Tuesday, February 01, 2005
HAS RUSSIA SPREAD HER ERRORS AROUND THE WORLD ?
“You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world”.
Those are the words of the second part of the Secret of Fatima as reported at EWTN.
Pope John Paul II consecrated the world, and according to the website, Sr. Lucy indicated the consecretation had been done as requested. We are in the period of peace foretold.
East-West Church & Ministry Report gives a synopsis of "Russia's Occult Revival" by Holly DeNio Stephens. The essay is a portion of Stephens essey in the book The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture edited by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal. At the conclusion of the essay Stephens states:
Reactions to the dehumanizing effects of scientific doctrine, the overabundance of prescribed rational thought, and the proscription of alternative systems during the Soviet period have generated much of the energy directed toward the occult today. Many Russians are attempting to find new values and belief systems to replace those that have been jettisoned. The occult is seen as an attractive alternative, more consoling than the harsh reality imposed by the instability and chaos of the physical world. Intrinsically apolitical, occult systems serve as spiritual panaceas for the gravest and most trying conditions.
Stephens teaches in the Department of Slavic Languages, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
Does that sound as though Russia has been converted?
A Gurdjieff Internet Guide webpage reviewing the book Modern Esoteric Spirituality by Jacob Needleman, indicates that Gurdjieff belongs in a category of "esoteric currents in the modern West which include alchemy and astrology, Renaissance Kabbalah, Romantic natural science and philosophy, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, occultism, and theosophy as well as the ideas and schools associated with Paracelsus, Jacob Boehme, Rudolf Steiner, Rene Guenon...and C. G. Jung." The article applies the word "vibrant" to these currents.
Russian occultist George Gurdjieff, was the creator of the Enneagram which has made its way into Catholic institutions, including some listed here.
"Enneagram" Googled with "Sisters of" produced 677 hits, including:
Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary of the Woods, where Sr. Karlene Sensmeier, OSB "has been giving Enneagram workshops for almost 20 years."
Sisters of Sion, Ireland who offered an Enneagram Week-end "for married couples, partners, engaged and single.
Sisters of the Humility of Mary who tell us that they "minister in spirituality and wellness programs which include counseling, spiritual direction, Enneagram workshops, and Reiki sessions."
Benedictine Sisters of Mt. Angel whose "Gift & Book Store offers books on many spirituality topics, including: monasticism, prayer, mystics, spiritual direction, feminine spirituality and saints, Enneagram, dreams, transitions, and grieving."
Sisters of Mercy at Burlingame, Calif. who will introduce you to the Enneagram at their 2005 Lenten retreat for a mere $210.
And the list goes on...occultism is very much the "in thing" at Catholic communities of women religious. Russia has done well.
The sisters got it from the Human Potential Movement - Esalen - as Dr. William Coulson explains in this article from EWTN. According to the timeline at the Institute website, in 1970-1971 "a number of Esalen group leaders traveled to Arica, Chile to study with the Sufi teacher Oscar Ichazo. Key figures: Claudio Naranjo, John Lilly, Steven Stroud, Jack Downing. This eventually resulted in the proliferation of work on the Enneagram, a system of personality typology, as well as the founding of the Arica school."
Oscar Ichazo was a follower of Gurdjieff. The Enneagram Spectrum website offers "A Brief History of the Enneagram" which contains the following explanation:
More recently George Gurdjieff (1879-1949), a Russian teacher of esoteric knowledge and a contemporary of Freud, used the Enneagram to explain the laws involved in the creation and unfolding of all the aspects of the universe. He alludes to his introduction to the Enneagram in the 1920's during his visit to the Sufi Sarmouni monastery in Afghanistan. This is the site of the Naqshbandi Order mentioned earlier. Quite appropriately, it is located near a great East-West trade route, where not only goods but also ideas crossed regularly.
In yet another culture and part of the globe, the Enneagram was taught by Oscar Ichazo (1976; 1982) as part of his Arica Training in South America. He found that the Enneagram (or Enneagon, as he calls the nine-sided figure) organizes comprehensively the various laws operating in the human person. So while Gurdjieff applied the Enneagram's process to all of reality, including a rudimentary application to the human person, Ichazo made use of the Enneagram figure and dynamics to explain more fully the functioning of the human psyche. Ichazo claims to have arrived at his understanding of the Enneagram through his own independent studies and research.
Claudio Naranjo (1990; 1994), a Chilean psychologist, learned the tradition from Oscar Ichazo and brought the Enneagram further into Western psychology by reframing its concepts in contemporary psychological language. Naranjo elaborated and codified Ichazo's explorations of the human personality still further.
The website further explains how this became a Catholic concept:
In the early 1970's Robert Ochs, S.J. and Helen Palmer (1988; 1995) studied the Enneagram system of personality with Naranjo. Through Ochs the Enneagram was introduced to various Christian communities, where Jerome Wagner, Maria Beesing, Robert Nogosek, and Patrick O'Leary (1984), Don Riso (1987; 1990), Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert (1990; 1992), Kathleen Hurley and Ted Donson (1991; 1993), Suzanne Zuercher (1992; 1993), et. al. became acquainted with it. These and other authors promulgated the Enneagram to a broader spiritual, psychological, educational, business and commercial audience.
This path of transmission is confirmed in an article by Christopher Rees at Catholic.net The Sufi connection is confirmed there as well.
An article at Russian Archives Online tracks the Russian-Esalen connection in an interview with Joseph V. Montville. The following is an excerpt from the website:
So I thought I'd start by just revisiting the Esalen connection in this discussion of the value of values. I think what started the Esalen connection was old-fashioned intellectual curiosity, and maybe new-fashioned desire for the exploration of the paranormal and all of the special interests that the California context that Michael in particular and Dulce and their friends brought to try to understand the scope of human potential. So it started that way with early visits in the 1970s to the Soviet Union. The very fact that being drawn by this intellectual curiosity and this desire to explore new frontiers resulted in new experiences with human beings found in the Soviet Union and new friendships, because basically, this is what happens when you cross the oceans into unknown territory and find a whole number, a new number of human beings and discover their humanity.
That, it would seem, is how Russia is spreading her errors around the world.
But why has the Enneagram and other aspects of the Human Potential Movement been able to make itself so comfortable in Roman Catholicism, considering that the source is Islamic mysticism and occultism?
Of the books for which Gurdjieff is most well known, Meetings With Remarkable Men ranks high on the list. An excerpt from the book is online here. From the website:
Soon after our sojourn at the chief monastery of the Sarmoung Brotherhood, Soloviev joined the group of persons I have already mentioned, the Seekers of Truth, the required guarantees being furnished by me. He became a full member of this group and from then on, thanks to his persistent and conscientious efforts, he not only worked for the attainment of his individual perfection but at the same time took a serious part in all our general activities and in the various expeditions for special purposes.
During one of these expeditions, in the year 1898, he died from the bite of a wild camel in the Gobi Desert. I will describe the occurrence in as much detail as possible, because not only was the death of Soloviev very strange, but our method of crossing the desert was unprecedented and in itself highly instructive.
Vladimir Soloviev? The same Vladimir Soloviev of whom George Weigel says:
As Pope, Karol Wojtyla nurtured his interest in Russia and the Russians through numerous channels. He read deeply in the writings of Vladimir Soloviev, the late nineteenth-century Russian philosopher and theologian, a prophet of the reconciliation of Eastern and Western Christianity with a marked millennial strain in his thought. (WITNESS TO HOPE, p. 568)
There are, of course, other Solovievs. So far I have not been able to find a website that gives a first name of this Soloviev who was a friend of Gurdjieff.
The Alchemy Lab website also indicates there was a strong bond between Gurdjieff and Soloviev:
George Gurdjieff (1877–1949) the famed Russian Mystic, also experimented with hashish. Gurdjieff gained knowledge of cannabis’ unique effects on the human psyche while spending time studying with a number of Sufi schools and dervish orders, in Persia, eastern Turkey and Bokhara. Gurdjieff used hashish in experiments with some of his pupils to demonstrate the awakening of people’s essences. Gurdjieff, and his “loyal friend of all friends,” Soloviev, studied together under an Isma’ili affiliated Sufi group. During this time Gurdjieff states that Soloviev became an expert in eastern medicine, Tibetan medicine, “and he was also the world’s greatest specialist in the knowledge of opium and hashish on the psyche and organism of man.”Unbelievably, somehow a Sufi/Russian occult system of divination has made itself welcome in the Roman Catholic Church, has been spread to the laity via the religious orders, and has been either ignored or approved by the U.S. hierarchy, and the hierarchy in Rome. Why?
The Catholic laity deserve an explanation for this insanity.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
