On May 7, 1966 a 9 year old child named Cathy O’Brien was subjected to an occult ritual named “The Rite to Remain Silent”. This is her own very shocking and eye-opening life story about her experience as a CIA MK-Ultra Whitehouse Pentagon level trauma-based Mind Control slave. She speaks out to expose those who abused, who go right up to presidents and congressmen and women and to give voice to the many mind control victims out there who can’t think to speak out.
O’Brien claims to have been abused since she was a toddler by her own family. Forced to partake in satanic sadomasochistic child pornography movies produced for Gerald Ford, she was eventually sold to the CIA, which was looking for traumatized children for their mind-control program … U.S. Presidents Ford, Reagan, Bush and Bill Clinton; Canadian Prime Ministers Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney; Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid; Haitian dictator Baby Doc Duvalier; Panamanian President Manuel Noriega; and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia all sexually brutalized her. She recounts in graphic detail how the elder George Bush raped her thirteen year old daughter and how she was forced to have oral sex with Illuminati witch Hillary Clinton … While being sodomized, whipped, bound and raped, O’Brien overheard the globalist elite planning a military coup in the United States and conspiring to usher in the satanic New World Order
Cathleen Ann O’Brien (born December 4, 1957, Muskegon, Michigan[1]) is an American who says she is a victim of a mind control government project named Project Monarch, which she said was part of the CIA’sProject MKULTRA forbehavioral engineering of humans (mind control).[2][3][4][5][6] O’Brien made these assertions in Trance Formation of America (1995) and Access Denied: For Reasons of National Security (2004) which she co-authored with her husband Mark Phillips.[6]
The memories that O’Brien has asserted she possesses were retrieved through the use of hypnosis. The specific program which she claimed was responsible for herdissociative identity disorder, Project Monarch, is not mentioned in reviews of MKULTRA, its alleged parent program. Because most MKULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1973 by order of then CIA Director Richard Helms, it has been difficult, if not impossible, for investigators to gain a complete understanding of the more than 150 individually funded research sub-projects sponsored by MKULTRA and related CIA programs.[7][8] In 1977, Richard Helms was suspended by the US Congress for lying about the US government’s anti-government activities abroad and illegal surveillance domestically.[9]
O’Brien also states that she has a recollection of child abuse — of her and her daughter — by international pedophile rings, drug barons and satanists, as part of asex slave aspect to her “trauma based mind control programming.” Individuals from United States, Canadian, Mexican and Saudi Arabian government officials to stars of the Country and Western music scene are among those she accuses of these crimes. According to scholar Michael Barkun, investigations into the story produced no credible evidence and numerous inconsistencies.[5]
O’Brien says she was recruited against her will by the CIA and her abusive father as a child, through a network of child pornographers he was involved with, and forced to participate in a mind control program named Project Monarch, which is said to be a subsection of Project MKULTRA and Project ARTICHOKE.[2][3][4][5]
O’Brien says that she has developed dissociative identity disorder (previously misnomered as multiple personality disorder) and that she has no memory of some of her activities. She also says that she has a photographic recall of the events that she suffered whilst her alternate personalities were in control.[6]
Swedish scholar Mattias Gardell states that O’Brien’s assertions are almost entirely unsupported by any evidence outside her testimony or the similarly unverified testimony of others.[10] Michael Barkun states that “scholarly and journalistic treatments of MK-ULTRA make no mention of a Project Monarch”.[5]
Her stories have entered the conspiracy culture, linking assertions of satanic ritual abuse with MKUltra.[11]Mark Dice was skeptical of her assertions, but also commented, “there are very real victims of such programs” and “it is possible that a victim would write a book about them and have nobody believe her.”[12]
So recently I’ve been having a theological discussion about Reincarnation with a coworker and friend kevin Anderson. I started thinking about this subject a long time ago when I first became a follower of Christ Jesus. When I first started to have this discussion was with my friend who I now call the guru Joseph Ferrara who has now died so its appropriate that I dedicate this blog post to my good friend and mentor who I learned many things from.
Though the major Christian denominations reject the concept of reincarnation, a large number of Christians profess the belief. In a survey by the Pew Forum in 2009, 24% of American Christians expressed a belief in reincarnation.[140] In a 1981 Survey in Europe 31% of regular churchgoing Catholics expressed a belief in reincarnation.[141] Geddes MacGregor, an Episcopalian priest and professor of Philosophy, makes a case for the compatibility of Christian doctrine and reincarnation.[142] There is evidence[143][144] that the writing of Origen, a Church father in early Christian times, was mistranslated into Latin due to religious bias and that he taught reincarnation in his lifetime. One of the epistles written by St. Jerome, “To Avitus” (Letter 124 ; Ad Avitum. Epistula CXXIV[145]), asserts that Origen’s On First Principles (Latin: De Principiis; Greek: Περὶ Ἀρχῶν[146]) was mistranscribed from Greek into Latin:
About ten years ago that saintly man Pammachius sent me a copy of a certain person’s [ Rufinus‘s[147] ] rendering, or rather misrendering, of Origen’s First Principles; with a request that in a Latin version I should give the true sense of the Greek and should set down the writer’s words for good or for evil without bias in either direction. When I did as he wished and sent him the book, he was shocked to read it and locked it up in his desk lest being circulated it might wound the souls of many.[148]
Under the impression that Origen was a heretic like Arius, St. Jerome criticizes ideas described in On First Principles. Further in “To Avitus” (Letter 124), St. Jerome writes about “convincing proof” that Origen teaches reincarnation in the original version of the book:
The following passage is a convincing proof that he holds the transmigration of the souls and annihilation of bodies. ‘If it can be shown that an incorporeal and reasonable being has life in itself independently of the body and that it is worse off in the body than out of it; then beyond a doubt bodies are only of secondary importance and arise from time to time to meet the varying conditions of reasonable creatures. Those who require bodies are clothed with them, and contrariwise, when fallen souls have lifted themselves up to better things, their bodies are once more annihilated. They are thus ever vanishing and ever reappearing.’[149]
The original text of On First Principles has almost completely disappeared. It remains extant as De Principiis in fragments faithfully translated into Latin by St. Jerome and in “the not very reliable Latin translation of Rufinus.”[146]
This section taken from: http://reluctant-messenger.com/reincarnation-pope.htm History records that the early Christine church believed in Reincarnation and of the souls journey back to oneness with God. This all changed by Imperial decree some 500 plus years after the death of Christ. Emperor Justinian in 545 A.D. was able to apply the full power of Rome and his authority to stop the belief in reincarnation. He forced the ruling cardinals to draft a papal decree stating that anyone who believes that souls come from God and return to God will be punished by death. The actual decree stated: “If anyone asserts the fabulous preexistence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema. (The Anathemas against Origen), attached to the decrees of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, A.D. 545, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2d ser., 14: 318).” A prominent theologian named Origen wrote around 250 AD about the pre-existence of the soul. He taught that the soul’s very source was God and that the soul was traveling back to oneness with God via the lessons learned in multiple lives. He taught that Christ came to show us what we can become. For centuries this was the mainstream view of Christianity but 300 years later it became a huge issue and the belief was made illegal because Emperor Constantine believed it was dangerous to the Empire to believe in reincarnation. In the sixth century A.D., Emperor Justinian and Pope Vigilius disagreed on whether or not the teachings of Origen should be condemned as heresy. The Pope supported the teaching as being consistent with the teachings of Jesus the Messiah. The Emperor was determined to eradicate the belief even though the Pope and the church believed in reincarnation. The fact that the doctrine of reincarnation had been a part of Christian theology for over 500 years did not sway the Emperor. Origen’s writings were considered heresy by important cardinals in the sixth century. Origen’s teachings had been considered as profound spiritual wisdom for three centuries. Origen lived around 250 AD and wrote about the pre-existence of the soul and in reincarnation. He taught that the soul’s very source was God and that the soul’s was traveling back to oneness with God via Reincarnation. Emperor Justinian wanted Origen’s writings and teachings to be condemned and destroyed but Pope Vigilius refused to sign a papal decree condemning Origen’s teachings on reincarnation. As a result of his disobedience, the Emperor had the Pope arrested and put into jail. In 543, Justinian convoked the Fifth General Council of the Church and told the Pope he would sign whatever into doctrine whatever the council decided. On the way there, under guard, the Pope escaped to avoid being forced to condemn Origen’s writings. The Emperor commanded the council to continue despite the Pope’s refusal to attend. There was a logical reason why the Emperor was opposed to the concept that all of mankind originally came from God and was returing to God via the cycle of birth and death. Justinian had been convinced by high ranking cardinals that it was not in the interest of the empire to allow Origen’s writings to continue to be copied and distributed. A powerful group of Cardinal’s and Bishop’s explained that if every soul had once pre-existed with God, then Christ wasn’t anything special to have come from God. These Cardinals convinced the Emperor that if people realized they were the children of God they might begin to believe they no longer needed an Emperor, or to pay taxes, or to obey the Holy Church. But since they reasoned that only Christ had come from God but God made brand new souls at the time of conception and only the Holy Church could bring these souls to God. Without the protection of the Empire or the guidance of the church, all people would be doomed to be forever cut off from God in Hell. This doctrine was very acceptabloe to the Emperor. Once Justinian understood the political danger inherent in Origen’s teachings, the rest was simply an Emperor doing what was in his best interest. The council, as instructed by the Emperor, produced fourteen new anathemas and the very first one condemned reincarnation and the concept that souls pre-existed with God. “If anyone asserts the fabulous preexistence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema.” Even though these events are in the history books, modern Christianity treats the doctrine of reincarnation today as if Jesus never taught it or that the early church ever believed it. The fact that a soul comes from God and is destined to become God, as Christ is God, is the very reason why Satan rebelled. Reincarnation is one of the Lost Doctrines of Christianity. This section taken from: http://www.near-death.com
Early in the fourth century, while Bishop Alexander of Alexandria was expounding on the Trinity to his flock, a theological tsunami was born.
A Libyan priest named Arius stood up and posed the following simple question: “If the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence.” In other words, if the Father is the parent of the Son, then didn’t the Son have a beginning?
Apparently, no one had put it this way before. For many bishops, Arius spoke heresy when he said that the Son had a beginning. A debate erupted, led by Arius on the one side and by Alexander and his deacon Athanasius on the other. Athanasius became the Church’s lead fighter in a struggle that lasted his entire life.
In 320 A.D., Alexander held a Council of Alexandria to condemn the errors of Arius. But this did not stop the controversy. The Church had nearly split over the issue when the controversy reached the ears of the Roman emperor Constantine. He decided to resolve it himself in a move that permanently changed the course of Christianity.
The orthodox accused the Arians of attempting to lower the Son by saying he had a beginning. But, in fact, the Arians gave him an exalted position, honoring him as “first among creatures.” Arius described the Son as one who became “perfect God, only begotten and unchangeable,” but also argued that he had an origin.
The Arian controversy was really about the nature of humanity and how we are saved. It involved two pictures of Jesus Christ: Either he was a God who had always been God or he was a human who became God’s Son.
If he was a human who became God’s Son, then that implied that other humans could also become Sons of God. This idea was unacceptable to the orthodox, hence their insistence that Jesus had always been God and was entirely different from all created beings. As we shall see, the Church’s theological position was, in part, dictated by its political needs. The Arian position had the potential to erode the authority of the Church since it implied that the soul did not need the Church to achieve salvation.
The outcome of the Arian controversy was crucial to the Church’s position on both reincarnation and the soul’s opportunity to become one with God. Earlier, the Church decided that the human soul is not now and never has been a part of God. Instead it belongs to the material world and is separated from God by a great chasm.
Rejecting the idea that the soul is immortal and spiritual, which was a part of Christian thought at the time of Clement of Alexandria and Origen, the Fathers developed the concept of “creatio ex nihilo”, creation out of nothing. If the soul were not a part of God, the orthodox theologians reasoned, it could not have been created out of his essence.
The doctrine persists to this day. By denying man’s divine origin and potential, the doctrine of creation out of nothing rules out both preexistence and reincarnation. Once the Church adopted the doctrine, it was only a matter of time before it rejected both Origenism and Arianism. In fact, the Arian controversy was only one salvo in the battle to eradicate the mystical tradition Origen represented.
Origen and his predecessor, Clement of Alexandria, lived in a Platonist world. For them it was a given that there is an invisible spiritual world which is permanent and a visible material world that is changeable. The soul belongs to the spiritual world, while the body belongs to the material world.
In the Platonists’ view, the world and everything in it is not created but emanates from God, the One. Souls come from the Divine Mind, and even when they are encased in bodily form, they retain their link to the Source.
Clement tells us that humanity is “of celestial birth, being a plant of heavenly origin.” Origen taught that man, having been made after the “image and likeness of God,” has “a kind of blood-relationship with God.”
While Clement and Origen were teaching in Alexandria, another group of Fathers was developing a counter-theology. They rejected the Greek concept of the soul in favor of a new and unheard of idea: The soul is not a part of the spiritual world at all; but, like the body, it is part of the mutable material world.
They based their theology on the changeability of the soul. How could the soul be divine and immortal, they asked, if it is capable of changing, falling and sinning? Because it is capable of change, they reasoned, it cannot be like God, who is unchangeable.
Origen took up the problem of the soul’s changeability but came up with a different solution. He suggested that the soul was created immortal and that even though it fell (for which he suggests various reasons), it still has the power to restore itself to its original state.
For him the soul is poised between spirit and matter and can choose union with either: “The will of this soul is something intermediate between the flesh and the spirit, undoubtedly serving and obeying one of the two, whichever it has chosen to obey.” If the soul chooses to join with spirit, Origen wrote, “the spirit will become one with it.”
This new theology, which linked the soul with the body, led to the ruling out of preexistence. If the soul is material and not spiritual, then it cannot have existed before the body. As Gregory of Nyssa wrote: “Neither does the soul exist before the body, nor the body apart from the soul, but … there is only a single origin for both of them.”
When is the soul created then? The Fathers came up with an improbable answer: at the same time as the body – at conception. “God is daily making souls,” wrote Church Father Jerome. If souls and bodies are created at the same time, both preexistence and reincarnation are out of the question since they imply that souls exist before bodies and can be attached to different bodies in succession.
The Church still teaches the soul is created at the same time as the body and therefore the soul and the body are a unit.
This kind of thinking led straight to the Arian controversy. Now that the Church had denied that the soul preexists the body and that it belongs to the spiritual world, it also denied that souls, bodies and the created world emanated from God.
When Arius asked whether the Son had a beginning, he was, in effect, pointing out a fundamental flaw in that doctrine. The doctrine did not clarify the nature of Christ. So he was asking: If there is an abyss between Creator and creation, where does Christ belong? Was he created out of nothing like the rest of the creatures? Or was he part of God? If so, then how and why did he take on human form?
The Church tells us that the Arian controversy was a struggle against blasphemers who said Christ was not God. But the crucial issue in the debate was: How is humanity saved – through emulating Jesus or through worshiping him?
The Arians claimed that Jesus became God’s Son and thereby demonstrated a universal principle that all created beings can follow. But the Orthodox Church said that he had always been God’s Son, was of the same essence as God (and therefore was God) and could not be imitated by mere creatures, who lack God’s essence. Salvation could come only by accessing God’s grace via the Church.
The Arians believed that human beings could also be adopted as Sons of God by imitating Christ. For the Arians, the incarnation of Christ was designed to show us that we can follow Jesus and become, as Paul said, “joint heirs with Christ.”
The Orthodox Church, by creating a gulf between Jesus and the rest of us, denied that we could become Sons in the same way he did. The reason why the Church had such a hard time seeing Jesus’ humanity was that they could not understand how anyone could be human and divine at the same time. Either Jesus was human (and therefore changeable) or he was divine (and therefore unchangeable).
The orthodox vision of Jesus as God is based in part on a misunderstanding of the Gospel of John. John tells us: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Later John tells us the “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” The orthodox concluded from these passages that Jesus Christ is God, the Word, made flesh.
What they didn’t understand was that when John called Jesus “the Word,” he was referring to the Greek tradition of the Logos. When John tells us that the Word created everything, he uses the Greek term for Word – “Logos.” In Greek thought, Logos describes the part of God that acts in the world. Philo called the Logos “God’s Likeness, by whom the whole cosmos was fashioned.” Origen called it the soul that holds the universe together.
Philo believed that great human beings like Moses could personify the Logos. Thus, when John writes that Jesus is the Logos, he does not mean that the man Jesus has always been God the Logos. What John is telling us is that Jesus the man became the Logos, the Christ.
Some early theologians believed that everyone has that opportunity. Clement tells us that each human has the “image of the Word (Logos)” within him and that it is for this reason that Genesis says that humanity is made “in the image and likeness of God.”
The Logos, then, is the spark of divinity, the seed of Christ, that is within our hearts. Apparently the orthodox either rejected or ignored this concept.
We should understand that Jesus became the Logos just as he became the Christ. But that didn’t mean he was the only one who could ever do it. Jesus explained this mystery when he broke the bread at the Last Supper. He took a single loaf, symbolizing the one Logos, the one Christ, and broke it and said, “This is my body, which is broken for you.”
He was teaching the disciples that there is one absolute God and one Universal Christ, or Logos, but that the body of that Universal Christ can be broken and each piece will still retain all the qualities of the whole. He was telling them that the seed of Christ was within them, that he had come to quicken it and that the Christ was not diminished no matter how many times his body was broken. The smallest fragment of God, Logos, or Christ, contains the entire nature of Christ’s divinity – which, to this day, he would make our own.
The orthodox misunderstood Jesus’ teaching because they were unable to accept the reality that each human being has both a human and a divine nature and the potential to become wholly divine. They didn’t understand the human and the divine in Jesus and therefore they could not understand the human and the divine within themselves. Having seen the weakness of human nature, they thought they had to deny the divine nature that occasionally flashes forth even in the lowliest of human beings.
The Church did not understand (or could not admit) that Jesus came to demonstrate the process by which the human nature is transformed into the divine. But Origen had found it easy to explain.
He believed that the human and divine natures can be woven together day by day. He tells us that in Jesus “the divine and human nature began to interpenetrate in such a way that the human nature, by its communion with the divine, would itself become divine.” Origen tells us that the option for the transformation of humanity into divinity is available not just for Jesus but for “all who take up in faith the life which Jesus taught.”
Origen did not hesitate to describe the relationship of human beings to the Son. He believed that we contain the same essence as the Father and the Son: “We, therefore, having been made according to the image, have the Son, the original, as the truth of the noble qualities that are within us. And what we are to the Son, such is the Son to the Father, who is the truth.” Since we have the noble qualities of the Son within us, we can undergo the process of divinization (at-one-ment with God).
To the Arians, the divinization process was essential to salvation; to the orthodox, it was heresy. In 324 A.D., the Roman emperor Constantine, who had embraced Christianity twelve years earlier, entered the Arian controversy. He wrote a letter to Arius and Bishop Alexander urging them to reconcile their differences, and he sent Bishop Hosius of Cordova to Alexandria to deliver it. But his letter could not calm the storm that raged over the nature of God – and man. Constantine realized that he would have to do more if he wanted to resolve the impasse.
In June, 325 A.D., the Council of Nicea opened and continued for two months, with Constantine attending. The bishops modified an existing creed to fit their purposes. The creed, with some changes made at a later fourth century council, is still given today in many churches. The Nicene Creed, as it came to be called, takes elaborate care by repeating several redundancies to identify the Son with the Father rather than with the creation:
“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father. By whom all things were made … Who … was incarnate and was made human …”
Only two bishops, along with Arius, refused to sign the creed. Constantine banished them from the empire, while the other bishops went on to celebrate their unity in a great feast at the imperial palace.
The creed is much more than an affirmation of Jesus’ divinity. It is also an affirmation of our separation from God and Christ. It takes great pains to describe Jesus as God in order to deny that he is part of God’s creation. He is “begotten, not made,” therefore totally separate from us, the created beings. As scholar George Leonard Prestige writes, the Nicene Creed’s description of Jesus tells us “that the Son of God bears no resemblance to the … creatures.”
The description of Jesus as the only Son of God is carried forward in the Apostles’ Creed, which is used in many Protestant churches today. It reads: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty … I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.” But even that language – calling Jesus God’s only Son – denies that we can ever attain the sonship that Jesus did.
Christians may be interested to know that many scholars analyzing the Bible now believe that Jesus never claimed to be the only Son of God. This was a later development based on a misinterpretation of the gospel of John.
There is further evidence to suggest that Jesus believed all people could achieve the goal of becoming Sons of God. But the churches, by retaining these creeds, remain in bondage to Constantine and his three hundred bishops.
Some of the bishops who attended the council were uncomfortable with the council’s definition of the Son and thought they might have gone too far. But the emperor, in a letter sent to the bishops who were not in attendance at Nicea, required that they accept “this truly divine injunction.”
Constantine said that since the council’s decision had been “determined in the holy assemblies of the bishops,” the Church officials must regard it as “indicative of the divine will.”
The Roman god Constantine had spoken. Clearly, he had concluded that the orthodox position was more conducive to a strong and unified Church than the Arian position and that it therefore must be upheld.
Constantine also took the opportunity to inaugurate the first systematic government persecution of dissident Christians. He issued an edict against “heretics,” calling them “haters and enemies of truth and life, in league with destruction.”
Even though he had begun his reign with an edict of religious toleration, he now forbade the heretics (mostly Arians) to assemble in any public or private place, including private homes, and ordered that they be deprived of “every gathering point for [their] superstitious meetings,” including “all the houses of prayer.” These were to be given to the orthodox Church.
The heretical teachers were forced to flee, and many of their students were coerced back into the orthodox fold. The emperor also ordered a search for their books, which were to be confiscated and destroyed. Hiding the works of Arius carried a severe penalty – the death sentence.
Nicea, nevertheless, marked the beginning of the end of the concepts of both preexistence, reincarnation, and salvation through union with God in Christian doctrine. It took another two hundred years for the ideas to be expunged.
But Constantine had given the Church the tools with which to do it when he molded Christianity in his own image and made Jesus the only Son of God. From now on, the Church would become representative of a capricious and autocratic God – a God who was not unlike Constantine and other Roman emperors.
Tertullian, a stanch anti-Origenian and a father of the Church, had this to say about those who believed in reincarnation and not the resurrection of the dead: “What a panorama of spectacle on that day [the Resurrection]! What sight should I turn to first to laugh and applaud? … Wise philosophers, blushing before their students as they burn together, the followers to whom they taught that the world is no concern of God’s, whom they assured that either they had no souls at all or that what souls they had would never return to their former bodies? These are things of greater delight, I believe, than a circus, both kinds of theater, and any stadium.” Tertullian was a great influence in having so-called “heretics” put to death.
After Constantine and Nicea, Origen’s writings had continued to be popular among those seeking clarification about the nature of Christ, the destiny of the soul and the manner of the resurrection. Some of the more educated monks had taken Origen’s ideas and were using them in mystical practices with the aim of becoming one with God.
Toward the end of the fourth century, orthodox theologians again began to attack Origen. Their chief areas of difficulty with Origen’s thought were his teachings on the nature of God and Christ, the resurrection and the preexistence of the soul.
Their criticisms, which were often based on ignorance and an inadequate understanding, found an audience in high places and led to the Church’s rejection of Origenism and reincarnation. The Church’s need to appeal to the uneducated masses prevailed over Origen’s coolheaded logic.
The bishop of Cyprus, Epiphanius, claimed that Origen denied the resurrection of the flesh. However, as scholar Jon Dechow has demonstrated, Epiphanius neither understood nor dealt with Origen’s ideas. Nevertheless, he was able to convince the Church that Origen’s ideas were incompatible with the merging literalist theology. On the basis of Ephiphanius’ writings, Origenism would be finally condemned a century and a half later.
Jerome believed that resurrection bodies would be flesh and blood, complete with genitals – which, however, would not be used in the hereafter. But Origenists believed the resurrection bodies would be spiritual.
The Origenist controversy spread to monasteries in the Egyptian desert, especially at Nitria, home to about five thousand monks. There were two kinds of monks in Egypt – the simple and uneducated, who composed the majority, and the Origenists, an educated minority.
The controversy solidified around the question of whether God had a body that could be seen and touched. The simple monks believed that he did. But the Origenists thought that God was invisible and transcendent. The simple monks could not fathom Origen’s mystical speculations on the nature of God.
In 399 A.D., Bishop Theophilus wrote a letter defending the Origenist position. At this, the simple monks flocked to Alexandria, rioting in the streets and even threatening to kill Theophilus.
The bishop quickly reversed himself, telling the monks that he could now see that God did indeed have a body: “In seeing you, I behold the face of God.” Theophilus’ sudden switch was the catalyst for a series of events that led to the condemnation of Origen and the burning of the Nitrian monastery.
Under Theodosius, Christians, who had been persecuted for so many years, now became the persecutors. God made in man’s image proved to be an intolerant one. The orthodox Christians practiced sanctions and violence against all heretics (including Gnostics and Origenists), pagans and Jews. In this climate, it became dangerous to profess the ideas of innate divinity and the pursuit of union with God.
It may have been during the reign of Theodosius that the Gnostic Nag Hammadi manuscriptswere buried – perhaps by Origenist monks. For while the Origenist monks were not openly Gnostic, they would have been sympathetic to the Gnostic viewpoint and may have hidden the books after they became too hot to handle.
The Origenist monks of the desert did not accept Bishop Theophilus’ condemnations. They continued to practice their beliefs in Palestine into the sixth century until a series of events drove Origenism underground for good.
Justinian (ruled 527-565 A.D.) was the most able emperor since Constantine – and the most active in meddling with Christian theology. Justinian issued edicts that he expected the Church to rubber-stamp, appointed bishops and even imprisoned the pope.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire at the end of the fifth century, Constantinople remained the capital of the Eastern, or Byzantine, Empire. The story of how Origenism ultimately came to be rejected involves the kind of labyrinthine power plays that the imperial court became famous for.
Around 543 A.D., Justinian seems to have taken the side of the anti-Origenists since he issued an edict condemning ten principles of Origenism, including preexistence. It declared “anathema to Origen … and to whomsoever there is who thinks thus.” In other words, Origen and anyone who believes in these propositions would be eternally damned. A local council at Constantinople ratified the edict, which all bishops were required to sign.
In 553 A.D., Justinian convoked the Fifth General Council of the Church to discuss the controversy over the so-called “Three Chapters.” These were writings of three theologians whose views bordered on the heretical. Justinian wanted the writings to be condemned and he expected the council to oblige him.
He had been trying to coerce the pope into agreeing with him since 545 A.D. He had essentially arrested the pope in Rome and brought him to Constantinople, where he held him for four years. When the pope escaped and later refused to attend the council, Justinian went ahead and convened it without him.
This council produced fourteen new anathemas against the authors of the Three Chapters and other Christian theologians. The eleventh anathema included Origen’s name in a list of heretics.
The first anathema reads: “If anyone asserts the fabulous preexistence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema.” (“Restoration” means the return of the soul to union with God. Origenists believed that this took place through a path of reincarnation.) It would seem that the death blow had been struck against Origenism and reincarnation in Christianity.
After the council, the Origenist monks were expelled from their Palestinian monastery, some bishops were deposed and once again Origen’s writings were destroyed. The anti-Origenist monks had won. The emperor had come down firmly on their side.
In theory, it would seem that the missing papal approval of the anathemas leaves a doctrinal loophole for the belief in reincarnation among all Christians today. But since the Church accepted the anathemas in practice, the result of the council was to end belief in reincarnation in orthodox Christianity.
In any case, the argument is moot. Sooner or later the Church probably would have forbade the beliefs. When the Church codified its denial of the divine origin of the soul (at Nicea in 325 A.D.), it started a chain reaction that led directly to the curse on Origen.
Church councils notwithstanding, mystics in the Church continued to practice divinization. They followed Origen’s ideas, still seeking union with God.
But the Christian mystics were continually dogged by charges of heresy. At the same time as the Church was rejecting reincarnation, it was accepting original sin, a doctrine that made it even more difficult for mystics to practice.
With the condemnation of Origen, so much that is implied in reincarnation was officially stigmatized as heresy that the possibility of a direct confrontation with this belief was effectively removed from the church. In dismissing Origen from its midst, the church only indirectly addressed itself to the issue of reincarnation. The encounter with Origenism did, however, draw decisive lines in the matter of preexistence, the resurrection of the dead, and the relationship between body and soul. What an examination of Origen and the church does achieve, however, is to show where the reincarnationist will come into collision with the posture of orthodoxy. The extent to which he may wish to retreat from such a collision is of course a matter of personal conscience.
With the Council of 553 A.D. one can just about close the book on this entire controversy within the church. There are merely two footnotes to be added to the story, emerging from church councils in 1274 and 1439 A.D. In the Council of Lyons, in 1274 A.D., it was stated that after death the soul goes promptly either to heaven or to hell. On the Day of Judgment, all will stand before the tribunal of Christ with their bodies to render account of what they have done. TheCouncil of Florence of 1439 A.D. uses almost the same wording to describe the swift passage of the soul either to heaven or to hell. Implicit in both of these councils is the assumption that the soul does not again venture into physical bodies.
“Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” – (Matthew 16:13-14)
This section taken from:www.near-death.com
In December, 1945, early Christian writings containing many secrets of the early Christian religion were found in upper Egypt, a location where many Christians fled during the Roman invasion of Jerusalem. Undisturbed since their concealment almost two thousand years ago, these manuscripts of Christian mysticism rank in importance with theDead Sea Scrolls. These writings affirmed the existence of the doctrine of reincarnation being taught among the early Jews and Christians. These Christian mystics, referred to as Christian Gnostics, were ultimately destroyed by the orthodox Church for being heretics. Their sacred writings were destroyed and hidden with the belief that they would be revealed at an appropriate time in the future. The discovery in 1945 yielded writings that included some long lost gospels, some of which were written earlier than the known gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Brian A. Bain, M.A., has this to say about the 1945 discovery:
“Long considered to be heretical, ancient Gnostic Christian texts unearthed this century display compelling similarities between Gnostic conceptions of life and death and modern near-death experiences. The Gnostic texts devoted extensive tracts to what readers could expect to encounter when they died. Other passages make numerous allusions to near-death-like experiences that can be realized in this life, most notably the human encounter with a divine light. The Gnostic Christian literature gives us one more example of NDEs and similar experiences in the ancient world.”
Another interesting fact comes from Edgar Cayce (a near-death experiencer) who affirmed that Gnosticism is the highest form of Christianity.The Christian Gnostics were regarded by some as a new Jewish sect who believed they had finally found the long-awaited Messiah and not a new religion. Some of the apostles became Gnostic and because of this, Christianity could well have grown up as a Gnostic religion had it not been for their eventual persecution by the organized Church centuries later.
An important Christian Gnostic teaching was the “Logos” which in Greek is translated as “the image of the Word.” It is an important concept found in the gospel of John:
“In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)
Logos is the part of God that acts in the world. It is the perfect unity of the human and the divine. This is affirmed by John when he wrote that “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” When John stated that Jesus is the Logos, he is stating that Jesus became the Logos, the Christ. The Logos is the divine “spark” of God within humans that needs to awakened. Everyone has the “image of the Word (Logos)” within them and it is for this reason that Genesis describes humanity as created “in the image and likeness of God.”The Logos is the divine Spirit in humanity. By using the Christian Gnostic idea of the Logos, John is not only affirming the preexistence and divinity of Jesus, but he is affirming that all sons of God created in the “image of the Word” as Jesus was, preexisted in spirit before being born. In other words, every human is an incarnation of the Logos and every human has to potential of becoming like Jesus, a manifestation of the human-divine unity. Every human can be a “Christ” and because of this, every soul will eventually be drawn back to God.
The Roman Church misunderstood what the Logos was in John and incorrectly concluded from this that only Jesus is divine – the Word made flesh. The orthodox Church either rejected or ignored this Christian Gnostic concept found in John. This may have been a factor when the gospel of John was almost rejected from New Testament canon when it was being put together. This was during a time when Christian Gnosticism became an enemy of the organized Church. Nevertheless, it was the idea of the preexistence of the soul and its corresponding doctrine of reincarnation that the Roman Church had great difficulty with. The Christian Gnostics emphasized spiritual knowledge rather blind faith as the road to salvation. They indicated that they possessed secret knowledge (i.e., “gnosis” in Greek) concerning the hidden meaning of the “resurrection.” This was a part of the secret teachings of Jesus handed down to them by the apostles. This special knowledge was restricted to people who were given the public teachings of Christianity before qualifying to be initiated and receive the secret teachings. In contrast, the very term “Catholic” means “universal”, implying that anyone could become a member of the Church by adhering to the public teachings of faith and rituals. The Christian Gnostics were harsh critics of the orthodox Church. The Christian Gnostics accused the Church of watering down the gospel in order to popularize it for the masses. The orthodox Church stressed salvation through faith alone and by the rituals of the Church. This secret gnosis emphasized spiritual “resurrection” (i.e,. spiritual rebirth) and physical “resurrection” (i.e., reincarnation) as opposed to a resurrection defined as people sleeping in their graves until it is time their corpses to crawl out of their graves at the last day. Christian Gnostics held the view that if spiritual resurrection was not attained in one lifetime, then the soul would be subjected to as many reincarnations as it takes until spiritual rebirth is attained. One of the great Church leaders was Clement of Alexandria in Egypt (150-211 A.D.) who indicated that he possessed the secret teaching handed down from the apostles. In the Gnostic text entitled The Secret Gospel of Mark, one of the Christian Gnostic texts discovered in 1945, describes Jesus performing secret initiation rituals. Before the discovery of this secret gospel, our only knowledge of it came from a letter written by Clement. Clement quotes from this secret gospel and refers to it as, “a more spiritual gospel for the use of those who were being perfected.” He also states, “It even yet is most carefully guarded [by the church at Alexandria], being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.” Clement mentions elsewhere that Jesus revealed a secret teaching to those who were “capable of receiving it and being molded by it” He also affirmed that, “The gnosis (secret knowledge) itself is that which has descended by transmission to a few, having been imparted unwritten by the apostles.” (Miscell. Book VI, Chapter 7) The existence of a secret teaching can be found in the New Testament:
The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding’ (Mark 4:11-12)
“He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance.” (Matthew 13:11-12)
“We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.” (1 Corinthians 2:6-8)
“So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God.” (1 Corinthians 4:1)
“At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and Earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.” (Matthew 11:25-26)
Paul wrote about teachings which are taught to spiritual “babies,” teachings about righteousness for the more mature, and then teachings for the spiritually mature. Paul reveals this fact immediately after equating Melchizedek to Jesus by stating:
“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:11-14)
According to tradition, after the Roman invasion of Jerusalem, the author of the Gospel of Mark established a church in Alexandria, Egypt. Mark may also have been the author of a “secret gospel” containing more advanced teaching for those being initiated into the Christian mysteries. This secret gospel contains passages portraying Jesus teaching secret doctrines.
2. Origen: The Champion for the Secret Teachings of Jesus
As the orthodox church in Rome gained more and more political power the more it viewed secret teachings as a threat to their own public teachings. But the Church leader who made the final and greatest attempt to revive the secret teachings of Jesus within the orthodox teachings was the first Church Father named Origen (183-253 A.D.) of Alexandria in Egypt who was a disciple of Clement of Alexandra. Origen was the first person since Paul to develop a system of theology around the teachings of Jesus. His effort was the first within the orthodox church to systematize a theology on so vast a scale. Although Origen defended orthodoxy, he included in his system the wisdom of the Christian Gnostics. His theology was a perfect synthesis of “orthodox” and “gnostic” teachings and came the closest to reviving the “Lost Christianity” of the original sects, communities and schools, at a time when the Christian Gnosticism was falling into disrepute. Unfortunately, hundreds of years later, the Church declared him a heretic and his teachings as heresy mostly because they affirmed preexistence and therefore reincarnation.Origen had this to say about the secret teachings of Jesus:
“[Jesus] conversed with His disciples in private, and especially in their sacred retreats, concerning the Gospel of God; but the words which He uttered have not been preserved, because it appeared to the evangelists that they could not be adequately conveyed to the multitude in writing or in speech and they saw what things were to be committed to writing, and how this was to be done, and what was by no means to be written to the multitude, and what was to be expressed in words, and what was not to be so conveyed.” (Contra Celsus, Chap. VI. 18)
Concerning these secret teachings, Clement stated:
James the Righteous, John and Peter were entrusted by the Lord after his resurrection with the higher knowledge. They imparted it to the other apostles, to the seventy (Outlines Book VI)
According to Gnostic theology, a series of “falling away” from the Whole that is God occurred in eternity which resulted in all that there is today. After the first “fall”, the divine consciousness descended to the level of the divided consciousness; now after another “fall”, it has fallen even further, into the depths of the unconscious; it has been “forgotten.” It is now humanity’s privilege to discover the potential realms of human existence and face the great challenge of the “ascension of consciousness” through the Man-God-Spirit transformation.Once souls fell into the lower levels of consciousness, they became enamored of it and burned with the desire to experience the pleasures of matter. The souls then no longer wanted to disengage itself from these lower levels. Thus the world was born. From that moment souls forgot themselves. They forgot they original habitation, their true center and eternal being. Gnosticism proceeds from one fundamental insight: this world in which we find ourselves is thoroughly and irretrievably less than holy. The soul is trapped in a prison of flesh, and the flesh is intrinsically less than divine. According to Gnostic theology, the creation of the cosmos came about as the result of a tragicomic mistake: the fall of the soul from God. Thanks to the advent of Christ in the lower realms of consciousness, the power of reconciling the fallen souls has been given to restore the One-ness and usher in the kingdom of light over the kingdom of flesh and matter. The unity of the Godhead is assured thanks to the introduction of the new uniting force, the Logos, the part of God who acts in the flesh and the material. It is important to distinguish the Logos (Christ) from the soul named Jesus. Any person has the potential of becoming a Logos but it was the soul known as Jesus who actually incarnated as a Logos and therefore became a Christ on Earth. We, as humans, cannot comprehend the omnipotent power available to us until we utilize the Christ power. When we effectively use the divine “Christ awareness” we have the ability to help in the liberation of the imprisoned “sparks of divinity” from flesh and rejoin them to the Source. The divine plan of creation will become complete as the divine outpouring of Christ gnosis liberates humanity from ignorance. The result of this will be the redemption of all human beings. The Christ power can only liberate souls through the call and revelation of Christ gnosis to, “Awake, remember who you are and where you come from!” But since the soul cannot by itself hear the gnosis, the Christ power resorts to elaborate strategies to create the conditions for which all souls will be saved. Christian Gnostics felt that initiation into the Cosmic Christ gnosis is inseparable from “the light which lighteth every person coming into the world.” It is this light within, our Higher Self, which each individual must bring to at-one-ment with the divine Source if liberation is to occur. As more and more people hear the call to “Wake up!” and attain the Christ gnosis and become liberated, their souls are received back into the bosom of Divine Consciousness. The soul becomes free from unholy flesh and the cycle of birth and rebirth. Christian Gnostics seek to achieve this by cultivating the Higher Self within people to seek reunification with the Godhead. But each soul returning to its divine source must, after death, pass through the various levels of consciousness. Sometimes Christian Gnostics describe seven of these heavenly realms, other times ten.
The following quote from Jesus from the Christian Gnostic gospel, the Book of Thomas the Contender, describes Jesus teaching reincarnation:
“Watch and pray that you may not be born in the flesh, but that you may leave the bitter bondage of this life.” (Book of Thomas the Contender 9:5)
In another part of the Book of Thomas the Contender, Jesus tells the disciple Thomas that after death, those people who were once believers but have remained attached to things of “transitory beauty,” will be consumed “in their concern about life” and will be “brought back to the visible realm.”
The following quote from Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas affirms Jesus teaching reincarnation to his disciples:
“When you see your likeness, you are happy. But when you see your images that came into being before and that neither die nor become visible, how much you will bear!” (Gospel of Thomas, saying 84)
More excerpts from this very interesting gospel will be profiled later.
In the Secret Book of John, written by 185 A.D. at the latest, reincarnation is placed at the center of the discussion concerning the salvation of souls. The following is a summary of the Secret Book of John’s perspective on reincarnation.
Everyone has drunk from the water of forgetfulness and lives in a state of ignorance. Some people are able to overcome ignorance by having the life-giving Spirit descend upon them. These souls “will be saved and will become perfect,” that is, escape the cycle of birth and rebirth. John asks Jesus what will happen to those who do not attain salvation. They are hurled down “into forgetfulness” and thrown into “prison,” the Christian Gnostic symbol for a new body. Jesus says the only way for these souls to escape is to acquire knowledge after coming from forgetfulness. A soul can accomplish this by finding a teacher who can lead the soul in the right direction:
“This soul needs to follow another soul in whom the Spirit of life dwells, because she is saved through the Spirit. Then she will never be thrust into flesh again.” (Secret Book of John 14:20)
Another Christian Gnostic book, the Pistis Sophia (Greek for “Faith Wisdom”), outlines a system of punishment and rewards that includes reincarnation. The book explains the differences in one’s fate as a result of past-life actions. A “man who curses” will be given a body that is continually “troubled in heart.” A “man who slanders” will be given an “oppressed” body. A thief will be given a “lame, crooked and blind body.” A “proud” and “scornful” man will be given “a lame and ugly body” that “everyone continually despises.” From this, we can see how this Earth, as well as hell, is a place of education through suffering.
According to the Pistis Sophia, some souls experience hell as a place of shadows and torture. However, after these souls pass through hell, they return to Earth for further experiences. Only a relatively few extremely evil souls are not permitted to reincarnate. These souls are cast into “outer darkness” until a time when they are “destroyed and dissolved.”
The Pistis Sophia combines the ideas of reincarnation and divine union in a verse beginning with the question:
“[What happens to] a man who has committed no sin, but done good persistently, but has not found the mysteries?” (Pistis Sophia)
The Pistis Sophia reveals such a soul will receive “a cup filled with thoughts and wisdom,” allowing the soul to remember its divine origin and pursue the “mysteries of the light” until it finds them and is able to “inherit the light forever.” To “inherit the light forever” is a Gnostic term for union with God.
In the Gospel of Phillip, Jesus makes a clear distinction between the resurrection of the spirit (i.e., spiritual rebirth) and the resurrection of the body (i.e., physical rebirth, reincarnation):
“People who say they will first die and then arise are mistaken. If they do not first receive resurrection while they are alive, once they have died they will receive nothing.” (Gospel of Philip 73:1-4)
In the Apocryphal book, Wisdom of Solomon, recognized as canonical by the Catholic Church, is the following verse:
This verse raises the following question: How is it possible to get a body after you have already been good, unless reincarnation is true?
Among the works of the Christian Gnostics are some of the early gospels, including secret gospels which were not preserved in the New Testament. The Gospel of Thomas was the first gospel ever written and is considered by scholars to be the most reliable gospel. Much of this gospel contains sayings of Jesus that are contained in the four New Testament gospels.
The Christian Gnostic gospels reveal a clear and strong vision of the resurrection as a past and present event. Below is a verse from the Gospel of Thomas that shows the “resurrection” to be a past event:
“His followers said to him, ‘When will the rest for the dead take place, and when will the new world come?’ He said to them, ‘What you look for has come, but you do not know it.'” (Gospel of Thomas, saying 51)
In the verse above, Jesus says the resurrection and the kingdom are already here. In Gnostic terms, this quote from Jesus refers to a person’s past “resurrection” (i.e., physical rebirth, reincarnation) and the fact that we are already living in the kingdom of God which exists within us. Only through the Christ gnosis can this kingdom be realized and the cycle of resurrection end.
The sayings that are presented below are excerpts of the Gospel of Thomas that are not present in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
“These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Judas Thomas the Twin recorded.
Jesus said, “Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death.”
Jesus said, “Let one who seeks not stop seeking until one finds. When one finds, one will be disturbed. When one is disturbed, one will be amazed, and will reign over all.”
Jesus said, “If your leaders say to you, ‘Behold, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds in the sky will get there before you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will get there before you. Rather, the kingdom is inside you and outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and embody poverty.”
Jesus said, “Know what is within your sight, and what is hidden from you will become clear to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.”
Jesus said, “I have thrown fire on the world and, behold, I am guarding it until it is ablaze.”
Jesus said to his disciples, “Compare me with someone, and tell me whom I am like.” Simon Peter said to him, “You are like a just angel.” Matthew said to him, “You are like a wise philosopher.” Thomas said to him, “Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say whom you are like.” Jesus said, “I am not your teacher. You have become intoxicated because you have drunk from the bubbling spring that I have tended.” And he took Thomas and withdrew, and told him three things. When Thomas came back to his friends, they asked him, “What did Jesus tell you?” Thomas said to them, “If I tell you even one of the things he told me, you will pick up rocks and stone me. Then fire will come forth from the rocks and devour you.”
The disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us about the end.” Jesus said, “Have you already discovered the beginning, that now you can seek after the end? For where the beginning is, the end will be. Blessed is one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end, and will not taste death.”Jesus said, “Blessed is one who came to life before coming to life.”
Jesus said, “If you become my disciples and hearken to my sayings, these stones will serve you.”
Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, “These nursing babies are like those who enter the kingdom.” They said to him, “Then shall we enter the kingdom as babies?” Jesus said to them, “When you make the two into one, when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female will not be female, when you make eyes replacing an eye, a hand replacing a hand, a foot replacing a foot, and an image replacing an image, then you will enter the kingdom.”
Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are alone and chosen: you will find the kingdom. For you have come from it, and you will return there again.”
His disciples said to him, “When will the final rest for the dead take place, and when will the new world come?” He said to them, “What you look for has already come, but you do not know it.”
Jesus said, “I disclose my mysteries to those who are worthy of my mysteries. Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”
Jesus said, “Whoever knows everything but lacks within lacks everything.”
Jesus said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you will kill you.”
Jesus said, “I am the light that is over all things. I am all: all came forth from me, and all attained to me. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Pick up a stone, and you will find me there.”
Jesus said, “Whoever is close to me is close to the fire, and whoever is far from me is far from the kingdom.”
Jesus said, “Images are visible to people, but the light within is hidden in the Father’s image of light. He will reveal himself, but his image is hidden by his light.”
Jesus said, “When you see a likeness of yourself, you are happy. But when you see your images that came into being before you, and that neither die nor become visible, how much you will be able to tolerate!”
Jesus said, “When you make the two into one, you will become sons of man, and when you say, ‘Mountain, move!’ it will move.”
Jesus said, “Whoever drinks from my mouth will be like me, and I shall be that person, and what is hidden will be revealed to that one.”
Jesus says, “Whoever finds self is worth more than the world.”
His disciples said to him, “When will the kingdom come?” “It will not come by looking for it. Nor will it do to say, ‘Behold, over here!’ or ‘Behold, over there!’ Rather, the kingdom of the Father is spread out on the Earth, but people do not see it.” (Gospel of Thomas)
Among the Christian Gnostic writings were no less than five separate apocalypses. Here they are:The First Apocalypse of James contains the secret teachings of Christ that were given to James the Just, the Lord’s brother. In it, James refers to Jesus as “rabbi.” Jesus warns James to leave Jerusalem, for the city is a dwelling place of a great number of “archons” or evil angels. Jerusalem is stigmatized as the city which “gives the cup of bitterness to the sons of light.” Jesus coaches James on what to say when he is judged and challenged by the “toll collectors” of heaven in order to pass through the gates of heaven. The Second Apocalypse of James.
The Apocalypse of Peter is a record of the vision of Peter the apostle in which he speaks with Christ in the spirit. In this, Peter is clearly seen as the true successor to Christ and the founder of the Gnostic community. In the vision, Peter first sees hostile priests who seem to be intent upon stoning him and Christ to death. Next, Peter recalls the crucifixion during which Jesus stood nearby talking with him.
Peter asks, “Who is this one glad and laughing on the tree (i.e., cross)? And is it another one whose feet and hands they are striking?”
Christ replies, “He whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshy part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness. But look at him and me.”
Peter seemed to realize that it would be a long time before his book was read and understood, for he writes:
“These things, then, which you saw you shall present to those of another race who are not of this age.” (Apocalypse of Peter)
He seems to be right, as this apocalypse has only just seen the light of day before we enter the age that many believe will begin with the second coming of Christ.
The Apocalypse of Paul is an account of the apostle’s ascent into heaven and what he found there, with instructions for other souls on how to conduct themselves during judgment. One of the most interesting aspects of this text is that it corresponds to events found in the New Testament and includes references to reincarnation. Several Christian Gnostic texts combine the ideas of reincarnation and union with God.
As Paul passes through the fourth heaven, he witnesses a soul being punished for murder. This soul is brought “out of the land of the dead” (i.e., Earth) by angels where three witnesses charge the soul with murder. The soul looks sorrowfully down and is cast down into a body that has been prepared for it. The book describes Paul’s journey through the heavens, which is also symbolic for the Gnostic process of union with God.
The New Testament contains a letter by the apostle Paul to the Christians in the city of Corinth, Greece, where he had founded a church on his first visit there. The Christians at this church were being divided by the teachings of so-called “false teachers” that were infiltrating the church there and Paul wrote a letter telling them to not forget what they were taught by Paul. These “false teachers” were trying to get people to follow their teachings and not Paul’s. In order to put these false teachers to shame, Paul rebukes the Corinthians by using false pride and boasting about himself and telling the church why he is more qualified than the false teachers. He tells them of his sufferings and how he was once stoned and left for dead (2 Corinthians 11:23-26). The letter goes on to say:
“I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know – God knows. And I know that this person – whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows – was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that humans are not permitted to tell.” (2 Corinthians 12:1-4)
In the above passage, Paul continued his “boasting” by telling about visions and revelations he had received from the Lord. “I know a person in Christ” means that he was speaking about himself. He explained that he didn’t know if he was taken up in his body or in his spirit, but he was in paradise (“the third heaven”). This incident cannot be positively identified with a recorded event in Paul’s career, although some think this may have been when he was stoned and left for dead (Acts 14:19-20). Paul told about this incident to show that he had been uniquely touched by God.Many people are unaware of this passage of the Bible and that it is a near-death experience which Paul had. The person who wrote most of the New Testament, the sacred writings of orthodox Christianity, had a near-death experience which he based his authority as an apostle of Christ to the Corinthian church. It can even be argued that his near-death experience directly or indirectly inspired his epistles. The Apocalypse of Paul reveals how each soul must rise as best it can after death through a hierarchy of heavens and face the increasingly difficult challenges posed by the guardian angels of each heaven. The journey begins with Paul meeting a child on the mountain of Jericho on the way to heaven (symbolized by Jerusalem). This child turns out to be the Holy Spirit, who takes Paul first to the third heaven. The Holy Spirit warns Paul to keep his wits about him for they are about to enter the realm of “principalities … archangels and powers and the whole race of demons.” The Holy Spirit also mentions that they will pass “one that reveals bodies to a soul-seed,” that is, the being that takes souls and plants them in new bodies for reincarnation. For the soul who wished to ascend to the highest heaven, reincarnation was to be avoided. When Paul reaches the fourth heaven, the Holy Spirit encourages him to look down upon his body which he has left behind on the mountain of Jericho. As Paul ascends, he witnesses in the fourth heaven the judgment and punishment of another soul. He says, “I saw the angels resembling gods … bringing a soul out of the land of the dead.” The soul has been resurrected so that it can be judged, one of the four events promised for the end of the world. The angels were whipping it. The soul spoke, saying, “What sin was it that I committed in the world?” The “toll collector” of this heavenly gate accuses the soul. The soul replies, “Bring witnesses! Let them show you in what body I committed lawless deeds.” Three bodies rise up as witnesses and accuse the soul of anger and envy, and finally murder. When the soul heard these things, it gazed downwards in sorrow … It was cast down. At this point we expect the soul to be cast into hell, as in later Christian doctrine, but no: “the soul that had been cast down went to a body which had been prepared for it,” and was reincarnated. Paul, somewhat shaken by this experience, was beckoned forward by the Holy Spirit and allowed to pass through the gate of the fifth heaven. Here he saw his fellow apostles and “a great angel in the fifth heaven holding an iron rod in his hand.” This angel and three other angels, with whips in their hands, scourge the souls of the dead and drive them on to judgment. Paul remains with the Holy Spirit and the gates to the sixth heaven swing open effortlessly before him. In the sixth heaven, Paul sees a strong light shining down on him from the heaven above. He is motioned by the “toll collector” through the gates of the seventh heaven. Here, he sees “an old man filled with light and whose garment was white. His throne, which is in the seventh heaven, was brighter than the sun by seven times.” This old man bears a striking resemblance to Jehovah as he is described in the vision of Ezekiel. The old man asks, “Where are you going, Paul?” Only reluctantly, after some encouragement from the Holy Spirit, does Paul speak with him and give the Gnostic sign he has learned. The eighth heaven then opens and Paul ascends. Here he embraces the twelve disciples, most of whom he has not met before, and together they rise to the ninth heaven. Finally, Paul reaches the tenth and highest heaven, where he is transformed.
The Christian Gnostics believed in reincarnation and the preexistence of the soul. They refused to believe in a resurrection of corpses at the end of time. They emphasized meeting Jesus on a spiritual level to become liberated and attain permanent citizenship in heaven. The Church of Rome of the second century A.D., on the other hand, declared that those who deny a Last Day resurrection of corpses are heretics.Many Christian Gnostics regarded themselves as part of the organized body of Christians of the early church. However, as the organized Church gained political control of the Roman Empire, the Christian Gnostics were persecuted by the organized Church and many were martyred. The Christian Gnostic tradition is one of many branches of early Christianity labeled as heretical by the early Church fathers. The Gnostic influences and writings were cut out of official Church doctrines as heresy. Because of their suspected Christian Gnostic origins, the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation was almost rejected from the New Testament. Nevertheless, the organized Church succeeded in hiding its Christian Gnostic doctrines. It is not surprising that the orthodox Church bishops edited out the practical spiritual knowledge which was once an integral part of Christianity and was known and practiced by the apostle Paul. For these fathers, it was far more convenient and gratifying for their egos to assert that spiritual grace could only be attained through them as Christ’s representatives on Earth. To control the masses, the political organization of the church declared that salvation was attained only through the church rituals and through the priesthood. Salvation through a personal mystical experience with Christ apart from the organized church was cast away. In a move that is very likely to have met with the disapproval of Christ himself, the worldly political aspirations of a few priests won out over the spiritual enlightenment of the many. And as it is with any religion or movement, the successors of its founder decided which things to keep and which to throw out. The organized Church discarded the spiritual knowledge of Christian Gnosticism as being too dangerous and kept the concept of blind acceptance of church doctrine. Ultimately, the organized Church declared Christian Gnosticism a heresy and began killing those who adhered to its doctrines. Thus the powerful Roman Church began its crusade of eliminating all rivals to its authority. Christian Gnosticism was obliterated and relatively little historical and theological information was left to fully understand early Christian history. This all changed in 1945 with the discovery of the Gnostic Christian scriptures discovered in Egypt. Then in 1947, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls of early Jewish Gnostic writings occurred. Today, with many Christians wondering if the Second Coming of Christ is soon to happen, it may not be a coincidence that these secret writings have come to surface after two thousand years of being hidden. Finally, after two thousands years, the secret is finally out again.
“The soul has neither beginning nor end. [They] come into this world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of their previous lives” – Origen, 183-253A.D.
To: Roy Schoeman
Author of Salvation Is from the Jews
My dear Mr. Schoeman,
I am veraciously enjoying your book Salvation Is from the Jews. As happens so often with my Jewish brothers, I find myself so on the same wavelength with your edgy wordsmithing and even sometimes your risqué investigative style that I have to call the experience “spiritually immersive”! Not least owing to our common affinity for sound mysticism and according skepticism of so-called “Churchianity,” Augustino-Calvinist Puritanism and scholasto-Jesuitical sophism, just some of the anacondas strangling Western Christianity in too many quarters. Your Old-New Testament insight about the eldest sons and analogously Israel missing the blessing I find particularly insightful and cannot restrain myself from asking, Is it not at the very least postulable that this principle can apply today to the Roman “See of Peter”? (Some would argue that the Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon thinks the answer is positively yes.)
On the flip-side, my relish of what you say understandably served to augment my distaste for crucial truths you omit and thereby falsehoods you imply. I am willing to overlook the almost total eclipse of post-biblical Middle Eastern history—your Ashkenazim, your Antiochian Orthodox Christians, your Khazaria, and then in the West your Sephardim and your Rothschilds with their fractional reserve banking cartel with its death-grip on the so-called Renaissance plus “modern times”! I am no Anti-Semite/racist, no Holocaust denier/revisionist and I am fully satisfied that the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a forgery and that Council of Jamnia never necessarily went down as theorists describe it, and you basically do justice to the wrongness of Mesoretic and other such renderings as well, the contemporary prevalence of depraved esotericism among the astral/noetic rulers (“ascended masters”) of this present darkness and the patent inner workings of occult brotherhoods that masquerade as “charitable fraternities.” (Yet why you abstain from fingering “Catholic” occult equestrian orders and the Jesuits I can’t explain to my satisfaction.) Nay indeed, more than just not being a racist, I consider racial theory a sad and quintessentially unmanly cop-out in the case of Hitler (part-Jewish and one-time art aspirant in a [then as now] Jew-dominated arts community) and all his ilk! No truly spiritual or godly undertaking orders, countenances or even contemplates violence, malice or certainly any evil. But I am a “truther” first and last, all unanswered questions remain for me on the table, and there are questions that loom especially large for serious historical researchers that you leave conspicuously unmentioned.
I am here going to assume that you at any rate regard the “gentile” or ”goy” as at least nominally human, so I won’t even go into the fact that Communism killed between 85 and 100 million and counting to Nazism’s 11 million. Except to ask: At a conservative (but not neoconservative) estimate, how many Jews do you think Communism killed? (I am morally certain that Communism has killed more Jews—leave alone many times more humans!—than Nazism.) And even the suckling babe knows with the crispest clarity that Communism, which is more conspiracy than revolution, was a Jewish aristocrat’s brainchild (or rather Rothschild). We also certainly won’t mention Saul Alinsky, the modern Karl Marx, who holds as his ideological (noetic?) marionettes all our nation’s top leaders. Your otherwise wondrous exposé fails to edify inasmuch as it does not excavate the modern underpinnings of Communism and global banking.
No, we’d best leave that golden calf alone, but what I do want to address, for example, is your failure to name “Nazim,” Zionists and other nationalist types (be they sluggish in the head or thuggish in the heart) who have sharply influenced contemporary U.S. American culture and policy like Werner von Braun, Walt Disney, Ayn Rand and yea G. K. Chesterton.
Most disturbingly of all, while you do mention Hitler’s willingness to spare Jews for export, you fail to mention that, as even Wikipedia admits, “Palestine was the only location to which any Nazi relocation plan succeeded in producing significant results, by means of an agreement begun in 1933 between the Zionist Federation of Germany (die Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland) and the Nazi government, the Haavara Agreement” (ostensibly quoted from Dr. Anwar El-Shahawy’s bookAllah and Space). In other words, the élite in all quarters do not adhere to the same ideological lines of division they feed the masses. I contend that Nazism, in its inner circles, is not about race and is about the same thinking that set Madame Blavatsky apart, who (until exposed as a charlatan) was more accepted by spiritualists than bloodline-obsessed Masons. It would be hard to overstate her direct influence on Hitler. And in conclusion, it is nearly impossible to exaggerate the extent to which we have been lied to concerning the relationship among socialisms, and particularly between Nazism and Zionsim.
I think your use of the “yeast in the dough” imagery is the reverse of Jesus’ and hence is theologically the most questionable thing in the book thus far, and I stop just short of calling it impious and a total sell-out of the Faith. Jesus was patently not describing the Jewish Race or Religion as the “yeast in the dough” (or salt of the earth or light of the world) but rather his followers as the yeast in the dough that is each nation, Jewish or “Goyish.” The Church is the New Israel. That is the focal point of all Christians. The Jews are become a footnote, albeit a fascinating footnote, and a mysterious tool in prophetic literature in which nothing is clear much less nationalistically applicable. But let’s stop beating around the bush: the Judaizer heresy is just that, a filthy, base and demonic heresy. If emphasizing the Jewish Law is a slap in the face to Christ, how much more emphasizing the Jewish bloodlines!
I take exception, however, to any condemnation of the preservation of Jewish culture within Christian communities. I want to retain my (majority) Irish heritage and saints in how I worship because it makes me the more fully part of the whole Church. I’m told that some “Russian” Orthodox Christians, being of Jewish descent, were let back into Israel and, subsequently, there are Jerusalem parishes that celebrate the Divine Liturgy in Hebrew. I rejoice for them. And yes, they have a special perspective on Jesus being of His same household, and I rejoice with them. I love every chance I get chewing the fat with Jews, however secular, Orthodox or even Hasidic. I love hanging out with Catholics and Protestants. I even sometimes can stand Hindus and even (maybe) Buddhists. Wiccans? Druids? Why not. Mormons? JWs? Seventh Day Adventists? Sure, though obviously we’re bordering on the contrived and probably artificially preserved. Scientology obviously is downright dark, but their members are equally people. And I believe I am a missionary to everyone and everyone is a missionary to me.
Though I am the staunchest localist you’re ever likely to meet, I can never. Ever. Ever condone nationalism, because it is mass-insanity. I’ve heard a lot of people go on and on about a lot of things. I know an insecure, vacuous rant from a true scholarly thesis (however well calculated the former’s buzzwords to play on the contrived sympathies of my nation’s telehypnotized positivist sanctimonious funk). Every culture that’s old (read decadent) enough never shuts the heck up about some haplessly worldly claim (again, better suited to theater than academia) to being “the most special” or to having bestowed upon the undeserving unwashed and unappreciative “leftovers of genésis” their most vital (sometimes even implying spiritual) flair—and the ones who brag the most tend to offer the least substantive value—so by and large my Jewish (and, God Almighty help us all, “Christian”) Zionist-leaning brethren should get real and get in line because the sun doesn’t rise and set on their hex* deity, certainly no less evil than any swastika or moon, which like the “Nazim,” they flamboyantly procure to cast, and are indeed casting, upon the whole earth.
I say, A hex on our accursed ignorance.
A final question: What if anything did the honest, common “Goys” and Jews (Christian and otherwise) of the earth—especially of the United States—ever do to deserve the endless shower of pseudogodliness that is modern Hebrew Nationalism?
I get that you’re a bit shy—a neurosis you’ve perhaps mistaken for contemplation, toward which your personality, once informed by the truth, could yet lend itself—as well as unconvinced—your at times mumbled reading of your own writing betrays it—but try to hear this: even despite your occasionally poor dynamics a lot of people hang on your words. My father does. Even as I embrace you as a brother, I, with my whole being, request a clarification, at your leisure, of the loose ends I’ve listed above. I ask you to consider writing a sequel if not errata.
Most sincerely,
John
________
* Even Wikipedia admits the hexagram has not been in circulation among the Israelites for a day over 2,400 years if that. Not even Solomon in his wildest apostasy used it, much less Great King David. Another disgrace, another lie to the Babel-high pile. As for me, I want no part in Israel’s self-inflicted curses.
President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda meets with President Ronald Reagan at the White House, October 1987. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We at InternatioanlChristianParty.com stand with and support this move to restore Uganda in the Spirit of Christ. God says in the Bible that if we confess our sins and repent that he is able to forgive us he also says that he can heal the Land and Nation. I only hope that the people of the world keep an eye on Uganda and see how good and great the promises of the one and only Holy God really are and follow this path.
” If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14 King James Version (KJV)
“I stand here today to close the evil past, and especially in the last 50 years of our national leadership history and at the threshold of a new dispensation in the life of this nation. I stand here on my own behalf and on behalf of my predecessors to repent. We ask for your forgiveness.”
“We confess these sins, which have greatly hampered our national cohesion and delayed our political, social and economic transformation. We confess sins of idolatry and witchcraft which are rampant in our land. We confess sins of shedding innocent blood, sins of political hypocrisy, dishonesty, intrigue and betrayal.”
“Forgive us of sins of pride, tribalism and sectarianism; sins of laziness, indifference and irresponsibility; sins of corruption and bribery that have eroded our national resources; sins of sexual immorality, drunkenness and debauchery; sins of unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred and revenge; sins of injustice, oppression and exploitation; sins of rebellion, insubordination, strife and conflict.”
“We want to dedicate this nation to you so that you will be our God and guide. We want XXXXXX to be known as a nation that fears God and as a nation whose foundations are firmly rooted in righteousness and justice to fulfill what the Bible says in Psalm 33:12: Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. A people you have chosen as your own.”
If these words had been spoken by OUR president, it would be a great day indeed, but alas, they weren’t. They were spoken by a real Christian President known as Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. He spoke those words at the National Jubilee Prayers event held to celebrate the nation’s 50th anniversary of their independence from British rule.
The first step to a nation’s restoration is for the leadership to confess and repent of the nation’s sin along with those of the leadership. Hezekiah repented of his sins and those of the nation. God cured him of his illness and blessed the nation, until his Manasseh took the throne and did evil in the sight of the Lord.
If America wants to receive the blessings of God that we once had, it has to start with the President. Barack Obama, who claims to be a Christian, needs to follow the lead of Museveni of Uganda. He needs to genuinely confess the sins of the nation and himself, then truly repent of those sins and ask God and the people for forgiveness. Then and only then, will God bless our land. Until that happens, America is destined to suffer the same fate that Israel did under leaders like Omri and Ahab.
So you may be thinking what does the Movie Prometheus have to do with the New World Order? we will reveal the agenda behind Prometheus, the new film by legendary director Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator) hitting theaters June 8.
This film is a Parallel Story of the deep dark secrets of the Illuminati’s ancient occultism religious faith and theological views or ideals! These idea’s have been developed by the ruling elite family’s who believe that they have been chosen by a off world super race with higher intelligence, to rule the world. They believe that this off world intelligence has directed them to control mans DNA and future. The elite believe they are the Earths gods and are destined for the stars. They think its a divine right bestowed on them by a higher intelligence that gives them credence to their meddling with the affairs of common man. The Illuminati want to merge man with Machine so that they can live forever and be like gods! The Bad news is that if you do not belong to the family you will not be invited to live forever but will be exterminated like bugs by those who will be chosen to get the life extenuation technologies!
You see the Illuminati choose to follow a plan to control world population by mass sterilization using soft kill weapons to depopulate the world with poisons through GMO Food, Vaccination, and other technological advances. The Idea of creating the master race did not die with Adolf Hitler its still alive and well! Its now called transhumanist The Global Future 2045 International Congress, led by iconic futurist Ray Kurzweil and held in Moscow a few months back, lays out a stark vision of the future for neo-humanity where AI, cybernetics, nanotech and other emerging technologies replace mankind– an openly transhumanist vision now being steered by the elite, but which emerged out of the Darwinian-circles directed by the likes of T.H. Huxley and his grandchildren Julian, who coined the term Transhumanism, and Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World. Resistance to this rapid shift in society, the 2045 conference argues, is nothing short of a return to the middle ages.
Prometheus was a Nephilim from a different time period.
The Prometheus Film is basically shinning a light on the (presumably fallen angels) Nummo or Nephilim. These giants were noted for their strength and warlike abilities. The Greeks called them TITANS while the Bible called them Nephilim. Prometheus. According to the Sumerians the Nephalim were like Gods to them, large humanid beings. Seems similar to the Space Jockey concepts. Also according to prophecies, the Annunaki along with the Nephilim will return in 2012 to Earth, to their children they created.
The NEPHILIM offspring four different races;
THE ANNAKIM (they would weigh chains until earth’s core could not support them.)
THE REPHAIM (Your heart will melt in their presence)
THE ZAMZOUMIM (Achievers, Their necks would obscure the sun.)
THE EMMIM (Terrifying ones)
THE GIBBORIM (The strong ones, the giants, the ancient heroes)
The NEPHILIM introduced zoophilia on earth; and broke down the natural order of things. “The viper would mingle with the lion, and the vulture with the dog, and man with nephilim, nephilim with animals etc…..They also drank each other blood .
Some accounts have been written about the NEPHILIM, for instance a midrash of genesis Rabbah says that on a wedding night ,a nephilim would appear in front of the newly wed, possess the man than kill him ,than he would possess(sexually) the bride, kill her too, drink their blood and vanish.
Other sources states that they would feed on live camels and horses.
A Talmudic scholar asks: “How can a angel, which is pure white fire penetrate a woman without burning her from the inside? His master answered: They took human shape that’s how they were able to copulate. In fact it was those bodies who entrapped them so that they couldn’t resist earthly desires.
The Nummo. The Dogon talked about alien beings known as Nummo who came to Earth from another star system. These fish and serpent like beings were hermaphrodites who spent more time in water than on land. Shannon presents examples of how these amphibious aliens appeared all over the ancient world and makes connection with mitochondrial Eve, Mary Magdalene, Masonic symbolism and more. She reveals how the Dogon religion is the core religion from which other religions including Judaism and Christianity have evolved. We’ll discuss the Nummo’s voyage to Earth, their knowledge of genetic engineering, Dogon mythologyand their intention with humanity.
Nommo is a better spelling, “Nummo” comes from D.Icke, as he attempts to steal the story and retell it to provide his own brand of “evidence”…
And the original story is spectacular, however, There is at least one article out there with good looking references… (if they are or not..)
Seems the original French anthropological expedition may have faked the “findings” (why???… for the money, naturally) and some 50 years later, another French expedition tried to check the story (things move slowly in the world of cultural archeology)
Unfortunately apparently these people’s findings only come to light some 30 years after publishing, and so MANY books and essential theories are proposed using original Dogon and Sumerian mythologies as a basis. (all those links about Sirius are no longer Serious)
Leave it to the French to place a blemish on the entire field of anthropology/archeology/and well…. trying to accurately dig up the past, in general.
Thanks to DrPostman for bringing this to my attention several months ago.
There is still something from the Bible that has to do with this idea of Prometheus
Genesis 6:4 states “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days –and also afterwards– when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” The Nephilim were a race of giants that were produced by the sexual union of the sons of God (presumably fallen angels) and the daughters of men. Translated from the Hebrew texts, “Nephilim” means “fallen ones.” They were renowned for their strength, prowess, and a great capacity for sinfulness.
The origination of the Nephilim begins with a story of the fallen angels. Shemhazai, an angel of high rank, led a sect of angels in a descent to earth to instruct humans in righteousness. The tutelage went on for a few centuries, but soon the angels pined for the human females. After lusting, the fallen angels instructed the women in magic and conjuring, mated with them, and produced hybrid offspring: the Nephilim.
The Nephilim were gigantic in stature. Their strength was prodigious and their appetites immense. Upon devouring all of humankind’s resources, they began to consume humans themselves. The Nephilim attacked and oppressed humans and were the cause of massive destruction on the earth.
Two texts of central import to the story of the Nephilim, the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, mention several names for the Nephilim. The diverse kinds of these giants are cited in several passages. They are variously referred to as Emim, or “Terrors” (Gen. 14:5; Deut. 2:10), Rephaim, or “Weakeners” or “Dead Ones” (2 Sam. 23:13; 1 Chron. 11:15), Gibborim, or “Giant Heroes” (Job 16:4), Zamzummim, or “Achievers” (Deut. 2:10), Anakim, or “Long-necked” (Deut. 2:10; Josh. 11:22, 14:15), and Awwim or “Devastators” and “Serpents.” Other giants are mentioned in these texts as well, such as Goliath (2 Sam. 21:19), a giant with twelve fingers and twelve toes who is mentioned as one of the Rephaim (2 Sam. 21:20), and a tall Egyptian (1 Chron. 11:23). The passage of Numbers 13:26-33 recounts the Nephilim of Canaan that Joshua and the other Hebrew spies saw. Furthermore, according to Judaic lore, a certain one of the Nephilim, Arba, built a city, Kiriath Arba, which was named for its builder and is now known as Hebron.
The wickedness of the Nephilim carried with it a heavy toll. Genesis 6:5 alludes to the corruption that the Nephilim had caused amongst humans and themselves: “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become…” Their evil rebellion had incurred both the wrath and grief of God. God instructed the angel Gabriel to ignite a civil war among the Nephilim. He also chose Enoch, a righteous man, to inform the fallen angels of the judgment pronounced on them and their children. God did not allow the fallen angels any peace, for they could not lift their eyes to heaven and were later to be chained. The end of the Nephilim came about in the war incited by Gabriel, in which the giants eventually annihilated each other.
“Nephilim” is rendered fallen, or possibly feller: a tyrant or bully. Several English translations, such as the King James Version rendered the word “giants”. In the Greek Septuagint the word “nephilim” was also translated as “gigantes” (gigantic). This translation is undoubtedly used because the Nephilim later became known as giants to the ancient Hebrews, as illustrated by the manner in which they were referenced when the Israelite spies were sent intoCanaan (Numbers 13:33 ).[1]
It is unclear what the Sons of God were, but they are distinguished from the daughters of men. The most obvious interpretation is that the Nephilim were a hybrid race between two distinct beings. There are at least three schools of thought regarding the Sons of God.
The older view, held nearly unanimously by ancient writers prior to Augustine of Hippo, is that the Nephilim were a hybrid race between certain fallen angels, called the Benei Ha’Elohim (“Sons of God”) or The Watchers in extra-Biblical traditions, and human women. While there has always been a minority of churchmen who followed this view, it has been promoted recently by popular writers such as Stephen Quayle [2].
The only obvious and natural meaning without such clarification is that these beings were sons of God, rather than of men, because they had been created, not born. Such a description, of course, would apply only to Adam (Luke 3:38) and to the angels, whom God had directly created (Psalm 148:2, 5; Psalm 104:4; Colossians 1:16). The actual phrase bene elohim is used three other times, all in the very ancient book of Job (1:6; 2:1; 38:7). There is no doubt at all that, in these passages, the meaning applies exclusively to the angels. A very similar form (bar elohim) is used in Daniel 3:25, and also refers either to an angel or to a theophany. The term “sons of the mighty” (bene elim) is used in Psalm 29:1 and also Psalm 89:6, and again refers to angels. Thus, there seems no reasonable doubt that, in so far as the language itself is concerned, the intent of the writer was to convey the thought of angels – fallen angels, no doubt, since they were acting in opposition to God’s will.[3]
”
The more recent view which has been the majority position in the church since St. Augustine in the fourth century is that the Sons of God refers to the god-fearing line of Seth; and the daughters of men refers to the daughters of the unbelieving line of Cain. Variations on this theme include the idea, proposed by Meredith Kline, that the Sons of God were kings or priests who took any woman they chose to be their wife.
Still others hold that the Sons of God were other created men. It is argued that the Bible does not describe every person that was created, but only key individuals or situations are included within the text. Those holding to this position call into question the origin of Cain’s wife or those whom he feared would kill him Genesis 4:14-17 . However, this view falls into conflict with Genesis, which states that Eve is the mother of all the living.
After the Flood
In Genesis 6 , where the global flood is described, it states that the Nephilim were also on the Earth afterward. Many therefore, assume that many of the descriptions of giants in the Bible are references to Nephilim bloodlines. However, the only specific mention of Nephilim on the earth after the flood is part of the bad report from the spies in Numbers 13:33 , a report that is called “bad” (or “evil”) as in an unreliable source.
There were giants “also after that,” in the days of the Canaanites, and these were likewise known as, among other things, the Nephilim (Numbers 13:33). Humanly speaking, they were descended from Anak, and so were also known as the Anakim. These people were, of course, known to Moses and it was probably he who editorially inserted the phrase “and also after that” into Noah’s original record here in Genesis 6:4. Moses probably also inserted the information that these were the “mighty men of old, men of renown,” men whose exploits of strength and violence had made them famous in song and fable in all nations in the ages following the Flood. To rebellious men of later times, they were revered as great heroes; but in God’s sight they were merely ungodly men of violence and evil.[4]
”
Several tribes are encountered in the campaign of the Five Kings in Abraham’s day that some argue might be Nephilim or hybrids of Nephilim. They are described as having become several tribes occupying the lands around the Valley of Siddim (Dead Sea) and evidently intermixed with the Canaanites.
Genesis 14 and Deuteronomy 2 name these tribes as the Rephaim (“titans”, children of “Rapha”), Zuzim or Zamzummim (“terrible ones”), Emim, Horites, and Anakim (“crushing tyrants”). The tribe of the Anakim are directly connected with the Nephilim in the false report of the spies described in (Numbers 13:33 ). The context of the passages suggest that the other tribes of giants were relatives of the Anakim or other lines of Nephilim, particularly the Rephaim whose giant descendant is described as living in Gath along with the Anakim Goliath and Lahmi (see below). The Rephaim are giants (in fact these peoples are generally described as being tall or large) and seem to have been thus matched with the Nephilim based on the English rendering of “giants” in Genesis 6.
The tribe of the Anakim were descended from a giant named Anak, who was a son or grandson of a giant named “Arba”, from which the ancient city of Hebron was originally called “Kiriath Arba” or “The City of Arba” because “Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim”[5]. This tribe was so tall, that the weak-kneed spies reported, “we are like grasshoppers to them.”
Scripture describes how the tribes of giants were fought and destroyed by the tribes of normal men who replaced them, including the Israelites. Moses killed Og, king of the Rehpaim who lived on the Golan heights near Mt. Hermon. Og had a bed nine cubits long (13.5 to 15.5 feet, depending on which cubit was used) and was called “last of the remnant of the giants”[6]. Og may be the source of the word “ogre” in the English language.
Joshua drove the three remaining sons of Anak out of Hebron in his first campaignm. They evidently reoccupied the city of Hebron while Joshua was waging his campaign against Canaanite cities in the North. Caleb later retook Hebron and killed the three giants[7].
Later David and Saul fought a remnant of smaller giants who had taken refuge in the Philistine city of Gath. They included Goliath, who was about nine feet tall, and his brother Lahmi “whose spear had a shaft like a weaver’s rod”. The last of the Gittite giants was slain, “In still another battle, which took place at Gath, there was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot—twenty-four in all. He also was descended from Rapha”[8].
The last Scriptural reference to the giants may be Isaiah 45:14 , which prophecies that Sabean “men of stature” will become slaves in chains of the redeemed Israelites.
The characteristics of these tribes described in Scripture:
Their height was two or three times the height of normal men.
They were associated with some kind of unholy intermixing before the Flood.
They were closely associated with the wicked Canaanites after the Flood.
In one case they are described as having polydactyly (extra fingers and toes).
Unlike the Canaanites, there are no examples of Nephilim who became followers of God.
Apocryphal references
The Nephilim are described in great detail in the Book of Jubilees and Book of Enoch. Both of these books have been traditionally rejected as apocryphal by the European Church. However, they were both considered canonical by the Ethiopic Church from the time of Christ until today, and the Book of Enoch was quoted in the Biblical Epistle of Jude.
Jubilees has the following to say about the sons of God and the Nephilim:
“And in the second week of the tenth jubilee [449-55 A.M.] Mahalalel took unto him to wife Dinah, the daughter of Barakiel the daughter of his father’s brother, and she bare him a son in the third week in the sixth year, [461 A.M.] and he called his name Jared, for in his days the angels of the Lord descended on the earth, those who are named the Watchers, that they should instruct the children of men, and that they should do judgment and uprightness on the earth.” – Jubilees 4:15
“And it came to pass when the children of men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them, that the angels of God saw them on a certain year of this jubilee, that they were beautiful to look upon; and they took themselves wives of all whom they chose, and they bare unto them sons and they were giants. And lawlessness increased on the earth and all flesh corrupted its way, alike men and cattle and beasts and birds and everything that walks on the earth -all of them corrupted their ways and their orders, and they began to devour each other, and lawlessness increased on the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of all men (was) thus evil continually. And God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt, and all flesh had corrupted its orders, and all that were upon the earth had wrought all manner of evil before His eyes. And He said that He would destroy man and all flesh upon the face of the earth which He had created. But Noah found grace before the eyes of the Lord. And against the angels whom He had sent upon the earth, He was exceedingly wroth, and He gave commandment to root them out of all their dominion, and He bade us to bind them in the depths of the earth, and behold they are bound in the midst of them, and are (kept) separate. And against their sons went forth a command from before His face that they should be smitten with the sword, and be removed from under heaven. And He said ‘My spirit shall not always abide on man; for they also are flesh and their days shall be one hundred and twenty years’. And He sent His sword into their midst that each should slay his neighbour, and they began to slay each other till they all fell by the sword and were destroyed from the earth.” – Jubilees 5:1-8
The Book of Enoch has the following to say about them:
“It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful. And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamoured of them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children. Then their leader Samyaza said to them; I fear that you may perhaps be indisposed to the performance of this enterprise; And that I alone shall suffer for so grievous a crime.
But they answered him and said; We all swear;
And bind ourselves by mutual execrations, that we will not change our intention, but execute our projected undertaking. Then they swore all together, and all bound themselves by mutual execrations. Their whole number was two hundred, who descended upon Ardis, which is the top of mount Armon.
That mountain therefore was called Armon, because they had sworn upon it, and bound themselves by mutual execrations. [Mt. Armon, or Mt. Hermon, derives its name from the Hebrew word herem, a curse.]
These are the names of their chiefs: Samyaza, who was their leader, Urakabarameel, Akibeel, Tamiel, Ramuel, Danel, Azkeel, Saraknyal, Asael, Armers, Batraal, Anane, Zavebe, Samsaveel, Ertael, Turel, Yomyael, Arazyal. These were the prefects of the two hundred angels, and the remainder were all with them.
Then they took wives, each choosing for himself; whom they began to approach, and with whom they cohabited; teaching them sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees.
And the women conceiving brought forth giants,
Whose stature was each three hundred cubits. These devoured all which the labor of men produced; until it became impossible to feed them; When they turned themselves against men, in order to devour them; And began to injure birds, beasts, reptiles, and fishes, to eat their flesh one after another, and to drink their blood. Their flesh one after another. [Or, “one another’s flesh.” R.H. Charles notes that this phrase may refer to the destruction of one class of giants by another.]
Then the earth reproved the unrighteous.
Moreover Azazyel taught men to make swords, knives, shields, breastplates, the fabrication of mirrors, and the workmanship of bracelets and ornaments, the use of paint, the beautifying of the eyebrows, the use of stones of every valuable and select kind, and all sorts of dyes, so that the world became altered.
Impiety increased; fornication multiplied; and they transgressed and corrupted all their ways.
Amazarak taught all the sorcerers, and dividers of roots: Armers taught the solution of sorcery; Barkayal taught the observers of the stars, Akibeel taught signs; Tamiel taught astronomy; And Asaradel taught the motion of the moon,
And men, being destroyed, cried out; and their voice reached to heaven.” – Enoch 6-7.
Prometheus is a 2012 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof. The film stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green, and Charlize Theron. Set in the late 21st century, the story centers on the crew of the spaceship Prometheus as they follow a star map discovered among the remnants of several ancient Earth cultures. Led to a distant world and an advanced civilization, the crew seeks the origins of humanity, but instead discovers a threat that could cause the extinction of the human race.
The film began development in the early 2000s as a fifth entry in the Alien franchise, with both Scott and director James Camerondeveloping ideas for a film that would serve as a prequel to Scott’s 1979 science fiction horror film Alien. By 2003, the project was sidelined by the development of Alien vs. Predator, and remained dormant until 2009 when Scott again showed interest. A script by Spaihts acted as a prequel to the events of the Alien films, but Scott opted for a different direction to avoid repeating cues from those films. In late 2010, he brought Lindelof onto the project to rewrite Spaihts’ script, and together they developed a separate story that precedes the story of Alien but is not directly connected to that franchise. According to Scott, though the film shares “strands ofAlien’s DNA, so to speak”, and takes place in the same universe, Prometheus explores its own mythology and ideas.
The film entered production in April 2010, with extensive design phases developing the technology and creatures the film required.Principal photography began in March 2011, on an estimated $120–130 million budget, with filming taking place almost entirely on practical sets and on location in England, Iceland, Spain, and Scotland. The film was shot entirely using 3D cameras.
Prometheus was supported by a marketing campaign that included viral activities on the web. The campaign released three videos that featured stars from the film, in character, which expanded on elements of the fictional universe and received a generally positive reception. Prometheus was released on June 1, 2012 in the United Kingdom and was released on June 8, 2012 in North America.
Plot
As a hovering spacecraft departs, a humanoid alien drinks a dark bubbling liquid, and then starts to disintegrate. As its bodily remains cascade into a waterfall, the alien’s DNA triggers a biogenetic reaction.
In 2089, archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway discover a star map among several unconnected ancient cultures. They interpret this as an invitation from humanity’s forerunners, or “Engineers”. Peter Weyland, the elderly CEO of Weyland Corporation, funds the creation of the scientific vessel Prometheus to follow the map to the distant moon LV-223. The ship’s crew travels in stasiswhile the android David monitors their voyage and studies linguistics such as Schleicher’s fable. Arriving in 2093, they are informed of their mission to find the Engineers. Mission director Meredith Vickers orders them to avoid making contact without her permission. The Prometheus lands near a large artificial structure, which a team explores.
Inside they find numerous stone cylinders, a monolithic statue of a humanoid head, and the corpse of a large alien, thought to be an Engineer. They find other bodies and presume the species is extinct. David secretly takes a cylinder, while the remaining cylinders begin leaking dark liquid. A rapidly approaching storm forces the crew to return to Prometheus, leaving crew members Millburn and Fifield stranded in the structure. In the ship, the Engineer’s DNA is found to match that of humans. Meanwhile, David investigates the cylinder and discovers a dark liquid. He intentionally infects Holloway with the substance. Shaw and the unknowingly infected Holloway later have sex.
Inside the structure, a snake-like creature kills Millburn, and it sprays a corrosive fluid that melts Fifield’s helmet, exposing him to the leaking dark liquid. The crew later returns to the structure and finds Millburn’s corpse. David separately discovers a control room containing a surviving Engineer in stasis, and a star map highlighting Earth. Holloway’s infection rapidly ravages his body, and he is rushed back to Prometheus. Vickers refuses to let him aboard, and at his urging, burns him to death with a flamethrower. Later, a medical scan reveals that Shaw, despite being sterile, is pregnant with an alien offspring. Shaw uses an automated surgery table to cut it out. Weyland is revealed to have been in stasis aboardPrometheus, and explains to Shaw he wants to ask the Engineers to prevent his death from old age. As Weyland prepares to leave for the structure, Vickers calls him “Father”.
A mutated Fifield attacks the hangar bay and kills several crew members before being killed himself. The Prometheus‘ captain, Janek, speculates that the structure was part of an Engineer military base that lost control of its biological weapon, the dark liquid. Janek also determines that the underground structure is in fact a spaceship. Weyland and a team return to the structure and awaken the Engineer. David speaks to the Engineer, who responds by decapitating him and killing Weyland and his team. Shaw escapes the spaceship as the Engineer activates it. David’s still-active head reveals the Engineer is going to release the liquid on Earth. Shaw convinces Janek to stop the Engineer’s spaceship. Vickers and her lifeboat are ejected before Janek crashes Prometheus into the Engineer’s spaceship. The Engineer’s disabled spaceship crashes onto the planet, killing Vickers. Shaw goes to Vickers’ lifeboat and finds her alien offspring, which has grown to gigantic size. David warns Shaw over the intercom that the Engineer survived the crash. The Engineer bursts into the lifeboat and attacks Shaw. She releases her alien offspring onto the Engineer; it thrusts a tentacle down the Engineer’s throat, subduing it. Shaw recovers David’s remains, and with his help, they launch another Engineer spaceship. She intends to reach the Engineers’ homeworld in an attempt to understand why they created humanity and later wanted to destroy it.
In the lifeboat, an alien creature bursts out of the Engineer’s chest.
An archaeologist. Rapace described Shaw as a believer “in God” with a “very strong faith”, but that “things happen and she changes into more of a warrior.”[5] To aid her method acting she developed a complete backstory for Shaw in her head,[6] and worked with a dialect coach to help achieve an appropriate British accent,[7] she also had her make-up artist apply extra blood and sweat during filming to more accurately portray her character.[8] Rapace noted, “I was out there filming for about six months and it was super-intense, my body was in so much pain sometimes but it was absolutely amazing.”[9] She has dismissed comparisons to the Alien franchise‘s Ellen Ripley.[10] Coming to director Ridley Scott‘s attention for her performance as Lisbeth Salander in the 2009 drama film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Rapace met him in August 2010,[11] and by January 2011 she had secured the role.[12] Actresses Anne Hathaway, Natalie Portman, Gemma Arterton, Carey Mulligan, and Abbie Cornish, were all considered for the role during development.[13][14][15] Eight-year-old actress Lucy Hutchinson portrays Shaw as a child.[16]
An android designed to be indistinguishable from humans. The ship’s butler and maintenance man, it begins to develop “its own ego, insecurities, jealousy and envy”.[17][18]Fassbender stated: “David’s views on the human crew are somewhat childlike. He is jealous and arrogant because he realizes that his knowledge is all-encompassing and therefore he is superior to the humans. David wants to be acknowledged and praised for his brilliance”.[19] Writer Damon Lindelof stated that the character provides a non-human perspective on the film’s events, saying “what does the movie look like from the robot’s point of view? If you were to ask him, ‘What do you think about all of this? What’s going on? What do you think about these humans who are around you?’ Wouldn’t it be cool if we found a way for that robot to answer those questions?”[20] In developing his character, Fassbender avoided watching the android characters of Alien and Aliens (1986), and instead observed the replicants in Scott’s 1982 science fiction film Blade Runner, with a focus on Sean Young‘s character Rachael, whose “vacancy” and longing for a soul interested him.[21] He drew further inspiration from the voice of the HAL 9000 computer in2001: A Space Odyssey,[21] the “funny walk and economy of movement” of Olympic diver Greg Louganis,[22][23] and the performances of David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth, Dirk Bogarde in The Servant, and Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia.[24] David’s blond hair was modeled after T. E. Lawrence.[25] Scott favored Fassbender for the role; by January 2011 he was confirmed to join the cast,[26] despite earlier reports his agents had sought too high a fee for their client.[17]
The billionaire founder and CEO of Weyland Corp.[27][28] Lindelof described him as having a massive ego and suffering from a god complex.[27] Pearce has claimed that his appearance in the movie is brief, saying “I’m only [in the film] for a minute”.[29] It took five hours to apply the necessary prosthetics and make-up to transform Pearce into the elderly Weyland, and one hour to remove it. Pearce observed old people to gain insight into the movement for his character, as he found replicating the impeded physical movement the most difficult part of the role.[30]Max von Sydow was Scott’s original choice to play Weyland, but Pearce was cast to allow him to portray both an elderly and young Weyland who appeared in early script drafts.[31]
The captain of the Prometheus.[32] Elba described the character as “a longshoreman and a sailor“, with a military background.[19][33] He noted “[being the captain is] his life and the crew is his responsibility,”[19] and said “he’s a realistic, pragmatic character. He has to get involved…in a film with huge ideas, you need a character like this, who can go ‘Wait…why are we doing this?'”.[33]
An archeologist and Shaw’s love interest.[34][35] Marshall-Green was cast after being seen performing on stage “off-off-off Broadway“.[35] He described Holloway as the “X Gamestype scientist”, explaining that he liked the character’s “leap-before-looking” philosophy. He further noted that Holloway “doesn’t want to meet his maker. He wants to stand next to his maker. He’s willing to go to the edge to get that.”[35] Describing the character’s motivation, he stated: “he goes to the extreme in everything he does, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse of the [Prometheus crew]. I think what drives him is the thrill of the search.”[19] He contrasted Holloway to Shaw, saying “she’s the believer. I’m the scientist. I’m the skeptic. I’m the atheist”.[36]
A Weyland Corporation employee, sent to monitor the expediton.[19][37] Theron described the character as “a suit who slowly sheds [her] skin through the film”,[38] and also as “somewhat of a villain … [who] definitely has an agenda”.[39] She stated “Vickers is pragmatic, and desperately wants to control the situation.”[19] Scott wanted the character to lurk in the background of scenes watching other characters instead of being the focus. Theron stated that it helped layer her character because “you’re just so suspicious of her, instantly.”[40] The similar appearances and mannerisms of Vickers and David were intended to raise the possibility that David was based on Vickers’s DNA, or that Vickers is an android herself.[41] After Theron’s casting, she developed three new scenes with Scott and Lindelof to expand her character.[3] Physical action scenes were an issue for Theron because of scenes that involved her running through sand in 30 pounds (14 kg) boots, and her cigarette habit.[40] Theron was intended to portray Shaw, but a prior commitment to Mad Max 4: Fury Road prevented her involvement. When that film was delayed, she was able to rejoin Prometheus.[42]Michelle Yeoh and Angelina Jolie[12] were considered for the role.[17]
A biologist. Spall auditioned for another role, but Scott wanted him to play Millburn.[43][44] On his casting, Spall said “Alien is one of the best films ever made, and it’s a real buzz to be in a space suit on an ‘Alien’ set with Ridley Scott coming and speaking to you. It’s incredible. That’s why I wanted to be an actor, to be in a space suit on an ‘Alien’ set”.[45]
A geologist who has become unstable after many missions.[46][47] Harris described the character as “someone who can sense when things are up. He’s your audience guy, going, ‘Don’t go in that tunnel. We should not be doing this!'”.[47] Fifield’s bright red mohawk hairstyle was designed by Harris and Scott, based on Scott’s sketch of a man with a “severe haircut”.[47]
Development on a fifth film in the Alien franchise was in progress by 2002. At the time, Scott was considering returning to the series he created with his 1979 science fiction horror film Alien, to pursue a sequel that would explore the engineered origins of the series’ Alien antagonists,[51] and the “space jockey”—the extraterrestrial being, who briefly appears inAlien, as the deceased pilot of a derelict spaceship.[52]Alien star Sigourney Weaver also expressed interest in returning to the series.[53]Aliens director James Cameron discussed the potential for a sequel with Scott, and began working with another writer on a story for the film. It was then that 20th Century Fox approached Cameron with a script for a crossover film that would pit the series’ monsters against the titular characters of the Predator films; what would become the 2004 science fiction film Alien vs. Predator.[54] After Fox confirmed that it would pursue the crossover, Cameron stopped working on his own project, believing the crossover would “kill the validity of the franchise”.[55] In 2006, Cameron confirmed that he would not return to the project, believing that the series was Fox’s asset, and he was unwilling to deal with the studio attempting to influence the potential sequel.[54]
In May 2009, Fox first reported the project as a “reboot”[56] to the Alien franchise, which was soon afterwards expressed as a then untitled prequel to Alien.[57][58] Development stalled in June 2009, when Fox clashed with Scott over his selection of former commercial director Carl Erik Rinsch as director. Fox was only interested in pursuing the project if Scott directed.[59] By July 2009, Scott was attached to direct the film, and screenwriter Jon Spaihts was hired to pen the script based on his pitched idea for a direct Alienprequel.[40][60] With both director and writer in place, and pleased with Spaihts’ pitch, Fox scheduled a release date for December 2011, but this was eventually dropped.[61] In June 2010, Scott announced that the script was complete and that pre-production would begin, with a filming date set for January 2011.[62] However, by July 2010, Lindelof had been hired to redevelop Spaihts’s screenplay into a more original work.[63][64] In October 2010, Lindelof submitted his refined screenplay to Fox. The studio was pleased because it had contested Scott’s proposed budget of $150–160 million and found Lindelof’s screenplay to be more budget-conscious;[citation needed] Scott had initially requested a $250 million budget and an adult oriented product, but Fox was reluctant to invest this amount of money, and wanted to ensure the film would receive a lower age-rating to broaden the potential audience.[65]
In December 2010, it was reported that the film would be called Paradise,[17] named after the John Milton poem Paradise Lost, but Scott considered that it would convey too much about the film. Fox CEO Thomas Rothman suggested Prometheus, which was confirmed as the title in January 2011.[66][67] A release date was scheduled for March 9, 2012, but weeks later the date was pushed back to June 8, 2012.[66][68] With the name confirmed, the production began to publicly distance the film from its Alien origins. The filmmakers were deliberately vague about the connection between the films, believing it would build audience anticipation for Prometheus.[64] Scott stated that “while Alien was indeed the jumping-off point for this project, out of the creative process evolved a new, grand mythology and universe in which this original story takes place. The keen fan will recognize strands of Alien‘s DNA, so to speak, but the ideas tackled in this film are unique, large and provocative.”[69] In June 2011, Scott and Lindelof confirmed that Prometheus takes place in the same universe as the events of the Alien series.[70][71] In July 2011, Scott stated that “by the end of the third act you start to realize there’s a DNA of the very first Alien, but none of the subsequent [films]”.[72]
Writing
“…We’re exploring the future… away from Earth and [asking] what are people like now? … Space exploration in the future is going to evolve into this idea that it’s not just about going out there and finding planets to build colonies. It also has this inherent idea that the further we go out, the more we learn about ourselves. The characters in this movie are preoccupied by the idea: what are our origins?”
Damon Lindelof, concerning the scope of Prometheus.[73]
Spaihts met Scott in late 2009, where they discussed Scott’s desire to pursue an Alien prequel. Spaihts offered his concept, including a “bridge” that would connect the film’s “human story” to the Alien saga. He was quickly hired, which he credited to the reception of his “bridge” idea. Spaihts claimed his concept was created in the moment, and he had no ideas planned in advance. Spaihts set about writing a 20-page “extremely detailed outline”, and within three and a half weeks his first draft was complete, and submitted to the producers on Christmas Day, 2009. Within 12 hours, Scott returned the script with notes for changes, and Spaihts spent the Christmas holiday redrafting.[61]
Spaihts was tasked with exploring unresolved mysteries from Alien such as the Space Jockey. He saw the driving mysteries of Alien as “alien in nature”, stating “all the mysteries have alien players: the exoskeleton nightmare and… the elephantine titan that was called the ‘space jockey’… How do you make anyone care about events between creatures like this?” He found a solution in tying the alien mysteries to the past and future of human history. He explained: “if that story is somehow ours, and deeply enmeshed with the human story. That story changes meaning within our own life, things of such significance that we think of our own lives differently”.[74] He found translating Scott’s stylistic visual concepts to text difficult, and he periodically had to rein in some of the director’s ideas such as reminding Scott that in the scene they were discussing, the characters were subject to gravity and so could not simply float.[61] By April 2010, the script was on the fourth draft.[75] Scott described the script, saying “we are talking about gods and engineers. Engineers of space. And were the aliens designed as a form of biological warfare? Or biology that would go in and clean up a planet?”[76] In June 2010, Scott stated that the script was complete and ready for filming.[62]
However, Scott instead contacted Lindelof and requested that he review Spaihts’ script.[77] Within the hour, a messenger delivered the script to Lindelof and informed the writer that he would be waiting outside to take it back as soon as Lindelof had finished reading it.[78] Unaware of what the producers liked about the existing script, Lindelof informed Scott and the producers that he found the general concept appealing, but that the story relied too heavily on elements of the Alien films, such as the general concept of the Alien creatures life-cycle. As a direct prequel to Alien, it was focused on leading into that film’s story, and recreating the familiar cues of that series,[77] and Scott was adamant that he avoid repeating previous accomplishments.[79] Lindelof clarified, “If the ending to [Prometheus] is just going to be the room that John Hurt walks into that’s full of [alien] eggs [in Alien], there’s nothing interesting in that, because we know where it’s going to end. Good stories, you don’t know where they’re going to end.”[79] “A true prequel should essentially proceed [sic] the events of the original film, but be about something entirely different, feature different characters, have an entirely different theme, although it takes place in that same world.”[71]
Lindelof suggested that the other parts of the script were strong enough to survive without the Alien hallmarks, such as the Alien creature which he believed had been “diluted” by the exposure it had received since, and the burden of “all the tropes of that franchise with Facehuggers and Chestbursters”.[71][80] He offered that the film could instead run parallel to those films, such that a sequel would be Prometheus 2 and not Alien, and submitted an idea for how such a sequel could work. He met with the producers the following morning, and was hired shortly afterwards in late 2010.[40][80] Under Lindelof, the script began to divert from Spaihts’ Alien prequel into a more original creation.[40] Scott and Lindelof worked together five days a week between July and August 2010, trying to piece together exactly what vision Scott was trying to convey and how the script needed to change, including scaling back the Alien symbology and tropes. Beginning in August, Lindelof spent four to five weeks writing his first draft before submitting it mid-September 2010.[64] Inspired by Blade Runner and Spaihts’ script, Lindelof thought that it would be possible to combine an Alien story of action and horror with “the Blade Runner thematic”,[77] to ask bigger questions that he felt were normally posed in science fiction films. Lindelof explained:
Blade Runner might not have done well [financially] when it first came out, but people are still talking about it because it was infused with all these big ideas. [Scott] was also talking about very big themes in Prometheus. It was being driven by people who wanted the answers to huge questions. But I thought that we could do that without ever getting too pretentious. Nobody wants to see a movie where people are floating in space talking about the meaning of life … That was already present in [Spaihts’] original script and [Scott] just wanted to bring it up more.
Scott’s story concept was partially inspired by the work of Chariots of the Gods? author Erich von Däniken‘s writings about the theory of ancient astronauts, suggesting that life on Earth was created by aliens.[58][70] Scott said, “NASA and the Vatican agree that [it is] almost mathematically impossible that we can be where we are today without there being a little help along the way… That’s what we’re looking at [in the film], at some of Erich von Däniken’s ideas of how did we humans come about.”[70]Spaihts originated the idea that David, the android, is like humans, but does not want to be anything like them, eschewing a common theme in “robotic storytelling” such as Blade Runner. He also developed the theme that while the human crew are searching for their creators, David is already among them. Scott liked these ideas and had them explored further in Lindelof’s rewrite.[81] For Shaw, Lindelof felt it was important that she be distinct from Alien‘s Ripley, to avoid inevitable comparisons between the two female leads. In Spaihts’ draft, Shaw was directly responsible for the events of the plot because of her desire to seek out potentially dangerous knowledge. As with David, Lindelof further expanded this facet of the character during his rewrites. Lindelof spent approximately eight months developing the script, finishing in March 2011, as filming began.[82]
Pre-production
Pre-production had begun by April 2010, with a team developing graphic designs for the film’s requirements.[75] Scott convinced Fox to invest millions of dollars into the hiring of scientists and conceptual artists to develop a vision of the late 21st century.[3] Production of Prometheus was marked by a high degree of secrecy[83] with story details “extremely under-wraps.”[84] Determined to maintain the secrecy of the plot, Scott required the cast to sign clauses to prevent them disclosing story details, and the cast were only allowed to read the script under supervision in Scott’s production office.[85] One exception was made when a courier flew to one of the actors in a foreign location and then stood guard while the actor read the script.[85] Concerning the confidential nature of the script, Scott stated: “I was insistent that the script not leak onto the internet, where it gets dissected out of context, which spoils it for everyone.”[85]
In July 2011, Lindelof stated that the film would be relying on practical effects, and employing CGI generally for on-set pre-visualization of external space visuals.[86] Scott recalling advice special effects artist Douglas Trumbull gave him on the set of Blade Runner stated, “if you can do it live, do it live”, with Scott claiming that although “you can pretty much do anything you want”[87] with digital technology, practical effects are more cost effective.[22][88] Cinematographer Darius Wolski convinced Scott that it would be possible to film in 3Dwith the same ease and efficiency of typical filming. 3D company 3ality Technica provided some of the rigs and equipment to facilitate 3D filming, and trained the film’s crew in their proper operation.[89] According to Scott, the decision to film in 3D added $10 million to the film’s budget.[90] Since 3D films need high lighting levels on set, the hallmark atmosphere of the Alien films with darkness and shadows was added in post-production through grading processes, while the 3D equipment was based on post-Avatar technology.[91][92]
Principal photography began on March 21, 2011, on an estimated $120–130 million budget.[3][93] Filming was scheduled to take place over six months,[10] but it took longer than forecast: the film was still being shot in September 2011.[94] Filming began at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England, part of the Pinewood Studios group,[7] where Scott used eight sound stages for filming, including the 007 Stage.[85][95] Studio space was limited and the crew were forced to make the stages work for over 16 different sets, and also increase the size of the 007 stage by over 30%.[96]
In July, filming moved to Iceland for two weeks, commencing at the base of the active Hekla volcano in southern Iceland on July 11, 2011. Speaking about working at the base of an active volcano, Scott stated “If one is afraid of nature in this profession then it would be best to find a different job”.[97] Filming also took place at one of the most powerful waterfalls in Europe, the Dettifoss waterfall in the north east of Iceland, in the Vatnajökull National Park.[98] The Iceland shoot involved 160 Icelandic crew members and over 200 imported crew.[97]Scott claimed that the Iceland filming comprised approximately fifteen minutes of footage for the film, and that the area represented the “beginning of time”.[99] Exterior shots of the alien world were shot in Iceland.[100]Morocco had been an intended shooting location instead of Iceland, but the 2010 Arab Spring protests forced the change of venue.[3] Alternatives including the Mojave Desert had been considered alongside Iceland,[101] but Scott explained that the country was ultimately chosen because “here it is so rough and ‘Jurassic-like’ and that proved decisive”.[97]
In September 2011, filming moved to the Ciudad de la Luz audiovisual complex in Alicante, Spain. Shooting areas included the complex’s large water tank, and a nearby Alicante beach.[94][102] The complex was booked from August 22, 2011, through to December 10, with set construction occurring from August until late September.[94] Approximately 250 people worked on the three month-long Spain shoot, generating over €1 million to the local economy.[103] Filming also took place in the Wadi Rum valley in Jordan.[3]
Scott avoided using green screens unless necessary, instead employing various items to help the actors understand where they were meant to be looking in any particular scene on the practical sets that would have a CGI presence inserted in post-production.[104] Rapace claimed that green screens were used less than six times during filming.[79] The production used five 3ality Technical Atom 3D rigs, four of which were configured with Red Epic 3D cameras set up for use on camera dollies and tripods, which were continuously in use during filming. The fifth rig employed an Epic camera for use as a steadicam, which was only used as required.[89][105]
Post-production
Scott focused on using the 3D footage to increase the illusion of depth. Despite this being his first 3D film he found the process easy. He stated: “You can literally twiddle a knob and the depth will increase”, “the trick is not to overdo it”.[104]Prometheus contains approximately 1,300 digital effect shots.[104]Moving Picture Company were the lead visual effect studio and produced 420 of the shots.[106] Several other studios also produced the visual effects including Weta Digital,[3] Fuel VFX,[107]Rising Sun Pictures, Luma Pictures, Lola Visual Effects, and Hammerhead Productions.[108] In December 2011, Rapace undertook additional dialogue recordings for the film.[5] Additional pick-up scenes were filmed during January 2012, including a one-day shoot on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, and a new scene shot at a cave in the Scottish mountains.[109][110][111] For dark scenes with little lighting, the film was color graded to specifically compensate for the slight dimness introduced by wearing 3D glasses, to ensure the image was comparable to the 2D version.[106]
In July 2011, Scott stated that he was filming Prometheus with both adult-oriented R and more accessible PG-13 film ratings in mind, allowing the more adult content to be cut if necessary without harming the overall presentation. Scott claimed he had a responsibility to 20th Century Fox to be able to present a PG-13 cut of the film if the studio demanded, allowing it to be viewed by a wider potential audience.[112] When asked about the rating, Scott explained “the question is, do you go for the PG-13, or do you go for what it should be, which is R? Financially it makes quite a difference…essentially it’s kinda R…it’s not just about blood, it’s about ideas that are very stressful.”[113] Scott maintained that, regardless of rating, he would present the most “aggressive” cut of the film he could,[113] while Rothman stated that Scott would not be forced to compromise the film’s quality to avoid an R-rating.[114] On May 7, 2012, Fox confirmed that the film had received an R-rating and would be released without any cuts being made.[115][116] A fight scene between Shaw and the Engineer was edited out of the finale because Scott decided that Shaw wounding the Engineer diminished his role.[117] Scott concluded work on the film in March 2012.[118]
Design
Production designerArthur Max led the film’s design. His art team were tasked with deconstructing the art and visuals of Alien and reverse-designing them for the earlier-time setting of Prometheus.[119][120] Influence was drawn from the work of Alien creature designer H. R. Giger, and designers Ron Cobb and Chris Foss, including their designs for that film which Scott had been unable to develop at the time.[120] Max designed the sets including the alien structures and the alien world landscape, and vehicles, including the Prometheusand Engineer ship.[7][96] Digital 3D models and miniature replicas were built of each set, allowing them to see how sets should connect and to know where the sets would end and the CGI would begin. To better blend the practical and the digital, the design team took rock samples during the Iceland shoot, allowing them to match the graphical textures with the real rocks caught on film.[121] Max researched NASA and European Space Agency designs and developed these concepts with his vision of how space travel would look in the future to create the Prometheus. He stated that he wanted “to do something that was state-of-the-art, which would represent a flagship spacecraft with every technology required to probe into the deepest corners of the galaxy.”
The film’s titular spaceship, as seen in a promotional image.
The interior of the ship was built across a two-level structure, fronted by a large, faceted, wrap around windscreen. Theron’s quarters were designed to represent her high status on the ship, being furnished with modern and futuristic items including Swarovski chandeliers and a Faziolipiano.[96] The ship’s garage was built on the backlot of Pinewood Studios in England. The vehicles within were built over 11 weeks and were designed to operate on difficult terrain while still possessing a futuristic aesthetic. Max created a large Pyramid structure for the alien world, with main interior areas connected by a series of chambers, corridors and tunnels, so expansive that some crew became temporarily lost within. The pyramid was enhanced in post-production to further increase its size.[96] One of the key sets, the chamber where the crew find the humanoid-head statue, was designed to resemble the interior of a cathedral and convey a “quasi religious” impression.[120] Giger designed the murals that appear within the chamber.[72]
For the crew’s space suits, Scott was inspired to include spherical glass helmets after reading a story in Apple co-founder Steve Jobs‘ biography, about building an office out of Gorilla Glass, with Scott remarking “If I’m in 2083 and I’m going into space, why would I design a helmet that has blind spots. What I want is something where I have 360 [vision]. Glass, by then, will be light and you won’t be able to break it with a bullet.”[18]The interior of the prop helmets had nine functioning video screens, internal lighting, an oxygen supply provided by two fans, with battery packs concealed within a backpack. The helmet’s exterior featured a functional light source and high-definition cameras with a transmitter and recorder. For the suit itself, Scott wanted to avoid the unwieldy NASA-style suit. His frequent collaborator, Academy award-winning costume designer Janty Yates, used medical research concepts relating to skin replacement treatments and materials to develop a design that could believably provide a flexible and comfortable garment. The outfit comprised a neoprene suit worn under an outer space suit, a base to which the helmet could be attached, and a backpack.[96]
Aboard the ship, Yates gave the characters their own distinct look. Theron is dressed in an ice-silver, silk mohair suit, with Yates explaining: “[Theron] is the ice queen. It was always our vision to make her look as sculptural as possible”. Fassbender’s David is dressed similar to other crewmen, but his outfit was given finer lines to produce a more linear appearance. To create a casual, relaxed appearance, Marshall-Green’s Holloway was dressed in hoodies, fisherman pants, and flip-flops, while Elba wore a canvas-greased jacket to represent his long career at the helm of a ship.[96]
A key scene involving a large 3D hologram star map was inspired by the 1766 Joseph Wright painting “A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery“, in which a scientist displays a mechanical planetarium by candlelight. While discussing the necessity of a star map with Spaihts, Scott mentioned the painting as how he saw the map being physically represented, although he was unaware of the name and described it only as “circles in circles with a candle lit image”. To Scott’s pleasure, Spaihts located the correct image based on his description. Spaihts stated: “making the leap from a star map, to an Enlightenment painting, and then back into the far future. [Scott’s] mind just multiplexes in that way”.[74]
Creature effects
Neal Scanlan and Conor O’Sullivan developed the film’s alien creatures, aiming to convey each creature as having a logical biological function and purpose. Scanlan stated that much of Scott’s inspiration for creature design is drawn from natural life such as plants and sea creatures.[96] The snake-like alien dubbed the “Hammerpede” was given life through a mixture of CGI and practical effects which included digitally removing wires controlling the practical puppet. For a scene where the Hammerpede is decapitated, the VFX team digitally animated and inserted the spontaneous growth of a replacement head.[122] During a scene when the Hammerpede erupts from Spall’s character’s corpse, Scott was in control of the puppet using wires. Scott did not inform Dickie about what was to occur in the scene and her screaming reaction was real. The creature’s design was partially inspired by translucent sea creatures with visible arteries, veins and organs beneath the skin’s surface, and Cobras, creating a “smooth and muscular and powerful” appearance. For the tentacled offspring cut out of Rapace’s Shaw, the “Trilobite”, early designs resembled an Octopus or Squid until designer Neville Page redeveloped the concept as an embryo in an early state of development, with tentacles that began fused together and would gradually split as the creature developed, creating new tentacles. The practical creature was ananimatronic creation.
For its grown form, the “Adult Trilobite”, Max found inspiration from an arthropod-like creature from Earth’s Cambrian era, and the alien octopus illustrations of the Jean Giraud-illustrated The Long Tomorrow comic strip written by Alien writer Dan O’Bannon. The final inspiration for Max’s design came after he found a formaldehyde-preserved giant squid, an image which met with Scott’s approval. The film’s last-unveiled creature, the “Deacon”, was named by Scott for it’s long, pointed head that he considered resembled a “bishop’smitre, the evil deacon’s pointed hat”. Scanlan aimed to design the creature to represent its genetic lineage: beginning with Shaw and Holloway, who produce the Trilobite, which impregnates the Engineer. However, they focused on making the character feminine, claiming that “it was born of a female before being born of a male.” Visual effects art director Steven Messing drew inspiration for the Deacon’s birth scene from horse foal births, and created an iridescent-like appearance for its skin, based on the placenta from foal birth.[123]
Frequent Scott collaborator Marc Streitenfeld composed the musical score for Prometheus.[124] The score was recorded over one week with a 90-piece orchestra at Abbey Road Studios in London, England,[125] where it was also processed by Scott after the fact.[18] Streintenfeld began coming up with ideas for the score after reading the script prior to the commencement of filming. To create an “unsettling” sound, he provided the orchestra with reversed music sheets to have them play segments of the score backwards, before then digitally reversing it.[125] The Prometheus (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) album was released on iTunes on May 15, 2012,[126] and on CD on June 4, 2012.[127] It features 23 tracks by Streitenfeld, plus two supplemental tracks by composer Harry Gregson-Williams.[128]
Prometheus‘s marketing campaign began on July 21, 2011, at the San Diego Comic-Con International, where images and footage from the film were presented by Lindelof and Theron, with Scott and Rapace participating via satellite contribution.[73][129] A segment of the footage showed Theron performing “naked push-ups” which attracted much attention.[84][130][131] A teaser poster was revealed on December 14, 2011, with the tagline, “The search for our beginning could lead to our end.”[132] A bootleg recording of an incomplete teaser trailer was leaked online on November 27, 2011, but was swiftly taken down by Fox.[133] The teaser trailer was released on December 22, 2011.[134]
On March 17, 2012, Scott, in partnership with AMC Theaters, hosted the premiere of the first full Prometheus trailer at the AMC Downtown Disney, during WonderCon in Anaheim, California. The event was streamed live via Facebook, Twitter, and the AMC Theater website, and the trailer was posted on AMC’s Youtube channel immediately after its debut.[135] Reaction to the trailer was considered to be positive among WonderCon attendees and on Twitter,[136] and it received nearly three million views in the three days following its release.[137] On April 10, 2012, media outlets were shown a 13 minute montage of scenes from the film’s opening in 3D at the Vue Cinema in Leicester Square, London.[138] The screening was well received, with particular mentions given to the 3D visuals and the performances of Fassbender, Rapace, Theron, and Elba.[24][138][139]
On April 29, 2012, the international launch trailer debuted in the United Kingdom on Channel 4 during the first advertisement break of the TV show Homeland. Viewers were encouraged to share their opinions about the trailer on Twitter, some of which were then shared in a live broadcast during a later break. This marked the first time that viewers’ tweets were used in a broadcast advertisement.[140][141] Alongside the trailer, a competition was launched on the social platform Zeebox, offering viewers a chance to win tickets to the film whenever Zeebox detected the advertisement airing.[142] On May 8, 2012, the advertisement became subject to an investigation by the British broadcasting regulatory bodyOfcom for allegedly breaching broadcast rules when a voice over encouraged viewers to book tickets while the advertisement played and with the Channel 4 logo onscreen. The act potentially broke a rule that advertising and teleshopping must be clearly distinguishable from editorial content.[143][144]
Although marketers typically avoid collaborating with adult-oriented films to focus on reaching broader audiences, the film attracted several promotional partners including Coors,Amazon, and Verizon FiOS. The campaigns were estimated to have spent $30 million in marketing support. Amazon directed interested users to purchase tickets throughFandango, and placed promotional material in products shipped to customers; this was the first time that Amazon had allowed such marketing by an external company.[145] The premiere in London, England, was streamed live via the film’s website and the Verizon FiOS Facebook. The event was facilitated by BumeBox, which culled audience questions from social sites and delivered them to reporters to ask at the event.[146] The National Entertainment Collectibles Association (NECA) are developing a series of Prometheus action figures, scheduled for release in September 2012.[147]Prometheus: The Art of the Film, a book containing production art and behind-the-scenes photos from the film, was released on June 12, 2012.[148]
Viral campaign
An advertisement for “David” printed in newspapers.
A viral marketing campaign began on February 28, 2012, with the release of a video featuring a speech by Pearce, in character as Peter Weyland, about his vision for the future. Set in 2023, the video presents a futuristic vision of a TED conference, an annual technology and design event held in Long Beach, California. The segment was conceived and designed by Scott and Lindelof, and directed by Scott’s son, Luke. The production was made in collaboration with, and made available through TED because Lindelof wanted to introduce new audiences to the conference itself. Lindelof explained that the scene takes place in a futuristic stadium rather than the smaller locations of real TED conferences because “a guy like Peter Weyland—whose ego is just massive, and the ideas that he’s advancing are nothing short of hubris—that he’d basically say to TED, ‘If you want me to give a talk, I’m giving it in Wembley Stadium.'”[27]
TED community director Tom Rielly helped gain approval for the use of the TED brand, which had not previously been used for promotional purposes. He was involved in designing the 2023 conference, preparing an “extensive briefing on all the visual and audio aspects of a TEDTalk circa 2012 and a corresponding speculation on how things would work in the future”, that included flying video cameras and “live Twitteresque feedback”. Rielly claimed that the association generated millions of new visitors to the TED website.[149] The video’s release was accompanied by a fictional TED blog about the 2023 conference and a tie-in website for the fictional Weyland Corporation.[150][151] On March 6, 2012, the Weyland website was updated to allow visitors to ‘invest’ in the company as part of a game to reveal new Prometheus media.[152]
During the 2012 WonderCon, attendees at the film’s panel were given Weyland Corporation business cards that directed them to a website and phone number. Calling the number resulted in the caller being sent a text message from Weyland Corporation that linked them to a second viral video. Narrated by Fassbender, the video is presented as an advertisement for the “David 8” android, portrayed by Fassbender.[153] An extended version of the video was released on April 17, 2012. The advertisement details “David”‘s features including its ability to seamlessly replicate human emotions without the restrictions of ethics or distress.[154][155] Accompanying the video, a full page “David” advertisement was placed in The Wall Street Journal; a Twitter account operated by a David8 was revealed, allowing Twitter users to ask the character questions;[156] and a partnership with Verizon FiOS was launched, offering a virtual tour of the Prometheus spaceship.[156] Another video, “Quiet Eye”, starring Rapace as Shaw, was released on May 16, 2012, debuting through the Verizon FIOS Facebook.[146] In the video, Shaw requests Weyland’s aid to seek out alien life, in a phone call monitored by Yutani, a fictional company from the Alien series.[157] In France, the Saint-Martin ghost train station was converted in appearance to resemble alien architecture from the film, visible to passing commuters.[158] The campaign continued following the film’s release with a website highlighted during the film’s end credits. The site referenced the philosophical novelThus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, and featured a further video of Pearce’s Weyland, quoting from the book.[159][160]
Discussing the videos at the May 2012 Digital Hollywood conference, Lindelof claimed that they originated from the question of the film’s status as an Alien prequel. It was decided that creating videos with the film’s stars would generate more interest than anything that could be said in regards to its connection to the Alien films. He furthered that the challenge in creating the videos was that they needed to be good enough to justify their existence, but not so important that their absence from the final film would be an issue for audiences.[161]
Release
The premiere of Prometheus took place on May 31, 2012, at the Empire cinema in Leicester Square, London.[118][162] The film was released on June 1, 2012, in the United Kingdom,[115] and was released on June 8, 2012, in North America.[68] It was simultaneously released in IMAX theaters and in 3D,[163] and it is encoded for D-Box motion seats that provide physical feedback to the viewer during the film.[164]
Pre-release
In the United Kingdom, approximately £1 million ($1.6 million) of tickets were pre-sold.[165] 18,827 tickets pre-sold for the London IMAX, the largest IMAX screen in the country, which broke the theater records for the highest grossing week of pre-sales with £293,312 ($474,687), and the highest grossing first day of pre-sales with £137,000 ($221,717).[166] It extended this record to 30,000 tickets sold and £470,977 ($737,588) earned, becoming the most pre-booked film at the theater, exceeding the performance of high-profile IMAX releases including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and Avatar.[167]
In North America, audience tracking showed high interest among males of all ages, but low interest among females.[168] The week preceding release saw conflicting opinions on whether the film or Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted would place number 1 for the weekend during their simultaneous release. As of June 6, 2012, Fandango reported thatPrometheus was leading with 42% of daily sales, while Madagascar 3 was responsible for 35% of daily sales. Additionally, the online tracking for Prometheus surged with each new piece of promotional footage.[169] However, pre-release tracking is usually less reliable for animated films; since Madagascar 3 was the first truly family-oriented film of the summer, many speculated that there would be large demand for it.[170] The official 20th Century Fox prediction placed Prometheus around $30 million, while DreamWorks Animation andParamount placed Madagascar 3 at about $45 million.[171] As the weekend came closer, pre-release audience surveys suggested a $55 million debut for Madagascar 3 and $50-$55 million for Prometheus.[172]Prometheus was also in the disadvantage of a less wide release (3,394 theaters against 4,258 theaters for Madagascar 3). Furthermore, the R rating of the film was considered a limiting obstacle.[173]
Box office
As of June 15 2012, the film has earned $68,658,127 in North America and $92,736,717 elsewhere for a worldwide total of $161,394,844.[4]
Prometheus was initially released in 15 markets from May 30 to June 1, 2012 – about a week before its North American release. The earlier start in these countries was timed to avoid competition with the start of the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship the following week. On its opening day (it varies depending on the country), it earned $3.39 million in the United Kingdom,[174] $2.2 million in Russia,[175] and $1.5 million in France.[165] The film earned $34.8 million during its opening weekend from 4,695 theaters in 15 markets, debuting at #1 in 14 of them, with an average of $7,461 per theater. Its overall rank for the weekend was third behind Men in Black 3 and Snow White & the Huntsman.[176]Its opening weekends in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta ($10.1 million), Russia and the CIS ($9.80 million), and France and the Maghreb region ($6.68 million) represented its largest takings.[177][1] By June 8, the film had opened in a total of 50 markets, seeing further success during its opening weekends in Australia ($7.2 million) and South Korea ($4.2 million).[178]
In North America, the film earned $3.561 million in midnight showings at 1,368 theaters, including $1.03 million from 294 IMAX theaters, and went on to earn $21.4 million through its opening day.[179] During its opening weekend, it earned $51.05 million from 3,396 theaters – an average of $15,032 per theater – ranking second behind Madagascar 3 ($60.4 million). The figure placed it as the second largest opening for a film directed by Scott (behind his 2001 thriller Hannibal), the third largest second-place opening, the ninth largest opening for a prequel, and the tenth largest for an R-rated film. The largest segment of the opening weekend audience was over the age of 25 (64%) and male (57%). 3D showings accounted for 54% of ticket sales, while IMAX contributed 18% – the majority of which was accounted for in the 3D figure.[180][181][4]
Critical response
Michael Fassbender in 2012. Critics were near unanimous in praise for his portrayal of the android David.
The film garnered a 74% approval rating from 235 critics – an average rating of 6.9 out of 10 – on the review-aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, whose consensus reads: “Ridley Scott’s ambitious quasi-prequel to Alien may not answer all of its big questions, but it’s redeemed by its haunting visual grandeur and compelling performances — particularly Michael Fassbender as a fastidious android.”[182]Metacritic provides a score of 65 out of 100 from 42 critics, indicating “generally favorable” reviews.[183]CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a “B” on an A+ to F scale, with audience members under 25 rating it the highest at A-.[179][184] Reviews were frequently praising of both the film’s visual aesthetic and design, and Fassbender’s performance as the android David received almost universal acclaim. However the plot drew a more mixed response, with criticism of plot elements that remained unresolved or were predictable, tempered by appreciation for the action and horror set-pieces.
The Hollywood Reporter‘s Todd McCarthy called the film’s visuals vivid, stunning and magnificent on a technical level, singling out the performances of Fassbender, Rapace and Theron for praise, but lamented that the film catered too much to audience expectations, making it predictable.[185]Time Out London‘s Tom Huddleston felt the plot was “flat” and “predictable”, the characters “emotionless”, and that while the film was “perfectly entertaining”, it did not live up to pre-release expectations.[186]Emanuel Levy cited the plot as his only complaint with the film, stating that it is unable to follow through with its philosophical ideas.[187]Roger Ebert gave the film 4 out of 4 stars, labeling it a “magnificent … blend of story, special effects and pitch-perfect casting, filmed in sane, effective 3-D that doesn’t distract.” Ebert positively compared Rapace to Sigourney Weaver’s performance in Alien as continuing “the tradition of awesome feminine strength”, but considered Elba the most interesting performer. Ebert thought that the plot, in raising questions and not answering them, made the film “intriguing” and in the “classic tradition of golden age sci-fi”.[188]
Total Film‘s Jonathan Crocker however offered that the plot successfully integrated itself with Alien‘s mythology while offering its own original ideas.[189]Entertainment Weekly‘s Lisa Schwarzbaum was positive towards the cast, particularly Rapace, and the cinematography.[190]Salon‘s Andrew O’Hehir offered that the film was “somber, spectacular and ponderous,” but that the ” portentousness and grandiosity…is at once the film’s great strength and great weakness” criticizing characters for lacking “common sense”. O’Hehir also mentioned Wolski’s cinematography and Max’s production design.[191]The New York Times‘A. O. Scott criticized the story as weak, undermining its “lofty, mindblowing potential” with “bits of momentarily surprising information bereft of meaning or resonance”, but described Rapace as a “fine heroine, vulnerable and determined”.[192]
In a negative review, Variety film critic Justin Chang described the film’s structure and genre as being unable to handle the philosophical undertow of the plot, and felt Prometheuswas “lazily deferring” key plot points under the presumption that a sequel would be made.[193]The Guardian’sPeter Bradshaw was less critical but thought that Prometheus “[lacked] the central punch of Alien“, calling the film “more grandiose, more elaborate – but less interesting”.[194] Ian Nathan of Empire magazine was unimpressed by Rapace — whom he described as an unconvincing lead — and summarised the film as lacking suspense.[195]The Village Voice‘s Nick Pinkerton stated that the film is “prone to shallow ponderousness”, that can “mimic the appearance of an epic, noble, important movie”, but fails to “payoff”. He criticized Rapace and Marshall-Green for failing to instill interest in their character relationship, but added: “there are a few set pieces here that will find a place of honor among aficionados of body horror and all things clammy and viscous”.[196]
In North America, the DVD and Blu-ray disc versions of the film were listed for pre-order in partnership with Amazon, a week before the film had been released in theaters. A limited number of tickets to the film were offered as a pre-order incentive.[200] The film is scheduled for release on Blu-ray disc and DVD on October 9, 2012.[201] In a June 2012, interview Scott stated that the home release would feature an extended cut of the film featuring an additional 20 minutes of footage and up to 30 minutes of deleted scenes.[117] In June 2012,FX obtained the rights to the film’s network premiere.[202]
Sequel
During the March 17, 2012, WonderCon, Scott stated that the film leaves many questions unanswered, and that these could be answered in a sequel, saying “If we’re lucky, there’ll be a second part. It does leave you with some nice open questions.”[22][87] Asked if a sequel would be a direct prequel to Alien, Lindelof said “if we’re fortunate enough to do a sequel… it will tangentialize [sic] even further away from the original Alien.”[18] In June 2012, Lindelof stated that while plot elements were deliberately left unresolved so that they could be answered in a sequel, he and Scott thoroughly discussed what should be resolved so that Prometheus could stand alone, as a sequel was not guaranteed.[203] Further detailing his sequel concept, Scott stated that it would follow Shaw to her next destination, “because if it is paradise, paradise can not be what you think it is. Paradise has a connotation of being extremely sinister and ominous.” Lindelof cast doubt on his participation stating “if [Scott] wants me to be involved in something, that would be hard to say no to. At the same time, I do feel like [Prometheus] might benefit from a fresh voice or a fresh take or a fresh thought.”[204]
^ abcdefg Galloway, Stephen (May 16, 2012). “Return of the ‘Alien’ Mind”.The Hollywood Reporter (Prometheus Global Media). Archived from the original on June 14, 2012. Retrieved May 16, 2012.
^Ridley Scott (Director) (2003). Alien (DVD (audio commentary track)). 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc.. “It’s a tough one, particularly with the success of four. I think if you close the lid it should be the end of the first chapter, and I think very simply what no one’s done is simply gone back to re-visit ‘what was it?’ No one’s ever said ‘who’s the space jockey?’ He wasn’t an Alien. What was that battleship? Is it a battleship? Is it an aircraft carrier? Is it a bio-mechanoid weapon carrier?…Why did it land? Did it crash-land, or did it settle there because it had engine trouble?…And how long ago? ‘Cause those eggs would sit there.”
^Dan O’Bannon (Writer), Ridley Scott (Director), Sigourney Weaver (Actor) (2003). Alien (DVD (audio commentary track)). 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc..
We are beginning to see the great Silent Majority begin to awaken to the Global Agenda of the New World Order! From the Tea Party to the Occupy Movement the seeds of Liberty are beginning to take root and grow a great Liberty Tree. “In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot” (Mark Twain).
As a Truth Seeker, Patriot and Political activist in this modern-day internet social networking arena, I find myself relating to the greatest of Patriots and Freedom fighters the world has ever known! Our world’s history is full of people who stood up for the Truth: “If you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth” (Gandhi), and were rejected for going against society’s norms or so-called “truths” of that time in which they lived! Even the Lord Jesus Christ, God of the Universe, was rejected by his own! “And they were offended in Him. But Jesus said unto them, “A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house” (Jesus Christ, http://bible.cc/matthew/13-57.htm).
The Battle that we fight for as Truth-Tellers or Patriots is for the Minds and Hearts of Men, for the masses, for those who are blinded by the lies, “The function of a civil resistance is to provoke response, and we will continue to provoke until they respond or change the law. They are not in control; we are” (Gandhi). “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Bible). Truth cannot be won with a sword or by a bomb, But with the Education and Knowledge comes Freedom and Liberty! There are those who will curse you and call you all kinds of names because you want to speak the Truth! “In a time of universal deceit telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” (George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, italics added).
They the uninformed masses of people ignorant and starving for the truth will call you Crazy or a Conspiracy Theorist, not really understanding that they themselves are truly under Mind Control or NLP (Nero Linguistic Programming). They will defend the lies even unto death, slaves to the lie suffering from a form of Mass-Stockholm syndromeThe Syndrome has also been explained in evolutionary terms by a phenomenon sometimes referred to as Capture-bonding.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (King James Bible).
Even Einstein was called Crazy “Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance. (Albert Einstein). “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win” (Mahatma Gandhi). “Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always.” (Gandhi).
I find it encouraging that others have come before me to lay the seeds of Truth that enable Justice, Liberty and Freedom for all! “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (Thomas Jefferson).
I am reminded of a quote from the speech “Citizenship in a Republic” Theodore Roosevelt delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910 called,
THE MAN IN THE ARENA
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
As I learn more about the great men in our world’s history who stood against injustice and for the Truth and Justice for all men great and small, rich and poor! I find a inner strength to face those who would carry out such atrocities and to be bold even unto death!
Have a look at the following image of a massive land subsidence in Sweden, that mysteriously collapse to reveal a 200 foot wide open.
Revelation chapter 9 commentary
by Don Koenig
And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
The fifth angel sounds his trumpet and a star falls from heaven. This star has the key to the bottomless pit. Stars sometimes have a double reference to angelic beings in the scriptures. This star is called “him” so it is an angel. The angel was given the key to open up the place under the earth where fallen angels are bound (2 Pe: 2 1-10). Some think this angel is Satan and others think it is another angel. I think this angel still has the key when he locks Satan in the bottomless pit for a thousand years after the tribulation is over (Rev 20:1-2). Therefore, the angel is from God and is not Satan.
It is too soon for Satan to be cast out of heaven permanently since the Beast he incarnates when he is cast out of heaven comes out of the pit months after the time of this fifth trumpet. The Beast comes out of the pit just prior to the seventh trumpet just before he kills the two prophets who have completed their 1,260-day testimony (Rev 11:7).
If this was actually the time when Satan and his angels were cast out of heaven by Michael and his angels there should be a description of more than one star falling from heaven. This angel appears to be on an assignment and does not appear to be an angel being banished from heaven.
Although it is clear that this star is a personality, I do not think we can say that the comet had nothing to do with opening the pit in a physical sense. Physical and spiritual events can be interrelated. Mankind being limited to four dimensions cannot understand the mystery of how the physical and the spiritual are interrelated (Mat 16:19, Mat 18:18). These physical judgments on earth are the end result of spiritual prayers. We read in the last chapter that a censor containing the prayers of the saints was filled with fire by an angel. This angel cast the censor upon the earth and then these physical judgments came.
When the comet hits the earth it will penetrate the crust of the earth and open the bottomless pit. We see this physically happens on earth by the description of the great smoke that comes out of the pit that darkens the skies. The opening of the bottomless pit provides a way out for devils or demons that have been bound in the pit (by gravitational forces perhaps?).
3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
The bottomless pit is opened and tormentors come on the earth. Their satanic role probably is to make life on earth so unbearable that a counterfeit savior will be accepted. Out of the smoke of the pit comes a strange type of locust upon the earth. These locusts have power like scorpions. What these beings are is not certain and I have no natural explanation. The stinging locusts last on the earth for five months. We can be sure they are demonic beings because they come out of the bottomless pit and we are told that they will have a demonic king ruling over them.
4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
These locusts were commanded by God not to hurt anything green so these are not normal locusts or any natural mutation. They sting only those who do not have the seal of God in their foreheads. The 144,000 most likely are not the only ones sealed. Those who believe and follow Jesus may also be sealed since they are also servants of God. Scripture does not tell us that believers will be sealed but I see no reason for God to let believers to be tormented by demonic beings. The fact that they are commanded and cannot harm those sealed by God say that these beings are intelligent and have no choice but to obey spiritual authority given to the angels of God.
These locusts will not be given power to kill anyone but they will have the power to torment unsealed people for five months. Some make this judgment a result of nuclear warfare. They claim that this judgment is talking about radioactive poisoning but many who suffer this do die. It is obvious from the description of these locusts that this is not what is being described. Some say that they are spiritual demons that torment man mentally but passages that follow indicate that these beings have physical form. The scorpion sting is said to be the most painful of all stings. Those on earth who are not sealed have this type of pain to look forward to for five long months.
6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
This is going to be so bad that people will seek death but they will not find it. Why man cannot find death is unknown but God gives and takes life. Perhaps, because the pit of hell is opened, no one can die and go there until after the five months is up. It may be 5 months of the real Night of Living Dead for people on earth.
God, for His own reasons is not allowing any unsealed person to escape this torment. I think this is the ultimate tough love program. I believe God is allowing demons to give men of flesh a five month taste of the Lake of Fire. It is given in love so they will choose not to go there for eternity when they later are required to make a choice between taking the mark of the Beast and going to this place of torments for eternity or choosing God’s Son and losing their physical lives so their soul will be saved from it. All mankind will still have another chance to come to Jesus and not choose to go to the place of eternal torments.
7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
9 And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.
11 And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
This passage gives the actual physical description of these creatures. They are not like anything we know. They are not helicopters or jets shooting missiles filled with chemical or biological weapons as some have speculated. These creatures come out of the smoke of the pit and the angel of the bottomless pit is ruling over them. This is not Satan because Satan at this point has not yet been cast out of heaven.
The king over these beings is named Abaddon. The name Abaddon actually means thedestroyer. These locusts are led by the destroying angel who is probably Satan’s commander of the dimension called the underworld. These locusts are actual physical beings that ascend out of the same pit the angel in verse two opened with his key. The five months of this torment will be a literal hell on earth.
12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
After the five months of torment by these hellish creatures, one woe is past but there are still two more left to come when the sixth and seventh angels sound their trumpets.
13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.
16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.
After the sixth trumpet blast, four angels are loosed that are bound in the Euphrates River. This prophecy gives the number of the horsemen (cavalry men) that will now be allowed to pass to the east of the Euphrates to kill one third of men. The number John said he heard was two hundred million. There never was a time when such an army was possible before this generation.
Today such an army could come from the East; there are now more than three billion people east of the Euphrates River. The CIA fact book of the year 2004 said that China alone has more than two hundred million military fit men.
Abortion and infanticide of female children in China and India in this generation will create a disposable surplus of over one hundred million adult men who will have no chance for marriage and a normal family life. To a lesser extent for much the same reason there will also be surpluses of men in other countries of the Far East. It is as if these men were born for a special time to fulfill this prophecy. That is exactly what the wording of this passage implies. There will be almost enough adult men to make up this army from just the surplus males of military age that will exist in China and other Far-East nations by 2035 AD.
Some commentators think that this is an army of demons. In all cases, demons seek to possess bodies so a reasonable compromise is that two hundred million demons will come out of the pit and possess, and control this two hundred million-man army. This army will cross the Euphrates and come into the Middle East and the West. This army will kill one third of all men that survived the previous disasters on the earth. By the time the prior judgments and this second woe is completed over half of the world’s population will be dead.
Some commentators are hung up on the word horsemen thinking that all the men would have to be riding horses. Since these believe it is not possible to assemble two hundred million horses, they dredge up demons that look like men on horses. More likely, the wording simply means the leaders are mounted on horses or the men travel on something mobile (i.e. military vehicles).
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.
19 For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.
The description in this passage is probably only supernatural in the sense that angels were loosed for a specific time to allow this to happen and that demons are now free to deceive and inhabit those who dwell on the earth. The entire wording of this judgment makes it fairly clear to me that this is describing a great all out world war between the West and the East.
The fire that comes out of the mouths of the horsemen is every modern weapon of warfare like tanks, and artillery. The tails like serpents that had heads that did harm sound exactly like modern rockets and bombs with warheads. This will be an all out world war using nuclear, chemical and biological warfare and billions will die.
20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.
Even after mankind uses all the weapons of warfare they made with their own hands against one another they still will not repent of the works of their hands. Instead of trusting in God to save them, they trust and worship the created instead of the Creator. Most of the East will still pray to statues that represent Buddha or countless other demon gods. Instead of obeying God’s servants on earth, they will follow doctrines given by demons. Instead of coming to God to be changed and to be given a new heart they will continue in their insane practices. Instead of worshiping the God of heaven, they will now worship the image of the Beast possessed by Satan.
Because the world did not want to believe the truth, they will now be given a lie and they will acceptSatan’s counterfeit savior and his counterfeit kingdom (2Th 2:11). This deception happens because these still love to murder, use drugs, commit adultery and steal. They love evil and that is why they will not receive the truth and be saved.
Anti Deep State Party 