Azrael The Archangel of Death

conceptual art by Donna Mae

Azrael the Archangel of Death – also known as ‘the angel of retribution’ – is Hebrew but originates from sects of Islam and Sikhism. It is an English form of the Arabic name ʿIzrāʾīl (عزرائيل) or Azra'eil (عزرایل), meaning literally means’ ‘Whom God Helps’, in an adapted form of Hebrew. The Qur'an never uses this name, rather referring to Malak al-Maut (which translates directly as angel of death). Also spelt Izrail, Azriel, Azrail, Azryel, Ozryel, or Azraa-eel, the spelling being the most often used Azrael.

Azrael and The Third Heaven

Islamic tradition places Azrael, the angel of death, in the Third Heaven called Marum. According to Shi'ite sources, a hadith from Imam Ali mentions the name of the seven heavens as:

Rafi' 

Qaydum

Marum

Arfalun

Hay'oun

Arous

Ajma'

‘The Shi’ites tell of seven heavens. Marum is the name of the third Heaven. Marum is the name of the third heaven, where the Archangel Azrael resided.’ 

The Third Heaven in the Book of Enoch

In the Second Book of Enoch, Third Heaven is described as a location "between corruptibility and incorruptibility" containing the Tree of Life, "whereon the Lord rests, when he goes up into paradise." (chapter 8) Two springs in the Third Heaven, one of milk and the other of honey, along with two others of wine and oil, flow down into the Garden of Eden. (verse 6) 

In contrast with the common concept of Paradise, the Second Book of Enoch also describes a Third Heaven, "a very terrible place" with "all manner of tortures" in which merciless angels torment "those who dishonour God, who on earth practice sin against nature," including sodomites, sorcerers, enchanters, witches, the proud, thieves, liars and those guilty of various other transgressions. (chapter 10)

Art work courtesy of Pete Mohr Bacher

Azrael and the Apocalypse

Four allusions to the Apocalypse of Moses occur in close proximity in 2 Corinthians. The allusions are (i) "Satan as an angel of light", (ii) the distinction of Satan and the serpent as two beings, (iii) "Third Heaven" (iv) “Paradise”.

Arabic Origins

In 22 some cultures and sects, Azrael, also pronounced as , is the name referring to the Angel of Death by some Arabic speakers. The name is mentioned in a few Muslim books but is argued by some Muslims as having no basis of reference.

Wikipedia tells us:

'Along with Jibrīl, Mīkhā'īl, Isrāfīl and other angels, the Angel of Death is believed by Muslims to be one of the archangels. Several Muslim traditions recount meetings between the Angel of Death and the prophets, the most famous being a conversation between the Angel of Death and Moses. He watches over the dying, separates the soul from the body, and receives the spirits of the dead in Muslim belief. Rather than merely representing death personified, the Angel of Death is usually described in Islamic sources as subordinate to the will of God "with the most profound reverence.” However, there is no reference within the Quran or any Islamic teachings giving the angel of death the name of Azrael. 

Riffian (Berber) men of Morocco had the custom of shaving the head but leaving a single lock of hair on either the crown, left, or right side of the head, so that the angel Azrael is able "...to pull them up to heaven on the Last Day." '

The Viking Confederation 1923-1928

The little known Viking Confederation (called Wiking Bund) was established on 2 May 1923 by members of the banned Consul organization (OC) an ultra-nationalist force operating in Germany in 1921 and 1922 as a military association. 

The OC

The OC was created in 1921 by Captain Hermann Ehrhardt and some of his followers in the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt. Hermann Ehrhardt went into hiding in Bavaria following the forced disbandment of Freikorps organizations after the Kapp Putsch of 1920. His fighters had formed the Association of Former Ehrhardt Officers using Freikorps contacts to recruit members in dozens of cities and small towns all over Germany eventually encompassing large swaths of the nation. After the Ehrhardt Brigade's failed participation in the Kapp Putsch in Berlin in 1921, Ehrhardt fled to Sweden. Ehrhardt returned to Bavaria where his fighters formed the Organization of Former Ehrhardt Officers which later became the Organisation Konsul in 1921.

The OK was an ultranationalist death squad which operated during 1921 and 1922 as a secret paramilitary organisation responsible for the assassination of the Weimar Republic's Minister of Finance Matthias Erzberger (whose crime was signing the armistice) and Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau. The OK was responsible for at least 354 murders. Ehrhardt used Freikorps contacts to recruit members in dozens of cities and small towns all over Germany. 

"Spiritual aims:The cultivation and dissemination of nationalist thinking; warfare against all anti-nationalists and internationalists; warfare against Jewry, Social Democracy and Leftist-radicalism; fomentation of internal unrest in order to attain the overthrow of the anti-nationalist Weimar constitution. Material aims:The organization of determined, nationalist-minded men . . . local shock troops for breaking up meetings of an anti-nationalist nature; maintenance of arms and the preservation of military ability; the education of youth in the use of arms.Notice:Only those men who have determination, who obey unconditionally and who are without scruples . . . will be accepted. . . . The organization is a secret organization."

The Wiking Bund comes into being

After Rathenau's murder the OK became the Viking Bund which some have described as the youth movement of the OK. While it eventually became related to the SA, in 1923 Hermann Goring wrote that the Viking Bund had declared war against the SA and the Nazi party. While still a teenager Horst Wessel, the famous Nazi hero and martyr, became a member of the Viking Bund. He found it adventuresome stirring up putsches and playing soldier, but moved on to the SA because it had a more political ideology.

The federal government contributed to the preparations for the overthrow of the Weimar government and operating an intensive military training. The young members were known as Jung Wiking, or ‘Young Vikings’.

Young Vikings were in league with leaders of other organizations, such as the Steel Helmets (Stahlhelm) or the Were Wolf (Weir Wolf) , trying to keep these anarchistic reactionary organizations active. For example, a member of the Viking Confederation ,the later Nazi Reich Health Leader Leonardo Conti, was leader of the antisemitic Kampfbund founded in 1918 German national union.

The stated aim of the Viking Confederation was the establishment of a military dictatorship and the revision of the Versailles Treaty - by military means if necessary. Targeted provocation was used to incite workers to act, part of the preparations for a coup based on sowing and building on discontent. When the coup preparations were known to the federal government in 1926 the Viking Confederation was subsequently banned in Prussia and other countries.

After the dissolution of the federal end of April 1928, many members continued their activities in related organizations such as the Nazi paramilitary SA, the Sturmabteilung, the organisation of Brownshirts who played a prominent part in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power through the demonstration of force and intimidation on the streets of most German cities, under the leadership of Ernst Röhm.

Ohr Ein Sof - The Infinite Light

The Ohr Ein Sof - The Infinite Light

Cold night in the desert by KPEKEP on deviant art

The Ein Sof (literally: "Without End"/Limitless/Infinite) is the Kabbalistic term for ‘the Divine essence’. As well as the 10 "lights" of God encapsulated in the Sephirot, Kabbalah describes a more primordial light that shines from the Ein Sof (Infinite) itself. This light, the origin of all Creation, and all lower lights, is called the "Ohr Ein Sof" ("The light of the Infinite", or alternatively, itself "The Infinite Light”).

Ohr ("Light" Ohros/Ohrot "Lights") stems from the "Ma'ohr" ("Luminary"), the source of the light – an analogy of physical light used to describe metaphysical Divine emanations.

Supernova by KPEKEP on deviant art

Kabbalah

For those (like myself) new to the esoteric doctrine, the Kabbalah is the ‘hidden church of Israel’, an inward spiritual and mystical church claiming access to ‘light of a secret traditional knowledge preserved among the chosen people’. Derived from Hebrew scripture of old, becoming the written secrets sourced from oral tradition. Mystics are those who sense the reality of the scriptures and the dimensions they represent, while unable to make manifest through word or sign the nature of this ‘hidden reality’.

The metaphorical description of spiritual Divine creative-flow, using the term for physical "light" perceived with the eye, arises from analogous similarities. These include the intangible physicality of light, the delight it inspires and the illumination it gives, its apparently immediate transmission and constant connection with its source. 

Light can be veiled ("Tzimtzum" 'constrictions' in Kabbalah) and reflected ("an ascending light from the Creations" in Kabbalah). White light divides into 7 colours, yet this plurality unites from one source. Divine light divides into the 7 emotional Sephirot, but there is no plurality in the Divine essence. The term Ohr in Kabbalah is contrasted with Ma'ohr, the "luminary", and Kli, the spiritual "vessel" for the light.

Kabbalah describes 10 Sephirot (The 10 Divine emanations or attributes), that reveal the unknowable Godhead to the creations and channel the creative life-force to all levels of existence. However, these 10 attributes of God do not represent the Divine essence. The Kabbalists differentiated between the manifestations of God (forms of "light"), and their origin in the Divine essence (the “Luminary”).

Command center by KPEKEP on deviant art

The Paladin Group

The Paladin Group was a far-right organization founded in 1970 in Spain by former SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny: security consultancy group described as a "small international squad of commandos" - the military arm of the anti-Communist struggle during the Cold War. Ostensibly a legitimate security consultancy, the group's real purpose was to recruit and operate mercenaries for right-wing regimes worldwide as well as serve the role of political subversion in Europe.

The Nouvel Observateur magazine, of 23 September 1974, qualifies the group as a "strange temporary work agency of mercenaries" (étrange agence d’interim-barbouzes). 

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Background

Created in 1970 in the Albufereta neighborhood of Alicante, Spain, by former SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny and former US Colonel James Sanders. A former special operationsofficer, Skorzeny had become a member of the ODESSA network after the war, helping to smuggle Nazi war criminals out of Allied Europe to Spain, South America and other friendly destinations to avoid prosecution for war crimes. Skorzeny himself resided after the war in Spain, protected by Franco. Skorzeny envisioned the Paladin Group as 

"an international directorship of strategic assault personnel [that would] straddle the watershed between paramilitary operations carried out by troops in uniforms and the political warfare which is conducted by civilian agents".

In addition to recruiting many former SS members, the Group also recruited from the ranks of various right-wing and nationalist organizations, including the French Nationalist OAS, the SAC, and from military units such as the ‘Légion étrangère’. 

The hands-on manager of the Group was Dr. Gerhard Hartmut von Schubert, formerly of Joseph Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry, who had trained security personnel in Argentina and Egypt after the war. Under his guidance, Paladin provided support to the PFLP - EO led by Wadie Haddad. The Group's other clients included the South African Bureau of State Security and Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi. They also worked for the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 and the Spanish Dirección General de Seguridad, who recruited some Paladin operatives to wage clandestine war against Basque separatists. The Group is also reputed to have provided personnel for José López Rega's notorious Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance death squad.

The Paladin Group was also allegedly allied with a number of other right-wing governments, including Salazar’s Portugal, and some of the Italian neo-fascists involved in the strategy of tension attacks of the 1970s and 80s. The Paladin Group also held offices in Zurich, Switzerland.

The Soviet news agency TASS alleged that Paladin was involved in training US Green Berets for Vietnam missions during the 1960s, but this is considered unlikely, since Skorzeny's methods were considered somewhat antiquated, and he resented the USA for its role in destroying Nazi Germany.

Von Schubert became the head of the Paladin Group after Otto Skorzeny’s death in 1975.

Otto Skorzeny - the most dangerous man in Europe

A former special operations officer of the SS, Skorzeny is described as "the Bond villain that never was". The British called him the most dangerous man in Europe - the man with the fearsome scar earned as an accomplished master of fencing.

He was everything a true villain of the cold war era should be. Did I say Cold War era? Make it the James Bond era - a giant of a man at a staggering 6’4”, he was Hitler’s favourite commando who was then elite soldier, who after fighting on the Eastern Front, accompanied the rescue mission that freed the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from captivity before his countrymen could hand Il Duce over to the Allies. And he did all of this from a glider from a mountaintop. And that was just the start of an infamous if not outright illustrious career, all of whuch makes him read like a story that is simply larger than life - another example that real life outdoes fiction. 

Skorzeny was also the leader of Operation Greif of the Battle of the Bulge, in which German soldiers were to infiltrate through enemy lines, using their opponents' language, uniforms, and customs. At the end of the war, Skorzeny was involved with the Werwolf guerrilla movement that fought against the Allied occupation of Germany, the diehard SS man who became a legend.

"Any brief biography of SS Lieutenant Colonel Otto ‘Scarface’ Skorzeny reads like a character sketch from an Ian Fleming novel. A legend in his own lifetime, his exploits are spoken about in the kind of reverent tones normally reserved for the greatest of combat heroes, not an accused war criminal who escaped custody before he could fully face trial. But if Skorzeny’s resume reads a little too much like a far-fetched adventure story, it might be for good reason. If this real life Bond villain seems like he stepped from the pages of fiction, perhaps it’s because his legend is almost entirely that: fiction." (Author Stuart Neville)

Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R81453 / CC-BY-SA 3.0

The Dachau Military Tribunal acquitted Skorzeny after the war. He fled from his holding prison in 1948, first to France, and then to Spain. He later lived in Ireland.

Skorzeny had become a member of the ODESSA network after the war, helping to smuggle Nazi war criminals out of Allied Europe to Spain, South America and other friendly destinations to avoid prosecution for war crimes. Skorzeny himself resided after the war in Spain, protected by Franco.

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Links

http://operation-gladio.net

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paladin_Group