Tricked into this display, the false prophets did everything they could to put on a good sound and light show to entertain the people. Call as they did to their so-called god, yet there was no answer. Now this should not surprise anyone, not even the false prophets themselves. If they had any spiritual experience whatsoever they would have known full well that the gods never spoke aloud from the heavens. On the contrary the gods only spoke through human beings or animals. The life forms served as channels or conduits for the god spirit to speak through. Thus for them to allegedly expect a voice from heaven is rather an odd expectation.

This should make a knowledgeable reader very suspicious. For if the false prophets themselves knew that gods did not speak from heaven, why then would they be calling on one to speak aloud. Is it possible that these false prophets had a trick up their sleeves and that maybe they had planned to artificially produce a voice in order to fool and impress the public? Granted, we cannot prove that this was the intent of these false prophets. However we do know that in later years the temples of the Greek and later Roman gods all had priests that would create sound and light shows for their patrons, going so far as to clandestinely put a priest inside an idol, making it appear as if the idol itself was talking. I do not believe that this practice originated with the Greeks; it could have existed centuries before in Persia, Babylon, Assyria and yes, maybe even ancient Israel, amongst those who worshiped in these bizarre and strange fashions.

Remember this great rule, when one is dealing with the ways of the religious, they will usually go to extreme measures to validate their beliefs and to impose said beliefs on others. We have a lot to be thankful for in that the Ways of Torah are radically different, prohibiting all such false shows.

"And it came to pass at noon that Eliyahu mocked them, and said: 'Cry aloud; for he is a god; either he is talking to someone, or he has gone to the bathroom, or he is on vacation, or maybe he is asleep and needs to wake up." (1 Melakhim 18:27).

No one today could ever accuse Eliyahu of being politically correct or for showing tolerance to the beliefs of others. Eliyahu is well aware of the emasculation of the false prophets and take full advantage of the opportunity to mock and profane their religious beliefs. Notice, Eliyahu does not insult or attack the idolatrous priests or the false prophets, no; Eliyahu goes right to the top and insults the very god itself. His tone is most mocking.

Applying every known anthropomorphism, Eliyahu asks all kinds of mocking questions why their false god does not put on a sound and light show for the public. Is the god otherwise occupied, is it going to the bathroom or is it on vacation or whatever? This is how Eliyahu mocked them. Now, remember this, in ancient days, the concept of a deity was not like it is today. Today's understanding of an all-powerful, omnipresent deity comes from Torah, the same tradition that these false prophets rejected. Their concept of a god was similar to what we find in later Greek, Roman or even Norse mythology.

These traditions tell stories about their gods, making them sound quiet human. These gods get angry, aroused and experience all types of human emotions and face all types of human experiences, all the while that they are supposedly immortal super-beings. Ancient Israeli idolatry was no different from these other ancient belief systems. For them to believe that their god was going to the bathroom or possibly even on vacation was not something out of the realm of possibility.

Eliyahu took advantage of this primitive form of religious concept and exploited it to the max. Eliyahu knew full well that Israeli souls, however steeped in idolatry were still seekers after truth. He knew that this display would soften even the hardest of hearts and crack open even the hardest of heads. Eliyahu's calculated plan was working perfectly.

"And they cried aloud and cut themselves according to their rituals with swords and lances, till the blood gushed out upon them." (1 Melakhim 18:28).

In ancient times, the worship of earth spirits and demons was accompanied by the offering of human blood. We see these same traditions even today in demon oriented spiritual ceremonies such as Santeria, Voodoo and Wicca. The non-human nature spirits or demon entities live off of life-force energy, which the Torah calls Nefesh. Lev. 17:11 clearly states that the Nefesh is in the blood. Therefore whether it is modern priests of Santeria or ancient priests of Baal, the method of bribing them to do one's bidding has always been the same.

Remember this, these demonic and/or nature spirits have absolutely no interest in the affairs of human beings. In their eyes, human beings are nothing more than cattle. In their eyes we are good to be "milked" and that is about it. Nonetheless, these spirits do have the ability to manipulate certain forces and thus can use this power to favor a human being if they so chose to do so. Mind you, this power of theirs is nothing divine; any more than human intelligence makes us divine over other animal species.

These entities are what modern science might call "shadow" entities in that they are non-carbon based life forms. By modern standards they might not be considered a life-form at all. Nonetheless, they are alive, sentient beings. They just exist under those laws of physics and nature that apply to them, just as ours apply to us. They inhabit our Earth just as we do, but with our limited outlook and narrow definition of life and intelligence, we fail to even recognize their presence. Nonetheless, they have inhabited the Earth for as long as we have and in spite of our being mostly oblivious to them, they in turn have not been so oblivious to us.

Throughout all recorded human history, in every civilization worldwide, there have been those who have discovered their existence and then seek ways to exploit these entities for one's own personal gain. Needless to say, these intelligent entities do not allow themselves to be used by others unless, of course, they receive something back in return. The history of human contact with these entities clearly shows that they live off of life-force energy and that this is what they seek most from human contacts. To this day, occultic practices often contain the shedding of blood. Most today suffice with animal sacrifice; however modern day human sacrifice, in the forms of ritual murder, is not unknown. As much as we believe ourselves to have evolved beyond the primitive idolatries of the past, nothing could be further from the truth.

The way these entities are contacted is to call upon them by a wide variety of names. Yet, mere verbal messages rarely receive a response. Usually when the human being offers the entity a rich amount of food, be it in the form of offerings of anything from the natural world, fruits, flowers and especially blood, the entity will then respond and give back a token sometimes responding to the human's petty request. This type of behavior is referred to in Torah as "strange" and "foreign" activity, thus the Hebrew term Avodah Zara. We translate this into English as idolatry. Due to the dangerous nature of interacting with these entities Torah has prohibited such contact entirely. Violations of these laws have clearly shown the dangers involved with such contact. Knowing these dangers well, and knowing that the Israeli public at the time did not, Eliyahu had to take matters into his own hands to safeguard and protect the public.

The timing here is precise. Eliyahu gave the false priests practically the entire day to perform their ceremonies and to make their bribes. Eliyahu, like the public, knew that certain entities normally respond in the morning hours and others in the afternoon. Eliyahu specifically waited to make a statement to the people that no entity associated with any hour is going to make an appearance that day.

Now came the hour for the traditional afternoon offering, known in Torah as the Minha. This time is approximately three and a half hours before sunset, although some suggest that the best hour of Minha is right before sundown. Judging from the events in the story, it appears that Eliyahu was taking advantage of the earlier Minha time so that the slaughter afterwards could still take place by day. In those days, it would have been hard for them to have acted the way they did in the dark. Being that the text makes no mention of it being dark, we can safely assume that the entire story unfolded in the daytime hours. This then proves that the Minha time spoken of here was later in the afternoon, well before the dark of evening.

Our Sages have taught us, judging from this occasion, that Minha time is most auspicious for the answering of prayer. Therefore, the afternoon Minha prayer is thought to be most powerful. Whenever one wishes to call down judgment from Heaven and supplicate that the natural order of things impose itself on a system or circumstance out of sync with the rest of the natural world, Minha is the auspicious time to make such supplications. According to the Kabbalah, Minha time is the time of the influence of the Sefirat Gevurah, the force of Divine severity and judgment.

Even today, calling upon Heaven at Minha time to reign down wrath on evil may very well bring down fires from Heaven just as it occurred in Eliyahu's day. However, modern fire from Heaven will not be so physical and overt. Modern spiritual fire still strikes and burns the most vulnerable of places; this being the unconscious mind of human beings. This is the same mental place where all non-human entities interact with our species, be they angels, demons or nature spirits. This is why one trained in the spiritual arts is taught to enter into a meditative state of altered consciousness in order to become aware of the presence of these others. More than this does not have to be elaborated here.

To be continued...