Still Running Off at the Keyboard

MAURICE STRONG

While exploring the world of channeling, I stumbled upon the information that Maurice Strong is now President of Robert Muller's University for Peace in Costa Rica according to SourceWatch.

OLYMPIC FACILITIES

This is either part of the Bejing Olympic Village or one of the stadiums. I can't tell for sure. Click the image for an even larger view. The design is downright creepy when viewed from the air. The picture can be seen here as well (scroll down).

That's an eye, isn't it? It sure looks like an eye.

CHANNELERS - Jose Arguelles (continued)

The editor of Canada Free Press, Judi McLeod, said in May 2005 that Ted Turner has taken up the 13-moon-calendar mantra:

One of the things Turner is not so well recognized for is that he was the inspiration for the United Nation's Peace Calendar, an initiative that morphed into the 13 Moon calendar. (See When the Big Hand Says Thirteen Moon Calendar, canadafreepress.com, August 27, 2004).

Ostensibly, the UN rejected considering calendar reform in 1995 as part of its 50th anniversary. Within four years, UN officials were passing calendar reform duty over to lifetime activist for peace, Dr. Jose Arguelles, an originator of Earth Day.

It was when he was speaking to a group of broadcasters when Turner suggested that changing the way of dating time was in order. Turner said he wants to change time from the current BC (Before Christ, i.e. 380 CE) and AD (Anno Domini, Latin for "in the Year of our Lord).

"Why don't we broadcasters make it our goal to get the world at peace by the year 2000? Let's make it the year zero–BP and AP, Before Peace and After Peace," he told the gathering of broadcasters, who responded to the idea with applause.

Referring to the fourth beast whose kingdom will "devour the whole earth, beat it down, and crush it" the prophet Daniel declares:

"And he shall speak words against the High One, and shall crush the saints of the most igh: and he shall think himself able to change times and laws, and they shall be delivered into his hand until a time, and times, and half a time." Daniel 7:25

CHANNELERS - Jose Arguelles

New Dawn Magazine interviewed Arguelles, discussing his current attempts to persuade the world go give up the Gregorian calendar and join his World Thirteen Moon Calendar Change Peace Movement, adopting the Myan calendar he claims is the only way to save the planet. He predicted a "Great Calendar Change of 2004" that has not happened yet. From the interview:

People have to understand that the Gregorian calendar is the world's most insidious dogma, that this calendar is a tool of the Vatican, and that therefore, the Vatican maintains mind control over the human species with this calendar. And everybody knows that it is irregular and irrational as well--so why still follow it?...

Not that we haven't already presented this to the U.N., the Vatican, and many other top leaders. But that has been a matter of course. If we hadn't done that we wouldn't be doing our jobs. Of course the Vatican chose to conceal our information and ultimately ignore it. Kofi Annan, however, did give us a positive letter of support. But of course, no one wants to take personal responsibility. So we say, that's OK, show us a better, more comprehensive solution. We are ready anyway, and everyone who knows that this is real and true is getting ready to say goodbye to the Gregorian calendar and its self-fulfilling apocalypse in 2004 and walk right into a time of peace and harmony....Besides, the Myan prophecy says that 2012 is the end of the cycle, and if we want to get there in one piece, we have to shift gears now....

By the way, all of this calendar change activity is also a Myan prophecy. In that regard, I am nothing but a messenger, and as a messenger, my name is Valum Votan, Closer of the Cycle.

It's rather bizarre to claim that the calendar is the reason we're screwed up, but the claim doesn't actually belong to Arguelles. He is just the messenger and the collector of royalties from his book, THE MAYAN FACTOR, describing this strange idea as New Connexion notes at the end of their description of this New Age guru.

Arguelles was the originator of the 1987 Harmonic Convergence World Peace Meditation, Coordinator of the World Thirteen Moon Calendar Change Peace Movement according to New Connexion.

The Spirit of Maat website calls Arguelles the "High Priest of the New Age" and also delves into this Myan prophecy business.

Fieldwerks goes a bit further in describing this "closing of the cycle of time" in a report "from Valum Votan conference in Rome":

The Day Out of Time [July 25] 2004, the culmination of the four years of the Harrowing of Hell.

Whatever it was, apparently it's over. The website features an eye logo--the Eye of Thelema, as used in Ordo Templi Orientis/Aleister Crowley websites, among others, though perhaps with some artistic interpretation here.

13moon.com tells us

The source of these calendar codes is the "Dreamspell" - the modern application of ancient Mayan time-science, brought to us by Dr. Jose and Lloydine Arguelles. As a tool of synchronization, unification, and telepathic development, by speaking a language of light, this template unites us in a harmony which transcends our language barrriers. By following the 13-Moon Natural Time Calendar, every day we meet each other in the consciousness of the energy and sacred symbol of the day.

Rather than labeling today's date as: "Thursday, December 22, AD two-thousand-and-five," to a growing global population who tracks the Dreamspell count, today is: "Red Rhythmic Skywalker, Gamma Thythmic 10, Year of the Yellow Cosmic Seed."

That is going to play havoc with the little line for the date in your checkbook, but I don't think you have anything to worry about yet. This is the first I've heard about this new dating system, so it doesn't seem to have extensive popularity.

Susanna found a Dreamspell website that openly states the sources of Arguelles' notions. There, along with the Dreamspell calendar is the following claim:

The Dreamspell is a special interpretation of the ancient Mayan Calendar which was channeled from the ancient Mayan priest-king Pacal Votan through Jose Arguelles in harmony with the oracles of the Jaguar Priests of the Yucatan the Priests of Chilan Balam. The count of days in the Dreamspell does not coincide with the count of days of the ancient Classic Maya calendar or the calendar of the present-day Quiche of Guatemala. It is not meant to do that at all. Instead it is meant to be used in harmony with and not in competition with those other calendars see the statement by the Dreamspell Movement on this subject for further explanation.

So Arguelles is a channeler. Or perhaps it goes ever further. He, himself, claims to be Valum Votan. Votan confirms that:

No one but I...know how many times I have died. I died at least half a dozen times through my spiritual body before my son died completely for all of me. Then I died my seventh death, and knew to take a path that would not return me to the corporate identity that died along with my son. That was over ten years ago.

Most people who knew me then knew me by the author's name, "Jose Arguelles." Probably most people still think they know me by that name. But I know no one by that name except a fiction which I am no longer. I had struggled with the identity augured by that name for much of my life, and then came conclusively to the decision that it was of little value....I told my wife and partner many times afterwards that I was dead to the name that appeared on the books I had written. ...I gave the message of Pacal Votan's prophecy, Telektonon, saying that it was not an invention of any person named Arguelles, but the voice of Pacal Votan speaking through the body of that one once known by that name. ...It took me awhile to disidentity with that name, Arguelles, because no else really knew what kind of transformation was actually going on inside of me.

Is that what we usually think of as possession?

CHANNELERS - Barbara Marx Hubbard

Barbara Marx Hubbard channels the
Christ voice according to Catholic Culture:

Barbara Marx Hubbard, for the uninitiated, is one of the leading figures in the United Religions Initiative and a founder of the World Future Society. In her book, The Revelation: A Message of Hope in the New Millennium, which she claims was dictated to her by "the Christ voice," she has Jesus Christ exhorting his true disciples to "love Satan, my fallen brother," explaining that he never suffered on the cross but rose from the dead "to show you what you can do. Yours is the power. Yours is the glory. That is my message to you."

In her project to "move humanity forward," Hubbard is assisted by such powerful men as Robert Strange McNamara; Canadian multi-billionaire Maurice Strong; Orville Freeman, former U.S. secretary of agriculture; Irving Shapiro, former chairman of E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., et al.

Hubbard's version of the Lord's Prayer begins, "Our father/mother god ... Which art in heaven ... Hallowed be our name ... Our kingdom is come ... Our will is done."

She is also the director of a video titled COMPLETE GUIDE TO CHANNELING, a documentary teaching the viewer how to talk with the spirit world. Insight describes this CD:

"In this acclaimed documentary, learn how to talk with spirit--from connecting and hearing your inner self, or your Spirit Guide, or to channel a high being. With renowned Channelers: Lazaris, Terry Cole Whittaker, Ken Carey gives a "how-to-channel" workshop...

Those appearing on the CD include

LAZARIS - channeled by Jach Pursel. From Pursel's website:

Since 1974, Lazaris has channeled through Jach Pursel, his only channel, offering his friendship and love and generating a remarkable body of tools, techniques, processes, and pathways for our Spiritual Journey to God/Goddess/All That Is.

He has touched thousands of us in his extraordinary workshops and tens of thousands more of us with his books, video recordings, and audio recordings that many have said are the finest tools of metaphysics and spirituality available.

We invite you to explore the Love and Light, the joy and wonder, which is this Spark of Love known as Lazaris.

He can be accessed online pay-per-view.

TERRY COLE-WHITTAKER - She does not outright profess to be a channeler. Rather she teaches a prosperity gospel similar in philosophy to the Law of Attraction. One of her webpages dedicated to selling her teachings includes three CD sets, one of which "contains valuable knowledge on the flow of divine energy" which apparently equates to channeling given that she participates in Barbara Marx Hubbard's offering. Cole-Whittaker has many more goods to sell as spelled out briefly here.

KEN CAREY - Insight Books offers four books by Ken Carey centered on native American spirituality and the Starseed Transmissions. Answers.com gives a brief bio of Ken Carey which tells us:

During the winter of 1978-79 he channeled for 11 days. The entities that spoke through him sometimes appeared as angels (including the angel Raphael) or extraterrestrials. However, during the later sessions, an entity declared, "I am Christ. I am coming this day through the atmosphere of your consciousness…. I am the bridegroom, spoken of old. I came to you first through the man named Jesus." The transcripts of these sessions were published as The Starseed Transmissions in 1982 and became an early channeled New Age classic. The popular response led to the publication of further volumes based on the channelings.

AUGUST APATHY

August is a bad month for Catholic journalists. Rome tends to go into hibernation in August, leaving little to report, so old news becomes new again. Today looks like typical August.

Stories in the news are about the pope writing an encyclical (not the encyclical, just the prediction of one); satanic graffiti on a church (we've heard that too many times before); the pope has asked China to be open to Christianity (important, but hardly earth-shattering given the number of times it has occurred); an inflatable church is catching on at the beach; yet another grandmother wants to be ordained; yet another priest is sentenced for abusing teens; and the hardship faced by Mid-Eastern Christians. These are important issues, but this morning they have a ho-hum quality. They aren't even in sight of adrenaline, let alone cause to call it up.

Rather than fiddle with code to blog these stories, I think I'll just move on to blogging recent research.

CHANNELING

When I began researching Theosophy, esoteric Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism and New Age, I knew right away that I was reading alternative theology, but could not quite get a handle on what exactly they were up to. Where did the alternative theology come from? Did the authors dredge it up wholecloth from their own conscious mind or even the subconscious? Was it ancient spirituality revisited? Was it part of early Catholicism? I considered all of those possibilities and kept on digging. Finally after a few years it began to occur to me that the philosophy might just be coming from a channeled source, and the rites were possibly defined by a disembodied spirit who wishes to speak or otherwise act through a human body.

Probably the first time that I came to the conclusion this was very likely was in reading a play written by Theosoophist and Rosicrucian Freemason Rudulf Steiner. "The Portal of Initiation: A Rosicrucian Mystery" contains a passage indicating that some other entity is taking over the personality of the heroine, Maria, and she doesn't like it much. Scene three takes place in a "meditation room" where a small group are apparently experimenting with meditation. Maria complains:

It stands like this with me--you give me light, but light which robs me of my seeing, and tears me from myself. If I am only medium for a Spirit, and not myself, then will I tolerate no longer to wear a form that is a mask, not truth....

You gave me clarity, but clarity which wraps me up on every side in darkness. I curse your clarity, and you I curse, who made me instrument of these wild arts with which you will deceive mankind. Never before, for a moment, could I have any doubt how high you stand in spirit. And yet one moment now was enough to tear all faith out of my heart. The spirits which you serve I now must know as powers of hell.

Maria's lines are interrupted by the words of her friend, Johannes:

O what is happening to you! Your sight is vanishing, your body's like a pillar. I take your hand, and it is cold--it is as dead.

When I read that scene, I saw in it confirmation of what I had been suspecting: that the esoteric Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, the Theosophists were engaged in channeling, and most likely what Steiner called clairvoyance--access to the Akashic Record--was access to disembodied entities which very likely is practiced somewhere within Anthroposophy.

Most likely, too, Edgar Cayce had access to such spirits who gave him medical information about people he didn't know and who were not in his presence while he was in a trance. The Association for Research and Enlightenment promotes Cayce's activities and in some fashion continues his work. A.R.E. is very New Age.

From the perspective of Catholic cosmology, disembodied spirits are most likely angels. Some of them are good, and we have passages in Scripture describing their sudden appearance to man. But not all angels are good. There are the fallen ones who oppose God--who, like Lucifer, the Lightbearer, will not serve. Apparently they are willing, however, to serve man in this fashion.

In Scripture, 1 Samuel 28:7-18 tells the story of Saul's attempt to make a decision based on the spirit Samuel conjured up by the Witch of Endor. Saul's punishment for doing so was the loss of his kingdom. Conjuring is not a thing favored by the God of the Old Testament.

Throughout the New Testament there a several passages that address evil spirits, so to reject the possibility that they exist and that they can interact with man would be foolish, and to seek them out is playing with fire.

It's noteworthy that there is a push within Roman Catholicism to train more exorcists, and the pope is behind it. Apparently he believes that more people are in need of exorcism than there are exorcists available to help them.

With these thoughts in mind, I'm going to start listing channelers--and there are an awful lot of them--and the entity they channel. I'm doing this as a result of discussion at Constance Cumbey's blog about this very topic.

Here is the first channeler:

DAVID SPANGLER

Certainly a New Age voice, Spangler has worked with Findhorn and has established an organization called Lorian Association for the purpose of teaching trance channeling. This is explained in a letter from him contained in a pdf file.

In this letter Spangler openly admits that he has been channeling John since college:

Most people know through my writings that I left college in 1965, where I was pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry, to begin working as a lecturer and teacher of spirituality. I was joined in this endeavor by a non-physical being whom I named John and who became my partner for nearly thirty years of inner work. I have always said that I felt a calling to do this, and this is certainly true. But I have only rarely shared where this sense of calling came from.

Again, as I've indicated in my books and classes, I've experienced contact and communication with innter, non-physical worlds all my life.

He speaks of "contact with a being of Light" and "a new spiritual Order", saying that the symbol of channeling "was a cup or chalice". He indicates that he has also communicated with other "inner plane beings over the years" whom he considers to be "my sources and allies." He speaks of "alliance and partnership" with these entities and tells us "Sovereignty is the manifestation of our individuated divinity, the expression of our sacred Selfness or 'I'."

Spangler tells us about

a tendency for incarnate individuals to give their sovereignty, freedom, and power away to non-physical beings (or their human representatives in the form of priesthoods, gurus, and masters...

Which pretty much sounds like an "I will not serve."

Spangler refers to this process of channeling as "standing in our own incarnate spirituality," in which "we can form co-creative partnerships and alliances with inner beings based on mutual respect and love" and that in Lorian this process of forming "alliances with inner beings" is being taught. Perhaps most disturbing to this Catholic is that he refers to this process as Incarnational Spirituality, giving a new meaning to the word Incarnation by redefining it to mean something that no Catholic can approve.

Interestingly, near the end of the latter he speaks of John opening a portal, bring back to mind Steiner's "Portal of Initiation" which seems to amount to the same thing.

In the Chapter titled "Present-Day Followers of Alice Bailey" (FALSE DAWN) Lee Penn writes:

The vice-president and treasurer of Pathways to Peace, Masankho Banda, is active in the URI. Robert Muller is "Senior Adviser" for Pathways to Peace." Other members of the "Council of Advisers" include Gordon Davidson, Corrine McLaughlin, Jean Houston, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and David Spangler... (p. 284)

THE PAPAL COMMISSION ON BIRTH CONTROL

The Catholic Herald interviewed one of the last surviving original members of the papal commission, Professor John Marshall. He offers insights into the thinking at the time immediately preceding HV, the many theologians, priests, bishops and cardinals who were part of the commission which numbered a total of 58 members by the time it issued its final report, and a brief look at the thinking of the commission members.

Some of the high points of the interview...

With regard to the need for every sexual act to be open to conception:

...the need for every marriage act to maintain its structural openness to conception is not necessary and may, in many circumstances, run counter to the virtue of prudence."

Regarding the use of natural family planning:

The use of the safe period was just such a control of nature, as were barrier contraceptives or the temporary suspension of fertility through the Pill. All such methods reduced the fullness of the sexual gift in a sense but, used responsibly, served the higher end of marital love. ...

It brought home the fact that well-motivated, active, Catholic couples had on the whole valued the method but that a large majority had also found it had harmed their relationship in various ways. It broadly concluded that the method was not suitable for all couples and probably unsuitable for almost any couple throughout the whole of their married lives.

What persuaded the commission to approve contraception?

"Perhaps," Professor Marshall said, "the real turning point came in April 1965 when the four theologians who were opposed to change admitted that they could not demonstrate the intrinsic evil of contraception through natural law.

Yet in spite of this conclusion, Pope Paul used natural law to buttress HV, and used it without a confirming argument.

The additional select group appointed for the final meeting to consider the Majority Report consisted of six cardinals, 13 archbishops, one bishop and the Pope's theologian. The report was approved following preliminary voting by the bishops on specific questions: was contraception intrinsically evil? By a substantial majority the answer was no. Was the recommendation on contraception in the report in basic continuity with tradition and the teaching the Magisterium? By a substantial majority the answer was yes. Subsequently, representations contrary to the Majority Report were made privately to the Pope by those who believed that the doctrine could not, or should not, be changed.

The laity rejected it, and in the process learned to reject a lot more than birth control:

Every survey has shown that around 90 per cent of Catholic couples ignore the unqualified teaching of Humanae Vitae. And the most recent widespread survey of parochial clergy showed that fewer than half supported the total ban. We have the unusual but very destructive dilemma of the Magisterium teaching a doctrine under authority and that doctrine not being 'received' by the Church as a community. Perversely, the perceived irrelevance of the Magisterium's teaching on marriage may have contributed to the growth of the contraceptive mentality which is now so evident in countries we think of as Catholic."

MORE INDICATIONS THAT HUMANE VITAE IS GOING TO BE REVISITED

An article in The Tablet states some of the reasons why this needs to happen:

The Commission began with the assumption that the immorality of artificial birth control was easily proved by natural law, and was astonished to find that it could not be. Pope Paul VI did not heed the implied warning that merely to repeat these natural law arguments would be to guarantee a strong reaction; to buttress those arguments by invoking papal authority would broaden that reaction into a challenge to that authority. It was a strategic miscalculation. Instead, in several places in the encyclical, Paul VI makes plain his view that natural law objections to contraception are so obvious, they hardly need explaining. The gulf of mutual incomprehension was immense. The Vatican thought millions of loyal faithful would put aside their newly acquired contraceptive pills and prophylactics, blow the dust off their natural family planning handbooks and temperature charts, and obey. The fact that they did not produced a seismic shift in the way many Catholics saw Church authority. And still do. The Tablet's survey of Mass-going Catholics in England, conducted by the Von Hügel Institute in Cambridge, shows that, 40 years on, more than nine out of 10 of them do not think the use of condoms is wrong. That is their verdict on Humanae Vitae, though surprisingly half of them have never heard of it. The encyclical failed to equip bishops and priests with good arguments that would change the minds of married Catholics who found, and still find, the Church's official teaching at odds with their experience. That is not to rule out that such arguments could be found in the future, or to suggest that the gulf between hierarchy and laity on this issue should remain unbridgeable.

OLD TESTAMENT PROOF

A 2600-year-old relic from the days of the prophet Jeremiah has been uncovered in Israel.

ANGLICANS DECIDE NOT TO DECIDE

On the last day of the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican church officially decided to postpone voting and continue to work toward a concensus.

ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN HAS DIED

He died at his home in Moscow August 3.

LOWERING TUITION

Mostly what we hear about when Catholic schools are discussed is the rising tuition. That tuition keeps many Catholic parents from sending their kids to Catholic school. It's a rather recent phenomenon. When I was in Catholic school, there was no tuition.

In Boardman, Ohio, a Byzantine school administrator, Bernie Kosar, Sr., (yes, the father of Cleveland Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar) has applied business principles to the school funding issue and decided to lower tuition with the hope of attracting more students. I hope he succeeds!

Read about it here...

HUMANE VITAE

From Peter Steinfels at the New York Times:

The central point of “Humanae Vitae” was that each and every act of sexual intercourse had to be free of any deliberate effort to prevent conception.

It was here that Pope Paul VI rejected the recommendation of his own papal commission. After extended study and debate, the commission, though heavily weighted with conservative churchmen, concluded that the inseparability of the bonding and procreating aspects of human sexuality had to be respected over the course of a marriage but not necessarily in every instance of sexual intimacy.


Read the entire commentary...

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 30 | Friday, August 01, 2008
..................................................................................
www.hli.org

Former Humanae Vitae Dissenter Signs the HLI Pledge

In the course of my week I get many letters from all kinds of good people (and a few not-so-good ones...) who express their sentiments on how Human Life International impacts their lives; and every now and then I get a letter that literally causes me to shed tears of gratitude. This week was one of those weeks. I received a letter from a former priest who had signed the "protest document" just after Humanae vitae was released forty years ago last week, and it is one of the most touching testimonies that I have read in a long time. I would like to share the joy of this particular Humanae vitae conversion story with you in the hope that it will touch your heart as it did mine.

"Dear Fr. Euteneuer,

I have signed and am returning the Pledge of Assent to Humanae vitae for the Laity. There is for me a special significance in signing this Pledge, and [it] will give me a peace of mind and heart that I have not experienced since 1968. In 1968 I was a young Franciscan priest studying in the Graduate School of Religious Education at Catholic University. I personally knew Fr. Charles Curran and Fr. Dan Maguire, and was a student of Fr. Robert Faricy, SJ. Since they, as well as many other professors and graduate students were signing the Protest Document, I went along and did so also.

In 1975 for personal reasons not related to any doubts or questions about the Faith, or the Church, or the Religious Life...I requested and obtained...a dispensation from Pope Paul VI returning me to the Lay State. Later, I was married in the Church and raised my two children in the Faith....I have had many conversations with my Pastor and with his assistant (who is my spiritual director) about my days as a Franciscan Priest, and have been active in many of our parish's lay apostolate and ministries.

But I have always regretted having signed the Protest Document against Pope Paul's teaching in 1968, and having learned a few years ago that Fr. Faricy had publicly repudiated signing the Protest, I had wished that I, too, could repudiate in some official way, having signed the Protest....And so your "Pledge" document offers me an opportunity to correct my mistake, and find healing - and telling you about all this helps me to feel that my repudiation of the Protest is now known and accepted in a kind of semi-official sort of way by an "authority" in the Church.

And thank you for reading this, thereby humoring an old man, who despite everything else, knows that he is a "priest forever, according to the Order of Melchizedek.'"

I can't tell you how much good this letter did for me! It reminded me that in Christ's Kingdom it is never too late, even after forty years, to fully embrace the Truth. All of us make mistakes and all of us sin, but He gives us all a chance to be reconciled with Him and turn our sorrow into joy. Truly this dear soul has found his peace and healing through our campaign, and in some small way we have been for him a sign of God's infinite Mercy that knows no bounds for those who truly repent! I have chosen to spread this word far and wide today as a way of honoring this priest's desire to let his repudiation be a public testimony to others.

As the Lord said of Zacchaeus, "Truly, this day, salvation has come to this house!" (Lk 19:9) Let us all rejoice in such a complete and blessed return!

Sincerely Yours in Christ,

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