CHUCK AND THE PROPHET SCRIBE ENOCH
I am the prophet . . . Chuck!
—CHUCK SHURLEY, “THE MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK” (4-18)
The Supernatural character Chuck Shurley would certainly fall into the category of a prophet scribe since he writes everything he foresees into his books (well, he writes down almost everything . . . he left out some stuff, like when Sam was drinking demon blood). To be honest, Chuck has a lot in common with one of the oldest prophet scribes in religious mythology, Enoch, author of the book of Enoch. While this text is considered apocryphal (or “unauthorized”) by most Judeo-Christian traditions, it is obvious that much of its writings influenced later works of Judaic lore.
Aside from offering a very thorough account of the cosmological order, the book of Enoch (believed to have been written sometime around 300 BCE, but likely originated from a much older myth that may have been passed along via a verbal tradition long before it was permanently written down) also offers the most complete chronological account of the war in Heaven and the fall of the rebel angels. On the whole, this text claims to be a written account of the divine visions and experiences of the prophet scribe Enoch, father of the Jewish leader Methuselah. Enoch was also an ancestor of Noah, who preserved life and Judaic civilization with his ark during the Great Deluge of the Old Testament.
In the book of Enoch, a group of angels take Enoch to the heavens and reveal to him the truth behind the great mysteries of existence. Enoch learns of the “Oneness” of God, an idea very similar to the monotheism of Judaism. He also learns of the arrangements of the hierarchy of Heaven and Earth. He even witnesses the exile of the rebel angels. In fact, when these angels are judged it is Enoch who is sent to inform them of God’s coming wrath. Interestingly, these angels even beg Enoch to make an appeal to God on their behalf. But it is futile, as God’s judgment is final and absolute.
Like Enoch, Chuck Shurley also deals with angels on a regular and very personal basis. And like Enoch, Chuck writes all that he foresees in the form of stories. Lastly, Chuck is rarely able to do anything to stop that which he has foreseen, just as Enoch was unable to stay God’s wrath against the rebel angels.
TIRESIAS: THE BLIND SEER
The second category of prophet is best exemplified by a character from Greek mythology, the blind seer Tiresias. Despite being blind, Tiresias always saw the truth of matters (even when he wished he did not). Many heroes of Greek mythology would seek out and consult with Tiresias in moments of crisis. Unfortunately, his news was rarely if ever good. So, you might say Tiresias was a lot like the blind psychic Pamela Barnes of Supernatural, who had her eyes burned out when she looked upon the true visage of Castiel in “Lazarus Rising” (4-1).
Probably one of the best-known tales from Greek mythology involving Tiresias comes from Homer’s Odyssey. Oddly enough, Tiresias is already dead at this point. However, in order to find his way back home, the wayward hero Odysseus must travel into the underworld to consult with the soul of the dead prophet. Odysseus and his crew make the harrowing journey, and he uses a blood offering ritual (taught to him by the sea witch Circe, after a bit of aggressive encouragement) to draw out Tiresias’s spirit. However, little of what he learns of the true state of his home is good news: his wife is being pursued by indulgent and dishonorable suitors, who believe he is dead; his son is unable to protect the home in Odysseus’s absence; and his father is dead. The good news? He learns how to get home, just in time for a little payback—so there’s a silver lining, after all. Unfortunately for Pamela, her silver lining came only in the afterlife, which, luckily for her, was a lot better than the dark realm of Hades in which Tiresias ended up.
MOSES OF THE ISRAELITES
I think we can rule Moses out as a suspect.
—CASTIEL, “THE THIRD MAN” (6-3)
Moses is perhaps the single most important figure in the history of Judaism and is a great example of a divine “receiver” type of prophet. Born in a time when the Israelites were supposedly in captivity to the Egyptians, Moses was actually raised among the Egyptians. Fearing for her newborn son’s life, his Hebrew birth mother set him adrift on the Nile, and he was found and adopted by the wife of the pharaoh. Later, Moses learns of his true Hebrew lineage and grows enraged when he sees how his people are treated. In a fit of rage at seeing a Hebrew being beaten by an Egyptian, Moses kills the Egyptian and has to flee Egypt. However, as Judaic mythology tells us, he would one day return to Egypt to set the wrong things right.
Eventually, Moses receives divine instructions in the form of a burning bush that is not consumed by the surrounding flames. He is tasked with the mission of leading the Hebrews out of Egypt. With a staff that he can transform at will into a serpent, Moses goes before the pharaoh and demands that the Hebrews be released. The pharaoh, of course, refuses, and God unleashes a series of terrible plagues upon Egypt until the pharaoh complies. Moses eventually leads the Hebrews out of Egypt to the holy land (Israel), a place that, sadly enough, he does not live to see with his own eyes. One day, Moses ascends to the mountaintop and never comes back down. According to Judaic lore, Moses would die before seeing God’s promised land because of an impulsive act of frustration in which he struck a rock with his staff.
Speaking of Moses’s staff, it’s a good thing Sam and Dean were able to get that thing back before the rest of the Plagues of Egypt were unleashed once more.
SIGILS AND SEALS
Religious magic and Judeo-Christian mysticism both play large parts in the mythos of Supernatural, and the series is saturated with the use of sigils, symbols, and materials that are related to these ancient practices. In fact, nearly every spell, conjuration, sigil, and symbol that is used on the show can be traced back to a number of very real origins.
A sigil is broadly defined as a sign, symbol, or image that is meant to possess magical powers or supernatural properties. By this definition, the term sigil can be broadly applied to just about any magical symbol. However, when these sigils are used for confining or blocking certain powers or entities, they would be more accurately referred to as seals. A large number of sigils and seals appear on Supernatural, so many that to fully explain them all would take a hundred pages at best. However, here is a brief list summarizing some of the most significant sigils and seals that have appeared on the show:
• Sigil of Satan/“Pitchfork” Seal: Lucifer traces this pitchfork or trident shaped symbol on an icy window in the season 5 finale. It was also carved into the flesh of a possessed man by Crowley in “Born under a Bad Sign” (2-14), creating a binding seal to prevent the demon from vacating the body. In Christianity, some view this sigil’s three-pronged fork as a symbol of the demonic forces of Lucifer, which oppose the Christian Trinity.
SUPERNATURAL FACTS
The identity of the yellow-eyed demon who killed Mary Winchester (thus setting her husband and young sons on their paranormal paths to destiny) wasn’t revealed until “In My Time of Dying” (2-1). Even in this episode, however, his name was not spoken. Instead, John Winchester used a summoning ritual to force the yellow-eyed demon to appear so he could strike a deal to save Dean’s life. As a part of this ritual John chalked a symbol on the floor. Intuitive fans who saw this then researched the sign, which turned out to be the Seal of Saturn, also known as the Sigil of Azazel. So it would seem that the fans figured out Azazel’s name several episodes before it was actually spoken. Needless to say, the fandom of Supernatural is nothing if not inquisitive.
• Tibetan Tulpa Sigil: This sigil, shown in the episode “Hell House” (1-17), is from the written language Sanskrit, adapted into Tibetan script, and is a combination of three phonetic symbols—tsa, la, and pa—to create the word tulpa. The sigil alone, as portrayed on Supernatural, is not actually complete. It is just part of the wording and chants used to create a tulpa, or “thought-form.” Separate groups of monks chant while collectively concentrating on three different forms of energy—dang (combined inner and outer energy), rolpa (v
isual energy), and tsal (physical/real energy)—and focus this energy upon an idea or object until they all combine to create a physical object. Usually, these objects are small, such as a cup or piece of fruit. Rarely would Tibetan monks attempt to create a living animal or person, and being pacifists, they would most definitely not manifest a homicidal, hatchet-wielding spirit.
• Angel-banishing Sigil: While this sigil is mainly just a fabrication of the Supernatural mythos, it does incorporate symbols from the Enochian alphabet (more on this later in this chapter). The combination of a triangle atop a circle is correctly symbolic of the sigil’s purpose, however. An upturned triangle commonly symbolizes Heaven or the divine realm, whereas the circle stands for the Earth and/or its elements. So it would stand to reason that these shapes would be combined in a sigil meant to temporarily banish angels back to Heaven.
• Sigil of Baphomet: In the episode “Malleus Maleficarum” (3-9), the “book club” coven of dark witches use an altar to summon demonic powers. The black altar cloth they use bears a symbol of an inverted pentagram containing the head of a goat. This symbol has long been a part of dark magic and demonic worship, representing Baphomet. The irony is that the demon Baphomet was invented by the Christian church around the sixteenth century, during its campaigns against European pre-Christian pagan (a word that actually means “country people”) religions.
THE KEY OF SOLOMON
SAM: Bobby... this book... I’ve never seen anything like it.
BOBBY: The Key of Solomon? It’s the real deal, all right.
—SAM WINCHESTER AND BOBBY SINGER, “DEVIL’S TRAP” (1-22)
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, King Solomon was the oldest son of the legendary King David (yes, as in the guy from the David and Goliath story). The story goes that God offered Solomon a choice between one of two gifts—wisdom or unlimited riches. He, of course, chose wisdom and because of this was both wise and extremely wealthy.
Solomon’s father, King David, had received a prophecy from God that he would die on a Sabbath day. A Sabbath was considered an unfortunate day to die, because it was an ordered day of rest according to the law. This meant that anyone who died on a Sabbath would not receive burial rites until the day was over. David spent sunrise to sunset of every Sabbath studying God’s law in order to avoid this fate, knowing that the angel of death, Azrael, would not take the soul of a man at such a sacred time. Azrael, however, caused David to hear sounds of commotion in the nearby palace garden. David went to investigate. As he descended the garden stairs, Azrael caused them to collapse and David fell to his death. King David’s corpse had also fallen in a place that left it exposed to the heat of the midday sun. Solomon, who had received the gift of all knowledge and wisdom from God, used his mystical arts to summon a large number of giant eagles. The eagles flew above the corpse, offering shade and fanning the corpse so that it would not prematurely rot before it could be properly and respectfully interred in a manner befitting a king such as David.
Of course, Solomon could do a lot more with his divine gift than summon a bunch of big eagles. Among Solomon’s abilities was the knowledge of summoning and controlling spirits, both angels and demons alike. By standing inside magical symbols and circles of protection, the most well-known among these being the Seal of Solomon, he was able to summon powerful demons and spirits while being protected from them. If Solomon was given all knowledge and wisdom, then it would stand to reason that he could read and write. This leads one to assume that he would have written down what he knew. The text in which Solomon supposedly wrote down the symbols he used for conjurations and protection is referred to as the Key of Solomon.
Over the years, a number of people have stepped forward claiming to have been told the secrets of the original Key of Solomon text. However, it is important to note that no such ancient text has ever been discovered or verified. The first of these Key of Solomon manuscripts began to appear around the fifteenth century, and continued well into the twentieth century. One of the last persons to come forward with what he claimed to be the true Magical Treatise of Solomon was Armand Delatte, who published his version of the manuscript in 1927. To this day, Delatte’s text is widely considered no more than a fabrication.
Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, a number of new individuals came forward claiming to have viewed and/or copied all or part of the Key of Solomon. While many of these texts have similar magical symbols in them, and cover many of the same topics, none of them are 100 percent the same. Most of these manuscripts were likely just imitations of mystical texts kept by Jewish adherents of Kabala or similar Arabic mystics, who were popularly hired as healers and advisers by many medieval nobles of the period.
SUPERNATURAL FACTS
The seal used to trap the demon Meg in Bobby Singer’s house in the Supernatural episode “Devil’s Trap” (1-22) is actually a combination of two symbols taken from existing versions of the Key of Solomon. The symbol’s outer section uses parts from the Seal of Solomon, and the interior is filled by a scorpion, or “the Fifth Pentacle of Mars,” in the same text. This may have been done in order to show that Bobby Singer’s Key of Solomon was the genuine article, since these symbols are not combined in any of the other known manuscripts of that text (as already stated, none of the known texts of the Key of Solomon are considered authentic).
The questionable nature of the various Key of Solomon texts explains why, in Supernatural, Bobby says, “It’s the real deal, all right.” Sam and Dean, considering their upbringing, would likely have been familiar with the controversy surrounding this book, but they would have also known that most if not all of the texts were frauds or, at best, incomplete imitations of an original text. So Bobby would need to confirm that the book Sam was reading was the actual Key of Solomon.
ENOCHIAN WARDING MAGIC
I followed him. It’s not far, but . . . it’s layered in Enochian warding magic. I can’t get in.
—CASTIEL, “ABANDON ALL HOPE” (5-10)
The word Enochian is used a lot on Supernatural, and yet not much detail is provided as to what this word means or where it comes from. While the written language of Enochian is not something that the writers of Supernatural just made up, neither is it exactly what one could classify as a “real” magical or divine language.
The alphabet was first introduced back in the sixteenth century by a pair of gentlemen named John Dee and Sir Edward Kelley. Dee was what you might call a supernatural jack-of-all-trades—astrologer, mystic, magician, and occultist—he had his hand in just about everything. Apparently, Dee’s lifelong search for power and occult wisdom left him wanting. Eventually, he hooked up with a shady fellow named Sir Edward Kelley. Many scholars view Kelley, whose real last name was actually Talbot, as little more than a con man who used illusion and tricks to swindle money and gifts out of the far wealthier John Dee.
Dee and Kelley began using trance states in order to invoke a type of “voluntary possession” that would allow them to communicate with divine or spiritual beings. Since he claimed to have the most experience between the two of them, Kelley acted as the spirit medium during these sessions. Eventually, something supposedly came calling and took possession of Kelley, though most believe that he just started “performing” for Dee so as not to lose his wealthy benefactor’s favor, enthusiasm, or, perhaps most importantly, his money.
SUPERNATURAL FACTS
Does the name Talbot sound familiar to you? It should. Supernatural ’s most notorious paranormal con artist is a crafty young lady named Bela Talbot. Bela’s last name was likely chosen because of the fact that many of today’s occultists and paranormal researchers view Edward Talbot (aka Sir Edward Kelley) as a con man who used tricks and theatrics to swindle money out of the rich and naïve.
John Dee began to write down the information dictated to him by Kelley, who had successfully convinced Dee that angels were speaking through him. One of the first things that these “angels” told to Dee (through Kelley, of course) was
an alphabet, which they called Enochian. According to Dee’s later writings, this alphabet was used for communication between angels and certain humans. This would explain why they called it Enochian—the ancient scribe Enoch, author of a pre-Judaic text commonly known as the book of Enoch, is written of as having communicated directly with the angels of the “Lord of Spirits,” likely an ancient title for God. It is definitely not outside the realm of plausibility that Edward Kelley was familiar with the existence of the book of Enoch.
Kelley sometimes wrote the symbols out for Dee, first claiming that he heard a series of taps that caused him to see in his mind’s eye both the symbols as well as the sounds they represented. Interestingly enough, these symbols had dual meanings. Each symbol was attached to both a word as well as one or more phonetic sounds. One point of controversy, which many people see as evidence that Kelley made up the whole Enochian alphabet, is that these symbols conveniently represent all of the letters in the English alphabet. This allowed the angels to convey messages to Dee and Kelley through the English language.
SUPERNATURAL FACTS
In “My Bloody Valentine” (5-14) the hearts of two lovers who die in a suicide pact are marked with an Enochian symbol that resembles a heart. In the Enochian alphabet, this is the symbol for Nach/h. In fact, Castiel speaks Enochian to force out Cupid, the cherub angel who made these marks, and can be heard saying “Nach” near the end of this incantation.
The Mythology of Supernatural Page 4
