Lately I've been looking into christian mythos, theology and demonology for a project on most relevant symbols and entities in christian religions. Not only in books and such, but in pop culture as well. Comics, magazines, movies, songs...

The thing is, as a comic fan, I stumbled upon several issues of 'Preacher' and 'Hellblazer' and I found out about the movie they made of the later, 'Constantine'. Don't get me wrong, the movie is small compared to the source material and mostly bad, with awkward acting and an almost nonsensical plot. failing to get a single thing out of 'hellblazer' right, but albeit small, it had a very solid background on christian mythos and a new vision on the whole thing with rituals and such that has great potential to build a story on.

I would like to polish all the mythos, adding bits from here and there, proposing ideas based mostly on religion, taking the 'constantine proposal' as a basis and make it all 'work' with the wizarding world and Rowling's magical system.

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The basic concept would be this:

God and the Devil have made a gamble upon humanity. Who gets the most souls when humanity is over wins. Demons and angels exist and inhabit Hell and Heaven, doing their master's deeds, but they cannot come across dimensions; it's forbidden.

Instead, both sides have agents in earth to influence the outcome to one side or another. They cannot act freely or directly, though, they can only influence in a non-direct way to win those souls and all of them are responsible for their own actions.

There are no good/evil sides so to speak. Heaven's agents don't have to be kind or good. Hell's agents aren't inherently evil; every one of them acts on their own, however they think their deeds will influence their outcome better, without taking into account the innocent lives affected by their choices.

Those agents can look for help or information in occult circles and mediums; people who can see them as they truly are, revealing their nature and who can act directly influencing the outcome in one way, thus breaking the 'balance'.


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Now, what would you add, what would you cut to make this into a working system and mythos within magic? Let's see if we can get something that can be adopted and written when we're finished with this.

 

By gods, tell me you've read Good Omens by Terry Pratchett...

 

And Gaiman. And yes, I have.

 

Use information that isn't well know.

For example, and I just checked this, Jesus wasn't the only 'Aspect of God', there were several. If you can't think of a way to use that, I'll shot myself.

I can, if you want me to, name ten Archangels and ten Archdemons from memory. And give you several dozen sources of information.

 

And Gaiman, aye. I'm a Pratchett fanboy, so sue me.

If you can get that Crowley/Aziraphale interaction going (subtext notwithstanding) between the agents, you'll be off to a damn fine start.

 

As a Christian you will have to excuse me for not using standard 'Mythos' termonology as I take it as history, but here are some less known facts, rumours, and speculation from the Christian (and presumably Jewish) Faiths.

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As Best I can phrase it from what I was taught:
God is Represented as a trimuvate. it's considered a divine mystery as he was both fully god, and fully man. God the father, usually representated as an almost grandfatherly figure perched on a golden throne and surrounded by the cherubs, angels, Arch-angels, Seriphim and Cherubim. God Embodied in human Flesh (Referred to as the 'son') AKA Jesus christ. the Mover and shaker here on earth, the portion of God that lived a fully human life and willingly died to redeem us, and God the spirit, Usually represented by a Pure white Dove. The 'Hand of God' if you will, that bestows his gifts upon the devout.

The Angels are separated into classes (for lack of a better term). Those who serve at the throne and those who are sent out to fight for the lord, and these two classes are subdivided a number more times. There are also Messengers, sign brearers, The four horsemen, and 'Metatron' who was designated the voice of God.

The Fallen were bound to hell for agreeing to serve and then rebelling against the throne when The Almighty revealed that he would take human form. Their leader was Originally Called 'Luicifer' which means 'Bearer of light' He was second only to God himself, the best and the brightest of the Angels (Or so they claim) When he was cast down the lord changed his name to Satan (Don't ask me what it means, but the change in name was important)



Things I've heard but can't confirm:

Demons and the Fallen Angels are separate Beings. The Angels who were cast out of heaven and into hell basically Took over upon arrival.

When the angels were first created they were given a choice. Serve God or don't. Those who chose not to serve were cast out of heaven, but they were NOT cast into hell.

At one point the divine beings that served god looked down to earth and found human women to be appealing and so Took them for their spouses. Their offspring caused no end of problems and so God forbid them from continuing the practice.

Satan also took a second in command 'Bezelbub'. This Angel was his chief Commander in the rebellion.

During the Fall, fully one half of the Angels in heaven were cast down to hell for Rebellion against the throne.

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For additional obscura you might want to look up the catholic bible (King James Version), particularly the book of revelations. Supposedly the entirety of the end times is in there, the trouble is that it's so vague and uses so much symbolism that Nobody has been able out and out translate the meaning out of it. It's said that even the little bit that whose meaning was actually revealed wasn't enough to tell us more than what parts have already come to pass.

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That's All I can think of off hand that might be usable in the type of story you want to write.

Good luck.

 

Are you talking about the Sephirot?

how i shot self? [SIZE=-1]¯\()/¯[/SIZE]

What canon are you using, exactly? Last I checked there are only three recognized Archangels in the Christian faith(although some denominations have seven)

 

The Christians get their Triumvirate (and pardon me for not looking this) from to placesthe

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was formless and void, darkness was upon the deep, and the Spirit of God was on the surface of the waters." (Genesis 1:1-2)

Here we have the Heavenly Father and also his Spirit. To get Jesus we look to John 1:1, which is:

"In the beginning there was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God."

So we now God, the Spirit of God, and the Word of God. These three seperate parts of God, make up God, and are one and three at the same time. "One for all, and all for one," and all that rot.

Check out Genesis 18, it contains a scene that many construe as a visitation onto Abraham by all three members of the trinity.

If you want people rushing about performing acts of God, recall that Biblical cannon says that anyone can perform the miracles Jesus did, so long as (s)he has faith.

I love Bible fanfiction, it is one of the few areas with slash I actually enjoy.

 

I'm using Kabbalah, Mechanicalchrist, and some other things. And, while there are only three Archangels in the Bible, there are a number of other archangels and angels in Jewish works.

 

Using Christian mythology is a bit of a dicey maneuver, since a good story requires a coherent and internally consistent cosmology, which Christianity simply does not possess, since Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Mormons, Baptists, Methodists, etc. all have their own take, many of which are mutually exclusive.

My advice is to sort of pick and choose, and don't be afraid to make shit up.

For the record, Satan means "Accuser" and harkens to the Old Testament role of the entity we so charmingly refer to as the Devil. As seen in the Book of Job, Satan is essentially God's DA. He goes around testing the faith of God's people in order to illustrate to God their worthiness (or unworthiness) of his blessings. He was a, forgive the tern, Devil's Advocate. Satan was not seen at this time as a sort of evil anti-god, which is essentially what modern Christian theology posits, but as a servant of god fulfilling a valuable role in the divine hierarchy. Faith cannot grow stronger if it's never tested. It's still popular among Christians to claim that the Devil has no powers that God does not allow him, despite this being a completely fucked-up argument for them to make considering their current thoughts about the Devil (see below).

Modern theology about the division between the forces of Heaven and Hell is mostly inspired by popular interpretations of the Revelation of St. John, which quite literally reads like a very bad acid trip. And the rest was sort of made up afterwards.

Back in the day, I was taught the modern notion that A Long, Long Time Ago, the best and brightest of God's Angels, Lucifer (the Light-Bearer, Morningstar, etc.) became dissatisfied with his role as a servant of God and sought to take over the reins. He's represented by a dragon, I believe. He waged a war against God, and was cast out of Heaven when he inevitably lost, and the fallout saw "a third of the stars swept from the sky" or some such thing, meaning that a third of God's celestial servants were cast out with Lucifer. Now, he's the Devil and he's mad, bad, and dangerous to know. His new job description is no longer to test faith, but to actively undermine it, trying to get people to reject salvation and damn themselves to the punishment that he will get at the end of the world, when he's tossed into a lake of fire. Funny stuff. Very duotheistic themes, mostly pinched from Zoroastrianism.

An excellent use of Christian theology in magic is a tradition of mysticism known as Enochian magic, supposedly invented by Dr. John Dee and a rather unpleasant con-man aquaintance of his. It's a fascinating area of study, although there aren't really any beginner's guides, so it helps to have some familiarity with Christian thought from that period as well as the most common ceremonial magic practices. It basically involves summoning angels for basically the same purposes as summoning Goetic demons in the Lesser Key of Solomon. Both were used by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and Enochian magic is currently practiced by the modern-day Aurum Solis.

 

Also, despite what most Christian's believe, it has been stated in a number of texts that Lucifer and Satan are two different beings. Perhaps the fact that people keep mixing up their names pisses them off? You could use that.

Also, although it is never stated which gender most angels are, Guardian are usually beleived to be the opposite gender of the person they gaurd.

 

I'd like a Source on that one as I'm almost entirely certain that you're wrong.

 

It's not a Christian thing, but many Satanists think of Satan (who they don't worship, their name is a misnomer) and Lucifer as separate demons. Along with Leviathan, Azrael, and a ton of others.

Anyway, for this whole idea to work you would have to change the Christian mythos substantially. In Christian theology, God is infinitely more powerful than Satan - Satan only survives because God is humouring him until a time of his choosing (judgment day).

But to have this story work with any kind of realism, one would have to put God and Satan on, if not equal, then roughly equal standings in terms of power.

 

That's exactly what I want to do. Creating and adapting some (and not all of them) of the mythos to work with Harry Potter's world, in a series of rules of interaction and in a symbiotic relationship rather than the whole lot of legends and christian paraphernalia.

I like to think of it as creating a new religion for the Wizarding World, based on christianism and adapted pagan mythos, but with tangible mediums and agents for both 'divine' sides interacting with the inhabitants of the WW.

Nothing too fancy or extremely complicated, just some bits of Theology, Demonology, a set of rules for interaction and relationships, a set of rules and guides for the belief itself to work in the duality of Heaven/Hell (who goes up, who goes down), etc.

I liked the suggestion of Enochian magic, and the use of the Trinity in the story. I'll look into that.

The problem with this is that it is too huge; you have to be very choosy in what you want to take and what you want to leave...

 

In order to put God and Satan on roughly equal standing then, perhaps with God a bit more powerful, you could steal Pullman's idea of God simply being the first Angel, rather than a God-like being. And angels (and demons) are just a species of powerful magical creatures that inhabit a higher dimension.

It takes most of the religion out of it and makes it more Dresden-like, which can be good or bad depending on your point of view.

Jesus could be the result of a very complex bit of magic done by God that partially manages to get over the law of magic stopping him from passing between dimensions, with the stipulation that though he has crossed, he has to cross over as a human.

Would you say that when humans die they go to heaven or hell? Or would you make this a lie, spread by religions for their won ends?

 

This is interesting.

To me, there is always a plot hole in writing with Christian mythology: Why doesn't God just beat down the devil?

This seems to answer that: The devil works for God. A conspiracy of epic proportions.

Of course, if that can't work:

God can't exist without the devil, can he? I mean, who's going to err from God where there's nothing to err to? God and the devil/Satan/Lucifer are intwined, killing one would only undo the other. That is why direct confrontation leads to nothing. The only way to win is to remove the other's power source and chain them up for all eternity.

If the trinity is going to play a big role in your story, I'd suggest giving Satan a similar thing . If only to show that Satan is more powerful in your story than normal.

 

It's hardly a conspiracy; it's in the Bible. I think the idea is that everyone works for God. Some just don't know it yet. The grand divine ineffable plan and all that.

 

And what if God and Satan were both different sides of a whole, dfferent names for the same being?

Sort of, during the day, he's one, and during the night he's the other. The catch is that one side can't remember what the other does nor is conscious that he himself is the enemy, thus having limited knowledge of 'the other side'.

What one does, the other tries to undo.

 

Heh, just a thought, what if Dumbledore was an agent of God. It fits his modus operandi to manipulate people in the name of the Greater Good... The Good was just a bit Greater than we thought.

If you do that though, don't have Voldemort as the agent of Satan. Make it someone unexpected . Voldemort is the example of what a human can become, Hell's agent is someone much more manipulative and cunning. Like how Ned Flanders is the Devil ; not someone you would expect... Like Luna XD.

Aekiel

 

Yes, you sound correct, but don't Christians believe in free will and all that jazz? The idea that God has a "plan" seems to contradict that (not that's anything new in Christianity).