Still Running Off at the Keyboard

THREE QUESTIONS FOR BISHOP LENNON

Thanks to a reader for sending in a post at Free Republic which asks Bishop Lennon to address three issues in the diocese:

1. FutureChurch located on Diocesan property

2. Gay pride symbols on the Diocesan website

3. John Carroll University's pro-abortion counseling center

Perhaps Bishop Robert Finn in Kansas City could offer some guidance. It's easier to be orthodox when you have company. Your Diocese is hoping that you will defend the faith and speak for Jesus Christ, Bishop Lennon. Can we count on you?

COVERT HYPNOSIS

I seem to recall that Gurdjieff used it to persuade the owner of a building which had been rented to Ouspensky to also rent the building to Gurdjieff. The law courts denied Gurdjieff's rental agreement. Unfortunately I can't locate the reference at the moment. In any case...

No one would knowing allow someone else--some stranger--to hypnotize them. But what if they didn't know it was happening? If it worked for Gurdjieff, did he then pass the knowledge along to others?

With that thought in mind, look at this website.

ROCOR AND MOSCOW REUNITE

The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad adopted a resolution on Thursday at a historic synod that would accept the Moscow Patriarch as its head after more than 80 years of bitter separation following the Communist revolution.

The 135 delegates and top church officials at only the fourth All-Diaspora Council since 1920 adopted a recommendation calling for spiritual unity with the Moscow Patriarchate but administrative autonomy, church officials said.

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GREEK ORTHODOX RESPONSE TO DAN BROWN

The Greek Orthodox have created a website devoted to the debunking of TDVC which contains several essays on various topics associated with the Code.

I thought this one was very good--"The Christ Code: Sermon on the Myrrhbearing Women Sunday" by Rev. Dr. Dumitru Macaila. He contrasts the Code connection to Christ through Mary Magdalene's child with the real connection that is available for each and every human being who seeks Him.

That connection to Christ, spoken of in the sermon, is so important. We must first know Him, and then move on to living the faith as the Church teaches us to do through the sanctifying grace that Jesus won for us on Calvary. Without relationship with Christ, we have no hope of overcoming sin and finding the freedom that overcoming it provides. The social gospel as a substitute for relationship with Christ is so pathetically lacking in substance. And the occult gospel that takes power for the purpose of accomplishing our own will will lead to hell every time.

CHEMTRAILS...THIS REPORTER SAYS THEY'RE REAL

William Thomas, reporting for Alive Magazine writes:

It started in the winter of 1998. Sky-obscuring "chemtrails" have been observed by thousands of eyewitnesses–including pilots, police officers and former military personnel–over Canada, the USA, Britain, Australia and allied European nations. Within Canada, Victoria, Vancouver, the BC Interior, Moose Jaw, Edmonton and much of Ontario have been hit particularly hard.

On March 15, 2001, radio reporter S.T. Brendt interviewed a senior air traffic control manager with the Federal Aviation Association (FAA) who was responsible for commercial aircraft over the northeastern United States. The FAA manager admitted he was being ordered to divert commercial flights around formations of US Air Force (USAF) Stratotankers. On whether the Air Force jets crossed into Canadian air space, he replied "yes."

Each of the 650 USAF Stratotankers carries 150,000 pounds of transferable fuel. Each of the 50 KC-10s (refuelling jets) carries about 320,000 pounds. Speaking under strict anonymity, the FAA official said the purpose of the military missions was weather modification.

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Blogger credit to Spirit Daily.

CREATIVE WOMEN DRIVERS

Scroll down to the pictures.

ROBINSON FOUND GUILTY

According to The Sydney Morning Herald:

A 68-year-old Catholic priest has been found guilty of the murder 26 years ago of a nun in a crime that prosecutors said had Satanic undertones and may have been covered up by church leaders.

The Rev Gerald Robinson appeared stony faced as the jury's guilty verdict was read and he blinked repeatedly and glanced at his lawyers before being led away in handcuffs.

He was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison by Lucas County Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas Osowik, who offered Robinson a court-appointed lawyer if he wanted to appeal.

Robinson, who wore his clerical collar throughout the two-week trial, had been free on bail raised by supporters since his arrest in 2004, and relieved of his priestly duties since that time.

After the verdict was read, one of Robinson's supporters left the court in tears. She turned to Claudia Vercellotti, a local leader of the Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests, who had helped reopen the case, and told her, "I hope you rot in hell!"

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It never fails to amaze me that there are Catholics who will attack the abused or those who represent them in an effort to defend a priest who has been found guilty. We strongly resist believing anything negative about those who act in personna Christi. That attitude has worked to our detriment, and when we are finally forced to believe it, the impact is much more devastating than the impact of other crimes would be.

The story about this trial that I found most interesting is this one at the Court Television Network website where the alleged evidence that the jury wasn't allowed to hear is offered, including these two pieces:

S&M allegation. In 2003, a nun told a diocesan panel that she was sexually abused by Robinson when she was 15. She claimed that another priest paid her father to let Robinson engage her in sadomasochistic acts involving a whip. The same woman also alleged she was raped repeatedly as a girl during satanic rituals led by priests. Authorities have not been able to substantiate or disprove her charges.

Occult book. When police searched Robinson's home in 2004, they found a pamphlet entitled "The Occult." Many passages were underlined, including one describing a black Mass in which "an innocent" was used as an altar. The booklet was published by a Catholic group in the 1970s, before the murder, but it was unclear whether Robinson obtained it before or after the murder.

There is also a claim that a large number of photos of corpses in coffins were found in Robinson's house in 2004.

As my husband pointed out, I have a library of occult books that could be turned into an argument against me even though my purpose in having them is to write an opposing viewpoint, not to learn how to practice Satanism. I also have a few pictures of relatives in their caskets, a custom in my husband's family that I'm comfortable with. There are even pictures from the funeral of John Paul II in his casket that can be downloaded from the web. And pictures of incorrupt bodies of various saints can easily be obtained.

I haven't, however, been accused of sexually abusing a 15-year-old, or convicted of stabbing a nun through an altar cloth in a pattern representing a Satanic symbol, and then leaving her body half naked to be found by others who stumble onto the murder scene. Which is what makes this information about Fr. Robinson, if it is true, much more incriminating.

CLEANING HOUSE IN KANSAS

An NCR article outlines the changes that have taken place in the Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri diocese at the hands of Bishop Robert Finn who took over the office around the same time that Benedict took over his. Heads have rolled. Bishop Finn does it his way, and his way would appear to be not only orthodox, but also focused on doing the things we would expect a bishop to do, such as paying attention to what is happening in the parishes and focusing on the sacraments. The social programs have been cut.

Would I dare to be cautiously optimistic over this? At least it's encouraging for a moment.

Blogger credit to David Alexander/Man with Black Hat.

RELIGIOUS UNDERPINNINGS OF STAR WARS

George Lucas was a "Buddhist Methodist."

Lucas was born and raised in a strongly Methodist family. After inserting religious themes into Star Wars he would eventually come to identify strongly with the Eastern religious philosophies he studied and incorporated into his movies, which were a major inspiration for "the Force." Lucas eventually came to state that his religion was "Buddhist Methodist." Gary Kurtz, a Latter-day Saint who had studied Comparative Religion extensively in college and on his own, was pivotal in introducing Lucas to Eastern religions (particularly Buddhism) and Native American religion, and discussing with Lucas how best to improve "Star Wars" by giving it a believable but sufficiently universal religious underpinning. Kurtz was the producer of "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back" and also did some work on the "Star Wars" screenplay.

REMEMBER LAM ?

That's the name of Aleister Crowley's spook. There is an article in the "Excluded Middle Magazine" from 1996 by Ian Blake, titled "Aleister Crowley and the Lam Statement" that's worth reading . The article concerns the "Amalantrah Working", a Crowley magickal ritual of evocation. In the article you can learn that:

1. The details are unclear, but it seems that some stage during the proceedings he underwent a form of contactee experience involving a large-headed entity now known to occultists as Lam.

2. Lam, (whose name derives from the Tibetan word for "way" or "path")...

3. [Crowley's successor Kenneth Grant's] interest in CETI (Contact with Extraterrestrial Intelligence)-type phenomena is of long-standing duration. In 1955 for instance, he announced the discovery of a trans-plutonian planet called Isis, and simultaneously established an order called the New Isis Lodge OTO for the purpose (among others) of contacting higher intelligences....Grant allegedly received 'strong intimations' to the effect that Crowley's portrait of Lam "is the present focus of an extraterrestrial -- and perhaps trans-plutonic--energy which the OTO is required to communicate at this critical period..."

4. ...individual members of the OTO...have established contact with the magical entity known as Lam.

5. ...the name Lam is the Mantra; and the Tantra is the union with the dikpala by entering the Egg of Spirit represented by the Head. [Egg of Spirit??? - ct]

6. According to a recent edition of the OTO (Ordo Templi Orientis) journal KHABS, "the central concern of magic is communion with discarnate or extraterrestrial intelligences." It is to this end that much contemporary occultism is predicated. As long ago as 1918 Aleister Crowley conducted a series of experiments in what would today be termed channeling, or "induced contacteeism."...
Since then, several occultists, notably Michael Bertiaux in the 1960s and a group of OTO initiates in the 1970s, have carried out similar magical workings. What is more their efforts in many cases have been crowned with remarkable success--at least if the official OTO party line is to be believed. [emphasis mine - ct]

First time I've seen it spelled out clearly as channeling in an OTO article, an unequivocal violation of the First Commandment.

If this is what all contactee events amount to, then it would at least appear that the priest, Msgr. Balducci, is engaged in supporting a sinful pursuit, assuming that he has given his approval to the activities of Dr. Richard Boylan. And it would also seem that Focolare's involvement with people from PEER, of the John E. Mack Institute, another group that supports belief in UFOs, is questionable.

It's been quite a series of connecting dots!

THE FATIMA UFO

There is an unexpected article in one UFO website that I visited the other day.

The website, itself, is typical of the ufologists but with a twist. It also includes the ouroboros on the website and offers a book about "The Secret Chronicles of Mars", promising to reveal the "great cosmic Clock embodied in the ouroboros, the "gods" that ruled before Adam, and the modern alchemists of NASA. The book is authored by David E. Flynn. Down at the bottom is one of those greys that keep popping up in Aleister Crowley websites, and in the skulls said to have been unearthed beneath the Vatican library.

But there is something else in this one that a Catholic in particular would be interested in.

What do you do if the message from Fatima inhibits your agenda? Well, if you are the "watcher" as the URL of this website seems to indicate, you morph the apparition into a UFO event.

Any true Christian would tell you that the "divine beings" sighted in modern apparitions like Fatima, Bayside, Medjagorge (sic), Georgia etc. (sic) are NOT the Biblical Mary but some creature impersonating her for a deceptive religious agenda. Christians do not believe in Marian apparitions, only Catholics do.

And you know, Catholics are not Christian. Oh...you mean they are Christian? Well, someone should have told the watcher.

In any case, I see that he doesn't mention La Salette, Lourdes, Akita, or any of the other approved apparitions. No, he dredges up the disapproved apparitions and lumps Fatima with them. Not much of a testimony to the credibility of his book, I'd say.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

DOES TIBETAN BUDDHISM TEACH TANTRA ?

Yes. From the website:

Rinpoche is one of the teachers of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and many other high Lamas. Rinpoche has been giving teachings around the world in many countries included: Australia, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Italy, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States.

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Yes. From the website:

The following text is the transcribed and translated excerpt of the above interview with His Eminent Gaden-Tripa, Lobsang Nyima on Lam-rim.

The Lam-rim (gradual or the graded path or the steps of the path) has been taught by the Lord Buddha at great length both in his Discourses and in his Tantra. In his 84,000 textual volumes of the Discourses or the 84,000 heaps of Dharma teachings includes every teaching on the stages of spiritual path except Tantric teachings that he taught separately. ...

It is, therefore, the great compassionate Bodhisatva’s of Tibet at that time decided to invite some Pandits from India who could give some instructions that would be of special benefit to keep the teachings of the Buddha in the world.

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Yes. From the website:

What is the main purpose of the Basic Program?
It is to mainly to encourage “old” students to engage in a deep and systematic study of the teachings of Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism, however it also provides new students the chance to get an excellent in-depth overview of the entire path to enlightenment. In addition, it will serve the purpose of providing qualified teachers, both lay and ordained, of sutra and tantra for the FPMT centers.

YOGA IN NEW OXFORD REVIEW

This month's NOR came yesterday. A couple of letters to the editor were interesting. Both of them comment on the article giving warnings about Yoga that ran last month.

The first letter is a testimony to the practice of Yoga for ten years that has been beneficial. The writer, Robert Petty, Chicago, Illinois, writes:

A Christian monk, J.M. Dechanet, wrote two books, Christian Yoga and Yoga in Ten Lessons, which have guided me well. As long as a person avoids yoga's meditations and relations to deity, and uses the breathing and physical exercises, it is safe and helpful.

The follow-up letter is from Charles Borromeo, Shawnee, Kansas, who writes:

Peter's article has provided for greater understanding of the true nature of Yoga, a pagan practice. I would like to add but one point. In addition to the dangers Peters listed, there is the danger of demonic possession. Yoga is a diabolic practice ("For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils" -- Psalm 95:5, Douay-Rheims). The danger of Yoga results from violating the First Commandment.

I am aware of one individual who was so devout in the practice of Yoga that he spent a year in India to study it. Within months of returning, he fell into despair. Through one of his Yoga techniques, he invited a "snake" to crawl up his spine into his mind, where it took control of his body, by his own account.

Through this, he found his damnation: while giving false worship through Yoga from atop a bridge, he was flung to his death from the devil which had dwelt within his body.

Yoga's "transcendence" causes the soul to withdraw from the body enough that devils have an opportunity to fill the void.

The "snake" is the kundalini of Tantra.

OH GANESHA SAVE US

Remember the picture of Cardinal Ivan Diez worshipping Ganesha with incense that Tradition and Action had up on their website (scroll down)? Chaos Magician Phil Hine's website that I linked yesterday in relation to the "rites" of an abusive priest has more information in the article titled "On the Adoration of the Lingam" that would seem to be pertinent to this picture of worship. Hine writes:

Salutation to Ganesha

A salutation to Ganesha, whom Shiva decreed should be worshipped prior to the beginning of any auspicious act, is made. This is also appropriate as Ganesha is the guardian or doorkeeper of the Muladhara Chakra. The penis, (particularly if flaccid), may be adored as Ganesha's trunk.

Muladhara Chakra

Now aren't you glad you know that?

I think it's time for our cardinals to get back to worshipping Christ, don't you?

HERMETIC ARCHITECTURE

A reader sent in a link to the trailer for a new Sydney Pollack movie about architect Frank Gehry. If you have an interest in architecture, check it out. His buildings are unusual, and probably EXPENSIVE with a lot of wasted space that somebody has to pay to heat. But they get your attention, sort of like a piece of modern art gets your attention. Not necessarily admiration, of course. Dog doo-doo on the sidewalk gets attention, too.

THE WOLVES IN VICTIM CLOTHES

— As the cost of clergy sex abuse surpasses $1.5 billion, some U.S. Roman Catholic leaders are taking an aggressive, public stand against attorneys who represent victims.

The new development in the long-running clergy abuse crisis was partly triggered by proposals in several statehouses this year that would create a brief period when molestation claims could be filed _ even if the time limits for lawsuits had passed.

Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput portrayed the legislation introduced in Colorado as part of a conspiracy between advocacy groups and attorneys to enrich lawyers at the church's expense.

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Blogger credit to New Oxford Review.

I can't help but reflect that the earliest victims that came forward did so because the Church refused to do exactly what the bishops are now recommending.

IN THE TOLEDO TRIAL OF FR. ROBINSON...

Toledo - Testimony in a priest's murder trial showed how the Toledo Catholic Diocese got inside information from police about their investigation and worked behind the scenes on the priest's behalf.

A senior detective testified Monday that a deputy police chief interceded in a way that made him livid, and that he found to be inappropriate.

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Blogger credit to New Oxford Review.

ADORING BODY PARTS – CONNECTING THE DOTS

First, just to refresh, let’s go back to the Synthesis Dialogues – the second of which was held at Focolare’s Mariapolis, and the third of which was held at Castle Gandolfo. All three were co-directed by Barbara Fields, executive director of the Association for Global New Thought, and guided by the Dalai Lama. (If anyone is new to my blog or hasn't stopped in recently, scroll down and look at blogs about the Dialogues and about the John E. Mack Institute/Msgr. Balducci to get the details.)

Discovery of the Dialogues brought up the question of what is contained in Tibetan Buddhism, since the Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhists. For an answer I turned to Philip Lieberman at Brown University, where it became obvious that Tantra is included in Tibetan Buddhism.

So what is Tantra? There may be more than one answer to that question; I really don’t know. I do know that there is an answer on the website of prominent Chaos Magician Phil Hine. In fact Hine has an entire Tantra index on his website.

The essay that I found particularly interesting, though, is titled "On the Adoration of the Lingam" by Kalkinath. Before you visit that essay, please know that the language is quite graphic and may be offensive. Here is the link. There is a section of the article—and please forgive the language, but there is no other way to make this point—is titled “Blowjob Bhakti”. There you can read:

One of the central homo-erotic interludes in Hindu myth is Agni’s swallowing of the semen of Shiva, which led to a chain of events culminating in the birth of the god Skanda. Skanda is considered by some writers to be the object of devotion by a homo-erotic cult in India and elsewhere.

"Then from his linga Shiva released his perfect seed which had the fragrant perfume of jasmine or the blue lotus. Agni took it into his hands and drank it, rejoicing, thinking, ‘Elixir!’ and then Shiva vanished."
Saura Purana, quoted in Conner, Sparks & Sparks, p44

Semen is the purest form of sacrificial elixir – the Soma offering given to the fire of desire. The Vedic texts contain many references to semen as a form of food. On an esoteric level, the ingestion of semen is a form of eucharist whereby the deity resides in the semen and enters the body of the practitioner. The magical properties of ingesting semen appears in a wide variety of cultural contexts.

Sucking cock is an act of worship. Kneeling before a man is an adoration, or an abasement. Accepting the semen of a stranger or lover is immensely powerful. There’s a power in yielding, in abandoning oneself, and a power in one’s ability, through passion and skill, to bring about the pleasure of another.

In the Kama Sutra, fellatio is referred to as auparishtaka – ‘superior coition’, and associates its practice with hijras or male prostitutes. Although describing the ‘eight ways’ of performing fellatio in some detail, Vatsyayana warns against its practice. Such injunctions however, do not apply to practitioners of tantra. (emphasis mine - ct)

Now it may be that Hindu Tantra and Buddhist Tantra are different. But it may also be that when a Westerner takes up Tantra, he is not particular which variety he embraces, or even that he keep the varieties separate.

Is this representative of the Buddhism that the Association of Global New Thought is attempting to synthesize with Catholicism? I suppose one would have to attend the conference to answer that question.

One would also have to ask the Dalai Lama how this aspect of Tantra fits with his beliefs as well. World Tibet Network News had the following to say about this question in 1993:

On abortion and homosexuality, which have deeply divided
other religious faiths, the Dalai Lama said he believed life is
sacred and abortion is wrong - though there may be special
circumstances, such as saving the life of the mother, when it
might be an option. He said nature arranged male and female organs
"in such a manner that is very suitable... Same-sex organs cannot
manage well." But he stopped short of condemning homosexual
relationships altogether, saying if two people agree to enter a
relationship that is not sexually abusive, "then I don't know.
It's difficult to say."

There have been news clips that indicate he has backed even further away from that position. The Washington Blade reports that "In a book published in 1996, the Dalai Lama said that Buddhist scripture advised against gay sex."

In any case, it is commonly known in Catholic circles that the monks who promote interreligious dialogue are quite open to Buddhism.

Is it possible that these same monks have led some of our priests astray through their writings, sparking a sexual abuse crisis in the Church? There is some evidence that it is possible. Bear with me, I know this is getting long…

From a report in the Boston Globe:

The documents are among the most remarkable in the 2,200 pages of once-secret church files released yesterday: allegations that a priest had initiated sexual acts with teenagers preparing to become nuns by encouraging them to believe they were making love to Jesus Christ himself.

Last night, the Rev. Robert V. Meffan admitted it was true, and said he still believes his sexual relationships with teenage girls were ''beautiful, spiritual'' experiences intended to bring young people closer to God.

''What I was trying to show them is that Christ is human and you should love him as a human being,'' said Meffan, 73, reached by phone at his Carver home. ''Don't think he's up there and he's spiritual and he's not human and physical. He's human, he's physical. That's what I was trying to point out to them. I felt that by having this little bit of intimacy with them that this is what it would be like with Christ.''

Was this priest practicing Tantra? Well, if this one wasn’t, how about the following one, also from a Boston Globe report?

Time magazine reports on Frank Martinelli, who was molested in his teens by the Rev. Laurence Brett: ''Martinelli claims that while Brett was driving him home, the priest urged the boy to give him oral sex, blessing it as a way to receive Holy Communion.'' (emphasis mine - ct)

That is Tantra, as Phil Hine’s website quoted above demonstrates.
If you synthesize Buddhism with Catholicism, do you get molested adolescents? At least in this case, it would seem that you do.

One might also reflect on the fact that some bishops and priests have had a particularly strong desire to stop communicants from kneeling in front of them. Given what Phil Hine has written about Tantra, I can't help but wonder if those bishops and priests are concerned about bodily response to the kneeling position, and want to avoid embarrassing themselves. So it could be that when they oppose kneeling for communion, they are telling us something about themselves.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

CAMPUS CRUSADE FOR CTHULHU

Lovecraft on the program at MIT.

This is meant to mock Campus Crusade for Christ. The club officers include a "High Priestess." The library offers:

Our library has been growing slowly and surely, and we now possess texts on many subjects. Our collection is primarily Lovecraft and Lovecraftian horror, but we also have some texts on Mysticism, Occultism, and Magick. For a full inventory, look here. Office hours will be held periodically. Feel free to drop by and peruse a book! Hours to be posted SHORTLY.

They would like us to think they are funny. If they are practicing occultism--working spells--the results might not be so amusing.

A UFO - LOVECRAFT - AND ROBERT E. HOWARD

There is an account of a UFO event in Texas at this website. Whether it's true or not, what is interesting about it is this:

The incident in Crystal City was soon forgotten by most folks in the area ... but not by Bobby. Twenty-one years later, in 1931, he wrote about it to his friend and fellow fantasy author, Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Bobby, of course, is better known by his professional nom de plume — Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian.

Are UFO events behind not only Aleister Crowley but also H. P. Lovecraft's beliefs and writings?

Prominent Chaos Magician Phil Hine writes:

Lovecraft's writing regularly appeared in the pulp magazine, Weird Tales, edited by Farnsworth Wright. Weird Tales also published the work of several of Lovecraft's correspondent-friends, such as Robert E. Howard, (the creator of Conan the barbarian) Frank Belknap Long, and Clark Ashton Smith. ...

Lovecraft's pantheon of Mythos Entities, The Great Old Ones, are the nightmarish pan-dimensional beings who continually threaten the Earth with destruction. They lie 'in death's dream' sealed beneath the ocean, or beyond the stars. They can be summoned 'when the stars are right', and can enter the human world through a series of gates - power spots, magical lenses, or, as in the case of 'The Dunwich Horror', through rites of sexual congress between aliens & humans.


The Great Old Ones are served by various human, and non-human cults in wild and lonely places, from 'degenerate' swamp-dwellers to the innumerable 'incestuous' Whateley's of the fictional region Dunwich. These cults are continually preparing both to bring about the return of the Old Ones, and also to silence anyone who does stumble across the awful secret of the existence of the Old Ones.


The return of the Old Ones involves, as Wilbur Whateley puts it in The Dunwich Horror, the "clearing off" of the Earth. That is, the clearing off of humanity, apart from a few worshippers and slaves. This apocalyptic reference can be asserted as metaphorical, or as referring to an actual physical catastrophe - Nuclear holocaust perhaps? Perhaps Lovecraft wished to emphasise that the Great Old Ones would give no more thought to wiping out human than we might give to wiping up water on a table.

Is this what Malachi Martin was working on, since he appeared on the Art Bell show?

Ufologist Joseph Trainor reports that Lovecraft's grave was desecrated on the night of Dec. 4, 1997:

Lovecraft, who died sixty years ago, is considered the finest American horror writer after Edgar Allen Poe. He is best remembered for his "cosmic horror" stories such as "The Colour Out of Space," "The Call of Cthulu" and "Pickman's Model." (See the Providence, R.I. Journal- Bulletin for December 4, 1997, "New Lovecraft Mystery Surfaces at Swan Point," page 1.) (Editor's Note: The Lovecraft grave disturbance occurred the same week as the appearance of a large triangle-shaped UFO over Route 10 in Cranston, R.I., about 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of Swan Point Cemetery. Stay tuned for the sequel..."Howard Goes to Yuggoth.")

That newsletter also reports a UFO sighting in Crestone, Colorado.

CAN A TARNISHED HISTORY BE OVERLOOKED ?

Tom Herron, over at Neocon Observer, has blogged Rod Dreyer's recent conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy, bringing up some of the past disagreements between Eastern and Western Christianity.

Since his comments box won't accept a comment from me, I'm putting my thoughts here.

There may be many reasons, historically, to see the Orthodox as the enemies of Roman Catholicism. I'm not disputing that.

However, today in the current climate in the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox have one thing that we sorely lack--solid concepts of the spiritual world. Conversely in Roman Catholicism, just suggesting that there is a devil who is active in the world is grounds for dismissal from the list of credibles in far too many Catholic circles.

Do politics trump spirituality? Or, as Catholics, should we seek truth in spirituality before anything else? My gut sense is that truth in spirituality will lead to truth in politics. For that reason I see the Orthodox as our allies in the current culture wars.

THE "STAR" PEOPLE IN THE CHURCH LAUNCH ANOTHER SALVO

BELIEVING that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday.

Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a "destructive myth" had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.

He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a "kind of paganism" because it harked back to the days of "nature gods" who were responsible for natural events.

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Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

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UPDATE

In a catched version (since the original is no longer online) Dr. Richard Boylan cites Consolmagno's April 2006 Harper's Magazine statement.

THE DA VINCI CODE: REVIVING RELIGIOUS SEX

Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code is on solid historical ground when it claims that the Judeo-Christian tradition suppressed goddess worship and sexual mysticism. When St. Paul embarked on his missionary journeys in the first century, many of the West’s pagan temples were filled with prostitutes. At one time, for example, Corinth’s temple to goddess Aphrodite employed as many as a thousand prostitutes. Prostitution was considered socially respectable and religiously purifying. Adultery, on the other hand, was punishable because it was an economic offense ? taking someone else’s property (wife).

Today, red light districts in many Western cities demonstrate that socially, economically, and politically, prostitution is, once again, an acceptable if not respectable profession. However, it still lacks the religious sanctity that Christianity had removed. For decades, religious movements such as Tantra, goddess spirituality, and the Church of Satan, have tried to provide religious sanction to sex outside marriage, as well as to transform “public women” into goddesses. In the 1970s and 80s, Indian guru, Osho Rajneesh, wrote that Jesus taught sacred sex as the path to "super-consciousness" (becoming divine). Rajneesh’s followers remained on the fringes of American consciousness but terms such as “chakras” and “tantra” became a part of the mainstream vocabulary, popularized by celebrities such as actress Shirley McLaine (Going Within) and physicist-turned-mystic, Fritjof Capra (The Tao of Physics). Brown’s novel represents the latest incarnation of sexual mysticism. Its film version has the potential to turn this movement into a significant tsunami.

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"THE DOUBLE LIFE OF AMY WELBORN"

is the title of Tom Herron's article that has just been posted to the Culture Wars website. The article appeared in the March 2006 issue of "Culture Wars" magazine. Biographies are always interesting reading, especially when they are about Catholic celebrities.

H. P. LOVECRAFT

I do not understand. I mean I really don't get it.

I've been researching Discordianism/chaos magick for a report to the Spiritual Counterfeits Project. Those of you who check in here regularly know that I blogged some of the material associated with Patricia Monaghan and excommunicated Catholic "priest" Rev. Dagmar Braun Celeste in connection with the Discordians; and that just recently there was a murder, and the killer had associations with the Church of the SubGenius, a Discordian-type of irreligion.

The Discordians are a fun-loving bunch. The dark side of Discordianism is Chaos Magick. Austin Osman Spare is the father of Chaos Magick. One of the myth makers of the cult is H. P. Lovecraft who wrote horror fiction novels about a destructive creature named Cthulhu, a creature who appears briefly in Discordian Robert Anton Wilson's ILLUMINATUS! TRILOGY.

Lovecraft's books are described this way by Phil Hine, another prominent Chaos Magician:

...it is unsurprising that contemporary occultists should be interested in the Cthulhu Mythos. Lovecraftian rituals have been served up by writers such as Anton LaVey (The Satanic Rituals), Michael Aquino (head of The Temple of Set), and Pete Carroll (Illuminates of Thanateros). Kenneth Grant, in his progression of 'Typhonian' works has made much use of Lovecraftian imagery in his interpretations of the work of Aleister Crowley and Austin Osman Spare. Michael Bertiaux, head of La Coulvoire Noir, the Voodoo-Gnostic order, has also incorporated elements of the Cthulhu Mythos into his work. Following August Derleth's attempt to cohere the Cthulhu Mythos into an identifiable cosmology, several occultists (notably Kenneth Grant) have attempted to work the Great Old Ones into an 'identifiable' system of one kind or another.

You can't get any deeper into occultism than that line-up represents. These people hate Christianity.

To me this just doesn't sound like something that a Catholic should be taking pleasure in. But it seems that I am completely out of touch with younger traditional Catholics who find this to be something to enjoy according to Jimmy Akin's blog. Is this a case of the glamour of evil seducing the faithful? Or am I just being a cranky old lady who doesn't have enough to keep her busy?

Jimmy is a spokesman for the Catholic Church. He speaks with some authority. Yet there does seem to be a disconnect between his Catholic faith and his reading material. At least that's the way it appears to me. But then I do seem to be hopelessly out of touch on this whole First Commandment issue when it comes to the young writers that speak for Catholicism these days. Do we really belong to the same faith family?

GODCHILD'S BABY SHOWER TO ATTEND TODAY

Which means that there probably won't be any blogging.