Saturday, December 11, 2004
TIME TO PUT THIS BLOG TO BED FOR THE WEEKEND.
Have a good one!
SATAN'S GROTTO
The Yorkshire Post carries a story of an alternative to Christmas festivities in which Santa is boiling in the witch's cauldron, and Father Christmas has a dark cloak, red face, and horns. Clergy from Baptist, Anglican and Roman Catholic churches are protesting.
Is this what we get when we give up "Merry Christmas" in favor of "Happy Holidays"?
Friday, December 10, 2004
ROME WILL ADDRESS THE OCCULT
According to a story from Reuters:
Rome Dec 10: Forget the new Exorcist film, the Vatican is offering the real thing.A Vatican University said yesterday it will hold a special “theoretical and practical” course for Roman Catholic priests on satanism and exorcism in response to what the church says is a worrying interest in the occult, particularly among the young. ...
The Regina Apostolorum, one of Rome’s most prestigious pontifical universities, said in a statement that such episodes should be seen as an “alarm bell to take seriously a problem which is still far too underestimated.”...
The two-month course, which begins in February and will be limited to priests and advanced students of theology, will include themes such as satanism, diabolic possession and “prayers of liberation”.
NEW DISCRIMINATION BAN IN FRANCE
A reader sent in this link to an Independent UK story:
France moved yesterday towards the creation of a new law which would make sexist or homophobic comments illegal and forbid job discrimination against homosexuals.
After a muddled late-night debate, in which a number of governing-party deputies made starkly homophobic declarations, the National Assembly gave a second reading to a bill that would create a "high authority" to fight discrimination of all kinds. The bill, which will become law if approved unchanged by the Senate, the upper house, later this month, extends existing penalties for racist abuse to all insults made for reasons of "gender or sexual orientation or handicap".
BACKTRACKING FOR A MOMENT...
I'd like to return to an article I linked yesterday..."The Meaning of the Rose Cross" by Christopher Bamford.
The article is 23 pages of print-out, so I'm assuming that most of you didn't read it. There were a couple of surprises in it that I wanted to share.
- In speaking of the grail as the recepticle of the blood of Christ also represented by the calyx of a rose, Bamford says that the grail is also "a unique, nourishing, healing light...the light of the Holy Spirit, the Dove whose coming Age Joachim of Fiore first foresaw." He goes on to describe this unfolding:
For the background against which these unfolding developments occurred--in a sense, the critical element--was the recovery of the vernacular of lived experience, the mother tongue, what Paracelsus and Van Helmont would call the language of true or certain knowledge.
It is difficult to trace a historical lineage for this movement to uncover the living experiential-perceptual language of the heart buried beneath the mud of dead tongues.
Am I being totally weird when I see "Latin" in this reference to "dead tongues" and this "recovery of the vernacular" a description of what has taken place in Catholicism? He goes on to relate this return to the vernacular to "Sufi (and Ismali), Cathar, Kabbalistic and esoteric Christian influences flowing together almost in equal measure," and adds that the vernacular was employed above all in "movements of lay spirituality such as the Beguines, Beghards, Lollards and Waldenses of the twelfth century." Heretics, all, most of them discussed in Msgr. Ronald A. Knox's _Enthusiasm_. He continues, "These 'little women' and 'little brothers without domicile,' practicing an apostolic life of poverty, prayer, preaching, heraling, and mendicancy--free spirits all, called together by the Holy Spirit rather than the Church of Rome..." That sounds so much like our lay ecclesial movements that it boggles the mind!
- There is an environmental aspect of Rosicrucianism. Bamford writes: "To conjoin the Rose and the Cross in nature as a whole, to heal and unite nature and human nature in its center or heart, is thus the Rosicrucian aim."
- In speaking of Guenon, "...Guenon points out, that the person who has attained the Rose Cross, having reached the center or heart of the world, is attached to no form, no name, not even his or her own...Here, then, is the meaning of the designation 'cosmopolitan' found throughout the literature--true Rosicrucians are at home everywhere and nowhere. It should be remarked, too, that this rule of nonattachment to phenomenal forms extends in principle also to beliefs." This matched a statement in Sufi literature as well, and seems to reflect the premise of the book _Paths to the Heart_, which, in light of this paper of Bamford's, I would now describe as Rosicrucian.
- In keeping with this concept of being at home in all faiths, Bamford writes: "Above all it was he [Plethon] who brought the symbol of 'fire' to the center of the tradition we have been following and pushed the idea of ecumenism to the bounds of heresy upholding the universality of all forms..." The Church since Vatican II has pushed ecumenism.
- There is an emphasis in Rosicrucianism on the lay priesthood. Bamford writes: "The image of the alchemist or Rosicrucian as a kind of universal lay priest celebrating a kind of healing Mass in which not just bread and wine were transformed but nature and human nature in its entirety derives from Paracelsus." Paracelsus was a famous occultist. We are preparing for priesthood of the laity as we run out of priests. We are running out of priests because our seminaries have been corrupted. Orthodox thinking young men are not welcome there.
So, to sum up, with Rosicrucianism we get
1. Abandonment of "dead tongues" and a return to vernacular.
2. A focus on environmentalism.
3. A calling together by the Holy Spirit as opposed to the heirarchy.
4. Ecumenism.
5. Lay priesthood.
As Bamford describes it, Rosicrucianism is what the Roman Catholic Church has been transformed into by the changes in the faith mandated by the Spirit of Vatican II.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
"GERMANY THE GREAT, AN ESOTERIC DREAM"
an interview at 30 Days.
Thirty Days interviews Giorgio Galli on the occult roots of Nazism, the relationship between Germany and England leading up to WWII. It even mentions (Sufi) dervishes in relation to Rosicrucian work. The Thule Society and the Vril were the two occult groups that affected Nazism. According to this interview, Thule is the mystical Atlantis. Naturally the Golden Dawn is discussed in the article. To my surprise, Julius Evola is not. Anyway, if you have an interest in the political ramifications of esotericism, this is worth a read.
COURT IS BACK IN SESSION
After 1600 years without, the Jewish Sanhedrin has been re-established in Israel. According to the article this was a requirement to be fulfilled before the Messiah comes.
Blogger credit to Novus Ordo Watch.
REDLE VS. MIESEL
Over at Daily Catholic, Kathy Willett Redle has taken on the challenge presented by Sandra Miesel's article in Crisis, a magazine whose tendency to ignore European news on this particular topic is going to have a confrontation with reality sooner rather than later. Conversely, perhaps it is a magazine with an agenda, in which case it becomes less than useless as a news source. Needless to say my sympathy resides with Redle.
Blogger credit to Novus Ordo Watch.
CATHOLIC KWANZAA ?
at the Archdiocese of Chicago website. I don't get it. What about Christmas?
Blogger credit to Novus Ordo Watch.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
THE RE-ENCHANTMENT OF THE WORLD
"Mythic Imagination and Modern Society", the Sixteenth International Transpersonal Conference. It was held June 13-15 in Palm Springs, CA. This link will take you to the list of presenters. Interesting list. It includes:
- Ram Dass - well known New Ager
- Stanislav Grof - well known New Ager
- Jean Houston - Labyrinths/Founded Jean Houston Mystery School
- Ervin Laszlo - Pres., Club of Budapest, former Bd. Member, Club of Rome
- Robert McDermott - Pres. (or former Pres.) Calif. Institute of Integral Studies, and Rudolf Steiner Apologist
- Peter Russell - Club of Budapest
- Huston Smith - Guenonian Traditionalism apologist/active in interreligious dialogue
- Charlene Spretnak - well known New Ager
- Bro. David Steindl-Rast - Member, Lindisfarne Associates - Catholic Monk involved in interreligious dialogue
- Richard Tarnas - author, _The Passion of the Western Mind_ - Member Club of Budapest
- David Ulansey - well known New Ager
The list of presenters is much longer. This was a large conference. Judging by the names, it must have attracted a lot of people.
WHAT DOES ANTHROPOSOPHY TEACH ?
For an overview of what is contained in Anthroposophy/Rosicrucianism, scan this index from the Vermont Sophia website. As you do, notice that down at the bottom is a link to the SEPHER YETZIRAH of the Golden Dawn. The Sepher Yetzirah is part of Jewish mystical literature.
My own personal choice for top of the heresies list is this Anthroposophical one. Suddenly in 1909 the contradiction in Scripture is resolved by this "messenger from heaven", Rudolf Steiner. Apparently God had a problem getting this one handled until Steiner came along.
Interesting that it is associated with the Grail. I wonder if Dan Brown believes in the Two Jesus Boys theory?
I am of the opinion that this main polemical question within Gospel Research has completely been resolved in the year 1909 by Rudolf Steiner, who indicated that at that time TWO boys named Jesus were born in Bethlehem.(f.9) The evangelists Matthew and Luke do not describe one and the same Nativity from two different points of view, but clearly two different Nativities altogether.
One of the births took place before Herod's death, while the other one occurred later. All apparent contradictions in the two Nativities disappear, if we recognize this discovery by Rudolf Steiner to the full. One thousand nine hundred and nine years after the birth of Christ, Rudolf Steiner revealed the true history of this Nativity and made it accessible to human understanding. This is, considered historically, the first spiritual gift from Christ who at that time became active in the etheric realm. It is no coincidence that this revelation occurred in that particular geo" graphical area, namely Basle (Switzerland), which was also the theater for the Grail events in the ninth century. (F.10)
A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF ANTHROPOSOPHY
including this statement:
When employing the anthroposophical technique, Steiner was able to find deceased souls and read the Akasha Record.
CASHLESS ECONOMY
According to PRNewswire we are becoming a cashless economy. Last year electronic transactions outpaced cash transactions for the first time.
GREGORY BECOMES ARCHBISHOP OF ATLANTA
Spirit Daily links this story at AccessNorthGeorgia.com:
Bishop Wilton D. Gregory has been appointed by Pope John Paul II to serve as Archbishop of Atlanta, the archdiocese announced Thursday.
Gregory, who had been serving as bishop in Belleville, Ill., will become Atlanta's sixth archbishop.
He succeeds Archbishop John F. Donoghue, who is resigning.
DEPLETED URANIUM AND BIRTH DEFECTS IN IRAQ
There is a disturbing story at Aljazeera on child and fetal deformities resulting from depleted uranium leftovers and aftereffects of American weapons.
We have heard nothing in Western sources about this. Is it reality or propaganda? If the story is accurate, not only will Iraqi children be affected, but also the children of our returning servicemen and women. Which the government may want to deny just as the afteraffects of agent orange were denied.
CHRISTIANOPHOBIA
New word being coined.
PARIS — A Vatican diplomatic campaign is trying to have "Christianophobia" recognized as an evil that is equal to hatred of Jews and Muslims.
The discreet drive, which the Roman Catholic Church first mentioned publicly on Friday, seeks official recognition by the United Nations and other international organizations of discrimination against and persecution of Christians.
The Holy See is pressing the point despite two setbacks this year — when the European Union refused to refer to the continent's Christian heritage in its new constitution and when it turned down a new commissioner because he was a conservative Catholic.
SODOM AND GOMORRAH REVISITED
A reader sends this article from WorldNetDaily:
Same-sex couples in Israel will now have many of the same rights as heterosexual spouses according to a decision today by the Jewish State's attorney general which drew fire from many rabbis who warned Israel risked becoming another Sodom and Gomorrah.
In a precedent-setting directive, Israel's Attorney General Menachem Mazuz decided not to appeal a district court decision in Nazareth recognizing a same-sex couple in a recent inheritance ruling, indicating homosexual couples have the same rights in matters of property, taxation and inheritance as common law spouses.
MAINTAIN THE TRADITION
Be politically incorrect!
Wish someone "Merry Christmas" today!
This will help.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
TEMENOS ACADEMY
In reading Traditionalist literature, I noted mention of the Temenos Academy. It rung a New Age bell for me, but I wasn't familiar with it. Martin Lings delivered a lecture on Guenon at the Temenos Academy, for example.
Here is the list of tape recordings offered by Temenos. It leaves little doubt as to what they are about. Notice most of the main Traditionalist authors are represented there, including Kallistos Ware. Also notice that there are no Roman Catholic authors represented there.
THE ROSICRUCIAN ENLIGHTENMENT REVISITED
Notice that two of the authors are Christopher Bamford and Robert Powell (the translator of _Meditations on the Tarot_ by Tomberg, forward by von Balthasar). It's being offered by Golden Dawn Books.
ANOTHER BAMFORD-STEINER BOOK
at Amazon: ISIS MARY SOPHIA: HER MISSION AND OURS. Note the description:
The rebirth of the feminine surrounds us in many forms—from the worldwide movement for women’s rights to the resurgence of interest in the feminine spirituality of the Goddess and the Divine Mother. What is the spiritual meaning behind this rebirth? What is the feminine divine? Who is she?
She has had many names in many cultures: Ishtar in Babylon, Inanna in Sumeria, Athena, Hera, Demeter, and Persephone in Greece, Isis in Egypt, Durga, Kali, and Lakshmi in India. She is the Shekinah of the Kabbalists and the Sophia, or Divine Wisdom of the gnostics.
Rudolf Steiner called her Anthroposophia—Divine Wisdom who descended from the spiritual world and passed through humanity to become the present goal and archetype of human wisdom in the cosmos.
This book contains most of what Steiner had to say about Sophia. We see him "midwifing" the birth of the Sophia, the new Isis, divine feminine wisdom, in human hearts on Earth.
Each chapter explores the mystery of the various relationships of Sophia: Sophia and Isis, Sophia and the Holy Spirit, Sophia and Mary, the mother of Jesus (and Mary Magdalene), Sophia and the Gnostic Achamod, and Sophia and the New Isis.
Above all, in a remarkable way, Steiner makes clear the relationship of Christ and Sophia:
Isis-Sophia, Divine Wisdom, slain by Lucifer,
Carried off on wings of world-wide forces into cosmic space,
The Christ-Will working in us
Will wrest Her from Lucifer,
And on vessels of spiritual knowledge,
Call Isis-Sophia, Divine wisdom, to new life in human souls.
Can sacred sex be far behind?
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
ROSA MYSTICA - CONNECTING THE DOTS
I was browsing the blogs and checked in at Threshing Grain where I found a post on the "Rosa Mystica Hour of Grace", Our Lady of Montichiari. According to the Montichiari website, this hour of grace was exactly at the time that the program on Fatima aired in my area today. Curious coincidence.
Next I looked at the Catholic Apparitions of Jesus and Mary website to see if this apparition had Church approval. It does not. Neither has it been disapproved. There is no Bishop's letter either. It's in limbo, apparently.
The name Rosa Mystica is familiar. I Googled it. There were many Catholic hits--websites that talk about apparitions and devotion to the Blessed Virgin. One hit had a University of Dayton URL. That got my attention. U. of Dayton is the source of some Marian Material that dovetails with The Da Vinci Code theories.
I Googled "Rosa Mystica" with "Hermetica" and got "Petit Manuel d'Human - Cahier 14 - La Rose-Croix." Rose Croix. Rosy Cross. Not much help. It's written in French. Still, I could read enough of it, including the names, to recognize occultism when I saw it. In the print-out, Rosa Mystica appears on page 16 of 27 total pages. Back to Google.
Then I found this website. "The Meaning of the Rose Cross" by Christopher Bamford. Bamford is the editor of Anthroposophic Press. Things were beginning to make sense. This is Rosicrucian Christianity. From this website:
Thus we see that Saint Dominic’s institution of the Rosary (encouraged, it is said, by an apparition of the Blessed Virgin herself) and Arnold of Villanova’s alchemical Rosarium Philosophorum have more in common than one might suspect. For the symbol of this Sophia—the purified soul with access in the three realms—has always been the Rose. Sixteenth century alchemists knew this and called it the flos sapientium:, the flower of wisdom; for them, to accomplish the Great Work was to have “attained the Rose.” Throughout the Middle Ages, the figure of the Rose—Rosa Mystica, that rose planted beside the waters—proliferates alarmingly, seemingly used indifferently of Jesus and Mary but in fact always referring to this purified heart of humanity in which the Christ—the center of the world, the immanent transcendent principle—can dwell. In Dante’s words, it is “the Rose wherein the divine Word made itself flesh.”
Here mention must be made of the Grail which, as Guenon pointed out, following Charbonnneau-Lassay, echoes the kind of symbolism we have been following.
Guenon. Rosicrucianism. Grand Orient Freemasonry? That appears to be a logical conclusion, though I have not seen Bamford's name linked with Grand Orient specifically. He is a member of Lindisfarne Associates, the organization originally based at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York that pushes Gaia worship and supports United Religions Initiative.
The paper talks of the Kabbalah, of Grail questing, of Pico della Mirandola, of Joachim of Fiore, of Moses de Leon, of St. Bernard, of the Cathars, of Sophia, of Hildegard of Bingen, of alchemy, Paracelsus, and more. In other words, Christopher Bamford and Michael Baigent would have a lot in common. As would Dan Brown, I presume.
This is Rosicrucian Freemasonry. It sounds Catholic, but with a twist. As Mark said of Williams in a comments box below, these people are just really odd, probably not the least because they are Gnostic.
Since Guenon is cited, and since Bamford is part of the support for United Religions Initiative, I presume they intend to morph this distorted Christianity into a world religion of some sort.
ONE MORE DOT
The Archangel Michael: His Mission and Ours : Selected Lectures and Writing 1994, Rudolf Steiner, Christopher Bamford ISBN: 0880103787
That book appears on this website dedicated to books on channeling.
ANTINOMIAN
Websters Unabridged defines it as "A person who maintains that Christians are freed from the moral law by virtue of grace set forth in the gospel."
The word is most often seen in discussions of mystical phenomena such as Pentecostalism. In _Enthusiasm_ Msgr. Ronald A. Knox uses the word "Antinomianism" to describe Beghards, Anabaptists, Ranters, Illuminati, Camisards, Moravians, and Perfectionists.
Essentially the antinomian decides that he has access to the mind of God and so no longer needs to follow the rules.
I recently came upon a contemporary example of antinomianism in a paper by Rev. Canon Gray Temple, Jr. titled "The Gay Challenge and Charismatic Episcopalians" in which he says:
It had been easy until recently to know what's moral and what's not, what kind of behavior is "Christian" and what isn't. ...gay Christians may cause the whole thing to unravel, showing us that our presentations of godly morality have some unintended cruel side-effects we'd previously been able to ignore. Our moral system may feel complete and self-consistent to us, but it is not humane. That raises some question about whether it's godly at all. ...
I know a great number of Christians -- many of us Charismatics -- who have changed from initially opposing homosexuality in general and among Christians in particular. None of us did it head-first. The change did not occur as the result of re-reading Scripture; that came later. Nor did it come from Tradition; re-understanding Tradition came later. Nor was it even the fruit of Reason; again, the reasoning came later. For the great majority of us the change resulted from some combination of two activities: prayer and personal relationships with gay relatives or friends of unimpeachable integrity. ...
Once God and our friendships opened fresh possibilities to us, then came the difficult struggle with the Bible, with Tradition, with Reason. In my experience I've never seen it proceed in the other direction. This is a heart-first, not a head-first change. To be sure, it has great biblical, traditional, and reasoned integrity -- but the heart comes first. ...
Re-read the Bible as a prayerful Charismatic in love with Jesus and in honest relationship with gay people who love him too. Re-examine the Tradition of the Church, filtering out mere customs masquerading as traditions. Prayerfully rethink the whole matter. Finally, budget the courage it will cost to withstand the reactions of those who have not yet acccepted God's challenge. ...
Charismatics should be leading the Church's conversion in this and all matters. That we don't lead is the result of our failing to escape the orbits of the religious theological enclaves God found us in. ...
When I hear Anglo-Catholics describe how the Spirit found them locked in their resentful ritualism and brought them new life, the reports feel real familiar. Just as I remain a "liberal Charismatic" they remain "Catholic Charismatics." But the operant word for all of us is "Charismatic." God before Party. ...
Thus he reasons his way out of Scripture and Tradition and into a new way of thinking that will accommodate the sin of choice. Anyone who has ever sinned and then repented of the sin will recognize the pattern. We are all subject to it.
Temple gives us the clincher with this statement:
The inability of Charismatics to accredit the co-Christianity of gay sisters and brothers thus serves as a sort of X-ray shot of what is wrong with us in other areas. Though "for freedom God set us free," we have "returned again to the yoke of slavery." The Devil has used our fleshly repugnance at homosexuals' manner of intimate self-expression, our rage at the behavior of some at Gay Pride parades, successfully to tempt us to abandon listening prayer and prophetic discerning fellowship. Gays scare us back out of the Spirit's fellowship into our old doctrinal certainties and partisan strifes.
Precisely because Charismatics can commune with the very heart of Jesus by the Spirit's power we do not have to remain wed to older interpretations of the Bible -- especially when those interpretations are so inconsistent with the deepest streams of biblical revelation. Precisely because we have been set free to worship and minister in the Spirit, we more than others should be free of the "traditions of men." Precisely because Jesus has called us "no longer servants but friends" we ought to know he will disclose the Father's purposes to us. That frees us from being enslaved to our own previous intellectual commitments. Jesus did not give us this liberty as a whim -- he seems to require that we take risks with it, that we get brave.
There it is. If you commune with God, you can write your own rules, tossing out or reinterpreting Scripture and Tradition in the process. As Temple puts it, "...most of St. Paul's discussion of marriage in 1 Corinthians 7 is as accessible to committed same-sex relationships as heterosexual relationships..."
Or put another way, antinomianism in action.
There but for the grace of God go I.
FATIMA'S PEACE PLAN
will air on PAX today.
"Heaven’s Key to Peace"
is a riveting, one-hour documentary which explains how the world can achieve lasting world peace.
It will air in the United States
Wednesday, December 8, 2004 on PAX TV Network at
11:00 a.m. (Central/Mountain)
12 Noon (Eastern/Pacific) and
11:00 p.m. (Central/Mountain)
12:00 Midnight (Eastern/Pacific)
It will air in Canada on Vision TV
Saturday, December 4, 2004 at
5:00 p.m. Pacific, 6:00 p.m. Mountain
7:00 p.m. Central, 8:00 p.m. Eastern
9:00 p.m. Atlantic, 9:30 p.m. NFLD
and Wednesday, December 8, 2004 at
12 noon Pacific, 1:00 p.m. Mountain
2:00 p.m. Central, 3:00 p.m. Eastern
4:00 p.m. Atlantic, 4:30 p.m. NFLD
I checked the TV schedule here. This appears to fall in a paid programming slot.
UPDATE
I've just finished watching the program. Much to my surprise, the appeal it made was to non-Catholics, suggesting that Fatima's peace plan would cost them nothing, and they might have world peace to gain by requesting that the consecration be done. One of the program participants was a Rabbi - an Hasid, if those forelocks were any indication. He too believes in the necessity of the consecration of the world to Russia.
I found their slant on war and the failures of human peace plans to be convincing.
HOW DO THEY DO THIS ?
A clock that follows a mouse cursor like bees following someone who disturbed their hive. Very clever.
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
CHARLES WILLIAMS
Recognized authority on the occult revival , James Webb, discusses Charles Williams on p. 510 of _The Occult Establishment_:
The popularity of Tolkien—and to a lesser extent, of his friends Charles Williams and C. S. Lewis—emphasizes once more the religious or occult connections of fantasy. All three writers subscribe to a form of Christianity: Catholicism for Tolkien, for Williams an interesting personal mysticism which probably owed a lot to his early occult studies, and for Lewis a Neo-Platonic form of Christianity that was not above accepting some of Williams’s unorthodox theories. The three formed a group they called “the Inklings,” which met regularly and included a leading Anthroposophist, Owen Barfield.
Glen Cavaliero reviews Williams Novels for “The Lost Club Journal,” saying of him:
Although recognizably by the same hand, the novels differ a good deal in content and methodology. The most conventional of them, War in Heaven (1930), is a relatively straightforward account of the discovery of the Holy Grail in a country church and of the struggle between good and evil forces to possess it, the latter being embodied in a group of occultists, the former guided by the devout yet intelligently sceptical parish priest. Although the book is exciting, frequently humorous and rich in theological insights, it repels some readers by its detailed accounts of black magic – understandably, for these carry real conviction: Williams was for many years a member of A. E. Waite’s Christian Rosicrucian order, The Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, and thus had a professional knowledge of esoteric rites.
Paternoster Publishing offers this analysis of Williams:
Charles Williams's involvement in the occult cannot be dismissed as a brief aberration of his youth. We now know that he belonged to A.E. Waite's Fellowship of the Rosy Cross for over a decade, even acting as Magister Templi for two brief periods during the mid-nineteen twenties.
CanadianChristianity.com offers:
Before he wrote these books, Williams had taken an interest in the occult. He spent 10 years as a member of the Rosicrucian-influenced 'Fellowship of the Rosy Cross' (FRC), an offshoot of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn --whose members included poet W.B. Yeats and infamous occultist Aleister Crowley. Williams left the group in 1927; for the rest of his life, he was known to be a staunch Anglican.
The reality of occultism is such that it cannot be glossed over even when a former occultist repents. Occultism opposes Christ and Christianity. That is its main focus. It has a permenant impact on the person who dabbles in it. Frequently those who leave it spend much energy trying to warn others away. Perhaps this is what Charles Williams was attempting to do with his novels. Regardless, a story about Williams such as the "Touchstone" article provides is incomplete without mention of this occult connection.
A TOUCHSTONE MAGAZINE ARTICLE
"Touchstone", Dec. 2004 arrived yesterday. This morning while I was waiting for something to finish, I leafed through it to a story on Charles Williams written by Thomas Howard, and titled "What About Charles Williams?: The Secret of the Enigmatic Inkling Revealed."
Howard is a former teacher at the Archdiocese of Boston St. John's Seminary College. In the article he indicates that he did a doctoral thesis on Charles Williams. With that background, I find it utterly incredible that he does not actually reveal the "secret" of Charles Williams, despite the headline. He does not even hint at it.
Though he makes it clear that readers often say of Williams' writings "I couldn't make head or tail of it all," and that "the testimony becomes a wail of despair when Williams's poetry is attempted." Even Williams' essays, according to Howard, "set one to tugging one's beard", and he admits that, "...I cannot pick up a single one of his books without at some point muttering to myself, 'Yo! Williams, old boy--how on earth do you expect anyone to have the faintest clue as to what you are on about here?' "
Well they might be confused! Charles Williams was a member of an offshoot of the magical fraternity the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, named "The Fellowship of the Rosy Cross," founded by A. E. Waite according to a Taylor University article.
By way of confirmation of that information check here and here.
If you want more confirmation, simply Google Charles Williams with Golden Dawn. There are numerous websites providing this information.
How can it be, then, that Thomas Howard did not unearth this information when doing doctoral research on Charles Williams?
There is an inset in the article, "Life & Legacy", in which Howard describes his encounter with Williams followers:
There are some ironies about Williams's legacy. His followers--they might almost be called worshipers, both men and women, and I have met some of them--fell into the most vicious fighting over his manuscripts after his death. But these were the people who were supposed to have been tutored in the Way of Substitution and Exchange, in the Law of The City. What went wrong? I do not know.
I found myself caught in the middle of some of the fighting and had to make my escape (literally) on an airplane back to the United States, holding a huge canvas zipper-bag full of manuscripts that one Raymond Hunt had received from Williams, and that he (Hunt) wanted to give to Wheaton College. For all I know, I might have had my throat cut by some of Williams's other votaries who detested Hunt, and who felt that he had made off with the material. But all of the personae in that drama are dead now...
He didn't know???? He did a doctoral thesis on Williams and didn't know about the occult world that Williams inhabited? The occult world is riddled with this kind of backbiting. It's standard operating fare. How could a man who reserched Williams not know? There is even a picture of Williams standing beside William Butler Yeats, another well-known member of The Golden Dawn, included in the article.
Rosicrucian Christianity is most easily defined by its practice of channeling. There is no doctrinal conformity because each practitioner invents his own. Or I should say that he allows his "spirit guide" to invent his own. Most likely some or even all of Williams writings were channeled. No wonder readers have a problem understanding it. It is purposely obscure, blending truth with fantasy, and even nonsense. That is the nature of occultism.
Incredibly enough, Howard adds this little tidbit to his article:
He (Williams) wrote many essays, and two whole books...on "theology." I put the word in quotes since no theologian I know of, except Hans Urs von Balthasar, has ever registered much interest in Williams as a theologian.
And I mention von Balthasar only because he sought me out, not because of any eminence of mine, but because he heard that I had studied Williams, and he wanted to talk about him. (He - von B., that is - in the course of the evening gave me a snapshot of himself with Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. He said it was his favorite photo of himself, if that throws any light on anything.)
This would be the same von Balthasar who wrote the Afterword to MEDITATIONS ON THE TAROT, I presume.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
UPDATE
The Touchstone article is online here.
THE TRANSCENDENTAL DISUNITY OF RELIGIONS
is the title of another of Stratford Caldecott's papers online.
This one deals specifically with United Religions Initiative and Traditionalism ala Rene Guenon. His conclusion is an excellent summary of the article:
Christianity is not, ultimately, assimilable. It cannot be assimilated to a set of moral values, or subordinated to a ‘Global Ethic’. It cannot be assimilated to an aesthetic myth, or a myth that embodies truth solely at the level of the imagination. It cannot be assimilated to psychology, as though we could explain it as some kind of projection from the needs of the psyche. Nor can it be assimilated to a metaphysics of the Logos, of the one Truth which shines at the heart of every created reality like sunshine in a cave of mirrors. It can never be assimilated, with the best of intentions, because Christ cannot be assimilated. In him, God has done something new and different.
E-MAIL FROM DR. BOND
Dear Friends,
A week or so ago the Times Leader published an article (reproduced below) giving further details on the personal bankruptcy of Fr. Eric Ensey, one of the founders of the Society of St. John. Ensey's parents have apparently been financing his booze and boys bill for the last few years. This is not the first time Ensey has manipulated his own parents, for we know Ensey used their home as a safe house to sodomize a boy.
Here as well is another article on the suppression of the Society of St. John:
http://www.riverreporter.com/issues/04-12-02/head3-stjohn.html
Pax vobiscum,
Dr. Jeffrey M. Bond
Wilkes Barre Times Leader
Times Leader, The (Wilkes Barre, PA)
November 27, 2004
JUDGE HALTS SEX MISCONDUCT CASE UNTIL PRIEST'S BANKRUPTCY RESOLVED
Author: MARK GUYDISH mguydish@leader.net
SCRANTON - Personal bankruptcy documents show that a priest accused of sexual misconduct with a teen owns $1,000 in exercise and music equipment, owes his attorney $100,000, and had his parents pay credit card bills topping $24,000.
The bankruptcy filing by the Rev. Eric Ensey proved significant in a civil lawsuit alleging that he and the Rev. Carlos Urrutigoity sexually abused a man identified as John Doe when Doe was a teenager.
Citing federal rules, the judge in the civil case has stopped proceedings indefinitely because of the bankruptcy.
-----------------------------------------
There is more to the article, but copyright laws require that I stop there. Apparently it is not online, since Dr. Bond didn't include a link. The article gives Ensey's total assets at $17,229 and liabilities of $112,973. Approx. $44 thousand of his debts on credit cards was paid off by his parents. He owes $100,000 to his attorney.
That email arrived in my mailbox yesterday. Today I received snail mail from the Society of St. John soliciting Christmas donations. The enclosed letter says in part:
Because of the prayer and kindness of people like you, the Society of Saint John is alive and well. The work of the Society of Saint John has continued--undaunted in God's love--for the past 6-1/2 years.
I want to share one of our latest projects with you, but first I want to ask you something. Will you please remember the priests and brothers of the Society of Saint John during your gift-giving this Christmas? The Church is struggling to restore all things in Christ. And the Society of Saint John is committed to doing its part to advance this mission.
I can't stress enough that the priests and brothers of the Society of Saint John are depending on you. We have given up all things to follow Christ. But it is only with your invaluable financial gifts that we can accomplish our work.
The letter is signed "Fr. Daniel Fullerton."
How many unsuspecting faithful Catholics will send checks into what Bishop Martino called according to "The River Reporter" article a "debt-servicing operation"?
The SSJ seem to be writing a new definition of audacity.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
Carrie
TRADITIONALISM AT MSU
The website of "Esoterica Journal" at Michigan State University includes a book on traditionalism in this booklist. It's the last book on the list.
There is another book listed that is of interest primarily because, according to George Weigel's biography, John Paul II was interested in these philosophers. The book is:
Pavel Florensky, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth: An Essay in Orthodox Theodicy in Twelve Letters, Boris Jakim, trs., (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1997), cloth, 595 pp.
Pavel Florensky (1882-1937) is one of the most remarkable and tragic of the great Russian theologians in the past century. Along with Bulgakov, Soloviev, and above all, Berdyaev, Florensky (who was murdered in a Soviet Gulag) represents the meeting of Russian Orthodoxy with Western esotericism under the aegis of the Divine Sophia. The Pillar and Ground of the Truth is Florensky’s masterwork, consisting in twelve letters to a brother and friend, each of the letters preceded by an Hermetic, symbolically rich image. Among the primary chapters of Florensky's book is that on "Sophia," in which he writes directly on Soloviev and his relationship on the one hand to Boehmean theosophy, on the other to Polish and other Russian theosophers whose work to this day remains unknown, at least in English-speaking countries and probably in their homelands as well. Florensky’s book is one of the more unusual productions of the Russian theosophers; for those with an interest in Orthodoxy or theosophy, it is a major work well worth purchasing.
THE STATE OF THE CHURCH IN CLEVELAND
The Diocese is healthy if one million Catholics is any indication. However, according to my pastor's announcement yesterday, there will be one - one - seminarian ordained this year.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
MATT ABBOTT ONCE AGAIN HAS CHALLENGED FR. GREELEY
to reveal what he knows about the "Boys Club" in Chicago. He has an article up at ChronWatch.
REWRITING CHRISTMAS CAROLS
Being politically correct trumps witnessing to Jesus Christ in the thinking of a teacher at a school in Rome.
The middle-school teacher in the town of Como set off a storm when she told Muslims in her class that if they preferred they could replace the line "this is the day of Jesus" with "this is the day of virtue".
Interestingly enough, the article indicates the children chose to keep the original lyrics.
PASTORAL FORMATION INSTITUTE
A letter to the editor over at Spirit Daily about the nature of heretical teaching at this institution presents a very gloomy picture of what the laity formation actually consists of. Where is the bishop?
Monday, December 06, 2004
JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH !
As my mother-in-law would say...
Take a look at the authors and the website linked on this Vermont Sophia website, where, under "Other Related Links", you will find:
THE SOPHIA PERENNIS BOOKSTORE WEB SITE for a great collection of books on the ANCIENT WISDOM, FEATURING GUENON, CORBIN, NASR and COOMARASWAMY.
Follow the link and you end up here:
Serious Seekers.com
Notice Charles Upton's name there? He told me Serious Seekers was one of his websites that hadn't been updated for a while. Sure looks up to date to me! Is Charles Upton part of the group who have produced the Vermont Sophia website?
If you have the time to look over Vermont Sophia, please do. It's quite a web presence. It's also Anthroposophical. You will find Cardinal von Balthasar in there in his recommendation of Valentin Tomberg's book _Meditations on the Tarot_. You will even find a comment about John Paul II.
Sigh.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray very hard for us!
THE LEGIONNAIRES OF CHRIST
After listing recent honors bestowed on the Legionnaires, John Allen addresses the questions these honors bring up in the light of Berry and Renner's charges in their book _Vows of Silence_. He writes:
What should one make of all this, readers have asked, in light of charges from several former members of the Legionaries of Christ that they were sexually abused by Maciel, charges documented in the book Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II by American journalists Jason Berry and Gerry Renner?
I think the only honest answer is that the pope and his senior aides obviously do not believe the charges.
I've discussed the case with people in the Holy See, and not everyone is prepared to dismiss out of hand the claims documented in the Berry and Renner book. Most Vatican officials, however, believe the evidence is old and ambiguous, and in any event they say it would not surpass the burden of reasonable doubt in a court of law. Absent a "smoking gun," and given what they regard as the fruits of Maciel's priestly career and the community he founded, they don't see a basis for action.
EPISCOPALIAN PIN-UPS
A reader sends more tackiness from the E-Prots:
In Battle Creek, Mich., 14 women of St. Thomas Episcopal Church – between ages 55 and 82 – actually bared their breasts to raise money for breast cancer research.
Calling themselves The Belles of St. Mary's, the women bared nearly all in an in-pew photo op at St. Thomas church for a calendar they hope will raise money for research.
What gets into some women's minds? I mean age 55... Gravity... Sheesh, are they delusional? But more to the point...Who do they think is going to buy this calendar--all the women over 55 who want to know how they measure up? Grow up, ladies! Exhibitionism is for 20-year-old Atheists with good bodies. If you want to raise money for breast cancer, do something you're actually good at!
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
is on the trail of another priest who has been accused of sexual abuse of a retarded girl, according to this AP story. Allegedly his Bishop, Raymundo Pena, encouraged him to escape to Nigeria where he had originally come from. This is not the only allegation against the priest; however, he says that in Nigeria his behavior would have been acceptable.
GOOD NEWS INDEED...
The wreckovation of Catholic churches may be near an end if Michael Rose has gotten a correct reading of the pulse of contemporary church architecture. In e-mail he quotes comments from "The Wanderer," saying:
"...a strong and healthy reaction is underway and, indeed, about to topple the Modernist movement that imposed so much architectural ugliness on unsuspecting 20th-century Catholics..."
That quote was in reference to his newest book addressing the subject. Titled IN TIERS OF GLORY, it has just been released. In conjunction with the book, he has launched a web journal, Dellachiesa.com to disseminate articles, resources, and projects pertaining to traditional church architecture, restoration, and preservation.
Need help finding an architect who will design a renovation that preserves the symbols of Catholicism? This is a good place to start. May the theories of E. A. Sovik and Richard Vosko never again strip the interior of another Catholic church of the symbols of the faith!
Sunday, December 05, 2004
POPE CALLS BILL GATES "SPAWN OF SATAN"
After computer failure. :-) :-) I can relate.
The comedy goes over the top, though, when they have the Pope jumping up and down. Humor is supposed to be a stretch of credibility, not a demolition of it.
