Aftermath News

The Masonic square and compasses symbol is seen on the main floor wall frieze, on 19 November, at the headquarters of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern jurisdiction, in Washington, DC. A sequel to the blockbuster thriller “The Da Vinci Code” is set to lift the veil on mysterious Freemason symbols carved into the fabric of the historic streets and buildings of the US capital.

AFP | Nov 29, 2007

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A sequel to the blockbuster thriller “The Da Vinci Code” is set to lift the veil on mysterious Freemason symbols carved into the very fabric of the historic streets and buildings of the US capital.

Novelist Dan Brown has set the new adventures of his hero, scholar-adventurer Robert Langdon, right in the heart of Washington, which could reveal some astonishing facts for history buffs.

Brown “had a contact with us but then cut it short. We are all sitting around waiting for his book to come out but nobody knows what he’s going to say,” Akram Elias, grand master-elect of Washington’s Grand Lodge, told AFP.

According to the pre-publicity, the book — working title “The Solomon Key” — will feature Langdon hero of the mass-selling “The Da Vinci Code” and who was played by Tom Hanks in the hit film version.

“For the first time, Langdon will find himself embroiled in a mystery on US soil. This new novel explores the hidden history of our nation’s capital,” Brown wrote in a posting on his official website.

Washington has strong historic roots in Freemasonry — an old and widespread fraternity which traditionally practised secret rituals.

Despite its reputation for secrecy, the Freemason community is noticeably open in the United States: lodges are advertised in the phone book and their signs are prominently displayed.

The first US president after whom the city is named, George Washington, was a Mason, as were his fellow founding fathers James Madison and Benjamin Franklin, plus James Hoban, the architect of the White House.

The broad steps, stone sphinxes and colonnades of a Masonic temple dominate a corner of 16th Street near the city center — one of a number of Masonic lodges in the capital — and just a stone’s throw from the White House.

Elias cites theories that the city’s streets themselves are laid out in the shape of secret Masonic signs. “It may be a coincidence, but there are indications that are difficult to ignore,” he said.

Establishing the nation’s capital, George Washington is said to have demanded that it be laid out in a symbolic square.

“It’s fascinating. If you take an aerial view of Washington, you cannot but see the perfect square and the compass which are the universal symbols of Freemasonry … meaning rectitude and equality,” he said.

“Was it on purpose? I don’t know, but I think it’s difficult to ignore those mysterious aspects,” he added. “It adds another level of mystery to the city of Washington.”

The shape of a square and compass is also formed by drawing a line on the map between two of the city’s major landmarks, the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, and along the walls of the White House and the Jefferson Memorial.

At the center of these stands the George Washington monument, a vast brick obelisk whose dimensions themselves are symbolic: 555 feet high by 55 wide (170 meters by 17).

The number five is said to refer to the traditional five orders of architecture, which in turn relates to the Freemasons’ regard for geometry as a symbol of order, and of “the great geometrician” — the supreme being.

Inside the Capitol building, the heart of US lawmaking which sits at the dead center of the square city boundaries, lies a cornerstone laid by George Washington himself, dressed in his ceremonial apron, in a Masonic ritual in 1793.

“Here goes Washington heading a ceremony in order to lay the cornerstone of the Capitol, using corn, oil and wine to send a very powerful message to those who will be working in the parliament,” Elias said.

“Their mission should be to work in achieving prosperity, peace and happiness for the American people.”

Some play down the perceived prominence of Masons and their symbology, for fear of encouraging conspiracy theories which may be harmful to Freemasons.

“Freemasonry has a very important role in the history of the US and the early American republic,” said Mark Tabbert, director of collections at the Washington Masonic memorial in nearby Alexandria, Virginia, and author of the book “American Freemasons.”

“But that role is not based on any kind of political or religious construct.”

Tabbert offers an alternative to claims of Masonic design in Washington’s city plan.

“The design of the US capital is based more on neo-classical style, more related to the attempts to create a new republic based on an ancient Roman republican model than anything that related to freemasons,” he said.

Codes and secret signs were Brown’s stock-in-trade for the staggering success of “The Da Vinci Code” however.

“I’m nervous about it because I don’t think he does very good research,” Tabbert said of Brown and his new book. “But fiction writers are fiction writers.”

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…The real enemy, then, is humanity itself….Bring the divided nation together to face an outside enemy, either a real one or else one INVENTED for the purpose…”

- The First Global Revolution: A Report by the Council of Rome

Do your part! The masses are more ready and willing to sacrifice themselves to “save the Earth” than the elites, just as planned. (Photo: inmates of the dystopia prepare to voluntarily cull themselves off at the “Carousel” extermination ceremony, from the 1976 scifi film Logan’s Run)

BBC | Nov 5, 2007

The poll suggests the public are more ready than politicians

Most people say they are ready to make personal sacrifices to address climate change, according to a BBC poll of 22,000 people in 21 countries.

Four out of five people say they are prepared to change their lifestyle, even in the US and China, the world’s two biggest emitters of carbon dioxide.

Three quarters would back energy taxes if the cash was used to find new sources of energy, or boost efficiency.

Chinese respondents were more positive than any others about energy taxes.

BBC environment reporter Matt McGrath says the poll suggests that in many countries people are more willing than their governments to contemplate serious changes to their lifestyles to combat global warming.

According to the survey, 83% of respondents throughout the world agree that individuals will definitely or probably have to make lifestyle changes to reduce the amount of climate-changing gases they produce.

The poll also suggests that a large majority of people in each individual country surveyed believe that sacrifices will be necessary.

In almost all countries in Europe, and in the US, most people believe the cost of fuels that contribute most to climate change will have to increase.

The only exceptions were Italy and Russia, where significant numbers of people believe that increases in the price of energy will not be necessary.

The pollsters suggest that high energy costs in both countries could have put people off the idea of increasing prices even further.

Attitudes to rising energy costs in Asia and Africa are more varied.

In China and Indonesia, large majorities believe that higher energy costs are necessary, but in South Korea and India majorities in favour of higher prices are much smaller.

And in Nigeria, 52% of the respondents did not believe that higher fuel costs would be necessary to combat global warming.

Green China?

Opinions are divided on proposals to increase taxes on fossil fuels.

Worldwide, only 50% are in favour and 44% are opposed.

The Chinese are the most enthusiastic when it comes to energy taxes: 85% of those polled are in favour, 24 percentage points more than in the next most-supportive countries.

In the rest of the world, only narrow majorities - and sometimes minorities - favour higher energy taxes.

However, when people opposed to energy taxes are asked whether their opinion would change if the revenue from the taxes were used to increase energy efficiency or develop cleaner fuel, large majorities are produced in every country in favour of higher taxes.

And when those opposed to higher taxes are asked whether they would change their minds if other taxes were reduced in order to keep their total tax burden the same, the survey again discovered large majorities in every country in favour of higher green taxes.

“This poll clearly shows that people are much more ready to endure their share of the burden than most politicians grant,” said Doug Miller, director of Globescan, the polling company that conducted the survey on behalf of the BBC.

Globescan interviewed 22,182 people in the UK, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, and the United States. Interviews were conducted face-to-face or by telephone between 29 May 29 and 26 July 2007.

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Related

Lovelock: Warming Will Kill 6 Billion
Six billion dead. That’s the latest magic number from the eco-left that’s designed to scare the world into global warming action. Climate extremist James Lovelock, the founder of the Gaia theory, used it predicting mankind will almost be wiped out by 2100 from global warming.

Global Warming: Religion, not Science
Following on from our June 3, 2007, edition of REAL NEWSpaper, focusing Global Warming as a religion, John Brignell agrees that global warming has become the new religious dogma of the 21st century. High priest Al Gore asks to accept a “scientific truth”, in which not doubt is allowed; faith is all important. Resistance is beginning to lead to social exclusion, like the medieval heretics.

Global warming: the bogus religion of our age
Like a religion, environmentalism is suffused with hatred for the material world and again, like religion, it requires devotion rather than intellectual rigour from its adherents. It is intolerant of dissent; those who question the message of doom are regarded as heretics, or ‘climate change deniers’, to use green parlance.

Environmentalism Religion Rather Than Science, Says Czech Leader
Centralized planners seeking to “rule from above” are operating under the guise of environmentalism and other fashionable “isms” in a bid to attack freedom and liberty, Czech President Vaclav Klaus said here. Addressing an audience at the CATO Institute in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Klaus argued that although communism has been eradicated in Eastern Europe, there are renewed efforts in this new century to reintroduce statist schemes.

The group’s wicked political brew was on spectacular display on the old MEK flag (since abandoned), with its sickle and Kalashnikov positioned beneath a Koranic verse. Here you have virtually everything the Right claims to oppose all rolled into one: Islamism, Marxism, terrorism, and Saddam.

Alternet | Oct 23, 2007

Neocons Embrace Islamic Terror Group

By Danny Postel

Daniel Pipes, one of America’s premiere Islamophobes, has a soft spot for one deadly deadly Islamic terrorist organization.

During the week of October 22-26, an official announcement effuses, “The nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever - Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.” Ringmastered by David Horowitz, this circus will be performing under the tent of something called the “Terrorism Awareness Project.”

The purpose of this ballyhoolooza, we are told, is to confront the “Big Lies” of the Left regarding terrorism and militant Islam. Worthy subjects, to be sure. Indeed I would like to help the sponsors of the “wake-up call” promote awareness of them. Toward this end, let’s consider the American Right’s “special relationship” with one group of terrorists.

The U.S. State Department officially considers the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) a Foreign Terrorist Organization. While those honors date back to 1994, they’ve been renewed during the Bush years. Indeed in 2003 Foggy Bottom went further, including the National Council of Resistance of Iran — an MEK alias — under the terrorist designation. (The MEK is also known as the People’s Mujahedeen.)

To make a long and bizarre story short, the MEK got its start in early 1960s Iran, helped overthrow the Shah in 1979, but quickly turned on the revolutionary government it helped bring to power. Employing an ideological blend of Stalinism and Islamism, the tactics of a paramilitary guerilla faction, and the organizational structure of a cult, the group went into exile, eventually making their home in Iraq in the mid-1980s. Not only did Saddam give the organization cover: he armed, funded, and utilized them for a variety of ends over two decades.

The group’s wicked political brew was on spectacular display on the old MEK flag (since abandoned), with its sickle and Kalashnikov positioned beneath a Koranic verse. (Not — to state the obvious — that the mere presence of a Koranic verse in and of itself implies Islamist political commitments, but in this case the shoe very much fits.)

Here you have virtually everything the Right claims to oppose all rolled into one: Islamism, Marxism, terrorism, and Saddam. Naturally, then, neoconservatives would utterly deplore the MEK and everything it stands for, right? The MEK would in fact make an ideal target for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week and Terrorism Awareness efforts, no?

Well, no. At least one of the carnival’s acts, it turns out, is rather fond of the Islamo-Stalinist-terrorist cult group, and has repeatedly argued for the removal of the MEK from the State Department’s list of terrorist groups and indeed urged the U.S. government to embrace it. Daniel Pipes, who will be speaking at Tufts on October 24th as part of the Horowitz high jinks, has made the MEK a recurring theme in his writings going back several years: here, here, and here.

Pipes has also gone to bat for the MEK right in the pages of Horowitz’s house organ.

But Pipes is far from alone on the Right in championing the MEK. He co-authored the first piece linked to above with Patrick Clawson of the right-wing Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Right-wing commentator Max Boot has argued not merely for the removal of the MEK from the terrorist list but for funding and unleashing it to do battle with Iranian forces — this while casually acknowledging that it is a “political cult.” (More on Boot’s disfigured views here.)

In some cases the MEK plays a stealth role in the media machinery of the American Right. What the FOX News Channel tells viewers about Alireza Jafarzadeh when he appears on its airwaves is that he is an “FNC Foreign Affairs Analyst.” What you have to go to the FOX News website to discover, however, is that Jafarzadeh served “for a dozen years as the chief congressional liaison and media spokesman for the U.S. representative office of Iran’s parliament in exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.” But it is scarcely known that the sonorous-sounding National Council of Resistance of Iran is in fact a front name for the MEK.

Now, it’s true that Jafarzadeh discontinued his post with the National Council of Resistance of Iran–but only when (and only because) its Washington office was forced to close in 2003 as a result of the State Department decision about it being a front for the MEK. It’s not like he had a change of heart.

If you attend an “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” event, you might want to ask the speakers about this terrorist cult and whether they condemn it. Some of them might — not all neoconservatives agree on the MEK. (See here and here for examples of right-wing criticism of the outfit — though the lines of argumentation are sometimes bizarrely convoluted.)

But the fact that several prominent American conservatives have cozied up to an Islamist-Stalinist cult that was on Saddam’s payroll and the State Department considers a terrorist organization — this raises serious questions (to put it mildly) about the Right’s bedfellows and the calculus that determines them.

It suggests the need for a little more terrorism awareness.

Explaining their initiation ceremony, during which members spat on the cross, “denied Jesus” and kissed the lower back, mouth and navel of the man proposing them, the text describes the 14th-century templars reasoning to Pope Clement that their service mimicked the humiliation they could suffer if they fell into the hands of the Saracens. The kissing, they added, symbolised their complete obedience.

It was enough for Pope Clement, who concluded that the ritual was not blasphemous.

Scotsman | Oct 26, 2007

by MARTYN MCLAUGHLIN

WITH a price tag of £4,000, it will be seen by some as a costly sequel to a paperback novel routinely discarded in airport terminals and second-hand bookshops the world over. But within the leather binding of Processus Contra Templarios, lie answers and revelations which generations of conspiracy theorists and religious scholars alike have craved.

The 300-page document seeks to lay bare the mysteries of the Order of the Knights Templar, a powerful and secretive group whose legend has given birth to innumerable theories and a worldwide publishing phenomenon in the form of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.

Gathering dust in its secret archives for close to 700 years, Trial Against The Templars was published yesterday by the Vatican.

Detailing the heresy trials of members of the wealthy medieval order, its contents, which were written during the reign of Pope Clement V at the outset of the 14th century, make for remarkable reading.

For centuries, the received opinion stated that the Knights Templar, founded by Hugues de Payns, a French knight, in the wake of the First Crusade of 1099 to protect Christian pilgrims visiting Jerusalem during the Middle Ages, could never rid themselves of a cursed reputation.

The persecution of the order has its roots in 1244, the year Jerusalem fell to Muslim rule, and rumours swiftly spread that the knights were heretics who worshipped idols in a secret initiation ceremony.

Their role as a fighting order of knights came to an end, and the Order became little more than a collection of bankers with inordinate wealth.

In 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the arrest and torture of all templars. Upon confessing various sins under duress, their leader, the grand master, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake. Pope Clement V then dissolved the order in 1314 and issued arrest warrants for all remaining members. Some survivors fled. Some were absorbed by other orders, and over the centuries various groups have claimed to be descended from the templars, many in Scotland.

Ever since, their number have been thought of as heretics.

Processus Contra Templarios, however, restores their reputation to an extent. The publication, presented at a press conference yesterday by Monsignor Sergio Pagano, the prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives, is based on the remains of a document, known as the Chinon parchment, discovered in the Vatican’s vast vaults six years ago by Professor Barbara Frale. It had been filed mistakenly - some will suggest, deliberately - in a 17th-century archive, ensuring few would know of its existence.

In essence, it is a record of the trial of the templars before the Pope. Its conclusion shatters all myths: the knights received a papal absolution from all heresies.

Explaining their initiation ceremony, during which members spat on the cross, “denied Jesus” and kissed the lower back, mouth and navel of the man proposing them, the text describes the 14th-century templars reasoning to Pope Clement that their service mimicked the humiliation they could suffer if they fell into the hands of the Saracens. The kissing, they added, symbolised their complete obedience.

It was enough for Pope Clement, who concluded that the ritual was not blasphemous, although he did see fit to find them guilty of lesser infractions of church law. The only reason he dissolved the order, it now appears, was to preserve amenable relations with the French and avert a schism in the Church.

The Catholic Church, however, despite being asked by supposed descendants of the templars, will not offer any forthright apology for the events of 700 years ago.

A stern Monsignor Pagano, in fact, supposed there was little new that could be gleaned from the parchment. But in the eyes of Prof Frale, who has written five books on the Knights Templar, the slate has been wiped clean. “The parchment clears them of heresy, but there is no doubt that they were guilty of minor misdemeanours,” the Italian historian concluded yesterday.

Given that their history is a tapestry of religious, political and cultural threads, interest in the rich, confused legacy of the templars is not restricted to students of papal matters.

Since the publication of The Da Vinci Code, coupled with the likes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Ivanhoe, the order has become inextricably bound to wild and fanciful theories, foremost among them the notion that the templars guard the Holy Grail, the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper.

Furthermore, many of the embellished myths are linked to Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian.

Whatever the truth, the book will not end the speculation, nor can it be easily acquired by those inclined to further such ideas.

It is, after all, no ordinary book. Measuring half a metre wide by two metres long, its attention to detail includes reproductions of stains and imperfections seen on the original parchment.

The £4,000 price reflects the craft. Only 800 copies have been produced, the majority reserved by librarians and academics. Pope Benedict XVI has been gifted a copy.

If there ever truly was a treasure linked to the Knights Templar, then surely that is the most valuable of all.

WHETHER it was filed there mistakenly or as part of a nefarious ploy that will add fuel to the fires of conspiracy, the emergence of the Chinon parchment (reference number Archivum Arcis Armarium D 218) is testament to the extraordinary range of documentation held in the Vatican’s secret archive.

Founded by Pope Paul V in the 17th century, it gathered together innumerable papal archives dating as far back as the 8th century.

Many of its treasures are filed in miles of anonymous racks beneath the Belvedere Courtyard, alongside mundane administrative records and papal account books. In all, there are believed to be upwards of 30 miles of shelving.

The more remarkable examples include records of the trial of Galileo; contracts and letters signed by Michelangelo; love letters from Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, which were stolen by papal spies; the last letter of Mary, Queen of Scots, to the pope before her execution, in which she writes, “I have no more wish to live in this world”; a letter from King Charles I to Pope Innocent X; a document dated 1654 informing Innocent X of the abdication of Queen Christina, who had converted to Catholicism; and the peace treaty signed by the Emperor Napoleon and Pope Pius VII.

Generally, the archival documents remain under lock and key unless they are released by a papal administration. For instance, in 1985, the documents from the tenures of Pope Pius X and Pope Benedict XV were made public.

Five years ago, Pope John Paul II began making available some of the documents from the Historical Archives of the Secretariat of State, which pertain to the Vatican’s relations with Germany during the pontificate of Pope Pius XI, which ran from 1922 to 1939.

It is now the custom that documents in the archives are made available to the public after a period of 75 years.

Provided they give ample justification, and advance notice, scholars can also be permitted access to the files.

Saint Padre Pio, with bandaged hands covering his ‘holy stigmata’, has been accused of faking his stigmata using carbolic acid

Daily Mail | Oct 24, 2007

An Italian monk who became the country’s best-loved saint after being canonised by Pope John Paul II and who claimed to suffer stigmata or the wounds of Christ was a fake who used carbolic acid, according to a controversial new book.

However a new book called “The Other Christ: Padre Pio and the Italy of the 19th Century” by historian Sergio Luzzatto claims that the wounds were self created using carbolic acid and he claims to have found documentary evidence to prove it in the Vatican’s secret archives.

A letter he has discovered from a pharmacist called Maria De Vito, 28, who had made a pilgrimage in 1919 to see Padre Pio at his monastery at San Giovanni Rotondo near Foggia, southern Italy.

In the document Maria wrote: “I was an admirer of Padre Pio and met him for the first time in July 1919. I was there for a month and had the opportunity to see him close hand several times and I always had an excellent opinion of him.

“The eve of my departure for Foggia, Padre Pio called me to one side and in great secrecy and asking me not to tell his fellow brothers gave me personally an empty bottle he asked me to act as a chauffeur take it back from Foggia to San Giovanni Rotondo with four grams of pure carbolic acid.

“He explained that the acid was for disinfecting syringes for injections and he also asked for other medicines such as Valda tablets.”

The document added that a month later a further request arrived from Padre Pio in which he asked for four grams of veratrine (painkiller) which was not available in her pharmacy so she asked her cousin who refused because he feared it was being used for faking his stigmata.

The book highlights that the testimony was presented to the Vatican by the local archbishop Pasquale Gagliardi who was an enemy of Padre Pio and who always suspected that the wounds were self inflicted with acid and then perfumed with cologne.

However the Vatican dismissed the documents after carrying out their own investigations which ruled that the wounds were not caused by “external forces.”

The Catholic Anti-Defamation League have hit back at the author of the book, historian Sergio Luzzatto, saying:

“We would like to remind Mr Luzzatto that according to Catholic doctrine, canonisation carries with it papal infallibility.”

“Early Masonic historians such as Albert Mackey, Robert Freke Gould and Albert Pike were of a single purpose in their efforts to establish a definite correspondence between the Hiramic legend of Freemasonry and the Osiris myth as expounded in the initiatory rituals of the Egyptians.”- Mason Manly P. Hall on the efforts of early Masonic historians to link Hiram Abiff to the Egyptian Mystery Religion

The Ledger | Oct 11, 2007

by Cary McMullen

A court in Los Angeles has ruled that Freemasonry is a form of “religious exercise,” comparable to Christianity and Islam. “We see no principled way to distinguish the earnest pursuit of these (Masonic) principles … from more widely acknowledged modes of religious exercise,” said the ruling. The case involved the Los Angeles Scottish Rite Cathedral and the Scottish Rite Cathedral Association of Los Angeles. The groups had leased out the cathedral for events such as dances, in apparent violation of zoning rules that restrict it to Masonic events only. The Masons had sought relief under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons (RLUIPA) act. But even though the court ruled the Masons are a religious group, it said RLUIPA didn’t apply to them, so it was a Pyrrhic victory.

Both my grandfathers were Masons. When I was a kid, one of them showed me his guidebook, which technically he wasn’t supposed to do because Masons are sworn to secrecy about their rituals. No harm done — I didn’t understand any of it, in part because it was full of strange symbols. Basically, I always figured Freemasonry was a practice that sort of supplemented Christian belief. I just wonder if the secrets of the Masons were revealed in court?

You can read a Religion News Service story about the case, via the Pew Forum Web site, here.

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Related

Alan Watt speaks on the Freemasonic New World Order Agenda

Freemasonry Is “Religion” Under RLUIPA
In Scottish Rite Cathedral Association of Los Angeles v. City of Los Angeles, (CA Ct. App., Oct. 3, 2007), a California court of appeals rejected a RLUIPA challenge by the Los Angeles Scottish Rite Cathedral Association to the revocation of its certificate of occupancy for its Masonic Temple. The appellate court rejected the trial court’s holding that Freemasonry is not a religion. The appellate court found “no principled way to distinguish the earnest pursuit of these [Masonic] principles … from more widely acknowledged modes of religious exercise.” However the court held that the Masonic Temple, which was now largely being rented out for commercial as well as non-profit events, was not protected under RLUIPA. It concluded: “a burden on a commercial enterprise used to fund a religious organization does not constitute a substantial burden on ‘religious exercise’ within the meaning of RLUIPA.

Masons must choose lodge or church: synod
The Sydney Anglican Synod has called on all Christian members of Masonic lodges to withdraw their membership and for church facilities not to be used for activities linked with Freemasonry. The motion, passed yesterday, also “requests that councils of all Anglican schools . . . consider any association that their school may have with any Masonic lodge, and to withdraw from any such association”. Masons must choose lodge or church: synod
Egyptian Mystery Religion and the Masonic Lodge

More and more teenagers are signing up as trainee witches

Spellbound … Rebecca Cox and Ryan Thornton cast a spell.

The Age | Sep 30, 2007

by Maxine Frith

Witchcraft was once treated lightly in sitcoms such as Sabrina, The Teenage Witch and Bewitched, or demonised in horror films, but it is becoming increasingly mainstream.

The number of Wiccans has increased fivefold in the past 15 years and paganism as a whole is one of the fastest-growing religions in the country - 0.13 per cent of the population are believers.

Wicca is a nature-based religion, which celebrates events such as full moons and spring cycles, but it does not have a core orthodoxy. Believers practise white magic - mixing herb potions and casting spells - and perform rituals celebrating a goddess.

Rebecca Cox, 18, from Sydney, joined a local coven just over a year ago and goes by the pagan name Malaika Skye. She performs rituals in a park and casts spells with her partner, Ryan Thornton, whose pagan name is Tempest Storm.

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Related

Satanism and the History of Wicca

Wicca is not “the Old Religion”, though it does draw inspiration from various old religions. Wicca as we now know it is derived from 19th-century occult philosophy — including literary Satanic philosophy, among others — projected onto a non-Christian Goddess and God, plus some de-Christianized Golden Dawn style ceremonial magick, plus assorted turn-of-the-century British folklore, more recently re-shaped by neo-Pagan scholarship and by modern feminist and ecological concerns. At least several different sides of Wicca’s convoluted family tree can be traced to 19th-century literary Satanism, some forms of which had more in common with present-day Wicca than with present-day Satanism.

Besides Murray, Leland, and other writers on witchcraft, another of Wicca’s main sources is Aleister Crowley. Many knowledgeable Wiccans (e.g. the Farrars and Doreen Valiente) do realize that Gardner’s rituals were heavily based on Crowley’s rituals, though they tend to overstate the “Crowley was not a Satanist” disclaimer.

In terms of celebrity trendiness, Kabbalah has been overtaken by Scientology in recent years. However, the number of Kabbalahists continues to grow “exponentially,” Laitman said.

“The global crisis will eventually force everyone to search for a solution, and the solution exists here,” he said.

Daily Herald Staff | Oct 10, 2007

By Jamie Sotonoff

Ask most Americans what they know about Kabbalah and their answer will be “Madonna practices it.”

Rav Michael Laitman, one of the world’s leading authorities on Kabbalah, says he’s grateful for the attention American celebrities have brought to Kabbalah, an ancient science with more than 2 million followers worldwide. However, he is critical of the way the celebrities follow the teachings and doesn’t consider them real Kabbalahists.

“Kabbalah is very, very far from what Madonna is doing … as much as I know, she doesn’t study according to the authentic sources,” said Laitman, speaking through a Hebrew translator, adding that he’s never met the Material Girl nor studied with her.

“The celebrities are not attracted to the real Kabbalah, but the psychological compensations — to make themselves feel better.”

What’s real Kabbalah, then? Find out Sunday, when Laitman makes a rare Chicago appearance to discuss this mysterious science on how everything in the inner and outer worlds is connected.

During a free lecture at Oakton Community College’s Skokie campus, Laitman will explain how Kabbalah (pronounced “kahbah-lah” with the accent on the “lah”) can solve problems ranging from the war in Iraq to your own personal strife. He’ll also clear up misconceptions, such as that Kabbalah is a religion or involves mysticism, Judaism or red bracelets.

Laitman’s stop here is part of a nine-city U.S. tour to promote his new book, “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah,” which he wrote, he said, so curious people can begin to learn about it through conversational writings. If you don’t want to buy the book, he suggests going to www.kabbalah.info, a free, no-need-to-sign-up Web site run by his Kabbalah institute that’s filled with solid information and study materials.

In terms of celebrity trendiness, Kabbalah has been overtaken by Scientology in recent years. However, the number of Kabbalahists continues to grow “exponentially,” Laitman said.

“The global crisis will eventually force everyone to search for a solution, and the solution exists here,” he said.

The Occult Rituals of the Global Elite Will Appear on the Cartoon Network this Sunday Night

The Grove as it appears in the cartoon (left) appears to be modeled after the real thing (right) as it appeared in the Alex Jones film, ‘Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove.

Outlaw News | Oct 6, 2007

Lucy, Daughter of the Devil, is an ‘adult cartoon’, part of the Turner Broadcasting owned Cartoon Network’s late night line-up. It is a 10 minute CGI comedy show; the plot follows an eccentric and im-witted Satan, who is living in San Francisco, trying to convince his 21-year-old daughter, Lucy, to assume her role as the Antichrist. Along the course of their adventures, Lucy meets and begins to court ‘DJ Jesús’, a laid back techno DJ who turns out to be the second coming of Christ. The show is heavy with blasphemous shocks, but as it is sadly lacking it wit, it rates among the lower end shows featured in the ‘Adult Swim’ programming block; without the talents of H. Jon Benjamen, the brilliant voice actor who providing the voice of Satan, the show likely never would have made it past the pilot.

This Sunday an episode of the show entitled ‘Human Sacrifice’ will air, in which the Devil is summoned to attend a ritual human sacrifice at the Bohemian Grove in Northern California, held to honor a senator who has been chosen to be elected as the next president. DJ Jesús is chosen to serve as the sacrificial victim, and is lured to the Grove under the pretext that he will be DJing the ‘most amazing dance party/orgy/political summit on the planet’, which he is told is like the movie ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, except Alan Greenspan and Bono will be there.

The Grove, as it appears in the show, was clearly modeled after actual footage of the site which appeared in Alex Jones’ film ‘Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove’, or from the memory of someone who has attended. The ritual begins with torches lighting up the night, and the crowd, which contains ‘half of Washington’, chanting ‘Hail Satan’. The Devil appears and declares that ‘ten presidents have announced their candidacy in front of this unholy alter’, before introducing a comedian to give a pre-sacrifice routine of poop jokes that the Devil had written for him in exchange for his soul. A bit of cartoon mayhem ensues with DJ Jesús escaping the sacrifice in order to provide the music for the crowd. The show finishes by zooming out of an aerial view of the grove, displaying its real-life location in Northern California.

I have no doubt that many people within the Truth Movement will attempt to claim that this show was intended to somehow ‘expose the elite’, just as they did when South Park made a brutal mockery of 9/11 Truth. I do not believe that this is the case. In recent years we have seen several examples of this type of public display of the occult nature of the ruling elite, all of which, save Kubrick’s ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ and a couple others, have been done through some form of comedy. It is my assertion that orders for this kind of exposure must in some way trickle down from the top, or it would not be allowed at all.

Their motivation in doing this is part of what Alice Bailey called the ‘externalization of the hierarchy’, a process through which those occult masters who have ruled the planet throughout history voluntarily expose themselves and their true nature. This is to be a slow process where we, the public, are gradually familiarized with the concept through the use of gradualism. Comedy shows are the most effective way of doing this, as they put us in such a mood that we are not thinking about what we see in a serious or rational way, and are thus much more susceptible to being familiarized with concepts that would normally evoke fear or revulsion if they were not presented in such a light-hearted manner.

Expect to see more and more of this type of thing in the future.

Templar grandmaster Jacques de Molay, was burnt at the stake in 1314 by French King Philip the Fair

Telegraph | Oct 10, 2007

By Malcolm Moore

The mysteries of the Order of the Knights Templar could soon be laid bare after the Vatican announced the release of a crucial document which has not been seen for almost 700 years.

A new book, Processus contra Templarios, will be published by the Vatican’s Secret Archive on Oct 25, and promises to restore the reputation of the Templars, whose leaders were burned as heretics when the order was dissolved in 1314.

The Knights Templar were a powerful and secretive group of warrior monks during the Middle Ages. Their secrecy has given birth to endless legends, including one that they guard the Holy Grail.

Recently, they have been featured in films including The Da Vinci Code and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

The Order was founded by Hugues de Payns, a French knight, after the First Crusade of 1099 to protect pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem. Its headquarters was the captured Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, which lent the Templars their name.

But when Jerusalem fell to Muslim rule in 1244, rumours surfaced that the knights were heretics who worshipped idols in a secret initiation ceremony.

In 1307, King Philip IV “the Fair” of France, in desperate need of funds, ordered the arrest and torture of all Templars. After confessing various sins their leader, Jacques de Molay, was burnt at the stake.

Pope Clement V then dissolved the order and issued arrest warrants for all remaining members. Ever since, the Templars have been thought of as heretics.

The new book is based on a scrap of parchment discovered in the Vatican’s secret archives in 2001 by Professor Barbara Frale. The long-lost document is a record of the trial of the Templars before Pope Clement, and ends with a papal absolution from all heresies.

Prof Frale said: “I could not believe it when I found it. The paper was put in the wrong archive in the 17th century.”

The document, known as the Chinon parchment, reveals that the Templars had an initiation ceremony which involved “spitting on the cross”, “denying Jesus” and kissing the lower back, navel and mouth of the man proposing them.

The Templars explained to Pope Clement that the initiation mimicked the humiliation that knights could suffer if they fell into the hands of the Saracens, while the kissing ceremony was a sign of their total obedience.

The Pope concluded that the entrance ritual was not truly blasphemous, as alleged by King Philip when he had the knights arrested. However, he was forced to dissolve the Order to keep peace with France and prevent a schism in the church.

“This is proof that the Templars were not heretics,” said Prof Frale. “The Pope was obliged to ask pardon from the knights.

“For 700 years we have believed that the Templars died as cursed men, and this absolves them.”