Still Running Off at the Keyboard

THE NECRONOMICON - FICTION OR FACT ?

It is not know when or where Dee acquired a copy of the Necronomicon, but it is probably the book he refers to in his Mysteriorum Libri (or magical diaries) as "my Arabik boke." This would place it in his hands in 1583.8 This coincides with the probable date of his translation, since the manuscript contains some notes in Edward Kelley's handwriting (folio 74r) which refer to Singilla, a spirit who is only mentioned once in Dee's Mysteriorum Libri, i.e. in an "action" dated Apr 18, 1583.9 The incomplete state of the translation can be explained simply by the fact that the work was interrupted by the disappearance of the book.10

It is this incomplete and fragmentary nature of Dee's manuscript which gives us a clue to Lovecraft's sources. While HPL consistently uses "Azathoth" to refer to a demon of chaos, a comparison of the fuller Latin text of the Necronomicon with Dee's manuscript shows that there are actually two separate beings with similar-sounding names ("Az" and "Aza-Thoth"). This is not at all apparent from the Dee manuscript alone.

Latin manuscript of Necronomicon, ca. late 14th or early 15th century.

Source: http://www.esotericarchives.com/necronom/necronom.html

Go to the website to see the Latin copy of the necronomicon. There is also a picture of what is claimed to be Dee's translation.

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Despite many attempts to show that the Necronomicon is nothing more than Lovecraft’s literary invention, a group of prominent authors and occultists claimed to provide confirmation of part of Lovecraft’s claim. In 1978 a book researched by David Langford and Robert Turner claimed that Alhazred’s Necronomicon had been preserved by Alkindi in his treatise The Book of the Essence of the Soul. In his introduction to Turner and Langford’s book, Colin Wilson, the occult writer and author of the classic study of intellectual alienation The Outsider, details Lovecraft’s family history. He notes that Dr. Stanislaus Hinterstoisser, president of the Salzburg Institute for the Study of Magic and Occult Phenomena, claimed that Lovecraft's father was an Egyptian Freemason and that Lovecraft’s father had had access to the Necronomicon. (In point of fact, Lovecraft’s father was a travelling salesman who died a siphilitic while Lovecraft was young, and is almost certainly being confused with Lovecraft’s bibliophile maternal grandfather). Co-author Robert Turner, after extensive work on John Dee’s manuscripts held in the Bristish Museum, showed that Alkindi’s lost work had been preserved by John Dee in an enciphered form called the Liber Logaeth.

Source: http://groups.msn.com/Resist13/johndeenecronomiconlovecraft.msnw

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For several years after 1583 Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelly lived in Trebona in Poland, the home town of Albert Laski, who sponsored their alchemical researches. In about a year, Laski's fortune was spent, and the men began to travel about Poland and Bohemia, from city to city finding new people to dupe. These travels went on until 1587, when in Prague Dr. Dee's health began to fail and when Kelly and Dee had a falling out because of Kelly's new explorations of a book called The Necronomicon, that frightened both Dee and his family. Dee is said to have found a copy of the Necronomicon, given to him by the alchemist Jacob Eliezer known as the "Black Rabbi" (this book does exist and was the basis of Kelly and Dee's Endochian magic, Crowley's The Book of the Law and H.P Lovecraft's Cthulthu Mythos).

Source: http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/JohnDee.htm

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In A. D. 950 the Azif, which had gained a considerable tho' surreptitious circulation amongst the philosophers of the age, was secretly translated into Greek by Theodorus Philetas of Constantinople under the title Necronomicon. For a century it impelled certain experimenters to terrible attempts, when it was suppressed and burnt by the patriarch Michael. After this it is only heard of furtively, but (1228) Olaus Wormius made a Latin translation later in the Middle Ages, and the Latin text was printed twice – once in the fifteenth century in black-letter (evidently in Germany) and once in the seventeenth (prob. Spanish) – both editions being without identifying marks, and located as to time and place by internal typographical evidence only. The work both Latin and Greek was banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, shortly after its Latin translation, which called attention to it. The Arabic original was lost as early as Wormius' time, as indicated by his prefatory note; and no sight of the Greek copy – which was printed in Italy between 1500 and 1550 – has been reported since the burning of a certain Salem man's library in 1692. An English translation made by Dr. Dee was never printed, and exists only in fragments recovered from the original manuscript.

Source: http://lycos.cs.cmu.edu/info/necronomicon--john-dee.html

"MYTH AND TRUTH ABOUT LIBERTARIANISM"

An essay by Murray N. Rothbard

A reader sent in a link to the above essay which can be found on the LewRockwell.com website. It attempts to debunk supposed incorrect beliefs about what libertarians stand for. The paper is truly mind boggling. Where does one begin to refute it?

It opens by telling us that "Libertarianism is the fastest growing political creed in America today." That's enough to send a Christian to his knees!

Myth #1 is a straw man. It is not that those of us on the outside looking in believe that libertarians think each individual is hermetically sealed in a vacuum that has no influence on others. It is instead that we think libertarians do not care how they influence others apart from their own self-interest. That's a world of difference.

Rothbard claims that "What libertarians are opposed to is not voluntary persuasion, but the coercive imposition of values by the use of force and police power."

In other words, libertarians prefer a TV commercial to a gun.

Let me give you one example...

Before Christmas there was a frequently aired commercial showing a man giving a cell phone to his son, saying: "You're my numero uno." He repeats the action with his daughter and his wife. Then he is shown sauntering down the walk in front of his house playing with his cell phone and saying "Saving the best for numero uno." He glances up at the group of "network people" watching him and tells them "That's right." That is libertarian thinking. Completely self-centered, and telling others whatever he thinks they want to hear, even his own family. Remember "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."

The entire Rothbard piece is filled with this sort of deceptive argumentation, and I'm not going to go through it myth by myth. I will only offer a couple of thoughts...

1. The French Revolution was an example of what can happen to a nation when the libertarian mindset takes hold.

2. God gave us the Ten Commandments for a reason.

3. The CCC discusses the duties of civil authorities in 2235 thorough 2246. It is clear from this that authority is God-ordained.

4. The chaos magicians who are well-represented on the web are libertarians.

It comes down to Christ or chaos, and as Rothbard tells us in the article "It is true that many if not most libertarians at the present time are atheists, but this correlaes with the fact that most intellectuals, of most political persuasions, are atheists as well." This is supposed to persuade us that libertarians are harmless?

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

CONGRATULATIONS TO JUSTIN!

Gregory Aristides
Born January 10, 2008 at 10:50 a.m.
Weight: 7 lbs. 11.8 oz.
Length: 20.75 inches

Mom and baby are doing well.

Welcome to the world, Gregory. May you never lose sight of God's hand in it.

SABBATEANISM TO CONSERVATIVE CATHOLICISM

From the Cthulhu Mythos timeline:

c. 1664: The Kaballist Nathan of Gaza circulates the Sepher ha-Sha'are ha-Daath among his brethren, which is a commentary on a work he calls the "Book of the Alhazred." (This is said by some to be a Hebrew translation of the Necronomicon.) ("The Necronomicon Anti-FAQ," Low)...

1666: Nathan of Gaza is discredited when the would-be Messiah Shabbetai Tzevi, whom he supported, converts to Islam. (Factual)

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The Great Cthulhu - Lovecraft's Necronomicon
The Old Ones

"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange a eons even death may die."

- Abdul Alhazred, Necronomicon
(from H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu", 1926)

"Nathan of Gaza precipitated one of the most profound events in the history of Judaism. In 1665, while only 21 or 22 years old, he proclaimed that Sabbatai Tzevi was the Messiah."
Nathan also wrote theSepher ha-Sha'are ha-Daath, a commentary on the Book of the Alhazred. "Nathan's purpose appears to have been to develop a methodology for a systematic exploration of the realms of the Klippoth [husks or shells of materiality which ensnare the spirit], as part of his mission to redeem the sparks [concentrated shards of the original creation], using some of Alhazred's techniques. It is an extraordinary development of Alhazred's work, identifying the Klippoth with the primordial Old Ones."
"Nathan developed a huge following and for many years Judaism was riven with charges of heresy. Many prominent Rabbis and community leaders sided with Nathan, and it took most of a century for the drama to unwind. Eventually the Sabbatean movement went underground, and while it is a certainty that a copy of the Sepher ha-Sha'are ha-Daath exists in a private library somewhere, no one is admitting that they have it."
- Colin Low, Necronomicon FAQ

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Robert Anton Wilson's debt to Lovecraft:

The influence of H. P. Lovecraft on my fiction is rather obvious –­ mostly because I never tried to hide it. HPL appears in person as a char­acter in The Golden Apple. Some of his Old Ones pop up in that book and in Leviathan and Masks of the Illumi­nati. The last-named book is written in a variety of styles, because James Joyce is one of its major characters and it seemed artistically apt to pre­sent Joyce in Joyce's own manner, changing "styles" and narrative voices rapidly as he did in Ulysses; but one of the voices is, of course, the typical Lovecraft narrator per­petually worried about what "name­less" or "blasphemous" secret is about to be revealed next. Even my autobiographical fragment, Cosmic Trigger, begins with a paragraph that is a deliberate parody of the standard Lovecraft opening.

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Campus Crusade for Cthulhu

The Campus Crusade for Cthulhu claims to be the oldest college club in the world, claiming that before Ancient Greece or Atlantis, even "before the first Illuminati attempts at world conquest," they had "tentacles" gripping the whole world. Worshiping the Great Old Ones, interstellar giants from the Necronomicon ofAbdul Alhazred, and/or the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, the Cthulhu Cult has existed even before humanity appeared on earth, and created the Campus Crusade at Miskatonic University (in Arkham, Massachusetts) early in this century, gradually adding chapters at Yale, New York University, State University of New York, etc.

Cthulhu, usually pictured as a slimy green octopus of mountainous size, may not be an attractive deity, but the Campus Crusaders insist that he has no worse morals or habits than most of the other gods people have worshiped.

The Campus Crusade at Binghamton, New York, plans to build a Ziggurat of Doom using slave labor if students cannot pay for it. Other branches have proposed a racial program of "ethnic cleansing," based on the proposition that "if everyone takes a bath at least once a year--whether they need it or not--we believe relations between the races will be much improved." In 1996, the Crusaders ran Cthulhu for president with the slogan "Why accept the lesser evil?"

The Cthulhists, like their rivals in the Campus Crusade for Christ, put out a variety of proselytizing pamphlets, but they have livelier titles, e.g., "Yog Sothoth Neblod Zin," "Abdul Alhazred was NOT mad," "Cthulhu fthagn," etc.

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Jimmy Akin's blog on Lovecraft:

The Mount....Visited!

It also appears to be the basis of the mound that is featured in H. P. Lovecraft's story The Mound, which he (appropriately enough) ghostwrote for a woman named Zealia Bishop.

The Mound is considered the most impressive of all of the stories that Lovecraft is known to have ghostwritten for others--so impressive, in fact, that it's often grouped with the stories that he published under his own name.

My comments are over there in the comments boxes.

RAND AND ROCKEFELLER

The following is posted on the American Endeavor blog, September 24, 2007:

While suffering a case of insomnia at 4 am last night, I was able to see a second showing of Alan Greenspan being interviewed, by Tim Russert on the MsNBC show, "Meet the Press."...

During the interview, Al was asked a question about his wife, NBC News journalist Andrea Mitchell, and how they met. He said that on their first date he told Andrea that he had written an essay on Ayn Rand, regarding anti-monopolies. So they headed back to his apartment to check out the paper. It was history after that...I guess she liked what he wrote, since they are man and wife today.

If you are not familiar with Ayn Rand she was the author of the book: Atlas Shrugged, which is touted by John Todd (Occultist who is either dead or missing) as being a fictional work based on the master occult scheme plan by the Illuminati.

Rand was married to actor Charles Francis (Frank) O'Connor on April 15, 1929, having first met him when they both worked in Cecil B. DeMille's movie The King of Kings in 1926. Rand's husband should not be confused with the Irish writer known as "Frank O'Connor," whose real name was Michael Francis O'Donovan.

Yet, it is alleged Ayn Rand was one of Philippe Rothschild's mistresses, whom he instructed to write a rather large novel about their illustrious plans - and that novel is Atlas Shrugged. I found it quite odd that Tim Russert, while interviewing Greenspan, did not expound on this further. If any of this fascinates you then I offer you a link to the Greenspan/Rand timeline:

Ayn Rand espoused a radical philosophy of self-interest and individualism. She had a great dislike for religion and even compulsory charity. She believed that charity of this sort fostered a resentment of individual success.

Ayn Rand created a doctrine of rational hedonism, supported by unfettered capitalism and the rights of successful individuals at the utter expense of the community. A devout atheist, she taught that charity is not a virtue. She is the founder of Objectivism. Alan Greenspan considered himself an Objectivist at one time, and I don't know if he still considers himself this. He also has a number of articles which were written by him, and then published in Rand's newsletters.

She believed in the elimination of most state regulation except for crime control and the judiciary. In "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal", Rand uses the word “altruists” to describe forces of evil that burden the beleaguered American business community.

Oddly enough the website seems to be promoting the libertarian candidate Ron Paul's campaign. How does that compute?

LET'S CONNECT SOME DOTS

Mont Pelerin Society

The Mont Pelerin Society was created on 10 April 1947 at a conference organized by Friedrich Hayek. Originally, it was to be named the Acton-Tocqueville Society. After Frank Knight protested against naming the group after two “Roman Catholic aristocrats” and Ludwig von Mises expressed concern that the mistakes made by Acton and Tocqueville would be connected with the society, the name of the Swiss resort where it convened was used instead.

In 1947, 39 scholars, mostly economists, with some historians and philosophers, were invited by Professor Friedrich Hayek to meet at Mont Pelerin, Switzerland, and discuss the state, and possible fate of classical liberalism and to combat the “state ascendancy and Marxist or Keynesian planning [that was] sweeping the globe”. Invitees included Henry Simons (who would later train Milton Friedman, a future president of the society, at the University of Chicago); the American former-Fabian socialist Walter Lippmann; Viennese Aristotelian Society leader Karl Popper; fellow Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises; Sir John Clapham, a senior official of the Bank of England who from 1940–6 was the president of the British Royal Society; Otto von Habsburg, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne; and Max von Thurn und Taxis, Bavaria-based head of the 400-year-old Venetian Thurn und Taxis family.

The resulting Mont Pelerin Society aimed to “facilitate an exchange of ideas between like-minded scholars in the hope of strengthening the principles and practice of a free society and to study the workings, virtues, and defects of market-oriented economic systems.”

The Society has continued to meet on a regular basis, usually in September. The current president of the Society is Greg Lindsay.

It has close ties to the network of think tanks sponsored in part by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Pelerin_Society

The list of original participants is included in the Wiki article and includes Salvador de Madariaga, Spanish diplomat and writer. The Board of Directors is listed and includes Leonard Liggio, Vice President. Familiar names to Austrian economists.

Salvador de Madariaga

(July 23, 1886 A Coruña, Spain - December 14, 1978 Locarno, Switzerland) was a Spanish diplomat, writer, historian and pacifist. He was the father of Nieves Mathews and professor/historian Dr. Isabel de Madariaga. He was the grandfather of Javier Solana. ...

In his writing career he wrote books about Don Quixote, Christopher Columbus and the history of Latin America. He militated in favour of a united and integrated Europe...In 1976 he returned to Spain after the death of Franco. The Madariaga European Foundation has been named after him, promoting his vision of a united Europe making for a more peaceful world.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_de_Madariaga

Javier Solana

President of the Madariaga European Foundation, Secretary General of the Council of European Union and High Representative for the European Common Foreign and Security Policy

Source: http://www.madariaga.org/template_page.asp?pag_id=17

Wikipedia claims Solana was the great nephew of Madariaga. Constance Cumbey says he was Solana's grandfather.

Constance Cumbey has investigated Madariaga's background and posted it online here. She writes:

That de Madariaga was tempted and succumbed to the lures of occultism and its circles appears equally certain. That he supported world government and hated the USA for blocking same is a certainty. That he worked the left and right with near equal dexterity is most apparent. Regarding Spain's Civil War factions, Madariaga liked to describe himself as “equally distant from both sides.”

Madariaga was once amused to see his name on a list of Catholics teaching at England's Oxford University. He wrote sarcastically that he was so very happy that they could determine what he had never been able to determine for himself.

Indeed, it is difficult to determine where Madariaga sorted out on almost any issue. He was an apparent complex man of many seeming contradictions that make sense only if one understands, using New Age vernacular, a “third way” mentality. Madariaga denied being Jewish, but his writings express some sympathy for Europe's Jewish population and contempt for Nazi persecutors. He was accused of being Catholic, but his unwillingness to allow either of his two daughters, Nieves (Solana's mother) and Isabella to be baptized belies that theory....

One thing is most certain. Salvador de Madariaga was a proponent of a new world religion.

The next screen tells of Madariaga's involvement in the war in the Balkans. From an online Javier Solana speech she quotes him as saying "he had been given exclusive authority to make the military decisions over Yugoslavia, including whether to bomb or not" claiming that "the power is mine and mine alone." She further gives President Clinton's claim that "I agree with Javier Solana's decision to do this."

At a future date Senator Spencer Abraham told her that "he and all the other United States senators had been flown to Brussels, Belgium to meet Javier Solana."

The Madariaga European Foundation promotes conflict resolution efforts. Among its Previous Projects is one focused on "Law in Macedonia" and another "Learning EU Negotiations in Albania". Once again there would seem to be some sort of Yugoslavian connection.

Yugoslavia is an area of the world of particular interest to Catholics because of the events in Medjugorje. E. Michael Jones has indicated in his book on the apparition that it played a significant part in the Balkan war.

And then there is the O.T.O. in Yugoslavia. Peter Koenig reports:

Before the series of civil wars that ravaged the region, there were proportionally more 'Thelemites' per head of the population in Yugoslavia than in any other country (with the possible exception of the USA).

It may mean nothing at all, but it has always nagged at me that that bloody civil war took place at the same place where there was a concentration of Thelemites.

And now it appears that one of Javier Solana's organizations is also particularly interested in this war. Chaos magick? Fomented conflict? Somehow related to the formation of the European Union?

There is another curious coincidence. Gnostic bishop and member of the Ordo Templi Orientis T. Allen Greenfield tells us about Jacob Frank:

His appearance was destined to throw the entire Jewish world of Poland into intense agitation and despair.
As a merchant he traded in the Balkans, dealing in cloth and gems.
He studied under a Sabbatean teacher and became involved in the Zohar. ...

He was initiated into the mysteries settled in with a large group of Sabbateans in Salonika. He gave up on his trade for an ambitious new role as prophet.
Soon he was proclaiming himself to be the divine reincarnation of the soul of Shabbatai Tzvi. Frank began travelling to many towns, visiting Sabbatean cells, which quickly came under his influence. He gathered many adherents, proclaiming his messiahship. ...

His teaching was heavily about the acquisition of wealth and riches, even if by the most fraudulent means. In 1756 he and twenty of his followers were discovered conducting a heretical religious orgy behind locked doors. Opponents claimed that the Frankists were performing an indecent dance around a naked woman and kissing her. Later Frank claimed that he had purposely opened the windows to compel his believers to go public after decades of hiding. The police broke down the doors and arrested the disciples. Frank, mistaken for a Turkish foreigner, was expelled from the country. Frank and his disciples were excommunicated by rabbinical courts everywhere. The Frankists were denounced to the authorities and eventually Frank was again arrested. To gain his freedom, Frank agreed to convert to Islam.
But after this conversion, Frank persisted in making secret visits to Poland to confer with his disciples. He remained the leader of the majority of Sabbateans all over Galicia, the Ukraine, and Hungary. They were outwardly Jewish but secretly transgressed all the Torah prohibitions, especially those concerning fornication, adultery, and incest. His excommunications prompted a wave of persecution.
Frank and his followers appealed to the bishop of Poland for protection, by exaggerating their common beliefs with Christianity such as the Trinity and rejection of the Talmud. The Church saw it as an opportunity to convert thousands.
They began forcing anti-Jewish propaganda out of the Franks. To ease the persecution, the Frankists, issued a proclamation that they were "almost" Christians, though they did not fully embrace Christianity. They composed a declaration of faith that would satisfy the Church's demands. To sweeten the deal, they asked for a public debate against the rabbis. The bishop was quite willing to protect the Frankists from persecution in order to promote hatred for ordinary Jews. The public debate that followed was moderated (manipulated would be a better word) by the bishop, who was anything but impartial. It spawned public burnings of the Talmud. ...

...the church brought charges of heresy against him, which resulted in his imprisonment in 1760. Upon his release 13 years later, Frank assumed the role of messiah, and selected 12 apostles. He settled at Brünn, Austria (now Brno, Czech Republic) where he gained the patronage Maria Theresa, archduchess of Austria, who employed him as an apologist of Christianity to the Jews. After 1786 he moved to the small German town of Offenbach, where he spent the rest of his life in luxury, thanks to the donations of his followers. ...

Frank kept Sabbateanism alive and ended its tribalism, opening its adherents to the world outside Judaism. Sabbateanism become Frankism was one of the most important of the 18th century movements which freed man.

Lastly a website with a Serbian unity url speaks of the disagreements in Bosnia involving "Frankists":

Frankists and clericals (Franko-furtimists), for decades raised in the spirit of hatred towards the Serbs, supported by the Monarchy and goaded against them and the pro-Yugoslav Croats, were becoming more and more militant and brutal as years went by. The policy based upon the Croatian state right, with all its already mentioned consequences, particularly those which attended the Serbs, had begun gradually to harvest its first fruit. With numerous genocidal elements, this fruit was in fact preparation for the great showdown which was to happen during the 1941-1945 war.

Source: http://www.serbianunity.net/culture/library/genocide/k6.htm

There are a few things about all of this that seem to connect.

First...The disproportionate number of O.T.O. Lodges in Yugoslavia prior to the Bulkan war.

Second...A Gnostic bishop of the O.T.O. has chosen to describe Jacob Frank in his website.

Third...Frank can be located in Yugoslavia at one point in his career. He can be located in Austria at another point, placing him near the location of the Austrian School of Economics, I presume. Did he influence that school? Remember, we have members of the O.T.O. promoting libertarian ideology on the web today.

Fourth...Just as Acton Institute founder Fr. Robert Sirico seems to have changed his stripes several times, Frank dabbled in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

Fifth...Madariaga has been described as a man who is difficult to pin down as to what he believes. This sounds rather like the Sabbatean who outwardly belongs to the faith he joined because it was expedient, and inwardly adheres to a different faith.

Sixth...There is the claim that Frankist "freed man", a freedom that became the rallying cry of the Austrian School of Economics? Frank's teaching included the acquisition of wealth and riches.

Seventh...Sabbatai Zevi was exiled to Albania in the last years of his life. He died there.

Lots of questions...still no confirmed answers.

NO TIME FOR BLOGGING TODAY

With a husband at home who has ideas about how I should spend my time, there is virtually no possibility of spending time on the blog. Hopefully by tomorrow things will settle down again.

THE LIBERTARIAN RIGHT

I was with a sense of shock that I discovered an associate editor of "Latin Mass Magazine" is a libertarian.

Dr. Thomas Woods.

His biography on his webite reads:

About Thomas Woods Jr.

Thomas E. Woods, Jr., is a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He holds a bachelor's degree in history from Harvard and his master's, M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University. His most recent book is Sacred Then and Sacred Now: The Return of the Old Latin Mass; his others include 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask (Crown Forum/Random House), the New York Times bestseller The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (Regnery), How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (Regnery), and The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy (Lexington). His critically acclaimed 2004 book The Church Confronts Modernity was recently released in paperback by Columbia University Press. A collection of Woods' essays, called W obronie zdrowego rozsadku, was released exclusively in Polish in 2007. Woods' books have been translated into Italian, Spanish, Polish, German, Romanian, and Chinese.

Woods' writing has appeared in dozens of popular and scholarly periodicals, including the American Historical Review, the Christian Science Monitor, Investor's Business Daily, Catholic Historical Review, Modern Age, American Studies, Catholic Social Science Review, Inside the Vatican, The Freeman (Foundation for Economic Education), Freedom Daily (Future of Freedom Foundation), University Bookman, Journal of Markets & Morality, New Oxford Review, Catholic World Report, Independent Review, Religion & Liberty, Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, AD2000 (Australia), Christian Order (U.K.), Crisis, and Human Rights Review. He is the editor of The Political Writings of Rufus Choate and of a 2003 edition of Orestes Brownson's 1875 classic The American Republic.

Woods won first place in the prestigious Templeton Enterprise Awards for 2006, given by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and the Templeton Foundation, for his book The Church and the Market. He was the recipient of the 2004 O.P. Alford III Prize for Libertarian Scholarship and of an Olive W. Garvey Fellowship from the Independent Institute in 2003. He has also been awarded two Humane Studies Fellowships and a Claude R. Lambe Fellowship from the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University and a Richard M. Weaver Fellowship from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

For eleven years Woods served as associate editor of The Latin Mass magazine; he is presently a contributing editor of The American Conservative and a member of the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Libertarian Studies. A contributor to six encyclopedias, Woods is co-editor of Exploring American History: From Colonial Times to 1877, an eleven-volume encyclopedia.

Woods has appeared on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, Fox & Friends, and The Big Story with John Gibson, as well as on MSNBC's Scarborough Country and C-Span2's Book TV. He has been a guest on over 150 radio programs, including Fox News Live with Alan Colmes, the G. Gordon Liddy Show, and the Michael Medved Show. Published interviews with Woods have appeared in the Washington Post's Live Online, Washington Times, Our Sunday Visitor, the Pittsburgh Tribune, California Literary Review, Human Events, Italy's L'Avvenire, Spain's Alfa y Omega, Germany's Die Tagespost, and Brazil's Folha de S. Paolo.

Woods lives in Auburn, Alabama with his wife and three daughters.

Woods has written for the LewRockwell.com website.

In an article at InsideCatholic.com Woods explains why he is a Catholic libertarian.

Although I have no connection to the Libertarian Party, I've long been associated with small-l libertarianism. By the time I was finishing college, I found I could no longer be a cheerleader for the Republican Party, so much of my political evolution involves my disillusionment with the GOP. ...

A quick glance at the presidential debates reveals that the Democrats can come up with nothing more original than further proposals for looting the American population. I almost don't blame people for being Democrats, incidentally. Americans endure twelve years of propaganda in a government institution, learning (not coincidentally) about the government's glorious deeds and the terrible things that would surely happen to us in its absence. I can hardly blame someone who believes we owe our standard of living to labor unions and federal regulation: After hearing no other perspective on American history year after year, what else can the poor fellow be expected to think?

I don't expect much from the Democrats. But even the boldest Republicans suggest "replacing" the Internal Revenue Service with some kind of horrendous consumption tax. Instead, the IRS should be abolished and replaced with nothing. Impossible? If the income tax were done away with, federal revenues would still be sufficient to fund the federal budget from the year 2000. I rather doubt we would be climbing over corpses on our way to work if spending were scaled back to its level of seven years ago.

There's more. Go over there and read it if you're interested.

Wood's support of the Ron Paul campaign can be read here.

He is on the faculty at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

There is the Catholic Libertarian blog where the blogmeister spells out Ayn Rand's beliefs but still claims one can be Catholic and Libertarian.

Then there is well-known Catholic blogger Jimmy Akin's introduction of the Lovecraftian god Cthulhu on his blog. I have called his attention to the source of this god and the contemporary infatuation with it among the Discordians, but apparently he sees nothing wrong with it. Scroll through the comments over there and you will find one from Kevin Jones which would appear to be favorable to this Discordian universe. Akin has other blog posts about Lovecraft over there as well. In fact when I asked Google for "Jimmy Akin" and "cthulhu" I got 8 pages of hits. Scroll through the first page of them. You will even find my blog post about Akin's fascination with the subject in there.

The sci-fi stories about Cthulhu are so ridiculous they can evoke laughter, though Lovecraft took them seriously. Discordians love to laugh and poke fun at everything. Cthulhu. Jesus Christ. It makes no difference to them. The only thing they take seriously is their own enjoyment. But while these Catholics are embracing what may appear to them to be innocent fun, they are absorbing the cynical mindset that goes along with it, and that rejects the value of every form of "other", god or human. It just slides down more smoothly than a sober introduction to the ideology ever could.

Then there is Rich Leonardi's laud blog of Alejandro Chafuen.

What is one to make of this support of a system of greed being promoted by Catholics?

FROM A GLBTQ WEBSITE

The aim of NAMBLA's small but determined membership was to attack social and legal proscriptions against sexual relations between adults and pubescent or teenage boys. NAMBLA's argument was and remains a libertarian one: age of consent laws are an unnecessary, punitive intervention by government into the lives of its citizens.

Read it here...

PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA

"Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."

The phrase can be found in the "Principia Discordia", the "bible" of the Discordians written by Kerry Thornley, and online here at the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science website. Robert Anton Wilson wrote the introduction to the Fourth Edition. The phrase is not original to the author, but it is a Discordian mantra, and an apt description of chaos magick. If you read the Principia, you will get an idea of what this philosophy consists of. In a word--institutionalized confusion. Discordians take nothing seriously. Life is a game without any rules.

THE LIBERTARIAN LEFT

The Church of Gnostic Luminism - The Luminist Manifesto - Sacraments:

Proper Uses of Psychedelics

The consciousness-expanding herbs and chemicals are powerful tools, and, like all tools, they can be dangerous if they are used inappropriately. Proper training and preparation are important.

Looking forward hopefully to a more libertarian future, the Church of Gnostic Luminism will develop plans for such training for aspirants to the Yoga of Light Containing Herbs. A goal will be the establishment of a monastery and a Holy Order of Light. An underground tradition of psychedelic science has developed over the decades, originating before the “legal” prohibition of LSD began in 1965; and the Church of Gnostic Luminism will draw upon this body of lore for guidance, along with the experience and teachings of the established psychedelic churches.

Notice at the bottom of the website the ever-watchful Eye of Horus in the left corner.

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"Maybe Quarterly" - Volume 4, Spring Equinox 2007 - Issue 1

This is a publication of the Maybe Logic Academy, a creation of Robert Anton Wilson. This website announces the death of Wilson and contains the tributes posted by his followers. Portions of a couple make my point. Note first that "All Hail Eris!" is attributed to Wilson. Here are some quotes from his "children":

All Hail Discordia

This is the rallying cry of the Discordians, a group of followers of Wilson and other luminaries in the Discordian orbit who "worship" the goddess Eris. From a fan:

I especially loved the night you "spilled" the IXth Degree secret of the OTO at a magickal get-together years ago.

I remember being turned onto your "Illuminati Trilogy" by Victor Koman, and his band of Libertarians/Discordians. Ah, the good old days....

The post is signed ".'.93'.'"

Another - this one from "J"

It should be noted that RAW was not a liberal in modern sense, but an anti-statist libertarian (tho' not of the right-wing sort, true)...

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Next, a listing of articles written by Robert Anton Wilson. Notice particularly this collection:

from New Libertarian

"That Old Black Magick " from April 10, 1977

"I, Robot" from July 3, 1977

"Neurological Relativism" from March 1978

"A New Writer: F.W. Nietzsche" October 1984

"Dirty Socks and Denture Breath" August 1990 (RAW fiction, chapter 2 in "The Prometheus Meltdown," a tribute to Robert Heinlein)

There are also articles from "Gnosis" and "Magical Blend Magazine" plus an article from "The Journal of the Libertarian Futurist Society". His article "My Debt to H. P. Lovecraft" from Crypt of Cthulhu introduces another important god-figure in the Discordian cult.

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Author F. Paul Wilson (related?), a physician and author of sci fi, horror, thriller, and medical novels "bringing libertarian themes...to millions of readers." It was Lovecraft, among others, who introduced this libertarian to the genre. He claims "to make explicitly libertarian points in his fiction" according to the website.

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Next, Dennis Bardens. This obituary is from the Times Online where you can read:

Back in civilian life, Bardens organised a major exhibition of the works of his great friend, the occult artist Austin Osman Spare. Before the First World War, Spare had briefly been associated with Aleister Crowley, although he developed his own ideas on mysticism, which were at a clear remove from Crowley’s black magic and crooked libertarianism. Spare believed in ghosts, and often painted them, and his ideas inspired Bardens.

A. O. Spare, another member of the Discordian orbit--this one a very dark member, indeed. His drawings used to be online. They displayed faces in odd places on bodies that were otherwise relatively normal. Such as the stomach. After looking at many of them, I concluded that Spare was telling us about possession.

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"Libertarian Ceremonial Magick or How to turn a Fundamentalist into a Tolerant Person" by Don Chaote.

A chaote is a practitioner of chaos magick. From the article:

Perhaps you have read by now my account of how I organized the draft card burning at the 1969 Young Americans for Freedom convention (YAF: a right wing group) with the torch of Liberty. It is generally conceded that this was the modern beginning of the Libertarian movement. ...

Now let us have a volunteer – if not a fundamentalist, then one who can pretend to be one. Someone who might fit H.L. Mencken’s definition of a puritan: someone who lives in mortal fear that someone somewhere is having a good time. If that is you, then what are you doing here among libertarians?

And at the end of the article:

In the June 2004 issue of Liberty magazine there is an autobiographical article in which he describes how he invoked the libertarian movement by ceremonial magick.

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H. L. Mencken

At LewRockwell.com there is an article titled "H. L. Mencken: The Joyous Libertarian" by Murray N. Rothbard. With this article we see a crossover into the libertarian right of the Acton Institute and other organizations in this orbit.

The extortions and oppressions of government will go on so long as such bare fraudulence deceives and disarms the victims – so long as they are ready to swallow the immemorial official theory that protesting against the stealings of the archbishop's secretary's nephew's mistress' illegitimate son is a sin against the Holy Ghost. ~ H. L. Mencken

At the end of the article is the following:

Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995), the founder of modern libertarianism and the dean of the Austrian School of economics, was the author of The Ethics of Liberty and For a New Liberty and many other books and articles. He was also academic vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and the Center for Libertarian Studies, and the editor – with Lew Rockwell – of The Rothbard-Rockwell Report.

Copyright © 2002 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute

NEOLIBERALISM

"More and more, in many countries of America, a system known as "neoliberalism" prevails; based on a purely economic conception of the human person, this sytem considers profit and the law of the market as its only parameters, to the detriment of the dignity of and the respect due to individuals and peoples. At times this system has become the ideological justification for certain attitudes and behavior in the social and political spheres leading to the neglect of the weaker members of society. Indeed, the poor are becoming ever more numerous, victims of specific policies and structures which are often unjust."
from Ecclesia in America (No. 56), Report of the Synod of America

In reading through the various websites of the Acton Institute orbit, I have gradually come to the conclusion that the philosophy being expounded is one of total self-centeredness--"me first". I came to the conclusion that were this the dominant philosophy we would very quickly see a restoration of the feudal state in which a dominant minority enslave the majority. Acton's philosophy ignores original sin, and proposes a sort of self-salvation through enterprise, and an unattainable utopian "gospel". It makes me shudder to think of what would happen to the poor that Christ told us we would always have with us. That African conference of the Mont Pelerin Society is the epitome of the problem.

Susanna has unearthed a 1999 article from the newspaper of the Houston Catholic Worker that spells out Neoliberalism in a 17-point definition. The article is titled "Pope John Paul II condemns neoliberalism in Ecclesia in America, as social sin that cries to heaven". It's written by Louise and Mark Zwick, and it opens with the above quote from John Paul II. I'll post some of the points here and give you the link for the rest.

WHAT IS NEOLIBERALISM?

Neoliberalism is known in the United States as neoconservatism. Its Catholic proponents are Fr. John Neuhaus, George Weigel, Michael Novak and Fr. Robert Sirico. Their publications are available through the American Enterprise Institu[t]e, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Acton Institute and First Things magazine.

1. The ideology of the Invisible Hand of the Market. The authority of the market is unchallenged. For many it is higher than God--an 'idolatry of the market' (Centesimus Annus, n.40).

2. Slave wages and unsafe working conditions in poor countries in maquiladoras (factories which belong to companies in the U.S. or other highly developed countries) and in some parts of the United States.

3. It is amazing that "free market" proponents are opposed to big government, but depend on the governments of wealthy nations for their protection in reaping enormous profits at the expense of the poor. Rather than laissez-faire, it is government- supported capitalism for the few.

4. Privatization of all public and state-owned enterprises.

5. Control of women's reproduction by companies, especially maquiladoras. Proof of no pregnancy frequently required.

6. Tax free zones (no help for the local community) and blackballing of union organizers wherever there are maquiladoras-arranged by the U. S. government.

Read the rest...

NO MORE ANONYMOUS REPORTS

The Catholic Diocese of Cleveland is discouraging its employees and volunteers from making anonymous reports of sexual abuse of minors, a policy change that has outraged church watchdogs but has the support of the local prosecutor's office.

Church policy had required any suspicion of sexual abuse by church personnel be immediately reported to civil authorities. The revised policy says a person reporting abuse to civil authorities should include his or her name, address and telephone number to help assist in an investigation.

"That's just as wrongheaded as possible. That's just silly," said David Clohessy, spokesman for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "All reports of abuse should be encouraged, anonymous and otherwise, especially with an institution with such a horrific track record on this issue. Many victims and witnesses are terrified of retribution, and some information always beats no information."

Continue reading...

Hat tip to NOR.

AYN RAND AND THE HOMOSEXUAL CULTURE

From Wikipedia:

Objectivism is a philosophy created by Ayn Rand, which some gay and lesbian people have been interested in for its celebration of personal freedom and individuality at the expense of government power. While Rand consistently advocated the right to political freedom and equality for homosexuals, her personal views of homosexuality were unambiguously negative and she opposed laws against discrimination within the private sector.

NOR TAKES MARK SHEA TO TASK

A reader sent in a link to an NOR article about Mark Shea. Since you readers know how he treats me, I can't resist linking it. Go have a read. It will probably be taken down tonight.

Apparently it is possible for someone with the kind of credibility and popularity that Mark Shea has enjoyed to actually destroy his own reputation. Stay tuned...

AYN RAND

At Jewish Virtual Library:

The life and work of Ayn Rand, the novelist and philosopher who promoted an ethics called "Objectivism," provide ample evidence for those who believe that human beings are inherently self-contradictory and illogical. In her novels, Rand glorified the self-made man who aggressively demonstrated his superiority over the masses through his business acumen. As a writer, Rand had little to do with entrepreneurial activities. While she did eventually make money from her writing, she always lived frugally. Her husband of fifty years was a quiet and reserved man, never financially successful, who was happiest in his garden or painting at his easel. Her ideal physical types were tall, blond, muscular men and delicate, graceful blonde women-she herself was small, dark, and never at ease with her body. She believed passionately in the importance of the individual, yet her books developed a cultlike following among the millions of people who read them. The chief irony is that Rand became best known for her insistence on the primacy of human reason.

The eldest of three sisters, Ayn Rand was born Alissa Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905, in St. Petersburg, Russia, to Fronz and Anna Rosenbaum. Her father, a pharmacist, had his own shop, a rare position for Jews in Russia. A precocious child, Alyssa declared herself an atheist in her early teens, and while she never denied her Jewish heritage, she also never softened her opposition to religion or any other form of "mysticism."

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From the Ludwig von Mises Institute website:

Translation: "Prominent libertarian ideologists and economists which should be mentioned includes John Locke, Adam Smith, James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Frederic Bastiat, Friedrich August Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard and Hans-Hermann Hoppe"

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KBOO-FM interview with Robert Anton Wilson, by Cliff Walker:

But atheistic religions have pretty much the same structure -- in the Western World, anyway -- the same dogmatic structure. Marxism is very similar to fundamentalist Protestantism: they know the truth; they don't care how many people they have to kill till they get their "truth" established. Objectivism is very similar, that's another atheistic religion. I've always believed Ayn Rand was really the Grand Duchess Anastasia. I think that one in West Virginia is a fake. Ayn Rand acted a hell of a lot more like a Romanov than that woman in West Virginia. And I think after the Bolsheviks killed her family and she escaped, she decided she would found another atheistic religion to compete with Communism, and that's how Objectivism got created. --Robert Anton Wilson

THE BOHEMIAN GROVE RITUALS CARTOON

Did anyone happen to see it?

MIXING RELIGION AND POLITICS - THE LIBERTARIAN IDEA

I'm still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor!

Fr. Robert A. Sirico - President, The Acton Institute, an economic think tank with ties to other think tanks promoting Austrian economics, a laissez-faire anti-government school of economic thought.

Mrs. Betsy DeVoc - Director of The Acton Institute and wife of the founder of Amway.

Dr. Alejandro Chafuen - Director of The Acton Institute, Secretary and/or President of Atlas Economic Research Foundation

Dr. Leonard Liggio - on the Advisory Board of The Acton Institute, Vice President (USA) of Mont Pelerin Society, Executive V.P. Atlas Economic Research Foundation, Law Professor at George Mason University

Jeffrey Tucker - member of the Acton University faculty, Director of Research, Ludwig von Mises Institute and its Editorial Vice President

The Ludwig von Mises Institute was founded by Lewellen H. Rockwell, Jr. (yes that Lew Rockwell) who is President. It is located in Auburn, Alabama and began on the Auburn University campus before moving to its own facility.

Rockwell is a Libertarian who was Presidential candidate Ron Paul's congressional chief of staff.

The Libertarian Party is an interesting mixed bag that included Robert Anton Wilson before his recent death.

I've blogged about Wilson in the past. He and his co-author Robert Shea wrote the ILLUMINATUS! TRILOGY, a spoof on conspiracy theories which contains some truth and a lot of nonsense, while they were editors for "Playboy" magazine. Shea's widow, Patricia Monaghan, teaches at Catholic DePaul University, writes books about witchcraft, and has been on the program of the Pagan mega-event Starwood Festival.

Wilson was a speaker at Starwood several times, and was considered one of the Starwood "gods".

The Robert Anton Wilson Society of North America features the book SEX AND ROCKETS: THE OCCULT WORLD OF JACK PARSONS, which Wilson co-authored, on its website. The book is the story of John Whiteside Parsons, libertarian, philosopher, and rocket scientist who was a follower of Aleister Crowley.

For a list of Libertarian Celebrities & VIPS go here. The organizations in Fr. Robert Sirico's orbit which I have been writing about are listed here, including Heartland Institute, Atlas Institute, Cato Institute, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Acton Institute. Robert Anton Wilson makes the list in the category of Science Fiction Writers.

Given the Crowley connection, can we assume that libertarians who promote "self-government" are actually talking about "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law"?

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

FR. ROBERT SIRICO, MONT PELERIN, AND INTERCONNECTING DIRECTORATES

Fr. Robert Sirico is a member of Mont Pelerin Society - a libertarian think tank - according to this interview on the Heartland Institute website.

Fr. Sirico's Acton Institute lists the Heartland Institute in its "Helpful Links".

Lucis Trust's New Group of World Servers includes Heartland Institute on its list.

CADI Eleutheria in Romania lists three members of the Academic Council who are members of the Mont Pelerin Society -

- Leonard Liggio - Senior Vice President of Mont Pelerin

- Pascal Salin - President of the Mont Pelerin Society (1996-1998)

- Reverend Robert Sirico

Another member of the Mont Pelerin Society is Antony Fisher, who established the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Heritage Foundation, and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. (source)

The Heritage Foundation is also on the Action Institute list of "Helpful Links".

Mont Pelerin and Heritage are both on the list of "groups surrounding the Rockefeller and Rothschild families"

Alejandro Chafuen is the President and CEO of Atlas Economic Research Foundation. He is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society and a founding trustee of The Acton Institute.

Mont Pelerin founded the Cato Institute.

Executive Intelligence Review has this to say about Cato:

No organization is more responsible for the forced-march drive to privatize Social Security—stealing trillions of dollars of its funds for Wall Street accounts—than the Cato Institute, a multi-million dollar Washington, D.C. think tank. During the past 20 years, Cato has had more than a quarter of a billion dollars lavished on it in contributions by the most powerful Wall Street banks, and largest right-wing think tanks—led by the ultra-right-wing Koch group of foundations. Cato has spent this money on a host of projects intended to destroy the sovereign nation-state and implement fascist economic austerity. But the lion's share has gone into the privatization of Social Security.

Since its founding in 1977 by Ed Crane, currently its President, and Charles G. Koch, the heir of an oil and energy fortune who is a leading figure of the Mont Pelerin Society, Cato has methodically built up a far-flung network to propagandize for, and enact privatization. Some of that network is hidden, just out of public view; some is public, but the average observer would not know it belonged to Cato—which designed it that way.

Online Journal puts it more bluntly: "Bankrupting Social Security to finance fascism".

Doug Bandow is a member of the Advisory Board of the Acton Institute according to SourceWatch. The same source offers this commentary on Doug Bandow:

Doug Bandow was a syndicated columnist with Copley News Service and a senior fellow of the Cato Institute. Following revelations that he had accepted payments from lobbyist Jack Abramoff he resigned from Cato and was suspended from Copley News Service. In late December 2005 it was announced that he had accepted an appointment as vice president of policy at Citizen Outreach.

Cato Institute is another organization listed in the "Helpful Links" at the Acton Institute website.

Mrs. Betsy DeVos is a director of Acton Institute, and the female half of the Amway fortune. Notice that Wikipedia tells us:

In a 1979 ruling, Amway was found by the Federal Trade Commission that its operations did not violate pyramid scheme prohibitions, but the company was ultimately sanctioned.[7] The FTC now requires that Amway and Quixtar publish an SA4400, which shows that more than 99% of all distributors lose money each year.

Quite an interesting little organization Fr. Robert Sirico is running.

Of course this survey of Fr. Sirico's activities would not be complete without a link to Randy Engel's Sirico Brief which lists in detail Fr. Sirico's most interesting activities in the gay community. He is a man of many talents.

TOP THOUGHTS FOR 2008

(When you can't sleep at 3 a.m., you spend your time looking for these things. )

Someone sent me a list of ten thoughts. I culled the X-rated ones and the ones that didn't make me smile, and saved the rest.

Top 5 Thoughts For 2008

Number 5
Life is sexually transmitted.

Number 4
Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Number 3
All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

Number 2
Why does a slight tax increase cost you $200.00 and a substantial tax cut saves you $0.30?

AND THE NUMBER 1 THOUGHT FOR 2008:
We know exactly where one cow with Mad-cow-disease is located among the millions and millions of cows in America , but we haven't got a clue as to where thousands of illegal immigrants and terrorists are located. Maybe we should put the Department of Agriculture in charge of immigration.

HIGH TECH CONFESSION

On YouTube

FROM THE EMAILBOX

Spirit & Life®
"The words I spoke to you are spirit and life." (Jn 6:63)

Human Life International e-Newsletter
Volume 03, Number 01 | Friday, January 04, 2008

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www.hli.org

Pro-Life New Year's Resolutions for 2008

On January 22nd of this year we have to sadly admit that our country has lived with unfettered, legal access to abortion for thirty-five long, brutal years. Not only have millions of innocent lives been unjustly snuffed out in America but scores of millions more lives have been shattered in its wake. In the face of this national disgrace we must re-commit ourselves to being the solution to a problem of our own making. We can never accept it as the cultural status quo. So, at the beginning of our year, let's put a few good pro-life New Year's resolutions on the top of our "to do" lists this year.

First, let's look at our 2007 resolutions. A year ago I asked you to do four things: To find the local abortion clinic in your community and pray there at least three times in 2007; to find the local crisis pregnancy center and support it; to speak up in some forum and defend life, be it on the internet, in a letter to the editor, or in conversations with friends, family and co-workers; and finally, to boycott the businesses that fund the death industry especially though the Life Decisions International corporate boycott list (www.fightpp.org).

I know that these are not always easy or simple things to do but they are basic to our conscious refusal to get wrapped up in easy compliance with the abortion culture. If, by some chance, you have not been able to do them, make them part of your regular list of "highly important things."

The 2008 resolutions focus on the Catholic Church's comprehensive view of the fight for life which has to do as much with the sanctity of marriage and the family as with the defense of life itself. Here are three pro-life New Year's resolutions for your 2008 list of priorities:

BE WISE: 2008 is the 40th anniversary of the papal encyclical on birth control, Humanae Vitae. Read it! Learn why the Catholic Church is still the leading voice of conscience about the single most influential factor in creating and maintaining the abortion culture - contraception;

BE VIGILANT: After you read Humanae Vitae you will understand the evil of contraception. It is a demon that enters into the sanctuary of a marriage. Chase it out of your marriage with the same vigor as you would chase an intruder out of your home. And then, make sure your kids and grandkids know why contraception is not a benign "lifestyle choice" and is the worst possible preparation for marriage;

BE A PRAYER WARRIOR: Join HLI's St. Michael the Archangel Campaign and pray every day for the conversion of abortionists. Abortion doesn't just happen. Someone with a medical degree and sharp instruments commits these crimes against humanity and makes loads of money off the death of innocents. These people need serious conversion, and our prayers will bring many of them out of the darkness and into the Light.

Speaking of which, the "Light of Christ" is the theme of this Sunday's Solemnity of the Three Kings (Epiphany). As Catholics we believe that Christ is the Light of the world and in particular of all those who sit in the darkness of death. May this new year bring us renewed commitment to shine Christ's Light both in the deepest recesses of our homes and families and to those who are caught up in the demonic abortion culture.

Human Life International wishes God's choicest blessings to all of you in 2008!

Sincerely Yours in Christ,

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,
President, Human Life International