The Mystery of the Angels of the Second Day

The Rabbis have long held certain theories about angels that seem incongruous to the modern student. They reasoned from the Text that there are two species of angels: the named, immortal ones that we know, and another kind that is nameless and ephemeral, continually created and annihilated. They also allowed for some level of actual materiality for angels.

In Talmud - Mas. Chagigah 14a, we find the Rabbis in a sort of Socratic dialogue as they refine their understanding of these ministering angels. They speak of their continual birth and death:

Samuel said to R. Hiyya b. Rab: O son of a great man (lion), come, I will tell thee something from those excellent things which thy father has said. Every day ministering angels are created from the fiery stream, and utter song, and cease to be, for it is said: “They are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:23)” Now he differs from R. Samuel b. Nahmani, for R. Samuel b. Nahmani said that R. Jonathan said: From every utterance that goes forth from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, an angel is created (not from the fiery stream), for it is said: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth (Psalms 33:6).”

Sefer Bahir (The Book of Brightness, the Midrash of Rabbi Nehunya Ben Ha-Kanah) is one of the earliest works of Jewish mysticism. It formed the foundation of early Kabbalistic thought. Its (12th-century?) author relates another dialogue in which the Rabbis determine that these nameless angels were created on the second epochal day, whereas the rest were created on the fifth:

21. Rabbi Yochanan said: The angels were created on the second day. It is therefore written (Psalm 104:3), “He rafters His upper chambers with water [He makes the clouds His chariot, He walks on the wings of the wind].” It is then written (Psalm 104:4), “He makes the winds His angels, His ministers from flaming fire.”

[Rabbi Haninah said: The angels were created on the fifth day, as it is written (Genesis 1:20), “And flying things shall fly upon the firmament of heaven.” Regarding the angels it is written (Isaiah 6:2), “With two wings did they fly.”]

Rabbi Levatas ben Tavrus said: All agree, even Rabbi Yochanan, that the water already existed [on the first day]. But it was on the second day that “He raftered His upper chambers with water.” [At that time He also created] the one who “Makes the clouds his chariot,” and the one who “Walks on the wings of the wind.” But His messengers were not created until the fifth day.

22. All agree that none were created on the first day. It should therefore not be said that Michael drew out the heaven at the south, and Gabriel drew it out at the north, while God arranged things in the middle.

It is thus written (Isaiah 44:24), “I am God, I make all, I stretch out the heavens alone, the earth is spread out before Me.” [Even though we read the verse “From Me” (May- iti), it can also be read] Mi iti - “Who was with Me?”

We also find these mortal angels of the second day in the Zohar (Bereshit 76):

76. This is the secret of the verse: “Who causes the grass to grow for the cattle” (Tehilim [Psalms] 104:14). This is the beast that crouches on a thousand mountains and for whom grass is grown every day. This grass refers to those angels who govern only for a specific time, but then must vanish immediately; because they were created on the second day, their dominion draws upon the left column that was created on the second day. In their
Dominion they wish to annul the right. They are destined to be food for this beast, which means that nothing of their illumination is drawn down to the lower beings. Only the feminine principle enjoys it, and then she burns and annuls them with it - as there is fire that consumes fire, which is the dominion of the left, called ‘Fire.’

In Jewish Mysticism, J. Abelson relates that at least some of the first-century contemporaries of Philo, a Stoic Alexandrian Jew, considered angels as physical:

But there are aspects of Philo’s angelology which are strange to Rabbinic modes of thought. One of the most interesting of these is his designation of angels as ‘Incorporeal intelligences’ and as ‘Immortal souls’ (On Dreams [That They Are God-sent], I. 20). The Rabbis obviously thought of angels as material beings. They even at times materialised the Shechinah, as will be mentioned in the following chapter. The sight of an angel was a physical phenomenon. Philo’s exegesis took quite a different turn.

The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav

Now we come to the most psychedelic aspect of particle physics. Below is a Feynman diagram of a three-particle interaction. In this diagram no world line leads up to the interaction and no world line leads away from it. It just happens. It happens literally out of nowhere for no apparent reason, and without any apparent cause. Where there was no-thing, suddenly in a flash of spontaneous existence, there are three particles which vanish without a trace.

[Diagram]

This type of Feynman diagram is called a “vacuum diagram.” That is because the interactions happen in a vacuum. A “vacuum,” as we normally construe it, is a space that is entirely empty. Vacuum diagrams, however, graphically demonstrate that there is no such thing. From “empty space” comes something, and then that something disappears again into “empty space.”

In the subatomic realm, a vacuum obviously is not empty. So where did the notion of a completely empty, barren, and sterile “space” come from? We made it up. There is no such
thing in the real world as empty space. It is a mental construction, an idealization, which we have taken to be true.

“Empty” and “full” are false distinctions that we have created, like the distinction between “something” and “nothing.” They are abstractions from experience which we have mistaken for experience. Perhaps we have lived so long in our abstractions that instead of realizing that they are drawn from the real world, we believe that they are the real world.

Vacuum diagrams are the serious product of a well-intentioned physical science. However, they also are wonderful reminders that we can intellectually create our “reality.” It is not possible, according to our usual conceptions, for “something” to come out of empty space, but, at the subatomic level, it does, which is what vacuum diagrams illustrate. In other words, there is no such thing as “empty space” (or “nothing”) except
as a concept in our categorizing minds.

Photons are force-carrying bosons that mediate interactions of electromagnetic particles, as gluons do for the strong nuclear force and W and Z bosons do for the weak. In Heim theory (Droescher), these force carriers are called “messenger particles.” Likewise, the theorized graviton might be the messenger particle associated with the force of gravity.

[To be completed later. I have been putting this off for a couple months. If I post it, I think I'll be more inclined to finish it. It'll go on to mention Stuart Hameroff, Evan Harris Walker (tangentially), and John Conway's Strong Free Will Theorem that I dropped in the Lucite.org PDF archive a while back. John Conway has just today (4/19/2009) received some traction from Boing Boing and Kevin Kelly. His paper has been remarked on at Slashdot, too.]

Lydia Agnes Price

I am looking for information on my American Indian ancestors Mary "Polly" Cook and Lydia Agnes Price, through whom I am descended. I've found a little, but it's kind of a sad story. It seems she was made to be ashamed of her Lenni Lenape heritage.

Lydia Agnes Price, our great-grandmother, married Michael Heland Langley on 18 December 1850.

Lydia's parents were: William Price and Mary "Polly" Cook. She was 100% Native American (Delaware tribe).

Mary "Polly" Cook was a full-blooded Delaware Indian. Her parents were Obediah Cook and Sarah Cottingham. Many members of the Delaware tribe lived and adopted the white people's ways. They took English names, they farmed, or even went into business right along with white people. Some did not even consider themselves as anything but white people, and some even grew ashamed of their Indian blood. This is the category that Mary Cook belonged to. She married William price, a white man, on the 22 February 1827, and raised all of her children to live and think as "white." William and Mary had six children together: Isaac, born 6 January 1828 in North Carolina; Magdalene Sarah, born 13 november 1829 in North carolina; Lydia Agnes, born 7 February 1832, born in Madison Co. (Buncombe Co.) North Carolina; James Connor, born 16 february 1834 in North Carolina; Berry price, bor 15 December 1836 in South Carolina; William Harrison, born 8 October 1837 in North Carolina. William Price is listed in the 1830 census of Buncombe Co., North Carolina,with one male child under 5 (son, Isaac) and a female aged 15-20 (Mary Cook, William's wife). He does not appear in the census again with Mary. The William Price family is listed on the same page with Obediah Cook in the 1830 census of Buncombe County, North Carolina, and in 1840, Mary Price, as head of household, is situated between the households of Obediah Cook and Riley Cook. William Price died at age 33, in 1838, cause of death is still unknown.

(Excerpt from the Price Family Genealogy.)

In the Langley Family Tree, Lydia is also mentioned.

Michael Heland Langley, our great-grandfather, born 22 July 1818, in Ashe Co., North Carolina during the presidency of James Monroe. Michael lived there until he was 7 years old. The family moved to Campbell Co., Tennessee. His family and friends called him "Heland," pronounced "Hee-land." He left Tennessee at age 21, in 1839, to live with his sister, Nancy Jane gray and her husband Martin, and his wife Susannah in Nodaway Co., Missouri for awhile. He lived in Page Co., Iowa/Nodaway Co., Missouri area (which were abutting counties) for 8 years, moving back to Page Co., Iowa, where he lived for 12 years. At 32 years, Michael married Lydia Agnes price on 18 December 1850, in Nodaway Co., Missouri. She was a pretty, dark-haired, half-Native American girl of 18 years. They were pioneer citizens of Easton Township, Kansas, moving to Kansas in 1856. They came to Kansas six years before Kansas was admitted into the Union. They came in a covered wagon with their three children....

(Excerpt from the Langley Family Tree.)

I am now trying to find out more about Lydia and her mother. This all came up when a child of my brother's showed a genetic marker that is only found in children with Indian blood from both father and mother (his wife also has American Indian ancestors). We confirmed it with the above information. I wish I would have known about this when I was a kid.

I would have killed a lot more cowboys with my cap repeating rifle.

Five Monkeys and a Fishsquirrel

Since (a.) the lucite.org site is essentially about deism/theism (angels), and (b.) no one visits lucite.org, I have added a lot of new content about atheism in order to please my readership. Books and articles about atheism, Dawkins, and modern cosmology can be found by selecting the appropriate folder from the drop-down list box at the lucite.org wisdombase, linked in the title above.

There is also a lot of new content on philosophy, physics, ontology, and theodicy throughout the wisdombase, so you might want to check again and see if there is anything you might like to read.

Incidentally, it occurred to me that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is necessarily a composite entity, and so the reductio ad absurdum fails. Its flight and constituents would have to be explained away as figuration to the point where it would become identical with G, our uncaused cause of maximal positivity. I believe the Invisible Pink Unicorn is also composite, as its pinkness implies its possible visibility.

Proof That God Exists

William S. Hatcher applies his Minimalist philosophy to Avicenna's neglected ontological proof. Hatcher uses first-order relational logic, avoiding the existential pitfalls of modal logic (necessity, contingency, and manifold universes). Hatcher's proof, linked in the title above, lays an explicit foundation for the following excerpt.

We now have before us four empirically grounded, and therefore plausibly true, metaphysical principles (P.0-P.3). We list them together for easy reference in the ensuing text.

P.0. V is composite.
[V is reality entire: subjective, objective, abstract, and concrete.]

P.1. Every existing phenomenon B is either caused (other-caused) or uncaused (self-caused), and never both.
[The complete cause equals the initial phenomenon plus the efficient cause (CC=IP+EC). The straw that breaks the camel's back is the efficient cause. The complete cause also includes the rest of the straws, and maybe an affidavit from the camel's chiropractor.]

P.2. Suppose that A→B holds, where B is composite. Then A→E also holds where E is any part of B (i.e., where either E∈B or E⊂B).
[Signifiers: → causation, ∈ composition, and ⊂ containment.]

P.3. A→E cannot hold if E is a component of A.

Besides P.0, which is absolutely certain, none of the other principles makes any existence assertions whatever. P.1-P.3 are all universal conditional statements—propositions which affirm that, whenever and if ever certain conditions are obtained, then certain other conditions must be fulfilled. In other words, these statements in themselves have no existential import. However, in conjunction with P.0 (i.e., under the assumption that something exists), these principles have strong and somewhat surprising existential consequences.

Theorem. It follows from P.0-P.3 that there is one and only one self-caused phenomenon G. Further, this G is simple (non-composite) and is a (necessarily unique) universal cause (i.e., a cause of every existent phenomenon).

Proof. We begin by asking the question “What is the cause of the global phenomenon V?” By P.1, V is either self-caused or other-caused. Suppose for the moment that it is self-caused, V→V. By P.0, V is composite. Hence, there is some component E∈V. Therefore, by P.2, V→E. But this contradicts the limitation principle P.3 since E is a component of V. Thus, V cannot be self-caused. In fact this argument is applicable to any composite and establishes the general principle: that no composite phenomenon can be self-caused.

Applying P.1 to the above, we now conclude that V must be other-caused by some phenomenon G≠V, G→V. Now, every phenomenon is either a component or a subsystem of V (see above). We thus have G→V and G is a part of V. By P.2, we can thus immediately conclude that G→G (i.e., G is self-caused). This means that G is simple because if G had some component E, we could then conclude (by P.2) that G→E, contradicting P.3. Thus, G is self-caused and simple. The simplicity of G implies that G is an entity (and thus a component of V, G∈V).

Moreover, G→V and every phenomenon B is a part of V. Hence, by P.2, G→B where B is any phenomenon whatever. G is therefore a universal cause.

Finally, G is the unique uncaused entity. To see this, suppose that G'→G' for some phenomenon G'. Now, we have already established that G is a universal cause, so G→G' also holds. Thus, G' is both self-caused and caused by G. However, P.1 asserts that no self-caused phenomenon can also be other-caused. Thus, G cannot be other than G' (i.e., G=G'). Hence, the simple entity G is the only uncaused phenomenon in existence.

It is important to realize that, in the light of the minimalistic method we have employed, the above theorem is not an idle word game. We have showed that the existence of a unique, simple, universal, uncaused cause follows by pure logic from a few, broad, objective properties of reality. In more formal terms, the conjuction of P.0-P.3 logically implies that G exists: (P.0 & P.1 & P.2 & P.3)→(G exists). This proof is totally objective. In other words, it is literally impossible that P.0-P.3 be true and that G not exist.

Home Again, Home Again

I am homeful again after a couple of distressing years. Mazinga and I are reunited and I have my stuff, too. It will still take some time to get my bearings, I think. The "resident" email works again, and my primary address is "lucite.org" at Gmail.com. No phone yet, and I may just get a Skype number since I am allergic to telephones anyway.

Lucite.org Going Dark

Mazinga and Adrian will be moving at the end of the month, so Lucite.org, Winterkills.com and related services will be out of commission for a while. Lucite.org-related domains will be redirected to this externally hosted blog.

I can still be contacted via e-mail for the time being.

"A Mathematical Description of an Eight Dimensional Universe"

The linked story above (also saved in the lucite.org archive under "quantum hermeneutics") describes a theoretical propulsion device in eight-dimensional Heim-Dröscher space... Exactly as developed in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension:

"After publishing the mass formulae, Heim never really looked at hyperspace propulsion again. Instead, in response to requests for more information about the theory behind the mass predictions, he spent all his time detailing his ideas in three books published in German. It was only in 1980, when the first of his books came to the attention of a retired Austrian patent officer called Walter Dröscher, that the hyperspace propulsion idea came back to life. Dröscher looked again at Heim's ideas and produced an "extended" version, resurrecting the dimensions that Heim originally discarded. The result is "Heim-Dröscher space", a mathematical description of an eight-dimensional universe.

"From this, Dröscher claims, you can derive the four forces known in physics: the gravitational and electromagnetic forces, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. But there's more to it than that. "If Heim's picture is to make sense," Dröscher says, "we are forced to postulate two more fundamental forces." These are, Dröscher claims, related to the familiar gravitational force: one is a repulsive anti-gravity similar to the dark energy that appears to be causing the universe's expansion to accelerate. And the other might be used to accelerate a spacecraft without any rocket fuel." (Visit the headline link for more from New Scientist.)

Joke

A Kabbalist walks into a bar, and the bartender asks him, "Why the Long Face?"

John Annesley Company Cradled Panels

I've received some custom panels from John Annesley Company, and now am experimenting with bismuth grounds in earnest. Of three 16"x20", one suffered a couple slight dings in transit, so that will be the one to begin with. A 4'x5' panel is on its way.

John has otherwise crafted the panels so well that it is a shame to put paint on them! I will be posting pictures of works in progress here; quite soon, I hope.

Angelic Iconography in the First Pre-Christian Century?

The following fragments are from a corpus of works J. Strugnell called "The Angelic Liturgy," which describes angelic adoration and earthly worship as being concurrent and connatural. They are works of early Merkevah mysticism termed "Hekalot," or "Palaces," that aim to comprehend the environment of the Throne Chariot and the compartments/abodes of the angels, and clearly mark the coincidence of the Supernal with the mundane. "All that is above, thus also below."

In this respect, the passages may hint at the true configuration of the numinous Teraphim: sculpted, painted, or engraved representations of elohim (angels) fixed in alcoves in homes and places of worship... a functional prototype for Orthodox icons. Aniconism may also help to explain the dearth of explicit information about the manufacture of Teraphim, since they were regarded by some as an undesirable remnant of Aramaean paganism, while others venerated them on the same level as the priestly Ephod.

The passages are given as related by Geza Vermes in The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (note that "gods" is a literal translation of "elohim," or angels):

4Q405 14-15, i

... tongue of blessing from the likeness [of the gods] issues a [v]oice of blessing for the King of those who exalt, and their wonderful praise is for the God of gods ... their many-coloured ... and they sing ... the vestibules by which they enter, the spirits of the most holy inner Temple ... [And the likene]ss of the living 'gods' is engraved on the vestibules by which the King enters, luminous spiritual figures ... [K]ing, figures of a glorious l[ight, wonderful] spirits; [amo]ng the spirits of splendour there are works of (art of) marvellous colours, figures of the living 'gods' ... [in the] glorious innermost Temple chambers, the structure of [the most ho]ly [sanctuary] in the innermost chambers of the King, design[s of 'go]ds' ... likeness of ... most holy ... [the Temple] chambers of the Ki[ng] ...

4Q405 19 ABCD

The figures of the 'gods' shall praise Him, [the most] h[oly] spirits ... of glory; the floor of the marvellous innermost chambers, the spirits of the eternal gods, all ... fi[gures of the innermost] chamber of the King, the spiritual works of the marvellous firmament are purified with salt, [sp]irits of knowledge, truth [and] righteousness in the holy of [ho]lies, [f]orms of the living 'gods', forms of the illuminating spirits. All their [works (of art)] are marvellously linked, many-coloured [spirits], artistic figures of the 'gods', engraved all around their glorious bricks, glorious figures on b[ri]cks of splendour and majes[ty]. All their works (of art) are living 'gods', and their artistic figures are holy angels. From beneath the marvellous inner[most chambers] comes a sound of quiet silence: the 'gods' bless ...

University of Washington in Infrared

May Eve

Cop Car in Infrared

Why are there two IR shadows beneath the cop car--to change traffic lights?