The story of the war, and subsequent fall from heaven and the disgrace of Lucifer has been retold many times, giving rise to some of the most compelling poetry and imagery in Christian history, with no better example than John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667, 1674), which I freely admit was one of my initial inspirations for the deeper study of esotericism and metaphysics, while it has also been the source of inspiration for a number of my paintings.
No study of the Angelic Fall can omit an exploration of the Book of Enoch, and this quickly leads to all 
sorts of other interesting avenues of enquiry within the Apocrypha. Péladan was preoccupied by this story, particularly because of his reception of the work of Fabre d’Olivet and the implications it holds regarding the accuracy of Biblical translation. Fabre d’Olivet, and Péladan after him, undertook no less than the rewriting of Genesis, with all sorts of theologically shocking implications. This motif was central to Péladan’s cosmology, as was the question of the Fall of Man and paths of redemption. Despite his powerful Catholic faith, there are many overtly Luciferian references and positions in Péladan’s work which form one of the more interesting aspects that I am attempting to tease out of his work.
One of his most overtly Luciferian novels is Istar, published in two volumes in 1888. It is a curious book that was very successful compared to many of his other novels, though none met the initial success of his debut novel, Le Vice Supreme. Self-referential, self-conscious, painfully tender, exceptionally sensitive, Istar draws together many of Péladan’s occult and social preoccupations. It is both a novel within an novel and a contemporary social commentary in which he intersperses more general observations about human and social relationships with the narrative itself, but without falling into an overly didactic mode which is characteristic of many of his articles and later works. Péladan was not yet as disillusioned as he was to become from the mid-1890s on; at this time in his life he was still aspiring towards the Platonic ideal of love and woman, and sought to transmit this to anyone who would listen. Istar also comprises a resounding refutation of Péladan’s many biographers who have accused him of misogyny: it contains some of the most tender and romantic love scenes he was to write, along with a sensitive consideration of the social lot of women in his time:
” From boarding school where spontaneity is reprimanded, to the salon where again, games of wordplay and double meanings are forbidden to her, the modern woman obeys negative commandments.
To wait, to refuse, to retreat and to be silent, there is the entire expected behaviour: and society, which is more selfish than anyone because it is constructed from general selfishness, overwrites the individualism of souls as if with a State decree.
Here is an instructive example to serve as the proof of universal stupidity; scientific progress has not made the walls oscillate. In our time, where the nervous system has begun to be understood a little more, public opinion sees nothing stupid in condemning two beings to the same bed for their whole lives, even when they have had no other physical contact beyond the touch of gloved hands. “
The novel centres around the story of Istar and Nergal, both of them Oelohites, children of Bené-Satan, himself the son of Satan, who were given the chance to atone for their father’s sins by living out a sequence of mortal lives alongside mankind, so as to instill divine genius among brutish “terrestrials”. The punishment is made more tragic because the Oelohites are fatally attracted to one another, yet incest is of course perceived as the greatest sin of all. Péladan uses this moral bind to illustrate the virtues of Platonic love, a religious kind of eroticism which can eschew physical contact while exalting spiritual love and devotion. He makes full use of all the opportunities the narrative and its motifs give him to explore the redemptive potential of this kind of love, the metaphysical properties of the androgyne, and the occult pathways hidden within the stories of the first and second angelic fall. Teasingly, he uses Kabbalistic references and almost playfully decodes their meanings, illustrated by the protagonists themselves, while also drawing in his broad knowledge of world mythology to enrich the referential layers of his narrative. Several chapters begin with an almost ritualistic sequence which is repeated, in reverse, at the end, giving these chapters a particularly occult atmosphere, and Péladan displays a number of different styles of expression and writing throughout, though these are well enough controlled to maintain clarity rather than cause confusion. The end result is an intriguing tragedy, which feels more like a collection of books, all held together by the overarching narrative and motifs.
Istar has never been translated into English, and this is a task which I hope to undertake once my thesis is complete. I have translated a few chapters to share with colleagues and for my own personal use, and below follows the first, introductory chapter of Book II of Istar, telling the initial, tragic story of the near-redemption and fall of the Oelohites. This translation has now been published in The Fenris Wolf #6 (Stockholm, Edda Press, 2013), following an article of mine on Péladan’s Luciferianism.
I am sharing it here for general interest, and I strongly request that readers respect the work that has gone into this, and that you do not share or otherwise reproduce this document for any use other than personal interest. If you do wish to do so, then please contact me or at least credit the translation properly. If I find this translation reproduced without credit or permission, I will take appropriate action.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
This is the first chapter from tome II of the novel ISTAR by Joséphin Péladan, published in 1888. The copyright for this English translation belongs to Sasha Chaitow. This document may be downloaded for personal reference only, and may not be published, used, or reproduced in any form, without the copyright holder’s express written permission. NB. I have preserved formatting and punctuation as it is in the original. This is more of a draft than a polished end-product, but should suffice for non francophone readers to get a sense of the text. The original document can be found here: http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb310738377
___________________________________________________________
THE ŒLOHITES
I
The Legend of Incest
In the Ether, where the giant stars circle, there was a small world – insubordinate to the Sun – a small, vagrant world.
The Ancients of Days and the Watchers know the sin of the planets.
The Sun, is the heart of Satan who burns without reviving his wife, Sina, frozen in punishment; but the smallest world committed the greatest sin: incest.
Here it is.
I
It is the Deluge! The wrath of God swallows Atlantis; the waters have covered everything, only the heights1 remain unsubmerged.
Bené Satan stands there, his sons and his daughters around him. Already the green flood is about to soak the edges of their tunics, foaming silver on the golden armlets of the women. Lightning crashes and swirls around these haughty ones whose pride did not demand grace, like a fearful executioner, holding back and not daring to strike the sublime, guilty ones.
Yet, a terrifying cyclone is about to swallow the heights.
“Maria!” Satan said.
II
“Maria!” And the waterspout exploded in the distance.
“Maria!” And the flood moved away from the rock.
“Maria!” The thunder ceased baying.
“Maria!” The Ocean, immobile under the clearing sky.
After this fourfold invocation, he said: “Lord, I repent for my father’s sin; he was wicked to dare deny your Word and to attempt for himself that which only you can do; I humble myself before you, Lord, to save my family”.
And the son of Satan bent his beautiful knees: “Oh, you, who are conceived without sin, who conceived God, my forehead, which I have never bowed, salutes you! Future mother of the Saviour, save Bené Satan and his sons, who bow down to you seven thousand years before your birth. Avé, Maria!”
Then Michael appeared in dazzling glory:
“Your homage to the Virgin saves you, you supremely guilty one, and the Most-High wishes to commute your damnation to exile on a vagrant world.”
And all of the Bené Satan were borne up by clouds; with feet of fire and revived hearts they landed on the wild crest of the small, vagrant world.
III
The son of the great, fallen one, orbited the planet and soon brought it to order. Then he rested; a child awoke:
“Father, there are earthlings there, along with us saved ones”.
“How hasty they are!”
As he slept again, a girl came to him:
“Father, I am moved, the earthlings are begging, they are servitors, slaves, and God has mixed them with us, he has had his will; this irritated him, this was wise, oh father!”
“That they may thus be supported.” And Satan slept with this merciful thought; but he dreamt an atrocious vision, that his daughters coupled with the Kalibans, birthed bastards, and that his lustful sons would scour the earthly lands for sensuality; and his race of archangels would be cross-bred with brutes.
He gave such a cry of wrath and rage that returned appalling echoes from the sky. Awaking, his children ran to him.
“Go back to sleep, a dream haunted me, a detestable dream; he said faintly. Children, I shall watch over you; sleep is bad for my eagle eyes, but you must sleep in peace!”
IV
Night fell. Satan the dreamer strode majestically across the fields and the shores. Suddenly, he saw his favourite daughter Izél, teasing some oaf.
He snatched up a sapling and with a single blow felled the audacious youth.
Bené Satan’s daughter wept: “He spoke to me of love, this was sweetness, in killing him you have struck your daughter.”
Satan was silent, and continued on his way.
In the shelter under a rock, his son Rouna was stealing kisses at the breast of a female Kaliban.
Faced with his father’s wrath, the rebellious lover cried:
“Do you not know the past, and how since you fell from the sky you are a son, as am I, of a simple mortal, greedy for kisses, spasms, and giddiness? When you conceived me, it was in the nude, on the perfumed bed of Ereck. Why do you reproach others for your sin?”
Bené Satan was silent, and continued on his way. That night, he watched his race sleep. The adolescents writhed on their beds of ferns, fondling phantoms, and the virgins kissed their own flesh. The scent of love grew, and the father wept.
V
On the mountain he waited for dawn, and with the first ray of light he incanted:
“Michael!”
And the archangel appeared.
“Oh, you who were my brother and whose intellect has not been obscured, counsel me. My admirable daughters are gasping with love and my sons resemble furious bulls.
They may not dare join their flames in incest, and love will mix the blood of the Kalibans with my blood! This is sacrilege!”
“It is God’s design! Bené Satan! Your father wanted to become the Messiah, his demon’s heart was no less than the heart of a prince; he had beauty, genius: but charity was lacking and everything was confounded. God left him his glory when punishing his crime: the soul of the false Jesus is the fuel of the sun, resplendent over the world, in his realisation of his Word and the Laws.
For you, Bené Satan, and for your race, I know only one solution: That your sons and your daughters must live out their human lives without love, without kisses, your hybrid race must not reproduce, and so you will be received into the second atmosphere, still punished, but less humiliated.”
“You are joking Michael, the daimonic life is that of love.”
“All right then! Lower your pride, allow the Kalibans to approach your daughters and let the women of the earth conceive with your sons. Know that the good God, whose enviable role crushed the shoulders of the great, fallen one, wills that through the force of love, the brute will be elevated and that with understanding focused on the idiot, genius will penetrate their ignorance. Show solidarity forever, do the works of Christ, be faithful to the one who anticipates divine mercy. Come on! Bené Satan, your pride hears this beneficial advice dictated by the bonds of our common essence.
“Angel,” the rebel said, “I am outraged by both these tortures, whether to sterilise my race or to prostitute it to mortals, and to mix the star that once fell from the red firmament, with vile and filthy dust, and you can tell God that Satan does not want to do either.”
“Take care, angry spirit, there are no more words that can save you anew, only the name of the Madonna was able to change your destiny, and that only once.
Are the Arcana not known to you? Science alone suffices to confirm to you that no humanity can live in incest, and that God has willed it that the one will redeem the other, and that the great will extend their bounty to the small.”
Bené Satan crossed his arms across his chest:
“Then this is our last meeting, Michael, speak my damnation.”
“You will be reunited, mind and soul, with your damned father on the Sun, and your offspring will be thrown to earth, they will even forget the name and will of Satan. As they have chosen the path of incest, they will know no love except between themselves, and they will seek out their own blood.”
“How marvellous, so the word of God follows the Word of Satan.”
Michael exorcised the blasphemy by the sign of the cross:
“Poor, pitiful, arrogant Satan, you speak like a man; have you lost all celestial knowledge? As soon as this world, lost through your sin, rejects your offspring thrown on the earthly shores, they will find misfortune without respite. Scattered among a hostile human race, in a hundred years no brother will be able to find his sister: and your daughters will be trampled by the brutes, and your sons will forget themselves in red and heavy embraces; mixing your blood with earthly blood, it will be salvation… What should I say to God?”
“You can tell God that Satan does not want this.”
Bené Satan descended to the foot of the mountain, all his children were anxious, waiting, knowing very well that he brought an inescapable verdict, the terrible word he had demanded from the skies. He took the hands of the virgins.
“Oh my sons! Here are your wives.”
And he put them in the hands of their brothers.
“Oh my daughters” Here are your husbands.”
And, sacrilegiously, he blessed the sin that would conserve his race.
VI
Never had flesh burned so hot since the night of Ereck, when the two hundred celestials fell into mortal ecstasy that incestuous midnight.
The rustling of bodies sounded like wheat bending in the wind, and the groans of love emerging from their chests drowned out the clamour of the sea.
Sinister lights illuminated the seas, dancing on the edges of the rocks; then the flames appeared and the ground split open under the guilty palpitations.
So Satan, for one last time, blessed the mad incest. Tirelessly, furiously, conserving his race; this world cracked, scattering islands, demons, and humans, into the air.
In the ether, where the giant stars circle, there is a small world – insubordinate to the sun – a small, vagrant world.
The Ancients of days and the Watchers know the sin of the planets.
The Sun is the heart of Satan that burns without reviving his wife, Sina, frozen in punishment, but the smallest world committed the greatest sin: incest!
Here it is!
And since that time, with unearthly equality, love has mixed the poet with the chisel and the queen with the valet. The Oelohites, glorious sons of Satan, did not know how to close their hearts; hungry for love, thirsty for tenderness they flocked to the vulgar ones, and from puberty to the pale moment when death came to deliver them, the greatest hearts were taken into the coarsest hands, like fine birds in the hands of peasants.
Thus God wished the word of the elder insubordinate and arrogant one to follow the whole race: and Socrates, and Dürer and The Great Dante himself, damned to never receive sacrament, fornicated below them.
Bené Satan said to God: “I do not want this,” and his sons obeyed the will of a fool, his daughters the desires of a cad.
Lamentable sin, a more lamentable condemnation that imprisoned the great ones in the blackest of vessels, cloaked with indignity.
But there were Orphic deniers of base pleasures, who, fleeing from the Maenads, knew how to live for a name and die for a dream: Eurydice.
There are patient hearts that persist and search, conscious of their fate, the only joyful being.
Hail to those haughty ones who, disdainful, look differently upon the dancing below them.
Hail to the obstinate ones who do not drink to intoxication except from cups stamped with the insignia of their rank.
Hail to the watchers, who know the arcana and respect the paths of ideals; these are the Oelohites, the daimons of light, who, for God’s work, militant and faithful, prefer to be sterile rather than fertilized by evil.
Kneel on the earth before the decrees of the Most-High, and Glory to the aspirants of sublime incest!
Comments