Paradise : Canto XXI : The Angels Descending the Heavenly Ladder by Gustav Dore

"We stand together in the wildest places of the earth and form a forest of hands against the black sky, stretching up, reaching for what is ours to take yet never to attain. Our bodies begin to pulsate to a subliminal rhythm and we feel the imminence of contained energy, soon to be released. We dilate our throats to the air and resonate the ancient names. We convoke the Nephilim, and they come to us, strangers with the eyes of men."
- Storm Constantine

Ancient apocrypal books tell the story: 200 rebel angels fall in love with the beautiful women of Earth, and descend to marry with them. They teach the humans forbidden things: war, magic, astrology, the beautification of the human body. Together they produce a race of giants, terrible beings which fight and rage and kill. When God notices what has been done, he punishes them - the angels with eternal entombment, the giants with battles to the death, and the humans with the Flood.

Tales of angelic beings bringing vast knowledge to humanity can be found across ancient mythologies of the Middle East, from the Yezidis' powerful Peacock Angel, Malak Tawus, to the healing vulture known as the Simurgh. Some writers, like Zecharia Sitchin, have argued that these beings - known as the Nephilim ("fallen ones") to the Hebrews; the Bene ah Elohim ("sons of God") to early Christians; Watchers; Anakim to the Sumerians and Babylonians; and Grigori to the Greeks - were emissaries from outer space. Others, Andrew Collins most notably among them, believe they were a race of advanced (and rather tall) humans who practiced bird shamanism and, through the transmission of their knowledge, paved the way for accelerated civilizations like Sumer and massive works of science and art like the Sphinx.

Whatever their source, and no matter how forbidden their stories, the Watchers have served as inspiration to countless writers, artists, theologians and mythologists. If nothing else, then from their example we can learn the power of knowledge - and the power of love.