the summoning of enoch - 3This stark anachronism, in terms of the technology believed to have been available in the eighth millennium B.C. should not be allowed to divert the reader, for the present, from the main theme. The problem, however, must be faced before this book closes, as there is far too much documentary evidence concerning this kind of phenomenon, for it to be possible to ignore it. The continuing narrative of Enoch reads like the diary of a wide-eyed traveler being shown sights which, not only has he never seen before, but are so alien to his experience that they are partly beyond his ability to comprehend them. In the light paraphrases that follow, care has been taken not to superimpose modern technical understanding onto Enoch’s halting attempts to explain what he saw. [EN XVII:1-2 PP] They [the two men] conducted me to a place where those who were there were as bright as fire [Shining Ones], but who, when they wished, could appear as ordinary men. They had brought me to a place of darkness from a mountain whose summit reached to the heavens. There, I saw lighted places, and heard thunderous noises; and, in the deepest part, there were lights which looked like a fiery bow and arrows, with their quiver, and moving lights like a fiery sword. This passage, like others to follow, only makes sense in the context of an inexperienced country man brought suddenly into the dwellings, and perhaps workshops, or a more advanced culture. Perhaps the closest modern comparison would be with an intelligent Aborigine who, having lived only in the central deserts of Australia, is attempting to describe his experiences, after having been brought by helicopter to the mountain ridge outside Alice Springs; and who, after looking down on the lights of the town, through the darkness, was taken on a tour of the streets before being returned to his family. If
Enoch’s high mountain were Hermon, as can be confidently
asserted; and if the Garden in Eden lay a handful of
miles to the north, Enoch could have looked down into the depths,
some hundreds of metres below him, and seen the bright lights
of a settlement; and who knows what strange shapes they might
have formed in his mind. From The Shining Ones by Christian and Barbara Joy O’Brien
THE
SHINING ONES
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