rulers of darkness

Rulers of Darkness and Their Realm

Posted on by Harold Boulette

“Then when Sophia Zoe saw that the rulers of darkness cursed her companions, she was angry. And when she came out of the first heaven with every power, she chased the rulers from their heavens, and she cast them down to the sinful world, that they might dwell there as evil demons upon the earth. She sent the bird that was in paradise so that, until the consummation of the age, it might spend the thousand years in the rulers’ world: a vital living being with soul, called the phoenix, which kills itself and reanimates itself for a witness to their judgment, because they dealt unjustly with Adam and his race. There are three human beings and their descendants in the world until the consummation of the age: the spiritual and the psychical and the earthly. This is like the three kinds of phoenixes of paradise: the first is immortal; the second attains one thousand years; as for the third, it is written in the Holy Book that it is consumed. Likewise three baptisms exist: the first is spiritual, the second is by fire, the third is by water. Just as the phoenix appears as a witness for the angels, so too the water serpents82 in Egypt have become a witness to those who go down for the baptism of a true person.” ~On the Origin of the World

Rulers of Darkness

The Rulers of Darkness are the fallen angels who are also known collectively as the Demiurge. The Darkness that they rule is the universe of matter that they created on their own in violation of the Laws of God. Because it was created without God, it is defective, dark. Death, disease, the need to eat other beings to survive, these are all indicators of a realm of darkness, not light. Of course, there is some light here. It cannot be shut out completely, though the dark lords try. But in case you haven’t noticed, even on a mere material level light can also penetrate darkness and lessen it but darkness cannot penetrate into light. On the material level, darkness is just the absence of light, so it cannot exist where there is light. But on a spiritual level, darkness is just another name for ignorance of God and God’s Law. That is what makes it possible for people who are full of light to exist right next to those who are almost completely dark. But it is never possible for one to be full of light and darkness at the same time.

The First Heaven

Sophia came from the “first heaven”. As it is called the first heaven, we can assume it existed before all other heavens, or spiritual dimensions, at least if we think in linear time. A better way to put it is to say this is the highest heaven. It is the dimension that is also known as the Godhead. All other dimensions were generated from it. Continue reading “Rulers of Darkness and Their Realm” →

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affliction and temptations

Affliction and Temptations: How to deal with Them

Posted on by Harold Boulette

“There are things which the Lord so orders that He may not leave Himself without testimony of His divine grace and calling; and there are others which He orders in the way of permissions, that a man may be proved and exercised, that his self-determination may be made plain. Those in affliction and temptations, if they endure, do not fail of the Kingdom of Heaven, therefore Christians in circumstances of distress are not vexed or grieved. If they are tried by poverty or suffering, they ought not to be surprised, but rather to take pleasure in poverty and reckon it as wealth, and fasting as feasting, and dishonor and obscurity as glory. On the other hand, if they should fall into circumstances which in this life are glorious, which incline them to worldly ease, or wealth, or glory, or luxury, they ought not to take pleasure in these things, but to shun them as they would fire.” ~St. Macarius the Egyptian

Affliction and Temptations

There are many reasons why we may end up having to deal with affliction of some sort. Disease, poverty, physical handicap, etc. St. Macarius says this is because God is testing us. He wants to know if we will hold up under pressure. He wants to know if we will change our path when the path gets difficult. That is one reason why such things can happen. It isn’t the most common, however. It is nice to think that we are so important to God that He thinks we are worthy of such attention. It is somewhat egotistical to believe that. And while God isn’t opposed to us having an ego—it is a perfectly natural and useful thing—an overinflated ego is definitely not good. So while there is a slim chance that our problems are due to God testing our mettle, we shouldn’t think that if we don’t have good reason to. Good reason meaning something like an angel appearing to us in a vision and telling us. We should consider other possibilities first.

One other reason for afflictions is simply that we are in the place where they abound. Afflictions and difficulties are the weeds of the material world. They happen everywhere, needed or not. So sometimes they land on us for no particular reason.

The third reason applies only to those engaging in spiritual development methods. There are forces and beings that don’t want us doing that. They are the powers of matter, the demons of materialism. So when you stray from the path they want you to be on, they will smack you down with an illness, financial disaster, or other affliction. Or they will tempt you with material treasures. Affliction and temptations are the primary tools for control of humanity. Sometimes they use affliction and temptations together to get you to behave. This usually makes people unhappy. It shouldn’t. When the dark ones are trying to stop you, you know you are doing what you should be doing. We must be strong and ignore their efforts.

What Doesn’t Kill Us

While God rarely bothers to test the mettle of anyone, it may be other spiritual beings who do so as his agents. They know that affliction and temptations are the tools of the dark beings, so they will use them to test us sometimes. They do this not to prove our faith in God, but to make us stronger. We need to be strong because the closer we get to a complete spiritual awakening, the more desperately the dark ones will try to stop us. We need to be able to resist their attacks. We need to resist the afflictions and temptations. It’s the spiritual version of Wim Hof techniques to strengthen a person’s will-power and physical body by sitting outside nearly nude in very cold weather. It is Mr. Miyagi training the Karate Kid. This may seem harsh, but trying to force you to suddenly lift 200 pounds when you have never before lifted more than 20 is even harsher.

Reject Wealth and Glory

While St. Macarius is correct in saying that we also have to reject the temptations of wealth and glory, that doesn’t mean we have to live in obscure poverty. We can have a nice house, comfortable clothing, and even a little recognition (not too much). We can have it as long as we can avoid getting attached to it. Getting attached to material things is like filling your boat with rocks before heading off on a sail. Even if the boat still floats, it will be slowed down significantly. Yet you can sail over a large rock that weighs a few tons without difficulty because it isn’t in the boat or attached to the boat like an anchor. So we can accept some wealth and glory, just as we accept the affliction and temptations that help us grow stronger, as long as we don’t get attached to the things of the material realm.

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higher worlds

Higher Worlds and the Beings that Live There

Posted on by Harold Boulette

“There are entities of the higher worlds in the hierarchy of Being so immeasurably high that to us, they must appear as gods, and collectively—God. But so we, mortal men, must appear to the ant, which reasons on the scale of its special capacities. The ant may also, for all we know, see the avenging finger of a personal God in the hand of the urchin who, in one moment, under the impulse of mischief, destroys its anthill, the labor of many weeks-long years in the chronology of insects. … Who knows and who can affirm or deny?

“The refusal to admit in the whole solar system of any other reasonable and intellectual beings on the human plane than ourselves is the greatest conceit of our age. All that science has a right to affirm is that there are no invisible intelligences living under the same conditions as we do. It cannot deny point-blank the possibility of there being worlds within worlds under totally different conditions to those that constitute the nature of our world; nor can it deny that there may be some limited communication between some of those worlds and our own.” ~H. P. Blavatsky

Higher Worlds

Higher worlds are of basically two types. There are those that are part of our physical universe, and those that are none-physical. The higher level physical “worlds” are giant gas planets, stars, and possibly others we have yet to discover. Our science and logic tells us no beings, or at least no higher-level beings can exist in such places. Only things like microbes and germs could live there. But that is because we think of life only as it exists on Earth. Living beings can exist in such places that are so different from us, we wouldn’t even recognize them s beings if one was standing right in front of us. This is particularly true of the stars. We think stars are so hot nothing can live on or in them, but we are wrong. Beings of a very different nature do live there. Live is found almost everywhere. The life force is every bit as powerful as gravity, and reaches just as many places. Continue reading “Higher Worlds and the Beings that Live There” →

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Porphyry on gods and angels

Porphyry on Gods, Angels, and Man’s Control of Them

Posted on by Harold Boulette

“Porphyry ridicules the idea that gods, being wiser, more powerful, and superior to man could be coaxed, persuaded of forced to do the will of man or conform to his desires. … He also states that there are many invisible beings, which may take all possible forms and appear as gods, as men, or as demons. … ‘the gods are not called down to us by our prayers; but we rise up to them by our own holy aspirations and effort; we are connected with them by the all-embracing power of love.’” ~Franz Hartmann (inner quote by Porphyry)

Controlling the Gods

What the ancients called gods may be considered to be much the same as the angels of Christianity. So what Porphyry is really saying is that the idea that man has control over angels, or even God himself, is ridiculous. While we may see such backwards things in modern society as children ordering their parents to do things for them, such never was, and never will be true of higher beings.

On Facebook and other social media, we are frequently seeing posts and memes, like the one illustrating this post,  where we are being advised to “call upon your angels for help,” or “If you are having difficulties, call for your angels”. Sometimes we are even told that if we want something, just ask God and he will do it. Let’s get this straight; God doesn’t take orders from us and angels are controlled by God. Man ordering God to do something is as ridiculous as a snail ordering you to get out of his way. The only time angels help us is when we are doing the work God wants us to do. When we are on the path of enlightenment and are following God’s Divine Plan, we will get help from angels. But f we are on the path of our own egos, angels will not be helping us at all. Any being that helps you with matters of materialism is a demon, not an angel.

The Invisible Beings

Porphyry’s statement about invisible beings is essentially true, but misleading. There are invisible beings, spiritual beings, all around us. And it is basically true that can assume any appearance they want to. However, an angel or Being of Light would never assume the shape of a demon, or pretend to be the spirit of a dead relative. Such pretense is unacceptable to them. They may appear human to avoid frightening us, but not to trick us. Only demons try to trick us by pretending to be angels or departed loved ones. Sadly, many fall for their trickery. The important thing to remember is that just because a being is spiritual doesn’t mean that being is good.

Rising Up

Porphyry says we cannot bring the gods, or angels, down to us, we must rise up to them. That is only half true. When we are making an effort to rise up, in terms of higher frequencies, not elevation, the angels will lower themselves to some degree to communicate with us. They can only lower themselves so far, so it is up to us to rise up following time-tested processes taught in reliable spiritual schools. And much like climbing the allegorical stairway to heaven, it must be done one step at a time. It doesn’t happen overnight.

There is one exception to this. On rare occasions, an angelic being will take human form to become a teacher of true spirituality. Jesus was one such being. Buddha was one also. There have probably been a dozen or so of these angels descending temporarily to our level to try to teach us. Contrary to what many think, they all taught basically the same thing. But it never takes long after they have returned to heaven for men, especially politicians, to alter their teachings again and again until they have little resemblance to the original. That is why any good spiritual school teaches that we must awaken our spiritual faculties and learn truth for ourselves, and not rely on books to supply it.

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