Part II. Luciferian answers to "atheistic and theistic" arguments, reason/logic and investment of belief in the ritual chamber are all but a few points covered here. Demonology from the 1st Century AD onward has different considerations and fears attached to spirits than in previous periods. From Bronze to Iron Age into the Hellenic period in the Ancient Near East, the pantheons foundations had a structure of divine order with several gods representing the natural phenomena be it creative or destructive. These deities had temples and priesthoods who maintained reverence to these powers; the gods had each specific or several different realms of control over certain occurrences in nature and in humanity. Main spheres of authority were in nature: the sun (life giving and crop supporting aspects, daily the deity would move through the course of the sun from the east (the herald of dawn was Venus (male or commonly a female) known as the Morning Star. At dusk Venus was the Evening Star and the sun entered the West (typically the entrance to the Underworld) in which the solar deity either slept or traveled as a psycopomp for the shades of the dead into the Underworld. The sun also had a destructive side to maintain balance; this was often the blazing heat and the droughts, bringing pestilence and famine to humanity during those months. The destructive or potentially harmful deities associated with the blazing sun were sometimes also gods who had control in the sphere of war (authority over the primal human instinct of conquering and violent impulses in man), Nergal/Erra being just one example. Storm gods in the Ancient Near East also had creative/maintaining order in nature roles as well as having authority or influence over destructive/conquering aspects of the storm as a destroying force which includes the winds, lightening and dark storm clouds. A storm god also has a balanced mastery of the world of humans and directly nature; the anger of Baal, Enlil, Dagan, Set also revealed once their symbolic destructive moods were sated then established a period of renewal, order and peace in nature and society. Gods of fertility, love and birth such as Ishtar/Inanna, Isis, Astarte, Ashteroth and others maintained growth, passion and the suggestion of happiness while having a dark aspect as well. Love associated with the passions of the human spirit have an origin of violent impulses and the desire of consuming or devouring lust; Astarte as Venus-Morning Star also had warlike elements. Inanna/Ishtar was a conquering, destroying patron goddess of the Morning/Evening Star manifest as war and the conquering human spirit of leaders (elevated by victory as kings such as the Akkadian Naram-Sin) and Ashtar-Chemosh (the masculine counterpart of Ashteroth) who maintained order by overcoming obstacles and enemy elements.

• published: 20 Nov 2013
• views: 187