appears as a naked woman with a snake’s tail for legs. Another description maintains the nude upper body, but gives her a column of fire for legs. And in Talmudic Lore, Lilith is presented as an immortal
Demon who will continue to plague mankind until God eradicates evil from the face of the earth. Eventually, a profusion of early traditions coalesced, and from them emerged two predominant activities associated with Lilith: the strangling of newly born children and the seduction of men.
Regarding the latter, it was thought that anytime a man woke up with wet undergarments, made so by the nightly discharge of seed, it was indicative of Lilith having paid them a visit and seducing them in their sleep. And in this she was thought so prolific that a virtually infinite
Number of demonic spawn were attributed to her, said to be her brood – legions upon legions sired by unwitting men as they slept. Apparently, people were so wary of her erotic powers that in some Jewish communities it was commonplace for sons not to accompany their father’s as their
Bodies were laid to rest in graveyards, sparing them the shame of bearing witness to all their demonic half-blood siblings, those conceived when Lilith seduced the father. Because of this, In the Zohar as well as other sources, Lilith is known by many colourful appellations that denigrate
For lasciviousness and wantonness. These include: the black, the wicked, the false, and the harlot. In Zoharaistic cabal, Lilith, along with Eisheth Zenunim, Naamah, and Agrat bat Mahlaht, three angels of prostitution, was one of the consorts of Samael, a figure with many identities,
Not all of them evil, depending on the version; among them were: the great serpent with 12 wings, a prince of hell, and another name for Satan, especially in Jewish lore. As conceptualised in Kabbalism, Lilith was given preeminence, becoming the principal and permanent partner of Samael –
Basically, in effect, crowned queen of hell. And that’s it for this video! If you enjoy the content please LIKE the video and SUBSCRIBE to the channel As always, leave your video suggestions down below
NARRATOR: He is the personification of evil. Satan was the source of torture and death and destruction. NARRATOR: He is the ruler of hell. He grew arrogant, and he lost his heavenly position. He was thrown out of the heavens and fell. NARRATOR: And he commands an army
Of demons united on a vengeful quest to destroy mankind. A demon needs a body to accomplish its evil purposes– You can’t have her. So they can bring about their plan of death and destruction. NARRATOR: But is the character known as the Prince of Darkness merely a myth?
Or could he be something much, much more? Satan may well be a person, a god, an angel, an ET who’s been maligned in a sense. NARRATOR: Millions of people around the world believe we have been visited in the past by extraterrestrial beings. What if it were true?
Did ancient aliens really help to shape our history? And if so, could evidence be found in centuries old stories of a fallen angel? Could there really be a Satan conspiracy? [theme music playing] He is called Satan, Lucifer, the devil, and his name conjures up horrifying images
Of a horned demon whose sole purpose is to corrupt and destroy mankind. Satan is portrayed as the enemy of God, trying to destroy good people, to make good people bad, and to keep them from being saved, keep them from going to heaven so that they can go
To hell where he’s in charge. KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: Satan has become the catchall for the embodiment of evil. When we think of Satan, I think there are two different ways that our brains can go. The first is this almost comical character that rules over the land of flames,
The red guy with the horns and the pitchfork. But then on the darker side, I think that Satan has become this very, very terrifying, frightening embodiment of evil who causes man to do terrible things, who is the source of torture and death and destruction. NARRATOR: But are these perceptions of Satan correct?
Is he really the master of all things evil in the universe? Lakeland, Florida, 2012. Hundreds of faithful followers congregate at the Ignited Church to witness the removal of demons from those who believe they’re possessed by the devil. You let him go. All the pain and the hurt you’ve caused this man,
You let him go. The devil wants to get even. How else to hurt the heart of God to the greatest possible extent but to harm the beloved of his creation, the height of his creation, the thing that God loves most, humanity, human beings, me, you, every single person on Earth?
NARRATOR: In the ritual known as exorcism, a priest or minister performs a sacred right in order to confront Satan and drive him back to hell. It is a ceremony that dates back hundreds and perhaps thousands of years and is considered quite controversial even within the Catholic church.
I torment you by the blood of Christ. When I’m battling Satan, there are a lot of mind games going on, and it’s a bit of a chess match. You think you have her, don’t you? Don’t you? – Yes. You think she’s yours, don’t you? Well, she’s not.
So I have to be mentally and spiritually prepared for that. How long have you had her? Long time. Yeah? Well, now it’s going to be a short time. Torment to you. Torment! Torment you. NARRATOR: But just who or what is Satan? And why is he determined to corrupt all of humanity?
Perhaps the answers can be found in the myths and legends that describe Satan’s ancient origins. ADAM BLAI: In the beginning, Satan was one of the angels that was created by God before the physical universe was created, and there was basically a sphere of angels around God, worshiping God.
And Satan at that time was Lucifer or the day star. He was the brightest of the angels. KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: Satan is actually one of the archangels. He is one of the high angels, one of the highest ranking, one of the most beautiful, the most beloved. He is beloved of God.
He is a bringer of light. When God created man in his image, he ordered all the angels to worship his image in this man. And Satan refused. He says, look, they’re mud people. We’re made out of fire. I’m not going to do it. And so he gets kicked out.
He grew arrogant. He began to challenge God. And for this arrogance, he lost his heavenly position. He was thrown out of the heavens and fell. ADAM BLAI: When Lucifer was cast down, it was instant and abrupt and total. And he was cast down to Earth to roam here
Until the end of time. NARRATOR: Although few references are made to Satan in the Hebrew testament, he is depicted as an opposer or accuser and is generally acknowledged to have been the inspiration for the serpent in the Garden of Eden. BRETT PETERSON: One of the great stories in the Bible
Is Adam and Eve in the garden. You know, we have this picture of a beautiful garden scene, and Adam and Eve in their innocence just enjoying God and each other and this beautiful creation. And all of a sudden enters Satan in the form of a snake.
And he finds Eve close to the one thing, the one law God gave mankind. NARRATOR: According to the book of Genesis, God placed two trees in the garden, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge and forbade Adam and Eve to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge.
Satan convinces Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and she convinces Adam to do that. And, of course, we see that suddenly their whole personality changes. BRETT PETERSON: Prior to eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve were sinless.
It means that the one law that God gave them, they had not disobeyed. Satan himself decided that if he could get them to break that one law, then sin would enter mankind. And when Adam ate, all mankind from that point on has been selfish, prideful, and were genetically
Given the ability and really the desire to rebel against authority and thus obtained the knowledge of good and evil. NARRATOR: But is this story of Adam and Eve really a fanciful account of how evil entered the world? Or might there be another even more profound explanation?
You can make a case that Eve actually wants to mature. She wants to grow up. God wants to keep us in a state of perpetual innocence, infantility perhaps. Eve decides that knowing everything she can know about this world into which she has been placed
Is more important even than obeying a particular command of God. The serpent enables her. Satan’s wanting to give humanity all this incredible wisdom that maybe can even elevate humankind to the level of gods. But the Old Testament God Yahweh is saying not so fast. Humankind aren’t perhaps worthy of this knowledge,
And this becomes then the battle between God and Satan. NARRATOR: Was the serpent’s temptation of Adam and Eve really a case of sabotage? Was it a deliberate effort to seduce mankind into sinning against its creator? Or might Satan’s real purpose have been to encourage mankind to share the fruits of God’s wisdom?
Ancient astronaut theorists believe more clues may lie in another book of the Hebrew testament. Southern Israel, this dry sun-blasted desert was once the realm of Edom, an ancient kingdom that some researchers believe was home to the biblical figure Job. According to the Hebrew Bible, Job was among the wealthiest men in the kingdom
And owned enormous herds of cattle, sheep, and camels. He was also among the most righteous, making sacrifices to the Almighty God to atone for his transgressions and the sins of his family. BARRY H. DOWNING: In the story of Job, Satan as part of the heavenly council of angels
And the council meets and God is at the council meeting and basically he and Satan have a discussion. WILLIAM FULCO: And God says, you know, look at Job. He’s very faithful. And Satan, in charge of quality control, and says, well, of course, you know. You give him everything. What do you expect?
KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: And Satan actually challenges God and says if Job were tempted, if he no longer had all of these wonderful things that God had given to him, what happens to him then? Satan convinces God the Job should be tested to see if he is really all that good.
And this is where Satan becomes the first adversary, the first tester of humans. JONATHAN YOUNG: So it’s interesting in this story, Satan is actually working with God as a kind of member of his staff or his heavenly council. WILLIAM HENRY: The divine council of God is very interesting because we learn
That it is composed of various angelic beings including Satan. And the idea is that these are advanced beings who carry out God’s orders and God’s wishes from the commands of this council. It really seems like we’re seeing some kind of divine bureaucracy, something like you would see in a corporate
Or a governmental bureaucracy. NARRATOR: Could our notion of Satan as an evil force be incorrect? Ancient astronaut theorists believe there is much more to this story and that the answer may be found not only in the pages of the Hebrew Bible but on ancient scrolls, scrolls whose origins date back thousands of years.
Qumran, the West Bank. Here during a series of excavations beginning in 1949, archaeologists unearth hundreds of ancient scrolls. They are believed to have been written by a Hebrew sect known as the Essenes more than 2,000 years ago. Several of the scrolls contained fragments of what has become known as the Book of Enoch
And the account of a rebellion launched by a group of angels called the Watchers. One of the most famous parts of the Book of Enoch is the story of the Watchers. This is a story about 200 angels that were charged with watching over mankind in its early stages and basically taking care
Of us, looking out for us. The Watchers are a group of angels who were dispatched to watch humans and to help humans. Now the Watchers are very interesting because they are angels who interact with humans. ADAM BLAI: There’s a brief reference to this in Genesis,
But the Book of Enoch essentially expands that story and tells a more full story. This was taken out of the canon of the Bible early in the church’s life, but it was in for a period of time. KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: Once the Watchers begin to interact with humans, they become infatuated
With this new species, and they become lustful of this new species. And all of the sudden, the original idea, the original commands that they were given seem a lot less interesting to them. ADAM BLAI: They came to a point where they wanted to take wives and have children, and so they decided
To rebel, create bodies, marry, and bear children. NARRATOR: According to the Book of Enoch, the leader of this rebellion is a watcher known as Samyaza or Sataneal. Could this be the same character we know as Satan? So what we’re seeing in the story of Samyaza
And the Watchers is very similar to the story of Lucifer in charge of the angels. In both cases, we are confronted with a hierarchy of a species which is between us and God, the leader of which disagrees with God and basically wants to live amongst mankind.
When you look at a different versions of the Book of Enoch, the one thing that combines all of them is that they talk about the Watchers, the Watchers from heaven, and they are the ones who gave knowledge. And when I look at terms such as Watchers from heaven,
Then personally I interpret them as possible extraterrestrials. NARRATOR: Do the ancient accounts of Samyaza’s revolt and Lucifer’s fall suggest that Satan’s efforts to corrupt mankind in the Garden of Eden were actually an attempt to give man forbidden knowledge? And might these legends be based not on myth
But on actual historical events, events involving extraterrestrial visitors? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and believe that close examination of the Book of Enoch may point to physical evidence of where Satan’s so-called rebellion against God may have actually occurred. Mount Hermon, Lebanon. Straddling the border of Syria, this legendary mountain
As described in the Book of Enoch is the peak where Samyaza and the Watchers descended to Earth. ADAM BLAI: In the Book of Enoch, there’s a reference to Mount Hermon. We see the angels basically descending to Mount Hermon. So Mount Hermon was both a place of connection with heaven
And kind of sally port between Earth and heaven. The Watchers being angels from heaven knew the sciences of heaven. Samyaza was basically an expert in enchantment and lute cutting. You could think of it as basically witchcraft, the casting of spells, creating magic, and using roots to create potions.
The Book of Enoch lists very specifically the subjects that are taught to humans by the Watchers, by these angels, who begin to share their wisdom with them. NARRATOR: The Book of Enoch describes Mount Hermon as the place where Samyaza taught humans about magic and medicine.
Other powerful angels passed on knowledge of metallurgy, weapons, astrology, science, and even warfare. SCOTT ROBERTS: The Watchers delivered to humanity the forbidden knowledge of God. All the stories in ancient cultures cross-cultural had these tales of beings that would deliver the forbidden knowledge of the gods to humans,
And they were all condemned for it. KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: The Watchers through Samyaza give us extraordinary tools which make our lives much, much better on Earth. So is Samyaza really a bad guy, or did he in fact liberate humans from ignorance? And if Samyaza actually is the forerunner of Satan,
Has Satan actually been misrepresented all of these years? NARRATOR: Is it possible that Samyaza and the other Watchers were extraterrestrial beings that gave humanity the foundations for civilization? Then if so, how did Satan come to be so misunderstood and misinterpreted by history? PHILIP COPPENS: If we equal Samyaza and Satan, what we’re
Confronted with here is a larger framework which basically tells us that Samyaza, Satan we’re here to civilize us. The Watchers were civilizing deities. They basically helped us to develop our skills of civilization. And so what we are confronted with here is basically the conclusion that civilization
The way we know it is not something divine but is literally satanic. It was Satan who gave us the tools of civilization. NARRATOR: Was Satan really a civilizing force for early humans as some ancient astronaut theorists believe? And if so, might further evidence be found by examining other ancient myths and legends?
In ancient Sumeria, you have these very curious stories of the Annunaki. The Annunaki where half god, half man who came down from the stars. They were instructing the Sumerians in various arts of civilization. They were very strange looking. They had elongated heads. They looked almost like insect-type people
Or what they call reptilian features in a sense or a viper visage as the Watchers were called in the Bible. In global cultures, we find constant references to these giant celestial beings coming to Earth and initiating or instructing humankind. Satan himself is considered to be a Seraphim, which means
Winged serpents or fiery serpents, but yet the word Seraphim contains the word ser meaning serpent and raphim them meaning giant. NARRATOR: Was the character we know is Satan really an extraterrestrial being, one who broke with his own species in order to live among our distant ancestors?
Did he, along with other so-called fallen angels, actually break with God not out of spite or arrogance but instead to help mankind? Perhaps further clues can be found in legends of a flying serpent and in the story of a titan who is savagely punished for all eternity. The Yucatan Peninsula.
Here in the jungles of Southern Mexico lie the ruins of the great Mayan city Chichen Itza. Constructed more than 1,000 years ago, Chichen Itza was one of the largest and most powerful cities in the Mayan world. And dominating the site is the Great Pyramid El Castillo.
A temple built to honor the Mayan serpent god Kukulkan. WILLIAM HENRY: Kukulkan is a name for Satan or for the winged serpent. He’s always portrayed as a wisdom burying being who delivers this cosmic knowledge to humankind. Often we’ll see Kukulkan portrayed
As half human or half serpent or as a human being coming out of the mouth of a serpent. This is how Christianity will traditionally portray Satan as a dragon figure or a serpentine like being. The question is why is he depicted as such,
And I think we really can find out that Kukulkan is not unique in this sense. NARRATOR: One of the most powerful gods in the Mayan pantheon, Kukulkan was believed to have descended from the stars. He is also credited with teaching astronomy, mathematics, and agriculture to mankind.
WILLIAM HENRY: This is identical to the Christian tradition of Satan being the serpent of the tree of knowledge delivering the forbidden wisdom to humanity. In the Book of Enoch, we learn of the Watchers who are described as having visage as of vipers or the face of a serpent and delivering
This powerful knowledge to humankind. So it’s possible that what we’re seeing in all of these instances is the same figure or representative of the same tribe of angels, the satanic beings or these serpentine like angel beings. NARRATOR: Are the stories of Satan and Kukulkan
Really based on the same being as many ancient astronaut theorists believe? And if so, might this same character also be found in the myths and legends of other ancient cultures. PHILIP COPPENS: Satan is a creature who comes out of nowhere to live amongst mankind
And teaches is not something which is limited to the Bible. We find it in most traditions across the world. NARRATOR: According to the legends of ancient Greece, the titan known as Prometheus sinned against the gods by stealing the secret of fire and giving it to man. For his transgression, he was doomed
To suffer a gruesome eternal punishment by being chained to a rock and having an eagle eat his liver only to have the organ grow back each night so that the eagle could continue to feast on it the next day. RICHARD RADER: He’s a God that becomes associated with humans
Because he is a champion for humans. Right and the mythological stories talk about how Prometheus is basically like they’re representative. NARRATOR: Another such deity was the god Viracocha. Worshipped by the ancient Inca in the Andes of South America, Viracocha was a powerful creator god who came to Earth to pass on celestial knowledge.
Like Prometheus, this Incan god was described as a bringer of light and is depicted in ancient Incan sculpture as holding two lightning bolts and wearing the sun as a crown. WILLIAM HENRY: The Inca describe a luminous being called Viracoco or Viracocha who brought knowledge of medicine, astronomy, and other advanced sciences.
It’s possible that Viracocha is the same as Samyaza or Satan as a figure bringing this liberating wisdom to humankind that seeks to bring us along the path of advancement and enlightenment. So you have to ask yourself why would such diverse cultures have such similar mythologies. PHILIP COPPENS: In the case of Viracocha,
What we see is a deity which manifests itself from Earth, lives amongst mankind, gives us sciences, and after a number of years, disappears again. NARRATOR: The ancient Egyptians had cults that worship the god Set, a divine being who like Satan ruled over darkness and chaos. PHILIP COPPENS: The tradition traditional civilizing deities
Who go around civilizing, educating us is something which we find in all traditions whether they are the great cultures of Egypt, Inca, or the Mayan empires, or smaller cultures elsewhere in the universe. And so what we’re finding is that the story of Satan has a civilizing deity is definitely not unique
But sits within a clear framework across the entire world. And it shows you that the importance of Satan is not just something limited to the Bible but really tells us an awful lot about civilization as a whole. NARRATOR: Could it be that these ancient myths were actually
Describing the same creature, the fallen angel we now refer to as Satan? But how then did a creature who is so often credited with bringing mankind knowledge and enlightenment become thought of as the personification of all things evil. ERICH VON DANIKEN: The word Lucifer comes from Latin, makes looks fiery, making light.
It’s the same as in the Greek mythology from Matthaios, who stored the light from the gods. It’s really a sympathic idea that all these figures are finally just one figure in different languages but they were all sympathetic to the humans. It is quite possible that our religious traditions and those
Who selected the old holy texts some thousands of years ago, they made out an evil figure out of Lucifer and the devil. And maybe it was the other way around. He was the good one. PHILIP COPPENS: When we’re looking at something like Satan, we’re not necessarily
Talking about morality, but we’re actually exploring things about our ancestors. We’re exploring mythology. We’re exploring accounts of our ancestors saying that they developed civilization not on their own but with the help of non-human intelligences. And in the case of one such story, we see that that intelligence is Satan.
DAVID CHILDRESS: In many ways, Satan may well be a person, a god, an angel, an ET who’s maligned in a sense. Lucifer is Prometheus. He’s the light bringer. He’s the god of hard work. He’s the one who brings us fire. He’s the one who gives us the opportunity to do things ourselves.
NARRATOR: If the biblical character of Satan is really based on an extraterrestrial being, one who stole technology from his masters in order to benefit early man, then why is he now reviled as a creature of consummate evil? Ancient astronaut theorists believe the answer may lie not in ancient scriptures
But in numerous accounts of demonic possession. Klingenberg, Germany, located 32 miles southeast of Frankfurt. This small city is home to one of the most famous and frightening cases of demonic possession ever recorded. In September 1973, a young woman named Anneliese Michel began hearing voices that told her she was damned
And would rot in hell. When medical treatments failed, she sought the help of an exorcist. [speaking german] Demonic possession is perhaps the most frightening and visceral of all phenomena associated with Satan. According to Christian tradition, possession occurs when a demon enters the body, corrupting a person’s physical and spiritual being.
The belief in demonic possession is widespread. It seems to show up pretty much all over the planet. It was believed to be the presence of a satanic energy, truly dark, terrible evil that could take over a person, take over their body, take over their mind.
And they would be acting with no free will. They would be a complete slave to the power of the dark side. ADAM BLAI: Demons manifest on Earth to interact with people to afflict us and tempt us in various ways. The oppression involves physically wounding us attacking us, causing effects
On our body and our mind. Possession is when we surrender our lower faculties to them and they take over our body and use it as their own. And in rare cases, they can appear visibly to multiple people as supposed human spirits. NARRATOR: Most Christians believe
Demons are evil incarnations of the other angels who followed Lucifer in his rebellion against the Almighty God. They bear names like Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Moloch, and Mammon and are dedicated to corrupting the souls of mankind. Biblically speaking, the demonic comes from the fallen angels, those who fell with Lucifer during the great wars
In heaven. And their purpose is to deceive humanity, to lead them astray, to distract them from God, and there are many castes. They range from your basic thugs in the bottom all the way up to your, if you will, your intelligentsia that is governing behind the scenes of the affairs of mankind.
ADAM BLAI: It is essentially you can imagine a military structure with generals, officers, privates. There’s basically nine levels which are fallen angels of various ranks serving under each other, ultimately serving Satan. NARRATOR: In many religious traditions, there are sacred rites to exorcise these demons from the bodies of the afflicted.
Let her go. Let her go. I come against you again, Satan, by the blood of Christ. NARRATOR: The Reverend Bob Larson is an evangelical minister, an exorcist, who says he has come face to face with the demonic and the truly satanic. The blood of Christ, I torment you, Satan.
You can’t have her. She belongs to God. Torment you. I torment you by the blood of Christ. Torment you! I’m here to be an instrument of God to cast out the devil, to free human souls. It’s not my power that does it. It’s God’s power. I’m simply the instrument that he uses.
But my mission is to get every demon possible out of every possible human being and send them straight to hell. How long have you had her? Get me some oil please. I anoint you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. How long have you had this woman?
How many generations? How many generations? The demon is metaphysical. It is invisible. It’s spirit. Doesn’t have a physical body so a demon can’t really do anything evil. A demon can’t start a war, can’t pull the trigger of a gun, can’t rape anybody. A demon needs a body to accomplish its evil purposes.
So demons are looking to inhabit human souls so that through the physicality of human beings, they can bring about their plan of death and destruction. NARRATOR: According to Larson and other Christian theologians, demonic forces have always been present on Earth, and demons are continually traveling to Earth to sow the seeds of ruin.
But where exactly are they coming from? Is it hell or perhaps someplace else? BOB LARSON: Both the Jewish and Christian scriptures as well as other religious books that delve into the subject of demonism never fully describe the nature of their existence, where they operate.
It seems to be in a kind of parallel reality, another dimension, out of our time, space continuum. They’re there. We’re here. Einstein opened a little bit of a door into the possibility of other realms. We are getting a small glimpse of the reality that exists beyond our understanding.
We just need to know there’s another realm out there, and when I do an exorcism, I step in and out of those realms. I’m in the physical natural realm, but I’m also invading the realm in which demons operate. So I step from the physical into the metaphysical.
I don’t have to understand what’s going on there. I’m on a simple mission, not to find out everything I can about that world but to get the demon out of the human soul. NARRATOR: Might devils and demons really be beings from another realm?
And might that realm not be hell but an actual extraterrestrial world? And are they really malevolent? Or might they have another perhaps even more profound agenda? Ancient astronaut theorists believe the answers may be found in the mysterious prophecies of the Book of Revelation. Megiddo, Israel. Located 11 miles from Nazareth, this ancient city
Is mentioned more than a dozen times in the Bible, most prominently in the prophetic Book of Revelation. According to the religious text, it is outside this city on the so-called plains of Megiddo where the forces of the Almighty God will wage a final battle against Satan and the forces of evil.
The Book of Revelation is certainly one of the most complicated books in the Bible, and it belongs to a separate set of material that’s called apocalyptic. It is a book that gives visions of the future to come. BRETT PETERSON: There’s a battle that will take place
In a valley in Israel called Megiddo or Har Megiddo, thus Armageddon we get the term. Satan himself will gather the armies of the world to Megiddo to fight Jesus Christ. Satan takes on a more physical appearance, uses various technologies to enslave more and more of mankind.
Ultimately, he becomes a geopolitical force, basically essentially a dictator of the entire world. NARRATOR: The Book of Revelation further describes that this battle will be fought in heaven and on Earth. Angels will descend from the sky. Demons will spread out across the land to destroy with fiery swords.
And the Almighty God will reign destruction down upon Earth. KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: The Book of the Revelation is really a pretty terrifying document if we’re to look at it and think that these things could happen literally. I mean, when you look at what’s happening in the book, we have cataclysms on the Earth.
We have earthquakes. We have fire raining from the sky. We have angels doing battle in heaven. And then repeatedly we have Satan coming back. NARRATOR: But could it be that this biblical prophecy isn’t a doomsday prediction of cataclysm and war but it has another even more profound interpretation?
The Book of Revelation gives us some of the clearest depictions of what not a few moderns would call extraterrestrial activity. Think about it. We have supernatural beings flying through the cosmos blowing trumpets, casting fire upon the Earth. We have great conflict between light and darkness, good and evil.
There’s a cosmic dualism going on here that involves in the end the reassertion of divine authority over those wayward angels who had gone astray so long ago. NARRATOR: Extraterrestrial combat? Could the Bible’s Book of Revelation really be referring to a galactic war, one waged over the ultimate fate of mankind?
If so, who or what is Satan? Is he a demon, the devil, the personification of evil? Or was he, in fact, a benevolent extraterrestrial being, one who stole technology from alien beings in an effort to lead early man out of darkness and ignorance?
If so, then why did Satan become a force for evil? Does he seek to punish mankind for siding with our creator against him? Perhaps he is testing us, using alien technology to modify human behavior in ways we have yet to understand. He’s this idea of an adversary, this idea of a liar
Or a tester combined with this concept of Lucifer, the fallen angel, combined with this leader of the Watchers who also leads rebellion. I think that ultimately what we find is that Lucifer is a conflation, a character who is a composite of all of these different ideas and different characters.
It’s important for us to remember that Satan is part of the class of angels called Seraphim. The Seraphim were sent to Earth as benefactors of humankind bringing wisdom. The church has created this evil monster out of Satan, perhaps even out of thin air, when in reality Satan’s entire mission
Was about bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity and, in fact, caring about humanity, not seeking to destroy humankind. DAVID CHILDRESS: In a sense, Satan’s not such a bad guy. You cannot have the light without the dark. You can’t have right without wrong. And we have to learn these things for ourselves.
And ultimately through choice, wrong and right, we grow, and we become who we are. And ultimately that is to be like our makers to become gods ourselves. NARRATOR: Might Satan’s reputation as the personification of evil really have been his punishment for giving mankind scientific knowledge? If so, might his evil acts really
Be expressions of revenge against the human creatures that abandoned him? Or are the evil deeds associated with Satan really a part of a grand plan, a series of moral challenges intended to prepare us for our next and perhaps final close encounter?
