Dacia Iluministă

THIS IS ONE OF A SERIES OF BOOKS outlining the religion, politics and philosophy of the ancient and controversial secret society known as the Illuminati, of which the Greek polymath Pythagoras was the first official Grand Master. The society exists to this day and the author is a member, working under the pseudonym of “Adam Weishaupt” – the name of the Illuminati’s most notorious Grand Master.

The Illuminati’s religion is the most highly developed expression of Gnosticism and is called Illumination (alternatively, Illuminism). Dedicated to the pursuit of enlightenment, it has many parallels with the Eastern religions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. It rejects the Abrahamic religions of faith: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, considering these the work of the “Demiurge”; an inferior, cruel and wicked deity who deludes himself that he is the True God, and who has inflicted endless horrors on humanity.

If you wish to judge for yourself how deranged the Demiurge is, you need only read the Old Testament, the story of the Demiurge’s involvement with his “Chosen People”, the Hebrews. You may wonder why the “God of All” entered into an exclusive and partisan Covenant with a tribe in the Middle East several thousand years ago, why he promised them a land (Canaan) that belonged to others, and why he then actively participated with them in a genocidal war against the Canaanites. Even more bizarrely, according to Christian theology, he then despatched all of those Hebrews, whom he had supported so fanatically, to Limbo – the edge of Hell – when they died. They couldn’t go to Heaven because they were indelibly marked by the “Original Sin” of Adam and Eve. Only the atonement provided by the agonising death of God’s “son”, Jesus Christ, could wipe the slate clean and allow the Hebrews to be released from Limbo. But there was a catch. Only those who accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour were eligible for Paradise.

Of course, the Chosen People of “God” have almost entirely rejected Jesus Christ. Therefore, from the Christian perspective, nearly all of the Chosen People are now in hell proper. Don’t you find God’s behaviour distinctly odd? Indeed, unbelievable? Don’t alarm bells start ringing? Doesn’t the behaviour of this God sound rather more like what would be expected of Satan?

Remember that this same “God” ordered Abraham to perform human sacrifice on his own son, Isaac. Abraham, rather than rejecting this monstrous command, rather than denouncing the creature that gave it as evil incarnate, agreed to butcher his own flesh and blood to demonstrate how slavishly and mindlessly obedient he was – the prototype of all psychopathic, fanatical “believers”.

Does God’s command to Abraham sound like something that would ever pass the lips of the True God? We pity you if you think it does because you are surely a creature of the Demiurge and one of the legions of the damned. If, however, you doubt the credentials of the Abrahamic God, you may be receptive to the message of the Illuminati and our future-oriented, rational, scientific, mathematical and dialectical religion of light – Illumination.
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Quotations:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. –Einstein

“The universe is not bounded in any direction. If it were, it would necessarily have a limit somewhere. But clearly a thing cannot have a limit unless there is something outside to limit it…In all dimensions alike, on this side or that, upward or downward through the universe, there is no end.” –Lucretius

“All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.” –Alexander pope

“It is, I say, impossible that I can with any true meaning assert that there existeth such a surface, boundary or limit, beyond which is neither body, nor empty space, even though God be there.” –Giordano Bruno
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The Divine Comedy:

Probably the greatest defence ever presented for the existence of a Creator God is the artistic one furnished by Dante, the brilliant Italian poet, in the first quarter of the 14th century.

Dante’s masterwork – The Divine Comedy – takes the reader on an amazing journey through the soul’s three possible destinations according to Roman Catholicism: Hell, Purgatory or Heaven.

In the Inferno, Dante provides the greatest-ever depiction of Hell. In the Purgatoria, he provides the definitive version of the uniquely Catholic theological concept of Purgatory where the sinners not wicked enough to be damned to Hell nor good enough to be admitted straight to Heaven go to be purged of their sins in preparation for Paradise. Finally, in Paradiso, Dante ventures to Paradise itself, finally seeing the Triune Christian God with his own eyes.

The centrepiece of the poem is a wondrous cosmology based on ancient Aristotelian and Ptolemaic teachings, integrated with Christian myths.

At the centre of Dante’s universe is Earth, and at the centre of Earth is none other than Satan himself, at the point furthest from God.

Earth is divided into a Northern Hemisphere of land and a Southern Hemisphere of water. At the centre of the Northern Hemisphere is the holy city of Jerusalem and its polar opposite in the Southern Hemisphere is the island of Mount Purgatory, surrounded by a vast ocean with no other land anywhere near.

Mount Purgatory was created by the soil and rock displaced when Satan and his Fallen Angels crashed into the Earth and smashed through into the core. Satan struck the Earth feet first, creating a huge crater (later crusted over by land) in the Northern Hemisphere. All the crater debris had to go somewhere and its effect was to push up a huge mountain (Mount Purgatory) at the centre of the Southern Hemisphere.

Hell is positioned underneath the Northern Hemisphere (beneath Jerusalem) and is composed of nine circles in a great cone-shaped structure, narrowing as it descends to Satan at the lowest point of the cone (the centre of the Earth). Dante’s vision provides an early version of the Hollow Earth theory, with Hell taking the place of the underground cities and communities that feature in the writings of the proponents of the Hollow Earth.

Like Hell, Mount Purgatory (the mount of salvation) has nine circles, and at the top is the earthly paradise of the Garden of Eden: next stop Heaven!

So, what exists between Eden at the top of Mount Purgatory and God? First of all, the four elements of the ancient Greeks – earth, water, air and fire – come into play. The Earth itself is the element of earth. It is covered by the second element, water, and it has a third element of air as its atmosphere. Between the air atmosphere and the Moon, is a sphere of the fourth element: pure fire – a kind of invisible spiritual fire.

Dante thus accounts for the four classical elements, and they are all located in the sublunary domain i.e. the mortal realm below the Moon. The superlunary domain above the Moon is immortal, and is made of different grades of the mystical fifth element – the famous quintessence (aether). The aether is as pure and transparent as clear glass.

The quintessence was poetically said to form crystal spheres (or spherical shells to be more exact, one within another like Russian dolls), and each sphere contained one of the components of our familiar solar system. In a series of concentric spheres (usually called “Heavens”) surrounding the Earth are: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, the Primum Mobile and finally, the Empyrean, the abode of God.

The soul, leaving Eden, goes on the ultimate journey, ascending through the crystal spheres one by one. As it travels ever upwards, it starts to hear the wondrous Music of the Spheres of which Pythagoras spoke. By the time the soul reaches the Empyrean, the music has become simply divine: it is the music of Creation itself, of Eternity, of God.

Every stage of the ascent takes the soul further and further from Satan and his irredeemable evil. The soul reaches levels of ever-increasing purity, and the quality of light it experiences becomes more and more perfect.

The ascent takes the soul through the “seven heavens” of our solar system (as it was known and understood in ancient and medieval times): the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Beyond these seven heavens is the crystal sphere of the fixed stars (the “firmament”).

In this cosmological view, there’s a finite number of stars and they are all located within one shell of the overall vast sphere of Creation. All of the stars are fixed perfectly in position. None of them move: only the shell in which they are located moves, thus explaining the apparent movement of the stars and constellations in the night sky seen from a supposedly stationary Earth.
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Dante:

DANTE (1265-1321) is one of the greatest artists of all time. He was on the fringes of the Illuminati, being a zealous advocate of the Knights Templar and despising those who destroyed the Templar Order. He was equally enraptured by the Illuminati’s tales of King Arthur and the Holy Grail.

Although his Divine Comedy seems like impeccable Catholic orthodoxy, it is studded with potential heresies and denunciations of popes and ecclesiastical corruption. He explicitly placed the controversial Joachim of Fiore (a secret Grand Master of the Illuminati) in Paradise even though Joachim’s writings were condemned as heretical.

Dante met many Templars and they were keen to recruit him to Illuminism. Dante, however, was genuinely attracted to Catholic doctrine and although he had many doubts in specific areas, he found the whole package wondrous and inspiring. He cherished the idea that Catholicism could be reformed rather than destroyed. He was intrigued by the possible union of Illuminism and Catholicism, and this in fact has been a recurring theme in the history of Illuminism. The simplest way to effect a religious transformation of the world would be for the Illuminati to assume the leadership of the Catholic Church and start ditching all of the junk ideas like faith, original sin, grace, baptism, transubstantiation, Papal infallibility etc.

Both the Knights Templar and the Jesuits were intended to be Illuminist Fifth Columns that would take over Catholicism from the inside. Adam Weishaupt was raised as a Bavarian Catholic, and also harboured an aspiration to take over Catholicism and turn it to the truth. Even today, a cell of the Illuminati is working on a new, sane version of Christianity. Dante would have approved.

In many ways, his dazzling depiction of the journey of the soul through Hell and Purgatory and its subsequent ascent through the heavens to Paradise is an allegory of the trials and tribulations of a soul as it undergoes many reincarnations in the world before achieving gnosis and escaping.

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Isn’t it time the Catholic Church admitted its myriad errors and submitted to the truth of Illumination? We offer to run the Catholic (“Universal”) Church, and we will restore it to the unity of science and religion that it enjoyed in the era of Dante.

If the Catholic Church is remotely interested in the truth it must accept our offer. The Catholic Church was our most ancient and deadly enemy, but now its power is gone and it’s a sham edifice, a hollow Church, a walking zombie that doesn’t realise its dead. Only Illumination can resurrect it. Like Catholicism, Illumination is rooted in ancient Greek philosophy, in Orphism, Mithraism and Neoplatonism.

The Illuminati have absolute contempt for Judaism, Islam and Protestantism, but Catholicism is different. It can be intellectually salvaged thanks to its underpinnings of Greek philosophy. We say to all Catholics: see the light! See the truth. Join the Illuminati. The Illuminati have solved all of the mathematical problems that prevented ancient Greek science, mathematics and philosophy from becoming the cornerstone of human knowledge. The ancient Greeks had more or less solved every problem, but without assembling the pieces of jigsaw correctly. We have succeeded where they failed.

It was not until the advent of German Enlightenment Idealism, starting with Leibniz, that ancient Greek ideas could be perfected. The answer lay in the only place it was ever likely to be found – mathematics, the language of the divine, the foundation of the cosmos.

Mathematics is the sole guarantor of rational truth. Even modern science bows to mathematics and it is precisely for that reason that religion and science can once again be brought back together. Mathematics is the glue that binds religion and science. It is the only religious language that science understands. All other religious statements are ridiculous nonsense. All declarations of faith and revelation are preposterous and laughable. They are the essence of anti-mathematics, hence they are utterly false.

What is the central feature of Illuminism? – its Logos substructure is purely mathematical, based on zero and infinity. What is the central feature of Abrahamism? – it’s pure Mythos without a single reference to mathematics. As Galileo declared: “The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics.”

AMEN to that!

It’s time for the truth. It’s time for mathematics. It’s time for Illuminism. The Pope must bow to the Illuminati and vacate the Vatican for those who actually stand for the truth. Let holy books be written in mathematics from now on and damn the illiterate, innumerate prophets!
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The Ultimate Mid-life Crisis:

DANTE’S INFERNO BEGINS…

“Midway along the journey of our life
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
for I had wandered off from the straight path.”

A middle-aged man, Dante had lost sight of where he was going in life. He no longer knew his path and found himself in a dark wood (depression, doubt, fear, anxiety). Things were about to get a lot worse: he would soon be descending into Hell! Yet that would be his launchpad to spiritual enlightenment and, by the end of his journey, he would see God in the Empyrean.

If we want to see God, we may have to see the Devil first. Hell precedes Heaven. There are no easy paths, no straight roads to Paradise. We have to wander along crooked tracks in dark woods and fall into bottomless abysses. Yet, in the end, our struggle makes us fit for Paradise. As Nietzsche said, “What does not kill me makes me stronger.”
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The Inscription over the gate of Hell:

THROUGH ME IS THE WAY TO THE CITY OF WOE,
THROUGH ME IS THE WAY TO ETERNAL PAIN,
THROUGH ME IS THE WAY TO THE LOST.
JUSTICE MOVED MY HEAVENLY ARCHITECT;
DIVINE POWER MADE ME,
AND SUPREME WISDOM JOINED WITH ETERNAL LOVE.
BEFORE ME WERE CREATED ONLY ENDLESS THINGS,
AND I ENDURE ENDLESSLY.
ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE.

The final words of Dante’s inscription are amongst the most famous in literature. Has there ever been a more chilling statement? When you pass through this gate, hope is gone forever. You will never be coming out and the only thing that lies in front of you is suffering that never ends. You can’t even kill yourself. You can’t be annihilated. There’s simply no escape.

Take careful note. Hell was not created by the Devil but by God. God, not Satan, is Hell’s true Gaoler and Torturer. The Devil is merely his agent, his unpaid help. Hell is the creation of the three persons of the Trinity: God the Father (Divine Power), Son (Supreme Wisdom), and Holy Spirit (Eternal Love). Jesus Christ is the Lord of Hell. He doesn’t love you. He hates you.

We are told that the Christian God was motivated not by love, forgiveness, mercy, compassion or kindness but by JUSTICE. Yet what is just about Hell where finite crimes are met with infinite punishment? This is the last place where justice is found.

We are told that God created only eternal things before creating Hell, and that Hell will endure eternally. God’s FINAL ACT of eternal creation was to build Hell! Hell was ready for business BEFORE God declared, “Let there be light!” In other words, God, before he embarked on the Biblical Creation, had intended to populate Hell with endless souls. If that does not make him the Cosmic Torturer and Sadist, what does? If that doesn’t mean that he’s Satan, King of Hell, what could?

What loving God declares to his creations that he will strip from them hope itself, thereby sentencing them to a fate literally worse than death? What sane person would ever worship this deranged monster?

Nietzsche, as usual, provided a deadly analysis of the toxic psychology of Christianity: “In my view, Dante was grossly in error when, with an ingenuity inspiring terror, he set that inscription over the gateway into his hell: ‘Eternal love also created me.’ Over the gateway into the Christian paradise and its ‘eternal blessedness’ it would, in any event, be more fitting to let the inscription stand ‘Eternal hate also created me’ – provided it’s all right to set a truth over the gateway to a lie!”

Saint Thomas Aquinas declared that punishment, when deserved, is LOVE. Did he therefore mean that infinite and eternal punishment is infinite and eternal love? In that case, it would definitely be better to be hated by God, wouldn’t it?!

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The Inscription over the Gate of the Abrahamist Heaven:

INJUSTICE MOVED MY HEAVENLY MAKER;
DIVINE POWER MADE ME,
AND SUPREME STUPIDITY JOINED WITH ETERNAL HATE.
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Dante and Numerology:

The Devine Comedy is divided into exactly 100 cantos (a canto is to an epic poem what a chapter is to a novel). The number 100, according to the laws of numerological mystical addition is 1 + 0 + 0 = 1 = God.

The Divine Comedy is divided into 3 books (Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso), and each book has 33 cantos (with the Inferno having an extra canto to serve as an introduction.

Throughout the epic poem, overwhelming attention is paid to the numbers 3, 6, 9 and 10. They are embedded everywhere.

10 (the number of the Pythagorean tetraktys) is the number of perfection, which is why the Empyrean, the abode of God, comes after the nine celestial spheres.

Important names in Dante’s poem are delivered according to exact numerical formulae. A significant character’s name appears 63 times (6 + 3 = 9). The same name is used as a rhyming word 9 times. Every appearance of the name is related to 3 or 9 in some way or another.

The whole poem is saturated with numerical relations. It could almost be understood mathematically rather than verbally.

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Inferno.

Hell has 1 + 9 levels (1 + 9 = 10 = 1 + 0 = 1).

The first level is the vestibule of Hell where the Ignavi – the lukewarm, the neutrals who followed no cause in life – are placed. No one wants them, not even Hell. They have no hope of death, and their lives are so contemptible that they envy all fates other than their own. The world rubs out all mention of their names. No one wants to discuss them. It is said that they were never really alive. The world passes by them in silence.

Ironically, Dante recognises one of the anonymous masses and accuses him of making the Great Refusal out of cowardice (it was believed he was referring to Pope Celestine V who abdicated in 1294, five months after his Papal election, thus refusing to do the job God assigned him). It must have been disconcerting for the Vatican to note that the very first person in Hell to whom attention was drawn was a Pope!

The vestibule of Hell is separated from Hell proper by the first river of Hell – Acheron (Greek for “flowing pain”).

Then come the nine circles of Hell:

First Circle (Limbo)
Second Circle (Lust)
Third Circle (Gluttony)
Fourth Circle (Greed)
Fifth Circle (Anger)
Sixth Circle (Heresy)
Seventh Circle (Violence)
Eighth Circle (Fraud)
Ninth Circle (Treachery)

If you want to know the number of different types of torture available in Hell, it’s 144,000.

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Purgatory.

Purgatory has 2 + 7 = 9 levels + 1 special level at the top (1 + 9 = 10 = 1 + 0 = 1).

A hole from Hell emerges on the Island of Purgatory. Cato the Younger, a famous Roman pagan and zealous defender of the Roman Republic, guards the Island and fiercely sends back any souls from Hell that have miraculously managed to escape. (Cato committed suicide rather than submit to Caesar with his anti-Republican kingly and imperial designs.)

The island is dominated by a single, towering mountain divided into nine terraces. Purgatory has two ante-levels for: 1) The Excommunicate and 2) The Late Repentant. Souls hang around here awaiting an opportunity to enter Purgatory proper (they are admitted only as new spaces become available when souls completing their penitential journey through Purgatory are promoted to Heaven). They can be helped on their way by the prayers of the living, so get on your knees and start praying for your dead loved ones.

The entrance gate to Purgatory is at the foot of the third terrace. It, and the following six terraces, are dedicated to the seven deadly sins. The terraces are:

Terrace 3 (for the proud)
Terrace 4 (for the envious)
Terrace 5 (for the wrathful)
Terrace 6 (for the slothful)
Terrace 7 (for the covetous)
Terrace 8 (for the gluttonous)
Terrace 9 (for the lustful)

The summit of Mount Purgatory, completely different in character from the lower terraces, is the Earthly Paradise (Garden of Eden) from which the purified souls ascend to the Celestial Paradise.

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Paradise.

Paradise, like Purgatory, has 9 + 1 levels (9 + 1 = 10 = 1 + 0 = 1). Where you end up in Paradise is determined by the type of life you led. The nine Spheres of Heaven are:

First Sphere (The Moon: The Inconstant)
Second Sphere (Mercury: The Ambitious)
Third Sphere (Venus: The Lovers)
Fourth Sphere (The Sun: The Wise)
Fifth Sphere (Mars: The Warriors of the Faith)
Sixth Sphere (Jupiter: The Just Rulers)
Seventh Sphere (Saturn: The Contemplatives)
Eighth Sphere (The Fixed Stars: Faith, Hope, and Love)
Ninth Sphere (The Primum Mobile: The Angels)

The special, final level of Paradise, completely different from all the others is the Empyrean, the abode of God himself. (And in fact all the souls of the Saved are allowed to reside here in a breathtaking amphitheatre shaped like a perfect rose, with a depthless lake of light at its centre. This light is the divine illumination of God himself, bathing the holy rose of the Community of God in infinite love and goodness. This is the Beatific Vision proclaimed by the Catholic Church, and which it alone claims to be able to deliver: “There is no salvation outside the Church.”)

Note that Purgatory and Paradise have a (9 + 1) structure whereas Hell has the reverse (1 + 9), showing that it is the inverse of the divine order.
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Cato the Younger and Cato the Elder:

The Younger.

Cato the Younger is one of those remarkable figures from history about whom there is little popular knowledge. He was an ardent supporter of the Roman Republic and an advocate of Stoicism. He was tenacious and stubborn to a fault, refusing to give in or bow to the prevailing political winds. He was a superb orator thanks to his authenticity and fierce convictions that always shone through. In an age of endemic corruption, he was renowned for his moral integrity, his refusal to take bribes and his loathing for the sleaze and venality all around him. Obviously, he wasn’t much of a politician – no one with principles ever succeeds in the political cesspool.

It’s remarkable how similar ancient Rome seems to modern Washington D.C. The American political class is as corrupt and power-craving as their ancient Roman equivalent, and equally obsessed with the popularism and control afforded by “bread and circuses”.

Cato chose to live exceptionally modestly, and even subjected himself to a harsh physical regime of strenuous exercise, extreme cold and rain (wearing nothing but a tunic) and a meagre, inexpensive diet. He ate just enough to live on, and drank only the cheapest wine. This was despite the fact that he was from a privileged background and could afford to live in luxury. This attitude to life was instilled in him by his devotion to Stoicism and also the stern, ascetic record of public service of his family.

An enemy of Caesar in the Civil War, Cato took his own life rather than surrender to the man he regarded as a tyrant. Due to an injured hand, his initial suicide attempt was bungled, and Plutarch relates the hideous aftermath: “Cato did not immediately die of the wound; but struggling, fell off the bed, and throwing down a little table that stood by, made such a noise that the servants, hearing it, cried out. And immediately his son and all his friends came into the chamber, where, seeing him lie weltering in his own blood, great part of his bowels out of his body, but himself still alive and able to look at them, they all stood in horror. The physician went to him, and would have put in his bowels, which were not pierced, and sewed up the wound; but Cato, recovering himself, and understanding the intention, thrust away the physician, plucked out his own bowels, and tearing open the wound, immediately expired.”

They don’t make them like that anymore!

According to Plutarch, Caesar, who had great admiration for his foe (matched by contempt), remarked: “Cato, I grudge you your death, as you would have grudged me the preservation of your life.”

Dante appointed Cato the guardian of the approach to Mount Purgatory (and thence to spiritual freedom in Paradise) because of his devotion to political freedom.

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The Elder.

Cato’s great-grandfather was another famous Roman, known to history as Cato the Elder (or Cato the Censor).

His personal motto was “delenda est Carthago” (“Carthage must be Destroyed), with which he concluded all of his speeches, no matter what subject he was speaking on.

The Roman expression “He is a Cato” signified that a person lived a simple life, had self-denying rather than self-indulgent habits, was zealously committed to strict justice, was blunt of speech, brusque of manners and didn’t suffer fools gladly – all of these being characteristics of Cato the Censor. A byword for austerity and Puritanism, Cato constantly advocated a return to simpler, purer, nobler and more honourable times. In his role of Censor, he was always on the lookout for moral laxity and blamed the increasing Greek influence over Roman culture for many of the Republic’s problems. He was disgusted by the dissolute, pampered ways of the rich and fearlessly condemned anyone, no matter their status and power.

His great-grandson, Cato the Younger, was in the same mould, being famous for his obstinacy and rectitude which earned him the epithet of “conscience of Rome.”

The two Catos might be characterised as miserable kill-joys, but every healthy nation needs such people to uphold standards and resist the inevitable degeneration, corruption, decadence and “race to the bottom” that we see all too often in the lax nations of the capitalist West.
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The Celestial Hierarchy:

Dante equated the nine crystal spheres with the nine orders of angels that were said to exist according to the study of medieval angelology:

First, Innermost Sphere = Moon = ordinary Angels
Second Sphere = Mercury = Archangels
Third Sphere = Venus = Princedoms
Fourth Sphere = Sun = Powers
Fifth Sphere = Mars = Virtues
Sixth Sphere = Jupiter = Dominions
Seventh Sphere = Saturn = Thrones
Eighth Sphere = Fixed Stars = Cherubim
Ninth, Outermost Sphere = Primum Mobile = Seraphim
The Empyrean beyond the Ninth Sphere = utter stillness and perfect peace.

This is the abode of God. In the Empyrean, virtue replaces space and time as the organising principle.

By linking physical heavens and angelic orders, Dante brought together material and spiritual existence in one perfect correspondence.

Note that the physical spheres count outwards from the Moon, while the angelic spheres count inwards from the Primum Mobile. There is therefore an inverse relationship. The highest angels – the Seraphim – are closest to God but furthest from humanity.
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Angels:

“The lower intelligences have their effect as it were from a radiating body, and, after the fashion of mirrors, reflect the rays of the higher to the one below them.” –Dante

Angels are like celestial mirrors that reflect divine light. The highest created beings, they are above humans on the ladder of being and they are associated with pure reason and contemplation. For Dante, they are perfect actualisation, being free of both matter and potentiality. This was a heretical idea since Thomas Aquinas asserted that only God is “actus purus” (pure actualisation).

Angels are said to enjoy an uninterrupted vision of God and this led Dante to believe that angels have no memory. Their concentration is always on God and they are therefore in an eternal blissful now, hence have no need of memory.

Abrahamism promotes the view that God created two types of intelligence, represented in two different kinds of beings: angels and humans. Angels receive the revelation of God directly, while humans have to work towards it laboriously, step by step.

Using the vocabulary of Neoplatonism, we might say that angels have minds based on intuitive Nous where thinking takes places at once in many parallel tracks. Humans, on the other hand, are guided by single-track, linear thinking based on the Psyche.

Angels and humans therefore differ according to the degree of their intuition. The more intuitive you are, the more angelic you are, and the closer to gnosis. The degree of your intuition might be said to be a measure of the state of your soul. People who are lacking in intuition are much nearer to animals than angels. Sensing types are highly materialistic. They are mired in the sensations of the world and their minds make no contact with the supra-sensual domain of the divine. So, are you a sensing or intuitive type? How close are you to the angels?

In Dante’s scheme, angels represent pure being. These angels don’t have free will or memory (which rather begs the question of how any of them managed to rebel against God as an act of free will – did God contrive the rebellion himself – you wouldn’t put it past him, would you?). Rather, the angels eternally contemplate God and reflect his will, and not their own, at all times.

We might say that the angels belong to the imperishable domain of pure being described by the ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides, while humanity belongs to the mortal domain of becoming described by Heraclitus. Here we see a typical ancient theme: being = perfection; becoming = imperfection. The formula of the Illuminati is that there is no such thing as pure being and everything is becoming perfect.

The Angelic Fall produced three classes of angels:

1) The angels that actively rebelled against God went to Hell.

Fallen angels are called “devils” whereas “demons” are malignant spirits that were always evil; they never fell from grace, they never knew God or lived in Heaven. Strictly speaking, devils cannot leave Hell (though Satan and several others seemed to manage it without too much trouble), but demons are free to come and go to Earth and Hell at will since they are not bound by the sacred laws of Hell that apply to the fallen angels. In this view, demons are the force of evil we experience in this world, though they may be carrying out the instructions of the devils in Hell. It is sometimes said that demons, unlike devils, were not directly created by God. But didn’t God create all things, and all souls in particular? If God didn’t create demons, who did? Doesn’t that point to a source of creation independent of God and which can create evil directly as an active force in its own right? Theologians are silent on such matters.

2) The lukewarm angels who neither supported nor opposed Satan’s rebellion but waited to see which way the wind was blowing.

These are angels without a cause who act only out of self-interest. They are “neutrals” who don’t take sides until the matter is already decided. These are the Ignavi and they are condemned to be in neither in Hell nor Heaven. They don’t make it to Hell proper but instead hang around Hell’s vestibule. They are separated from Limbo, the first circle of Hell, by the infernal river Acheron and its ghostly ferryman Charon. Since all angels are directly created by God, one must conclude that he’s rather a fuck-up when it comes to creating his own servants, never mind humanity. No wonder things turned out so badly on Earth since they were already shit in Heaven.

3) The good angels who stayed loyal to God.

These are as perfect as the day they were first created. Unlike humanity, they don’t have to become perfect in order to join God: they already are. The purpose of the material world is to support, reform and educate the souls of men and bring them to the light of perfection. The rather boring good angels on the other hand devote nearly all of their time to the work of eternal praise. Doesn’t God ever get fed up with being praised all the time? Isn’t there more to life? The angels are sometimes allowed to desist from praise for a while and help to educate humanity. They have three basic functions: pandering to God’s ego via endless praise, transmitting his spiritual intelligence to humanity, and executing his will in the physical sphere. To that extent, they duplicate many of the functions of the Holy Spirit. Dante was one of those who subscribed to the view that human beings were planned by God as a replacement for the fallen angels. We will be the risen angels!

The Aristotelian-Ptolemaic universe was eagerly embraced by Abrahamism not only because it was a compatible with a Creationist perspective but also that it seemed to support the existence of angels. Given that angels are frequently mentioned in Abrahamic texts, it was essential to have a cosmological model that gave them a plausible place.

Before the Fall of Man (following the Fall of Angels!), human beings were rather like a new species of angel. Their bodies were perfect, incorruptible and deathless. In fact, if Adam and Eve had never sinned and always dutifully obeyed and praised God, it’s hard to see how they could have been distinguished from angels. It’s equally hard to understand what the function of humanity is. Why weren’t angels enough for God? Why did he need to create humanity too, especially since, in the first hours of the Garden of Eden, there seemed to be no measurable difference between Adam and Eve and the angels?

Dante, in the Paradiso, describes nine fiery rings whirling around a central point of intense, ineffable light: these are the nine orders of angels, eternally circling God.

God, for Dante, is of course the Christian Trinity. At the end of his epic journey, Dante finally sees three circles of light in one. He describes the second divine circle as a reflected rainbow cast by the first, and the third as a fire breathed by the first two.

“Within Its depthless clarity of substance
I saw the Great Light shine into three circles
in three colours bound in one same space;
the first seemed to reflect the next like rainbow
on rainbow, and the third was like a flame
equally breathed forth by the other two.”
–Dante

Dante’s masterpiece ends with the words:

“I felt my will and my desire impelled
By the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.”

Dante places love at the centre of all, as the source of movement and life itself. Dante’s work is a supreme triumph of the human imagination and one of the greatest feats ever accomplished by the human mind.
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