Still Running Off at the Keyboard

SOMEBODY'S NOT TELLING THE TRUTH - STAR KIDS OR STELLAR FABRICATION ?

Edoardo Russo claims to have talked with Msgr. Corrado Balducci who denies everything that is being claimed about his endorsement of E.T.s.

There is also a rebuttal at the website from Richard Boylan, PhD who relies heavily on Balducci to authenticate his claim that Star Kids exist. You've read about them before in this blog. James F. Twyman and the Edgar Cayce people call them Indigo Children. You can read Balducci's supposed statement in an article by Paula Peterson, a supposed experiencer, who describes Boylan's Star Kids for Earthcode International Network. There is a picture of Balducci with his hand on Boylan's shoulder in the website.

Is this yet another example of chaos magick of the Dan Brown sort? Whether it is or not, it does seem to be Dr. Richard Boylan's meal ticket. He had set up a school for Star Kids, and he recommends everyone be on the lookout for them. In reading his description of them I found myself thinking about my own kid and whether she would fit the description. The concept is seductive. What parent wouldn't want to have a Star Kid? Especially what parent of a problem child... This is a guaranteed money maker, and a lot of parents are going to get sucked in.

With enough Priory of Sion and Star Kids fabrications floating around, it's going to become difficult to know what to believe.

JOHN E. MACK AND SYNTHESIS DIALOGUES

The other day I linked PEER PERSPECTIVES 3, a publication of John E. Mack's Program for Extraordinary Experience Research that morphed into the John E. Mack Institute. PEER is the organization for which Brian Muldoon, one of the creators of the Synthesis Dialogues, was an advisor.

In this edition of PEER PERSPECTIVES is a section titled "At the Forum" which lists the forums, conferences and informal meetings of the past year. The following is one of the entries:

September 1999: Dharamsala, India

Dr. John Mack traveled to Dharamsala, India, where he was part of a symposium invited to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama to explore how to create a culture of peace. The convener of this meeting was the Association for Global New Thought, with co-direction from the Synthesis Institute and the Dearborn Institute.

In an interview with New Dimensions radio, Dr. Mack was asked what came into focus from being in Dharamsala.

"What I take from this is a skillful means of interrupting cycles of violence. The strategies, or new forms of power, have to be much more imaginative, inventive, and powerful than ever before.

"Power is the latent, creative energy in the universe. Power is not dominating another person, or conquering another nation.

"The problems in the world, in a large part, derive from the fact that the people who are willing to use that power destructively are less afraid to use it, then those of us that seek a higher level of consciousness. It's as if a higher level of consciousness is synonymous with a retreat from power. But it must not be that way. We must use new, imaginative ways of compassion, persuasion, influence, saying no... All kinds of things which are non-violent, but are also powerful."

There is another entry:

May 1999: San Marino, Italy

In late May, Dr. John Mack and Karin, an experiencer featured in PASSPORT TO THE COSMOS, were invited to discuss the work of PEER at the 7th World Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects and Related Phenomena in the Republic of San Marino, Italy.

Monsignor Corrado Balducci expressed the need for cultures to respect testimony of witnesses, because it is through human beings' perceptions that we ultimately come to know reality in its fullness. Cultures must credit people's perceptions, the monsignor suggested, for if they do not, the institutions cease to develop and become a hindrance to the people's growth.

There is an entry for October 1999: State of the World Forum, San Francisco which indicates Mack participated in an event that also included Rick Tarnas, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Brian Swimme, and Marianne Williamson, among others.

JOHN E. MACK INSTITUTE LINKS TO RELATED RESOURCES

including Shirley MacLaine, California Institute of Integral Studies, Seyyed Hossein Nasr Foundation, Joanna Macy, State of the World Forum, Tikkun Magazine, and other interesting stuff.

---------------------

The JEMI offers a bunch of books for sale, including

The Philosopher's Secret Fire (Harry Potter phone home - ct)

Daimonic Reality: Understanding Otherworldly Encounters

Traveling Between the Worlds: Conversations With Contemporary Shamans

GRAYS OR SWAMP GAS RESULTS FOUND IN THE VATICAN LIBRARY

I can't believe I'm even blogging this one.

I got to the link from this Marian website. Does anyone know anything about the group? In any case, there are several articles linked at the website about UFOs and Balducci.

After you've looked at the picture at that website, take a look at the picture at this one and read the story of LAM and the egg. Devil or extraterrestrial, the entity had to be evoked--something that is strickly forbidden by the First Commandment--not to mention that sex magick placed Crowley into the realm of evil. Notice that LAM "is known to be a link between the star systems of Sirius and Andromeda."

Is Balducci whitewashing LAM?

BALDUCCI'S STAR VISITORS

It simply boggles the mind!!

Vatican Monsignor Corrado Balducci's Pronouncements: "Star Visitors Are Real"

Monsignor Corrado Balducci, official Exorcist for Rome, former diplomat in the Papal Nunciature in Washington, DC, past theologian member of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, and an insider who has the attention of the Pope. Balducci has gone on Italian national television five times in the past several years to proclaim that extraterrestrial contact is a real phenomenon!

Balducci provided an analysis of the Star Visitors which he feels is consistent with the Catholic Church's understanding of theology. Monsignor Balducci emphasizes that encounters with the Star Visitors: "1) are NOT demonic, 2) they are NOT due to psychological impairment, 3) they are NOT a case of entity attachment, but 4) these encounters deserve to be studied carefully." Since Monsignor Balducci is a demonology expert and consultant to the Vatican , and since the Catholic Church has historically demonized many new phenomena that were poorly understood, his stating that the Church does not censure these encounters is all the more remarkable.

Msgr. Balducci revealed to a visiting American professional several years ago that the Vatican is closely following this phenomenon quietly. Since Monsignor Balducci started his Vatican career by serving in the Papal Nunciature (Delegation) in Washington, DC., my informant originally surmised that the Vatican is receiving much information about Star Visitors and their contacts with humans from its Nunciatures in various countries. But subsequent information clarified that the Monsignor has gotten his cases from other sources.

Continue reading...

-----------------------------

Consider the above in the light of the following:

Considering the two texts separately, and even supposing one cannot be perfectly sure at this point as to their exact meaning, both of them, and especially the second, put one on the alert; the star which is entrusted with the key of the abyss must conceal a mystery of more than cosmic significance and bring us face to face with the spiritual world. Now it is traditional, in apocalyptic literature, to identify fallen angels with stars. Thus Enoch, in his vision of the terrifying place, sees seven stars of heaven linked together in that place, looking like great mountains ablaze with fire. And he asks: For what sin are they in chains, and why have they been put there? And Uriel, one of the holy angels acting as his guide, answers: On what are you seeking information, and why are you anxious? These stars are those who have transgressed God's law, and they are chained here for ten thousand centuries, the number of days of their sins. (emphasis mine - ct, THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED, by H. M. Feret, O.P., 1958, Nihil obstat: Hulbertus Richards, S.T.L., L.S.S., Censor deputatus; Imprimatur: E. Morrough Bernard, Vic. Gen., ISBN 0-912141-69-7)

What in the blazes is going on in the Vatican???

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

--------------------

I should clarify...

Here are the two texts from the Apopcalypse of St. John that are referenced in the above quotes:

And the third angel sounded the trumpet (notice the order: the third in the series of four, the chief place!)
And a great star fell from heaven, burning as it were a torch. (8, 10)
And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet (the first place, in the series of three)
And I saw a star falling from heaven upon earth.
And there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit.
And he opened the bottomless pit. (9, 1 ff.)

JOINING OF UFOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTALISM

From The Journal of the Mindshift Institute":

The Global Impact of the Alien Agenda

As Earthling exploration of the cosmos enters its next phase, it is time to look at the effect that the “alien agenda” is having on Earth's national governments, the world's major organized religions, the international scientific community, educational institutions and human nature itself. There is slow but increasing international cooperation among nations (despite our many wars and destruction of the environment) and growing concern for the health and survival of the planet among individuals and non-governmental organizations. The possible role of the UFO-ET phenomenon on these developments is being studied across the planet. For example, the Catholic Church has an official Papal Commission on UFOs and the implications of extraterrestrial life.

And many individuals who have encountered extraterrestrials have become dedicated environmentalists. Ecological and environmental concerns seem inextricably bound up with the UFO phenomenon. The work of John E. Mack, MD and others is important here. Interviews with “abductees” or “experiencers” may shed great light on and give insight into the impact of the alien presence.

John E. Mack is cited within the article as an important contributor to the investigation of UFOs.

SATANIC RITUAL ABUSE

In connection with the trial in Toledo of Fr. Gerald Robinson, Court TV's Crime Library has a story up at the website about ritual sexual abuse committed by priests. According to the story Father Robert Hoatson (not wearing clericals in the picture) is investigating it. Fr. Hoatson is quoted as saying:

It's a natural thing for priests to engage in that kind of abuse because they have been so stepped [sic] in ritual, incense, candles, and fire and water and altar cloths...It's all power...I think the priest ends up using the tools of his trade - the ritual - in order to intimidate the child. It puts greater fear in them.

The story goes on to say that the priest admits the evidence is scant, most of it coming from alleged victims.

But that was also the case when word of the priest pedophile scandal first emerged, he said. There was reluctance on the part of everyone, authorities, the church, even the families of the victims themselves, to believe that such things were occurring. It took time, he said, until the allegations reached critical mass and only then did the church and the authorities mount a campaign to root it out.

The same may be true of the allegations of ritual sexual abuse, he said, and it is possible, perhaps even likely, that the case in Toledo may turn out to be the first round fired in that new battle.

Malachi Martin's book that gives an account of a black mass would tend to lend credibility to his claims. Add to that Robert Anton Wilson's black mass in his most famous book, ILLUMINATUS!, conducted by "Father Pederasti". And there is William H. Kennedy's book LUCIFER'S LODGE.

If this is true...if priests have abused children and adolescents in black masses...our crisis will not go away until the truth comes out.

As one of our hymns tells us "What you hear in the dark, you must speak in the light."

----------------

Fr. Hoatson was the subject of a Matt Abbott column last December in which he accused Bishop McCarrick of having seminarians sleep next to him but not engaging in sexual activity with them. He is suing the New York and Newark Archdioceses.

-----------------

The Archdiocese strikes out at Fr. Hoatson with the usual weak argument, this time that he is not a good communicator and he shirked his duties.

-----------------

The Village voice ran a story about Fr. Hoatson last February that would make a good story line for a soap opera about abusive priests and official cover-ups; and about the way that blackmail, or the potential for it, has fueled the Catholic crisis.

-----------------

Until it all comes out, we cannot heal. There is an infection lurking within Roman Catholicism that will kill the faith here in America if something isn't done soon.

Perhaps what the RCC needs right now is a fund set up to take care of whistleblower priests, so that those who wish to help with this airing will be able to do so.

Maybe we should be putting our Catholic Charities contributions into such a fund instead of giving them to bishops' appeals since bishops are part of the problem...a Catholic Priest Whistleblower Support Initiative.

THE BISHOPS WERE FOLLOWING ORDERS

A monk turned whistleblower is the author of a book on the sexual abuse crisis.

From an article at the Guardian:

Now Wall, along with two other former priests turned whistleblowers, has written a book called Sex, Priests and Secret Codes: the Catholic church's 2,000-year paper trail of sexual abuse. The book, he says, contains previously unpublished documents detailing the Vatican's longstanding awareness of the problem of sexual abuse. Its conclusion is that the recent scandals in the US, Ireland and Britain are nothing new, but simply the latest chapter in a story that stretches right back to the founding of the church. And the authors say they have found evidence of deliberate cover-up by the church.

Exhibit A is a hitherto secret document called Crimen Sollicationis - Latin for "the crime of solicitation" - issued in 1962 by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), an office attached to the Vatican. Described as a "blueprint for deception and concealment" by lawyers investigating the worldwide sex-abuse scandals, Crimen Sollicationis contains strict instructions for dealing with what the Vatican calls the "worst crimes" - such as allegations of paedophilia and bestiality. Rather than report these offences to the civil authorities, the CDF instructs bishops to investigate them "in the most secretive way" or face the "penalty of excommunication".

Then, in 2001, the CDF followed this document up with a second directive, which ordered bishops to send their reports directly to Rome, where they would be kept safely under lock and key along with other so-called Pontifical Secrets. Wall and his co-authors argue that it is this and not the Da Vinci Code that is the "real conspiracy" at the heart of modern Catholicism. They say it is no coincidence that the person responsible for the promulgation of the second document was none other than the head of the CDF, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.

Great. How does a Catholic respond to that?

Blogger credit to New Oxford Review.

JESUIT E.T. APOLOGIST

The limitless universe "might even include other planets with other beings created by that same loving God," he added. "The idea of there being other races and other intelligences is not contrary to traditional Christian thought.

"There is nothing in Holy Scripture that could confirm or contradict the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe," he wrote.

Brother Consolmagno said that, like scientists, people of faith should not be afraid of saying "I just don't know."

Human understanding "is always incomplete. It is crazy to underestimate God's ability to create in depths of ways that we will never completely understand. It is equally dangerous to think that we understand God completely," he said in his booklet.

Read the whole article...

When I read the article last fall, it sounded sort of bizarre. Now, after looking at John E. Mack Institute, it starts to look as though the Church is trying to break it to us softly.

INTERVIEW WITH BALDUCCI ON UFOS

The last question in the interview, and Balducci's answer:

AF: Staying with this issue, in an edition of the magazine 'Visto' three years ago, you partly confirmed the text of the Third Secret of Fatima which has been around for thirty years but has never been backed by the Church.

MB: Yes. There are two things in the Third Secret of Fatima. Everyone noticed the first, but very few noticed the second. The first tells of a nuclear war before the end of the millenium. From the context, that's clear. In fact, the text talks about the use of arms that are more powerful than a thousand suns. It's clear what arms are intended if we look at what the text goes on to say: "the living will envy the dead". This means that the people who survive the nuclear weapons will suffer from radiation.

The other, less known aspect, is the doctrinal crisis of the Church. Three years ago, I was interviewed by Canadian TV. I said: "Yes, the Madonna of the Third Secret of Fatima says this, but no-one has noticed that she first says that it will happen if mankind doesn't mend its ways.". So its all conditioned by this previous remark. But I am optimistic. We, as people, can influence the realization of a prophecy, change the date and the intensity of the prophesied events and mitigate them. The renewal of spirituality in the young is a good omen. I mean to say, spirituality based on the rules of the Church.

MSGR. CORRADO BALDUCCI

It's not a source I'm happy with, particularly, but here it is in any case, from UFO Evidence:

This important Catholic prelate was already well known for his previous statement, some time ago, that he believed in the presence of alien intelligences interacting with planet Earth.

What is probably much less well known however is the fact that he is the Vatican's senior Exorcist and Demonologist - and this makes some of his latest remarks and observations surprising - to say the very least!

At the *Second Ancona Ufological Congress, on April 17, 2000, the theme for discussion was "ALIEN CIVILIZATION: BETWEEN DOUBT AND REASON", and he gave an extensive interview there, expressing his opinions very clearly.

He stated emphatically that *of course* the Aliens and their vessels do quite definitely exist. On a number of occasions he had already voiced the highly intelligent view that, in between Man and Angels, there absolutely *must* also exist a considerable gamut - a great HIERARCHY of various other grades or levels of beings - and these might well be the "Aliens" now under discussion. From the theological point of view, he emphasised, there could be no doubt about *that*.

[Let us not forget either that in the Old Testament and other Jewish religious texts the talk is not merely of "Angels" (*Malakheem*, but also of *other* categories of celestial beings - such as *Cherubeem* and *Serapheem*. With my limited knowledge of Hebrew I have so far managed to find out very little indeed about these or any other categories of celestial beings in the old Hebrew Pantheon, and if anyone can help me on my way to learn more I would indeed be most grateful. I suspect that the old scholars and sages may have recognised even more than just these three grades of "Celestials". G.C.]

Continue reading...

According to the article some of those quotes come from Balducci's statement, released in the summer 2000, about the Ancona Congress.

DR. JOHN MACK

"Alien Concepts: An Interview with Dr. John Mack" which appeared in New Age Journal in July 2001 offers the following question and answer:

Q. What kinds of standards do you envision for such a science?

A. We have an anomalous-experiences project at PEER, which came out of a 1999 workshop on the topic that included theologists, anthropologists, astrophysicists and philosophers. We are looking not just at the abduction phenomenon, but near-death experiences and other such phenomena that don't fall into a single discipline. And we want to explore traditions where there are, if not standards, witnessing and truth-telling traditions — that is, methods of how you decide who to take seriously. The Buddhist and Catholic traditions deal with this in detail, for example in determining what is a miracle and what is not.

Father Corrado Balducci, a retired gentleman close to the Vatican, once shocked me by saying that the Church takes very seriously these reports of UFOs and abduction encounters because there seem to be so many reliable witnesses. The Church has a tradition of determining who is a reliable witness. I began to think about this notion of the sacred witness, or the witness of the sacred. We don't want to take on, for example, Catholic or Buddhist standards wholesale, but they can be guides.

Catholic or Buddhist standards. As though they are similar. Yet we have evidence that shamanism is a part of Tibetan Buddhism, and Fr. Seraphim's conviction that shamanism is "a modern form of the devil's age-old religion of shamanistic paganism.

Who is Father Corrado Balducci? The interview doesn't specify.

There is a brief bio of Mack at the website as well. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of T. E. Lawrence. He was born into a family of prosperous German Jewish academics in New York. His father read the Bible as literature, but the household is said to have been atheistic. He experimented with psychedelic drugs and was involved with Middle East politics, meeting with Arafat to discuss peace prospects. Holotropic breathwork led him to his interest in aliens.

The March/April 2003 issue of "Psychology Today" asks the question "Alien Abductions: The Real Deal?" Dr. Mack is central to the article. Here you can learn that

- Mack has been on the faculty of Harvard Medical School since 1955, and in 1982 he founded the Center for Psychology and Social Change....The Center aims in part to study anomalous experiences...

- Mack founded the department of psychiatry at Harvard's Cambridge Hospital in 1969; a program that has long attracted innovative, Eastern-oriented psychiatrists.

- Mack has embraced traditions from Freudian psychoanalysis to the guided meditation of Werner Erhard. In 1988 he began to practice Stanislav Grof's holotropic breathwork, a technique that induces an altered state by means of deep, rapid breathing and evocative music.

- Mack used hypnotic regression to retrieve detailed memories of 13 encounters with aliens... Mack defends the use of controversial techniques such as hypnotic regression because he prizes the experiential narrative over empirical data....he was jolted when his subjects reported receiving telepathic warnings about man's decimation of natural resources.

Perhaps that helps to explain why Mack's Center for Psychology and Social Change turns up on the website of The National Religious Partnership for the Environment, an interfaith engagement. The organization's statement, "Declaration of the 'Mission to Washington' Joint Appeal by Religion and Science for the Environment " is signed by Dr. Steven J. Zeitlin, of the Center for Psychology and Social Change, Harvard Medical School; and by Ms. Nancy Wisdo, Director, Office of Domestic Social Development, United States Catholic Conference.

In the Alien Concepts interview linked above Dr. Mack responds to the question "So do you personally believe in this phenomenon?"

A. It's a no-brainer. It can't be accounted for in purely interpsychic ways. Many people are having these experiences around the world, spontaneously. It has to come from somewhere, what William James called a "provocation from without." I see it in the context of the global ecological crisis. The Earth is a source of creation and life, and out of ignorance, greed and aggression, we are destroying it. I see an awakening of consciousness about this, a spiritual reconnection with the sacred, with the divine.

With that statement he links the work of his institute with the ecological movement. And it is out of the ecological movement that the push for population control has reached the United Nations, complete with approval of abortion.

Who in the spiritual realm would seek to arrange the murder of innocent life? A fallen angel appearing as an E.T. whispering in the ear of whoever will listen?

According to FOCUS, the bulletin of the Harvard Medical, Dental, and Public Health Schools, Dr. Mack died in a car accident on Sept. 25, 2004.

---------------------

Another webpage at The John E. Mack Institute announces a BBCRadio4 half hour special about Dr. Mack and a Synopsis and Editorial Note from the John E. Mack Institute. According to the website one of the experiencers described himself as a "recovering Catholic".

The webpage also markets a DVD titled "Touched" which featurs in addition to Mack "Monsignor Corrado Balducci at the Vatican," among others.

---------------------

Another webpage describes the "Spirituality & Global Affairs independent initiative affiliated with John E. Mack Institute. There you can read about the "integral approach to global awakening." Sounds Gurdjieffian. Mack's institute implemented the Balkans Trauma Project "to help relief workers in the Balkans deal with the stresses of operating in war ravaged regions with traumatized populations." Did they use Gurdjieffian techniques?

---------------------

A cached version of a John E. Mack talk given at the International Association for New Science Conference, 1996, is interesting.

There you can read Mack's theories about alien abduction--not what you'd expect from someone on the Medical faculty at Harvard! According to the lecture Mack's work "has to do with phenomena that seem to come from another dimension: information obtained by [sic] telepathically; clairvoyance and the whole psi realm; out-of-body experiences; near-death experiences; telekinesis and the alien abduction phenomenon itself..."

He speaks of near-death experience, materializations, spaceships, abductions, implants, instruments, surgery, hybrids, babies, reproduction. He speaks in several places about the alien abduction reports dealing with ecology, with the earth as a living organism, with Mother Earth.

He uses Gurdjieff's language of "waking up" and "shocks". He speaks of evolution and shamanism.

He speaks of something else as well--love. One of the abductees he quotes talks extensively about the need for love, the aliens desire to obtain love. Speaking of this abductee he says:

She found that by emanating love towards them, the demonic or dark dimension of their being was affected. They seemed to pull back from the love she sent them, and at the same time, to thrive from it.

He speaks of love that "is at the core of the cosmos as its essential creative power." In fact he sounds a lot like John Paul II on the subject of love.

I can't help but note that we Catholics used to talk about "charity" much more often than we talked about love, and that today New Agers are very fond of talking about love, as do the progressive Christians. I'm not sure what conclusions can be drawn from that.

THE DEATH PENALTY AND ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI

FrontPageMagazine has an article up by Robert Spencer titled "Sympathy for the Devil" that presents an argument for the death penalty. Since that has been a subject here, I think it's worth noting. According to the article:

Any normal person faced with either execution or life imprisonment might rejoice at being granted the latter, but why would Moussaoui characterize this as a victory for himself and a defeat for America?

The answer can be found in the ideology that motivated Moussaoui to get involved with Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 plot. He told prosecutors that he felt “no regret, no remorse” for 9/11: “We want pain in your country. I wish there would be more pain.” Why? At his death penalty hearings, according to AP, Moussaoui “told jurors that Islam requires Muslims to be the world’s superpower as he flipped through a copy of the Koran searching for verses to support his assertions. One he cited requires non-Muslim nations to pay a tribute to Muslim countries.” It is likely that he cited Qur’an 9:29, which commands Muslims to make war against the “People of the Book” (i.e.. primarily Jews and Christians) until they pay the jizya, a poll tax not collected from Muslims, and “feel themselves subdued. An echo of this verse comes through in Moussaoui’s statement that “we” -- the Islamic world -- “have to be the superpower. You have to be subdued. We have to be above you. Because Americans, you are the superpower, you want to eradicate us.”

It is unlikely that he is going to change that mindset in prison. But who will be his cellmates? Americans. Not just the common street variety. Criminal Americans. It is often said that prisons are the schools of crime. What are the other prisoners likely to learn from Zacarias Moussaoui?

The article answers that question:

Moussaoui himself could become a heroic figure, most especially in whatever prison in which he is ultimately incarcerated. He will provide a new impetus for prison conversions to Islam, and a rallying point for jihad recruitment in his prison. This may be the most important reason of all why Moussaoui declared victory on Wednesday: he can see himself training up the next generation of mujahedin who will see his great battle for Allah through to final victory over the American Great Satan.

It is assumed by the Catholic argument to abolish the death penalty that society can be made safe without the need of it. That takes for granted that "society" and "prison" are two arenas that do not overlap. That, however, is not the case. In addition to the guards there are the Christians who try to make a difference in the prisons. There are other prisoners who must find a way to get along with each other. How will Moussaoui's cellmates find living conditions under his tutelage? And what will they learn that they can put to use when their sentence is completed?

PEER PERSPECTIVES AND SYNTHESIS DIALOGUES

The Program for Extraordinary Research (PEER) and the Synthesis Dialogues -- connecting the dots.

Yesterday I posted a link to Synthesis Dialogues 1, where Brian Muldoon of the Dearborn Institute, Barbara Fields, executive director of the Association for Global New Thought, and Catholic Bro. Wayne Teasdale are listed as the co-directors of the project. According to the website, the objective of the Synthesis Dialogues was to "create a living laboratory in which participants could examine for themselves the process by which human awareness is expanded."

What does it mean to "expand human awareness"?

Perhaps Brian Muldoon's other interests can shed some light on that.

At PEER Perspectives 3 - the Newsletter of the Program for Extraordinary Research - Center for Psychology and Social Change Board of Directors and PEER Advisory Board are presented. Notice two names on the list -- John E. Mack, M.D. and Brian Muldoon, Dearborn Institute.

A quick read of the entry "From the Executive Director" indicates PEER is "not merely a euphemism for 'alien encounter experiences.'

PEER is a UFO encounter group, and one of the founders of the Synthesis Dialogues I was a member of the Advisory Board. That, it would appear, is the meaning of "expand human awareness" in the Synthesis Dialogues.

Remember that the Synthesis Dialogues included the Dalai Lama, the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, and that yesterday I linked a Brown University website that described what Tibetan Buddhists believe. It included "the fundamental concept of Tantra" and that Tibetan Buddhism is associated with Shamanism. Mantras are central to Tibetan Buddhism, as they are to any Buddhism.

Fr. Seraphim Rose wrote some interesting things in ORTHODOXY AND THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE.

Tantric yoga has been little heard of and almost never practiced in the West up to now. All authorities agree that it is an extremely dangerous exercise, practiced always by male and female together, that evokes a very powerful psychic energy, requiring close supervision and control. Supposedly, there is only one master of tantric yoga living on the earth at any one time; the exercises at "Solstice" in New Mexico were led by the "Great Tantric" of our days, Yogi Bhajan. ...

The chanting of mantras begins, with special chants invoking a departed guru who is Yogi Bhajan's "special protector"....the tantric exercises, which are a key in this preparation [a "new beautiful creative nation of America"], transform people from their usual "individual consciousness" to "group consciousness" and finally to "universal consciousness." (page 60)

Speaking of a "New Christianity", Fr. Seraphim writes:

but the specifically "new" ingredient in this "Christianity" is nothing original or "advanced," but merely a modern form of the devil's age-old religion of shamanistic paganism. (page 173)

And lastly, in describing UFOs, Fr. Seraphim writes:

In a recent bibliography of the UFO phenomena prepared by the Library of Congress for the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the introduction states that "Many of the UFO reports now being published in the popular press recount alleged incidents that are strikingly similar to demonic possession and psychic phenomena which have long been known to theologians and parapsychologists. Most UFO researchers are now turning to the occult realm and to demonology for insight into the phenomena they are studying....mediumistic spiritism itself, when it is genunie, undeniably produces real "para-normal" phenomena under the action of demons. UFO phenomena, having the same source, are no less real. (page 102)

One more dot...

The John E. Mack Institute. At that website you can read the history of the Program for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER).

Now...bear with me...

Brian Muldoon, one of the three founders of the Synthesis Dialogues, and associated with the Dearborn Institute, is also on the Advisory Board of PEER.

Another Synthesis Dialogues founder, Barbara Fields Bernstein, is listed as the "assistant director of the Dearborn Institute in a blurb about her lecture at California State University Fullerton. She is also the co-founder of the United Communities of Spirit Grassroots Network. From the website:

"Dialogue and Cooperation Among the World's Religions in the 21st Century," is the first in a series of lectures funded by a University Planning Intiative. The series was created to link faculty, staff, students and the campus's external communities monthly. Barbara Fields Bernstein, assistant director of the Dearborn Institute, a not-for-profit organization focused on networking, training, conflict resolution and collaborative decision-making in the religious, cultural and ethnic communities will conduct the first lecture. She co-founded the United Communities of Spirit Grassroots Network.

So now we know that kind of dialogue Focolare hosted at Castel Gandolfo. We know what lies behind the peace efforts of Focolare, at least in this instance. And we know that Focolare had John Paul IIs blessing.

Does it have Benedict's blessing as well? Because if it does, and if it continues to work with this new religion, Benedict, by approval of Focolare, is working for the other side.

That's a lot of "ifs", and I don't have any verification, but the stakes are high. Our very Catholic faith hangs in the balance.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Joseph frequently comments on his opposition to John Paul II's changes in the Catholic teaching on the death penalty.

John Paul II had some strange bedfellows in his thinking on this subject -- the John E. Mack Institute.

Since there is a series of connecting dots that got me to this Institute, I won't comment right now. Just note that they are interested in "Extraordinary Experiences" as their "Search By Theme" links on the right indicate.

EMAIL

If anyone has emailed me and expected an answer they didn't get, it's probably because I didn't receive the email. People are telling me they sent me things that have never arrived, and some of my email is not getting to its destination. At the moment I don't know the cause and haven't had time to try to figure it out.

SYNTHESIS DIALOGUES I

The first of the Synthesis Dialogues was held in September, 1999, in Norbulingka Institute in Dharamsala, India.

Participants included Jean Houston, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Joan Borysenko, Elisabet Sahtouris, Peter Russell, and Marcus Braybrooke among other New Age luminaries.

At the beginning the co-directors of this project were Barbara Fields, executive director of the Association for Global New Thought, Brian Muldoon of the Dearborn Institute, and Brother Wayne Teasdale. Forty participants and sixty observers were present for the event.

According to the website: "The primary goal of the Synthesis Dialogues was to create a living laboratory in which participants could examine for themselves the process by which human awareness is expanded."

Synthesis, according to the website, is this: "All forms of human knowledge and activity are responsive to and now are being evolved by the insights of spirituality at every level."

Synthesis is defined by Websters as: "the combining of the constituent elements of separate material or abstract entities into a single or unified entity."

Since this synthesis of spirituality seems to be the objective of the Synthesis Dialogues, and since the Dialogues consist of representatives of the Buddhist and Catholic religions, it's instructive to discover what this conference is attempting to synthesize with Catholicism.

With that objective in mind, I looked at the work of Philip Lieberman at Brown University, and specifically at his website devoted to Tibetan Buddhist Wall Paintings. Since the paintings represent spiritual themes, Liberman has included a brief overview of Tibetan Buddhism. If at all possible, read it. If you can't make the time to read it, here is some of what the overview contains:

- Tibetan Buddhism includes Tantric Buddhism, the most esoteric and mystical of the schools of Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism cannot be understood without the fundamental concept of Tantra.

- At least one expert claims that Tibetan Buddhist rituals are comparable with Catholic rituals on a superficial level, though some of its practices are devil worship or sorcery.

- It uses mantras, incantation, ritual and magic to achieve power over supramundane beings, and the objective of the relgion is to transcend the self and unite with the deity.

- It uses ritual yoga.

- Some tantric texts refer to practices involving sexual acts and even immoral acts, but this is a misinterpretation.

- It includes magical formulas, destruction of demons, divination, auguries, oracles and symbolic sacrifice. It is associated with Shamanism.

- It makes no mention of a creator. It offers a vast pantheon of divinities. It posits divinity that does not interfere with creation and does not sit in judgment.

- It encompasses various indigenous beliefs and spirits with no concept of heresy.

- It promotes a "sexual embrace between the divinity and his consort."

This is the religion that Focolare is helping to synthisize with Catholicism through the (so far three) Synthesis Dialogues, the second of which was held at their Mariapolis Center, and the third of which was held at Castel Gandolfo under the watch of John Paul II in 2004.

And we wonder why we have a sexual abuse scandal. Meanwhile how many Catholics promote interreligious dialogue with every religion under the sun, as though there were no danger to the faith in this activity.

And the fruits of this dialogue? Multiple conversions to the Catholic faith? Or have the fruits consisted of priests and nuns talking about Shamanism, yoga, Buddhism, and spiritual practices that have nothing to do with Catholicism? Are our Catholic leaders sacrificing Jesus Christ in the name of peace?

Benedict, the ball is in your court.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

60 MINUTES INVESTIGATES THE PRIORY OF SION

and finds that it is a hoax.

The most interesting aspect of the investigation is the discovery that Henry Lincoln gives tours of Rennes Le Chateau. Lincoln is one of the three authors of HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL, the one who did not take part in the lawsuit against Dan Brown for plagiarism.

You can read the article here thanks to a link at Insight Scoop.

OCCULT ASPECTS OF MURDER OF SR. MARGARET ANN PAHL

TOLEDO, Ohio — An expert in exorcism and other Roman Catholic rituals testified Monday that the murder of a nun in a chapel 26 years ago was committed by someone with specialized knowledge of the church's rites and symbols.

The witness, a Catholic priest who studies the occult and consults on cases of alleged demonic possession, told jurors at the murder trial of Rev. Gerald Robinson that the ritualistic nature of the slaying suggested a member of the clergy was the culprit.

Continue reading...

FROM THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, LORD ROLL AWAY THE STONE !

To find a New Thought conference hosted by Focolare at Castel Gandolfo is just about the last scandal that I can endure. Will a conference of the Church of Satan be next, held in the name of interreligious dialogue, and hosted by Focolare? There doesn't seem to be much left to hope in. If our leadership can't get the First Commandment right, what reason is there to hope? Those of us who still believe are a remnant.

Jesus Christ has no equal and no substitute. Salvation comes only through Him; but either the Roman Catholic leadership doesn't believe that or doesn't care.

Death was swallowed up in victory
At Thy resurrection from the dead, O Christ.
Hence, glorying in Thy passion,
And always celebrating it, we rejoice.
With jubilation let us cry out,
“The Lord is risen.”

Once the host of lawless people handed over
Life to the tomb, God to death,
And the One who despoiled Hades to Hades;
With the result that a mortal made mortals immortal,
And One who was dead, at a word, raised up the dead.
They placed guards at the tomb of the One who rules all at His nod.
O the folly of you lawless ones!
If He is dead, have no fear.
If He is alive, pray to Him and cry with us,
“The Lord is risen.”

Encouraged by the senseless plan of the lawless,
The soldiers occupied the tomb,
And an army guarded the King.
Outside of the tomb were soldiers;
Within was war between Christ and Death.
As the former gained strength, the latter lost strength;
The One overpowered those below,
The latter cried out to those below,
“The Lord is risen.”

So while Death was being overpowered,
And while Hades was stirring up a tumult
The guards said, “Now what is the trouble?”
The first watch of the night, those within were quiet;
The second watch, they were at rest;
But on the third watch, they were shaken.
They mourn and rejoice at the same time;
They weep and they cry to one another, “Woe, alas!”
Then, rejoicing, they say to one another, “It is true,
The Lord is risen.”

The earth was shaken by great fear,
And the stone was rolled away from the tomb.
A soldier exclaimed,
“Is not this man who now raises up Adam
And is resurrected, is not He the same one
Whom formerly we guarded on the cross
When all were frightened?
Then He burst rocks apart; now He has moved this stone.
Furthermore, He is the same One
Who has rent the veil and opened the tomb while we were sleeping.
“The Lord is risen.”

For others a stumbling block, for us gain;
For the lawless shame, for us glory;
For them a scourge, for us life.
Because, in truth, the Lord is risen.
Even if those who guard the tomb took money
So that they would willingly keep silent,
The stones themselves will cry out
That without the aid of human hands
This stone cut from the mountain has risen,
Just as once from the womb of the Virgin,
So now from the tomb,
The Lord is risen.

Thou, O Savior, didst come forth unbegotten
From the Virgin’s womb, leaving her virginity unsullied;
Just so now Thou hast abolished Death in death.
Thou hast left in the tomb the fine linen of Joseph,
But Thou hast raised from the tomb the ancestor of Joseph;
For Adam came following Thee; Eve came after Thee,
All the earth is prostrate before Thee
As it sings the song of victory:
“The Lord is risen”

from the Orthodox First Kontakion on the Resurrection
St. Romanos the Melodist, 6th century