Still Running Off at the Keyboard

COMPUTER GLITCHES

Once again my computer is not functioning properly. I hope to have it resolved later today. In the meantime, this borrowed laptop has very limited possibilities for blogging.

MORE ON MAX THEON AND BLAVATSKY

The following was sent in by Susanna--notes from her research on the occult revival of 19th century France.

It looks like you are correct in suggesting that Blavatsky may have been trying to merge Kabbalah with Tibetan occultism.

Théon symbol - the Lotus in the Six-Pointed Star

[The symbols discussed below are pictured at this website. Scroll down. - ct]

The six-pointed star of course is the symbol of Judaism, but the lotus and the square make it something else. According to Mother, Théon claimed that this symbol is the Seal of Solomon (a legendary occult symbol) [Mother's Agenda, vol 3, p.454]. Significantly, Blavatsky also refers - in a discussion on Kabbalah - to the over-lapping triangles as Solomon's Seal, although her figure does not include the central square and lotus [H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, Quest Books].

In fact, the Mother designed Sri Aurobindo's symbol directly from Théon's, making only minor changes in the proportions of the central square [Mother's Agenda, vol 3, p.454].

The symbol on the left is Théon's original; that on the right is the version Mirra designed for Sri Aurobindo.

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Here is a link from the same website that seems to indicate that the split from "orthodox" Lurianic Kabbalah" - much of which is said to be derived from the "Zohar" - began with Nathan of Gaza who was reportedly a disciple of the false "messiah," Sabbatai Zevi. I say "reportedly" because from Nathan of Gaza's biography in the Kabbalah-friendly link below, it almost looks as if Sabbati Zevi served more as a mouthpiece for Nathan of Gaza - similar to the mouthpiece "Ivan the Tsarevitch" was intended to be in Dostoyevsky's novel "The Devils." (a.k.a."The Possessed")

This whole site seems to advocate gnosticism ("the heresy of knowing") whether Christian, Jewish or Islamic. It has tons of information.

http://www.kheper.net/topics/religion/Judaic_Foundations_of_Christian_belief.htm

http://www.kheper.net/topics/Kabbalah/Nathan.htm

http://www.kheper.net/topics/Kabbalah/Sabbatai_Zevi.htm

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P.S.

My focus has been primarily centered on the occult revival of nineteenth - century France whose modern origins seem to include the degeneration of the Jansenist error (i.e. events at St. Medard Cemetery) into "illuminism." It was while researching this facet of the occult "tradition" that I became familiar with the name Max Theon....vis a vis Paschal Beverly Randolph, the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, and its satellite "hermetic" organizations. The following is Randolph's Magia Sexualis. Caveat: although stick figures are used in Randolph's illustrations it is still pretty graphic.

http://www.geocities.com/franzbardon/randolph.html

[Note - unfortunately this website doesn't seem to be active - ct]

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Also...I just recently found the online version of much of R. Swinburne Clymer's prologue in his republication of "Ravalette: A Rosicrucian's Story......the one I mentioned in my post. Randolph was said to be the founder of Fraternitas Rosae Crucis here in the United States.

http://books.google.com/books?id=J9ZEylGAV-EC&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=paschal+beverly+randolph+martinism&source=web&ots=VpM5Pabkc9&sig=4MCEy5EI60LziEgM5gRjJgmYuDQ#PPA30,M1

I knew from my research that Blavatsky was somehow involved with Karl Kellner who was at least the "spiritual father" of O.T.O. which incorporated "sex magick" into its rituals. Both were said to be involved in the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. Both were also involved with Eastern occultism and its corresponding "sex magick" known as "Tantrism."

I have also read that during the eighteenth century Cagliostro's "androgynous" Memphis Misraim rite and Martines de Pasqually's Order of Elus Cohen likewise may have incorporated "sex magick" into their rituals.

The" juring" French priest Dom Gerle figures into the French nineteenth-century occult revival equation and was involved in some pseudo-mystical shenanigans that led to the downfall of Robespierre. "Juring" priests were those French priests who signed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy acknowledging the supreme authority of the Revolutionary Government.

Robespierre was a Deist who set up his "Cult of the Supreme Being" as a rival to the atheistic "Cult of Reason." As the story goes Dom Gerle and his medium Catherine Theot, who claimed to be the "Mother of God" were accused of trying to set up Robespierre as "The Supreme Being." Dom Gerle apparently hoped to become the "new Pope" of the "Supreme Being" cult.

Dom Gerle, who, as a Robespierre supporter, was expelled from one "illuminist" group that was among several which had come to be known collectively as the "Saviors of Louis XVII."

The "Saviors" promoted a "lost king" story according to which the Child, Louis XVII, did not die in the Temple as officially reported by the Revolutionary Government, but was rescued and would remain in hiding until the time would be right for him to reveal himself to the French people.

One of the Monarchist factions came to be headed up by Eugene Vintras after the death of their "prophet," Thomas Gallardon. Vintras, as you probably know, promoted the cause of Charles Naundorff who claimed to be the pretender, Louis XVII. Naundorff even set up his own church. It is only recently that DNA tests are said to have disproved that Naundorff was the son of Marie Antionette and Louis XVI.

CONNECT THE DOTS

During the next several weeks my schedule is going to be unpredictable beginning with tomorrow morning's chemo. Time for research will probably be limited. One of the commenters in this blog, Susanna, has ferreted out some connecting links that I want to share during this time with her permission.

Let me first begin with a quotation taken from the cover page of Ad Majorem Dei Glorium, Winter 2006/2007, a publication of Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc.:

How many children will be sacrificed by this self-serving, corrupt hierarchy before the Pope takes action?

I post that because it is a question nagging at my mind as well. Stephen Brady writes about clergy sexual abuse primarily, and homosexuality in the priesthood. I would expand the accusation to include doctrinal heresy as well. My disillusion with Benedict XVI grows daily. The man who looked like our salvation at last is proving himself to be a reconciler, a "Papa" who does not discipline any more than his predecessor. He has many admirable points to recommend him. Governance does not appear to be one of them, and so our sorrow continues unabated.

Turning to the Polish poet Mickiewicz, a poet who captured the mind and heart of persecuted Poland during the partition, and a poet who captured the mind and heart of Karol Wojtyla, John Paul II according to George Weigel, WITNESS TO HOPE: THE BIOGRAPHY OF POPE JOHN PAUL II. Weigel is describing the mind of the young Wojtyla. He writes that there were

several key ideas in Polish Romanticism's distinctive view of Polish history: history had a spiritual core; the deterioration of its traditional national virtues had caused Poland's political collapse; reestablishing Poland independence requied recovering those virtues as the foundation of a new Polish state. Karol Wojtyla deepened his understanding of this singular way of reading history in his adolescent encounter with the great poet/dramatists of Polish Romanticism including Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Slowacki, and Cyprian Kamil Norwid.

Mickiewicz (1789-1855)--poet, playwright, and political activist--was the defining exponent of Polish Romanticism... (p. 34)

Susanna has found some evidence that Mickiewicz was a Martinist Mason:

Mickiewicz, Martinist Mason

In effect, the relations with Towianski were also of an occult type, or rather Masonic. Was Mickewicz a Mason? From the beginning, in 1817, we see that he founded the secret society, the Philomaths (Towarzystwo filomatow). In 1820, he joined another secret society, the Philarethes, which he speaks of in the third part of his 1833 book, Dziady (Ancestors). Alas, I don’t know if the Philarethes have something to do with the Masonic lodges called the Philalethes. (21) Whatever the case may be, these Polish secret societies were the replica (and often the ally) of the Russian secret societies---a type of Slavic Carbonarism---which would give rise to the 1825 Decembrist revolt, the Tzarist government had recognized the hand of Masonry, and it is precisely because of this situation, that it was made illegal in Russia. (22) To support the suspicion that the secret societies to which the young Mickiewicz belonged were not Masonic, a meeting will lead him to Martinism: the meeting with Oleszkiewick. "No one would have as strong an influence on him as the Pole, Josef Oleszkiewick, painter, mystic, disciple of Saint-Martin, and who would be the first to initiate Mickiewicz to the most profound religious experiences of his life." (23) So it is that the Voltarian, Mickiewicz, became a Martinist, from rationalist to "mystic;" in 1836, he published Zdania I uwagi (Feelings and observations), a collection of quotes from the works of Böhme.(24), Silesius and Saint-Martin. (25) With Saint-Martin, we are amid fullblown Masonry, and even full blown Jewish Cabalism! It is in this esoteric environment, well established before the his affiliation with Towianski’s movement, that Mickiewicz’ thought becomes bogged down in the mud, "Strongly touched in his youth by the mystique of the secret societies---de Lubac must admit ---by Böhme with whom he fell in love in Dresden in 1832 (26), by the visions of Frederick Wanner, by Swedenborg, (27)by Baader and by Saint-Martin whom he had read in Paris in 1833, but also by Catherine Emmerich…and by the great mystics of the Christian tradition, above all Denys (who he tried to translate into Polish), he resembled Joseph de Maistre, who would be closer to the sources of popular inspiration, and to Lammenais who would remain faithful." (p. 245) Surely, the more Lubac tries to excuse Mickiewicz, the worse it involuntarily becomes, so much so that he makes clear the place occupied by Mickiewicz among the most dangerous thinkers of "Masonic-Christian" esotericism.

Her source is a "Sodalitium" article titled "Karol, Adam, Jacob" by M. Abbe Francesco Ricossa. It's a source I have referred to in the past, as I found a copy of it in my file. A source I had forgotten about.

I'm sure this source has been discredited by those who wish this information would disappear. The author cites the work of Father deLubac and Rocco Buttiglione as his source, but the specific books cited in the footnotes are not given, unfortunately.

Next Susanna provides an interesting comment about Towianski, of whom Mickiewicz was a follower, and another member of the Paris occult revival:

Closer in spirit to Mickiewicz was the curious figure of Andrzej Towianski, a mystagogue and defrocked priest, who played a disproportionately large role in the spiritual life of the Polish Great Emigration in Paris in the 1840s. Towianski had his own ideas about the Jews and Polish-Jewish relations, and like Mickiewicz also thought in idealized terms. In Towianski's view, the long history of coexistence of Poles and Jews meant that the fate of the two peoples was intertwined. Each could nurture and fulfill the other for the greater future glory of Poland. But unlike Mickiewicz, Towianski posited the symbiosis of Poles and Jews on the Jew's acceptance of Christianity. This desideratum, however, is advanced by Towiasnki in the idiom of mystical enlightenment. It is sincere, fervent, and never strident or contemptuous.

The source is an article titled "The Jew in Polish and Russian Literatures" by Harold B. Segel. It appeared in "The Sarmatian Review", January 2002.

Lastly, the following claim that Mickiewicz's mother may have been a member of a Frankist family:

Mickiewicz's mother, Barbara Majewska. is reputed to have been a descendant of a Frankist family. The Frankists were members of a Jewish religious sect founded by J.L. Frank in 1755. Ostracized by both rabbinical and secular authorities, the Frankists found a patron in the bishop of the Lwów-Kamieniec region, bishop M. Dembowski, who offered them protection in exchange for conversion to Christianity. Thus, Jews from the Frankist sect massively converted to Christianity, yet many secretly continued to practice their religion. Records have been found indicating that among the converts was a Majewski family. As Mickiewicz himself used the phrase "z matki obcej" ([born] from a foreign mother) in title autobiographical section of his drama Dziady (The Forefathers Eve) the Jewish origin of his mother is quite plausible. Such critics as Janina Maurer of the University of Kansas and Samuel Scheps of France find further corroboration of this theory in the fact that Mickiewicz married a woman who was also from a Frankist family, that he represented Jewish characters in a very positive light ( e.g.. Jankiel, the patriotic Jew, in Mickiewicz's masterpiece Pan Tadeusz), and that toward the end of his life Mickiewicz was actively involved in raising funds for and organizing the Jewish legion. In his political writings, moreover, Mickiewicz repeatedly referred to the Bible (a rather rare tendency among Catholic writers) and compared Poland's martyrdom and the dispersion of Poles after the November 1830 uprising to the suffering of the Jews and the Jewish diaspora.

This article comes from the University of Buffalo's Info Poland website.

Frankists were followers of Jacob Frank. The Awareness Center, a Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault, describes Jacob Frank this way:

Jacob Frank and his followers went so far as to engage in orgies and incest in order to begin the Messianic era, a time in which all that was forbidden would supposedly be permitted. Condemned by the leading rabbis of his day, Frank sought refuge in Catholicism. As in the case of the Shabbateans (the followers of Shabbetai Zvi), some of Frank's disciples continued to believe that he would reappear as the Messiah, but, of course, he did not. Once again, false messianism took its toll in lost hopes and despair.

Would Poland's poet Mickiewicz also believe in the Frankist approach to salvation?

Wikipedia offers some comments about Mickiewicz's state of mind:

n 1832 Mickiewicz left Rome for Paris, where his life was for some time spent in poverty and unhappiness. He had married a Polish lady, Celina Szymanowska (her parents came from Jewish Frankist families), who became insane. In 1840 he was appointed to the newly founded chair of Slavic languages and literature in the College de France, a post which he was especially qualified to fill, as he was now the chief representative of Slavic literature[citation needed], Alexander Pushkin having died in 1837. He was, however, only destined to hold it for a little more than three years, his last lecture having been given on May 28, 1844. His mind had become more and more disordered under the influence of religious mysticism.

He had fallen under the influence of a strange mystical philosopher Andrzej Towiański. His lectures became a medley of religion and politics, and thus brought him under the censure of the government.

This is the writer that influenced John Paul II, an influential member of the Paris occult revival. Webb writes:

In no part of the territory absorbed by Russia was occultism so combined with nationalism as in the Lithuanian town of Wilno. Here, during the period 1820-22, a young mystagogue called Thomas Zan obtained a huge success among a student population already riddled with secret societies for his theories deriving from occult Masonry and Mesmerism. Zan's circle, known as the "Radiants," held to magical theories of correspondence, promoted by the adoption of Masonic ritual among revolutionary groups, and professed a stern code of moral virtue. The triumph of the Radiants was to stage a series of revolutionary and mystical happenings, at which Zan, the Arch-Radiant, would harangue his disciples on moral rectitude and the theory of Radiation. This was followed by mutual embracing on the part of his audience, for ceremonial drinking of milk, and a day of bucolic festivity. The fervor excited by these demonstrations of brotherly love found other outlets in nationalist activities. There was in fact no conspiracy, but through a series of circumstances one appeared to the authorities to exist. There were investigations and a large number of students were imprisoned. Among these were Zan himself, and Adam Mickiewicz who had been one of his closest friends.

Presumably in the hope of making a good Muscovite of the refractory Pole, the Russians deported Mickiewicz to St. Petersburg. This had no more effect than his imprisonment in keeping the young poet from the dangerous fruit of illuminism. When the students had been in prison (1823-4), Thomas Zan had undergone ecstatic visionary states which greatly impressed Mickiewicz. In St. Petersburg he fell under the influence of his fellow Pole, the artist, poet, and prophet Joseph Olesciewicz, who was during this period Grand Master of the Martinist Order in Russia, and from whom Mickiewicz learned the Cabala. Thus, when he left Russia, Mickiewicz carried with him a body of Traditional knowledge, acquired through his membership of an underground where rejected knowledge and rejected politics were one. His wanderings do not concern us until his meeting with Towianski in Paris in 1841.

Andrei Towianski was born a Lithuanian, and like Mickiewicz studied at the University of Wilno. The circles in which he moved have been described as a "mad-house." His connections with the mystical element among the students are proved by his affiliation of a society to which he belonged to a Lodge of occult Masonry. But he escaped imprisonment or deportation, and calmly entered the legal profession. In 1832 he suddenly stopped practicing and travelled to St. Petersburg, where he drank deep of Martinist doctrines at the same sources as Mickiewicz. From Russia he went to Dresden, the center from which Polish occult Masonry had been derived. He returned for a short while to Poland, where he conceived the idea that he had a religious mission, and was called to go West. Towianski set off for Paris, fortified by the blessing of the Archbishop of Poznan. (James Webb, THE OCCULT UNDERGROUND, pp 250-25l)

Does this sound like solid Catholic influence on the man who was to become the future pope of the Roman Catholic Church?

Frankists practiced a kind of sex magic. Paris occultists practiced sex magic. Priests in the Roman Catholic Church practiced some sort of sex ceremonies with adolescent boys. Bishops in the Roman Catholic Church covered up for these deviant priests. The pope of the Roman Catholic Church, who had been influenced by Mickiewicz, let them. The current pope of the Roman Catholic Church has abandoned his strict watchdog role and opted for a conciliatory role that also does not govern and discipline.

Lord save us from our leaders.

CANCER JOURNAL - AND UPDATE

It's 2:30 a.m. Not even the sleeping pills were adequate to keep me asleep tonight. I woke up and was immediately overwhelmed with a sense of outrage. Medical Mutual of Ohio is engaging in blackmail. There was no warning this drug would not be covered. Not even when I called them to verify that I was using the right procedure to obtain the medication. The first dose cost me $30, and the oncologist's office was very positive at how well they had responded to my need. There simply was no warning. They are counting on the fact that I have gotten sufficiently committed to treatment and will simply sell some stock or close a bank account or put it on the charge card.

My husband and I had the first fight since my diagnosis last night. He is convinced there is just some mistake, while I know there has been no mistake. We had been handling cancer so well until now. We are currently barely speaking. At the moment my own sense of outrage at this injustice will not permit me to cave in to this blackmail even if we can find the money to pay for it. He just wants to pay for the drug and move on. What about those who have no resources? What about the insurance company that makes a profit by refusing to pay for my drugs?

Emend is made by Merck & Co., Inc. Their corporate profits for 2006 were $16,634.90 million.

Medical Mutual of Ohio is a not-for-profit private company. Who knows what their profits were for 2006. Of course they didn't call them "profits", did they?

I will be cancelling my next chemo appointment later this morning, and asking my doctor what the affordable plan to treat breast cancer is. I suspect there isn't one. And then I think that if I can persuade my husband to talk with me rationally, which right now is a pretty big if, we will be discussing my funeral arrangements. It is against everything I'm made of to spend our retirement savings on cancer treatment. I do not value life that much.

St. John Maximovich, the ball is in your court!

UPDATE

Thank you St. John. You certainly work quickly!

I am not a fighter. My long-suffering husband is. This morning he stood by his conviction that a mistake had been made somewhere, started making phone calls, and found the error at CVS Pharmacy.

Here is the sequence of events that led to me planning my own funeral.

1. I received the script for the nausea medications (3) from my oncologist right before leaving for Columbus. Since I was away, my husband took on the task of getting them filled.

2. The local pharmacy we had been using for years had just been rejected by our insurance. We needed a new one and chose the one closest to home, a CVS Pharmacy. He dropped off the scripts to be filled.

3. After a couple of days he called the pharmacy to see if they were ready. They told him they didn't have enough information to fill them. He gave them the information over the phone and asked how soon he could pick them up. They said an hour.

4. He went to the pharmacy a couple of hours later. The scripts were not filled, and could not be found. The pharmacist he had talked with on the phone was no longer working. Nobody knew anything. After searching, they located them and proceeded to fill them. Two scripts--generics--are pills in a bottle. The third and most expensive one, Emend, comes in a tri-fold pack. As you can see, there are three tablets in the tri-fold. That is what is needed for one dose of chemo. The pharmacy label on the tri-fold indicates one refill which I assumed would be needed for the next chemo dose.

5. Since chemo is scheduled for Thursday morning, I attempted to call in the refill yesterday, and the pharmacist phoned to tell me the insurance had bounced the prescription until next month.

6. After a fitful night and an angry and tearful discussion at the table this morning during which I refused to have anything more to do with chemotherapy and told him my plans to make an appointment with my oncologist to discuss palliative care, he picked up the empty tri-fold pack and studied the label.

7. CVS prints on their labels the number of pills in the prescriptions. We had not seen this on any drugstore labels before this morning. He noted that the tri-fold label indicated six pills. But we had only been given three--the three in one tri-fold pack--and nothing had been said about missing pills.

8. He contacted both the insurance representative at work and the oncologist's office as well as the pharmacy, and was finally able to determine that the prescription had been for six pills, not three; that CVS was not able to fill the entire prescription because they did not have enough on hand; and that they owed us one tri-fold which apparently they had forgotten about and had never told us about. He went to the pharmacy and obtained the second tri-fold pack without charge.

This was our first experience with CVS Pharacy. Needless to say it is going to be our last!

Obviously I am ashamed of my behavior and attitude and hope that I can handle the next crisis better than this one!

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

CANCER JOURNAL - NEVER A DULL MOMENT !

For those with wealth or really good insurance, cancer is sometimes curable. For the average person, the picture is not quite so rosy.

Today's crisis...in order to take the chemo drugs it is first necessary to take an anti-nausea drug called Emend. There was no problem getting the medication and having the insurance cover it for the first dose, but my doctor's office warned that a lot of patients have problems with insurance coverage for this drug.

I have chemo scheduled again on Thursday, and so I tried to refill the perscription this morning. The insurance company refused it. They will only fill it once a month. Three pills cost $890. I have a call in to the insurance representative where my husband works. We'll see if she can get it resolved.

Apparently that drug called Neulasta that gave me such a backache last week costs $4,000 to $6,000 per dose. I wonder if our insurance will refuse to cover that one?

Question. What good is modern medicine if most can't afford it?

JESUS USED ESSENE CALENDAR

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 6, 2007 (Zenit.org).- It is likely that Jesus followed the calendar of the Essenes of Qumran, possibly explaining some contradictions within the Gospel accounts of the Passover, says Benedict XVI.

The Pope made this observation Holy Thursday in his homily during the Mass of the Lord's Supper at the Basilica of St. John Lateran.

In his address, the theologian commented on the historical investigations on the manuscripts of Qumran, found in the Dead Sea in 1947.

"In the narrations of the Evangelists, there is an apparent contradiction between the Gospel of John, on one hand, and what, on the other hand, Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us," said Benedict XVI.

The Pope continued: "According to John, Jesus died on the cross precisely at the moment in which, in the temple, the Passover lambs were being sacrificed. His death and the sacrifice of the lambs coincided.

"This means that he died on the eve of Passover, and that, therefore, he could not have personally celebrated the paschal supper, at least this is what it would seem."

The Holy Father said that according to an interpretation of the texts, "still not accepted by all," Jesus "celebrated Passover with his disciples probably according to the calendar of Qumran, that is to say, at least one day earlier -- he celebrated without a lamb, like the Qumran community who did not recognize the Temple of Herod and was waiting for a new temple."

Read the rest...

Would a member of the Essene community have offered his body and blood to eat? The Essenes were vegetarians.

MAX THEON

A commenter suggested a look at Max Theon might be interesting, and it has proven to be. Here is a little of what I discovered.

at Answers.com

Max Theon, the enigmatic occultist whose work initiated the Hermetic Brotherhod of Luxor in the mid-1880s, was born Louis Maximilian Bimstein into a Jewish family in Poland. He appears to have first received knowledge of the occult world in the thriving Hassidic communities of his homeland. As a young man he began to travel the world, but in 1873 settled in England at Saint John's Wood, in the northern section of London. He made his living as a psychic healer and advertised himself in the Spiritual periodicals as able to cure cholera.

In 1882 he began to work with a young Scotsman named Thomas Dalton (1855-1895), later known under his pseudonym, Thomas H. Burgoyn. In their three years' association, he awakened Burgoyne's spiritual vision and put him in touch with some preternatural entities, the adepts who were acknowledged as the Interior Circle, the real founders of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor.

Channeling fallen angels, I believe. What else would a "preternatural entity" be? There's more at the website if you're interested.

Moving on...

Check out the entry at Hermetics Resource Site by T. Allen Greenfield that mentions Max Theon:

Be it noted that later in the 19th century another enigmatic Polish Jew, the son of Rabbi Judes Lion Bimstein of Warsaw, came to teach an almost identical sacred sexuality as the Grand Master of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light. This man was one Louis Maximilian Bimstein, better known as Aia Aziz, and better still as Max Theon. Based in North Africa and France, Theon taught a "fully Tantric" approach to spirituality, according to Sri Aurobindo. He exercised a profound influence upon HB of L Frontal Chief Peter Davidson, who, in turn, was a profound influence upon Papus and other luminaries of the "occult revival". Whether this represents a direct continuity from the Zoharists we may never know. Clearly, Jacob Frank, his daughter Eve and their followers deserve a special place in the history of Western Sexual Occultism comparable to that only now being fully recognized where P.B. Randolph, Peter Davidson and their circle are concerned.

But don't stop there. Go read the whole article that is mainly about the Frankists and Hasidism. It's quite a tale.

T. Allen Greenfield, I believe, would be the same Greenfield who is Bishop of the Gnostic Catholic Church.

Jonathan Sellers has some input on Max Theon at Grey Lodge Occult Review:

All told, Max Theon's work is very important, because it establishes a relationship between two important antinomian currents, and a connection to the mainstream of European Esoteric and Occult organizations. First, there is a connection made to the heterodox Jewish Messianic Tradition (via Frank/Zevi/Luria), and to North African Magical Traditions. Next, these two antinomian currents are brought into contact, via the H B of L, with the French Occult network, which was established and administrated by Gèrard Encausse (PAPUS). In his design of the organization, the Martinist Order was at the bottom of the pyramid. Next came De Guaita's R+C Order; above that was "Gnôse et Temple" -- the Johannite and Templar Order survivals from the days of Palaprat and Ragon (whom Papus regarded as a predecessor) -- and at the very top of it all was the H B of L. Not bad.

Luria--Rabbi Isaac Luria, that is--is the source of Lurianic Kabbalah.

I went to the Sri Aurobindo and The Mother website to see if I could verify Max Theon's involvement. Yes, he was there, but the website so scrambled my computer that I had to shut it down, so I am not going to link it.

A catched version of the Auroville website seems to be reliable. Here you can read:

Mirra Alfassa (Paris 21.2.1878 - Pondicherry 17.11.73) was born as the second child of an Egyptian mother and a Turkish father, a few months after her parents had settled in France. An extraordinarily gifted child, who became an accomplished painter and musician, she had many inner experiences from early childhood on. In her twenties she studied occultism in Algeria with Max Theon and his English wife Alma, who was a highly developed medium. After her return to Paris, the Mother worked with several different groups of spiritual seekers.

Then there is this interesting mention of Max Theon over at Free Republic, taken from Catholic Family News:

However, the OTO conveyed something more in its upper degrees. The seventh degree taught the theory, but the eighth through the ninth initiated the candidate in one of the most jealously guarded secrets of Kabbalistic depravity, known as “sex magick”[31]. Recent research into the origins of the OTO indicate that this tradition was probably passed down via the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light (listed in the Manifesto) by Louis Maximilian Bimstein, son of Rabbi Judes Lion Bimstein, who went by the name “Max Theon” (“Supreme God”) and received Hassidic initiation in Poland.[32] The tenth degree conveyed occult- Masonic rulership over the OTO Lodges in a country or group of countries (Aleister Crowley was “Supreme and Holy King of Ireland, Iona, and All the Britains That Are in the Sanctuary of the Gnosis”). The eleventh degree involved sodomy, and the overall world ruler of the OTO was called the OHO, or Outer Head of the Order. Theodor Reuss was OHO; later Crowley would claim the role for himself.

Cardinal Rampolla and the OTO

To establish its occult supremacy and authenticity of lineage, the OTO listed many names in the Manifesto. As is typical in Masonic and occult lore, many ancient names were listed to establish a symbolical affinity and imply consequent dignity upon the Lodge. Names such as “Simon Magus” and “Apollonius Tyanaeus” were included not because these men belonged to the OTO, but because they were prominently associated with Gnosticism, pagan mysticism, mystery, heresy, or some prominent alternative to Christianity. Hence the Manifesto introduces this list by stating that “in more remote times, the constituent originating assemblies of the OTO included such men …”

The Manifesto then grabs our attention, for it interrupts the list with the words, “And recently …” The names that follow are exactly fourteen. Among them is the name Cardinal Rampolla.

Isn't Judaism interesting! The name Max Theon was familiar to me from occult books, but I had not realized he was Jewish, since I had not paid particular attention to him.

Scholem seems to have ignored him. So did Webb.

I'll try to pick my jaw up off the floor now!!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!!!

EASTER

Weatherwise, it's always unpredictable. Here in the Akron area yesterday, the roads were passable. At Mass there were lots of winter coats. I saw only one corsage, and only one or two families in Easter outfits. But in talking with our relatives in the Cleveland area, we learned that some of them were unable to get to Mass at all because they had a foot of snow on the ground and it continued to fall.

Yesterday would have made a lovely Christmas. For Easter it was the pits. As things turned out, it was fortunate that we had a very low-key Easter planned anyway, and the day turned out to be better than expected.

Today the temp. is 30 on the garage thermometer, and the snow alternates with green grass everywhere still. A warming trend is due tomorrow.

My chocolate Easter rabbit still has his head.