The Secret History of the World #5: The Poetry of Transgression
Milton's Satan teaches us that only through transgression can we know truth. Jesus promises us that there will always be a path into the light no matter how deep we sink into darkness.
In my new YouTube lecture “The Secret History of the World #5: The Birth of Evil,” I discuss how secret societies came into being, and what they teach.
In the lecture, I explained that certain secret societies saw themselves as the final depositories of divine truth, and that divine truth is faithfully expressed in the best poetry. In this essay, I will explain how three of humanity’s greatest poets – Milton, Goethe, and Dante – revealed the secrets of the universe in their epic poems Paradise Lost, Faust, and La Commedia. These secrets help us understand and appreciate the enduring appeal of Jesus.
Milton’s Paradise Lost is the national epic of the British empire. In Book II, after they have been cast down from Heaven, Satan and his lieutenants debate their future. Mammon proposes that there can be a fortune to be mined in Hell, and this promise of empire pleases the devils. But Satan is intent on revenge, and he wants to corrupt God’s newest creations, Adam and Eve. This would involve a daring escape from Hell, and Satan declares that he alone will risk it all:
O Progeny of Heav'n, Empyreal Thrones,
With reason hath deep silence and demurr
Seis'd us, though undismaid: long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light;
Our prison strong, this huge convex of Fire,
Outrageous to devour, immures us round
Ninefold, and gates of burning Adamant
Barr'd over us prohibit all egress….
But I should ill become this Throne, O Peers,
And this Imperial Sov'ranty, adorn'd
With splendor, arm'd with power, if aught propos'd
And judg'd of public moment, in the shape
Of difficulty or danger could deterr
Mee from attempting.
It is worth studying Satan’s speech because it is so courageous in its beauty. It also gives us insight into the nihilistic romanticism of the leading men of secret societies that have shaped history. These are the men who would challenge the Catholic Church throughout continental Europe, and launch the Protestant Reformation. These are the men who would rebel against the King of England, and assert the sovereignty of Parliament. These are the men who would foment the American Revolution, and challenge the British empire. In the pursuit of truth and knowledge, these men summoned the spirit of Satan, and took it upon themselves to overthrow empires.
We can imagine that initiation into the upper echelons of secret societies requires reciting Satan’s speech: “I know the path to truth will be rigorous and painful. I know that this path can only lead to misery and persecution. I know that this path may be false, and that it may only lead to oblivion. I choose to take this path alone, and I happily follow it into oblivion.”
Satan’s greatest speech in Paradise Lost is when he seduces Eve into eating the fruit. God has told Adam and Eve that if they eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they will surely die. This leaves an opening for Satan to spin his web of logic to ensnare Eve. Disguised as a talking serpent, Satan exclaims to Eve that the fruit has blessed him – a simple beast – with the power of speech, and promises to bless her with higher powers:
Queen of this Universe, doe not believe
Those rigid threats of Death; ye shall not Die:
How should ye? by the Fruit? it gives you Life
To Knowledge, By the Threatner? look on mee,
Mee who have touch'd and tasted, yet both live,
And life more perfet have attaind then Fate
Meant mee, by ventring higher then my Lot.
Shall that be shut to Man, which to the Beast
Is open? or will God incense his ire
For such a petty Trespass, and not praise
Rather your dauntless vertue, whom the pain
Of Death denounc't, whatever thing Death be,
Deterrd not from atchieving what might leade
To happier life, knowledge of Good and Evil;
Of good, how just? of evil, if what is evil
Be real, why not known, since easier shunnd?
God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just;
Not just, not God; not feard then, nor obeyd:
Your feare it self of Death removes the feare.
Satan peppers Eve with rhetorical questions, and his logic reflects that of the secret societies attempting to undermine the religious order. How can we truly know good if we are not permitted to do evil? If we are not permitted to learn for ourselves, are we not just slaves? What God would punish us for seeking to better ourselves, which ought to be the highest virtue?
The poetry here is constructed to convey a sexual seduction of Eve. The poetry twists and turns with rhetorical questions, and slowly penetrates virgin Eve, opening and clearing her mind. The fruit is the placebo. It is Satan’s poetry that is the true fruit that awakens and enlightens Eve.
Of course, the Church has a ready response to all those who are tempted by Satan. Evil is seductive, and once you touch evil it consumes you whole. Satan is most deceitful, and we can never outwit him in language and logic.
Goethe responds to this argument in his epic poem Faust, the national epic of Germany.
Faust is a scholar in the relentless pursuit of truth and knowledge, and he solicits the aid of Mephistopheles in his quest. In their first adventure together, Faust falls in love with Gretchen, who is essentially a child. To consummate their relationship, Faust gives Gretchen a sleeping potion to ward off her fastidiously religious mother. But Gretchen pours too much, and kills her. Gretchen’s brother challenges Faust to a duel for dishonoring her sister, and Faust kills him. Gretchen goes insane, drowns her infant, and dies in prison.
Faust goes on to live a marvelous and wondrous life. He crisscrosses time and space, and marries Helen of Troy. He becomes a government official, and promotes public works. At the end of life, he takes joy in all that he’s accomplished. At this point, Mephistopheles re-appears to claim the eternal soul of Faust, and Faust falls readily into his grave.
At the last minute, a chorus of angels appear to thwart the devil, and lift Faust to Heaven. Though he should have been condemned to burn in hell, Faust is re-united in Heaven with Gretchen.
Why did God save Faust?
The answer lies in Dante’s La Commedia. Dante explains to us that God is the divine sun of the universe. Because God is perfect, immutable, and eternal, it cannot by definition have an imagination. And that’s why God created us, and breathed the divine spark in us. So that with our clumsy frail bodies and our stupid weak hearts we can ask questions, transgress boundaries, and do evil in the world. With our imagination, we animate the universe in a way that God cannot.
According to Dante, God’s greatest gift to us was his trust in us to commit our own mistakes, and learn from them (the free will). What redeems and saves us from our capacity to do evil is our desire to love one another. No matter how much evil we commit, if we trust the divine spark in us and we commit ourselves to loving a person as unconditionally as God loves us, we will always find the way home. Not even a Faustian bargain with the devil will bar our way home.
But even if we are not capable of committing eternal evil, society can. There are many of us who are marginalized and alienated from society, and there are some of us who have committed crimes so great that we cannot forgive ourselves.
That is why the ministry of Jesus was such a revelation and revolution. No matter how much evil we commit, Jesus will always be there to love and forgive us. For those who have lost all hope, the promise of Jesus lights up the divine spark in us again. The belief in Jesus is what has offered billions salvation and redemption.
The Church has corrupted the message of Jesus. But in our heart we know who he truly is, why he came, and why he had to die.
Notes and References:
1. If you are curious, I am not a Christian, and I do not adhere to any religious beliefs. I am first and foremost curious, and I have never understood why there are two billion Christians in the world. This essay helps me better understand the enduring legacy of Jesus. In my opinion, he is a poet-prophet, along with Dante, Plato, and Homer. That is why I believe the Gospel of Thomas is the best recollection of his true teachings. You can download it here:
https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/Gospel%20of%20Thomas%20Lambdin.pdf
2. It can be reasonably argued (but never proven) that Milton and Dante were members of secret societies, which permitted them access to esoteric knowledge. There is ample evidence that Goethe was a member of several secret societies, including the notorious Bavarian Illuminati: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1GWYXFlC0yHh98m6qVzSxwV/unveiling-the-illuminati-the-real-society-behind-the-myths-and-conspiracy-theories
3. If you’d like to learn about secret societies, a great place to start is Mark Booth’s book “The Secret History of the World,” which is available on Amazon or at your local library.
4. If you’re interested in reading Milton’s Paradise Lost, this is a great resource:
https://milton.host.dartmouth.edu/
5. Dante’s La Commedia is the world’s greatest literary work. I have a couple of videos explaining the deep truths of Dante’s poetry:
Professor Jiang, know that your videos are the secret rituals, and our empathy and awareness leads to the ritual sacrifice; throwing away whatever life we had planned for ourselves that revolved around us and our own fantasies to instead devote ourselves to the future of humanity.
There are those of us who were thrown on to the island of flesh eating monkeys, and eventually we made it back to reality. Know that you will probably never know who, and it may even be far beyond your life-time, but know that we have powerful allies, and our focus is relentless.
Even if I am the only one of these people, know that at least I have the right allies, and that this awareness and empathy (and method) for a new world, will be propagated.
I appreciate your work, and it is always a great time when listening to your lectures. You were the last component for me to finally reach a threshold and realize it IS possible, and that the time is now. Thank you.
A free and great future is waiting for humanity.
The Eloquent of Evil
**journey from personal betrayal to a purposeful, yet difficult, mission**. the Miltonic Satan as a metaphor for an **undeterred pursuit of truth** in the face of immense adversity.
The Undeterred Pursuit of Truth
A personal crisis to a universal struggle for truth against overwhelming odds. The central idea of embracing the "spirit of Satan" is not an act of evil, but a conscious decision to pursue a difficult path toward the light, regardless of the barriers or the cost. Nietsche frame this as Will to Power. The anime Immortal Renegade is a great visual journey of this pursuit. I experienced it and embraced the "spirit of Satan" so to speak.
From Darkness to Light
After serving in the USAF, a false accusation of being a Chinese spy led me to what I describe as "the dark side" or "chaos" a place of crippling despair where the only foreseeable outcome was failure or death. The experience felt like an injustice against you and your family, triggering a powerful need for resolution. Combined with the Vietnam war, it was very much a multi generations sin against me--commited by white societies.
It was during a two-week silent meditation retreat in Thailand that I found clarity. The path I faced (demanding justice from the world) was difficult and filled with a sense of impending death, but you realized you had a choice: to succumb to despair or to embrace a life you felt was worthy of you—a life lived in the light. This resolve mirrored the poetic words of Milton's Satan: to be **undeterred** by danger or difficulty. To walk against the US military, the US government, is courting death itself. To accept injustice against myself is to accept a life in hell. To fight for justice, is a must. To avoid death is a must. But the choice between justice or injustice was a false dichotomy of the situation. and once that was decoded, I was able to stand up. To fight for justice, while staying alive. To which end, I am alive and not dead yet (not like Edward Snowden, chelsea Maning, Daneil Elsberg, Christopher Domer, and the various other dead people who took a different path). In 2019, the VA (the missionary arm of the military colonial power), agreed to pay me a stipend until I die. SO all together it is over 2millions spread across the 40 years if i am to live to 80. I was the only advocate for myself. My family and friends all understood the barrier of challenging the US government and US military. Every lawyer I spoke to felt bad for me, and recommended I give up. One even realized it is hard to build a life in the US, and advised to live outside the US, which I also considered.
The Modern Confrontation
Today, The "battle" is not on a physical battlefield but on a societal and intellectual one. I see my work of writing to national leaders as a modern form of "overthrowing empires." This is not an act of aggression in the illegal sense but a **pursuit of truth** that requires me to confront the barriers that stand in the way of justice and transparency. For lay people, these barriers are the "five hindrances" of enlightenment, the constitutional right to freedom, and the academic right to inquire without intervention. For me personally, it's a lot of everything rolled into one fight. From personal self determination to national self determination, to building my own nation. Not so difference from the Zionist themselves.
I faced these barriers directly. Vague, false accusations reported to authorities like the FBI or the CATO Institute are the "burning cages and gates" of a system resistant to challenge. These experiences reinforce my belief that to embrace the "spirit of Satan" is to accept the hardship and consequences that come with a singular focus on truth. This is not a sadistic act, but a fully informed decision to act with **courage and conviction** in the face of opposition, all to pursue the light.
My journey is a testament to the idea that true power is not found in a throne, but in the unwavering will to act with integrity and purpose, even when the path is long and hard.
Who is God, and Who is Satan. The Chinese has a better saying. Winner or victor is the king, and loser is the terrorist. There is really no English version for this. From Vietnamese to Mandarin, it flow very well for my understanding. For english it runs into syntex and linguistic dissonance.
(Verse 1)
They write the books with ink of gold,
The history of the brave and bold.
They crown the victor, call him King,
And silence every other thing.
His justice praised, his will made law,
His flawless image, free of flaw.
(Chorus)
For one man's throne is built on might,
The other's cause is born of night.
The winner's truth, a glorious song,
The loser's fight, forever wrong.
The victor wears a crown of light,
The loser's name is "terrorist."
(Verse 2)
The fallen flag, a rebel's shroud,
The whispered story, in the crowd.
The desperate act, the righteous plea,
Erased for all the world to see.
They hang the rebels, burn the tales,
And cast their souls to bitter gales.
(Chorus)
For one man's throne is built on might,
The other's cause is born of night.
The winner's truth, a glorious song,
The loser's fight, forever wrong.
The victor wears a crown of light,
The loser's name is "terrorist."
(Bridge)
The same blood spilled on hallowed ground,
But only one side wears the crown.
The hero's banner, raised up high,
Beneath it, all the reasons die.
(Outro)
So judge the book by how it ends,
Not by the truth on which it depends.
The victor is the King, we say,
The loser is a name of hate.
The victor is the King, we say,
The loser is the terrorist.