The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim (35 page)

Eight hundred years later, Thomas Aquinas, disputing the reproductive abilities of incubi, as they were—in his account—fallen angels, therefore incapable of sexual reproduction, wrote: “Still if some are occasionally begotten from demons, it is not from the seed of such demons, nor from their assumed bodies, but from the seed of men taken for the purpose; as when the demon assumes first the form of a woman, and afterwards of a man; just as they take the seed of other things for other generating purposes.”
⁸

According to the Malleus Maleficarum (“Witches’ Hammer”), written by Heinrich Kramer in 1486, a succubus will have sex with a human male in order to collect semen from the men she seduces. She then gives it to the incubi or male demons, who then use the semen to impregnate human females, thus explaining how demons could apparently sire children despite the traditional belief that they were incapable of reproduction. Children so begotten were known as
cambions
, and were supposed to be those who were born deformed, or more susceptible to supernatural influences.
⁹
The
Malleus Maleficarum
does not address the obvious issue: why a human female impregnated with the semen of a human male would not produce normal, healthy human offspring, even if the mode of delivery was demonic.

Of course, it is also widely believed that the
Malleus Maleficarum
, written during the period of the Inquisition’s greatest power, is nothing more than a work of misongyny. It holds women as the main culprits of evil and perpetrators of witchcraft. The book also claims that women are much more susceptible to demonic influence as they are “weaker in faith than men,” and more apt to be carnal. The author also put forward the notion that most of the women accused as witches were guilty of “possessing strong personalities” and were known to defy convention by overstepping the lines of “proper female decorum.”
¹⁰

Whether or not any of information on demonic activity as found within the pages of the
Malleus
bears any resemblance to the truth
of the matter is very hard to decipher, especially when obfuscated by the persecution and the political maneuverings of those who were in control of the masses at the time of its writing. When one steps back, outside the box, it all starts to take on the tone of so much ridiculous surmising and story-telling, and works such as the
Malleus Maleficarum
do little to dispel the notion that so much of this is pure fiction.

Do the demonic spirits of the Nephilim have sex with humans to continue to propagate a species of mixed-blood spirit beings? It seems that even in death, the offspring of the Watchers continue to perpetrate their raging corruption of humanity. Of course, there is very little of this that can be proven by physical evidence, so it once again it is all governed by the tone of what you
choose to believe
. And it all sounds so fanciful and the stuffs of dark imaginings, it is no wonder the scientific community shuns the slightest notion.

There is a great and grave fascination with demons among modern paranormal hobbyists. The surge of ghost hunting and paranormal investigation throughout the last decade, spurred on by the success of pop cultural, live-action paranormal television, has fostered a rise in interest in demons and demonology, the study of evil spirits and their influence on people. However, with the rise of pop cultural influence also comes the rise in pop cultural application, and the vast majority of so-called demonologists operating today have little knowledge of what it is they claim to be, and little ability to enact on the behalf of those tormented by demonic spirits. Having an interest in the demonic is not the same as having experience with helping people who are in bondage to these beings.

Are the ghosts encountered during highly popularized paranormal investigations in any way linked to the spirits of the Nephilim? The short answer is
yes
. Something I have always said when investigating claims of ghosts and encountering the spirit world is that you never know who you are talking to,
really
. Without making a case for the existence of “human” ghosts, suffice it to say that it is more often than not
that a demon will deceive you into believing it is the ghost of a dead human, rather than an actual encounter with those who have passed on, and are still roaming the hallways and attics of old houses and abandoned insane asylums.

The evil spirits encountered in demonological settings are the spirits of the Nephilim, who died in the Great Flood.

Are the Nephilim among us today? Most certainly—in both physical remnants that have bred into the bloodlines of the human race, and the ghostly presence and influence of the Nephilim demonics.

As you have been able to see by now, the story of the Nephilim is not a simple one. Recounting the actual biblical tale, including the various accounts from other ancient books, could comprise a page or two in a book such as this. But attempting to dig a little deeper to gain a richer knowledge of what’s behind the story, along with its historical and future ramifications, is what transforms it into a much bigger account. The descent of the Watchers to humanity is no small, isolated myth; it has far-reaching tendrils that dip into the subterranean flow of every culture and even life itself on this planet. Of course, there is a modicum of
faith
required to make the connections, just as there is with leaping the great chasms that lie between the mileposts on the evolutionary chain established by science. And as with the scientific research of the ascendancy of mankind, there are no quantitative facts that link it all together, simply stepping stones from one discovery to the next. As I said at the very beginning of this book, we have a pile of stones here, but that pile does not make a house until it is all mortared together—and sometimes that mortar is mixed pretty thinly in order to make exponential leaps to fill in the missing data. There is so much to surmise and such significant amounts of subjective extrapolation, that the true story in all its details may never be known to modern humanity. But the fact that something indeed happened many thousands of years ago is incontrovertible.

Whether you are a believer in the religious writings of the bible and its aprochryphal companions, or whether you are in strict adherence
to the scientific code that allows for nothing to exist beyond what is provable in the here and now, humanity bears the marks and scars of interference on both a historic scope as well as in our bloodlines. That is where we find ourselves flipping the intellectual coin of subjectivity into the air, wondering if the answer is as simple as “heads it is so, tails it is not.”

I have already begun to garner criticism on my religious views as expressed in this book, and I am sure there is much more to come as these ideas of mine, as mixed into the examination of these unearthly beings, makes their appointed rounds to the minds of those who crack the covers of this book. I am sure to be taken to task for some of my translations of the ancient texts, as there are so many good scholars who have done the groundwork beneath my feet, and from whom I have gleaned bits and pieces of information. Though not intending to make any enemies in the Jewish and Christian camps, I am sure to have offended some sensibilities when addressing the religious tone of these topics, and I know I will draw some concern for the safety of my immortal soul from those who will see my words as damning Christianity and thumbing my nose at the monotheistic God of the Bible. But those actions on my part would be the farthest thing from the truth. I am simply asking questions and seeking answers.

Have I undergone some transformative thinking during the process of researching and writing this book? Most certainly. And although I have an overwhelmingly satisfactory grasp on what I believe about the Watchers and the Nephilim, there have been great tolls taken on my faith and even greater questions burning in my brain. Perhaps one might think that my faith must not have been very strong to begin with, if a little historical buffeting could shake it up a bit, but I would differ with that assessment, for my faith was very strong during my early years and my subsequent Bible College and seminary training. But the older I get, and the further away I travel from those days of innocence, the more difficult it becomes to trust in a God who resembles so many other mythological characters—many of whom preceded him in the historical record.

So what I want to leave you with as a result of reading this book is a better understanding of who the Nephilim are—where they came from and why they are important to understanding the great ebbing and flowing undercurrent of humanity. I want you to have gleaned an understanding that, although stories maybe stories, there is usually a kernel of truth at their core that is a much bigger story than what you could have ever imagined. To me, my study of the story of the Nephilim has emerged as an eye-opening encounter with beings who are living and breathing around us every day of our lives. Their activities have great bearing on the whole of humanity and the course of world events. They once were so influential that they brought about the end of the world. The big question is whether or not they are having that same influence yet again.

It is up to you to determine what you want to believe about these beings. Were they the descendents of the minor gods of heaven? Were they the offspring of alien encounters with humanity? Either path bears little proof beyond the obvious earmarks of interruption. Determining just who and what did the interrupting is at the core of the big questions of life. If nothing else, I hope this book provided you with information, and, in the grandest of hopes, opened the doors to deeper consideration and the asking of even greater questions.

It is my belief that there exist out there beings much greater than ourselve—perhaps not greater in reason and compassion, but greater in the sense that they hold a power that was strong enough to create us, and then strong enough to manipulate our genetics and bloodlines. It is my belief that there is a great, universal spirituality that resembles nothing like that which we have been taught or have conceived in our wildest fictions.

The Nephilim rose to dominance on the earth as the children of a mixed race of superior beings and human women. They, as all things do, degraded and became corrupt, but their decay and decadence were on as grandiose a scheme as their unnatural origins. They wreaked havoc and tragedy and catastrophic corruption among humankind. Then they fell in the great judgment imposed by the king of all that exists, only to return in the form of pure evil.

If this all sounds like the stuffs of myth, you would be correct in your assessment, for all myth begins to merge at the edges, blending into a massive blurred picture of the great cosmic narrative, underpinning the foundation and origin of the universe. The saddest part of all is that myth is not testable. It is not logical, and it rarely makes sense in light of scientific methodology.

The Nephilim came, conquered, decayed, and fell, and they are still with us to this very day.

The big question is in asking yourself what you can and cannot believe. And the greatest responsibility we all have is squaring the circle.

“8 ‘For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers: 9 For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon the earth are a shadow.”

(Job 8:8-9)

Chapter 1

1.
Owen Lovejoy, “The Origin of Man,”
Science, Vol. 211, no. 4480
, January 1981, pp. 341-50.

2.
Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and the former Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. He is the author of several of modern science’s essential texts, including
The Selfish Gene
(1976) and
The God Delusion
(2006). Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Dawkins eventually graduated with a degree in zoology from Balliol College, Oxford, and then earned a masters degree and doctorate from Oxford University. He is the founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

3.
James Randi, BigThink.com interview, 2010.
bigthink.com/jamesrandi
.

4.
Sagan,
The Demon Haunted World
.

5.
Dictionary.com (
www.dictionary.com
) and Webster’s.

6.
David Gelernter, BigThink.com interview, 2010.
bigthink.com/davidgelernter
.

7.
Cited in Rev. Jonathan Weyer, “Critical thought and the Paranormal: Not an Oxymoron,”
TAPS ParaMagazine
, Volume 7, No. 1, 2011.

8.
Michael Shemer,
Why People Believe Weird Things
(Henry Holt and Co., 1997, 2002).

9.
Cited in
Skeptic
, Volume 4, No. 4, 1996.

10.
Carl Sagan,
The Demon Haunted World
(Random House, 1996).

Chapter
2