Still Running Off at the Keyboard

ASIATIC BRETHREN - Beliefs

Source: Gershom Scholem, THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM, Schocken Books

Since the Asiatic Brethren lodge was founded by followers of Zevi and Frank, the beliefs of the Sabbatean movement are important to the understanding of this lodge and other subsequent German lodges that admitted Jews. Scholem describes them.

Toward the middle of the eighteenth century...a reaction took place, so that we find a distinct anti-Palestinian bias setting in throughout the movement...Among the Frankists an astonishing and clear-cut ideology of Jewish territorialism (as distinct from Palestine-centered tendencies) developed at about this time, apparently as a result of Frank's own personal ambitions. In a word, on the very eve of its absorption of new political ideas Sabbatian nihilism completely reversed its previously positive evaluation of the role of the Land of Israel, so that when shortly afterward it began to speak the language of a revived political Messianism and to prophesy the rebirth of the Jewish nation as one outcome of an impending world revolution, there was no longer any real interest on its part in the idea of the Land of Israel as a national center. As stated by the Frankist writer in Prague...Israel's exile is not a consequence of its sins at all, but is rather part of a plan designed to bring about the destruction of the kelipot all over the world, so that "even if several thousands or tens-of-thousands of Jews are enabled to return to the Land of Israel, nothing has been completed." According to the same author this new doctrine of the exile is "a secret mystical principle which was hidden from all the sages until it was [recently] revealed in Poland." (p. 122-123)

...the "radicals" eventually came to believe that the Messiah had not been a mere superior human being, but an incarnation of God Himself in human form. This new interpretation of "the mystery of the Godhead" was accepted by all the "radical" groups down to the last of the Frankists and was considered by them to be the most profound mystic truth in their entire body of doctrine. (p. 123 - This messiah spoken of is Zevi and his reincarnation in Frank.)

...the five distinguishing beliefs of "radical" Sabbatianism are:

1. The belief in the necessary apostasy of the Messiah and in the sacramental nature of the descent into the realm of the kelipot.

2. The belief that the "believer" must not appear to be as he really is.

3. The belief that the Torah of atzilut must be observed through the violation of the Torah of Beriah.

4. The belief that the First Cause and the God of Israel are not the same, the former being the God of rational philosophy, the latter the God of religion.

5. The belief in three hypostases of the Godhead, all of which have been or will be incarnated in human form. (p. 125-126)

If the full truth be told, however, even after one has taken into account Frank's unscrupulous opportunism, his calculated deceits, and his personal ambitions, none of which really concerns us here, he remains a figure of tremendous if satanic power. (p. 127)

[Quoting Frank:]"It is one thing to worship God--and quite another to follow the path that I have taken."

According to Frank, the "cosmos" (tevel), or "earthly world" (tevel ha-gashmi) as it was called by the sectarians in Solonika, is not the creation of the Good or Living God, for if it were it would be eternal and man would be immortal, whereas as we see from the presence of death in the world this is not at all the case. To be sure, there are "worlds" which belong to "the Good God" too, but these are hidden from all but the "believers." In them are divine powers, one of whom is "the King of Kings," who is also known as "the Big Brother" and "He who stands before the Lord." The evil power that created the cosmos and introduced death into the world, on the other hand, is connected with the feminine, and is most probably composed of three "gods" or "Rulers of the World," one of whom is the Angel of Death....

Moses pointed out the true way, but it was found to be too difficult whereupon he resorted to "another religion" and presented men with "the Law of Moses," whose commandments are injurious and useless. "The Law of the Lord," on the other hand--the spiritual Torah of the Sabbatians--"is perfect"...only no man has yet been able to attain it. Finally, the Good God sent Sabbatai Zevi into the world, but he too was powerless to achieve anything, because he was unable to find the true way. "But my desire is to lead you towards Life." Nevertheless, the way to Life is not easy, for it is the way of nihilism and it means to free oneself of all laws, conventions, and religions, to adopt every conceivable attitude and to reject it, and to follow one's leader step for step into the abyss. Baptism is a necessity, as Frank said prior to his conversion, "because Christianity has paved the way for us." Thirty years afterwards this same "Christian" observed: "This much I tell you: Christ, as you know, said that he had come to redeem the world from the hands of the devil, but I have come to redeem it from all the laws and customs that have ever existed. It is my task to annihilate all this so that the Good God can reveal Himself."

The annihilation of every religion and positive system of belief--this was the "true way" the "believers" were expected to follow. Concerning the redemptive powers of havoc and destruction Frank's imagination knew no limits....all who would be warriors must be without religion...I did not come into this world to lift you up but rather to cast you down to the bottom of the abyss....The descent into the abyss requires not only the rejection of all religions and conventions, but also the commission of "strange acts," and this in turn demands the voluntary abasement of one's own sense of self, so that libertinism and the achievement of that state of utter shamelessness which leads to a tikkun of the soul are one and the same thing....To accomplish this, that is, to overcome the opposing powers, which are the gods of other religions, it is imperative that one be "perfectly silent," and even deceitful. This is the mystic principle of "the burden of silence"...i.e., of maintaining the great reserve that is becoming to the "believer" (a new version of the original Sabbatian injunction against appearing as one really is!). Indeed, this is the principle of the "true way" itself....

From the abyss, if only the "burden of silence" is borne, "holy knowledge" will emerge. The task, then, is "to acquire knowledge," "and the passageway to knowledge is to combine with the nations" but not, of course, to intermingle with them. He who reaches the destination will lead a life of anarchic liberty as a free man. "The place that we are going to tolerates no laws... (p. 129-131)

She it is who is the real Messiah (who cannot, contrary to traditional opinion, be a man) and to her "all the king's weapons are surrendered," for she is also the much sought-after "Divine Wisdom" or Sophia who is destined to take "Death's" place as one of the three "Rulers of the World." (p. 132)

Scholem calls Frankism a "gospel of libertinism" and equates it to the teachings of nihilistic Gnostics from the second century such as Carpocrates. In fact he writes:

...all of this was actually taught and believed by Polish Jews living on the eve of the French Revolution, among whom neither the "master" nor his "disciples" had the slightest inkling that they were engaged in resuscitating an ancient tradition! Not only the general train of thought, but even some of the symbols and terms are the same! (p. 132-133)

That last quote offers an opportunity to speculate that perhaps Carpocrates and the Frankists got their doctrine from the same source.He writes further:

On the one hand, with the characteristic self-centeredness of a spiritualist sect, they saw in it a sign of special divine intervention in their favor, since in the general upheaval the inner renewal and their clandestine activities based on it would be more likely to go unnoticed. This opinion was expressed by Frank himself and was commonly repeated by his followers in Prague. At the same time that the Revolution served as a screen for the world of inwardness, however, it was also recognized as having a practical value in itself, namely, the undermining of all spiritual and secular authorities, the power of the priesthood most of all. The "believers" in the ghettos of Austria, whose admiration for certain doctrines of the Christian Church (such as Incarnation) went hand in hand with a deep hatred of its priests and institutions, were particularly alive to this last possibility. Here the fashionable anti-clericalism of the times found a ready reception. (p. 137)

And it was at just this point in time that Napoleon arrived in Germany with his army and released Frank from his 13 year imprisonment at Czestochowa.

But of all of Scholem's comments, the following is probably the most important...speaking of the 5 tenets of the Sabbatean faith:

These theses amply demonstrate, in my opinion, that in the onward course of the Sabbatian movement the world of traditional Judaism was shattered beyond repair. (p. 126)

THE ASIATIC BRETHREN - Continued

Source: Marvin S. Antelman, TO ELIMINATE THE OPIATE, Zahavia, Ltd.

There is no doubt about the Frankist rites of the Asiatic Brethren lodge and their esteem of the All-Seeing Eye.

The Asiatic Brethren adopted Christian symbols and were required to eat pork and milk. Professor Scholem has proven that the Brethren were dominated by Sabbatian conceptions.

While Dobrushka, founder of the Vieneese Asiatic Lodge, went to an early death, Ephraim Joseph Hirschfield (1755-1820), a Frankist and activist in Mendelssohn's circle was active with the Vienna Lodge and was a missionary for the Asiatic Brethren. He was described as its "central spiritual pillar."

Hirschfield preached that he who occupied himself with Kabbala could pass beyond the confines of the Catholic, Muslim or Jewish religions and reach "the one and only true, pure and overall religion." From 1792 until his derath in 1820 Hirschfield settled in Offenbach, seat of the Frankists, where he devoted much time to their activities.

A close acquaintance of Hirschfield was Franz Joseph Molitor who was historian for the Vienna Lodge. In 1812 Molitor (1779-1860) who was a Christian with Frankist leanings, became head of the Jewish Freemasonry lodge in Frankfurt which had illuministic tendencies. He invited Hirschfield to introduce Asiatic rites but this was rejected by the lodge, especially since that lodge had been chartered prior to Napoleon's defeat by the Illuminati's Grand Orient Lodge of Paris and made it suspect.

Molitor revered Frankist Jonathan Ebeschutz... (p. 124-125)

In the wake of Illuministic German-Jewish freemasonry Lodges, we find that the Rothschilds very adroitly steered their way into a position of control over these lodges in much the same manner as Friedrich, the Duke of Brunswick, member of the Illuminati was one of the main sponsors of the Vienna Asiatic Brethren Lodge until his death in 1792. (p. 125-126)

The illuminist concepts that were the foundation for the Asiatic Brethren may have come from a Franciscan monk according to Jacob Katz:

Source: Jacob Katz, JEWS AND FREEMASONS IN EUROPE, 1723-1939, Harvard University Press

I have no firsthand evidence on the immediate causes for the emergence of this order. Information has been culled from statements of members who became active later. According to them, an erstwhile Franciscan monk, Justus, whose civil name had been Bischoff, had taken a prominent part in its founding. Justus had spent years in the Orient, especially in Jerusalem, where he had struck up an acquaintance with Jewish Cabalists. He studied their disciplines and even obtained from them manuscripts which constituted the source for the Order's theosophic doctrines and ceremonial regulations. Although these details have not been corroborated, the traces of such a personality are very real, so that little if any doubt can be cast on his existence. On another figure, Azariah by name, who is reputed to have given Justus the manuscripts, the evidence is rather doubtful. According to the testimony (which we shall examine presently) of Ephraim Joseph Hirschfeld, Azariah belonged to a cabalistic sect identified, according to another version, as a vestige of the Sabbatai Zevi movement.

The lodge did not last long. Regular German Masonic lodges that refused to admit Jews opposed it. Infighting developed within the Brethren and the lodge was disbanded. However, even before it was disbanded, Hirschfeld was instrumental in founding another:

The Order of the Asiatic Brethren was a broad attempt to erect some type of Masonic framework within the borders of which both Jews and gentiles would be included. But it was not the only attempt. In 1790, even before the Order had finally ceased to exist, two Christians, Hirschfeld and Catter, had founded the Toleranzloge in Berlin with the avowed object of admitting both gentiles and Jews. These two men were by no means original thinkers. Their conceptions were a diluted solution of humanistic principles: belief in truth, brotherhood, and beauty, mixed with the vestiges of certain Christian doctrines: the fall of man and the necessity of his moral regeneration. They even retained some of the Christian symbols current in Masonic usage: Jews took their oath on the Gospel of Saint John, not "on a Hebrew Old Testament." Nevertheless, the founders proclaimed that "Freemasonry is obliged to bring Jews and Christians closer together and to eliminate outworn prejudices. It is their duty to make Jews, if one may say so, more human and to raise them to higher levels of culture." It was admitted, however, that only such Jews were worthy of membership as had already approached more closely to Christianity and whose open adherence to that religion was only obstructed by family circumstances. In the eyes of the founders, men like the Itzig brothers, Professor Herz, and Levi, the banker, were considered to fit into such a category. It may be presumed that these Jews, and especially Isaac Daniel Itzig, had a hand in establishing the lodge. Its founding possibly may have been from the very beginning a reaction to their disappointment at the anti-Jewish mood then pervading the Asiatic Order. (Katz, chapter 4)

FR. ROBERT SIRICO

I don't tend to pay a lot of attention to politics. Consequently when Susanna sent me some information on Blackwater, it was all news to me. I recognized the name but knew nothing about the details. Her articles were a crash course, so if I'm boring you with details, please forgive.

The Blackwater "Company Core Values" webpage doesn't hint in the text what the company provides, but the picture tells a thousand words, though the picture didn't come up the second time I accessed the website. The video webpage spells it out in prettyfied detail. This is a private police force that answers not to a government, but to a private business structure that presumably is in business for profit.

Sourcewatch fills in the details of the workings of this private military business, including the information that the company hires mercenaries from third world countries and that in October 2007 the "U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair Henry Waxman said Blackwater 'may have engaged in significant tax evasion'" by avoiding 'paying millions of dollars in Social Security, Medicare, unemployment and related taxes for which it is legally responsible.'"

The article tells us that Erik Prince co-founded the company.

A New York Times article tells us that Erik Prince is the brother of Betsy DeVos...she of the Amway fortune, and of the Board of the Acton Institute according to Wikipedia, but no longer shown on the Board at the Acton Institute website. I guess she has been demoted.

In any event, Prince's Freiheit Foundation has contributed to the Acton Institute to the tune of $219,200 according to Media Mouse It has contributed to other conservative Catholic organizations as well. Just read through the list. One of them happens to be a $50,000 contribution to St. Philip Neri House. You remember that place, don't you? It's Fr. Sirico's own personal religious institution--the one that prompted Randy Engel to write the Sirico Brief.

Think about it. A Catholic religious house funded by Blackwater money.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

THE ASIATIC BRETHREN

I'm still tracking this one down. The organization is important because it was the first Masonic lodge that admitted Jews in Germany, and Germany was the home of the Sabbatean-Frankists. The Frankists were influential in the founding of this lodge.

Sources for the information in no particular order:

Jewish historian Jacob Katz, JEWS AND FREEMASONS IN EUROPE, 1723-1939, Harvard University Press

Christopher McIntosh, E. J. Brill Academic Publishers. (This book was McIntosh's doctoral thesis in history at the University of Oxford)

Marvin S. Antelman, TO ELIMINATE THE OPIATE, Zahavia, Ltd.

Some of the material is online. I will link it where appropriate.

The acceptance of Jews into European society was conditioned by the change in their civil status. Previously regarded as foreigners who were granted residence privileges by special decree, Jews had now, as a result of the emancipation, acquired civil rights. Yet such rights were not conferred upon them automatically. In most localities, Jews were forced to engage in a protracted struggle. They achieved full citizenship step by step, having to wrest each new position in turn. Surprisingly, the Jewish effort to secure emancipation ran parallel with the history of their relations with the Freemasons. (Katz)

The earliest attempt to found a Masonic order with the avowed purpose of accepting both Jews and Christians in its ranks was the formation of the Order of the Asiatic Brethren or, to give it its full name, Die Brьder St. Johannes des Evangelisten aus Asien in Europa. We are fully familiar with the history of this society which was more important than all the others because of the scope of its activities and its influence. Founded in Vienna in 1780-81, its central figure and promoter was Hans Heinrich von Ecker und Eckhoffen, of Bavarian extraction. ... (Katz)

Althouogh it did not use the word "Rosicrucian" in its name, it can be considered part of the neo-Rosicrucian current...the initiates to the highest of the five grades of the order, the grade of Melchisedek, were known as "Royal Priests" or "True Rosicrucians". (McIntosh, p. 161)

The main document on its origins is a history of the order written by one of its members, the kabbalistic scholar Franz Josef Molitor....

Jewish-Christian syncretism...characterized the later version of the order....

While in the Tyrol, Ecker made the acquaintance of a Jew named Joseph Hirschfeld, who was to play a key role in the re-shaping of the order. ...Hirschfeld had a sojourn in Berlin where he was befriended by Moses Mendelssohn...(McIntosh, p. 162-165)

Ephraim Joseph Hirschfeld...belonged to a cabalistic sect identified...as a vestige of the Sabbatai Zevi movement. He entrusted all his affairs to his sons, while he himself traveled from polace to place as an emissary of the sect....the connection of the Asiatic brethren with the Sabbatian movement is conclusively proved...participation of...Baron Thomas von Schoenfeld, an apostate Jew ["is beyond doubt"]....Schoenfeld was a grandson of R. Jonathan Eybeschutz, whose collection of Sabbatian cabalistic works he had inherited...He was a member of the Dobruschka family...Mosheh Dobruschka, alias Thomas von Schoenfeld, actually had been an active adherent of the Sabbatian movement...he incorporated liberal portions of the Sabbatian doctrines in the teachings of the Order. (Katz)

In 1782 Moses Dobrushka, now Schoenfeld, founded a Masonic lodge called the Asiatische Bruder which was one of the four illuminati lodges in Vienna. After his uncle's death on August 10, 1791, he was offered the leadership of the Franklist movement which he refused... (Antelman, p. 106)

The Asiatic Brethren, Illuminati lodge to which we have previously referred, founded by Moses (alias Dobrushka) Schonfeld in 1782, was a meeting ground for many Frankists in Vienna. (Antelman p. 115)

The Asiatic Brethren, Illuminati aberration, had lodges in Prague, Innsbruck, Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg. [Isaac Daniel] Itzig was a member of the Berlin Asiatic Brethren. (Antelman 117)

By just following the Itzig family alone one can trace through their marriages and social circles most of the Illuminati-Frjankist political intrigues of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. (Antelman, p. 120)

The ideology of the Asiatic Brethren has been subjectd to a critical analysis by Professor Gershom Scholem. His study has revealed that on its theoretical level this ideology was a conglomeration of principles drawn from Christian and Jewish sources. Cabalistic and Sabbatian ideas were jumbled together with Christian theosophic doctrines. (Katz)

IDENTIFY THEFT

The Jury Duty scam as reported on the FBI website:

THE VERDICT: HANG UP
Don't Fall for Jury Duty Scam
06/02/06


The phone rings, you pick it up, and the caller identifies himself as an officer of the court. He says you failed to report for jury duty and that a warrant is out for your arrest. You say you never received a notice. To clear it up, the caller says he'll need some information for "verification purposes"-your birth date, social security number, maybe even a credit card number.

This is when you should hang up the phone. It's a scam.

Jury scams have been around for years, but have seen a resurgence in recent months. Communities in more than a dozen states have issued public warnings about cold calls from people claiming to be court officials seeking personal information. As a rule, court officers never ask for confidential information over the phone; they generally correspond with prospective jurors via mail.

More Information
Want to learn more about new and common scams like this one? Then sign up for our e-mail alerts.

The scam's bold simplicity may be what makes it so effective. Facing the unexpected threat of arrest, victims are caught off guard and may be quick to part with some information to defuse the situation.

"They get you scared first," says a special agent in the Minneapolis field office who has heard the complaints. "They get people saying, 'Oh my gosh! I'm not a criminal. What's going on?'" That's when the scammer dangles a solution-a fine, payable by credit card, that will clear up the problem.

With enough information, scammers can assume your identity and empty your bank accounts.

"It seems like a very simple scam," the agent adds. The trick is putting people on the defensive, then reeling them back in with the promise of a clean slate. "It's kind of ingenious. It's social engineering."

In recent months, communities in Florida, New York, Minnesota, Illinois, Colorado, Oregon, California, Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Hampshire reported scams or posted warnings or press releases on their local websites.

Read how to report it at the website.

Snopes.com reports this one is true.

FR. ROBERT SIRICO DISSECTS SOCIALISM

for the Detroit News website.

RANDY ENGEL AND THOMAS HERRON ON RADIO ROMAN CATHOLIC

Radio Roman Catholic interviewed Randy Engel and Thomas Herron on the subject of Fr. Robert Sirico and the Acton Institute. You can hear it here if you have an MP3 player. The interview takes an hour and is a bit slow to load.

POPE NOT WELCOME AT CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY

Pope Benedict XVI last night called off a visit to Rome's main university in the face of hostility from some of its academics and students, who accused him of despising science and defending the Inquisition's condemnation of Galileo.
The controversy was unparalleled in a country where criticism of the Roman Catholic church is normally muted. The Pope had been due to speak tomorrow during ceremonies marking the start of the academic year at Rome's largest and oldest university, La Sapienza. But the Vatican said last night it had been "considered opportune to postpone" his visit.

The announcement followed a break-in and sit-in at the rector's office yesterday by about 50 students and a furious row over a letter signed by more than 60 of La Sapienza's teachers, asking that the invitation to the Pope be rescinded.

Read the rest...

"REDEMPTION THROUGH SIN"

is the title of a paper by Gershom Scholem summarizing the Sabbatean/Frankist heretical movement in Judaism. This movement has had a far greater impact on Judaism and the New World Order than its obscurity would tell. It follows the teachings of manic-depressive false messiah Sabbatai Zevi (1626-1676). Using Scholem's words I will attempt a brief summary. Scholem writes:

The Sabbatian movement in its various shadings and configurations persisted with remarkable obstinacy among certain sectors of the Jewish people for approximately 150 years after Sabbatai Zevi's conversion. In a number of countries it grew to be powerful, but for various reasons, internal as well as external, its affairs were deliberately hidden from the public eye. In particular, its spokesmen refrained from committing their beliefs to print, and the few books that they actually published concealed twice what they revealed. ...

In the history of religion we frequently encounter types of individuals known as "pneumatics" (Pneumatikoi) or "spiritualists" (spirituales). Such persons, who played a major role in the development of Sabbatianism, were known in Jewish tradition as "spiritual" or "extra-spirited" men or, in the language of the Zohar, as "masters of a holy soul."...

In the Sabbatian movement, which was the first clear manifestation (one might better say explosion) of spiritualistic sectarianism in Judaism since the days of the Second Temple, the type of the radical spiritualist found its perfect expression. To be sure, illuminati of the same class were later prevalent in Hasidism too, particularly during the golden age of the movement; but Hasidism, rather than allow itself to be taken over by such types, forced them after a period of initial equivocation to curb their unruly spirituality, and did so with such success that it was able to overcome the most difficult and hazardous challenge of all, that of safely incorporating them into its own collective body...the Sabbatians pressed on to the end, into the abyss of the mythical “gates of impurity” (sha’are tum’ah), where the pure spiritual awareness of a world made new became a pitfall fraught with peril for the moral life. ...

...following the commencement of a "Palestinian period" during which organized Sabbatian emigrations to the Holy Land took place from several countries, the movement spread rapidly through Germany and the Austro- Hungarian Empire. In Lithuania it failed to take root, but in Podolia and Moravia it became so entrenched that it was soon able to claim the allegiance of many ordinary Jewish burghers and small businessmen (according to Jacob Emden, the numerical value of the Hebrew letters in the verse in Psalms 14, “There is none that doeth good, not even one," was equivalent to the numerical value of the letters in the Hebrew word for Moravia!) In Prague and Mannheim Sabbatian-oriented centers of learning came into being. The influence of the "graduates" of these institutions was great...n the middle of the eighteenth century many of the Sabbatians in Podolia converted to Christianity after the example of their leader Jacob Frank, but still others remained within the Jewish fold. Finally, a Sabbatian stronghold sprang up again in Prague, where Frankism was propagated in a Jewish form. After 1815, however, the movement fell apart and its members were absorbed into secular Jewish society, like the Frankist ancestors of Louis Brandeis. ...

Underlying the novelty of Sabbatian thought more than anything else was the deeply paradoxical religious sensibility of the Marranos and their descendants, who constituted a large portion of Sephardic Jewry. Had it not been for the unique psychology of these reconverts to Judaism, the new theology would never have found the fertile ground to flourish in that it did. ...

...many rabbis who were confirmed "believers" nevertheless managed to remain in their rabbinical posts. ...

The fire was fed by powerful religious emotions, but in the crucial moment these were to join forces with passions of an entirely different sort, namely, with the instincts of anarchy and lawlessness that lie deeply buried in every human soul. Traditionally Judaism had always sought to suppress such impulses, but now that they were allowed to emerge in the revolutionary exhilaration brought on by the experience of redemption and its freedom, they burst forth more violently than ever. An aura of holiness seemed to surround them. ...

The concept of the two Torahs was an extremely important one for Sabbatian nihilism, not least because it corresponded so perfectly to the "Marranic" mentality. In accordance with its purely mystical nature the Torah of atzilut was to be observed strictly in secret; the Torah of beriah, on the other hand, was to be actively and deliberately violated. As to how this was to be done, however, the "radicals" could not agree and differing schools of thought evolved among them. ...

there were those who said: in the world of redemption there can be no such thing as sin, therefore all is holy and everything is permitted. To this it was retorted: not at all!' what is needed rather is to totally deny the beriah, "Creation" (a word that had by now come to denote every aspect of the old life and its institutions), to trample its values underfoot, for only by casting off the last vestiges of these can we truly become free. ...despite the many psychological nuances which entered into the "transgression committed for its own sake" and the sacred sin, all the "radicals" were united in their belief in the sanctifying power of sin itself "that dwelleth with them in the midst of their uncleannesses," as they were fond of interpreting the phrase in Leviticus 16:16. ...

Sabbatians in Salonika, the Donmeh, regularly held a celebration on the twenty-second day of the Hebrew month of Adar known as "the Festival of the Lamb," the exact nature of which was kept a carefully guarded secret until some of the younger members of the sect were finally prevailed upon to reveal it to outsiders. According to their account the festival included an orgiastic rite called "the extinguishing of the lights." From what we know of this rite it probably came to Salonika from Izmir, for both its name and its contents were evidently borrowed from the pagan cult of "the Great Mother" which flourished in antiquity and continued to be practiced after its general demise by a small sect of "Light Extinguishers" in Asia Minor under the cover of Islam. There can be no question that the Donmeh took over this ancient bacchanalia based on immemorial myths and adapted it to conform to their mystical belief in the sacramental value of exchanging wives," a custom that was undoubtedly observed by other "radicals." in the movement as well. ...

...organized Sabbatian nihilism appeared in four main forms:

1. That of the "believers" who chose "voluntary Marranism" in the form of Islam. ...

2. That of the "believers" who remained traditional Jews in outward life while inwardly adhering to the "Torah of atzilut" ...

3. That of the Frankists who "Marranized themselves" by converting to Catholicism. ...

4. That of the Frankists in Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, and Rumania, who chose to remain Jewish. ...

In summary, the five distinguishing beliefs of "radical" Sabbatianism are:

1. The belief in the necessary apostasy of the Messiah and in the sacramental nature of the descent into the realm of the kelipot.

2. The belief that the "believer" must not appear to be as he really is.

3. The belief that the Torah of atzilut must be observed through the violation of the Torah of beriah.

4. The belief that the First Cause and the God of Israel are not the same, the former being the God of rational philosophy, the latter the God of religion.

5. The belief in three hypostases of the Godhead, all of which have been or will be incarnated in human form. ...

The annihilation of every religion and positive system of belief---this was the "true way" the "believers" were expected to follow. Concerning the redemptive powers of havoc and destruction Frank's imagination knew no limits. "Wherever Adam trod a city was built, but wherever I set foot all will be destroyed, for I came into this world only to destroy and to annihilate. ...

...all who would be warriors must be without religion..."I did not come into this world to lift you up but rather to cast you down to the bottom of the abyss. Further than this it is impossible to descend, nor can one ascend again by virtue of one's own strength, for only the Lord can raise one up from the depths by the power of His hand." The descent into the abyss requires not only the rejection of all religions and conventions, but also the commission of "strange acts," and this in turn demands the voluntary abasement of one's own sense of self, so that libertinism and the achievement of that state of utter shamelessness which leads to a tikkun of the soul are one and the same thing. ...

In this doctrine of immoralism we are confronted both with a total and overt rejection of all traditional norms of behavior, and with an exaggerated feeling of freedom that regards the license to do as it pleases as a proof of its own authenticity and as, a favor bestowed upon it from above .... The entire doctrine rests on the concept of an "extra spirit" as a privilege conferred upon a new type of human being who from here on is no longer to be subject to the standards and obligations that have hitherto always been the rule. Unlike the ordinary, purely "psychic" individual, the pneumatic is a free man, free from the demands of the Law....

The hopes and beliefs of these last Sabbatians caused them to be particularly susceptible to the "millennial" winds of the times. Even while still "believers" --in fact, precisely because they were "believers"--they bad been drawing closer to the spirit of the Haskalah all along, so that when the flame of their faith finally flickered out they soon reappeared as leaders of Reform Judaism, secular intellectuals, or simply complete and indifferent skeptics. ...

That is an inadequate summary. If you really want to understand them, reading the entire paper is called for.

There is one additional aspect of Sabbatianism that is touched on briefly in this paper. Frequently in reading about the claims of blood libel within the Jewish community, we are presented with a Catholicism vs. Judaism scenerio, one side opposing the other. In Scholem's paper he points to a sort of third rail that is a component of these stories.

The Sabbateans were the enemies of the orthodox Jewish rabbis. They wanted to curry favor with the Catholics in order to gain some protection from the power of the rabbis. According to Scholem:

lf one accepts what Heinrich Graetz and David Kahana have to say on the subject of Sabbatian theology, it is impossible to understand what its essential attraction ever was; indeed, if it is true, as both these writers claim, that the entire movement was a colossal hoax perpetrated by degenerates and frauds, one might well ask why a serious historian should bother to waste his time on it in the first place. And if this is the case with Sabbatianism in general, how much more so when one ventures to consider what is undoubtedly the most tragic episode in the entire drama, that of the Frankists, the psychological barriers to the understanding of which are incomparably greater. How, for instance, can one get around the historical fact that in the course of their public disputation with Jewish rabbis in Lvov in 1759 the members of this sect did not even shrink from resorting to the notorious blood libel, an accusation far more painful to Jewish sensitivities than any of their actual beliefs? A great deal has been written about this incident, particularly by the eminent historian Meir Balaban, in whose book, On the History of the Frankist Movement (in Hebrew), it is exhaustively dealt with. Balaban, who makes the Lvov libel a starting point for his over-all inquiry, reaches the significant conclusion that there was no organic connection between it and the Frankist "articles of faith" presented at the disputation. The members of the sect, in fact, were reluctant to make the accusation at all, and did so only at the instigation of the Catholic clergy, which was interested in using them for purposes of its own, having nothing to do with their Sabbatian background. That they finally agreed to collaborate in the scheme can be explained by their desire to wreak vengeance on their rabbinical persecutors.

If, in fact, so-called Jewish testimony to blood libel was actually Frankist testimony for its own nefarious purposes, it is no more acceptable than testimony obtained under torture.

"SACRILEGE: SEXUAL ABUSE IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH"

is the title of a book by Leon J. Podles that has recently been released. This one is unique in that Podles used for it only the material that is available to the general public through the press and court documents. He has gathered up quite a lot of material.

What I found particularly interesting was his research on the treatment centers to which these abusive priests were sent once abuse was established. It has often been said that the reason bishops consistently put priests back into parishes was that the counseling profession told them it would be appropriate, and that thus the bishops were merely following the best professional advice available. Podles offers the details:

The Institute of Living

Cardinal Egan, the one-time bishop of Bridgeport Connecticut, blamed the Institute for telling bishops that abusive priests were cured and could be trusted with children. But the institute in 1990 had warned that "we are in a weak position when we try to make predictions about future behavior." The director of psychology, Leslie Lothstein, claimed that the bishops usually ignored reports: "I found they rarely followed our recommendations. They would put them [abusers] back into work where they still had access to vulnerable populations. The chief of psychiatry at the Institute added that "in some cases, necessary and pertinent information related to prior sexual misconduct has been withheld from us. In some cases, it would appear that our evaluations have been misconstrued in order to return priests to ministry. But the Institute's diagnosis of John Goeghan was "atypical pedophilia in remission"; they told Bishop Banks that "it is both reasonable and therapeutic for him to be reassigned back to his parish" and later said Geoghan was "psychologically fit" to work with children....

In 2002, after the flood of abuse stories, the Institute required bishops who sent abusive priests for treatment to give "the full facts and circumstances" that led to the requests for treatment, including all "complaints, disciplinary actions, treatment records, and criminal and civil allegations." After this information was required, bishops stopped sending priests to the Institute. (p. 307-308)

The Servants of the Paraclete

Father Gerald Fitzgerald did not intend to establish a center for treating priests with sexual disorders, but that is what Via Coeli at Jemez Springs became....

Father John Murphy, pastor of a Jamez Springs church, wrote a letter to some U.S. bishops complaining that

"staff, superiors of the four separate houses [that] constitute Via Coeli almost without exception have serious unresolved behavior problems that necessitated their removal from the active ministry. It also contained allegations of drug and alcohol abuse."

The Paracletes, however, denied the allegations.

Fitzgerald wanted to put priests who abused children on an uninhabited island in the Caribean he had purchased for $28,000: "it is for this class of rattlesnake I have always wished the island retreat--but even an island is too good for these vipers of whom the Gentle Master said--it were better they had not been born...." This was not to be. According to one newspaper report, the Vatican ordered Fitzgerald to sell the island.

Another client at Jamez Springs

[John B.] Feit was and is a suspect in a murder. He heard Irene Garza's confession at Sacred Heart Church. People who were trying to go to confession that night remember that he had disappeared from the confessional box. Authorities later found her body in a canal, where Feit's photographic slide viewer was also found. Feit changed his story to investigators and failed lie detector teses...

Within a few years, Feit had joined the Paracletes and had become a top administrator supervising priests sent there for counseling. One priest he supervised was James Porter...Once, in 1969, Feit failed to disclose to the priest's home diocese in Massachusetts that Porter had relapsed while on a probationary assignment in Houston. ...

The Paracletes continued their policy of hiring their patients to run the center.

Porter was one of the early sensational cases of priestly sex abuse.

In the twelve years before they closed the New Mexico center in 1994 the Paracletes treated about 400 priests for "psychosexual issues" with a twelve-step program, with Depo-Provera, and with hikes in the mountains. In 1986 Dr. Jay Feierman of the treatment center asserted that "our recidivism rate for behavior which could be considered criminal is 0% to the best of our knowledge." Their knowledge was not very good: they destroyed their own records, which shows a certain lack of interest in following cases to find out the long term results of treatment. (pp 308-311)

The House of Affirmation

...Rev. Thomas A. Kane, a Catholic priest and co-founder of the chain, used House of Affirmation finances to support personal real estate investments in Massusetts, Maine, and Florida, paid salaries from House of Affirmation funds to persons employed in his personal business enterprises, and misrepresented his academic credentials." But these small personal problems, of which his bishop was aware, did not end Kane's career. In 1988, at the recommendation of Bishop Timothy Harrington, Kane was made the national director of the Guild of Catholic Psychiatrists, despite his fraudulent claim of having a Ph.D. In 1992 he was breeding bulldogs and teaching a course in ethics at a Catholic college.

In 1993 Kane was stationed at Sacred Heart Church in Worcester. He was then accused by Mark Barry of assaulting him at St. Mary's Church in Uxbridge, starting in 1968 when Barry was nine years old. The abuse, Barry claimed, continued for eleven years and took place at the House of Affirmation while Kane was director there. Barry said Kane had a country house in Manchester, Vermont, where he took Barry and offered him to other priests. There Kane took pictures of Barry and the priests having sex. A suit filed in 2002 claimed that Kane was running a sex ring in which John Geoghan, David Blizard, and Victor Frobas shared boys among themselves.

Before filing for bankruptcy after a civil lawsuit involving boys, Kane transferred his real estate to Msgr. Brendan P. Riordan, a director of the House of Affirmation (as of mid-2007 he remains pastor of a church in the Rockville Centre diocese)... (p. 313)

Podles is forthright in placing the blame on the pope:

The boys and girls whose lives were destroyed were victimized not only by the abusers, but by all those who allowed the abuse to go on:...by the Vatican and by the pope, who appointed the bishops who hated confronting abusive priests more than they hated child abuse, by the pope who gave every sign to the bishops that he wanted abusive priests to be given a second, third, fourth, tenth chance, by the pope who reviewed case files of abusers and never asked about the victims, by the pope who had time to meet with breakdancers but refused every request to meet with abuse victims. (p. 510)

JESUITS CALLED TO ORDER

The Jesuits elect their new superior general and discuss the reasons for their decline. But the Vatican authorities have already said what they expect from the order: more obedience to the pope, and more fidelity to doctrine.

Continue reading...

THE HERMETIC ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DAWN

- One of the most famous occult societies of the 20th Century.

- The Theosophical Society was formed in 1875 by Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Olcott, originally focused on Western mysticism. In the early 1880's Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland joined the TS, and by 1884 they were the heads of the London Lodge of the TS.

- When Blavatsky and Olcott converted to Buddhism and changed their focus to Eastern mysticism Kingsford and Maitland left the TS and formed the Hermetic Society. This group attracted S.L. MacGregor Mathers and Dr. W. Wynn Westcott.

- The Golden Dawn was then formed in 1888 by Westcott, supported by Mathers and Dr. William Robert Woodman. Their goal was to continue the tradition of Western mysticism that had been abandoned by the Theosophical Society.

- These three men were steeped in the philosophies of freemasonry, rosicrucianism and the cabala. Westcott was a master mason and the secretary general of the SRIA, latin for the Rosicrucian Society of England. Woodman was a leading member of the SRIA and an expert cabalist. He initially played a lead role in developing Golden Dawn's cabalistic studies, but he died in 1891.

- Prominent members of the Golden Dawn include Florence Farr, the famous stage actress and head of the London branch; William Butler Yeats, also a member of the TS and friend of Blavatsky, who earned a Nobel Prize for literature in 1924; and Aleister Crowley, the celebrated Satanist and black magician.

- Until his death in 1991 Ellic Howe was the world's foremost authority on the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley. He was inducted into UGLE in 1970 ,and then only eight years later he was elected Grand Master of the QC Lodge.

- After Howe died Robert A. Gilbert became the most respected promoter of the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley. He replaced Howe as the Grand Master of the QC Lodge. His book on the GD features an intro by Israel Regardie who was Crowley's friend, biographer and personal secretary. Regardie had also been involved in promoting LSD.

Source: http://www.redmoonrising.com/tm.htm

ARTHUR MACHEN

At Shoggoth.net:

Arthur Machen had a profound impact upon H.P. Lovecraft and the group of stories that would later become known as the Cthulhu Mythos. This first volume of Chaosium's Arthur Machen collection begins with the chilling "The Three Impostors"...

The Three Impostors at the Golden Dawn Gallery:

This is a picture gallery for an in-progress essay about Arthur Machen and his association with the Order of the Golden Dawn, and it may relate the Machen's novels The Three Impostors (1895) .

Pictured there are S. L. MacGregor Mathers, Dr. Robert William Woodman, and Dr. W. Wynn Wescott - the three founders of the magical fraternity the Golden Dawn.

Also pictured: S. L. MacGregor Mathers, Moina Mathers, W. B. Yeats, Florence Farr, Annie Horniman, Arthur Machen, Arthur Edward Waite, and Aleister Crowley. The website calls A. E. Waite and Arthur Machen "old friends".

Waite is a primary source for research on occultism.

LALIBURTIE HAS GONE GLOBAL

The founder of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte, has claimed global citizenship. Meanwhile the latest Cirque production, Corteo, has acquired angelic wings. (Scroll down to the ad.)

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 02 | Friday, January 11, 2008

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www.hli.org

The Consecration of the Lord

The feast of the Baptism of the Lord which we will celebrate this Sunday is one of the greatest feast days in the Church's calendar but also one of the least understood. Although Baptism speaks to us of washing or cleansing, in the instance of Our Lord, there was no need for Him to be cleansed of sin. We look at this feast day, instead, as the celebration of the consecration of His human nature for the mission of salvation.

The Lord's Baptism follows the Epiphany; in the former, He was manifest as a "light to the nations," but light does not save souls in and of itself. In the latter, He becomes the effective channel through which all nations may access the Throne of Grace. We can say that this was the "ordination" of Jesus as High Priest of our faith.

The High Priest's humanity was not anointed with the sacred chrism oil made by human hands but rather by the "oil of gladness," i.e., the Holy Spirit, the eternal Sanctifier. This scene is a completely Trinitarian event in which the Father pronounces His deepest delight in the Son while the Holy Spirit descends as a dove to inaugurate the Reign of Peace over all men at that precise moment.

Jesus was thus consecrated for His mission of salvation. Immediately after that, the High Priest went out into the desert to engage in mortal combat with the devil and began to systematically undo his reign of terror over the whole human race. Undoubtedly, the consecration of Christ's humanity made Him heal and preach and cast out demons as signs that the Kingdom of God was breaking into the world.

As we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord this Sunday, let us reflect on our own consecrations. The blessing of the Holy Spirit comes to each one of us for the first time at our own baptisms when we are anointed with the sacred oil of chrism. In this joyful ceremony, we are not only cleansed from Original Sin but also initiated into Christ's saving mission and given the spiritual gifts of faith, hope and charity to carry it out effectively.

Then, sometime after we reach the age of reason, we receive the Sacrament of Confirmation and are consecrated again with the same oil of chrism. The graces that were given to us as little children in Baptism are now able to be personally assimilated, chosen and strengthened in the young person who accepts a new role in this mission, that of being a Soldier of Christ.

As a priest, I received an additional consecration at my ordination and became a living instrument to bring Christ's spiritual life to His people. Through the consecration of my hands I am given the spiritual power to perform five of the seven sacraments which themselves sanctify, heal and bring souls out of darkness. Thus it is through the channel of God's grace created by a consecration that each of us is able to continue to have access to the Throne of Grace.

How much spiritual wisdom is contained in the Baptism of the Lord! Fundamentally, the Lord Jesus' consecration with the oil of gladness makes all other consecrations possible. On this special feast day let us rejoice that we are "beloved sons and daughters" of the Father and that we are consecrated for the most important mission of all - salvation. All He requires of us is that we "remain in him as that anointing has taught us." (1 Jn 2:27.)

Sincerely Yours in Christ,

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

CHICAGO SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS - HOME OF LIBERTARIANS

From Wikipedia:

The Chicago school of economics is a school of thought favoring free-market economics practiced at and disseminated from the University of Chicago in the middle of the 20th century. The leaders were Nobel laureates George Stigler and Milton Friedman.

It is associated with neoclassical price theory and free market libertarianism, the refutation and rejection of Keynesianism in favor of monetarism (until the 1980s, when it turned to rational expectations), and the rejection of regulation of business in favor of laissez-faire. In terms of methodology the stress is on "positive economics" -- that is, empirically based studies using statistics, with less stress on theory.

The school is noted for its very wide range of topics, from regulation to marriage, slavery and demography.

The term was coined in the 1950s to refer to economists teaching in the Economics Department at the University of Chicago, and closely related academic areas at the University such as the Graduate School of Business and the Law School. They met together in frequent intense discussions that helped set a group outlook on economic issues, based on price theory. The 1950s saw the height of popularity of the Keynesian school of economics, so the members of the University of Chicago were considered outcast. Famed economist Friedrich Hayek was teaching there because that is the only place he could find employment at the time [1].

The entry ends by saying that "wrecked countries" were rescued by this method of free market economy which brought about the privatization of third world companies.

It doesn't tell who ended up owning them. Would that be the capitalists of the first world countries who have shipped jobs off shore where there are no labor unions and no government regulation? Where the sweatshop is still with us?

Lord have mercy!