Angry San Francisco homeowners plot to kill city’s rezoning plan

Angry San Francisco homeowners plot to kill city’s rezoning plan

By Sam Mondros

Updated Jun. 10, 2024 • 10:35am

Published Jun. 07, 2024 • 11:45am

As the sunset cast red hues over West Portal skies, residents of San Francisco’s west side funneled into the Scottish Rite Masonic Center’s banquet hall to condemn the city’s rezoning proposal, which aims to increase height limits in residential neighborhoods across San Francisco. 

Renderings of what looked like spaceships parked in San Francisco’s sleepy west side neighborhoods were met with gasps from dozens of attendees, most of whom said they were homeowners, at the Wednesday meeting held by Neighborhoods United San Francisco, a collection of over 50 neighborhood groups mobilizing against upzoning proposals brought forth by the Planning Department. 

The matter of rezoning has provoked the wrath of residents across the city, notably in west side neighborhoods with a preponderance of single-family homes, but also in wealthier areas on the north side. Despite making up only 2.7% of the city’s population, for example, the Pacific Heights neighborhood made up 28% of feedback citywide on the first rezoning proposal draft—the highest rate of participation across the city’s neighborhoods. 

Leading the meeting was Lori Brooke, an anti-development firebrand who wears many hats in San Francisco civic life. She is the co-founder of RescueSF, a group attempting to lobby for homelessness policy changes, and longtime president of the Cow Hollow Association. 

In a nearly hour-long presentation, Brooke painted the city’s rezoning plans as unnecessary, punitive and ineffective. The rezoning proposal must be approved by the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors by January 2026 to help make way for 82,000 new housing units by 2032. 

Hoping to rally supporters to use as a battering ram for a Thursday Planning Commission meeting on the proposal, Brooke described a harrowing future San Francisco devoid of viewscapes and affordable housing.

“Who’s going to want to live in one of these?” she asked the crowd, pointing to a rendering of an eight-story building. “It’s not just personal views, it’s public vistas, it’s the things that make San Francisco iconic and special. If you want to live in a city that has tall towers, there are plenty of places in this country to go.”

Neighborhood United’s detractors have criticized Brooke for employing scare tactics, misinformation and red herrings in her quest to block rezoning. 

Brooke flipped from slide to slide of renderings showing what mid-rise buildings could look like in residential neighborhoods, bracketing entire neighborhoods and cutting views and hope for sunlight. Anne Yalon, a spokesperson for the Planning Department, called the renderings bogus and an attempt to steer the narrative against housing development. 

“These crude boxes they’ve drawn on the website are completely out of scale,” Yalon said. “It’s not what an eight-story or 14-story building looks like. They’re using these fear-mongering tactics to get people on board, but if we don’t do this, we’re in big trouble,” Yalon added, referring to the city’s rezoning plan.

Mike Antonini, a Republican who served as planning commissioner from 2002 until 2016, kicked off the meeting with warnings about waterfront towers that could be erected from the Richmond District down to Lakeshore. He foretold plummeting property values, likening the rezoning plan to Soviet tenements before quoting Ronald Reagan: “The loss of freedom is only a generation away,” he said. Two more former planning commissioners—Dennis Antenore, who served in the 1990s, and Dennis Richards, who resigned in 2020 amid a lawsuit against the Department of Building Inspection—have also thrown their support behind Brooke’s group. 

Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who’s running for mayor, echoed fears about the ill-effects of development in San Francisco, criticizing developers eager to stake claim to properties citywide and asserting that land development has historically been under the purview of local government.  

“We should not forget the dark days of San Francisco’s experience with redevelopment in the 1950s and 1960s, now widely seen as a colossal planning mistake with deep racist undertones that led to the displacement of thousands of predominantly low-income people of color in San Francisco’s Fillmore District and Japantown,” Peskin said.

If the city fails to meet its state housing mandate by 2032, it could result in a loss of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in state funds that go to transportation, parks and affordable housing and lead to “builder’s remedy” projects that bypass local zoning rules and could bring much taller projects. 

To make it possible to accommodate those units, Mayor London Breed instructed the Planning Department to expedite a rezoning plan.

“She saw the numbers and said ‘We gotta get going,’” Yalon said. “What usually happens in two years we did in eight months through an insane amount of outreach, surveys, in-person meetings.”

The Planning Commission’s meeting on Thursday lasted hours and featured a few dozen speakers, several of whom represented neighborhood groups opposed to upzoning along with some standing in support. 

“[The Planning Department has] not implemented the mandated increased tenant protections prior to pushing these upzonings forward,” said Jeantelle Laberinto of the Race & Equity in all Planning Coalition. 

Kath Tsakalakis, a Lakeside resident and co-founder of the Lakeside Village Business Council, spoke in passionate support of the upzoning and called the renderings shown at Wednesday’s meeting “ridiculous.” 

Renderings by Neighborhoods United SF sought to show the ill effects of increasing building heights in the Sunset & Richmond District. | Courtesy Neighborhoods United SF

“Upzoning was shown using literal lego bricks. Another rendering showed San Francisco returning to 1950s brutalist concrete monstrosities,” Tsakalakis said. 

“No one at the town hall yesterday seemed to grasp how the law of supply and demand impacts price and affordability,” Tsakalakis added.  

Earlier this week, Housing Action Coalition, along with San Francisco YIMBY and eight other pro-housing organizations, co-authored a letter to Breed’s office supporting expanding rezoning to facilitate the development of more mid-size apartment buildings in various parts of the city. 

Planning officials are working on a new version of the rezoning proposal that, in keeping with Breed’s directives, prioritizes denser housing near commercial and transit zones. While the exact details of the rezoning plan may change, the roughly 82,000 units mandated by the state will not.

At Wednesday’s meeting, District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio—who had to walk a tightrope on his positions on development—put a positive spin on possibilities like affordable housing and apartments on corner lots but he was often shot down by the crowd. 

“I want people to see that change is coming and it’s something that people should accept because it could help those with real-life needs,” Engardio said in a phone call on Thursday. “[Neighborhoods United] is a volunteer group and they can say whatever they want to say, but what was most disappointing was the pushback on affordable housing.”

Wednesday’s gathering was the latest of several “Town Hall” meetings that have drawn packed crowds among residents skeptical of the city’s rezoning efforts. The next meeting will be in District 2 this fall, Brooke said. 

District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar listened in the crowd but departed before the meeting concluded. “These are not my people,” she told The Standard in a text ahead of the meeting. 

https://sfstandard.com/2024/06/07/san-francisco-zoning-housing-element-united-neighborhoods/

The Engineer Corps of Hell, or Rome's Sappers and Miners: Containing the Tactics of the "Militia of the Pope," or the Secret Manual of the Jesuits, ... and Lovers of Civil and Religious Liber Paperback – August 24, 2018

by Edwin Allen Sherman (Author)

3.5 3.5 out of 5 stars    4 ratings

See all formats and editions

Excerpt from The Engineer Corps of Hell, or Rome's Sappers and Miners

In presenting to our readers this translation from the Spanish Of the monita secreta (secret monitor) of the Jesuits, it is but due that a clear and truthful statement Of how the work came into our hands should be given. In the month Of August of 1870, the Secretariat Of all the bodies Of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freema sonry in the City Of San Francisco, California, had been placed in our hands, and we then occupied an Office, which had been assigned to us, in the Masonic Temple of this city. Scarcely had we then entered upon our duties, when one morning in the month of September, 1870, a rap was heard at our'door, and, on Opening it, a stranger, feeble in body, with a pallid face bearing the evidence of great suffering and of sickness, inquired if that was the office Of the Secretary of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, which we answered in the affirmative and invited him in and gave him a seat.

https://www.amazon.com/Engineer-Corps-Romes-Sappers-Miners/dp/1332416179

Burgos (Spanish: [ˈbuɾɣos] ⓘ) is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Burgos.

Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of the Arlanzón river tributaries, at the edge of the central plateau. The municipality has a population of about 180,000 inhabitants. The Camino de Santiago runs through Burgos.

Founded in 885 by the second Count of Castile, Diego Rodríguez Porcelos, Burgos soon became the leading city of the embryonic County of Castile.[4] The 11th century chieftain Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (El Cid) had connections with the city: born near Burgos, he was raised and educated there. In a long-lasting decline from the 17th century,[5] Burgos became the headquarters of the Francoist proto-government (1936-1939) following the start of the Spanish Civil War. Declared in 1964 as Pole of Industrial Promotion and in 1969 as Pole of Industrial Development,[6] the city has grown since then in terms of economic activity. At the regional level, Burgos forms part of an economic axis together with the cities of Valladolid and Palencia.[7] In 2008, the international Burgos Airport started to service commercial flights.

The Museum of Human Evolution opened here in 2010. The museum features remains of the first hominins in Europe, who lived in this area 750,000-800,000 years ago. The Cathedral of Burgos is a World Heritage Site.[8] Burgos was selected as the "Spanish Gastronomy Capital" of 2013. In 2015 UNESCO named it "City of Gastronomy", and it has been part of the Creative Cities Network since then.[9]

Toponymy

There are several possible origins for the toponymy. When the city was founded, the inhabitants of the surrounding country moved into the fortified village, whose Visigothic name of Burgos signified consolidated walled villages[citation needed] (Gothic baurgs).[10] The cities Burgas in Bulgaria and numerous cities containing the Germanic burg "city" such as Hamburg have a similar literal composition. The city began to be called Caput Castellae ("Cabeza de Castilla" or "Head of Castile").[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgos

Borgo (sometimes called also I Borghi) is the 14th rione of Rome, Italy. It is identified by the initials R. XIV and is included within Municipio I.

Its coat of arms shows a lion (after the name "Leonine City", which was also given to the district), lying in front of three mounts and a star. These – together with a lion rampant – are also part of the coat of arms of Pope Sixtus V, who annexed Borgo as the 14th rione of Rome.

History

Roman Age: Ager Vaticanus

Hadrian's Mausoleum still makes up the core of Castel Sant'Angelo. The tuff blocks visible in the lower part of the cylinder are Roman.

During the Roman age, the Borgo district was part of the 14th Regio (Regio XIV Transtiberim) and was named Ager Vaticanus,[1] after the auguries (vaticinii) performed there by the Etruscan Augurs. Since it lay outside the Pomerium (the religious city border inside which burial was forbidden) and was plagued by malaria, this territory was used as a burial place. Some tombs reached notable proportions, including the Terebinthus Neronis, which was a round tomb surmounted by a narrow tower,[2] and the Meta Romuli, a pyramid similar to that still standing near Porta San Paolo) that was demolished only in 1499.

At the foot of the Vatican Hill, two roads started: the Via Cornelia, which joined the Via Aurelia near Tarquinii,[3] and the Via Triumphalis (Triumphal Road), which met the Via Cassia a few kilometers north.[4] The latter was so named because, beginning with Titus, the Roman Emperors used it to enter the city when celebrating their Triumphs.

At the beginning of the Imperial Age, magnificent Villae (country houses) and Horti (Gardens), such as those owned by Agrippina the Elder, wife of Germanicus and mother of Caligula (Horti Agrippinae), and by Domitia Longina, wife of Domitianus (Horti Domitiae), were built near the slopes of the Gianicolo and Vatican hills.

Emperor Gaius (also known as Caligula) built on the Vatican a circus (Circus Gaianus), which was then enlarged by Nero (Circus Neronis).[5] The obelisk standing today in St. Peter's Square was erected along its raised median (the spina). The circus was connected to the city through an archway (Porticus). Nero also replaced the timber bridge of the Via Triumphalis with a stone bridge, (whose ruins can still be seen in the Tiber during the minimum flow periods) named after him Pons Neronianus or Triumphalis. Emperor Hadrian built near the Tiber his huge Mausoleum, which he connected to the left bank of the river with another Bridge, the Pons Ælius (today's Ponte Sant'Angelo).

But what changed forever the destiny of the zone was the martyrdom of St. Peter at the foot of the Vatican hill in 67, during the first persecution of the Christians. The saint was buried nearby, and this turned the Vatican into a place of pilgrimage. Above the tomb of the saint, Pope Anacletus built an oratory, which in 324 Emperor Constantine turned into a huge basilica devoted to the prince of the Apostles.[6] This church, known today as Old Saint Peter's, soon became (until its destruction in the 16th century, when the new Saint Peter's was erected in its place) one of the centers of Christianity.

Middle Ages: Civitas Leonina

During the early Middle Ages the bridge of Nero fell into ruins, while the Mausoleum of Hadrian was converted into a stronghold (Castel Sant'Angelo), the possession of which ensured control of the city. Despite the wars and invasions that plagued Rome during those centuries, the flood of pilgrims to the tomb of the apostle never stopped. Pilgrims of the same nationality gathered together in associations named Scholae,[7] whose task was to host and to aid men and women of the same nation coming to Rome. The most famous were those of the Franks, Saxons, Frisians and Lombards. Each Schola had its own hospice and church.[8] One of the first – the Schola Saxonum - was built during the 8th century by Ina or Ine, king of the West Saxons.[9] That hospice became the core of the future Hospital of Santo Spirito, one of the oldest and largest in Rome, founded by Pope Innocent III in 1198. Near the hospital was erected the church of Santo Spirito in Sassia. The German pilgrims gave the zone around their Scholae the name Burg (fortified town),[10] which, italianised, became the name of the quarter.

The Passetto, called in Roman dialect er Corridore ("the Corridor"), seen from Borgo S. Angelo: Via dei Corridori (the ancient Borgo dell'Elefante, so named after Hanno the elephant), and Saint Peter's dome are in the background

Since it lay outside Aurelian's Walls, the Borgo was always exposed to attacks. During the 8th and 9th centuries, the quarter – together with the basilica - was plundered several times by Saracens who landed in Portus,[11] and devastated by fires (that of 847 was immortalised by Raphael in a fresco painted in the stanze vaticane).

Finally, Pope Leo IV built the walls which still bear his name. On June 27, 852 the Pope, accompanied by the clergy and people, started this undertaking walking bare-foot along the circuit of the new walls. Then, in order to augment the population, Pope Leo settled several families of Corsicans in the Borgo. Since that time, the quarter was no longer considered a part of Rome, but a separate town, the Leonine City (Civitas Leonina), with its own magistrates and governor. It was only in 1586, under Pope Sixtus V, that the Borgo, as fourteenth rione, became again a part of Rome. The Leonine walls, which incorporated an older wall built by Totila during the Gothic War,[12] still exist between the Vatican and the Castle, where they bear the name of Passetto. This constitutes a covered passage, which could be used – and actually has been used several times - by the Pope as an escape route from his residence to the Castle in case of danger.

A contemporary miniature portraying pilgrims reaching Rome during the Jubilee of 1300. They are approaching the Leonine City from N (Prati di Castello). The hills in the background are (from right to left) Monte Mario, Vatican and Gianicolo.

In the Middle Ages, the quarter was not much populated, with sparse houses, some churches and a lot of vegetable gardens. There were also several brick furnaces, using the clay abundant in the Vatican and Gianicolo hills. A small harbor, the Porto Leonino, later used to deliver the travertine blocks needed to build the new Saint Peter's, existed south of the castle.

The pilgrims going to St. Peter's and coming from the left bank through Ponte Sant'Angelo, after entering a gate (later named Porta Castello) could walk through the Borgo of the Saxons (today's Borgo Santo Spirito) or the Porticus or Portica (named now Porticus Sancti Petri), which was still in place.[13] Those coming from Trastevere along the route that would later become Via della Lungara used the posterula Saxonum (today's Porta Santo Spirito),[14] and, finally, the pilgrims coming from the north (monte Mario) following the Via Francigena, entered through Porta San Pellegrino (also named Viridaria because of its vicinity to the Vatican Gardens).

In his Divine Comedy, Dante describes the great crowds of pilgrims visiting the Leonine City during the first Jubilee, which took place in 1300 under Boniface VIII.[15]

come i Roman per l’essercito molto,

l’anno del giubileo, su per lo ponte

hanno a passar la gente modo colto,

che da l’un lato tutti hanno la fronte

verso ’l castello e vanno a Santo Pietro,

da l’altra sponda vanno verso ’l monte.

as, in the year of Jubilee, the Romans,

confronted by great crowds, contrived a plan

that let the people pass across the bridge,

for to one side went all who had their eyes

upon the Castle, heading toward St. Peter’s,

and to the other, those who faced the Mount.

During the Avignon Papacy the Borgo, together with Rome, suffered decay. The Portica collapsed, and on its place was built the road of Borgo Vecchio,[16] also named Carriera Martyrum after the martyrs going to death in the Circus of Nero. During that time only Borgo Santo Spirito and Borgo Vecchio afforded access to reach Saint Peter's from the left bank.

Renaissance Age

Pope Alexander VI played an important role in Borgo's town planning. The most famous among his children, Cesare Borgia, lived in the Leonine City.

The recovery began with the end of the Western Schism and the beginning of the Renaissance. By that time, the center of gravity of Rome began to shift from the zone around Campidoglio, where medieval Rome had developed, to the Campo Marzio plain. At the same time, the Popes abandoned finally the Lateran complex for the Vatican, which now became the new center of power in Rome.[17] The large amount of building activity and above all the rebuilding of Saint Peter, which was the ultimate result of this translocation, attracted several artists to the Borgo, while the renewed flood of pilgrims boosted commerce.

Under Nicholas V, Bernardo Rossellino planned three diverging roads with arcades going to Saint Peter, but the Pontiff's death blocked the project. Sixtus IV opened a new road parallel to the Passetto, named after him via Sistina (later Borgo Sant'Angelo).

Magnificent buildings were built at the beginning of the 16th century by high prelates and aristocrats, including Palazzo Branconio dell'Aquila, designed by Raphael; the Palazzo Caprini by Donato Bramante (a house that Raphael chose to buy, and later became part of the Palazzo dei Convertendi[18]); Palazzo Castellesi, built by Cardinal Adriano Castellesi,[19] attributed to Andrea Bregno or Bramante and a small-scale copy of the Palazzo della Cancelleria, and Palazzo dei Penitenzieri,[20] perhaps designed by of Baccio Pontelli. The last three palaces faced a small square, Piazza del Cardinale di S. Clemente (later Piazza Scossacavalli), which became the most important in the Borgo.

Drawing of Palazzo Branconio dell'Aquila, demolished in the 17th century to open the new piazza Rusticucci, so called after the eponymous palace

Also wealthy bourgeoises, such as Febo Brigotti and Jacopo da Brescia, the doctors respectively of Paul III and Leo X, had their houses built in the Borgo.

The Leonine City at that time was also renowned in Rome for its stufe. These buildings, whose tradition came from Germany (the name comes from the German word stube), were something between a Roman bath and a modern sauna, and were often attended by artists, who could freely sketch nudes there (Raffaello himself was owner of a stufa in Borgo, near his palace).[21]

Golden age and creation of the spina

In order to address the traffic problems in the bustling Borgo, a new road, the Via Alexandrina or Recta, later named Borgo Nuovo, was opened during the Jubilee of 1500 by Pope Alexander VI Borgia was opened between Castel Sant'Angelo and Saint Peter's Square.[22] The Borgo Nuovo paralleled to the north the existing road of Borgo Vecchio, creating a distinct row of houses between these two roads formed the so-called "spina" (named thus on account of its similarity to the dividing line of an ancient Roman Circus). At about its middle, the spina was interrupted by a small square, called Piazza Scossacavalli. A recurrent theme of Roman city planning, were the various projects contemplating the demolition of the spina: starting with, that of Carlo Fontana in the late 17th century; and ending, in 1936, when, under Benito Mussolini and Pius XI, this task was finally accomplished to create the wide Via della Conciliazione in the space between the form Borgo Nouvo and Borgo Vecchio.

Santa Maria in Traspontina, the work of G.S. Peruzzi, is the only church in Rome whose dome has no drum. The lower height allowed the Castle's gunners (who owned a chapel there) to practise their shooting skills on the Gianicolo.

The golden Age of the Borgo reached its apogee during the reign of the two Florentine Popes, Leo X and Clement VII, both members of the Medici family. Under the latter, the quarter had a population of 4,926 inhabitants, almost all bachelors and non-Roman. Nine out of the twenty five Cardinals belonging to the Curia, each of whom maintained a court comprising hundreds of people, were living here.[21] The most important artists (such as Raphael) took or built their houses in the Borgo. The only important female presence was that of the so-called Cortigiane, decent prostitutes, who were the lovers of high prelates and noblemen.[23]

Piazza Scossacavalli (destroyed in 1937) shown in an XVIII engraving by Giuseppe Vasi. In the background are shown the church of San Giacomo and on the left side Palazzo Giraud. In the middle stands the fountain of Carlo Maderno, now re-erected in front of Sant'Andrea della Valle, in Sant'Eustachio.

All this came to an abrupt end on May 6, 1527, when the soldiers of Charles V entered the Leonine City and mercilessly plundered it, so starting the Sack of Rome. Clement VII barely escaped capture, running through the elevated Passetto (one block north of the spina) in his night dress and locking himself within Castel Sant'Angelo, while all the Swiss Guards, except those defending his escape, were killed near the obelisk.

Despite this disaster, the quarter was able to recover quite quickly. Paul III restored the walls, erecting three new ramparts and the still unfinished Porta Santo Spirito (the work of Antonio da Sangallo the younger). The Borgo continued to grow to such an extent, that in 1565 Pius IV started the construction of three new roads, all north of the Passetto, named respectively Borgo Pio (after himself), Borgo Vittorio (after the victory of Lepanto) and Borgo Angelico (after Angelo, his own first name prior to his election).[24] In order to boost the new settlement, he gave tax privileges to the Romans who choose to build their houses here. New Walls, and a new monumental gate (Porta Angelica), were built to protect the new area, which in honor of the Pope was named Civitas Pia. Pius IV also demolished several old churches and monasteries: among these, in 1564, the old Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina,[25] which lay directly next to the Castle. A new church bearing the same name was built in 1587 in the middle of Borgo Nuovo.

XIV Rione of Rome

Borgo in 1779 (Map printed by Monaldini). The seven roads that radiate from the Castle are, from N to S: Borgo Angelico, Borgo Vittorio, Borgo Pio, Borgo Sant'Angelo, Borgo Nuovo, Borgo Vecchio, and Borgo Santo Spirito.

On December 9, 1586 (the year when Domenico Fontana erected in Saint Peter's Square the obelisk once standing in the Circus of Nero), Pope Sixtus V declared Borgo the fourteenth Rione of the city.[26] Its coat of arms represents a Lion (representing the Leonine City), and three Mounts and a Star (taken from the coat of arms of Pope Sixtus).[27]

At the beginning of the 17th century Pope Paul V restored the Aqua Traiana, an ancient Roman Aqueduct, and had several fountains built in the Rione (among them, that designed by Carlo Maderno in Piazza Scossacavalli,[28] now placed in front of the church of Sant'Andrea della Valle).

Pope Alexander VII, after the completion of the colonnade designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (built between 1656 and 1665),[29] ordered the demolition of the first block in front of it.[30] He created so the Piazza Rusticucci, the vestibule to Saint Peter's Square. Among the other buildings, which then went lost, there was Palazzo Branconio.

During the 18th and the early 19th centuries, the Borgo kept its characteristics. The bourgeoises abandoned the rione for the new settlements in Campo Marzio, and Borgo became a quarter inhabited by simple people (artisans or workers at the Vatican), very devoted yet always open to new ideas, and men of the church, who appreciated the vicinity to the Holy See.

Many sellers of religious goods, named Paternostrari or Coronari (rosary makers) had their shops here. At the edge of the quarter, in Vicolo degli ombrellari, a small lane near Borgo Pio, were the shops of the Roman umbrella makers, gathered there because of the bad smell coming from the oiled silk. In Borgo Vecchio several small foundries were active, where artistic objects made of bronze were cast. Particularly characteristic was the making of bells: the last foundry, located in Vicolo del Farinone, closed around 1995, after an activity lasted about 450 years.[31] In the Borgo were also located many famous osterie, where Romans and pilgrims could eat and drink wine.[32]

Another profession peculiar to the men of the Borgo was that of headsman ("boia"). In fact, the executioner was forbidden to live on the left bank, and even to go there (Boia non passa Ponte, in English: "the headsman cannot cross the bridge", was a Roman proverb), but had to stay in the Leonine City.[33]

The most important yearly event for the rione was the spectacular procession of Corpus Domini, which started and finished in Saint Peter's, and was led by the Pope himself together with the Cardinal Dean, during which each building was dressed with flags and standards.

Things began to change again for the Borgo during the French occupation under Napoleon. The Préfet of Rome, Camille de Tournon, started the demolition of the spina, but the project had to be interrupted shortly after it began due to a lack of funds.

During the Italian Risorgimento the Borgo, together with Trastevere and Monti, was one of the quarters of Rome where public opinion supported with great enthusiasm the struggle for Italian independence. When, shortly after the September 20, 1870 the Italians offered the Pope full sovereignty over the Leonine City with all its inhabitants, this caused violent demonstrations in the Borgo. This offer was refused by Pius IX, who preferred to declare himself a prisoner of the Italian State and seclude himself in the Vatican complex.

After 1870, the walls of Pius IV, which bordered the Rione to the north, were pulled down, together with the Porta Angelica, to ease communication with the new Rione of Prati. Between 1886 and 1911 a new bridge, Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, located slightly north of the ruins of Nero's Bridge, connected the new avenue of Corso Vittorio Emanuele with Borgo.

1936-1950: the destruction of the Spina

Via della Conciliazione at dawn with Castel Sant'Angelo in morning haze. The picture was taken from the Palazzo dei Penitenzieri, so named after the priests who were in charge of confessing the foreign pilgrims in Saint Peter, and offered Absolution touching them with a rod. They acquired the palace in 1655.

This situation changed forever in 1936. In that year, Mussolini and Pius XI a approved a plan by the Roman architects Marcello Piacentini and Attilio Spaccarelli to demolition of the spina, a neighborhood sandwiched between the Renaissance-era roads Borgo Nuovo and Borgo Vecchio that linked Saint Peter's to Castel Sant'Angelo. An agreement between the two leaders was possible because of the new climate of collaboration between the State and the Church following the signing of the Lateran Treaties in 1929. On October 23, 1936 (the day after the anniversary of the March on Rome), Mussolini, standing on a roof, gave the first stroke of the pickaxe. On October 8, 1937 (less than one year later), the spina ceased to exist, and Saint Peter was freely visible from Castel Sant'Angelo.[34] In the space between the two ancient roads, a new road celebrating the reconciliation (La Conciliazione") of the pope and the Italian State was built, the Via della Conciliazione.

Vicolo del Campanile di Borgo in a watercolour by Ettore Roesler Franz (about 1880). The house on the left in foreground belongs to the spina. The bell tower of Santa Maria in Traspontina, located across the Borgo Nouvo is visible to the right of the lane.[35]

Due to World War II, the work was interrupted. After the war, although the political and cultural climate had changed, the government and the Vatican decided to finish the project. Two Propylaea were built in front of Saint Peter's Square (inside that on the south side was enclosed the ancient church[36] of San Lorenzo in piscibus), and two others at the beginning of the road. The road was finished in time for the Jubilee of 1950, by putting along it two rows of obelisks (which the Romans quickly christened "the suppositories").

The result was that almost all the houses of the Rione south of the Passetto were demolished, with mostly new construction lining the Via della Conciliazione. A few major buildings including Santa Maria in Traspontina (the parish church of Borgo), Palazzo Torlonia, and Palazzo dei Penitenzieri were spared because they were more or less on axis with the new road.

All the others were either pulled down and rebuilt with their fronts on the new roads (like Palazzo dei Convertendi, rebuilt to align with the Via della Conciliazione,[37] and the houses of Febo Brigotti and Jacopo da Brescia, whose façades were reassembled on the new Via dei Corridori), or, like the small churches of San Giacomo a Scossacavalli and Sant'Angelo ai Corridori, formerly built along the Piazza Scossacavalli and along the Passetto, simply demolished and never rebuilt.[38]

Besides a few drawings,[39] no scientific documentation of the old quarter was taken. Most of the inhabitants, whose families had been living and working in Borgo for centuries, were deported to the outskirts in the middle of the Campagna, as Acilia. That happened because no new apartment houses were built, but only offices, mainly used by the Vatican.

Judgement about the whole undertaking, controversial since the beginning, appears now to be largely negative. In fact, besides the destruction of many ancient edifices and, above all, of a whole social tissue, what was lost forever was the "surprise" (typical of the Baroque), when, at the very end of the narrow and dark lanes of the Borgo, the huge Piazza and Basilica suddenly appeared. Now, instead, Saint Peter's appears in the distance, flattened as in a postcard, and the sense of perspective gets lost as well.[40][41]

During the 1930s extensive demolition affected also the northwestern part of the rione (Via di Porta Angelica e Via del Mascherino). These were officially undertaken in order to better define the border between Italy and the new State of the Vatican City.

Demolition of the Spina di Borgo at Piazza Scossacavalli (1937)

Demolition of the Spina di Borgo at Piazza Scossacavalli (1937)

 

The first stretch of the Spina di Borgo during its demolition (1937)

The first stretch of the Spina di Borgo during its demolition (1937)

Today

Since 1950, the remaining Borghiciani (the name by which the inhabitants of the Borgo are called in Roman dialect), live north of the Passetto, where the quarter retained until recent times its character.[42] Several high prelates live or lived there: among them, late Pope Benedict XVI, who had been living in Borgo Pio for more than twenty years before his election to the Papacy.[43]

South of the Passetto the quarter houses only some offices (mainly belonging to the Vatican), an Auditorium, and the huge complex of the Hospital of Santo Spirito.

Geography

Borgo lies on the west bank of the Tiber and has a trapezoidal shape. The territory of the rione includes a level part, which is made up of the Tiber's alluvial deposits, and a hilly zone, which coincides with the clay-laden slopes of the Vatican hill.

In administrative terms, the rione became part of the city center (the Municipio I) following city decree n.11 issued on 11 March 2013.[44] Before then, it was part of the now abolished Municipio XVII, together with rione of Prati (also merged to the I Municipio in March 2013) and the quartieri Trionfale and Della Vittoria.

Boundaries

Northward, Borgo borders with Prati (R. XXII), from which is separated by Piazza Adriana, Via Alberico II, Via Properzio, Piazza Americo Capponi, Via Stefano Porcari and Piazza del Risorgimento

Borgo shares with the Vatican City a western border, which is marked by the Vatican wall between Piazza del Risorgimento and Via di Porta Cavalleggeri. Westward, the rione also borders with Quartiere Aurelio (Q. XIII), from which is separated by the stretch of the Leonine Walls beside Via di Porta Cavalleggeri, Largo di Porta Cavalleggeri and Viale delle Mura Aurelie.

Southward, Borgo borders with Trastevere (R. XIII), the boundary being outlined by the Aurelian Walls, up to Ponte Principe Amedeo Savoia Aosta.

To the east, the rione borders with Ponte (R. V), from which is separated by the stretch of the Tiber between Ponte Principe Amedeo Savoia Aosta and Ponte Sant'Angelo.

Local geography

The main roads run east–west and are named Borghi rather than Vie (the noteworthy exception being the modern Via della Conciliazione).

Although heavily transformed during the first half of the 20th century, Borgo maintains its historical importance as a forecourt to Saint Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Palace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borgo_(rione_of_Rome)

The Carolingian dynasty (/ˌkærəˈlɪndʒiən/ KARR-ə-LIN-jee-ən;[1] known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD.[2] The dynasty consolidated its power in the 8th century, eventually making the offices of mayor of the palace and dux et princeps Francorum hereditary, and becoming the de facto rulers of the Franks as the real powers behind the Merovingian throne. In 751 the Merovingian dynasty which had ruled the Franks was overthrown with the consent of the Papacy and the aristocracy, and Pepin the Short, son of Martel, was crowned King of the Franks. The Carolingian dynasty reached its peak in 800 with the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Emperor of the Romans in the West in over three centuries. Nearly every monarch of France from Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious till the penultimate monarch of France Louis Philippe have been his descendants. His death in 814 began an extended period of fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire and decline that would eventually lead to the evolution of the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire.

Name

The Carolingian dynasty takes its name from Carolus, the Latinised name of multiple Frankish kings including Charlemagne and Charles Martel.[3] The name originates from a common Germanic word, rendered in Old High German as Karl or Kerl,[4] meaning 'man', 'husband', or 'FREEMAN'.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_dynasty 

PART VI 1THE PERSONAL LIFE OF THOSE ALREADY ADMITTED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE BODY OF THE SOCIETY

SECTION 1: THE APOSTOLIC CHARACTER OF OUR VOWS IN GENERAL

143 §1. Our consecration by profession of the evangelical counsels, by which we respond to a divine vocation, is at one and the same time the following of Christ poor, virginal, and obedient and a rejection of those idols that the world is always prepared to adore, especially wealth, pleasure, prestige, and power. Hence, our poverty, chastity, and obedience ought visibly and efficaciously to bear witness to this attitude, whereby we proclaim the evangelical possibility of a certain communion among men and women that is a foretaste of the future kingdom of God.[1]

§2. Our religious vows, while binding us, also set us FREE:

FREE, by our vow of poverty, to share the life of the poor and to use whatever resources we may have, not for our own security and comfort, but for service;

FREE, by our vow of chastity, to be men for others, in friendship and communion with all, but especially with those who share our mission of service;

FREE, by our vow of obedience, to respond to the call of Christ as made known to us by him whom the Spirit has placed over the Church, and to follow the lead of all our superiors.[2] [1] See GC 32, d. 4, no. 16; see GC 31, d. 16, no. 4; d. 17, no. 2; d. 18, no. 3. [2] GC 32, d. 2, no. 20. 215

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf 

Pope Paul V (Latin: Paulus V; Italian: Paolo V) (17 September 1550 – 28 January 1621), born Camillo Borghese, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 16 May 1605 to his death, in January 1621. In 1611, he honored Galileo Galilei as a member of the papal Accademia dei Lincei and supported his discoveries.[2] In 1616, Pope Paul V instructed Cardinal Robert Bellarmine to inform Galileo that the Copernican theory could not be taught as fact, but Bellarmine's certificate allowed Galileo to continue his studies in search for evidence and use the geocentric model as a theoretical device. That same year Paul V assured Galileo that he was safe from persecution so long as he, the Pope, should live. Bellarmine's certificate was used by Galileo for his defense at the trial of 1633.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_V

Borghese

Recorded in many forms including Bourges, Bourgaize, Bourgeois, (France), Burgess, Burges and Burgis (England and Scotland), Borghese, Borgesio and Burgisi (Italy), and others, this interesting surname is of pre 8th century Old French origins. It derives from the word "burgeis", meaning inhabitant and FREEMAN of a fortified town, one which could apply municipal rates, taxes, and duties. A burgeis generally had tenure of land or buildings from a landlord by "burgage", which involved the payment of a fixed money rent. In Scotland, the position of burgess required not only the making of payments, but to be availble to take part in guarding the town. The surname is one of the earliest recorded anywhere in the world. These recordings are from England because this country was the first to adopt both hereditary surnames and to make the necessary registers in which to record them. France was several centuries later, and Italy, not until the 19th century in most areas. Early recordings showing the influence of the Norman-French in England after the Invasion of 1066 include: Ralph le Burgeis, in the Pipe Rolls of the county of Sussex in 1195, and Philip Bourges in the cartulary of Oseney Abbey, Oxford in 1197. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Geoffrey Burgeis, which was dated 1115, in the "Winton Rolls" of Hampshire. This was during the reign of King Henry 1st, known as "The Lion of Justice", 1100 - 1135. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. Over the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop", often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Borghese

FREEMASON

Encyclopedia Masonica

One who has been initiated into the mysteries of the Fraternity of Freemasonry. Freemasons are so called to distinguish them from the Operative or Stone-Masons, who constituted an inferior class of workmen, and out of whom they sprang (see Stonemasons and Traveling Freemasons). The meaning of the epithet free, as applied to Mason, is given under the word Free. In the old lectures of the eighteenth century a Freemason was described as being "a freeman, born of a freewoman, brother to a king, fellow to a prince, or companion to a beggar, if a Mason," and by this was meant to indicate the universality of the Brotherhood.

The word Freemason was until recently divided into two words, sometimes with and sometimes without a hyphen; and we find in all the old books and manuscripts Free Mason or Free-Mason. But this usage has generally been abandoned by writers, and Freemason is usually spelled as one word. The old Constitutions constantly used the word Mason. E et the word was employed at a very early period in the parish registers of England, and by some writers. Thus, in the register of the parish of Astbury we find these items:

1685. Smallwood, Jos., fils Jos. Henshaw, Freemason bapt 3 die Nov. 1697. Jos. fil Jos. Henshaw, Freemason, buried 7 April.

But the most singular passage is one found in Cawdray's Treasurie of Similies, published in 1609, and which he copied from Bishop Coverdale's translation of Werdmuller's A Spiritual and most Precious Perle, which was published in 1550. It is as follows:

As the freemason heweth-the hard stones . . . even so God the Heavenly Free-Mason buildeth a Christian church.

But, in fact, the word was used at a much earlier period, and occurs, Steinbrenner says in his Origin and Early History of Masonry (page 110), for the first time in a statute passed in 1350, in the twenty-fifth year of Edward I, where the wages of a Master Freemason are fixed at 4 pence, and of other Masons at 3 pence. The original French text of the statute is "Mestre de franche-peer." "Here," says Steinbrenner, "the word Freemason evidently signifies a free-stone mason?one who works in free-stone, the French franche-peer, meaning franche-pierre, as distinguished from the rough masons who merely built walls of rough, unhown stone." This latter sort of workmen was that class called by the Scotch Masons cowans whom the Freemasons were forbidden to work with, whence we get the modern use of that word.

Ten years after, in 1360, we have a statute of Edward III, in which it is ordained that "every Mason shall finish his work, be it of free-stone or of rough-stone," where the French text of the statute is file franche-pere ou de grosse-pere." Thus it seems evident that the word free-mason was originally used in contradistinction to rough-rruson. The old Constituitions sometimes call these latter masons rough layers.

Doctor Murray's New English Dictionary has the following information under Freemason: The precise import with which the adjective was originally used in this designation has been much disputed Three views have been propounded.

1. The suggestion that free mason stands for free stone mason would appear unworthy of attention, but for the curious fact that the earliest known instances of any similar appellation are mestre mason de France peer, master mason of free stone. Act 25, Edward III, st. II, e. 3, A.D. 1350, and sculptores lapidum liberorum "carvers of free stones," alleged to occur in a document of 1217, Finders History of freemasonry (51), citing Wyatt Papworth; the coincidence, however, seems to be merely accidental.

2. The view most generally held is that free masons were those who were free of the masons' gild. Against this explanation many forcible objections have been brought by Mr. G. W. Speth, who suggests:

3. That the itinerant masons were called free because they claimed exemption from the control of the local gilds of the towns in which they temporarily settled.

4. Perhaps the best hypothesis is that the term refers to the mediaeval practice of emancipating skilled artisans, in order that they might be able to travel and render their services wherever any great building was in process of construction.

And then the following meanings are given:

1. A member of a certain class of skilled workers in stone, in the fourteenth and following centuries often mentioned in contradistinction to rough masons, ligiers, etc. They traveled from place to place, finding employment wherever important buildings were being erected, and had a system of secret signs and passwords by which a craftsman who had been admitted on giving evidence of competent skill could be recognized. In later use, sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, the term seems often to be used merely as a more complimentary synonym of mason, implying that the workman so designated belonged to a superior grade.

The earliest instance quoted of the word in this sense is in a list of the London City Companies of 1376.

2. A member of the Fraternity, called more fully Free and Accepted Masons. Early in the seventeenth century, the Societies of Freemasons, in sense 1, began to admit honorary members, not connected with the building trades, but supposed to be eminent for architectural w or antiquarian learning. These were caned Accepted Masons, though the term Free Masons was often loosely applied to them; and they were admitted to a knowledge of the secret signs, and instructed in the legendary history of the Craft, which had already begun to be developed. The distinction of being an Accepted Mason became a fashionable object of ambition, and before the end of the seventeenth century, the object of the Societies of Freemasons seems to have been chiefly social and convivial. In 1717, under the guidance of the physicist J. T. Desaguliers, four of these Societies or Lodges in London united to form a Grand Lodge, with a new constitution and ritual, and a system of secret signs, the object of the Society as reconstituted being mutual help and the promotion of brotherly feeling among its members.

Brother E. L. Hawkins observes that the earliest instance quoted of the word in this sense is in Ashmole's Diary under date of 1646 (see Ashmole).

Gould in his Concise History has this to say upon the subject:

Two curious coincidences have been connected with the above year, 1375.

The first, that the earliest copy of the manuscript constitutions, Remus Manuscript, refers to the customs of that period;

the second, that the formation p of a wonderful society, occasioned by a combination of masons undertaking not to work without an advance of wages, when summoned from several counties by writs of Edward III, to rebuild and enlarge Windsor Castle, under the direction of William of Wykeham, has been plated at the same date. It is said also that these masons agreed on certain signs and tokens by which they might know one another, and render mutual assistance against impressment- and further agreed not to work unless free and on their own terms. Hence they called themselves Free-Masons.

A child's book, Dives Pragmaticus, printed in the year 1563, and reproduced in 1910 by the owner, the John Rylands Library at Manchester, England, contains a list of occupations and line 97 is Al Free masons, Brike layers and dawbers of walled.

https://www.universalfreemasonry.org/en/encyclopedia/freemason

The History and Legend of Scottish Rite Origins

The Story Unfolds…

Like much of early Masonic history, the origins of the Scottish Rite are uncertain. This is primarily due to the lack of historic documentation prior to the early 1700’s and not to any great veiled mystery. The few records kept were subject to loss, fire, weather and aging. So we can at best only speculate on many of our origins by looking at the few documents, historical references and legends that remain.

What We Know

In 1754, near Paris, Chevalier de Bonneville established the Chapter of Clermont. The Chapter resided in the College of Jesuits of Clermont, hence the name. It is said to have been created to honor the Duc de Clermont, then Grand Master of the English Grand Lodge of France.

The Chapter of Clermont was a “Chapter of the Advanced Degrees” and initially entailed six degrees and was later extended to 25 known degrees. The six initial degrees were 1˚, 2˚ and 3˚ St John’s Masonry, 4˚ Knight of the Eagle, 5˚ Illustrious Knight or Templar, 6˚ Sublime Illustrious Knight.

Interestingly enough historically, prior to the time of the Rite’s creation, James II had been in residence at Clermont in exile from Britain from 1688 to his death in 1701. As noted by German Masonic historian, Lenning… “whilst in exile, James II residing at the Jesuit College of Clermont in France, allowed his closest associates to fabricate certain degrees in order to extend their political views.” Lenning believed this to have been an attempt on the part of James and his associates to regain control of the British throne for the House of Stuart. If Lenning is right, this places the origins of the “Rite of Perfection” in the hands of James II and the Jacobite (Stuart) Freemasons who at the time were in exile from Great Britain throughout France and Italy. Lenning also contends that these degrees were introduced into French Freemasonry under the name of the Clermont System.

James II died in exile in 1701. His son James III is said to have continued his father’s Masonic legacy and later created further higher degrees.

Perhaps James II saw in the Jesuit morality plays of the College of Clermont a vessel for passing on a set of moral lessons. Some of the world’s greatest playwrights had emerged from Clermont. Jesuit tutelage had previously produced great writers such as Lope de Vega, Moliere, Racine, and the Corneille brothers. Ensconced in exile, I believe James II did find the inspiration and the training to help produce what would later become the first six degrees. From out of the darkness… comes light.

To be continued… (Author’s note… An in depth look at the Templar influence in Scottish Rite masonry’s origins can be found by visiting the Rosslyn Templars’ website.)"

https://web.archive.org/web/20190615041607/http://www.traversecityscottishrite.com/scottish-rite-history.html 

The Scottish Rite in Italy

The SC of Italy, that today is denominated “the Supreme Council SS.GG.II.GG. of the 3 rd and Last Level of the Free Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for the Italian Jurisdiction – Grand Orient of Italy – Palazzo Giustiniani” as shown in a manuscript handed down as the Verbal of the Foundation, also called the “Seal of Foundation” which was founded and installed ritually in Milan on March16th 1805 by the Count Alexandre Francois Auguste De Grasse Tilly S.G.C. of the SC of France (1804), duly assisted by the French and Italian Brothers, with Licenses conferred by the SC Mother of the World of Charleston. The SC of Italy was a direct emanation of this Ritual Body.

In the same constitutional act of the SC of Italy, it is formally declared that it “creates and constitutes by its sovereign authority a General Grand Lodge in Italy under the name of G.O. Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite“. The Grand Orient of Italy, thus founded, was ritually installed on June 20th 1805 by the same founders of the SC of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

The SC of Italy with headquarters in Milan, had jurisdiction only in the territory of the Italian Kingdom and the Sovereign Grand Commander was the Vice King Eugenio Beauharnais.

Subsequently, on the not yet unified Italian territory, other SS.CC ‘s were formed among which (in Naples) a SC called of the two Sicilies (1809), a SC of Palermo (1860), a SC of Naples (1860). Following the unification of Italy initially a SC was formed with the fusion of the SC Milan with that of Turin (1862), then with the transfer of the capital to Florence another SC of this city (1864) was formed. A further SC was established in 1870 in Rome, permanent Capital of the Kingdom. Following numerous agreements and with much difficulty, the unification between the various SS.CC in a single SC of Italy was achieved with headquarters in Rome.

From a schism which occurring 1908, a second SC was born called “Piazza del Gesù” which since 1912 was recognized by many SS.CC. of the world opposed to that of 2Palazzo Giustiniani”. The fascist period, during which all Masonic activity in Italy was prohibited, actually eliminated the problem of this atypical duplication between the historical continuity and the possession of recognition of the various Jurisdictions.

The separation between the Jurisdictions of the Grand Orient of Italy and the SC was sanctioned in 1922. The conference of Paris of the SS.CC. of the world, held in 1929, authorized this principle for all the SS.CC.

Upon recommencement of Masonic activity in 1943, after the failures of unification attempts, those who possessed the Supreme Level of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, formed two SS.CC. of “Palazzo Giustiniani” and “Piazza del Gesù”.

From 1960 to 1973, the residual incomprehension between the two historical blocks of Italian Masonry were settled. Since then, in spite of other efforts of schism, in particular that of 1977 which failed owing to the loyalty of the Scottish Brothers of Italy and the wisdom of SS.CC. of the rest of the world, the SC of “Palazzo Giustiniani” represents the regularity for 54 Supreme Councils in the world.

https://www.ritoscozzese.it/en/rsaa/history/

Note 370.—"Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret. The 32nd degree of the Ancient and Accepted rite, and for many years, or until the institution of the 33d degree, this was the highest degree, or ne plus ultra of Masonry. The body is styled a Consistory, and should be held in a building of two stories. The officers are, a Thrice Illustrious Commander, First and Second Lieutenants, a Minister of State, a Grand Chancellor, a Grand Treasurer, a Grand Secretary, and a Grand Captain of the Guard. In the East a throne, elevated on seven steps, which is the seat of the Thrice Illustrious Commander, who wears a robe of royal purple, and he and the Lieutenants, wear swords. The collar of this degree is black, lined with scarlet, and in the center, at the point, a double-headed eagle, of silver or gold, on a red Teutonic cross. The apron is of white satin, with a border of gold lace, one inch wide, lined with scarlet; on the flap is a double-headed eagle, on each side of which is the flag of the country in which the body is located, the flag of Prussia and the Beause- -ant of the Kadosh degree; on the apron is the camp of the Crusaders, , which is thus explained; it is composed of an enneagon, within which is ' inscribed a heptagon, within that a pentagon, and in the center an equilateral triangle, within which is a circle. Between the heptagon and pentagon are placed five standards, in the designs of whigjl are five letters, which form a particular word. The first standard is purple, on which is emblazoned the ark of the covenant, with a palm, tree on each side; the ark has the motto Laus Deo. The second is blue, on which is a lion, of gold, couchant, holding in his mouth a golden key, with a collar of the same metal on his neck, and on it is the device, Ad majorem Dei gloriam. The third is white, and displays a heart in flames, with two wings; it is surmounted by a crown of laurels. The fourth is green, and bears a double-headed black eagle, crowned, holding a sword in his right claw, and a bleeding heart in his left. The fifth bears a black ox. on a field of gold. On the sides of the enneagon are nine tents, with flags, representing the divisions of the Masonic army; on the angles are nine pinions, of the same color as the flag of the tent that precedes it. The hall of the Consistory is hung with black, strewed with tears of silver. The jewel is a double-headed white and black eagle, resting on a Teutonic cross, of gold, worn attached to the collar or ribbon. ^The members are called Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret. The moral of the degree teaches opposition to bigotry, superstition, and all the passions and vices which disgrace human nature."—Macoy's Encyclopaedia and Pictionary of Freemasonry, Article Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret 

MISSIONS FROM THE SUPREME PONTIFF

252 §1. To be truly Christian, our service to the Church must be anchored in fidelity to Christ, who makes all things new; to be proper to the Society, it must be done in union with the successors of Peter[32]

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms 

A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts 

THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES SAINT LOUIS, 1996 

https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

[666] 6. 1On the side of the superior general, what will aid toward this union of hearts are the qualities of his person [G], to be treated in Part IX [723-25], with which he will perform his office, 2which is to be for all the members a head from which the influence required for the end sought by the Society ought to descend to them all. 3It is thus from the general as head that all authority of the provincials should flow, from the provincials that of the local superiors, and from the local superiors that of the individual members. 4And from this same head, or at least by his commission and approval, should likewise come the appointing of missions. And the same should apply to communicating the graces of the Society. 5For the more the subjects are dependent upon their superiors, the better will the love, obedience, and union among them be preserved." 

The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms 

https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.

18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.[a] That number is 666."

Revelation 13:16-18

450 JACOBINS LIKE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS. 

The answer is this : when formed by Jacobin Jesuits, in 1754, in the Jesuits' College of Clermont, Paris, it was "the Military Organization'' as the candidate was told. (See page 397,) It then crowned the Rite of Perfection of 25 degrees, which was adopted by ^^the Council of Emperors/' four years later; that is, in 1758. | (See note 377.) The Jacobins, like the Chicago anarchists lately hung were then -secretly swearing to do what they afterwards did, viz,, wage war on the government. ^ Hence this 32nd grade was not called a degree, but an "organization/' as it was. 

But when adopted by Morin's Sovereign Inspectors, at Charleston, S. C, in 1801, no war was then contemplated^ but by Aaron Burr, and he was soon tried by Jefferson, for his life. The country was then peaceful, and satisfied and pleased with their free constitution, adopted in 1789, only twelve years before. Of course, no fighting was contemplated. True French sympathizers elected Jefferson that year; but the French revolution had reacted, and the Monroe doctrine was soon adopted, to keep the United States free from foreign entanglements. Masonry now did not mean fight, but money^ and false worship. What then were Dalcho, Mitchell and Provost to do ? They had resolved on an "Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite,'' to rule the false worships of Masonry throughout the world. They adopted a scale of thirtytwo degrees; and placed this Military degree at the head: because, it had been, as the notes and ritual say: "the Ne Phis Ultra degree/' and it would not do to leave it out. 

Scotch Rite Masonry Illustrated Volume 2 

https://dn790006.ca.archive.org/0/items/scotchritemasonr02blan/scotchritemasonr02blan.pdf

Hot Cop

Village People

Cruisin' is the third studio album by the American disco group Village People, released on September 25, 1978. Its title is a double entendre, referring to either simply driving around or gay cruising. The album features the hits "Hot Cop" and "Y.M.C.A.", which peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 2003, the album was rereleased as Y.M.C.A. in continental Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruisin%27_(Village_People_album)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkMA1athE9I&list=RDGMEMQ1dJ7wXfLlqCjwV0xfSNbAVMXW2LoRqikWI&index=6

Ted Cruz 

Rafael Edward Cruz (/kruːz/; born December 22, 1970) is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States senator from Texas since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, Cruz was the solicitor general of Texas from 2003 to 2008.

After graduating from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Cruz pursued a career in politics, eventually serving as a policy advisor in the George W. Bush administration. In 2003, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott appointed Cruz to serve as Solicitor General, a position he held through 2008. Cruz was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012, becoming the first Hispanic American to serve as a U.S. senator from Texas.[2] In the Senate, he has taken consistently conservative positions on economic and social policy. He played a leading role in the 2013 United States federal government shutdown, seeking to force Congress and President Barack Obama to defund the Affordable Care Act. Cruz was reelected in a close race in 2018 against Democratic nominee Beto O'Rourke and decisively won a third term in 2024 against Congressman Colin Allred.

In 2016, Cruz sought the Republican presidential nomination, emerging as a serious competitor to front-runner Donald Trump in a primary marked by intense, often personal, exchanges. Cruz initially withheld his endorsement after Trump secured the nomination, but became a strong supporter during Trump's first term. In 2021, Cruz objected to the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

Early life and family

Rafael Edward Cruz was born on December 22, 1970,[3][4] at Foothills Medical Centre[5][6] in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to Eleanor Elizabeth (née Darragh) Wilson and Rafael Cruz.[7][8][9][10] Cruz's mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware. She is of three-quarters Irish and one-quarter Italian descent, and earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Rice University in the 1950s.[11][12]

Cruz's father, Rafael, was born and raised in Cuba, the son of a Canary Islander who immigrated to Cuba as a child.[13] As a teenager in the 1950s, Rafael Cruz was beaten by agents of Fulgencio Batista for opposing the Batista regime.[14] He left Cuba in 1957 to attend the University of Texas at Austin and obtained political asylum in the United States after his four-year student visa expired.[15] He earned Canadian citizenship in 1973[5] and became a naturalized United States citizen in 2005.[9][16][17]

At the time of his birth, Ted Cruz's parents had lived in Calgary for three years and were working in the oil business as owners of a seismic-data processing firm for oil drilling.[9][18][19][20][21] Cruz has said that he is the son of "two mathematicians/computer programmers".[22] In 1974, Cruz's father left the family and moved to Texas.[23] Later that year, Cruz's parents reconciled and relocated the family to Houston.[5] They divorced in 1997.[24] Cruz has two older half-sisters, Miriam Ceferina Cruz and Roxana Lourdes Cruz, from his father's first marriage. Miriam died in 2011 from a drug overdose.[24][25][26]

Cruz began going by Ted at age 13.[27]

Education

For junior high school, Cruz went to Awty International School in Houston.[28] Cruz attended two private high schools: Faith West Academy, near Katy, Texas;[29] and Second Baptist High School in Houston, from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1988.[16][30][31] During high school, Cruz participated in a Houston-based group known at the time as the Free Market Education Foundation, a program that taught high school students the philosophies of economists such as Milton Friedman and Frédéric Bastiat.[21][32]

After high school, Cruz studied public policy at Princeton University.[33][3][34] While at Princeton, he competed for the American Whig-Cliosophic Society's Debate Panel and won the top speaker award at both the 1992 U.S. National Debating Championship and the 1992 North American Debating Championship.[35] In 1992, he was named U.S. National Speaker of the Year and, with his debate partner David Panton, Team of the Year by the American Parliamentary Debate Association.[35] Cruz and Panton later represented Harvard Law School at the 1995 World Debating Championship, losing in the semifinals to a team from Australia.[36][37][38] Princeton's debate team named their annual novice championship after Cruz.[38] At Princeton, Cruz was a member of Colonial Club.[39] His 115-page senior thesis at Princeton investigated the separation of powers; its title, Clipping the Wings of Angels: The History and Theory Behind the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, was inspired by a passage attributed to James Madison from the 51st essay of the Federalist Papers: "If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." Cruz argued that the drafters of the Constitution intended to protect their constituents' rights, and that the last two items in the Bill of Rights offer an explicit stop against an all-powerful state.[11][40] Cruz graduated from Princeton in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts cum laude.[41]

Cruz then attended Harvard Law School,[3][42] where he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics.[43] He was a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review, an executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review.[34] Referring to Cruz's time as a student at Harvard Law, professor Alan Dershowitz said that Cruz was "off-the-charts brilliant."[44][45][46][47] Cruz graduated from Harvard Law in 1995 with a Juris Doctor degree magna cum laude.[41]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Cruz

Theodorus of Cyrene (Ancient Greek: Θεόδωρος ὁ Κυρηναῖος, romanized: Theódōros ho Kyrēnaîos; fl. c. 450 BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician. The only first-hand accounts of him that survive are in three of Plato's dialogues: the Theaetetus, the Sophist, and the Statesman. In the former dialogue, he posits a mathematical construction now known as the Spiral of Theodorus.

Life

Little is known as Theodorus' biography beyond what can be inferred from Plato's dialogues. He was born in the northern African colony of Cyrene, and apparently taught both there and in Athens.[1] He complains of old age in the Theaetetus, the dramatic date of 399 BC of which suggests his period of flourishing to have occurred in the mid-5th century. The text also associates him with the sophist Protagoras, with whom he claims to have studied before turning to geometry.[2] A dubious tradition repeated among ancient biographers like Diogenes Laërtius[3] held that Plato later studied with him in Cyrene, Libya.[1] This eminent mathematician Theodorus was, along with Alcibiades and many other of Socrates' companions (many of whom would be associated with the Thirty Tyrants), accused of distributing the mysteries at a symposium, according to Plutarch, who himself was priest of the temple at Delphi.

Work in mathematics

Theodorus' work is known through a sole theorem, which is delivered in the literary context of the Theaetetus and has been argued alternately to be historically accurate or fictional.[1] In the text, his student Theaetetus attributes to him the theorem that the square roots of the non-square numbers up to 17 are irrational:

Theodorus here was drawing some figures for us in illustration of roots, showing that squares containing three square feet and five square feet are not commensurable in length with the unit of the foot, and so, selecting each one in its turn up to the square containing seventeen square feet and at that he stopped.[4]

The square containing two square units is not mentioned, perhaps because the incommensurability of its side with the unit was already known.) Theodorus's method of proof is not known. It is not even known whether, in the quoted passage, "up to" (μέχρι) means that seventeen is included. If seventeen is excluded, then Theodorus's proof may have relied merely on considering whether numbers are even or odd. Indeed, Hardy and Wright[5] and Knorr[6] suggest proofs that rely ultimately on the following theorem: If 

x

2

=

n

y

2

{\displaystyle x^{2}=ny^{2}} is soluble in integers, and 

n

{\displaystyle n} is odd, then 

n

{\displaystyle n} must be congruent to 1 modulo 8 (since 

x

{\displaystyle x} and 

y

{\displaystyle y} can be assumed odd, so their squares are congruent to 1 modulo 8.

That one cannot prove the irrationality the square root of 17 by considerations restricted to the arithmetic of the even and the odd has been shown in one system of the arithmetic of the even and the odd in [7] and,[8] but it is an open problem in a stronger natural axiom system for the arithmetic of the even and the odd [9]

A possibility suggested earlier by Zeuthen[10] is that Theodorus applied the so-called Euclidean algorithm, formulated in Proposition X.2 of the Elements as a test for incommensurability. In modern terms, the theorem is that a real number with an infinite continued fraction expansion is irrational. Irrational square roots have periodic expansions. The period of the square root of 19 has length 6, which is greater than the period of the square root of any smaller number. The period of √17 has length one (so does √18; but the irrationality of √18 follows from that of √2).

The so-called Spiral of Theodorus is composed of contiguous right triangles with hypotenuse lengths equal √2, √3, √4, …, √17; additional triangles cause the diagram to overlap. Philip J. Davis interpolated the vertices of the spiral to get a continuous curve. He discusses the history of attempts to determine Theodorus' method in his book Spirals: From Theodorus to Chaos, and makes brief references to the matter in his fictional Thomas Gray series.

That Theaetetus established a more general theory of irrationals, whereby square roots of non-square numbers are irrational, is suggested in the eponymous Platonic dialogue as well as commentary on, and scholia to, the Elements.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodorus_of_Cyrene

Cruz is a surname of Iberian origin, first found in Castile,[citation needed] Spain, but later spread throughout the territories of the former Spanish and Portuguese Empires. In Spanish and Portuguese, the word means "cross", either the Christian cross or the figure of transecting lines or ways. For example, in the Philippines, the adopted Tagalog word is rendered to "krus" in plain usage, but the Spanish spelling survives as a surname.

The word "Cruz" (Spanish for "Cross"), as well as "Vera Cruz" ("True Cross") and "Santa Cruz" ("Holy Cross") are used as surnames and toponyms. Its origin as a surname particularly flourished after the Alhambra Decree of 1492 and the increasing activities of the Spanish Inquisition, when New Christian families with Crypto-Jewish, Moorish, and/or mixed religious heritage converted to the state-enforced religion of Catholicism and subsequently fashioned and adopted surnames with unambiguous religious affiliation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruz 

To sum up: men crucified to the world, and to whom the world itself is crucified[7] such would our Constitutions have us to be; new men, I say, who have put off their affections to put on Christ;[8] dead to themselves to live to justice; who, with St. Paul in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Spirit, in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth, show themselves ministers of God[9] and by the armor of Justice on the right hand and, on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, by good success finally and ill success, press forward with great strides to their heavenly country. This is the sum and aim of our institute. 

Preface to the First Edition

Rome, the house of the Society of Jesus, 1559

The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

Resident Evil Village[a] is a 2021 survival horror game developed and published by Capcom. It is the sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017) and the tenth main game of the Resident Evil series. Players control Ethan Winters, who searches for his kidnapped daughter in a village filled with mutant creatures. Village maintains survival horror elements from previous games, with players scavenging environments for items and managing resources while adding more action-oriented gameplay, with higher enemy counts and a greater emphasis on combat.

Resident Evil Village was announced at the PlayStation 5 reveal event in June 2020 and was released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Stadia, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on May 7, 2021. This was followed by a macOS version and a cloud version for Nintendo Switch in October 2022, and a PlayStation VR2 version on February 22, 2023. An iOS version was released on October 30, 2023.

Resident Evil Village received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for its gameplay, setting, and variety, but criticism for its puzzles, boss fights, and performance issues on the Windows version; the increased focus on action divided opinions. The game won year-end accolades including Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards. It had sold over 10.5 million units by November 2024.[1] 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_Village

Shadow Man is an action-adventure video game developed by Acclaim Studios Teesside and published by Acclaim Entertainment.[4] It is based on the Shadow Man comic book series published by Valiant Comics. The game was announced in 1997 and was originally slated for a late 1998 release on Nintendo 64[5] and an early 1999 release for Microsoft Windows,[6] but was delayed to August 31, 1999. A PlayStation version was also released on the same day.[2] A Dreamcast version was released three months later on December 1.[4]

Shadow Man was re-released on September 17, 2013, on GOG.com,[7][8] available for Windows[9] (with a version for Mac OS X subsequently added),[10] and later on Steam, available for Windows and OS X.[11]

Nightdive Studios, who re-released Shadow Man in 2013, developed Shadow Man Remastered, a remastered version of the game which includes 4K resolution, improved shadow mapping, per-pixel lighting, anti-aliasing and missing content that was cut from the original game. The game was released for Microsoft Windows on April 15, 2021, while the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One ports were released on January 13, 2022, and the Nintendo Switch port on January 17, 2022.[12]

A sequel, Shadow Man: 2econd Coming, was released for PlayStation 2 in 2002.

Another game starring Jack Boniface, Shadowman: Darque Legacy, has recently been announced.[13]

Gameplay

Shadow Man is sometimes considered a 3D metroidvania.[14]

Plot

In 1888, Jack the Ripper – lamenting the fact that his ritualistic murders have not unlocked a mystical power that he believes to exist – prepares to perform the ritual upon himself at the expense of his own life. A man named Legion appears and tells Jack that the power he seeks does exist and offers to share this power with him if Jack constructs an insane asylum for like-minded killers in Deadside – the land of the dead. Proclaiming "for we are many!", Jack commits suicide.

In the present day, Michael LeRoi becomes the current Shadow Man – a lineage of voodoo warriors who protect the world of the living (known as Liveside) from threats crossing over from Deadside – after the voodoo priestess Mama Nettie bonds the Mask of Shadows to him. Nettie has a prophetic dream that Legion is preparing to usher in the Apocalypse by claiming the Dark Souls – the immortal souls of damned warriors – and using them to create an immortal army and send it into Liveside. Nettie reveals that Michael cannot stop the Five, a group of serial killers recruited by Legion, without his powers. The Five, who each have a Dark Soul within them, are hiding in Liveside, where Michael's powers do not work during the day. Michael travels to Deadside with the use of his dead brother's teddy bear, which serves as a link between both worlds.

After collecting all of the Dark Souls in Deadside and passing trials set by the gods of Deadside, Michael assembles a magic knife called the Eclipser. Returning to Liveside, Nettie uses the Eclipser to trigger an eclipse, which enables Michael to become the Shadow Man in Liveside. The ritual drains Nettie of her powers and causes her to go into a deep sleep.

Michael returns to Deadside and finds the Asylum as well as the Dark Engine which powers it. Michael finds his long-dead brother Luke within the Dark Engine along with several paths to Liveside which lead to the hiding places of the Five. Michael defeats the Five and claims each of their souls in the process. During this time, Michael finds Jack the Ripper's diary, which contains instructions on how to shut down the Engine. Michael returns to Deadside and shuts down the Engine, giving Luke his teddy bear back. Luke reveals himself to be Legion in disguise.

Legion reveals that he sent Nettie the dream so that Michael would be forced to collect all of the Dark Souls and confront Legion, enabling Legion to claim all of the souls at once and use them to power the Engine, creating his army and sending it into Liveside. After an intense battle, Michael gives Legion all of the souls, whose combined power overwhelms Legion and kills him, destroying the Asylum as well. However, Michael is now stranded in Deadside but embraces his position as lord of Deadside.

Development

Acclaim Studios Teesside began by creating the game engine, with no specific concept in mind. Acclaim Entertainment then offered them about eight comic book series to create a game from, and the developers chose Shadow Man.[15]

The game's development budget was more than $6 million.[16]

The developers drew heavily on the decaying industrial structures which littered Northeast England (where Acclaim Studios Teesside was headquartered) for the design of Deadside.[15] Asylum headquarters's design was based on Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting The Tower of Babel.[15]

Reception

The Dreamcast, PC and N64 versions of Shadow Man received favorable reviews, while the PlayStation version received mixed or average reviews, according to video game review aggregator GameRankings.[17][18][19][20] Alan Lackey of Computer Games Strategy Plus gave the PC version four-and-a-half stars out of five, calling it "an example of how it can be done successfully. Shadow Man is graphically rich and emotionally binding. Top it off with an excellent storyline and superb gameplay and you have a game that you must experience to truly appreciate."[50] Edge gave the same PC version eight out of ten, saying: "Shadow Man, near-peerlessly expansive in size and demands on player time, is a child of both eras, comprising the best and worst of each."[51] 

Damien Thorpe of AllGame gave the Dreamcast version four stars out of five, saying: "Shadow Man is lengthy and difficult, and can cause you some frustration, but if you're not interested in completing it the first week that you have it, then it can also reward you with hours of enjoyable and challenging gameplay."[52] Likewise, Jason White gave the PlayStation version the same score of four stars, saying: "While this game is very challenging, it's not the kind of challenge that will make you put your foot through the TV. If you're a fan of the horror or comic book genre, Shadow Man is a must have."[53] However, Anthony Baize gave the PC version three-and-a-half stars out of five, calling it "a good game that can get bogged down as any complex game can. Its replay value is very high, because there is a plethora of hidden goodies waiting to be found. If I keep attacking Shadow Man in small chunks, I might just solve it. For now, I am satisfied running, searching, and shooting."[54] PlanetDreamcast gave the Dreamcast version 6.5 out of 10, saying that it "offers a good filler game until the next batch of games hits your local store."[55]

Jes Bickham of N64 Magazine gave the Nintendo 64 version 93%, calling it "a dark and glittering jewel in the N64's gaudy crown. Open the door, step into the night, and revel in its bloody charms. You won't be disappointed."[56] Dan Toose of Hyper gave the same console version 90%, calling it "a refreshing breath of stale air with the sweet smell of decay thrown in."[57] However, Doug Trueman of NextGen called the same console version "a well-intentioned misfire".[45]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Man_(video_game) 

"Since Fulcanelli informs us that the argotique of the green language is based on a cabalistic pattern of meaning, it should be obvious that this pattern is the Tree of Life of his fellow adepts. That it is not obvious is the result of misdirection, conscious or unconscious, on the part of Fulcanelli’s student, Eugène Canseliet. In the “Preface to the Second Edition” of Mystery of the Cathedrals, Canseliet, while displaying his knowledge of the importance of stellar imagery in his master’s work, ends with a major piece of misinformation. He states that the justification for the republication of the book lies in the fact “that this book has restored to light the phonetic cabala, whose principles and applications had been completely lost.” While this is somewhat true, Canseliet goes on to conclude that after his and Fulcanelli’s work, “this mother tongue need never be confused with the Jewish Kabbalah.”24 He continues by asserting that “the Jewish Kabbalah is full of transpositions, inversions, substitutions and calculations, as arbitrary as they are abstruse.” Again this is true for many explications of the kabbalistic mystery, but it does not address the issue of the universality of the Tree of Life itself. Canseliet further muddies the water by suggesting that cabala and Kabbalah are derived from different roots. Cabala, he declares, is derived from the Latin caballus, or “horse,” while Kabbalah is derived from the Hebrew word for tradition. On the surface, this is indeed correct, but Canseliet is skillfully avoiding the deeper meanings of both these words, which leads us ultimately to their common root—kaba, the stone. Fulcanelli never voiced such opinions in the body of the book. In Mystery of the Cathedrals, he obliquely refers to the cabala as the “language of the gods” and scorns the “would-be cabalists . . . whether they be Jewish or Christian,” and “the would-be experts, whose illusory combinations lead to nothing concrete.”25 He goes on to say: “Let us leave these doctors of the Kabbalah to their ignorance,” implying those who claimed to be authorities on the Hebrew Kabbalah. He says nothing against the Kabbalah itself but merely notes that it is misunderstood by almost everyone. By implication, Fulcanelli is also saying that he does understand it properly. As we saw in chapter 2, “Isis the Prophetess” points to a Tree of Life motif for its source of wisdom. The Hebrew spelling of Amnael’s name gives us a clue to its nature. Using Hebrew gematria, the letters in the name add up to 123, the number of the three-part name of God, AHH YHVH ELOHIM, associated with the top three sefirot on the Tree of Life, Kether, Chokmah, and Binah (see fig. 2.9). As noted already, if we break the name into Amn and ael, we get the numbers 91 and 32. These are both references to the Tree of Life, 32 being the total number of paths and sefirot and 91 being the number of the Hebrew word amen, AMN, and the word for “tree,” AYLN. Stirling, in his rediscovery of the ancient canon, concludes that the Tree of Life is the pattern that underlies the secret language of symbolism, which is the language expressed by the liberal arts that accompany Alchemy/Philosophy on the base of the middle pillar of the Porch of Judgment. Fulcanelli himself points to the Tree of Life as the key secret in his description of the dragon’s plinth, going so far as to paraphrase the Sefer Yetzirah. Therefore, why should we, on the basis of Canseliet’s prejudice, associate anything else with Fulcanelli’s kabbalistic image pattern? Fulcanelli also instructs us that language is a reflection of the universal Idea, a clear reference to the Word/World Tree. The kabbalistic origins of the art of light, Fulcanelli reminds us, are but a reflection of the divine light. Fulcanelli is not only making use of this kabbalistic Tree of Life pattern, but he is a master of its symbolic subtleties as well. As he unfolds his array of images and concepts, we see the guiding matrix of the ancient Word, the verbum dismissum or lost word of Western esotericism, revealed as the divine World/Word Tree."

The Mysteries of The Great Cross of Hendaye

Alchemy and The End of Time

Jay Weidner and Vincent Bridges

https://dn790009.ca.archive.org/0/items/the-mysteries-of-the-great-cros-jay-weidner/The%20Mysteries%20of%20the%20Great%20Cros%20-%20Jay%20Weidner.pdf

$500 million Perelman Arts Center opens at World Trade Center site

BY DAVE CARLIN

UPDATED ON: SEPTEMBER 13, 2023 / 6:43 PM / CBS NEW YORK

NEW YORK -- There's a new beacon of light for Lower Manhattan. Added to the World Trade Center site is a $500 million center for performance and creative expression.

CBS New York's Dave Carlin was at the grand opening of Perelman Arts Center (PAC NYC).

The giant cube is dazzling and drawing crowds to a shapeshifting arts space.

The grand opening had VIPs, song and dance. Tony Award winner Gavin Creel was joined by ballet students from the Joffrey School.

The chairman of the board for Perelman Arts Center is former mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"Today, we inaugurate the last major piece of the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site," he said.

The center at 251 Fulton St. is the work of REX architecture firm.

"In the core of the building, the heart of the building, are these really dynamic theaters. There's three, and they are extremely reconfigurable," REX founding principal Joshua Ramos said.

The interior space is by the Rockwell Group.

"The combination of elements -- the memorial, the museum. In the performing arts center, you have to come up the stairs, and you're entering a place that's about creativity and art and possibilities," David Rockwell said.

"We need places like this to give us that sense of hope again," Gov. Kathy Hochul said.

"It renews our spirit," Mayor Eric Adams said.

There is a dazzling difference between day and night -- the thin marble panels and a glowing from within this place full of life.

"Being part of the World Trade Center site is so important to our mission," PAC NYC Executive Director Khady Kamara said. "You can walk in anytime we're open."

"We're going to have Marcus Samuelsson's restaurant for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We're going to have free performances on the lobby stage. So I do think just a place to come and hang out," PAC NYC Artistic Director Bill Rausch said.

The theaters are buzzing with activity, setting the stages for the start of performances Sept. 19."

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/perelman-arts-center-world-trade-center/

"Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core." Jude 1:11 

"According to the museum, it is thought that the person had been sitting on the stone step waiting for the bank to open when the heat from the bomb burned the surrounding stone white and left the person's shadow.[3][4] A black deposit was also found on the shadow.[5] A piece of stone containing the artifact (3.3 meters wide by 2 meters high) was cut from the original location and moved to the museum.[6] In January 1971, the museum acquired the stone on which the human SHADOW had become indistinct due to weathering. In April 1975, the museum began research into preserving the shadow.[7] In 1991, the museum reported that earnest investigation of preservation methods had commenced.[8] At present, the stone is surrounded by glass.[9][10] It is thought that the person depicted in the stone died immediately with the flash of the atomic bomb, or after falling down after the explosion.[3][11] Some people stated that they saw the person sitting at the entrance just before the bombing.[12] A former soldier testified that he had recovered the person's body. However, the person's identity is still unknown.[12] As of 2016, the museum exhibit states that "Several people have suggested that the person could be a member of their family". In the past, the museum exhibit contained a statement that the person was a 42-year-old woman named Mitsuno Ochi (越智ミツノ, Ochi Mitsuno).[12] As a result of these previous statements, some conclusions in the literature state that she was the person depicted in the stone. According to museum staff, many visitors to the museum believe that the shadow is the outline of a human vaporized immediately after the bombing.[4] However, the possibility of human vaporization is not supported from a medical perspective. The ground surface temperature is thought to have ranged from 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Celsius just after the bombing. Exposing a body to this level of radiant heat would leave bones and carbonized organs behind. While radiation could severely inflame and ulcerate the skin, complete vaporization of the body is impossible.[4]" 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Shadow_Etched_in_Stone 

"SHADOW government  Look up shadow government in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Not to be confused with Shadow Cabinet. Shadow government may refer to:  Government An opposition grouping in a parliamentary system that mimics the structure of the actual government, in particular its cabinet (see Shadow Cabinet) A term for plans for an emergency government that takes over in the event of a disaster, see continuity of government A government-in-exile Shadow government (conspiracy), a conspiracy theory of a secret government" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_government 

Martin Wright[1] (born July 15, 1964),[1] better known by the ring name The Boogeyman, is an American professional wrestler. and fitness instructor. He is currently signed to WWE under a legends contract.[4]

Professional wrestling career

World Wrestling Entertainment (2004–2009)

Tough Enough and Ohio Valley Wrestling (2004–2005)

Wright first entered the world of professional wrestling to take part in the fourth season of the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) produced reality television competition Tough Enough. On October 15, 2004, he attended the two-day event in Venice Beach, California, where he was among eight finalists chosen. After surviving the first day of eliminations he admitted that he was actually 40 years old—five years over the competition's cut off point—and not 30 as he'd claimed.[1] As a result, he was cut from the competition.[1]

Though he had been cut from Tough Enough, WWE officials invited him to come to their developmental territory Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) for possible training. He trained between January and June 2005, making his OVW debut on June 25, 2005. During a dark match pitting the team of Seth Skyfire and Robert Fury against Robbie Dawber and his partner, Wright entered the ring and squashed all three men, no-selling the offense of Skyfire in the process. He then announced that he was "The Boogeyman" before leaving the building. The Boogeyman gimmick further evolved into a "monster" face who would appear when another wrestler said his name and attack him, while not selling any offense he received.

SmackDown! (2005–2007)

On the July 11, 2005 episode of Raw, horror movie-style vignettes began airing to promote the debut of his "The Boogeyman" gimmick, a horror-themed, disturbing, worm-devouring, Beetlejuice-like freak of nature.[5] After a few weeks, the vignettes were moved from Raw to SmackDown!, but the planned debut was delayed when Wright hyperextended both knees and needed time to recover. He made his debut on the October 14, 2005 episode of SmackDown!, being brought in by network executive Palmer Canon as part of a "new talent initiative". The storyline referenced to vignettes months ago as promos for a television series on the network called "The Boogeyman". The show was cancelled before it could air, but they still had the actor under contract, so he was brought to SmackDown! to wrestle. The Boogeyman then proceeded to recite a modified version of the chant One, two, Freddy's coming for you from the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street before smashing an oversized alarm clock on his own head.[6] For the next few weeks, The Boogeyman appeared in unexpected places backstage (closets, vans, et cetera), reciting different nursery rhymes and holding up clocks before screaming his catchphrase "I'm The Boogeyman and I'm comin' to get'cha!" and laughing maniacally.

At Survivor Series, The Boogeyman helped SmackDown! general manager Theodore Long defeat his Raw counterpart, Eric Bischoff.[7] He made his official in-ring debut on the December 2 episode of SmackDown!, defeating Simon Dean in a squash. During this match, he took a handful of live worms from his pocket and stuffed them into his mouth.[8] Over the next few weeks, The Boogeyman's opponents were generally "flattened" in the ring, left with worms in their mouths and/or spit on their faces. His official pay-per-view debut was at December's Armageddon when he came to the ring to confront Vito and Nunzio who were dressed as Santa Claus and an elf.[9]

The Boogeyman's first major feud occurred with John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL) and his "fixer" Jillian Hall, and it began when he stalked the duo throughout a number of shows. During the January 6 episode of SmackDown!, he caught a fleeing Hall and shoved worms down the back of her skirt.[10] On the January 13 taping of SmackDown!, during a Piper's Pit segment, The Boogeyman not only sniffed a "growth" on Jillian's face, but then licked it, bit it off and ate it.[11] The Boogeyman faced JBL at the Royal Rumble, winning in under two minutes.[12]

After defeating The Dicks in a handicap match on the February 24 episode of SmackDown!, The Boogeyman dumped a bucket of worms on the announce table, frightening special guest commentators Booker T and his wife Sharmell.[13] The Boogeyman subsequently began to stalk Booker T and Sharmell over the next few weeks. He and Booker T were set to face off on the March 18 Saturday Night's Main Event XXXII, but the match was canceled due to Booker T faking a knee injury to escape competition.[14] The feud eventually culminated at WrestleMania 22, with The Boogeyman defeating Booker T and Sharmell in a handicap match.[15] During the match, The Boogeyman kissed Sharmell with a mouthful of worms.[15] The match had to be cut short because of a biceps tear at a house show. To explain his absence to rehab his injury, Booker T and Sharmell obtained a restraining order against The Boogeyman on the April 7 episode of SmackDown!.[16]

As SummerSlam approached, The Boogeyman began appearing in TV spots to promote the event. Vignettes also began airing advertising his return to SmackDown!. On September 20, WWE.com reported that Wright had been released from the company,[17] however, on October 6, WWE.com announced that Wright had re-signed with the company and would be sent to be trained at Booker T and Stevie Ray's wrestling school in Houston, Texas. Wright returned on the October 27 episode of SmackDown!, attacking and spitting worms into the faces of The Miz and Kristal Marshall.[18] During the feud he again terrorized and stalked his opponents, and eventually ended The Miz's undefeated streak at the Armageddon pay-per-view on December 17.[19]

Wright then feuded with Finlay, who ended The Boogeyman's undefeated streak when Hornswoggle interfered. On the February 2 edition of SmackDown! during a match against Chris Benoit for the WWE United States Championship, The Boogeyman abducted Hornswoggle, distracting Finlay and giving Benoit a chance to win the match with a roll-up. On the February 16 edition of SmackDown! The Boogeyman appeared with a little person of his own, Little Boogeyman, who was portrayed by an actor named Chris Hollyfield. His purpose was to counteract Hornswoggle, who was proving a problem in one-on-one matches with Finlay. The Boogeyman and Little Boogeyman lost to Finlay and Hornswoggle in a mixed tag team match at No Way Out. The team lost a rematch the following week on SmackDown!; Little Boogeyman was pinned by Finlay, after Wright had chased away Hornswoggle.

On OVW's 400th anniversary show, The Boogeyman made an appearance, losing to Ryan Wilson in a tables match. The Boogeyman returned to in ring action when teamed with Kane during his feud with William Regal and Dave Taylor. This also marked the return of Little Boogeyman. The feud would be short lived as The Boogeyman and Little Boogeyman would then start another feud with Finlay and Hornswoggle. The Boogeyman and Little Boogeyman were defeated in a mixed tag team match by Finlay and Hornswoggle at Saturday Night's Main Event XXXIV on June 2.

The Boogeyman ended his tenure on SmackDown! with a loss to Mark Henry in a squash match, as part of Henry's new "Path of Destruction" gimmick. After that match, Mark Henry then beat up Little Boogeyman who was at ringside, and Henry gave him a body splash, (kayfabe) severely injuring him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boogeyman_(wrestler) 

"Fluorine in stone meteorites

George W. Reed Jr. ∗ ∗

Physikalishes Institut, Universität Bern, Bern, Switzerland∗

Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois USA

The fluorine content of stony meteorites was measured by F18 produced by an activation technique. Different classes of chondrites, enstatite, ‘ordinary’ and pigeonite-Wiik Class III, contain amounts of fluorine, 238, 121 and 66 ppm respectively that in a sense reflect their state of oxidation. In general, the fluorine concentration within a class of stone meteorites is fairly constant. The enstatite chondrite, Hvittis, seems to be an exception. Two Ca-rich and one Ca-poor achondrites contain about 63 and 11 ppm F, respectively. An atomic abundance of 1.6 × 103atoms F/106 atoms Si postulated by Stress and Urey (1956) was confirmed."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0016703764900195

"Medical Geological assessment of fluoride contaminated groundwater in parts of Indo-Gangetic Alluvial plains

As drinking water is considered as a major pathway of exposure to fluoride in the human body, an endeavor has been made for the assessment of the non-carcinogenic health risk by using hazard quotient (HQ) of fluoride for males, females, and children separately in fluoride affected ground water areas of Indo-Gangetic Alluvial Plains. The study suggests that children groups are more prone to the non-carcinogenic risk of fluoride in the area as HQ for fluoride is more than unitary in 44% (Pre-monsoon) and 38% (Post-monsoon) samples respectively. Field survey conducted in fluoride-affected villagers of the study area portrays cases of mottling of teeth and bone deformities depending on the duration and dosage of fluoride consumption. Petrographic observations of host rocks coupled with molar ratios of chemical species studies exemplify that weathered material developed over the granite-gneiss, mica-schist, amphibolite, granitic intrusive and pegmatite veins due to weathering and extensive water-rock interaction resulting higher concentration of fluoride in groundwater. Likewise, the base exchange index (r1) and meteoric genesis index (r2) advocates that most of the samples belong to Na+-HCO3− type and meteoric origin respectively, and substantiate longer residence time of water along with solute acquisition processes are responsible for elevated fluoride in groundwater. It is, therefore, solar energy-driven electrolytic de-fluoridation technology ought to be provided on a priority basis to the affected inhabitants besides the implementation of rainwater harvesting schemes for mitigation/ dilution of elevated fluoride concentration."

"Several clinical studies and researches have been conducted to find out the impact of fluoride concentration in drinking water on human health. It is a well-known fact that fluoride (F−) at low concentration (<0.5 mg/L) induces dental caries, which enhances the risk of tooth decay1,2. On the other hand, ingestion of excessive fluoride imparts adverse effect on human health3. It is a well-established fact that elevated F− concentration in drinking water is linked to dental and skeletal fluorosis depending on the amount of intake and duration of exposure4,5. Excessive fluoride can also damage structure, function and metabolism of soft tissues such as kidney, liver, lung and testicles6–9. Various clinical studies suggest that ingestion of excessive fluoride promotes physiological dysfunctions like mutagenesis, immune suppression, carcinogenesis and growth retardation3,10. At times, higher concentrations of fluoride can also promote neuro-toxicological effects11,12. Several studies indicate that exposure of excessive fluoride does impart the vulnerable effect on the mental ability of the children. Choi et al.13 suggests that children with exposure to high fluoride were found with significantly lower IQ compared to children residing in low fluoride areas13. Fluoride easily reaches the placenta, and exposure to fluoride may permanently harm the foetus14. In the human body, the thyroid gland is the most sensitive tissue to the fluoride and exposure to fluoride raises TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) concentration and decreases T3 and T4 concentration, thereby resulting in hypothyroidism15,16. In several studies, it has been pointed out that prolonged exposure of fluoride from drinking water does develop insulin resistance in human beings17,18. Excessive consumption of fluoride ultimately leads to hyperglycemia and impaired glucose tolerance19,20. While some studies showed that exposure to high fluoride may induce adverse impact on human reproductive system, leading to infertility problems and low body weight of neonates3,21,22. Osteosarcoma is known as a potential cancer target site due to fluoride deposition in bone23,24. Cohn (1992) observed that the association of fluoride in public water with an increased incidence of osteosarcoma in young males25."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6838337/

"In New York, some new activists take up old war on fluoride

At a public meeting in New York City last month, the topic was supposed to be the state’s $8 billion Medicaid waiver program. But when 13 anti-fluoride activists took the microphone to protest the use of Medicaid funds for fluoride, it became something unexpected.

A 16-year-old high school student skipped class to talk about what she said was an allergic reaction to a fluoride treatment. A woman waved children’s toothpaste at Jason Helgerson, the state’s Medicaid director. A nutritionist claimed the Nazis used fluoride to keep people docile. And a young woman whipped out a ukulele to sing a ditty she wrote entitled “Get the F Out of Our Water.”

The anti-fluoride fight, which began 70 years ago when when municipal and county governments began fluoridating water after World War II, has seen a resurgence in New York in recent months. A cause once associated with Cold War anxieties and government conspiracies has been adopted by a new generation of environmental activists in blue states like New York and Oregon.

In New York, a seemingly innocuous provision in the state budget, called the “Healthy Teeth Amendment,” gave health commissioner Howard Zucker $3.5 million in Medicaid funds to award to communities looking to fluoridate the water supply. The law also requires communities that are ending fluoridation to provide an alternative.

“I think it’s really outrageous and quite frankly offensive,” Michael Connett, executive director of anti-fluoride group Fluoride Action Network, said of the use of Medicaid savings for water fluoridation.

Protests and meeting takeovers could continue in upcoming months, as Albany County hopes to fluoridate the water supply, a pro-fluoride group Cavity Free Cortland is pushing that municipality’s City Council to fluoridate the water.

The anti-fluoride activists in New York come from two groups, the New York Coalition Against Artificial Fluoridation and the Fluoride Action Network. CAAF was founded last year to focus specifically on New York City, where all of the water supply is fluoridated, and had 12 members at its first meeting in 2015. They write to City Council members, explaining their views and post links to articles they believe support their cause.

In 2011, Peter Vallone, then a member of the City Council, sponsored a bill with now Public Advocate Letitia James and Councilmembers Fernando Cabrera, Elizabeth Crowley, Jumaane Williams and Daniel Halloran, that would have prohibited the addition of fluoride to the New York City water system. New York has been adding fluoride to its water since 1965.

At the time, Vallone said fluoridation amounted “to forced medication by the government.”

The bill went nowhere. Vallone did not respond to requests for comment about his current position.

Vallone, a Democrat from Queens, is not the type of politician who would have been associated with the anti-fluoride movement 60 years ago, when far-right anti-communist groups like the John Birch Society drove the anti-fluoride fight.

Historically, anti-fluoridation has been associated with Republican-leaning states and far-right groups, but in recent years, the movement has shifted into the liberal fringes.

Anti-fluoride activists have taken action in Washington state and Pennsylvania, and an anti-fluoride fight in Albuquerque, New Mexico, caused the water utility authority to remove funding for more fluoride from the 2017 budget. Portland, Oregon has voted against fluoridating its water supply on four occasions since 1956, most recently in 2013.

Fluoride Action Network, founded in 2000, has 36,000 people on its national mailing list. The group orchestrates protests around the country, and hijacked the 60th birthday party of fluoride in Chicago in 2005.

FAN was started by Paul Connett, Michael Connett’s father and a retired chemistry professor who rose to prominence in the late 1980’s after working to end barrel waste burning, arguing that the practice released harmful chemicals into the atmosphere. At first, experts denied Connett’s research on waste burning, but ultimately it was widely accepted by the scientific community. As for his fluoride research, however, medical experts renounce his claims en masse.

The American Dental Association, American Medical Association, Academy of General Dentistry, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, and a nearly endless list of other American academies and associations all denounce Connett’s work and have endorsed community fluoridation.

“Pretty much every reputable medical body in the world would agree,” said Kate Breslin, the president and CEO of the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that is part of the long list of fluoride advocates.

As fluoridated water became increasingly popular in the United States, the average number of decayed, filled, or missing teeth in 12 year olds fell 68 percent between 1966 and 1994, and a 2011 study found that children living in non-fluoridated areas were 32 percent more likely to have tooth decay.

The public health benefits of fluoridated water have also been effective in reducing the socioeconomic disparities of dental disease, which is more prevalent in low-income communities, according to the Schuyler Center.

But its critics remain.

Many say they simply don’t like the government making health decisions for its citizens.

“If you want to buy toothpaste with fluoride in it go right ahead,” said Sharon Nibor, the head of the New York Coalition Against Artificial Fluoridation. “Just don’t drink it.”

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Nibor recently discussed her views with a reporter at a Manhattan restaurant, where she didn’t drink the water. She said that the last name she uses in her anti-fluoridation advocacy, Nibor, is a pseudonym. She works in one of the city’s public hospitals and is afraid she could lose her job if she “comes out” as an anti-fluoridationist.

“I just found that if you mention the word fluoride, people look at you like, ‘Oh God, really? You’re one of those? You’re in the boat with all those crazies out there who think that you should be wearing a tin hat at night so that aliens don’t muck up your mind?’'' Nibor said.

Some people, she said, think fluoride is a vast conspiracy to dumb down the masses.

“It does dumb you down, but I don’t think they knew that back then,” Nibor said referring to the early days of fluoride. “Nobody wants that.”

Nibor instead believes that medical professionals are simply ignorant of the damage they’re doing because they haven’t read the science that purports to show that fluoride is dangerous.

Though CAAF and FAN insist the science is on their side, the groups’ members recognize that their message may attract people who push anti-government conspiracies or oppose vaccines.

But that’s not what they want their focus to be, nor do they want their message to be muddled.

“We’re totally science-based,” said Carol Kopf, FAN’s media director.

FAN and CAAF supporters often point to a 2015 Cochrane study that, they say, shows the benefits of fluoride to be “lukewarm at best,” and they often promote a 2006 National Academies of Science report tying high levels of fluoride to endocrine disruption, fertility issues, and even Down Syndrome. That report, however, looked at the effects of fluoride at two and four mg/L, much higher than the .7 mg/L level that is put into water systems.

The Schuyler Center responded to the anti-fluoride promotion of the Cochran study in an email, saying, “Anti-fluoridationists so abused the Plain Language Summary (PLS) of the Cochrane Review that the Cochrane Oral Health Group (COHG) rewrote their Plain Language Summary.”

As for the National Academies of Science report, the Schuyler Center’s Bridget Walsh said, “The fact that FAN consistently misrepresents the … report is proof that they are willing to misrepresent the facts if they think it will help them scare people.”

Fear of the water is nothing new, said David Rosner, a professor at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health.

“When you think about water and water provision, you think about some of the most terrible public health crises in history,” he said, referring to typhoid and cholera as well as the lead poisoning scandal in Flint, Michigan.

“The way I see the anti-fluoride people is that some of what are part of this older tradition where they suspect government,” he said. “Others are more right-wing activists,” and others, he said, are environmentalists concerned about chemicals in water.

Rosner also sees the resistance to fluoride as a symbol of larger resistance to the state, “a modern version of antagonism to the New Deal, experts, and professionals.”

“It’s a really toxic brew of folks who have these deep roots of distrust of authority and real concerns about what we’re doing to ourselves chemically,” Rosner said. “You mix that up with some anti-authoritarianism” and the result is a group like FAN, he said, who called mass access to clean, safe water “the greatest public health victory” of all time.

Connett, FAN’s executive director, disputed Rosner’s characterization of anti-fluoridationists. “There’s a lot of preconceptions that have been built up over the years that makes it hard for people to just look at this anew and not just see it as right-wing garbage,” he said.

Connett said he is a Democrat.

“I’m a big supporter of universal health care,” he said, “but when you look below the surface [at fluoride], this is not health care. … It’s perfectly executed public relations.”

https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2016/06/anti-fluoride-fight-sees-resurgence-102487

What Is the Wormwood Star That Shows Up in the End Times?

Sometimes we come across interesting words or phrases in the Bible that we don’t recognize, words with odd histories. The “wormwood star” is one of those words. Wormwood is a transliteration into English of a Greek and a Hebrew word—much like how “hell” is a transliteration of the actual word Jesus used, “Gehenna.” The wormwood star appears in Revelation as a dark omen of terrible punishment, with strange associations behind it.

What Is the Wormwood Star?

The wormwood star is mentioned in Revelation 8. Earlier in Revelation 6, a Lamb has begun breaking open seven seals on a scroll. Each broken seal results in something happening, often cataclysmic. For example, when the sixth seal is broken, an earthquake occurs (Revelation 6:12-17). When the last seal is broken, seven angels blow seven trumpets and shocking events follow. The Wormwood star appears when the third angel gets involved:

“The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter” Revelation 8:10-11.

Depending on which Bible translation you read, the name of the star may be listed as “Bitterness” rather than Wormwood.

What Does the Wormwood Star Do in Revelation?

As established in the Bible quote above, the wormwood star falls into water sources, and it poisons waters. The Bible specifically starts that a third of the rivers were poisoned, which is interesting since three is an important number that occurs many times in the Bible. It also shows up other places within Revelation 8: after the fourth trumpet is blown, one-third of the moon, stars and sun are darkened (Revelation 8:12). Later, after the sixth trumpet is blown, one-third of the earth’s people are destroyed in fire and sulfur (Revelation 9:12-18).

The fact that the wormwood star poisons water is unusual since we don’t classically think of stars having that sort of effect. One could see it as being a toxic meteorite that poisons water supplies if one reads Revelation that literally. On the other hand, Revelation 9:1-11 describes a star that falls to the earth and is described in an anthropomorphic way (given human characteristics). This star is described as being given a key, which the star uses to unlock “the shaft of the Abyss” and bring pestilence on the earth.

Amos 6:12 talks about the fruit of righteousness turning into hemlock, a similar usage. Some articles list this verse as another usage of “wormwood,” although the root word is different.

All the Old Testament uses of l’anah create a certain image: things turning bitter, or people eating something bitter. This image of bitterness fits with the idea that the wormwood star makes water bitter, like putting a toxic root or plant into a well. It’s also interesting to note that in these passages, the people eating wormwood are being punished for sins, individual sins, or collective ones that the nation of Israel has committed. A few times, wormwood refers to something being turned bitter (something that looks good turning out to be poisonous, people poisoning each other with sin), but the vast majority of the time, it has to do with punishment. The various calamities in Revelation 8 have been interpreted as humans taking the full punishment for their sins (rejecting God in favor of idolatry and debauchery).

4 Fun Facts about Wormwood

While wormwood is certainly one of the more obscure words in the Bible, it has worked its way into modern usage in interesting ways. This is partly because it’s a name for a certain notorious plant, but also because a famous Christian apologist made it very popular through one of his books. Here are four interesting things about wormwood:

It’s the same thing as absinthe. In botany, wormwood is one of several popular names for Artemisia absinthium, a moderately poisonous plant used for various medical and cosmetic purposes. One of its more notorious purposes is it can be brewed to create the alcoholic beverage absinthe. Given that it’s a poisonous plant, it’s probably what the King James translators were thinking of when they used the word. Given that the Old Testament appears to be talking about a similar poisonous plant, it would be interesting to see a study on what plant the Old Testament was referring to and if it can be compared to modern-day wormwood.

C.S. Lewis talks about it. Probably the most famous use of “wormwood” outside of the Bible is in C.S. Lewis’ 1942 novel The Screwtape Letters. The novel collects satirical letters supposedly written from an experienced demon named Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood, advising him on how to corrupt humans. The book was one of Lewis’ first big successors as a novelist and is still widely read today.

It’s in a Marvel comic. In 1994, Marvel Comics released a comic book adaptation of The Screwtape Letters, which today is a collector’s item and has been described as looking like the Archie comics, only more diabolical. This may sound like an odd choice for Marvel, and it is. Tyler Huckabee has suggested that the primary reason Marvel chose to adapt The Screwtape Letters is the company was going through a rough economic patch and looking for anything they could use to get new readers.

It’s in Calvin and Hobbes. When C.S. Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters, he probably didn’t expect that it would ever get adapted into a comic book, much less that it would inspire comic strips. Bill Watterson’s highly successful comic strip Calvin and Hobbes includes an elementary school teacher named Miss Wormwood, who suffers the indignity of teaching Calvin and putting up with his shenanigans. Watterson admitted in The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book that Miss Wormwood is named after the character in The Screwtape Letters, while Calvin is named after “a 16th-century theologian who believed in predestination” (i.e. John Calvin).

G. Connor Salter is a writer and editor, with a Bachelor of Science in Professional Writing from Taylor University. In 2020, he won First Prize for Best Feature Story in a regional contest by the Colorado Press Association Network. He has contributed over 1,200 articles to various publications, including interviews for Christian Communicator and book reviews for The Evangelical Church Library Association."

https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/what-is-the-wormwood-star-that-shows-up-in-the-end-times.html

Year Day First Day of Spring Falls on First Day of Spring

2034 Monday March 20, 2034

https://www.primarygames.com/seasons/spring/when_is_spring.php

March 2034 Moon Details

The Full Moon for this month will occur early in the month on Sunday, March 5th. The New Moon will happen later in March on Monday, March 20th.

https://www.moongiant.com/moonphases/march/2034/#:~:text=March%202034%20Moon%20Details,March%20on%20Monday%2C%20March%2020th. 

The Twilight Saga: New Moon (or simply New Moon) is a 2009 American romantic fantasy film directed by Chris Weitz from a screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg, based on the 2006 novel New Moon by Stephenie Meyer.[2] It is the sequel to Twilight (2008) and the second installment in The Twilight Saga film series. The film stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner, reprising their roles as Bella Swan, Edward Cullen, and Jacob Black, respectively.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_Saga:_New_Moon

Jeremiah 27:6

6 iNow I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, jmy servant, kand I have given him also the beasts of the field to serve him.

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Jeremiah 43:10

10 and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, zmy servant, aand I will set his throne above these stones that I have hidden, and he will spread his royal canopy over them.

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Isaiah 44:28

28  who says of mCyrus, ‘He is nmy shepherd,

and he shall fulfill all my purpose’;

saying of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be built,’

oand of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’”

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Isaiah 45:1

Cyrus, God’s Instrument

1  Thus says the Lord to phis anointed, to Cyrus,

qwhose right hand I have grasped,

to subdue nations before him

and rto loose the belts of kings,

to open doors before him

that gates may not be closed:

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Ezekiel 29:18–20

18 m“Son of man, nNebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made his army labor hard against Tyre. Every head was made bald, and every shoulder was rubbed bare, yet neither he nor his army got anything from Tyre to pay for the labor that he had performed against her. 19 Therefore thus says the Lord God: oBehold, I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; pand he shall carry off its wealth1 qand despoil it and plunder it; and it shall be the wages for his army. 20 rI have given him the land of Egypt as his payment for which he labored, because they worked for me, declares the Lord God.

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https://www.esv.org/Jeremiah+27:6;Jeremiah+43:10;Isaiah+44:28;Isaiah+45:1;Ezekiel+29:18%E2%80%9320/  

A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important question.[1] It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences toward a false conclusion. A red herring may be used intentionally, as in mystery fiction or as part of rhetorical strategies (e.g., in politics), or may be used in argumentation inadvertently.[2]

The term was popularized in 1807 by English polemicist William Cobbett, who told a story of having used a strong-smelling smoked fish to divert and distract hounds from chasing a rabbit.[3]

Logical fallacy

As an informal fallacy, the red herring falls into a broad class of relevance fallacies. Unlike the straw man, which involves a distortion of the other party's position,[4] the red herring is a seemingly plausible, though ultimately irrelevant, diversionary tactic.[5] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a red herring may be intentional or unintentional; it is not necessarily a conscious intent to mislead.[1]

The expression is mainly used to assert that an argument is not relevant to the issue being discussed. For example, "I think we should make the academic requirements stricter for students. I recommend you support this because we are in a budget crisis, and we do not want our salaries affected." The second sentence, though used to support the first sentence, does not address that topic.

Intentional device

In fiction and non-fiction, a red herring may be intentionally used by the writer to plant a false clue that leads readers or audiences toward a false conclusion.[6][7][8] For example, the character of Bishop Aringarosa in Dan BROWN's The Da Vinci Code is presented for most of the novel as if he is at the centre of the church's conspiracies, but is later revealed to have been innocently duped by the true antagonist of the story. The character's name is a loose Italian translation of "red herring" (aringa rosa; rosa actually meaning 'pink', and very close to rossa, 'red').[9]

A red herring is found in the first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, where the murderer writes at the crime scene the word Rache ('revenge' in German), leading the police—and the reader—to mistakenly presume that a German was involved.

A red herring is often used in legal studies and exam problems to mislead and distract students from reaching a correct conclusion about a legal issue, intended as a device that tests students' comprehension of underlying law and their ability to properly discern material factual circumstances.[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring

In 1990, Harris was hired as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California, where she was described as "an able prosecutor on the way up".[37] In 1994, Speaker of the California Assembly Willie BROWN, who was then dating Harris, appointed her to the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and later to the California Medical Assistance Commission.[37] In February 1998, San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan recruited Harris as an assistant district attorney.[38] There, she became the chief of the Career Criminal Division, supervising five other attorneys, where she prosecuted homicide, burglary, robbery, and sexual assault cases—particularly three-strikes cases. In August 2000, Harris took a job at San Francisco City Hall, working for city attorney Louise Renne.[39] Harris ran the Family and Children's Services Division, representing child abuse and neglect cases. Renne endorsed Harris during her D.A. campaign.[40]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris

Donald Jasper Harris, OM (born August 23, 1938) is a Jamaican-American economist and professor emeritus at Stanford University, known for applying post-Keynesian ideas to development economics.[1]

He is the father of US Vice President and current Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris and lawyer Maya Harris.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris 

Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump 

Danney Lee Williams Jr. (born December 7, 1985) is a man from Little Rock, Arkansas who claims to be the biological son of Bill Clinton, the former President of the United States.[1] Blood tests ruled out Clinton as the father.[1][2]

Background

Williams was born in 1985 to Danney Williams Sr. and Bobbie Ann Williams.

The story came to notice in the late 1990s when reporting by Newsmax led by celebrity tabloid magazine Star to commission a paternity test prove whether Williams is actually Clinton's biological son.[3] Time magazine cited Star on July 18, 1999 to say that there was no match.[4]

The story was revived in 2016 before the 2016 presidential election and pushed by a number of media outlets including Newsmax, the Drudge Report,[3] as well as WorldNetDaily,[1] and the New York Daily News.[1]

Due to some uncertainties with the original test by Star, Snopes concluded that the claim was unproven.[3] The Washington Post stated that, while the test could not prove Clinton was the father, it did conclusively rule him out as the father.[1]

On October 19, 2016, Williams' lawyers announced their intentions to file a paternity suit to prove that Clinton's DNA matched Williams'.[5] Williams wrote to Monica Lewinsky asking for her dress in order to obtain a sample of Clinton's DNA. However, Lewinsky never replied to Williams.[6] A partial analysis of Clinton's blood, and thus his DNA, was already part of the public record because of the Lewinsky affair investigation.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danney_Williams 

Thomas Trace Beatie (born 1974[1]) is an American public speaker, author, and advocate of transgender rights and sexuality issues, with a focus on transgender fertility and reproductive rights.[2]

Beatie came out as a trans man in early 1997. Beatie had gender-affirming surgery in March 2002 and became known as "the pregnant man" after he became pregnant through artificial insemination in 2007.[3] Beatie chose to be pregnant, with donated sperm,[4][5] because his wife Nancy was sterile.

The couple filed for divorce in 2012. The Beatie case is the first of its kind on record, where a documented legal male gave birth within a marriage to a woman, and for the first time, a court challenged a marriage where the husband gave birth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Beatie 

Exoteric Masonry, which is only the husks of the Mystic Order formed by the Sons of Cain has in modern times attracted the masculine element with its positively polarized physical vehicles, and educated them in industry and statecraft, thus controlling the material development of the world. The sons of Seth, constituting themselves the Priestcraft have worked their spell over the positive vital bodies of the feminine element to dominate the spiritual development. And whereas, the sons of Cain working through Freemasonry and kindred movements, have openly fought for the temporal power, the Priestcraft has fought as strenuously and perhaps more effectively, by stealth, to retain their monopoly upon the spiritual development of the feminine element. To the casual onlooker it would seem as if there were no decided antagonism between these two movements at the present time, but though Freemasonry of today is but a shell of its true ancient mystic self, and though Catholicism has been terribly tarnished by the touch of time, in that one thing there is no difference, the war is as keen as ever, the efforts of the Church are not concentrated upon the masses however as much as upon those who are seeking to live the higher life, so that they may gain admission to the Mystery Temple and learn how to make the Philosophers’ Stone. As mankind advances in evolution, the vital body becomes more permanently positively polarized giving to both sexes a greater desire for spirituality, and though we change from the masculine to feminine in alternate embodiment, positive polarity of the vital body is becoming more pronounced regardless of sex, and this accounts for the growing tendency towards Altruism which is even being brought out by the suffering entailed by the great war we are now fighting, for all agree that they are seeking to obtain a lasting peace where the swords may be made into plowshares, and the spears into pruning hooks. In the past humanity has been claiming universal brotherhood as a great ideal, but we must come closer than that to be in full accord with the Christ. He said to his Disciples “ye are my friends.” Among brothers and sisters hate and enmity may exist, but friendship is the expression of love and cannot exist apart from that. This is therefore the magic word which will eventually level all distinctions, bring peace upon earth and goodwill among men. This is the great Ideal proclaimed by the Rosicrucian Fellowship, an Ideal which points the shortest way to the New Heaven and the New Earth, where the sons of Cain and the sons of Seth will eventually be united.

FREEMASONRY AND CATHOLICISM

by MAX HEINDEL

https://dn720206.ca.archive.org/0/items/freemasonryandca017137mbp/freemasonryandca017137mbp.pdf 

About the future in store for the Sons of Cain and their followers the temple legend is also most eloquent. It states that from Cain descended Methuselah, who invented writing, Tubal Cain, a cunning worker in metals, and Jubal, who originated music. In short the Sons of Cain are the originators of the arts and crafts. Therefore when Jehovah chose Solomon, the scion of the race of Seth, to build a house for his name, the sublime spirituality of a long line of divinely guided ancestors flowered into conception of the magnificent temple called Solomon’s Temple, though he was only the instrument to carry over the divine plan revealed by Jehovah to David. But he was unable to execute the divine design in a material manner. Therefore it became necessary for him to apply to King Hiram, of Tyre, the descendent of Cain, who selected Hiram Abiff, the son of a widow, (as all Free Masons are called because of the relation of their divine progenitor with Eve). Hiram Abiff became then Grand Master of the army of construction. In him the arts and crafts of all the Sons of Cain who had gone before had flowered. He was skilled beyond all others in the work of the world, without which the plan of Jehovah must have remained a divine dream forever. It could never have become a concrete reality. The worldly acumen of the Sons of Cain was as necessary to the completion of this temple as the spiritual conception of the Sons of Seth, and, therefore, during the period of construction the two classes joined forces, the underlying enmity was hidden under a superficial show of amity. It was, indeed, the first attempt to unite them, and had that been accomplished the world history from then on would have been altered in a very material manner. The Sons of Cain, descended from the fiery Lucifer Spirits, were naturally proficient in the use of fire. By it they melted the metals hoarded by Solomon and his ancestors into altars, lavers and vessels of various kinds. Pillars were fashioned by workmen under his direction and arches to rest upon by them. The great edifice was nearing completion and Hiram Abiff made ready to cast the “molten sea,” which was to be the crowning effort, his masterpiece. It was in the construction of this great work that the treachery of the Sons of Seth became manifest and frustrated the divine plan of reconciliation when they tried to quench his fire with their natural weapon, water, and almost succeeded. The incidents which led up to this catastrophe, their meaning and the sequel will be related in the next chapter.

FREEMASONRY AND CATHOLICISM

by MAX HEINDEL

https://dn720206.ca.archive.org/0/items/freemasonryandca017137mbp/freemasonryandca017137mbp.pdf

Jasmine (also known as the Blessed Devourer,[1] the Beast Master,[2] and Cordelia Chase,[3] true name unpronounceable by human tongues)[1] was a rogue member of the Powers That Be.[4] Jasmine was the "Big Bad" that Angel Investigations had to deal with in 2003.[1]

After she achieved a corporeal form on Earth, Jasmine intended to become ruler of the world to bring world peace. The catch, however, was that Jasmine's vision of world peace was a lack of free will, wherein all humans would be mindlessly and unquestioningly devoted to her,[1] and she had to consume biological matter in order to maintain her supernatural powers.[5]

According to her servant Skip — a demon in secret contact with Jasmine, but openly friends with Cordelia — Jasmine arranged for many of the events in the lives of the Angel Investigations staff to align players as necessary in order to create the opportunity to come to Earth. These events included Lorne's arrival on Earth, Angel's move from Sunnydale to Los Angeles, the passing of Doyle's visions to Cordelia, Cordelia's later transformation into half-demon and her ascension into the realm of The Powers, the birth of Connor, and the coming of the Beast.[2]

Jasmine could also be considered the final event of the Tro-Clon, a confluence of events destined to bring about the ruination and/or purification of mankind.[6] 

https://buffy.fandom.com/wiki/Jasmine

phantasmagoria (n.)

"fantastic series or medley of illusive or terrifying figures or images," 1802, the name of a magic lantern exhibition brought to London in 1802 by Parisian showman Paul de Philipstal. The name is an alteration of French phantasmagorie, which is said to have been coined 1801 by French dramatist Louis-Sébastien Mercier as though to mean "crowd of phantoms," from Greek phantasma "image, phantom, apparition" (from PIE root *bha- (1) "to shine").

The second element appears to be a French form of Greek agora "assembly. "But the inventor of the word prob. only wanted a mouth-filling and startling term, and may have fixed on -agoria without any reference to the Greek lexicon" [OED]. The transferred meaning "shifting scene of many elements" is attested from 1822. Related: Phantasmagorical.

In Philipstal's 'phantasmagoria' the figures were made rapidly to increase and decrease in size, to advance and retreat, dissolve, vanish, and pass into each other, in a manner then considered marvellous. [OED]

also from 1802

Entries linking to phantasmagoria

*bha- (1)

*bhā-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to shine."

It forms all or part of: aphotic; bandolier; banner; banneret; beacon; beckon; buoy; diaphanous; emphasis; epiphany; fantasia; fantasy; hierophant; pant (v.); -phane; phanero-; phantasm; phantasmagoria; phantom; phase; phene; phenetic; pheno-; phenology; phenomenon; phenyl; photic; photo-; photocopy; photogenic; photograph; photon; photosynthesis; phosphorus; phaeton; sycophant; theophany; tiffany; tryptophan.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit bhati "shines, glitters;" Greek phainein "bring to light, make appear," phantazein "make visible, display;" Old Irish ban "white, light, ray of light."

https://www.etymonline.com/word/phantasmagoria

Tracey Ullman (born Trace Ullman; 30 December 1959)[1] is a British-American actress, comedian, singer, dancer, screenwriter, producer, and director. Critics have lauded her ability to shift seamlessly in and out of character and accents, with many dubbing her the "female Peter Sellers".[2][3][4] Her earliest mainstream appearances were on British television sketch comedy shows A Kick Up the Eighties (with Rik Mayall and Miriam Margolyes) and Three of a Kind (with Lenny Henry and David Copperfield). After a brief singing career (which garnered three top-ten singles), she appeared as Candice Valentine in Girls on Top with Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.

Ullman emigrated from the United Kingdom to the United States. She would go on to star in her own network television comedy series, The Tracey Ullman Show from 1987 until 1990, which also featured the first appearances of the long-running animated media franchise The Simpsons. She later produced programmes for HBO, including Tracey Takes On... (1996–99) garnering numerous awards. Her sketch comedy series Tracey Ullman's State of the Union ran from 2008 to 2010 on Showtime. She has appeared in several feature films.[5]

In 2016, she returned to British television with the BBC sketch comedy show Tracey Ullman's Show, her first project for the broadcaster in over 30 years.[6] This led to the creation of the topical comedy series Tracey Breaks the News in 2017.

In 2017, Ullman was reportedly Britain's richest comedian and the second-richest British actress,[7] with an estimated wealth of £80 million.[8] She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including twelve American Comedy Awards, seven Primetime Emmy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, four Satellite Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracey_Ullman

"Homer the Great" is the twelfth episode of the sixth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on January 8, 1995. In the episode, Homer joins an ancient secret society known as the Stonecutters.

The episode was written by John Swartzwelder and directed by Jim Reardon. Patrick Stewart guest stars as "Number One", the leader of the Springfield chapter of the Stonecutters. It features cultural references to Freemasonry and the films Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Emperor.

The episode has received universal acclaim from fans and television critics and has been called one of the best episodes of the series by Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood in their book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide.

The song "We Do" was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_the_Great

PREFACE of Very Reverend Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, Superior General of the Society of Jesus 

xi 1. General Congregation 33 (D. 6, 11, 2) mandated that when our own law was being brought into conformity with the requirements of the new universal law of the Church regarding religious institutes (namely, the 1983 Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church and the 1993 Code of Canon Law of the Eastern Churches) we should see to it that the preparations for the complete revision of our own law, to be put into final form by the next general congregation, should be made with appropriate studious effort. For the Society had for some time regarded such a revision of our law as desirable; and studies for getting it ready had already been undertaken some years prior to this at the urging and under the leadership of Reverend Father Pedro Arrupe, although he himself was not able to see these brought to a conclusion. 2. Such a true and substantial renovation of its own law, required by the decree Perfectae Caritatis of Vatican Council II, and regulated by the moto proprio Ecclesiae Sanctae of Paul VI, the Society, for its part, had actually completed by means of General Congregations 31 (1965-66) and 32 (1974-75), which thoroughly adapted the Society s life and apostolate to the new needs of the times, while at the same time retaining a genuine fidelity to its proper character and original mission. None the less, the Society had not yet been able to give a formal, normative structure to the many decrees embodying this renovation and accommodation. And thus the pressing need to undertake such a task without delay. 3. After lengthy deliberation on the part of the Superior General with his consultors about the way for the Society to accomplish this revision most effectively, the following conclusions emerged: a. First of all, it seemed good to make every effort to see that the Constitutions of St. Ignatius, an explication of the Formula of the Institute of the Society of Jesus as approved by the supreme pontiffs Paul III (1540) and Julius III (1550) and a privileged expression of the foundational spiritual and apostolic experience of the first companions, should occupy a central and real place in our law and, through that law, should serve to insp ire and govern ou r entire p resent -d ay lives. Thu s they had to be purged of elements that were obsolete or had been formally abrogated; and it had to be determined which points in them had in the course of time been modified or authentically interpreted. This was to be done, however, with the help of notes that a general congregation authoritatively appended to the original Ignatian text, without making any changes in the latter. Thus it was hoped that the Constitutions could recover their basic and fundamental inspirational and normative force for the life of the Society, without turning out to be a document that was purely spiritual and doctrinal, tied to ages past, and consequently out of tune with the times. b. Those things that in the course of time had been decreed by subsequent general congregations and that seemed appropriate to retain in a modern renewal of our life and apostolate as a genuine and real expression of the spirit contained in the Constitutions should, once all unnecessary or obsolete elements had been removed, be reformulated and arranged according to the order of the Constitutions themselves, and should bear a permanent relationship to those Constitutions, as their Complementary Norms, approved by a general congregation and alterable only by such a congregation. c. Finally, so that the living internal unity that exists between these two parts of our law might shine forth more clearly and their ongoing spiritual identity might be more obvious, the two were, in future, to be published in one and the same volume. The hope, surely, was that the Society could have available an instrument that would be at once legal and spiritual in character, authentically Ignatian, one that could help the Society to proceed ever better in the path of the divine service, according to the nature of our Institute. 4. This manner of proceeding all the provincials discussed at their congregation held in September 1990 at Loyola and approved by general consent, since experts had already prepared a sort of first draft of the project. 5. Consultation was then undertaken with experts from the worldwide Society, nominated by the provincials, in regard to this first draft of the schema. Their discussions generated very many suggestions, which were made available to (and, indeed, provided considerable help to) those who were preparing the new draft. This latter, completed at the beginning of 1993, was sent to the provinces, so that their province congregations could examine it and could send to the general congregation postulata, as well as all manner of related suggestions about the project. 6. Nearly all the provinces scrutinized the schema in one way or other and made known their thinking about it in a very positive fashion. They called for the completion of a revision along the lines of the proposed schema (albeit appropriately revised), so that the general congregation could approve it. Many provinces, however, at the same time, sent along postulata and comments of great import and of great usefulness, which contributed to the fact that a Final Proposal, written by a special commission and incorporating clear improvements, could be offered for the consideration of the general congregation. 7. The task of revising our own law deeply occupied General Congregation 34. For, on the one hand, it reserved certain points of the Final Proposal for its own discussion and decision, those that seemed of greater moment. On the other hand, each commission took on the part of the Final Proposal that it was to consider, along with the material related to it. Finally, a special commission was set up and made aware of all the suggestions that had occurred to everyone (commissions and individuals alike); it prepared the text to be voted upon, and over the space of an entire month proposed it to the congregation for a final vote piece by piece. On March 18 the congregation took a final comprehensive vote, with the greatest consensus and the greatest joy in the Spirit. It thus brought to a happy conclusion work stretching out over several years, in which, in diverse fashion, virtually the entire Society had taken part. 8. Most gladly, then, my dearest brothers, do I now present to you our renewed Constitutions and their Complementary Norms, to be considered in your personal and communal prayer and to be observed in the spirit in which they have been written. Thus, with the help of God, may these, as Master Ignatius proposed, be a certain path to him in our enthusiastic following out of our mission in the Church, as servants of the mission of Christ under the leadership of the Roman Pontiff, for the greater praise and glory of Christ and for the good, the salvation, and the consolation of our fellow men and women, to whom we are sent in any region of the world whatsoever. 

Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J. Superior General of the Society of Jesus Rome, 

September 27, 1995 

On the 455th anniversary of the papal approval of the Society of Jesus

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms 

A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts 

THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES SAINT LOUIS, 1996 

https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf 

Tracing boards are painted or printed illustrations depicting the various emblems and symbols of Freemasonry. They can be used as teaching aids during the lectures that follow each of the Masonic Degrees, when an experienced member explains the various concepts of Freemasonry to new members. They can also be used by experienced members as reminders of the concepts they learned as they went through the ceremonies of the different masonic degrees.[1]

History and development

Floor and table designs

In the eighteenth century Masonic lodges met chiefly in private rooms above taverns, and the symbolic designs used in catechesis were chalked on the table or floor in the centre of the hired room, usually by the Tyler or the Worshipful Master.[2] Evidence suggests that a simple boundary was drawn (usually a square or rectangle, or sometimes a cross) within which various Masonic symbols were added, often of a geometric type (such as a circle or pentagram). In many lodges the boundary shape may have been drawn by the Tyler, with the Master adding the symbolic detail. Later various symbolic objects were incorporated, examples including a ladder, a beehive, and an hourglass, and sometimes drawings were interchangeable with physical objects.[3] At the end of the work a new member was often required to erase the drawing with a mop, as a practical demonstration of his obligation of secrecy.

Though the various Grand Lodges were then generally hostile to the creation of any physical representations of the ritual and symbols of the Craft, the time-consuming business of redrawing the symbols at every meeting was gradually replaced by keeping a removable "floor cloth" on which the various symbols were painted. Different portions might be exposed according to the work being executed.[4] By the second half of the eighteenth century the Masonic symbols were being painted on a variety of removable materials ranging from small marble slabs to canvas, to give a more decorative and elaborate symbolic display.

Painted boards

During the nineteenth century there was a rapid expansion of the use of permanent painted tracing boards, usually painted on canvas and framed in wood. Many artists produced competing designs, and most lodges commissioned sets of bespoke boards which were therefore of a unique design, despite following common themes. Some designs became particularly popular, leading to some repetition of favoured design features. Boards by John Cole and Josiah Bowring were examples of popularly recurring designs.[5]

The English artist John Harris was initiated in 1818 and produced many different series of tracing boards, including a miniature set of 1823 which became popular after Harris dedicated the design to Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE).[6] Eventually the Emulation Lodge of Improvement sought to bring a measure of standardisation in tracing board design, and organised a competition in 1845, to which many different designs were submitted. Harris himself submitted at least two different sets to the competition, but one of his designs was the winner. Harris revised the designs in 1849, and these "Emulation" tracing boards are today considered a definitive design within British and Commonwealth Freemasonry.[7]

Contemporary use

In lodges under the UGLE, and many jurisdictions derived from English Freemasonry, tracing boards are an essential part of lodge furniture, sometimes displayed flat on the floor, and sometimes vertically against a pedestal or on the wall. Sets of three boards, usually of older designs, may often be found in special cases for storage and display within lodge rooms. There are sometimes tracing boards in other degrees.[8] The Royal Arch tracing board has fallen into disuse in most places, and examples are now rare. In the Mark Master Mason and Royal Ark Mariner degrees as administered from London, the tracing boards have experienced a great revival in popularity from the end of the twentieth century, and official rituals for the explanations of these tracing boards are again in regular use in English lodges.

As different Masonic jurisdictions established official, or standard, degree rituals the creation of new tracing boards by artists waned, and has since largely disappeared in favour of standard designs. Nonetheless, some masonic artists have experimented with very modern designs for the twenty-first century.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracing_board

Thomas Trace Beatie (born 1974[1]) is an American public speaker, author, and advocate of transgender rights and sexuality issues, with a focus on transgender fertility and reproductive rights.[2]

Beatie came out as a trans man in early 1997. Beatie had gender-affirming surgery in March 2002 and became known as "the pregnant man" after he became pregnant through artificial insemination in 2007.[3] Beatie chose to be pregnant, with donated sperm,[4][5] because his wife Nancy was sterile.

The couple filed for divorce in 2012. The Beatie case is the first of its kind on record, where a documented legal male gave birth within a marriage to a woman, and for the first time, a court challenged a marriage where the husband gave birth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Beatie

The Esoteric Meaning of the Twin Pillars Boaz & Joachim

Masonic Life  Masonic News  Within the craft

From a presentation given at a meeting of the Rhode Island and Providence Plantations College of the Societas Rosicruciana in Civitabus Foederatis in 2017.

By: R∴W∴Robert Palazzo, DDGM

The one thing about Freemasonry which both attracts and repels is Freemasonry’s ostensible connection with all things esoteric. It has become both a blessing and a curse, which in itself is ironic as the pillars are also said to have a dual purpose. They represent opposing forces.

In the early days, the accusation against Freemasonry being esoteric is two-fold. First, that its members engage in esoteric practices, second that the Masons engage in esoteric study. It was during this religious insurrection that Freemasonry was thought of as heretical or satanic. When the word esoteric in its most simple term is translated into "Hidden from Sight". Certainly, anything esoteric is not necessarily evil.

Freemasonry came into its present form during the Age of Enlightenment and its members were considered the free thinkers of their time. It has also been said that the Fellow Craft degree symbolizes the intellectual awakening of the candidate and his mature development as a thinker. You will also find that the Fellow Craft degree draws heavily upon the symbolism of Jewish mystical thought and on the symbols of alchemy. It was also during this Age of Enlightenment that several important symbols surfaced within the 2nd section of the Fellow Craft degree and none more important than the powerful and complex pillars of Boaz and Jachin.

To begin with, these pillars were either brass or bronze. In either case they came from a combination of "Sun" metal, that being copper and "Moon" metal that being either tin or zinc. This mixture of Sun and Moon expressed harmony and balance. Passing through these pillars represents a chance for a new beginning. The fact that these pillars were hollow made an opportune vehicle to store one’s baggage of the past, as the lodge does not regard or remember the faults of a novitiate prior to joining the lodge.

In addition, the pillars may be seen representing two out of the three pillars of the "Tree of Life", the Jewish mystical symbol for the creation of the universe. The names of the 3 pillars of the Tree of Life were often seen as strength and wisdom with the third pillar being harmony, placed between them. Thus, when a candidate passed between them, he in essence becomes harmony, and enters a life in which the spiritual dominates the physical.

"II Chronicles 17" states "behold, and he raised up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand and the other on the left and called the name of that on the right Jachin and that upon the left Boaz".

Since the dawn of civilization, two pillars have guarded the entrance of sacred and mysterious places. Whether in art or architecture, twin pillars are archetypal symbols representing an important gateway or passage toward the unknown. In Freemasonry, the pillars Boaz and Jachin represent one of the brotherhood’s most recognizable symbols and most times is prominently featured in Masonic art, documents, and buildings.

The concept of the twin pillars standing at the gate of sacred places can be traced back to the ancient civilizations of antiquity. In ancient Greece, the Pillars of Hercules was the name applied to the promontories that flank the entrance to the straights of Gibraltar. According to Plato’s account, the lost realm of Atlantis was located beyond the Pillars of Hercules, in effect, placing them in the realm of the unknown. Tradition says the pillars bore the warning; "Nec Plus Ultra" meaning "nothing further beyond", and served as a warning to sailors and navigators to go no further. Symbolically speaking, going beyond the Pillars of Hercules meant leaving the foulness of this world into the realm of higher enlightenment.

In Freemasonry, the Masonic usage of the terms Boaz and Jachin originates from the Biblical account of King Solomon’s Temple. The master builder of the temple was Hiram Abiff a prominent figure in all our teachings. "1 Kings Chapters 6,7, and 8," describe the dimensions, construction, and dedication of the Temple. One passage in particular specifically describes the twin pillars in front of Solomon’s Temple and I quote:

"For he cast two pillars of brass, of eighteen cubits high apiece, and a line of twelve cubits did compass either of them about."

"And he made two chapiters of molten brass to set upon the tops of the pillars. The height of the one chapiter was five cubits and the height of the other chapiter was five cubits."

"The nets of checker work and wreaths of chain work for the chapiters which were upon the top of the pillars, seven for one chapiter and seven for the other chapiter."

"And he made the pillars, and two rows upon the one network to cover the chapiters that were upon the top, with pomegranates and so he did for the other chapiter."

"And the lily work upon the top of the chapiters were of four cubits."

And as the right pillar was set up he named it Jachin and as he set up the left pillar he named it Boaz and so the work of the pillars was finished.

The account of Solomon’s Temple is of great importance to Freemasonry as each detail of the building holds an important esoteric meaning. As mentioned before the Pillars act as a portal to the mysterious. According to the ancient Rabbis, Solomon was an initiate of the Mystery schools and the Temple in which he built was actually a house of initiation containing a mass of pagan, philosophic, and phallic emblems. The pomegranates, the palm headed columns, the pillars before the door, coupled with the arrangement of the chambers and draperies all indicate the Temple to have been patterned after sanctuaries of Egypt and Atlantis.

Albert Pike had his own description and I quote, "you entered the lodge between two columns. They represent the two which stood on the porch of the Temple, one on each side of the great eastern gateway. These pillars of bronze were four fingers breadth in thickness according to the most accurate account, eighteen cubits in height with a capital of five cubits high. The shaft of each was four cubits in diameter. A cubit being one foot and 707/1000s, that is, the shaft of each was a little over thirty feet eight inches in height. The capital was a little over eight feet six inches in height, and the diameter of the shaft six feet ten inches. The capitals were enriched with pomegranates of bronze covered by bronze net-work and ornamented with wreaths of bronze, and appear to have imitated the shape of the seed-vessel of the lotus or Egyptian lily, a sacred symbol to the Hindus and Egyptians. Both these columns as you may be aware have a Hebrew translation from the Old Testament. The etymology can thus be explained, the word "Jachin" in Hebrew was pronounced Ya-Kayan, meaning firm, upright, or stable. Boaz on the other hand is "Baaz" meaning power or might. The one on the right means, "He Shall Establish" and the second, "in it is strength." One thing you may not be aware of is that these columns were imitations created by Khurum the Tyrian artist, and similar columns stood at the entrance of the famous Temple of Malkarth in the city of Tyre.

Another fact that may have slipped your notice unless your day is spent dealing in the occult is that the High Priestess of the Tarot, "La Papessa" or the "Popess" wearing her Triregnum or Papal Tiara sits between the pillars Boaz and Jachin. As with most occult symbols the twin pillars conceal multiple layers of meaning, some intended for the profane others divulged in the higher degrees of Freemasonry. However viewed, the pillars as stated earlier represent the equilibrium of two opposing forces. Aside from their dimensions, in York Rite Masonry the pillars are most often seen with a ball or globe placed on top. In essence the pillars most likely had a bowl, one containing fire and the other water. The celestial globe or fire bowl surmounting Jachin symbolized the divine man, the terrestrial globe or water bowl symbolized the earthly man. The pillars also connote the active and passive expressions of divine energy, the sun and the moon, sulphur and salt, good and bad, etc. The door placed between them leads to the House of God and standing at the gates of Sanctuary they are reminded that Jehovah is both androgynous (both male and female) and an anthro-pomorphic (having human qualities) deity. The parallel columns also denote the zodiac signs of Cancer and Capricorn, which were formerly placed in the chamber of initiation to represent birth and death, the extremes of physical life. Freemasons know them to represent the summer and winter solstices or a more modern comparative appellation would be the two Saints John.

The twin pillars also showed up at the Kabalistic Temple of Solomon. In the Kabalah these pillars explained all the mysteries of antagonism, whether natural, political, or religious. They elucidate the procreative struggle between man and woman. According to the laws of nature, the woman must resist the man, and he must entice or overcome her. Such is the significance of the two pillars, they are distinct and separate, contrary in appearance. Separately their power is one joined, and they would destroy one another. And for precisely the same reason the spiritual power is weakened when it attempts to usurp the temporal and the temporal becomes victim if it encroaches on the spiritual. Human equilibrium requires two feet, the world gravitates by two forces and generations need two sexes.

When the two pillars find equilibrium, it is said to generate a third pillar, one in the middle, which esoterically represents man or mankind. It will also signify the union of Sushumna and the Kundalini, this sacred marriage will create and radiate throughout the human body filling it with divine light. It is then that humanity will become the third column, Wisdom.

In Qabbalistic teachings the pillars represent Sepiroth, the Tree of Life and symbolize mercy and severity. When interpreted Qabbalistically, the name of the two pillars mean, "In strength shall my house be established." In the splendor of mental and spiritual illumination the High Priest stood between the two pillars as a mute witness to the perfect virtue of equilibrium, that hypothetical point equidistant from all extremes. Thus, he personified the divine nature of man, the mysterious Pythagorean Monad in the presence of Duad. The column on the right, Jachin, has its foundation on Chochmah, the outpouring Wisdom of God. The three globes suspended from it are all masculine potencies. The column on the left, Boaz has three globes suspended from it, which have feminine receptive potencies. It is acknowledged that the three pillars are ultimately united in Malchuth in which all the powers of the superior worlds are manifested. The teachings of the "Tree of Life" are a very heady subject and to understand them, one must study intensely to understand their purpose.

In pop culture the pillars are sometimes used for other reasons, other than decorative and take on an esoteric meaning. The simple act of standing between or passing through them symbolically represents a transformation or initiation. This symbol is cleverly disguised and can be found in music, film and literature. One such place it can be found is in the first book of the Harry Potter series, where he first discovers he is a wizard. His initiation is visually portrayed on the cover as him going through two pillars. One might not know that the original title for the book was "Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone." The Philosopher’s Stone being an ancient alchemical concept representing illumination. In the music world, rapper Kayne West stands in the middle of twin pillars in his highly symbolic video, "Power." Among the plethora of esoteric symbols found in the 2009 fantasy film "the Imagination of Doctor Parnassus", the twin pillars adorn both sides of the stage as the leader of a traveling theatre group having made a bet with the devil takes them through a magical mirror to explore their imagination and present them with a choice of self-fulfillment or gratifying ignorance.

In today’s world, two pillars stand in front of the IRS building in New Carrollton, Maryland. The IRS being the most despised institution in America, constructed a state of the art building, but it’s not the building that gets all the attention, it’s the odd work of art which profoundly guards the entrance. To most people the art displayed means nothing, but to those versed in secret society symbolism, the implications are manifold and profound. Two black and white pillars made of the highest quality marble; denoting Masonic duality guard the gateway. They are topped by two hands pointing skyward, known as the "Hands of Mystery". Between the two pillars is a dark pyramid with a metallic capstone on which is written "We the People." This 1997 work is called "Vox Poluli," which is Latin for "the voice of the people". As for why this symbol appears at the IRS, there is a basic and usually unsatisfactory meaning given to the masses. Additional pillars can also be found in the city of Astana, Khazakhstan whose architecture and layout contain numerous occult elements.

Very likely many of us have wondered from time to time what the true meaning of the pillars are and why the strange names; and just as easily dismissed the subject as one of those inexplicable things handed down from the Bible from old times which have no practical meaning in today’s world. Nevertheless, these strange names are not without purpose. They contain the key to the entire Bible and to the whole order of nature.

The meaning of Boaz is clearly seen in the Book of Ruth. There, Boaz appears as the kinsman exercising his right of pre-emption, so familiar to those versed in Oriental Law. The right of pre-emption, has for its purpose the maintenance of the family as a social unit; the right to purchase back property to return it to the family it once belonged. In the story, Boaz brings the alienated estate into the family not only as a matter of law but because of his membership in the family and his motive for doing so is his love for Ruth. So, there should not be a reason why the name of Boaz is attached to the mysterious pillar when we seek it’s meaning. Thus, the two pillars typify Unity and the redeeming power of love. St. Paul speaks of the "Unity" of the spirit which is the "Bond of Peace", and "Love" which is the "Bond of Perfectness." It is what St. Paul alludes to when he calls God the Father from whom every family in Heaven and on Earth is named.

In closing, these two pillars, therefore, stand for the great spiritual principals that are the basis of all life: Jachin typifying the Unity resulting from being, and Boaz, typifying the Unity resulting from Love. This Dual-Unity we find is the key or evolution of Spirit, and the reason that these two ancient pillars has been preserved in our scriptures. They contain infinite meanings, which appear to be the most meaningless, but will be found to contain the deepest significance.

https://www.rimasons.org/freemasonry-community-rhode-island/masonic-news/14-within-the-craft/334-the-esoteric-meaning-of-the-twin-pillars-boaz-joachim

The Two Pillars

@emmandhook posted a very interesting analysis of Killian and Henry positioned as two pillars to Emma, which motivated me to make a quick research on the imagery and symbolism of it. I found such a rich material with so many possibilities, I’m impressed and will share some of them here (I find the High Priestess between two Pillars particularly endearing and fascinating)

“The concept of twin pillars standing at the gates of sacred places can be traced back to ancient civilizations of Antiquity (some claim from Atlantis, the lost source of Hermetic knowledge).

A Gateway

The symbol of the twin pillars have, since time immemorial, guarded the gateways to holy places and mysterious realms. They mark the passage towards the unknown and the otherworldly. In ancient Greece, The Pillars of Hercules was the phrase that was applied to the promontories that flank the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. The northern Pillar is the Rock of Gibraltar in the British territory of Gibraltar.

The Pillars of Hercules guarding the passage towards the unknown.

According to Plato’s account, the lost realm of Atlantis was situated beyond the Pillars of Hercules, in effect placing it in the realm of the Unknown. Renaissance tradition says the pillars bore the warning Nec plus ultra (also Non plus ultra, “nothing further beyond”), serving as a warning to sailors and navigators to go no further. Symbolically, going beyond the Pillars of Hercules can mean leaving the foulness of the material world to reach a higher realm of enlightenment.

The two columns called the “Pillars of Hercules” in Ancient Greece stood at the gateway to the sphere of the enlightened

The frontispiece of Francis Bacon’s “New Atlantis” featuring the Pillars of Hercules as a gateway to a new world. According to occult lore, Atlantis is the civilization from which all hermetic knowledge emerged. The rebirth of this lost kingdom has been the dream of Mystery schools for centuries.

“The city of the philosophic elect rises from the highest mountain peak of the earth, and here the gods of the wise dwell together in everlasting felicity. In the foreground are the symbolic pillars of Hercules which appear on the title page of Bacon’s Novum Organum, and between them runs the path which leads upward from the uncertainties of earth to that perfect order which is established in the sphere of the enlightened.”

In Freemasonry

The Masonic usage of the terms Jachin and Boaz originates from the Biblical account of King Solomon’s Temple. The master builder of the Temple of Solomon was Hiram Abiff, a prominent figure in Masonic ritual. The verses 1 Kings 6:1-38, 1 Kings Chapter 7, and Chapter 8 describe the dimensions, the construction and the dedication of the Temple under Solomon. One passage describes more specifically the twin pillars standing in front of King Solomon’s Temple.

15 For he cast two pillars of brass, of eighteen cubits high apiece: and a line of twelve cubits did compass either of them about.

16 And he made two chapiters of molten brass, to set upon the tops of the pillars: the height of the one chapiter was five cubits, and the height of the other chapiter was five cubits:

17 And nets of checker work, and wreaths of chain work, for the chapiters which were upon the top of the pillars; seven for the one chapiter, and seven for the other chapiter.

18 And he made the pillars, and two rows round about upon the one network, to cover the chapiters that were upon the top, with pomegranates: and so did he for the other chapiter.

19 And the chapiters that were upon the top of the pillars were of lily work in the porch, four cubits.

20 And the chapiters upon the two pillars had pomegranates also above, over against the belly which was by the network: and the pomegranates were two hundred in rows round about upon the other chapiter.

21 And he set up the pillars in the porch of the temple: and he set up the right pillar, and called the name thereof Jachin: and he set up the left pillar, and called the name thereof Boaz.

22 And upon the top of the pillars was lily work: so was the work of the pillars finished.

– 1 Kings Chapter 7

The account of Solomon’s Temple is of great importance in Freemasonry as each detail of the building holds an important esoteric meaning. The Twin pillars act as a “portal to the Mysteries” by standing on each side of the entrance to a sacred place.

“According to the ancient Rabbins, Solomon was an initiate of the Mystery schools and the temple which he built was actually a house of initiation containing amass of pagan philosophic and phallic emblems. The pomegranates, the palm-headed columns, the Pillars before the door, the Babylonian cherubim, and the arrangement of the chambers and draperies all indicate the temple to have been patterned after the sanctuaries of Egypt and Atlantis.” 

For this reason, Jachin and Boaz are prominently featured on Masonic buildings, monuments and documents. Here is Albert Pike’s description of the pillars in a text intended for new Masons:

“You entered the Lodge between two columns. They represent the two which stood in the porch of the Temple, on each side of the great eastern gateway. These pillars, of bronze, four fingers breadth in thickness, were, according to the most authentic account–that in the First and that in the Second Book of Kings, confirmed in Jeremiah– eighteen cubits high, with a capital five cubits high. The shaft of each was four cubits in diameter. A cubit is one foot and 707/1000. That is, the shaft of each was a little over thirty feet eight inches in height, the capital of each a little over eight feet six inches in height, and the diameter of the shaft six feet ten inches. The capitals were enriched by pomegranates of bronze, covered by bronze net-work, and ornamented with wreaths of bronze; and appear to have imitated the shape of the seed-vessel of the lotus or Egyptian lily, a sacred symbol to the Hindus and Egyptians. The pillar or column on the right, or in the south, was named, as the Hebrew word is rendered in our translation of the Bible, JACHIN: and that on the left BOAZ. Our translators say that the first word means, “He shall establish;” and the second, “In it is strength.”

These columns were imitations, by Khurum, the Tyrian artist, of the great columns consecrated to the Winds and Fire, at the entrance to the famous Temple of Malkarth, in the city of Tyre. It is customary, in Lodges of the York Rite, to see a celestial globe on one, and a terrestrial globe on the other; but these are not warranted, if the object be to imitate the original two columns of the Temple. The symbolic meaning of these columns we shall leave for the present unexplained, only adding that Entered Apprentices keep their working-tools in the column JACHIN; and giving you the etymology and literal meaning of the two names.

The word JACHIN, in Hebrew, probably pronounced Ya-kayan, and meant, as a verbal noun, He that strengthens; and thence, firm, stable, upright.

The word Boaz is Baaz which means Strong, Strength, Power, Might, Refuge, Source of Strength, a Fort. The prefix means “with” or “in,” and gives the word the force of the Latin gerund, roborando–Strengthening The former word also means he will establish, or plant in an erect position–from the verb Kun, he stood erect. It probably meant Active and Vivifying Energy and Force; and Boaz, Stability, Permanence, in the passive sense.”

The High Priestess of the Tarot sitting between Boaz and Jachin.

Esoteric Meaning

As with most occult symbols, the Masonic twin pillars conceal multiple layers of meaning, some intended for the profane and others divulged in higher degrees of Freemasonry. However, it is generally accepted that the Jachin and Boaz represent the equilibrium between two opposite forces.

“These were the names [Jachin and Boaz] of the two pillars cast from brass set up on the porch of King Solomon’s Temple. They were eighteen cubits in height and beautifully ornamented with wreaths of chainwork, nets, and pomegranates. On the top of each pillar was a large bowl – now erroneously called a ball or globe – one of the bowls probably containing fire and the other water. The celestial globe (originally the bowl of fire), surmounting the right-hand column (Jachin), symbolized the divine man; the terrestrial globe (the bowl of water), surmounting the left-hand column (Boaz), signified the earthly man. These two pillars respectively connote also the active and the passive expressions of Divine Energy, the sun and the moon, sulfur and salt, good and bad, light and darkness. Between them is the door leading into the House of God, and standing thus at the gates of Sanctuary they are a reminder that Jehovah is both an androgynous and an anthropomorphic deity. As two parallel columns they denote the zodiacal signs of Cancer and Capricorn, which were formerly placed in the chamber of initiation to represent birth and death – the extremes of physical life. They accordingly signify the summer and the winter solstices, now known to Freemasons under the comparatively modern appellation of the ‘two St. Johns.’”

“Alef is man; Bet is woman; 1 is the principle; 2 is the word; A is the active; B is the passive; the monad is BOAZ; the duad is JAKIN. In the trigrams of Fohi, unity is the YANG and the duad is the YIN.

BOAZ and JAKIN are the names of the two symbolical Pillars before the principal entrance of Solomon’s Kabalistic Temple. In the Kabalah these Pillars explain all mysteries of antagonism, whether natural, political or religious. They elucidate also the procreative struggle between man and woman, for, according to the law of Nature, the woman must resist the man, and he must entice or overcome her. The active principle seeks the passive principle, the plenum desires the void, the serpent’s jaw attracts the serpent’s tail, and in turning about upon himself, he, at the same time, flies and pursues himself. Woman is the creation of man, and universal creation is the bride of the First Principle.”

The permanent alliance of reason and faith will result not from their absolute distinction and separation, but from their mutual control arid their fraternal concurrence. Such is the significance of the two Pillars of Solomon’s Porch, one named JAKIN and the other BOAZ, one white and the other black. They are distinct and separate, they are even contrary in appearance, but if blind force sought to join them by bringing them close to one another, the roof of the temple would collapse. Separately, their power is one; joined, they are two powers which destroy one another. For precisely the same reason the spiritual power is weakened whensoever it attempts to usurp the temporal, while the temporal power becomes the victim of its encroachments on the spiritual. Gregory VII ruined the Papacy; the schismatic kings have lost and will lose the monarchy. Human equilibrium requires two feet; the worlds gravitate by means of two forces; generation needs two sexes. Such is the meaning of the arcanum of Solomon, represented by the two Pillars of the Temple, JAKIN and BOAZ.”

The union of the two pillars is said to generate a third pillar, one in the middle, which esoterically represents man and mankind.

“When the two columns find equilibrium between them it will signify the union of the Sushumna and the Kundalini. This sacred marriage will create a “Fire-Mist” to radiate throughout the human body, filling it will divine Light. It is then that humanity will become the third column of the Temple Wisdom. He/She will be a column formed by the combined forces of Strength (Jachin) and Beauty (Boaz). This act forms the Lost Word in the vibratory system of the soul’s physical embodiment.”

Qabbalistic Meaning

In Qabbalistic teachings, Jachin and Boaz represent the two pillars of Sepiroth, the Tree of Life.

“In the mysterious Sephirothic Tree of the Jews, these two pillars symbolize Mercy and Severity. Standing before the gate of King Solomon’s Temple, these columns had the same symbolic import as the obelisks before the sanctuaries of Egypt. When interpreted Qabbalistically, the names of the two pillars mean “In strength shall My House be established. “In the splendor of mental and spiritual illumination, the High Priest stood between the pillars as a mute witness to the perfect virtue of equilibrium – that hypothetical point equidistant from all extremes. He thus personified the divine nature of man in the midst of his compound constitution – the mysterious Pythagorean Monad in the presence of the Duad. On one side towered the stupendous column of the intellect; on the other, the brazen pillar of the flesh. Midway between these two stands the glorified wise man, but he cannot reach this high estate without first suffering upon the cross made by joining these pillars together. The early Jews occasionally represented the two pillars, Jachin and Boaz, as the legs of Jehovah, thereby signifying to the modern philosopher that Wisdom and Love, in their most exalted sense, support the whole order of creation – both mundane and supermundane.

The column on the right, which is called Jachin, has its foundation on Chochmah, the outpouring Wisdom of God; the three globes suspended from it are all masculine potencies. The column at the left is called Boaz. The three globes upon it are feminine and receptive potencies, for it is founded in Understanding, a receptive and maternal potency. Wisdom, it will be noted, is considered as radiant or outpouring, and Understanding as receptive, or something which is filled by the flowing of Wisdom. The three pillars are ultimately united in Malchuth, in which all the powers of the superior worlds are manifested.”

https://freechoicedreamer.tumblr.com/post/151623585409/the-two-pillars

IN GOD WE TRUST was first used on paper money in 1957, when it appeared on the one-dollar silver certificate. The first paper currency bearing the motto entered circulation on October 1, 1957. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing was converting to the dry intaglio printing process.

https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/112th-congress/house-report/47/1

14We ought to act on the principle that everyone who lives under obedience should let himself be carried and directed by Divine Providence through the agency of the superior 15as if he were a lifeless body, which allows itself to be carried to any place and treated in any way; or an old man s staff, which serves at any place and for any purpose in which the one holding it in his hand wishes to employ it. 16For in this way the obedient man ought joyfully to employ himself in any task in which the superior desires to employ him in aid of the whole body of the religious order; 17and he ought to hold it certain that by so doing he conforms himself with the divine will more than by anything else he could do while following his own will and different judgment.[3]"

page 221

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

LESSON 38-232

 The Our Father

 All prayer should be made in the spirit of the Our Father, really

 desiring what its petitions express.

 492. Why do we address God as "Our Father who art in heaven"?

 We address God as "Our Father who art in heaven"

 because we belong to Him, our loving Father, who

 created us and watches over us, who adopts us

 through sanctifying grace as His children, and who

 destines us to live forever with Him in heaven, our

 true home.

 The word "our" is important. It is in the plural. Christ has highly

 recommended prayer in common in which we as God's children who

 love one another unite to ask our loving Father for what we need. The

 official prayer of the whole Church as a body is called the liturgy.

 This public prayer of the Church is of far more value than private

 prayer, even though this too is necessary and highly important.

 493. For what do we pray when we say "hallowed be Thy name"?

 When we say "hallowed be Thy name," we pray that

 God may be known and honored by all men.

 The name represents the person. God's

 name represents God Himself. The first

 desire of love is that God should be

 known, loved, and honored by all. Hal

lowed means "acknowledged as holy

 and all-perfect." The four Hebrew letters

 spell "Jahweh," meaning "I am who

 am" (Ex. 3, 13-14).

 "This is 

My name forever'

 (Ex. 3, 15).

 494. For what do we pray when we say "Thy kingdom come"?

 When we say "Thy kingdom come," we pray that

 the kingdom of God's grace may be spread through

out the world, that all men may come to know and

 to enter the true Church and to live as worthy mem

bers of it, and that, finally, we all may be admitted

 to the kingdom of God's glory. ^

THE NEW

 Saint Joseph

 Baltimore

 Catechism

https://ia903000.us.archive.org/33/items/TheNewSaintJosephBaltimoreKelleyBennetC.P.6402/The%20New%20Saint%20Joseph%20Baltimore%20-%20Kelley%2C%20Bennet%2C%20C.P._6402.pdf

A new order of the ages (is born)," is the meaning of the Latin phrase "novus ardo seclorum" which can be found on the back of a U.S. dollar bill. U.S. citizens are concerned with the passage of time, the near future, acting in a timely manner, and accomplishing tasks efficiently. These traits have become part of the national character. Efficiency is the U.S. cultural value that most explains the characteristic approach to business, allowing a desire for short-term profits to eclipse concern for long-term competitiveness. The reasons for this preoccupation with time and efficiency result from the birth and development of the United States as a nation. When the new world was first colonized, hard work and efficiency were essential for survival. One of the most influential faiths was Calvinism, which held that worldly prosperity was an outward sign of salvation. An influential later period in U.S. history was the time of frontier settlement, during which survival depended on getting necessary tasks done in an efficient and effective manner. Basic cultural values and attitudes change at a glacial pace, and the outlook of many U.S. citizens in the late 1980s continues to be that individual worldly success is morally desirable and there is no reason why a person should not attain it with maximum efficiency. (SM)

Novus Ordo Seclorum: Or Why Americans Handle Time in Peculiar Ways.

Grove, Cornelius Lee

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED291653 

Why is the corona so dim?

The corona reaches extremely high temperatures. However, the corona is very dim. Why? The corona is about 10 million times less dense than the Sun’s surface. This low density makes the corona much less bright than the surface of the Sun.

Why is the corona so hot?

The corona’s high temperatures are a bit of a mystery. Imagine that you’re sitting next to a campfire. It’s nice and warm. But when you walk away from the fire, you feel cooler. This is the opposite of what seems to happen on the Sun.

Astronomers have been trying to solve this mystery for a long time. The corona is in the outer layer of the Sun’s atmosphere—far from its surface. Yet the corona is hundreds of times hotter than the Sun’s surface.

A NASA mission called IRIS may have provided one possible answer. The mission discovered packets of very hot material called "heat bombs" that travel from the Sun into the corona. In the corona, the heat bombs explode and release their energy as heat. But astronomers think that this is only one of many ways in which the corona is heated.

Coronal loops and streamers

The surface of the Sun is covered in magnetic fields. This is the force that makes magnets stick to metal, like the door of your refrigerator.

The Sun's magnetic fields affect charged particles in the corona to form beautiful features. These include streamers, loops, and plumes. We can view these features in detail with special telescopes.

How does the corona cause solar winds?

The corona extends far out into space. From it comes the solar wind that travels through our solar system. The corona's temperature causes its particles to move at very high speeds. These speeds are so high that the particles can escape the Sun's gravity.

https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/sun-corona/en/

La tiara papal es una corona que usan los papas de la Iglesia católica desde el siglo VIII hasta mediados del siglo XX. Fue utilizado por última vez por el Papa Pablo VI en 1963, y sólo al comienzo de su reinado.

El nombre tiara se refiere a todo el tocado, incluidas las diversas coronas, aros y diademas que lo han adornado a través de los tiempos,[1][2] mientras que la forma de tres niveles que adoptó en el siglo XIV también se llama triregno. [3][4] o la triple corona,[5] y en ocasiones como la triple tiara.[6][7][8]

De 1143 a 1963, la tiara papal se coloca solemnemente sobre la cabeza del Papa durante la coronación papal. Las tiaras papales supervivientes son todas de forma triple, la más antigua data de 1572. Una representación del triregno combinada con dos llaves cruzadas de San Pedro se utiliza como símbolo del papado y aparece en documentos, edificios e insignias papales, y en el Bandera de la Ciudad del Vaticano.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_tiara 

Pope Francis urges people to get vaccinated against Covid-19

Pope Francis launches a powerful appeal for people to get vaccinated with approved Covid-19 vaccines, calling it “an act of love.”

By Devin Watkins

August 18 2021

The Pope has joined his voice to those of Bishops across North and South America to urge people to get jabbed against Covid-19.

In a video message produced in conjunction with the Ad Council, Pope Francis praised the work of researchers and scientists in producing safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines.

“Thanks to God’s grace and to the work of many, we now have vaccines to protect us from Covid-19,” he said in the video released on Wednesday.

He added that vaccines “bring hope to end the pandemic, but only if they are available to all and if we collaborate with one another.”

Vaccination is an act of love

Pope Francis went on to say that getting a Covid jab that is “authorized by the respective authorities” is an “act of love.”

Helping other do the same, he said, is also an act of love. “Love for oneself, love for our families and friends, and love for all peoples. Love is also social and political.”

The Pope noted that social and political love is built up through “small, individual gestures capable of transforming and improving societies.”

“Getting vaccinated is a simple yet profound way to care for one another, especially the most vulnerable,” he said.

Pope Francis then prayed to God that “each one of us can make his or her own small gesture of love.”

“No matter how small, love is always grand,” he said. “Small gestures for a better future.”

Listen to our report

‘Strength of faith’

The Pope was joined in the video by several Cardinals and Archbishops from across the Americas.

Archbishop Jose Gomez, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Archbishop of Los Angeles, lamented the suffering and death the pandemic has wrought across the globe.

He prayed that God might “grant us the grace to face it with the strength of faith, ensuring that vaccines are available for all, so that we can all get immunized.”

Mexican Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes linked Covid-19 jabs to a better future for all.

“From North to South America, we support vaccinations for all,” said the Cardinal.

Safe, effective vaccines

Honduran Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga said the world has much to learn from the coronavirus.

“But one thing is certain: the authorized vaccines are effective, and are here to save lives,” he said. “They are the key to a path of personal and universal healing.”

Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes praised the “heroic efforts” of health professionals in developing “safe and effective” jabs.

He also repeated the Pope’s affirmation that “getting vaccinated is an act of love”.

Salvadorian Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chavez said vaccination helps protect the most vulnerable.

“Our choice to get vaccinated affects others,” he said, adding that it is a moral responsibility.

Unity across the Americas

Peruvian Archbishop Miguel Cabrejos rounded out the testimonies contained in the video with an appeal to unity.

“We are united—North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean—to promote and support vaccination for all,” he said, encouraging everyone to “act responsibly, as members of the great human family, seeking and protecting our integral health and universal vaccination.”

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2021-08/pope-francis-appeal-covid-19-vaccines-act-of-love.html

A TRULY MYSTIC SEAL 

THE GREAT SEAL OF THE UNITED STATES AND ITS MYSTIC SIGNIFICANCE 

Most Americans have a dim idea that the Great Seal of their country shows an eagle, a constellation of stars, an olive branch signifying peace, and a set of thirteen arrows which probably means war in case of necessity, but few have ever seen the reverse side of the seal or even suspected its existence. Nor has the reverse side ever been cut, a strangely restraining hand having seemingly been laid upon every attempt to bring it before the public. When the large painting of the reverse side which was ordered made together with the familiar obverse, for the government display at the Chicago World's Fair, was to be hung, those in charge exclaimed: "What a peculiar design: Why were we given this inartistic symbol?" and once more the white stone was rejected, the painting was turned face to the wall and only the obverse side displayed. But the time has now come when the full knowledge of her seal shall be made known to her people, for America must henceforth stand before the world as its teacher, leader and the promulgator of a new and perfect system of ethics, religious leadership, a citizenship that is efficient and free, a just industrial democracy, and a justice and generosity to other nations that shall emphasize the brotherhood of man and the Fatherland of God. Late in the afternoon of July 4th, 1776, the new Continental Congress "Resolved, that Dr. Franklin, Mr. J. Adams and Mr. Jefferson be a committee to prepare a device for the Seal of the United States of America." That committee was identical save for the omission of Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman with that which had drawn up the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration had been signed about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and Congress desired to at once complete the evidences of the independence of the United States by formally adopting an official sign of sovereignty and a national coat of arms.

The arms of England, the mother country, expressed the union of Judah's lion, with the unicorn of "Lost Israel" in accordance with the Science of Heraldry, but the young republic had finished with thrones and crowns and must blaze a new path through the forest of liberty, which should express her descent from all christian nations and hold open a door for all other races which should seek help and shelter upon her shores. A knowledge of heraldy was considered a part of an education in the early colonial days, and it was through William Barton son of the rector of St. James Episcopal church of Philadelphia, learned in heraldry, and through Baron Prestwich, of England, that the designs expressive of American destiny were given and drawn. Yet other dabblers in heraldry failed utterly to understand the mystic meaning of the seals. Professor Charles Elliott Norton, of Harvard, regretted its lack of art, and complained it could never be other than a dull masonic emblem, while a Mr. Wilson, considered a great historical scholar, declared the reverse side "in very bad taste, unintelligent and commonplace, and if it can be laid away and kept in the dark why not keep it so!" Even the constellation of thirteen stars came in for criticism, as "very bad heraldically." Again and again the pyramid with the white cope stone and the glory, were rejected, until in 1916 members of the Rose Cross Order, Illuminati, and others of the six pointed star of the seal, hung it officially in their class rooms and declared it as expressive of their philosophy-religion; the Bible wisdom of the common people rather than of the collegian. In the two sides of our seal are expressed in heraldry countless ages of the evolution of man, from the time of his socalled fall, through his progress in Egypt (eagleland), where for a time a wondrous race incarnated to build astounding monuments, receding, but returning again as the Hebraic Confederation to receive the knowledge of ancient Atlantis in the shade of its ancient altar, the Great Pyramid, uniting in a blaze of glory in the building of Solomon's Temple, parting, the northern tribes to leaven, though lost to history, all Europe, Judah and part of Benjamen and Levi, returning to hold Jerusalem until the Master Jesus should be born, journey down into 'Egypt to the ancient altar and receive light yet left in that land of darkness. "In that day shalt there be an altar to the Lord a pillar in the midst of Egypt, upon the borders thereof, and it shall be for a sign and a witness unto the Lord," said Isaiah. It is needless for learned historians to tell us, who hold the records, that the Great Pyramid is but six thousand years old, for we know it to have been built when the morning stars sang together and the "Sons of God" shouted for joy, in that far Edenic period, when Atlantis the mighty stood in her purity, where in part America now stands. Built at the center of the earth, as a temple of the highest initiation, symbolic of a perfect man, foursquare in body, mind, soul and spirit, with its white copestone, symbol of complete immortality, it represents the measure of the earth, as well as that of the universe, and the evolution of man through those countless ages of reincarnation now drawing to a close. Thither the Atlantians went for instruction in its galleries and rooms at the hands of mighty priests of the Priests of Melchisidek'''' and Osirian Brotherhoods, and throughout the succeeding ages those who would attain self mastery have turned their footsteps toward the ancient centers. "The last Cumaen Song now comes," wrote Virgil, who prophesied that a race should arise which would be offspring of all races and bring to an end the ages of iron (war) and usher in the Golden Age. Hence it was fitting that the mottos upon the reverse side of our seal above and below the pyramid should be taken from Virgil, "Annuit Coeptis," "Prosper us in our daring," and "Novus ordo seclorum," "a new and select order," which many of us have now the honor to have entered, and whose door we hold open to all who will accomplish the spiritual work necessary. "The day of freedom dawned upon the earth."

*As this book is being printed, we received information of two Associations using the title "Order of Melchizadek," or like it. One is a Spiritualistic body and the other a pure fraud. Neither body has the right to the title as this belongs to the Magi, who has used it for unknown years. Any body of men claiming, or using, this title does so without any authority and they are not members of any Order of Melchizadek. "Given by order of the Royal Fraternity Association, Incorporated."

And the infinite cycle of Atlantis was begun anew," wrote a poet, of the American Republic. In Central America there yet stands a companion pyramid, key to the connection of Atlantis, Egypt, and now American Atlantis rising again upon the great cycle. Hence Arcane and Magian learning which is the source of the Bible, could give no other symbolism to the young republic, than that of the ancient pyramid, its copestone and glory, significant of the descent of the New Jerusalem, for the one side, and the eagle, and the ever repeating thirteen of Mansasseh, thirteenth tribe of Israel and the son of Joseph (the Britons) who was separated from his brethren in Egypt, in the parting asunder of northern Israel from southern Judah, and first to cross Europe in search of the "isles afar off," to re-establish the ancient throne of Israel at Tava in Ireland, Turning the hitherto rejected reverse side of our seal to face the people of these United States, we remind them that they are called to a Great Work as offspring of all races, a mighty Mannasseh, whose history began in Genesis and culminates in America, and by whose stripes the whole world must be healed. Joseph, our father, married a daughter of a priest of the Temple of On, in Egypt, we are told, and today one pillar of that ancient Temple stands in London, while its mate stands in New York. These are reminders of our connection with Egypt, with all Europe, and with our father, Joseph, as an Anglo Saxon culmination of all Israel, and that through our union, between those pillars must all the world pass into Ephraim, or Shiloh, the Millenium to which Israel alone of all nations looked forward and by the measure of whose twelve tribes the whole earth was apportioned. "The whole Bible is written in the stars, both the law and the gospel, while estorically the entire story of man is set forth upon the sea of Manasseh. The obverse side is Israel in the Old Testament, the Reverse is the offspring of all Israel under the New Covenant, as the hope and outcome of Christianity. The two sides reflect each other and cannot be separated being the Bible in its most condensed form, summing up all old world history in twelve tribed Israel," says Professor Totten. Long ages before the discovery of America, Merlin of King Arthur's court wrote of our constellation of thirteen stars:

*'When the cock (France) shall woo the Dove (America) Mother and child shall cease to love (Rebellion of colonies) When the cock (France) shall guard the eagle's nest (France's aid) The stars (our constellation of 13) shall rise all in the west Then seven and six shall make but one (E Fluribus Unum) The Lion's might shall be undone."

The stars upon our seal are set in the form of a six pointed star or a double triangle. This was anciently called Solomon's Seal and was embroidered upon the curtain of the Temple, which hung before the Holy of Holies. At each point of the star was placed the symbol of an Order which set forth Arcane wisdom, and no man might pass into the Holy of Holies save he had mastered the learning of these Orders with safety to himself, because of the Presence upon the altar within. Today in America we have the restoration of this knowledge in these six Orders, the Order of Illuminati, Order of Rose Cross, Ancient Order of Alchemists, Fraternity of Osiris, The Magi and AEth Priesthood. The especial symbol of America, aside from the pyramid and eagle, is the white rose, identical in meaning with the white stone. The constellation of thirteen stars was in early drawings set in a wreath of White roses, showing that the early designers knew the future of American individual spiritual development. It is now drawn set in white clouds, but the white rose is ever the symbol of the American Rose Cross Order, and stands for spiritual attainment. Solomon's Temple was the Temple of a perfect man, and the Bible tells us of a three cornered cope stone which was rejected, but later became the headstone of the corner. We hear too in Genesis of Joseph, the keeper of the "stone of Israel," and it was with the Magian or Holy Grail teachings that the Britons crossed Europe to Arsareth, Land of Betrothal (Esdras 11-13 Chap. ) in search of a land where they might keep God's worship pure and undefiled. Hence through Joseph, who was separated from his brethren, we inherit the white stone of all Israel, cope stone of the pyramid, and of Solomon's Temple, that rock upon which Jesus reminded Peter, he should build His church, the rock of spiritual unfoldment within each individual, that the gates of hell (death) should not prevail against it. My little children of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.—Gal. IV-19. Thus it was in keeping that an Englishman, Master of Heraldry, should give to the young republic, in the midst of its struggles to separate from the mother country, the design for the Great Seal, which should express the whole future of its work as a world teacher and exponent of the Christic teachings of the Holy Grail. The All Seeing Eye, looks down upon the ancient pyramid, which too symbolizes America and all she must mean to the world, out of a glory, sign of the descent of the New Jerusalem. This emblem, the eye, is as old as man's appearance upon earth, being found upon ancient Chaldean monuments, Egyptian and Greek, while the Arabians looking upon it named the Highest and Holiest name of God with hushed voices and whispered, "I am that I am." The triangle about the eye, stood from the most arcane times as the emblem of the Trinity, of Osiris, Isis and Horus, Father, Holy Ghost and Son, as they stand today with us, and in which is sealed the law of the eternal three of the universe and of men as its highest product. "I will guide thee with mine eye.—Psa. 32-8. Although writing is as old as Atlantis, and Adam, the only legend set in the Great Pyramid is esoteric, in numbers, measures, and weights, and in them may be read the ages just completed, and the prophesy of those yet to come. Of these great ages each with its leader as set forth in the application of the legend to the "Stone Kingdom cut out without hands," the greatest of all was the Master Initiate Jesus, who became the Christ, who descended into the grave and rising ascended Master over death, into heaven before the eyes of His disciples. Him especially and the return of the Christ Age, does the white cope stone represent, and after Him America as exponent of His teaching and life. America now prepares to become the headstone of all the world's ages when God in the Christ shall descend to crown the edifice of human liberty and immortality completed, and once more the morning stars shall sing together and the "Sons of God" shout for joy." Architecture, mystic numbers, heraldry and the heavens themselves are telling the great race in America of their destiny and responsibility. As the head, body and limbs of the great image, made of different metals represented each Messianic age, a new truth, and an empire directly relating to some manifestation of that truth, so must America represent the white stone, a nation fashioning itself until it shall have obtained the Messiahship over all nations, overshadowing all that has preceded it. This cannot be accomplished until each citizen shall throw aside the veil which lieth over his face, shall no longer see through the glass darkly, but face to face, when Judah shall no longer vex Israel nor Israel envy Judah, but prepare to come together into that land which the Lord has given them for an inheritance forever. The time has come spoken of by Isaiah, the prophet, when though the learned cannot read the book because it is sealed, nor the unlearned because he is unlettered, yet shall the book be unsealed, for the ancient wisdom applies to the individual and his following of the Christ in his quest of the Holy Grail, in the drinking of the cup of unselfishness, of his love for his neighbor and the stranger within the gates of our own Ellis Island, that the stranger may grow to the light of this republic, or carry its torch to other lands. Each fortunate heir of this glorious inheritance must seek the white stone which crowns the pyramid, within himself, in body, mind and soul, the Holy Trinity of each Son of God. Then may America realize her destiny as a city set upon a hill, a star that shall never go down, and the world ruler that shall call down the light of the New Jerusalem upon the battle scarred earth, the Christ to rule for a thousand years. Go ye therefore and teach all nations.—Matt. 28-19."

FUNDAMENTAL LAWS 

A Report of the 68th Convocation of the Rosa Cross Order

https://ia600308.us.archive.org/24/items/fundamentallawsr00rose/fundamentallawsr00rose.pdf

Rosa Jesuitica, oder Jesuitische Rottgesellen, das ist, Eine Frag ob die Zween Orden, der ganandten Ritter von der Neerscharen Jesu, und der Rosen-Creuzer ein einiger Ordensen: per J. P. D. a S. Jesuitarum Protectorum. Prague, 1620.” (4to). 

This is a truly curious tract upon the “relations of the Jesuits and the Rosicrucians."

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dT28PyPUPfqDfC0iVg7nGFsle8vYBXLf/view

See [C] You in Hell is the debut studio album by British heavy metal band Grim Reaper, released on the independent record label Ebony Records in 1983. The album cover was designed by Garry Sharpe-Young.

Critical reception

The title track was ranked No. 38 on VH1's 40 Most Awesomely Bad Metal Songs Ever countdown.[5] According to vocalist Steve Grimmett in a 1984 interview, "Dead on Arrival" is about his friendship with Brian Field who was involved with the Great Train Robbery .[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_You_in_Hell_(album) 

[529] C. 1The entire purport of this fourth vow of obedience to the pope was and is with regard to missions; 2and this is how the bulls should be understood where they speak of this obedience in all that the sovereign pontiff may command and wherever he may send one, and so on."

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms 

https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf 

See You In Hell

Grim Reaper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEB48yMiQho

[666] 6. 1On the side of the superior general, what will aid toward this union of hearts are the qualities of his person [G], to be treated in Part IX [723-25], with which he will perform his office, 2which is to be for all the members a head from which the influence required for the end sought by the Society ought to descend to them all. 3It is thus from the general as head that all authority of the provincials should flow, from the provincials that of the local superiors, and from the local superiors that of the individual members. 4And from this same head, or at least by his commission and approval, should likewise come the appointing of missions. And the same should apply to communicating the graces of the Society. 5For the more the subjects are dependent upon their superiors, the better will the love, obedience, and union among them be preserved."

The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms

https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

"Head:

1. See Illness, mental

2. The superior general, head of the Society [666]"

page 463

The CONstitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

"Revelation 13:18

New International Version

"18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.[a] That number is 666."

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2013%3A18&version=NIV

"BULL of Pope Boniface VIII promulgated November 18, 1302

For, according to the Blessed Dionysius, it is a law of the divinity that the lowest things reach the highest place by intermediaries. Then, according to the order of the universe, all things are not led back to order equally and immediately, but the lowest by the intermediary, and the inferior by the superior. Hence we must recognize the more clearly that spiritual power surpasses in dignity and in nobility any temporal power whatever, as spiritual things surpass the temporal. This we see very clearly also by the payment, benediction, and consecration of the tithes, but the acceptance of power itself and by the government even of things. For with truth as our witness, it belongs to spiritual power to establish the terrestrial power and to pass judgement if it has not been good. Thus is accomplished the prophecy of Jeremias concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power: ‘Behold to-day I have placed you over nations, and over kingdoms‘ and the rest. Therefore, if the terrestrial power err, it will be judged by the spiritual power; but if a minor spiritual power err, it will be judged by a superior spiritual power; but if the highest power of all err, it can be judged only by God, and not by man, according to the testimony of the Apostle: ‘The spiritual man judgeth of all things and he himself is judged by no man‘ [1 Cor 2:15]. This authority, however, (though it has been given to man and is exercised by man), is not human but rather divine, granted to Peter by a divine word and reaffirmed to him (Peter) and his successors by the One Whom Peter confessed, the Lord saying to Peter himself, ‘Whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven‘ etc., [Mt 16:19]. Therefore whoever resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordinance of God [Rom 13:2], unless he invent like Manicheus two beginnings, which is false and judged by us heretical, since according to the testimony of Moses, it is not in the beginnings but in the beginning that God created heaven and earth [Gen 1:1]. Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."

https://www.papalencyclicals.net/bon08/b8unam.htm

Entertainment

Predicting 9/11 was an ‘insane coincidence,’ says ‘The Simpsons’ showrunner

By Hannah Frishberg

Published Nov. 18, 2021

 Updated Nov. 18, 2021, 3:55 p.m. ET

One of the original writers for “The Simpsons” has revealed why he believes the show has such an uncanny ability to accurately guess the future.

Indeed, in its over 30 years on air, the animated Nostradamus has been credited with predicting everything from Roy Horn being mauled by a tiger to fish having three eyes, Apple’s keyboards having a glitch, the big “Game of Thrones” surprise ending, European beef being contaminated with horse meat and, perhaps most famously, the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. 

The showrunner of “The Simpsons,” Al Jean, who has been writing for the show since it premiered in 1989, believes the trick to its correct prognostications is both luck and the sheer quantity of episodes produced. 

“One of our writers, the guy whose episode predicted Donald Trump as president, said it best: ‘If you write 700 episodes, and you don’t predict anything, then you’re pretty bad. If you throw enough darts, you’re going to get some bullseyes,” Jean recently told NME. Still, he notes that he finds the show’s unintentional 9/11 prediction particularly strange. 

“The 9/11 one is so bizarre,” said Jean of the episode. “In the World Trade Center episode, [‘The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson’], there was a brochure reading $9 a day with an 11 styled up like the towers. That was in ’96, which was crazy, like this insane coincidence.” 

It’s not just Providence that makes “The Simpsons” writers so good at randomly seeing beyond the present, though — it’s also intelligence. 

See Also

"The Simpsons" showrunner Al Jean has revealed how he would like the iconic Fox sitcom to end.

‘The Simpsons’ showrunner dishes on how the iconic sitcom will end

“[Mostly] it’s just educated guesses,” Jean continued. “Stanley Kubrick made the movie ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ in 1968, and there’s Zoom and iPads in it — but that’s because he had futurologists helping him construct what the world might look like in 30 years time.”

As for the show’s own future, Jean says that another “Simpsons” movie may be down the line, although animators already have more than enough on their plates creating the TV show. 

“We’re cursed by high ratings,” Jean said. “We’re still on the air as a TV show, and that takes up a lot of time. I worked on the [first] movie simultaneous to the show, and it nearly killed the animators. But we have an idea, it’s just that we’re waiting to see what the environment is.”

Filed under september 11  the simpsons  11/18/21

https://nypost.com/2021/11/18/predicting-9-11-an-insane-coincidence-simpsons-showrunner/

Pope Francis Visits For Historic Multireligious Gathering

Pope Francis was joined by leaders from various religious traditions in a historic Multireligious Meeting for Peace at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum on Friday, September 25, 2015.

“I feel many different emotions standing here at ground zero, where thousands of lives were taken in a senseless act of destruction," said Pope Francis. “Here grief is palpable."

Pope Francis arrived just before 11:15 a.m. and met with a group of relatives of some of the nearly 3,000 victims on the 9/11 Memorial and offered condolences and prayers for healing. Pope Francis was then welcomed into the museum’s foundation hall by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, Archbishop of New York. Standing adjacent to the last column and with the slurry wall as his background, a symbol of this country’s resilience after 9/11, Pope Francis addressed the crowd with a prayer of remembrance for the victims of the September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993 terror attacks.

Pope Francis said, "God of love, compassion and healing look on us, people of many different faiths and religious traditions, who gather today in this hallowed ground, the scene of unspeakable violence and pain, we ask you in your goodness to give eternal light and peace to all who died here: the heroic first responders: our firefighters, police officers, emergency service workers, and Port Authority personnel, along with all the innocent men and women who were victims of this tragedy simply because their work or service brought them here on September 11, 2001."

As part of the program, reflections and meditations were read by a group of selected religious leaders. The Young People’s Chorus of New York City performed the song “Let there be peace on Earth.”

Before leaving the Museum, the Pope viewed some inspirational artifacts within the museum's historical exhibition, including an intersecting steel column and crossbeam known as the Cross at Ground Zero.

After lunch, Pope Francis will head to Our Lady Queen of Angels School in east Harlem where he will meet schoolchildren. He will then proceed through Central Park before conducting mass at Madison Square Garden. On Saturday, the Pope is scheduled to depart from NYC for Philadelphia.

By Hannah Coffman, Digital Content Manager

https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/pope-francis-visits-historic-multireligious-gathering

Ignatius Loyola, a Catholic Priest, theologian and founder of the Jesuit Order of the Catholic Church in the 16th Century, said, among his many inspiring sayings, “Go forth and set the world on fire."

Inferno (Italian: [iɱˈfɛrno]; Italian for "Hell") is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno describes Dante's journey through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the "realm ... of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen".[1] As an allegory, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin.[2]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)

A Look at the Museum’s Memorial Hall 

“No Day Shall Erase You From the Memory of Time.”

This quote from Book IX of "The Aeneid" by the Roman poet Virgil suggests the transformative potential of remembrance and is indicative of the museum’s mission to honor and remember the victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993. Each letter was forged from pieces of recovered World Trade Center steel by New Mexico artist Tom Joyce.These words are part of a larger art installation in the 9/11 Memorial Museum created in 2014 by artist Spencer Finch, titled “Trying to Remember the Color of the Sky on That September Morning.” The installation is the focal point for Memorial Hall, the area between the two main exhibitions at bedrock in the museum.Every one of the 2,983 watercolor squares is its own shade of blue – one for each of the 2001 and 1993 attack victims – and the artwork as a whole revolves around the idea of memory. Our own perception of the color blue might not be the same as that of another person. But, just like our perception of color, our memories share a common point of reference.By Jordan Friedman, 9/11 Memorial Research and Digital Projects Associate "

A Look at the Museum’s Memorial Hall | National September 11 Memorial & Museum (911memorial.org)

https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/look-museums-memorial-hall

Rosicrucianism is a theosophy advanced by an invisible order of spiritual knights who in spreading Christian Hermeticism, Kabbalah, and Gnosis seek to enliven and to preserve the memory of Divine Wisdom, understood as a feminine flame of love called Sofia or Shekhinah, exoterically given as a fresh unfolded rose, yet, more akin to the BLUE fire of alchemy, the BLUE virgin. Rosicrucians have no organisation and there are no recognizable Rosicrucian individuals, but the order makes its presence known by leaving behind engrammatic writings in the genre of Hermetic-Platonic Christianity.1 The historical roots of Hermeticism is to be located in Ancient Egypt. Long before the rise of Christianity, Hermetic texts were structured around the belief that organisms contain sparks of a Divine mind unto which they each strive to attend. Things easily transform into others, thereby generating certain cyclical patterns, cycles that periodically renew themselves on a cosmic scale. These transformations of life and death were enacted in the Hermetic Mysteries in Ancient Egypt through the gods Isis, Horus, and Osiris. In the Alexandrian period these myths were reshaped into Hermetic discourses on the transformations of the self with Thot, the scribal god. These discourses were introduced in the west in 1474 when Marsilio Ficino translated the Hermetic Pimander from the Greek. The story of Christian Rosencreutz can be seen as a new version of these mysteries, specifically tempered by German Paracelsian philosophy on the Lion of the darkest night, a biblical icon for how the higher self lies slumbering in consciousness.2" Rose Cross Over The Baltic by Suzanne Ackerman

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vWI_uTVg5lzNCDm16itq-PLSavozNR_F/view?usp=sharing

Around 1530, more than eighty years before the publication of the first manifesto, the association of cross and rose already existed in Portugal in the Convent of the Order of Christ, home of the Knights Templar, later renamed Order of Christ. Three bocetes were, and still are, on the abóboda (vault) of the initiation room. The rose can clearly be seen at the center of the cross.[34][35] At the same time, a minor writing by Paracelsus called Prognosticatio Eximii Doctoris Paracelsi (1530), containing 32 prophecies with allegorical pictures surrounded by enigmatic texts, makes reference to an image of a double cross over an open rose; this is one of the examples used to prove the "Fraternity of the Rose Cross" existed far earlier than 1614.[36]"

Rosicrucianism - Wikipedia 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosicrucianism 

“Rosa Jesuitica, oder Jesuitische Rottgesellen, das ist, Eine Frag ob die Zween Orden, der ganandten Ritter von der Neerscharen Jesu, und der Rosen-Creuzer ein einiger Ordensen: per J. P. D. a S. Jesuitarum Protectorum. Prague, 1620.” (4to). This is a truly curious tract upon the “relations of the Jesuits and the Rosicrucians."

Rosa jesuitica, oder, Jesuitische Rottgesellen (1620) - Google Drive 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dT28PyPUPfqDfC0iVg7nGFsle8vYBXLf/view 

The Knight’s Templar was expelled from the Papacy in 1312 by Pope Clement V and Philip IV of France. The few Templars who escaped went to the powerful kingdom of Aragon and became known as the Order of the Calatrava, who would later align with the the Montessa. In 1534, a Spanish nobleman by the name of Ignatius Loyola would revive the Templars and call them the "Society of Jesus." Loyola was a Templar, and a member of a secret society called the "Alumbrados."  The third Superior General and co-founder of the order was Francis Borgia. The Borgia bloodline is part of the notorious "Black Nobility" which dates back to the ancient Ptolemaic period in history."

Exposing the Jesuits and the Papacy: The Jesuits are the revived Knights Templar (jesuitinquisition.blogspot.com) 

http://jesuitinquisition.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-jesuits-are-revived-knights-templar.html 

The Order of Calatrava (Spanish: Orden de Calatrava, Portuguese: Ordem de Calatrava) was one of the four Spanish military orders and the first military order founded in Castile, but the second to receive papal approval. The papal bull confirming the Order of Calatrava was given by Pope Alexander III on September 26, 1164. Most of the political and military power of the order had dissipated by the end of the 15th century, but the last dissolution of the order's property did not occur until 1838.'

Modern TimesIn 1931, once again unilaterally, the Second Spanish Republic suppressed the Spanish Orders. To survive, they had to resort to the Ley de Asociaciones Civiles ("Law of Civil Associations"), leading a precarious existence until the Concordat of 1953 recognized the Priory. Afterward, by the papal bull Constat militarium, the Priory was reduced to a mere title of the Bishop of Ciudad Real.In 1980, upon request by his august father, who was appointed Dean President of the Council, King Juan Carlos I by royal initiative caused the rebirth of the Orders. Under the Apostolic Pastoral Tertio millennio adveniente, the Spanish Orders began their renewal in 1996.Today, the aim of the Spanish Orders is basically the same as they had when founded: the defense of the Catholic faith. The sword has been put aside, but their doctrine, example, self-sanctification, and divine worship remain active, aside from their cultural and social activities.Their two hundred and fifty members guard the spirit and life of the Orders of Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara, and Montesa under their Grand Master, King Felipe VI, and the Real Consejo de las Órdenes (Royal Council of the Orders) presided over by his Royal Highness Pedro of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duke of Calabria.[4]The Swiss luxury watchmaker Patek Philippe took the cross of the order in 1887 and established it as its company logo as a tribute to the knights, which remains until today.[5][6]""

Order of Calatrava - Wikipedia 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Calatrava

The Oculus was positioned as part of the World Trade Center masterplan by Daniel Libeskind and designed by SANTIAGO CALATRAVA. The structure’s white metal-clad steel ribs reach up and out in a monumental move symbolic of a hand releasing a dove.The structure's orientation serves as a lasting reminder of the attacks of September 11, 2001. It is in alignment with the sun’s solar angles on each September 11, from 8:46 am, when the first plane struck, until 10:28 am, when the second tower collapsed. Its central skylight fits this alignment and washes the Oculus floor with a beam of light."

World Trade Center Oculus 

50 Church Street New York, NY 10007

Oculus Transportation Hub | World Trade Center (officialworldtradecenter.com) 

https://www.officialworldtradecenter.com/en/local/learn-about-wtc/oculus-transportation-hub.html 

Eataly NYC Downtown - Italian restaurant

101 Liberty St

New York, NY 10007

Bread-themed branch of the famed Italian market, offering counters, restaurants & cooking demos.

(212) 897-2895

Closed ⋅ Opens 7 AM Sat 

Eataly: authentic Italian products, restaurants, cooking classes | Eataly https://www.eataly.com/us_en

Todd Morgan Beamer was an American passenger aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked and crashed as part of the September 11 attacks in 2001. He was one of the passengers who attempted to regain control of the aircraft from the hijackers."

"Following this, the passengers and flight crew decided to act.[1] According to accounts of cell phone conversations, Beamer, along with Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett, and Jeremy Glick, formed a plan to take the plane back from the hijackers.[10] They were joined by other passengers, including Lou Nacke, Rich Guadagno, Alan Beaven, Honor Elizabeth Wainio, Linda Gronlund, and William Cashman, along with flight attendants Sandra Bradshaw and CeeCee Lyles, in discussing their options and voting on a course of action, ultimately deciding to storm the cockpit and take over the plane.[1] Beamer told Jefferson that the group was planning to "jump on" the hijackers and fly the plane into the ground before the hijackers' plan could be followed through.[7][8] Beamer recited the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm with Jefferson, prompting others to join in. Beamer requested of Jefferson, "If I don't make it, please call my family and let them know how much I love them." After this, Jefferson heard muffled voices and Beamer clearly answering, "Are you ready? Okay. Let's ROLL." These were the last words spoken by Beamer heard by Lisa Jefferson.[1][8][9]"

Todd Beamer - Wikipedia 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Beamer

Jefferson Airplane - House at Pooneil Corners - Manhattan Rooftop Concert (1968) - YouTube 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuwMEiNg3B8 

Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams" is an assertion made by September 11th, 2001 attack conspiracy theorists that the burning fuel from crashed planes would not have been able to melt the supporting beams of the World Trade Center. The claim is widely mocked online for being based on flawed evidence."

Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams | Know Your Meme 

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/jet-fuel-cant-melt-steel-beams 

Six months after the Twin Towers fell, they returned in the form of two blue beams of light illuminating the Manhattan skyline. Since then, they have lit the sky annually as a Sept. 11 commemoration known as Tribute in Light. The tradition will continue this year to remember the 14th anniversary of the attacks."

A Look at Tribute in Light | National September 11 Memorial & Museum (911memorial.org) 

https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/look-tribute-light 

A Blue Mass is a Mass celebrated annually throughout the United States[1] in the Catholic Church for those employed in the "public safety field" (i.e. police officers, firefighters, correctional officers, 911 operators and EMS personnel).[2] The color blue relates to the blue-colored uniforms predominantly used by these services.[3] Similar to the Red Mass, the service honors those who have died in the line of duty and those currently serving as first responders.[4] The Mass is an opportunity for the community to show gratitude to first responders and their families.[5]"

Blue Mass - Wikipedia 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Mass 

The story behind this image of slain Davis police officer Natalie CORONA

By Lisa Fernandez and KTVU Published January 12, 2019 Updated December 28, 2020 California KTVU FOX 2

DAVIS, Calif. (KTVU) - In the image, she's wearing a royal BLUE gown, carrying a black-striped American flag with a thin blue line streaked across it.

Her heels are high. Her hair is done. Her smile is beaming. And she's standing in the middle of Leesville Grade Road next to a field in Williams, Colusa County, population 21,000, in California's Central Valley, where her father was a sheriff's deputy and now a county supervisor.

It's this compelling photograph of slain Davis police officer Natalie Corona that circulated throughout the country on Friday, hours after the 22-year-old was shot to death by a suspect identified on Saturday as Kevin Douglas Limbaugh, 48. A note found on his bed inside his home, where he later killed himself, stated that he believed Davis police bombarded him with ultrasonic waves." 

The story behind this image of slain Davis police officer Natalie Corona (ktvu.com) 

https://www.ktvu.com/news/the-story-behind-this-image-of-slain-davis-police-officer-natalie-corona 

Serge Monast (1945 – 5 or 6 December 1996[1][2]) was a Canadian investigative journalist, poet, essayist and conspiracy theorist. He is known to English-speaking readers mainly for the originating the conspiracy theory Project BLUE BEAM, which concerns an alleged plot to facilitate a totalitarian world government by destroying traditional religions and replacing them with a new-age belief system using NASA technology.[3][unreliable source?]"

Serge Monast - Wikipedia 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Monast

SEPTEMBER 11, 1990 | CLIP OF PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS ON PERSIAN GULF 

George H.W. Bush describes the New World Order in his address to the US Congress on the Crisis in the Persian Gulf.

User Clip: George Bush defines the New World Order | C-SPAN.org 

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4528359/user-clip-george-bush-defines-world-order 

ROLLback of governments hostile to the U.S. took place during World War II (against Fascist Italy in 1943, Nazi Germany in 1945, and Imperial Japan in 1945), Afghanistan (against the Taliban in 2001), and Iraq (against Saddam Hussein in 2003). When directed against an established government, rollback is sometimes called "regime change".[2]"

Rollback - Wikipedia 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollback  

In 1917, the Virgin appeared in Fatima. "The Mother of God" was a smashing success, playing to overflow crowds. As a result, the Socialists of Portugal suffered a major defeat. "Roman Catholics world-wide began praying for the conversion of Russia and the Jesuits invented the Novenas to Fatima which they could perform throughout North Africa, spreading good public relations to the Muslim world. The Arabs thought they were honoring the daughter of Muhammad, which is what the Jesuits wanted them to believe. "As a result of the vision of Fatima, Pope Pius XII ordered his Nazi army to crush Russia and the Orthodox religion and make Russia Roman Catholic." A few years after he lost World war II, Pope Pius XII startled the world with his phoney dancing sun vision to keep Fatima in the news. It was great religious show biz and the world swallowed it. "Not surprisingly, Pope Pius was the only one to see this vision. As a result, a group of followers has grown into a BLUE Army world-wide, totaling millions of faithful Roman Catholics ready to die for the blessed virgin. "But we haven't seen anything yet. The Jesuits have their Virgin Mary scheduled to appear four or five times in China, Russia, and major appearance in the U.S.

"What has this got to do with Islam? 

Note Bishop Sheen's statement: "Our Lady's appearances at Fatima marked the turning point in the history of the world's 350 million Muslims. After the death of his daughter, Muhammad wrote that she "is the most holy of all women in Paradise, next to Mary." 

"He believed that the Virgin Mary chose to be known as Our Lady of Fatima as a sign and a pledge that the Muslims who believe in Christ's virgin birth, will come to believe in His divinity. 

"Bishop Sheen pointed out that the pilgrim virgin statues of Our Lady of Fatima were enthusiastically received by Muslims in Africa, India, and elsewhere, and that many Muslims are now coming into the Roman Catholic Church."

How the Vatican created Islam (remnantofgod.org) 

http://www.remnantofgod.org/books/docs/how-the-vatican-created-islam.pdf

Revelation 2

1599 Geneva Bible

2 1 John is commanded to write those things which the Lord knew necessary to the Churches of Ephesus. 8 Of the Smyrnians, 12 of Pergamos, 18 and of Thyatira, as that they keep those things which they received of the Apostles.

1 [a]Unto the Angel of the Church of Ephesus write, [b]These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, and walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.

2 [c]I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear with them which are evil, and hast examined them which say they are Apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars.

3 And thou wast burdened, and hast patience, and for my Name’s sake hast labored, and hast not fainted.

4 Nevertheless, I have somewhat [d]against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works: or else I will come against thee shortly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou amend.

6 But this thou hast that thou hatest the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

7 [e]Let him that hath an ear hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches: To him that overcometh, will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in [f]the midst of the [g]Paradise of God.

8 ¶ [h]And unto the Angel of the Church of the [i]Smyrnians write, These things saith he that is first and last, which was dead and is alive.

9 [j]I know thy works and tribulation, and poverty (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them, which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the Synagogue of Satan.

10 Fear none of those things, which thou shalt suffer: behold, it shall come to pass, that the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and ye shall have [k]tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto the death, and I will give thee the crown of life.

11 [l]Let him that hath an ear hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches. He that overcometh shall not be hurt [m]of the second death.

12 [n]And to the Angel of the Church, which is at [o]Pergamos write, Thus saith he which hath that sharp sword with two edges.

13 [p]I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s throne is, and thou keepest my Name, and hast not denied my faith, even in [q]those days when Antipas my faithful martyr was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.

14 But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that maintain the doctrine of Balaam, which taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, that they should [r]eat of things sacrificed unto idols, and commit fornication.

15 Even so hast thou them that maintain the doctrine of the [s]Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.

16 Repent thyself, or else I will come unto thee shortly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

17 [t]Let him that hath an ear, hear what the spirit saith unto the Churches. To him that overcometh, will I give to eat [u]of the [v]Manna that is hid, and will give him a [w][x]white stone, and in the stone a new [y]name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it.

18 ¶ And unto [z]the Angel of the Church which is at Thyatira write, These things saith the Son of God, which hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet like fine brass.

19 I know [aa]thy works and thy love, and [ab]service and faith, and thy patience, and thy works, and that they are more at the last, than at the first.

20 Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee, that thou sufferest the woman Jezebel which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to deceive my servants, to make them commit [ac]fornication and to eat meat sacrificed unto idols.

21 And I gave her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not.

22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit fornication with her, into great affliction, except they repent them of their works.

23 And I will kill her children with death, and all the Churches shall know that I am he which search the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according unto your works.

24 And unto you I say, the rest of them of Thyatira, As many as have not this learning, neither have known the [ad]deepness of Satan (as they speak) I will [ae]put upon you none other burden,

25 But that which ye have already, hold fast till I come.

26 [af]For he that overcometh and keepeth my words unto the end, to him will I give [ag]power over nations.

27 And he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and as the vessels of a potter, shall they be broken:

28 Even as I received of my Father, so will I give him [ah]the morning Star.

29 Let him that hath an ear, hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches.

Footnotes

Revelation 2:1 The former part of this book is comprised in a narration of those things which then were as S. John taught us, Rev. 1:19, it belongeth wholly to instruction and in these next two Chapters, containeth seven places according to the number and condition of those Churches which were named before, Rev. 1:11, figured verse 12, distributed most aptly into their Pastors and flocks, verse 20, which verse of that Chap. is as it were a passage unto the first part. Every one of the seven places hath three principal members, an Exordium taken from the person of the Author: a Proposition, in which is praise and commendation of that which is good, reprehension of that which is evil: an instruction containing either an exhortation alone, or withal a dissuasion opposite unto it, and a conclusion stirring unto attention by divine promises. And this first place is unto the Pastors of the Church of Ephesus.

Revelation 2:1 The exordium wherein are contained the special praises of Christ Jesus the Author of this prophecy, out of verses 16 and 13 of the first Chapter.

Revelation 2:2 The proposition, first condemning the Pastor of this Church, verses 2, 3, then reproving him, verse 4, after informing him and withal threatening that he will translate the Church to another place, verse 5. This commutation or threat Christ mitigateth by a kind of correction, calling to mind the particular virtue and piety of the Church, which God never leaveth without recompense, verse 6. Concerning the Nicolaitans see after upon verse 11.

Revelation 2:4 To deal with thee for.

Revelation 2:7 The conclusion, containing a commandment of attention and a promise of everlasting life, shadowed out in a figure of which, Gen. 2:9.

Revelation 2:7 That is, in Paradise after the manner of the Hebrew phrase.

Revelation 2:7 Thus Christ speaketh as the Mediator.

Revelation 2:8 The second place is unto the Pastors of the Church of the Smyrnians. The exordium is taken out of verses 17 and 18 of the first Chap.

Revelation 2:8 Smyrna was one of the cities of Ionia in Asia.

Revelation 2:9 The proposition of praise is in this verse and of exhortation joined with promise, is in the next verse.

Revelation 2:10 That is, of ten years. For so commonly both in this book and in Daniel, years are signified by the name of days: that God thereby might declare, that the space of time is appointed by him, and the same very short. Now because Saint John wrote this book in the end of Domitian the Emperor his reign, as Justin and Ireneus do witness, it is altogether necessary that this should be referred unto that persecution which was done by the authority of the Emperor Trajan: who began to make havoc of the Christian Church in the tenth year of his reign, as the Historiographers do write: and his bloody persecution continued until Adrian the Emperor had succeeded in his place: the space of which time is precisely ten years, which are here mentioned.

Revelation 2:11 The conclusions as verse 7.

Revelation 2:11 See Rev. 20:6.

Revelation 2:12 The third place is unto the Pastors of Pergamos. The Exordium is taken out of verse 16 of the first Chapter.

Revelation 2:12 Pergamos was the name of a famous city in old time in Asia, where the Kings of the Attalians were always resident.

Revelation 2:13 The proposition of praise is in this verse, of reprehension in the two following, and of exhortation joined with a conditional threat, verse 16. Now this Antipas was the Angel or minister of the Church of Pergamos, as Aretas writeth.

Revelation 2:13 The faith of them of Pergamos is so much the more highly commended because they remained constant even in the very heat of persecution.

Revelation 2:14 That which is here spoken of things offered to idols, is meant of the same kind which Paul speaketh of, 1 Cor. 10:13.

Revelation 2:15 Which follow the footsteps of Balaam, and such as are abandoned unto all filthiness, as he showed in the verse foregoing, and is here signified by a note of similitude. And thus also must the next verse be understood. For this matter especially Ireneus must be consulted withal.

Revelation 2:17 The conclusion, standing of exhortation as before, and of promise.

Revelation 2:17 He alludeth to that sermon which we read of John 6, and to the place we find, Ps. 105:40.

Revelation 2:17 Aretas writeth, that such a stone was wont to be given to wrestlers at games, or else that such stones did in old times witness the quitting of a man.

Revelation 2:17 The bread of life, invisible, spiritual, and heavenly, which is kept secretly with God, from before all eternity.

Revelation 2:17 Which is a sign and witness of forgiveness and remission of sins, of righteousness and true holiness, and of purity uncorrupted, after that the old man is killed.

Revelation 2:17 A sign and testimony of newness of life in righteousness and true holiness, by putting on the new man, whom none doth inwardly know, save the spirit of man which is in himself, the praise whereof is not of man, but of God, Rom. 2:28.

Revelation 2:18 The fourth place is unto the Pastors of Thyatira. The exordium is taken out of verses 14 and 15 of the first Chapter.

Revelation 2:19 The proposition of praise is in this verse: of reprehension, for they tolerated with them, the doctrine of ungodliness and unrighteousness, is verse 20, the authors whereof though they were called back of God, yet repented not verse 21, whereunto is added a most heavy threatening, verses 22 and 23, of a conditional promise, and of exhortation to hold fast the truth, is in the two verses following.

Revelation 2:19 So he calleth those offices of charity which are done to the saints.

Revelation 2:20 By Fornication, is often in the Scripture idolatry meant.

Revelation 2:24 He pointeth out the bragging of certain men, which boasted of their deep, that is, plentiful and common knowledge, which notwithstanding is devilish.

Revelation 2:24 I will speak no worse thing against you, being content to have showed you what I require to be in you.

Revelation 2:26 The conclusion, wherein Christ assureth unto his servants the communion of his Kingdom and glory, in this verse and the next following, and commandeth an holy attention in the last verse.

Revelation 2:26 That is, I will make him a King by communion with me, and my fellow heir, as it is promised, Matt. 19:28 and 25:34; Rom. 8:17 and 1 Cor. 6:3; Eph. 2:6 and 1 Tim. 2:12.

Revelation 2:28 The brightness of greatest glory and honor nearest approaching unto the light of Christ, who is the Son of righteousness, and our head, Matt. 4.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%202&version=GNV