Voice of God

Chrissa downloaded Bearshare last week. I didn't get to use it until Saturday, but when I did it was in a 3-hour frenzy of illegal downloading. In the midst of my orgy, I ended up getting a few Tool songs--including the most disturbing song ever: "Faaip De Oaid".

For anyone who hasn't heard it: "Faaip De Oaid" is composed of crescendoing noise and the voice of a psychotic man suffering from paranoia who speaks wildly about extradimensional beings and Area 51.

...I don't know what it is about the song, but it scares me to death. And I love it.

So I did some research. The name means voice of god in Enochian. Enochian, it turns out, is the occult language of angelic beings--as delivered to Edward Kelly and John Dee in the 16th century by an angel. Maybe it was the lingering effects of the song, but the idea gave me chills--that angels have an actual language.

In Mormon tradition, angels are thought to speak Adamic (proto-Semitic), or through the use of spiritual communication ... which would actually be understood/felt rather than heard. The thought of actually hearing the voice of an angel-then-is somewhat frightening to me. In fact, angels are to me frightening, unworldly ... even monstrous. I don't say that in a theological context as much as a middle-of-the-night-hiding-under-the-covers context ... or perhaps the same part of my brain that is repulsed by scorpion and cockroaches.

It's no wonder, to me, that everyone in the scriptures who sees an angel must be told: "Be not afraid"; or that Isaiah's and John's descriptions of angels are of creatures with three sets of wings and six eyes, guarding the Holy of Holies (קדש הקדשים) with a flaming sword. In my mission there were stories of missionaries seeing dark angels on hillsides. Truth be told, a small part of my reason for disbelieving in religion for a long time was also based on a desire for it not to be true. The whole idea of apocalyptic forces surrounding me was a bit freaky.

Rationally, I know that there's more to angelic beings than the Grimm fable picture I'm painting above. Angels, if they exist, are messengers from God and are both powerful and good. It's just always somewhat disturbed me that the characteristic which John and Isaiah seemed to focus on was their power and insectoid otherworldliness rather than on their good. That scared me. I guess, when I listen to a song like Tool's, it still does.