Trump pardons abortion clinic protesters ahead of March for Life

 

Trump pardons abortion clinic protesters ahead of March for Life

“They should not have been prosecuted,” said the president.

By Alice Miranda Ollstein

01/23/2025 04:12 PM EST

Updated: 01/23/2025 06:10 PM EST

President Donald Trump on Thursday issued pardons for nearly two dozen people who were convicted for blocking access to and temporarily shutting down abortion clinics, some of whom are currently serving federal sentences.

“They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people,” Trump said. “This is a great honor to sign this.”

Trump described the group as “peaceful protesters.” Yet many of them were charged with barricading the doors of clinics with bicycle locks and other implements, pushing and in some cases injuring clinic workers, and preventing patients from accessing health services.

According to the Thomas More Society, which represented many of the convicted individuals in federal court, Trump’s pardon includes a group of abortion opponents arrested after they forced their way into an abortion clinic in Washington in 2020 and blocked its entrance for several hours. Five of them were convicted in 2023 for “using a physical obstruction to injure, intimidate and interfere with the clinic’s employees and a patient, because they were providing or obtaining reproductive health services,” then-President Joe Biden’s Justice Department said.

Also pardoned is Bevelyn Williams, a Tennessee woman sentenced to 41 months in prison for “interference, including by threats and force, with individuals seeking to obtain and provide lawful reproductive health services.” Williams, according to the DOJ, crushed a clinic staff member’s hand in a door while attempting to block access to a New York City facility in 2020. She also participated in a separate demonstration at a Florida clinic in 2022, which federal authorities said caused delays “in treating at least a dozen patients, three of whom were scheduled for time-sensitive procedures that could have resulted in bleeding, infection, or significant pain without timely treatment.”

Several anti-abortion groups, including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Students for Life, the Thomas More Society and Americans United for Life, lobbied Trump to issue the pardons — in open letters and social media posts as well as through private channels. Many of those groups praised Trump after the pardons were announced on Thursday, but stressed that they will keep pressure on him to deliver for them on several other policy fronts.

“We are grateful that this has taken precedence in the first week of President Trump’s second term,” Human Coalition President Jeff Bradford said in a statement. “We look forward to the future steps this administration will take to continually advocate for the pro-life movement.”

The activists were convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, known as the FACE Act. Some anti-abortion groups and GOP lawmakers have called for repealing the law, while others have said it should be updated to prevent it from being disproportionately applied to anti-abortion conservatives. Yet the law has also been used — including as recently as earlier this month — to charge abortion-rights protesters who target faith-based crisis pregnancy centers.

Trump’s pardons — one day before he is set to address the annual anti-abortion March for Life on Friday by video — come amid mounting frustration within the movement about his lack of attention to its priorities since taking office. Trump broke with his GOP predecessors by not signing executive orders imposing anti-abortion restrictions on domestic and international family planning programs in his first couple days in office.

President George W. Bush signed the policy — which was created under President Ronald Reagan — on his second full day in power in 2001, and Trump signed an expanded version of it on Jan. 23 of his first term in 2017.

“We certainly expect and hope that it will be just like Trump 1, but bigger and better, as Trump’s promises always tend to be in areas like this,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, the leader of SBA, told reporters on Thursday.

While she and other conservative activists still expect him to sign those orders, some are concerned that the issue does not appear to be a priority for the president.

Another anti-abortion activist, granted anonymity because they fear retaliation from the administration, complained that Trump had moved on his first day in office to pardon more than 1,500 people convicted of crimes related to the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but waited until Thursday to take action on the clinic protesters.

“These pardons are fully in line with Trump’s agenda to oppose the weaponization of the government,” she said. “So why he couldn’t have pardoned them along with the 1,500 on Day 1 is beyond me.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/23/trump-pardons-abortion-clinic-protesters-00200292 

7-Year-Old Drowns at Dinosaur Adventure Land

March 25, 2020

By The Doan Law Firm

With the arrival of warmer weather, as well as the COVID-19 epidemic, many families will be searching for recreational activities for themselves and their children. In many cases, families will opt for day trips to theme parks and summer camps that combine “summer fun” with religious education in the parent’s chosen beliefs. Unfortunately, some such amusement centers and camps will save money by “cutting corners” with regard to common sense safety. In today’s post the drowning accident lawyer at The Doan Law Firm reports on a recent drowning death at a religious-themed park

The Accident

According to online sources a 7-year-old boy drowned earlier this month at “Dinosaur Adventure Land,” a small pro-creationism amusement venue in Monroe County, Alabama operated by Kent “Dr. Dino” Hovind through his Creation Science Evangelism organization. A news item appearing in the Monroe Journal reported that the child apparently fell unnoticed from a dock adjacent to a small pond on the property and drowned in 3 feet of water. The same article reports that, although lifejackets were available near the accident site, the victim was not wearing a personal flotation device when his body was discovered. The Journal also noted that no lifeguards were on duty at the time of the accident.

Negligence often leads to drowning accidents

If the online and Journal reports are true, it would appear that Dinosaur Adventure Land could be held liable for this child’s death on the grounds that Dinosaur Adventure Land was grossly negligent in 1) not having a trained lifeguard on duty, 2) failure to monitor the activities of visitors (especially children) when near water, and 3) failure to provide adequate training in water safety for staff and volunteers. These liability issues, and others, are discussed in the following sections.

Premises liability

As we have noted in other posts, it is a well-established principle of law that the owner of a property is responsible for the consequences of any accidental injuries occurring on that property. In law, this is known as the doctrine of premises liability and is generally accepted by the courts of every state. Since the accident happened on property controlled by Dinosaur Adventure Land, the owners of that property could be held liable in a wrongful death lawsuit.

Failing to have a lifeguard on duty

Any theme park or recreation area that borders on water should have someone, preferably a trained lifeguard on duty to monitor visitors who venture near ponds, streams, and rivers. If such an individual is not present and a drowning accident occurs, the absence of a lifeguard would most likely be interpreted as negligence.

Failure to monitor visitors

Any recreation venue is responsible for keeping an eye on the activities of its visitors to reduce that possibility that a visitor could be accidentally injured. If a facility fails to provide adequate supervision of its guests, or fails to provide adequate training for its staff and volunteers, such failure could well be interpreted as negligence.

Failure to train staff and volunteers

According to its website, Dinosaur Adventure Land actively recruits volunteers by stating “Help out for the day, stay for the week, or see if a longer-term volunteer position is the right fit. Free RV and camper hook-ups for volunteers on a first-come-first-serve basis, as well as limited cabin space.” In doing so, Dinosaur Adventure Land is legally and morally obligated to provide safety training for those volunteers as well as its paid staff employees. If it can be shown that Dinosaur Adventure Land failed to provide such training, it could be seen as evidence of negligence.

“Visit at your own risk” and waivers of liability

Even though Dinosaur Adventure Land did not charge admission it did imply that, by notifying visitors that they (visitors) were responsible for their own conduct, the facility could not be sued. In general, the courts have rejected such claims on the basis that the right to claim damages following an accidental injury is a fundamental human right of every citizen. Therefore, since a fundamental right cannot be waived under any circumstance, these warnings are no defense in a lawsuit alleging negligence.

Contacting a drowning accident lawyer

Drowning accidents involving children are always tragedies. Sadly, such accidents are made even more tragic because many drowning accidents could have been prevented if a trained lifeguard or recreation supervisor had been present.

If you have lost a family member to a drowning accident, we invite you to contact the drowning accident lawyer at The Doan Law Firm to arrange a free, no obligation, review of the facts in your drowning accident case and a discussion of the legal options that may be available to you.

When you contact The Doan law Firm to discuss your family member’s drowning accident there is never a charge for our time spent with you or for your first consultation with our drowning accident lawyer. Should you decide that a lawsuit is in order, and that you would like for us to represent you in court, we are willing to assume full responsibility for all aspects of preparing your case for trial in exchange for a a percentage of the final settlement that we are prepared to win for you.

https://www.drowningaccidentsattorney.com/drowning-accidents-blog/2020/march/7-year-old-drowns-at-dinosaur-adventure-land/ 

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"AN ADDRESS BY BERIA

#American students at the Lenin University, I welcome your attendance at these classes on Psychopolitics.

Psychopolitics is an important if less known division of Geo-politics.

It is less known because it must necessarily deal with highly educated personnel, the very top strata of "mental healing."

By psychopolitics our chief goals are effectively carried forward.

To produce a maximum of chaos in the culture of the enemy is our

first most important step. Our fruits are grown in chaos, distrust,

economic depression and scientific turmoil. At least a weary populace can seek peace only in our offered Communist State, at last only #communism can resolve the problems of the masses.

A psychopolitician must work hard to produce the maximum chaos

in the fields of "mental healing." He must recruit and use all the

agencies and facilities of "mental healing." He must labor to increase the personnel and facilities of "mental healing" until at last the entire field of mental science is entirely dominated by Communist principles and desires.

To achieve these goals the psychopolitician must crush every

"home-grown" variety of mental healing in America. Actual teachings of Freud, James, Eddy and others amongst your misguided peoples must be swept away. They must be discredited, defamed, arrested, stamped upon even by their own government until there is no credit in them and only Communist-oriented "healing" remains. You must work until every teacher of psychology unknowingly or knowingly teaches only Communist doctrine under the guise of "psychology."

You must labor until every doctor and psychiatrist is either a psychopolitician or an unwitting assistant to our aims.

You must labor until we have dominion over the minds and bodies

of every important person in your nation. You must achieve such disrepute for the state of insanity and such authority over its pronouncement that not one statesman so labeled could again be given credence by his people. You must work until suicide arising from mental imbalance is common and calls forth no general investigation or remark.

With the institutions for the insane you have in your country prisons which can hold a million persons and can hold them without civil rights or any hope of freedom. And upon these people can be practiced shock and surgery so that never again will they draw a sane breath. You must make these treatments common and accepted. And you must sweep aside any treatment or any group of persons seeking to treat by effective means.

You must dominate as respected men the fields of psychiatry and

psychology. You must dominate the hospitals and universities. You

must carry forward the myth that only a #European doctor is competent in the field of insanity and thus excuse amongst you the high incidence of foreign birth and training. If and when we seize Vienna you shall have then a common ground of meeting and can come and take your instructions as worshippers of Freud along with other psychiatrists." 

BRAIN-WASHING A Synthesis of the Russian 

Textbook on Phychopolitics

https://www.patriotoutreach.org/docs/Brainwashing.pdf

There are 30 states that have fetal homicide laws where the killing of a pregnant woman is considered double homicide regardless of the age of the fetus. Why isn't an abortion considered a homicide?

Because the Supreme court of the United States ruled in Roe v. Wade that Abortion is legal up to a decided time period (before 3rd Trimester).

William Moore

Former Instructor at Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications (2015–2017)Author has 3.3K answers and 7M answer views Updated 5y

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Any other law that disagrees with this ruling is unconstitutional (by the definition of the word, not the “I don’t like it so it’s unconstitutional” definition that a good number of my fellow Republicans have).

Also you miss a important point. Killing someone is TOTALLY legal … given context. So to counter your question,

#1: Why is killing someone in self defense legal?

#2: Why is the death penalty legal?

#3: Why is deadly force used by police?

#4: Why is deadly force used by the military?

Actually you can just look up the word “murder” and answer this question.

the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another…

kill (someone) unlawfully and with premeditation…..

-

So the simple answer to your question is that abortion is not homicide because it’s not unlawful. It’s perfectly lawful. It follows a set of laws.

-

And the SCOTUS ruled in RvW that it was legal because of the effect that giving birth can have on a mother.

#1: Giving birth is dangerous.

#2: It’s bad for your health. It on average lowers your lifespan by 4% per child. (There are outliers after all, and that is NOT including women who die in childbirth).

#3: It’s financially taxing.

not just raising the child. Actually just giving birth now costs the same as buying a car.

#4: They also listened to the argument that giving birth to a child that you can’t or don’t want to take care of is bad for the child.

Unwanted children are statistically doomed. Adopted children have a 60%+ chance of being abjectly worse off than non-adopted children.

They go to jail more often.

The die younger.

They use drugs more.

They tend to be more abusive.

The argument that children can find loving homes by way of adoption was also heard.

It was soundly countered by the fact that many children, even infants, never get adopted. And they don’t get adopted for pretty good reasons.

If the child has spent any amount of time in the Child Services system, they are mentally damaged and most likely have behavioral or emotional problems.

The reason that adopting from other nations is so popular is it’s actually less regulated than adopting from the USA. (More on that at the bottom.)

Simply put, having a child can be a matter of life or death for a woman. So it is legally permissible to have an abortion. If you don’t think it is morally OK, then don’t have an abortion.

Note: I actually grew up in a foster home. By that I mean a home that fostered children. Not a home where I was a foster child. And it was the worst experience of my life. (And I’ve had people shoot at me before.)

We were part of a network of foster parents. Our experience was not odd. It was totally the norm.

Every single child that came through our house was seriously messed up. Mind you I liked some of them. But all of them had serious issues.

None of the 30+ children we fostered (or adopted) were successful as adults. None of them.

None of them can hold down a job.

None of them has been a successful parent.

Many have gone to jail.

Many have drug issues.

Some of them died young.

The system is more or less made in a way that screws the foster parents even if they are doing a good job. Of the 40+ foster families I knew, only about 5 or 6 didn’t get a major criminal charge.

Some of them were actually at fault.

Some of them however were not. My best friend’s mother was a licenced child therapist. And she lost her license for 2 years because the system gave her a violent child, and then charged her with a legal charge when she told them she could not handle the child. (They also didn’t bother to tell her that the child had a history of violence and touching other children.)

The system has no checks or balances. The only reason my friend’s mother got her license back was because she sued CPS and proved that they lied to the judge on their documents. After she got her license back, they blackballed her: they put out notes not to send clients to her, spread libel and slander about her, and sent someone to her husband’s job and got him fired.

And there was no legal check or balance to this. She sued them for damages, but had to leave the state to start her business of 20 years over again.

https://www.quora.com/If-killing-a-pregnant-mother-is-double-homicide-then-why-is-it-not-murder-for-abortion-Excluding-health-risks-rape-and-only-looking-at-an-unwanted-child

If a child was murdered at the age of 7, then that life was cut short then the life was aborted therefore MURDERED. Abortion is murder!

What is mammon?

Answer

The word mammon comes from the Greek word mammonas. Similar root words exist in Hebrew, Latin, Aramaic, Chaldean, and Syriac. They all translate to “money, wealth, and material possessions.”

In biblical culture the word mammon often carried a negative connotation. It was sometimes used to describe all lusts and excesses: gluttony, greed, and dishonest worldly gain. Ultimately, mammon described an idol of materialism, which many trusted as a foundation for their world and philosophy. While the King James Version retains the term Mammon in Matthew 6:24, other versions translate the Greek as “money,” “wealth,” or “riches.”

The city of Babylon (Revelation 18), with all its avarice and greed, is a description of a world given over to the spirit of Mammon. Some scholars cite Mammon as the name of a Syrian and Chaldean god, similar to the Greek god of wealth, Plutus.

Just as Wisdom is personified in Proverbs 1:21–33, Mammon is personified in Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13. Jesus’ words here show a powerful contrast between the worship of the material world and the worship of God. Later, writers such as Augustine, Danté (The Divine Comedy), Milton (Paradise Lost), and Spenser (The Faerie Queene) used personifications of Mammon to show the insidious nature of materialism and its seduction of humanity.

Worship of mammon can show up in many ways. It isn’t always through a continual lust for more money. When we envy others’ wealth, are anxious over potentially unmet needs, disobey God’s directives about the use of wealth, or fail to trust God’s love and faithfulness, our thinking is out of balance concerning material wealth.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches about our relationship to material goods. He says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth. . . . But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. . . . For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. . . . No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money [mammon]” (Matthew 6:19–24).

The apostle Paul writes of the godly perspective toward mammon: “Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Timothy 6: 6–10).

Solomon writes of the futility of chasing after mammon: “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 5:10). Lust of any kind is insatiable, no matter how much time or effort is poured into the pursuit of the object of lust.

In Luke 16:14–15, Jesus rebukes those who refused to hear His admonition to choose God over mammon: “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, ‘You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.’”

The parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:13–21) is the story of a man who lives to increase his wealth yet in the end he loses his soul because he “is not rich toward God” (verse 21). Mark 4:19 warns of the deceitfulness of mammon and its ability to “choke the Word, making it unfruitful.”

Mammon cannot produce peace in us, and it certainly cannot produce righteousness. A love of money shows we are out of balance in our relationship to God. Proverbs 8:18 speaks of true, lasting riches: “With me [Wisdom] are riches and honor, enduring wealth and prosperity.” Jesus teaches us in Matthew 6:19–34 to not worry about our physical needs, about houses or clothes or food, but to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (verse 33).

https://www.gotquestions.org/what-is-mammon.html

Can You Really Die from Drinking Too Much Water?

Jul 26, 2023 / Medical Mythbuster / Nephrology

No Comments

By Felipe Fernandez del Castillo, MD

Division of Nephrology

It’s true, in certain instances overhydration (also known as water intoxication) can be a real health danger. In fact, there are documented cases of people dying simply from drinking too much water.

Fortunately, overhydration leading to death is quite rare. It can happen, for example, when endurance athletes, football players and members of the military consume much more water than necessary because they are worried about getting dehydrated during an athletic event or training exercise.

Much more commonly, mildly excessive hydration (often referred to as hyponatremia or low sodium) can lead to confusion, gait instability, and hospitalization. While most people can drink up to 3 or 4 gallons of fluid per day without developing consequences (other than spending the day running to the bathroom), the elderly, people with low protein intake, and patients taking certain medications often have an impaired ability to excrete excess water from their kidneys and are at higher risk of developing symptoms. This is a problem that I see several times a week when I round in the hospital.

Quite simply, chugging water or any other beverage is not a good idea. So, how do you prevent problems from dehydration or overhydration? The answer is pretty simple – drink when you are thirsty. Our bodies do a great job of signaling us when we need to drink by making us thirsty. So, always listen to what your body is telling you. Most experts agree that unless directed by a doctor or another caregiver, there is no set amount of water you need to drink each day. (That’s right, there is no real scientific evidence supporting the idea that everyone should drink eight glasses of water per day).

If you are experiencing excessive thirst and drinking a lot of water, be sure to talk to your doctor as this may indicate a serious medical condition.

https://reliantmedicalgroup.org/blog/2023/07/26/can-you-really-die-from-drinking-too-much-water/

Dr. Kent Hovind Psalm 63 What are you Thirsting For?

Genesis Baptist Church

Streamed live on Jan 21, 2025

Join the revival! The Lord is great. Come visit our Dinosaur Adventure Land in Lenox, AL.

Open since April 21, 2018!

Don't forget to check out our website: 

https://www.drdino.com

Purchase Books, DVD's and Media:

http://www.drdino.com/index.php/shop/

Phone: (855) BIG-DINO (244-3466)

Schedule an event or Seminars:

http://www.drdino.com/index.php/events/

Join our 777 Club for a dollar a day, $31 a month. Help us keep Dinosaur Adventure Land FREE by becoming a partner today! We have a creation museum, rides, lakes, fishing, hands on science lessons, and much more!

Please get involved and tell others about Genesis Baptist Church and our YouTube Channel to strengthen their faith in Jesus Christ as we study science and the Bible with Dr. Kent Hovind.

We provide this channel and information totally free of charge for the purposes stated above. If you feel led by the Lord to help support this ministry we do accept donations at Drdino.com. 

To Learn about Pastor Kent Hovind's unjust 9-year imprisonment as a political target go to:  Playlists, Kent Hovind Is Innocent

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

The Genesis flood narrative (chapters 6–9 of the Book of Genesis) is a Hebrew flood myth.[1] It tells of God's decision to return the universe to its pre-creation state of watery chaos and remake it through the microcosm of Noah's ark.[2]

The Book of Genesis was probably composed around the 5th century BCE;[3] although some scholars believe that primeval history (chapters 1–11), including the flood narrative, may have been composed and added as late as the 3rd century BCE.[4] It draws on two sources, called the Priestly source and the non-Priestly or Yahwist,[5] and although many of its details are contradictory,[6] the story forms a unified whole.[7]

A global flood as described in this myth is inconsistent with the physical findings of geology, archeology, paleontology, and the global distribution of species.[8][9][page needed][10][page needed] A branch of creationism known as flood geology is a pseudoscientific attempt to argue that such a global flood actually occurred.[11] Some Christians have preferred to interpret the narrative as describing a local flood instead of a global event.[12] Still others prefer to interpret the narrative as allegorical rather than historical.[13]

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

Join our 777 Club for a dollar a day, $31 a month. Help us keep Dinosaur Adventure Land FREE by becoming a partner today! We have a creation museum, rides, lakes, fishing, hands on science lessons, and much more!

Please get involved and tell others about Genesis Baptist Church and our YouTube Channel to strengthen their faith in Jesus Christ as we study science and the Bible with Dr. Kent Hovind.

We provide this channel and information totally free of charge for the purposes stated above. If you feel led by the Lord to help support this ministry we do accept donations at Drdino.com. 

To Learn about Pastor Kent Hovind's unjust 9-year imprisonment as a political target go to:  Playlists, Kent Hovind Is Innocent

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

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

Valley of Traverse City

ANCIENT ACCEPTED SCOTTISH RITE

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

n 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 Collège de Clermont was one of the earliest schools established by the Jesuits, who were incredibly influential in shaping education in Europe. The Jesuits were a rigid and hierarchical Catholic sect that followed the teachings of Ignatius Loyola.

https://earlymoderneurope.hist.sites.carleton.edu/exhibits/show/development-of-education-in-ea/item/249#:~:text=The%20Coll%C3%A8ge%20de%20Clermont%20was,the%20teachings%20of%20Ignatius%20Loyola.

Note 378.—* 'Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret. [Scotch Masonry.] —The fourteenth degree conferred in the Consistory of Princes of the Royal Secret, Scotch Masonry, and the thirty-second upon the catalogue of that system. The assembly is called a Sovereign Consistory. The historical allusions are to the origin of masonry in general, and embrace an explanation of the preceding degrees. The officers are a Sovereign Grand Commander, representing Frederick II,, of Prussia; two Illustrious Liutenant Grand Commanders, Minister of State, Grand Chancellor. Grand Treasurer, Grand Secretary, Grand Architect. Grand Standard Bearer, Grand Captain of the Guards, Grand Master of Ceremonies, Expert Brother, Sentinel and two Guards, The hangings are black, strewed with tears. The apron is white, lined and trimmed with red, displaying the tracingboard of this degree; the movable part has a double-headed eagle. Jewel. a Teutonic Cross. The tracing-board is complicated. The outer figure is a nonagon; within this a heptagon; within this a pentagon; within this an equilateral triangle, and within the last a circle. On the linos of the pentagon are five standards, U. G, N. E, T., being respectively, golden yellow, green, white, azure, and purple. The sides of the nonagon represent the divisions of the masonic army, with the letters I. N. 0. N X. I. L, A. S, Hour of departure, fifth hour after sunset,"—Morris's Masonic Dictionary, Article Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aiRCKpDhEaeA0ZuG7vIfCjnPzNMpOzLm/view?usp=sharing

32 Let Christ the king of Israel now come down from the cross, that we may see, and believe. They also that were crucified with him, reviled him.

Mark 15:32

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark%2015&version=GNV

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

8° We must therefore have an operative freedom: open, adaptable, even eager for any mission that may be given us. Our desire is an unconditional consecration to mission, free of all worldly interest and free to serve all men and women. Our mission extends to the creation of this same spirit of mission in others.[17] 

The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary 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

In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the population during that process. Thirdly, it is a phenotypic trait or adaptive trait, with a functional role in each individual organism, that is maintained and has evolved through natural selection.

Historically, adaptation has been described from the time of the ancient Greek philosophers such as Empedocles and Aristotle. In 18th and 19th-century natural theology, adaptation was taken as evidence for the existence of a deity. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace proposed instead that it was explained by natural selection.

Adaptation is related to biological fitness, which governs the rate of evolution as measured by changes in allele frequencies. Often, two or more species co-adapt and co-evolve as they develop adaptations that interlock with those of the other species, such as with flowering plants and pollinating insects. In mimicry, species evolve to resemble other species; in mimicry this is a mutually beneficial co-evolution as each of a group of strongly defended species (such as wasps able to sting) come to advertise their defences in the same way. Features evolved for one purpose may be co-opted for a different one, as when the insulating feathers of dinosaurs were co-opted for bird flight.

Adaptation is a major topic in the philosophy of biology, as it concerns function and purpose (teleology). Some biologists try to avoid terms which imply purpose in adaptation, not least because they suggest a deity's intentions, but others note that adaptation is necessarily purposeful.

History

Main article: History of evolutionary thought

Adaptation is an observable fact of life accepted by philosophers and natural historians from ancient times, independently of their views on evolution, but their explanations differed. Empedocles did not believe that adaptation required a final cause (a purpose), but thought that it "came about naturally, since such things survived." Aristotle did believe in final causes, but assumed that species were fixed.[1]

In natural theology, adaptation was interpreted as the work of a deity and as evidence for the existence of God.[2] William Paley believed that organisms were perfectly adapted to the lives they led, an argument that shadowed Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who had argued that God had brought about "the best of all possible worlds." Voltaire's satire Dr. Pangloss[3] is a parody of this optimistic idea, and David Hume also argued against design.[4] Charles Darwin broke with the tradition by emphasising the flaws and limitations which occurred in the animal and plant worlds.[5]

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed a tendency for organisms to become more complex, moving up a ladder of progress, plus "the influence of circumstances", usually expressed as use and disuse.[6] This second, subsidiary element of his theory is what is now called Lamarckism, a proto-evolutionary hypothesis of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, intended to explain adaptations by natural means.[7]

Other natural historians, such as Buffon, accepted adaptation, and some also accepted evolution, without voicing their opinions as to the mechanism. This illustrates the real merit of Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, and secondary figures such as Henry Walter Bates, for putting forward a mechanism whose significance had only been glimpsed previously. A century later, experimental field studies and breeding experiments by people such as E. B. Ford and Theodosius Dobzhansky produced evidence that natural selection was not only the 'engine' behind adaptation, but was a much stronger force than had previously been thought.[8][9][10]

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

The Phenomenon of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

By: 

H. James Birx

Year: 

1999

Volumn: 

33

Number: 

1

Abstract

During the first half of the twentieth century, famous geopaleontologist and controversial Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) tried to reconcile scientific evolutionism with his religious beliefs. A devoted spiritualist, he presented a mystical interpretation of cosmic evolution in his major work, The Phenomenon of Man, but he was silenced by the Roman Catholic Church for his unorthodox view of our species within dynamic reality. Nevertheless, Teilhard's bold vision of this evolving universe introduced the fact of evolution into modern theology and religion.

Introduction

Are science and theology reconcilable in terms of evolution? As both an eminent scientist and cosmic mystic, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) presented a dynamic worldview. He argued that our species does occupy a special place within a spiritual universe, and that humankind is evolving toward an Omega Point as the end-goal of converging and involuting consciousness on this planet.

With his steadfast commitment to the fact of pervasive evolution, Teilhard as geopaleontologist and Jesuit priest became a very controversial figure within the Roman Catholic Church during the first half of this century. Actually, because of his bold interpretation of our species within earth history and this cosmos, he was silenced by his religious superiors for taking an evolutionary stance at a time when this scientific theory was a serious threat to an entrenched orthodox theology. Going beyond Charles Darwin (1809-1882), Teilhard even maintained that evolution discloses the meaning, purpose and destiny of our species within life, nature and this universe.

As a geopaleontologist, Teilhard was very familiar with the rock and fossil evidence that substantiates the fact of evolution. As a Jesuit priest, he was acutely aware of the need for a meta-Christianity that would contribute to the survival, enrichment and fulfillment of humankind on this planet in terms of both science and faith. Sensitive to the existential predicament of our species, with its awareness of endless space and certain death, Teilhard as visionary and futurist ultimately grounded his personal interpretation of evolution in a process philosophy, natural theology and cosmic mysticism that supported panentheism (the belief that God and the World are in a creative relationship of progressive evolution toward a future synthesis in terms of spirit).

Galileo Galilei had endured humiliation and was put under house arrest, as a result of his claiming that the earth does in fact move through the universe; a discovery that the aged astronomer was coerced into recanting by his dogmatic persecutor, Pope Urban VIII (formally Cardinal Maffeo Barberini), under the intolerant Jesuit inquisitor, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine.

As a direct result of the conservative standpoint taken by his religious superiors, Teilhard would suffer alienation and discouragement because he rightly claimed that species (including our own) evolve throughout geological time, or they become extinct; his daring evolutionism discredited fixity and essentialism in biology and philosophy.

Discovering Evolution

As a child, Teilhard showed an interest in both natural science and religious mysticism. Sensitive to his beautiful Auvergne surroundings in France, and particularly drawn to the study of rocks, Teilhard found delight in a plowshare which he supposed was an enduring object free from change and imperfection. However, after a storm, the youth discovered that his ìgenie of ironî had rusted. Teilhard tells us that he then threw himself on the ground and cried with the bitterest tears of his life. As a result of this devastating experience, he would have to seek his ìone essential thingî beyond this imperfect world of matter and corruption.

To be ìmost perfectî (as he put it), Teilhard at the age of 17 entered the Jesuit society in order to serve God. Even so, he intensified his interest in geology on the channel island of Jersey. Throughout his entire life, the scientist-priest would never abandon his love for science, concern about human evolution, and devotion to mystical theology (especially eschatology).

In 1905, as part of his Jesuit training, Teilhard found himself teaching at the Holy Family College in Cairo, Egypt. This three-year experience offered him the unique opportunity to do research in both geology and paleontology, expanding his knowledge of earth history. It also exposed this priest to a rich multiplicity of cultures, both past and present, that surely jarred him from European ethnocentrism. Following this teaching obligation, he then finished his theology studies at Hastings in England.

It was during his stay in England that Teilhard read Henri Bergson's major book, Creative Evolution (1907). This metaphysical work had an enormous influence on the scientist-priest, since it resulted in his lifelong commitment to the brute fact of evolution. It is worth emphasizing that it was not Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) or The Descent of Man (1871) but rather Bergson's interpretation of evolution that convinced Teilhard that species are mutable, including our own, throughout organic history.

While on one of his field trips, Teilhard unfortunately became involved in the discovery of the controversial Piltdown skull (later determined to be a fraud). Although he had questioned the validity of this fossil evidence from the very beginning, one positive result was that the young geologist and seminarian now became particularly interested in paleoanthropology as the science of fossil hominids.

After his stay in England, Teilhard returned to France where, during World War I, he was a stretcher bearer at the front lines. It is remarkable that he emerged from his horrific experiences in the war trenches even more optimistic that evolution had been preparing the earth for a new direction and final goal in terms of the spiritualization of the human layer of this planet. In fact, during the global war, Teilhard had several mystical experiences which he recorded for posterity. It was this emerging mysticism that would eventually allow him to reconcile science and theology within an evolutionary vision of a converging and involuting spiritual reality (as he saw it).

In 1923, as a result of an invitation, Teilhard next found himself as a geologist participating in a scientific expedition into inner Mongolia. A year in China gave the Jesuit a splendid opportunity to begin his career as a specialist in Chinese geology. It was during this time, while in the Ordos Desert, that Teilhard essayed ìThe Mass on the Worldî (a mystical account of his offering up the entire world as a Eucharist to a Supreme Being as the creator, sustainer, and ultimate destiny of an evolving universe). He expresses his dynamic Christology when he writes: "I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labors and sufferings of the world....You know how your creatures can come into being only, like shoot from stem, as part of an endlessly renewed process of evolution."1

It is to Teilhard's credit that he never took seriously a strict and literal interpretation of Genesis as presented in the Old Testament. Instead, he will continue to devote his life to synthesizing science and theology in terms of the indisputable fact of pervasive evolution.

Returning to France, Teilhard ran into serious problems with the Roman Catholic Church because of his unorthodox beliefs. In Paris, he began giving public lectures on and teaching about evolution. This priest was even bold enough to offer a personal interpretation of Original Sin in terms of cosmic evolution and the emergence of our own species in a dynamic but imperfect (unfinished) universe; he saw this cosmos as a cosmogenesis moving from chaos, multiplicity and evil to order, unity and perfection.

When a copy of his controversial essay fell into the hands of some Jesuits, Teilhard was immediately silenced by his superiors. They, of course, had a failure of nerve in not facing head-on the fact of evolution and its ramifications for understanding and appreciating the place of humankind within nature. Because his audacious vision challenged Christian dogma, Teilhard was censored by the Church: he could no longer teach or publish his own theological and philosophical views, and furthermore he was even exiled from France by the Jesuit order (finding himself back in China).

Nevertheless, the ostracized scientist-priest wrote his first book, The Divine Milieu (1927), a spiritual essay on the activities and passivities of the human being. In this work, he argues that a personal God is the divine Center of evolving Creation. His position is in sharp contrast to biblical fundamentalism or so-called scientific creationism: views that hold the creation of this entire universe to be a completed event that happened only about ten thousand years ago! Teilhard writes: "We may, perhaps, imagine that the creation was finished long ago. But that would be quite wrong. It continues still more magnificently, and at the highest levels of the world."2

Fortuitously, Teilhard now found himself a member of the Cenozoic Laboratory at the Peking Union Medical College. Starting in 1928, geologists and paleontologists excavated the sedimentary layers in the Western Hills near Zhoukoudian. At this site, the scientists discovered the so-called Peking man (Sinanthropus pekinensis), a fossil hominid dating back at least 350,000 years but now relegated to the Homo erectus phase of human evolution. Teilhard became world-known as a result of his popularizations of the Sinanthropus discovery, while he himself made major contributions to the geology of this site. Likewise, Teilhard's long stay in China gave him more time to think and write about evolution, as well as continue his scientific research.

The Phenomenon of Man

Bringing his scientific knowledge and religious commitments together, Teilhard now began writing a synthesis of facts and beliefs. He aimed to demonstrate the special place held by our species in this dynamic universe. After two years, writing several paragraphs each month, Teilhard completed his major work, The Phenomenon of Man (1938-1940, with a postscript and appendix added in 1948). For other religionists, his evolutionary synthesis was a threat to traditional theology and, consequently, the Vatican denied its publication. In retrospect, it is with bitter irony that this book was so controversial because it does offer an earth-bound, human-centered, and God-embraced interpretation of spiritual evolution that seems more-or-less conservative from today's perspective. The work is primarily an ultra-anthropology grounded in a phenomenology of evolution in terms of the structures and intentionality in emerging consciousness (spirit).

In The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard writes:

Is evolution a theory, a system or a hypothesis? It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow and which they must satisfy henceforth if they are to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow....The consciousness of each of us is evolution looking at itself and reflecting upon itself....Man is not the center of the universe as once we thought in our simplicity, but something much more wonderfulóthe arrow pointing the way to the final unification of the world in terms of life. Man alone constitutes the last-born, the freshest, the most complicated, the most subtle of all the successive layers of life....The universe has always been in motion and at this moment continues to be in motion. But will it still be in motion tomorrow?....What makes the world in which we live specifically modern is our discovery in it and around it of evolution....Thus in all probability, between our modern earth and the ultimate earth, there stretches an immense period, characterized not by a slowing-down but a speeding up and by the definitive florescence of the forces of evolution along the line of the human shoot.3

For Teilhard, the Mosaic cosmogony is replaced by an emergent evolution within which the biblical Adam and Eve become fossil apelike forms! Not surprisingly, the evolutionary stance taken by this Jesuit priest in The Phenomenon of Man resulted in the condemnation of this unorthodox book by the dogmatic religionists of his time.

Teilhard argues that this universe is a cosmogenesis. Essentially, the unity of this universe is grounded not in matter or energy but in spirit (the within-of-things, or radial energy); thereby he gives priority to dynamic spirit rather than to atomic matter (the without-of-things, or tangential energy). Moreover, Teilhard was a vitalist who saw the personalizing and spiritualizing cosmos as a product of an inner driving force manifesting itself from material atoms, through life forms, to reflective beings. He discerned a direction in the sweeping epic of this evolving universe, particularly with the emergence of humankind. However, his alleged cosmology is merely a planetology, since the scientist-priest focuses his attention on this earth without any serious consideration of the billions of stars in those billions of galaxies that are strewn throughout sidereal reality.

Of primary significance, Teilhard argues that the assumed order in nature reveals a pre-established plan as a result of a divine Designer, who is the transcendent God as the Center of creation or Person of persons; the general direction in evolution is a result of the process law of complexity-consciousness. Teilhard was deeply interested in and concerned about the infinitely complex that would emerge in the distant future as a spiritual synthesis, rather than occupying himself with the infinitely great and the infinitely small.

For Teilhard, this cosmic law of increasing complexity and consciousness manifests itself from the inorganic atoms through organic species to the human person itself. Or, this process law has resulted in the appearance of matter, then life, and finally thought. Evolution is the result of ìdirected chanceî taking place on the finite sphericity of our earth. Teilhard emphasized that evolution is converging and involuting around this globe: first through geogenesis, then biogenesis, and now through noogenesis. The result is a geosphere surrounded by a biosphere, and now an emerging noosphere (or layer of human thought and its products) is enveloping the biosphere and geosphere. For this Jesuit priest, noogenesis is essentially a planetary and mystical Christogenesis, i.e., the evolution of Christ to God-Omega as the divine destiny of humankind.

Unlike the iconoclastic philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), who prophesied the coming of the superior overman as a creative intellect independent of society, Teilhard envisioned the emergence of a collective humankind that would advance to a spiritual union with a personal God in the distant future. Interestingly enough, several Marxist philosophers appreciated Teilhard's emphasis on the collective and directional evolution of our species; of course, as pervasive materialists, they could never accept Teilhard's spiritual and mystical interpretation of dynamic reality.

The idea of a developing noosphere was also explored in the writings of the Russian scientist Vladimir I. Vernadsky (1863-1945). Similar to Teilhard's comprehensive orientation, Vernadsky had presented a holistic view of life on earth in his major work, The Biosphere (1926). Even so, it was Teilhard who seriously considered the long-range ramifications of noogenesis.

Teilhard stressed that the process of evolution has not been a continuum: from time to time, evolution has crossed critical thresholds resulting in the uniqueness of both life over matter and thought over life; a person represents an incredible concentration of consciousness or spirit, resulting in the immortality of the human soul. Consequently, the Jesuit priest claimed that the human being is ontologically separated from the great apes (orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, and bonobo).

For Teilhard, the ongoing spiritual evolution of our species is rapidly moving toward an Omega Point as the end-goal or divine destiny of human evolution on this planet. His theism maintains that God-Omega is one, personal, actual and transcendent. In the future, God-Omega and the Omega Point will unite, forming a mystical synthesis.

Grounded in agapology and centrology, Teilhard's interpretation of evolution claims that the human layer of consciousness engulfing our earth is becoming a collective brain and heart; in the future, as a single mind of persons, this layer will detach itself from the globe and, transcending space and time, immerse itself in God-Omega. As such, the end-goal of evolution is a final creative synthesis of the universal God-Omega with a spiritualized and united humankind. Thus, his panentheism becomes (at least in part) a mystical pantheism. Yet, the Jesuit priest did not take exobiology and exoevolution seriously, e.g., the possibility that Omega Point events have happened or will happen elsewhere in this universe.

Tragic Consequences

After The Phenomenon of Man was denied publication by his superiors, Teilhard then wrote Man's Place in Nature: The Human Zoological Group (1950). This book is a more scientific statement of his interpretation of evolution. With controlled enthusiasm but focusing on our species, he writes: "Man is, in appearance, a ëspecies,í no more than a twig, an offshoot from the branch of the primatesóbut one that we find to be endowed with absolutely prodigious biological properties....Without the earth could there be man?"4

Unfortunately, the publication of Teilhard's third book was also denied along with his request to teach in Paris. In fact, on August 12, 1950, Pope Pius XII issued the Encyclical Letter Humani generis; obviously, this Papal warning from the Vatican was (at least in part) a direct result of Teilhard's unsuccessful request for the publication of his slightly revised version of The Phenomenon of Man written in 1948, as well as his 1950 work on human evolution.

Leaving Paris for New York City, Teilhard spent the last years of his life reflecting on both human evolution and his mystical vision of a spiritual future for our species. Of particular interest is the fact that the secular humanist Sir Julian Huxley was sympathetic to Teilhard's religious humanism. However, Huxley the biologist could never accept Teilhard's overall commitment to spiritual transcendence rather than seeing evolution as a strictly naturalistic process.

While in New York City, Teilhard had the opportunity to visit twice the fossil hominid sites in South Africa. Unfortunately, at the end of his distinguished life, he became removed from the new developments in evolutionary science, e.g., the discovery of the DNA molecule and population genetics research. For the evolutionist as materialist, organic creativity is grounded in chance genetic variation, necessary natural selection, and historical contingency (not teleology and spiritualism). And even though he espoused a geological perspective and saw our species continuing to evolve for millions of years, Teilhard still held that humankind would never leave this planet. Instead, he offers a myopic vision in which our species is nailed to the earth and absolutely alone in this universe. Of course, this suffocating centrology was necessary in order for him to believe in the formation of an unique Omega Point at the end of human evolution on earth. If he were alive today, then what would Teilhard think about the far-reaching ramifications of space exploration and genetic engineering?

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."

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

No doubt, one finds it very disconcerting that the aged Teilhard wept and was depressed about his pathetic ordeal within the Jesuit order. And, one may find it somewhat unsettling that, as a Jesuit priest, he spent considerable time traveling and communicating with several beautiful women whose friendship he encouraged, even though they could never find a lasting intimate relationship with this spiritual and mystical man who gave preference to a transcendent God over those individuals who loved him in this world. Of course, Teilhard was a man of flesh and blood who, struggling with his own beliefs and commitments within an intellectually hostile environment, no doubt needed that human companionship provided by those who found him attractive in every way.

On Easter Sunday, April 10, 1955, Teilhard died of a sudden stroke in New York City. He was buried at Saint Andrew's on the Hudson, in the cemetery of the Jesuit novitiate for the New York Province (as such, his earthly remains are far removed from France). By the fall of that year, the first edition of The Phenomenon of Man was published in its author's native language.

In 1962, a Monitum decree issued by the Holy Office on Teilhard's works went as far as to warn bishops and heads of seminaries about those doctrinal errors that were held to be inherent in the Jesuit scientist's evolutionary and mystical interpretation of humankind within nature. In fact, as his writings were published posthumously, Teilhard became more controversial in death than he had been while he was alive.

Teilhard's hopefulness seems to have overlooked the extensive roll that extinction plays throughout organic evolution (not to mention the excessive evil in the world): those mass extinctions, that caused all the trilobites, ammonites and dinosaurs to vanish forever, should tarnish the unbridled optimism of any rigorous evolutionist. Furthermore, Teilhard's vision will not convince many serious thinkers that it was inevitable for our species to appear in this universe. An obvious expression of wishful thinking, the anthropic principle represents anthropocentrism in its most extreme form.

Claiming that everything that rises must converge, Teilhard grounds his philosophy of evolution in teleology and spiritualism: the movement of matter, then life, and finally thought is both forward and upward to a mystical union with God-Omega (the beginning and end of cosmic evolution). For the Jesuit priest, the chaos and probability throughout nature are giving way to order and certainty. But most scientists will not accept Teilhard's directional interpretation of this evolving universe.

Teilhard's severest critic was the British zoologist Sir Peter Medawar, a Nobel laureate who found the mystic's evolutionism to be not only preposterous but also an attempt at self-deception. Furthermore, the Harvard paleontologist Steven Jay Gould even claims that Teilhard was directly involved with the infamous Piltdown hoax. It is surprising and disappointing that Gould has besmirched the international reputation of a distinguished natural scientist and virtuous human being by suggesting that the Jesuit priest had been a conspirator in the Piltdown fraud, without there being a single thread of incontestable evidence to support such a damaging accusation. Invoking ìinnocent until proven guiltyî and in light of his reputation as a most commendable person, it seems only fair to assume that Teilhard is blameless of any wrongdoing in this singularly outrageous perpetration of a false discovery in human evolution research.

Some Final Thoughts

Teilhard was committed to science, evolution and optimism despite his daring speculations and mystical orientation. He was a religious humanist: a visionary and futurist who foresaw the collective consciousness of our global species increasing in terms of love, information and technology as a result of God's existence. Surely, Teilhard would be delighted with the Internet, seeing it as a planetary force that is uniting the consciousness and spirituality of humankind. It is to his lasting credit that he introduced into modern theology the fact of organic evolution at a time when this scientific theory was rejected by many who saw it as a threat to their religious beliefs and traditional values. Unfortunately for him, in trying to reconcile the natural with the supernatural, this Jesuit priest satisfied no intellectual community. Even today, although wisely not opposed to the fact of evolution, the Roman Catholic Church offers no comprehensive and detailed evolutionary explanation for the origin and history of life or the emergence and future of humankind.

Teilhard focused exclusively on the earth and gave special attention to our own species. In this respect, he was not in step with those modern thinkers who offer a truly cosmic perspective in which humankind is merely a fleeting event in this material universe.

Surprisingly, on October 23, 1996, Pope John Paul II issued a statement to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in which he endorsed evolution as being ìmore than just a theoryî; thereby both biblical fundamentalism and so-called scientific creationism were dealt yet another blow to their vacuous claims about the origin of this universe and the history of life forms on our earth. With bitter irony, it was the silenced Teilhard who had committed himself to the fact of evolution as well as the indisputable powers of science, reason and free inquiry (albeit within a theological framework).

Today, a rigorous evolutionist sees reality grounded in energy (not spirit) and manifesting no evidence of a divine plan unfolding throughout cosmic history. Our species is linked to material nature, and it is presumptuous to claim that a mystical destiny awaits it at the end of planetary time. Even so, through science and technology, humankind is more and more able to direct the future of organic evolution (including our own species) on earth and elsewhere.

Teilhard was a unique human being of intelligence, sensitivity and integrity. He experienced both the agony and ecstasy of time and change. His optimistic commitment to cosmic evolution flourished while he served on the blood-stained battlefield of a war-torn humanity, researched among the rocks and fossils of a remote past, and reflected in the deepest recesses of his profound soul on the meaning and purpose of human existence. As such, Teilhard himself exemplifies the phenomenon of man.

https://huumanists.org/publications/journal/phenomenon-pierre-teilhard-de-chardin

Kent Hovind Half Billion Dollar Lawsuit Dies With A Whimper

Peter J Reilly

Contributor

Peter J Reilly is a Forbes contributor who covers taxes.

Jun 5, 2021,06:11am EDT

Updated Jun 30, 2021, 12:28pm EDT

The drama that commenced just over a year ago when Kent Hovind and Paul John Hansen, as trustee for Creation Science Evangelism, filed a lawsuit in the US District Court Northern District of Florida has come to an unsatisfying though predictable conclusion.

 Judge T. Kent Wetherell, II approving the recommendation of Magistrate Michael J. Frank ruled that "All the claims in the second amended complaint are DISMISSED with prejudice, and the Clerk shall close the case file". (emphasis in the original) The suit claimed damages of $536,041,100. The defendants were the United States of America, Margaret Catharine Rodgers, the Estate of John David Roy Atchison, Michelle Heldmyer, Scott Schneider and Alan Stuart Richey.

Some Background

Kent Hovind is an Independent Baptist minister best known for his advocacy of Young Earth Creationism (YEC). YEC is the notion that there is scientific support for a hyper literal reading of Genesis. Sum up all those begats and you get a world that is about 6,000 years old. One of the implications of YEC is that people and dinosaurs must have coexisted. Hence his sobriquet Doctor Dino and the creation in Pensacola of Dinosaur Adventure Land (DAL). Paul Hansen was the trustee of Creation Science Evangelism (CSE) the "non-statutory trust" that owned DAL.

In 2006 Hovind and his then wife Jo were convicted of a variety of tax related crimes - failure to withhold on DAL employees, who were characterized as missionaries, structuring - systematically making withdrawals of less than $10,000 to avoid bank cash reporting - and interfering with the administration of the tax law. They were also found civilly liable for millions of dollars in income tax including fraud penalties. CSE was found to be an alter ego of Hovind and its real property was seized to cover the structuring penalties. Hovind spent nearly the next nine years in prison.

Margaret Casey Rodgers was the judge in Kent's 2006 trial. Michelle Heldmyer and John David Roy Atchinson were government attorneys involved in the prosecution. Scott Schneider was an IRS CI agent who testified. Alan Stuart Richey was Hovind's attorney.

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In 2015 Hovind was prosecuted again for attempting to interfere with the government's sale of the seized property. Hansen was his codefendant. Thanks to a bit of jury nullification and some sharp legal work Hovind got off entirely, while Hansen was sentenced to eighteen months. The 2015 trial made quite a splash in right-wing alternative media getting as far as Alex Jones, but not quite making it to Fox.

The New DAL

After his release Kent went to work building a new ministry. There is a new Dinosaur Adventure Land in Lenox, Alabama. And Kent has a pretty strong YouTube presence with over 25 million cumulative views. You can learn there almost daily that:

The Bible is true and evolution is dumb. Dinosaurs always lived with man. They did not live millions of years ago. And evolution is the dumbest and most dangerous religion in the history of the world!

Thanks in part to his long term friend and consigliere, Ernie Land, the new DAL is structured to be conventionally tax compliant. The owner of DAL, Creation Science Evangelism Inc, applied for and was granted exempt status.

Hovind has also devoted a good bit of effort to overturning his conviction and being compensated for all the harm it caused him. This lawsuit was the most recent and arguably most spectacular attempt given the damages claimed.

The Hansen School Of Law

Paul Hansen's theory that he based the case on is that the jurisdiction of the federal government is extremely narrow. As far as I can tell the idea is that since the Constitution gives the federal government exclusive jurisdiction over what would become the District of Columbia and land where there are forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards and other needful buildings, it has no jurisdiction anywhere else except by contract. Judge Rodgers et al never established that Hovind was subject to the authority of the federal government, so taking his stuff and locking him up was criminal. I have more on Hansen's theories here.

Hansen claims that attorneys know that he is right, but are afraid to say so because they will get disbarred. He told me that when judges and prosecutors realize that he is on to them they will usually fold. I asked him for a comment on the dismissal and this was his response.

It is of no surprise. This is a billion(s) dollar issue.

The US does not want anyone to investigate the fact that the IRS, or the USA, can not produce any factual (written law) evidence that Kent Hovind had any legal duty, to collect any tax, for the USA, from any person with CSE Ministries, for any year, even today. The reason why is that the constitution bars them from such in multiple ways. We have asked the IRS and they refuse to respond, this could branch into a suit like this one all by itself possibly.

I am working on a reconsideration-motion now. Being that Kent had no legal duty, their entire case collapses as to every count/charge made in 2006. It is exculpatory in nature, a felony to conceal, individually. Possibly we will force the court to make a declarative statement on these individual facts. All nexuses with the US are contractual. (consensual, requiring full disclosure)

In a follow-up e-mail he wrote:

Peter - In America we have ways of forcing disclosure as to duty, it is impossible for an US administrator to evade apart from arrest if done properly, I'll likely be utilizing such tools soon.

The Decision

The Magistrate's recommendation to grant summary judgement in favor of the defendants was based on four grounds. First Hansen did not have standing on many of the claims. Second and more significantly, all the claims were barred by the statute of limitations.  Next there is the matter of sovereign immunity covering the United States and most of the individual defendants who were acting in their official capacity. And their were insufficient allegations that Hovind's attorney was acting "under color of law".

Finally there is the Supreme Court decision Heck V Humphrey. Under that holding in order to recover damages from an unlawful conviction, you have to show that it was, you know, unlawful. Hovind's conviction was confirmed by on appeal by the 11th Circuit and an attempt to overturn it recently failed.

Judge Wetherll did not find any merit in Hansen's response to the Magistrate's recommendation. He was actually kind of harsh:

Indeed, the objections demonstrate the frivolous and delusional nature of this suit when, among other things, they assert that plaintiff Hovind and his ministry were beyond the jurisdiction of the United States and the the obligation to pay income taxes is tantamount to being conscripted into involuntary servitude as a "tax collector for the United States".

As Robert Baty pointed out to me the second part of that is an unfair characterization of Hovind's argument. He was convicted of failing to withhold from employees not for not paying his own income taxes. Not that he did pay his own income taxes, but that remained a civil matter. So the servitude argument is not quite so delusional.

Other Comments

Kent Hovind declined to comment referring me to Hansen.

I get a sense that Ernie Land would prefer that Kent focus on the ministry and stop engaging in litigation following Hansen's advice. When I asked for his comment on the dismissal it was - "As I expected.”

Robert Baty runs the Facebook site Kent Hovind's Worst Nightmare. He is one of the few Hovind critics that Kent will sometimes mention by name. Baty is a retired IRS Appeals officer and Hovind and others believe that he has been brought out or retirement to harass Hovind. He wrote me:

Many will point out that the key evaluation by the Court is its characterization that the pleadings were "frivolous & delusional".

I was pleased to see that the Court did not waste time in providing a legal analysis to the many "frivolous & delusional" claims made by Hansen & Hovind; just 2 pages to dismiss.

The dismissal with prejudice is also telling. Maybe that will make any future legal antics a little easier and quicker to dispose of.

While the outcome was never in any serious doubt, Kent Hovind & Paul John Hansen did manage to fulfil sovereign citizen goals of wasting a year of the Court's time and resources as well as the defendants.

Kent Hovind has pledged the rest of his life to such antics.

Will he continue? What will be his next step? I don't know.

Other Coverage

Hemnant Mehta covered the magistrate's report back in April with A Creationist's $536,041,100 Lawsuit is Getting Laughed Out of the Courtroom on the FRIENDLY Atheist.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjreilly/2021/06/05/kent-hovind-half-billion-dollar-lawsuit-dies-with-a-whimper/

Friends: of the Society are to be sought and cultivated [426, 823, 824] on behalf of them, whether living or dead, prayers are to be offered and other signs of gratitude are to be shown [638], 413; the extent to which communication with friends in the world is to be had [60, 246], 53, 111; the extent to which an examiner can examine candidates who are his friends [143]

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 

The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (French: Société des amis de la Constitution), renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality (Société des Jacobins, amis de la liberté et de l'égalité) after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club (Club des Jacobins) or simply the Jacobins (/ˈdʒækəbɪn/; French: [ʒakɔbɛ̃]), was the most influential political club during the French Revolution of 1789. The period of its political ascendancy includes the Reign of Terror, during which well over 10,000 people were put on trial and executed in France, many for political crimes.

Initially founded in 1789 by anti-royalist deputies from Brittany, the club grew into a nationwide republican movement with a membership estimated at a half million or more.[1] The Jacobin Club was heterogeneous and included both prominent parliamentary factions of the early 1790s: The Mountain and the Girondins.[3] In 1792–93, the Girondins were more prominent in leading France when they declared war on Austria and on Prussia, overthrew King Louis XVI, and set up the French First Republic. In May 1793, the leaders of the Mountain faction, led by Maximilien Robespierre, succeeded in sidelining the Girondin faction and controlled the government until July 1794. Their time in government featured high levels of political violence, and for this reason the period of the Jacobin/Mountain government is identified as the Reign of Terror. In October 1793, 21 prominent Girondins were guillotined. The Mountain-dominated government executed 17,000 opponents nationwide as a way to suppress the Vendée insurrection and the Federalist revolts, and to deter recurrences. In July 1794, the National Convention pushed the administration of Robespierre and his allies out of power and had Robespierre and 21 associates executed. In November 1794, the Jacobin Club closed.

In the British Empire, Jacobin was linked primarily to The Mountain of the French Revolutionary governments and was popular among the established and entrepreneurial classes as a pejorative to deride radical left-wing revolutionary politics, especially when they exhibit dogmatism and violent repression.[4] In Britain, the term faintly echoed negative connotations of Jacobitism, the pro-Catholic, monarchist, rarely insurrectional political movement that faded out decades earlier tied to deposed King James II of England and his descendants. Jacobin reached obsolescence and supersedence before the Russian Revolution, when the terms (Radical) Marxism, anarchism, socialism, and communism had overtaken it.

In France, Jacobin now generally leans towards moderate authoritarianism, more equal formal rights, and centralization.[5] It can, similarly, denote supporters of extensive government intervention to transform society.[6] It is unabashedly used by proponents of a state education system that strongly promotes and inculcates civic values. It is more controversially, and less squarely, used by or for proponents of a strong nation-state capable of resisting undesirable foreign interference.[7]

History

Foundation

When the Estates General of 1789 in France convened in May–June 1789 at the Palace of Versailles, the Jacobin club, originating as the Club Breton, comprised exclusively a group of Breton representatives attending those Estates General.[8] Deputies from other regions throughout France soon joined. Early members included the dominating comte de Mirabeau, Parisian deputy Abbé Sieyès, Dauphiné deputy Antoine Barnave, Jérôme Pétion, the Abbé Grégoire, Charles Lameth, Alexandre Lameth, Artois deputy Robespierre, the duc d'Aiguillon, and La Revellière-Lépeaux. At this time meetings occurred in secret, and few traces remain concerning what took place or where the meetings convened.[8]

Transfer to Paris

By the March on Versailles in October 1789, the club, still entirely composed of deputies, reverted to being a provincial caucus for National Constituent Assembly deputies from Brittany. The club was re-founded in November 1789 as the Société de la Révolution, inspired in part by a letter sent from the Revolution Society of London to the Assembly congratulating the French on regaining their liberty.[9][10][11]

To accommodate growing membership, the group rented for its meetings the refectory of the Dominican monastery of the “Jacobins” in the Rue Saint-Honoré, adjacent to the seat of the Assembly.[10][11] They changed their name to Société des amis de la Constitution in late January, though by this time, their opponents had already concisely dubbed them "Jacobins", a nickname originally given to French Dominicans because their first house in Paris was in the Rue Saint-Jacques.[8][11]

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

"In 1748 the Rite de Veilla Bru, or Faithful Scotsman, was established at Toulouse with nine degrees, the first three Symbolic, followed by the Secret Master, four Elu degrees, and the Ninth degree ' Scientific Masonry.^" " In 1750 and 1751, a Lodge styled ' St. Jean de Ecossais ' was established at Marseilles, which afterwards assumed the style of ' Scottish Mother Lodge of France.' Its regime finally consisted of Eighteen degrees, of which the Scottish Mother Lodge of France at Paris afterwards borrowed Eight." 

" In 1752 a power of the High degrees was established under the pompous title of * Sovereign Council, Sublime Scotch Mother Lodge of the Grand French Globe.' It afterwards called itself* Sovereign Council, Sublime Mother Lodge of the Excellents of the Grand French Globe.' The ' Council of the Emperors of the East and West ' assumed that title also on the 22d January, 1780. — Ragon." 

"In 1754, The Chevalier de Bonneville established a chapter of the High degrees at Paris, styled the ' Chapter of Clermont.' In it the Templar system was revived, and the Baron de Hund received the High degrees, there and thence derived the principles and doctrines of his ' Order of Strict Observance ' —Thory and Leveque—Ragon says, The regime of the Chapter of Clermont at first comprised only three degrees, viz., the three Symbolic, followed by the Knight of the Eagle or Master Elect, Illustrious Knight or Templar, and Illustrious Sublime Knight—but that they soon became more numerous." 

" In the same year Martinez Pascalis established his rite of ' Elus C'dens ' with nine degrees. He did not carry it to Paris until 1767, where Martinism in ten degrees grew out of it." — Clavel. 

" In 1757 M. de St. Gelaire introduced at Paris the ' Order of Noachites.' ^'

page 50

THE ANCIENT AND ACCEPTED SCOTTISH KITE, IN THIRTY-THREE DEGREES. KNOWN HITHERTO UNDER THE NAMES OF THE " BITE OF PEEPECTION" ^THE " EITE OF HEEEDOM" THE " ANCIEIII SCOTTISH rite"—THE " EITE OF KILWINNING" AND LAST, AS THE " SCOTTISH EITE, ANCIENT AND ACCEPTED." A FULL AND COMPLETE HISTORY, WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING NUMEROUS AUTHENTIC DOCUMENTS, RELATING TO THE ORIGIN, PKO- OB£SS AND ESTABLISHMENT OP THE EITE—EDICTS, CIRCULARS, PATENTS, REGISTERS, AND THE OPINIONS OF NUMEROUS AUTHORS — ILLUSTRATED WITH "TABLETS," / BY ROBERT B. FOLGER, M. D., Past Master, 33d., iJi-SECRETARY GENERAL, &0. SECOND EDITION. ,c ^ j ;^ NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/The_ancient_and_accepted_Scottish_rite%2C_in_thirty-three_degrees_%28IA_ancientaccepted00folg%29.pdf 

PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS Thirty-Second Degree ; oR;, Sublime Prince of the KoYAL Secret. The French Revolution—Jacobins Like Chicago Anarchists—Lodge and Romish Despotism—Denials that Masonry is a Religion—Proof that Masonry is a Religion—Made Twofold More the Child of Hell—Freemasonry Confessedly Deistic—Deism is Practical Atheism—Adopts the Motto of the Jesuits—**They Sbal] Be Booted Up." This degree originated thirty years before the French Eevolntion of 1789^ and was active in producing it. The lodge-theory was that of the anarchists of today^ that;, if institutions or religion, and government were abolished;, human passions, like fluids^, would find their level in universal peace and happiness. Communists ^guillotined their king^ and hung their bishops to lampposts ; proclaimed "^^liberty and equality ;'^ and put their religious creed over the gate of their cemetery: ''There is no God! Death is an eternal sleep/' The last degree of their system required the candidate to stab his I brother, or nearest friend, as a traitor to the lodge, and ' amid the brother's groans, and pleadings for his life, they laid the candidate's gloved hand on the beating heart of a lamb. And, if he stabbed, they removed the vj)linder, and swore him to vengeance against Church and State. This was ''The Royal Secret/' This explains the vengeance sworn in this and other degrees of that day. {See Rohison's Conspiracy, p. 299.) But, in this country, and at this day, this degree is senseless, and worthless. Its bluster about freeing the people, is meaningless, and itself not worth reading. But how happens this once "Ne plus ultra'' degree to be so prolix and stupid as to be scarce worth reading ? 

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 Eite 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 Eite,'' 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. They therefore stretched it, and stuffed it into its present shape, prolix enough. Hence the hotchpotch flummery of a camp of nine sides, with stupid Masomc explanatious for every comer, i 

LODGE AND ROMISH DESPOTISM. 451 But the one "^^mission and object^^ (Maekey) of Masonry is kept steadily in view; which is the worship of the god of this world, who is Satan, as the ''Orand Architect of the Universe/' and to accomplish this by inventing ^^a religion in which all mankind agree ;^^ and this, by putting all earth's religions upon a level, and uniting them together in Masonic worship, which is boldly avowed in rituals, lexicons, and philosophical degrees. This is, (in Revelation, IS, IJf,) called: the image of the beast, made by ^^them, that dwell on the earth;'' that is, everybody; every creed, and no creed; all who join secret lodges. But this world-religion must have some form and shape, to hold together; and be taxed; hence, it takes the form, or image, of the beast. Lodge despotism is as absolute as Eomigh despotism, and is the image of it ; and it is made, as we have seen, by the lamb-dragon beast, which is Popery; ^Hhat great city, (Rome) which reigneth over the kings of the earth/' {Rev, 17, 18.) Note now the profound craft, by which this is to be accomplished, viz,. Masonry promises men salvation by I ceremonies invented by men, administered by priests, and inhabited by devils. This is the sum and substance of all the false religions on earth, and will ultimately unite them against Christ. (See Rev. 20^.) But the only opponents Masonry dreads, is Christ, who refused to worship Satan, and his followers. If there were no Christians in lodges, Masonry would not live an hour. Hence, though Christ is wholly omitted, in the lower degrees, He is taken into the lodges, made by Jesuits and Jews, as a tool of incantation, but He is not permitted to be worshiped there, except by worships which are paid to devils. In the next and last degree, of the world's ruling rite, the SSrd^ Christ i^ twir-p o^]]o(] ''our 452 DENIALS THAT MASONRY IS A RELIGION. Sovereign/' (See pp. 476-7.) but none are baptized in His name, nor do they celebrate His death. The bread is eaten and the wine drunk from human skulls, in honor of devils, not Christ; and though Christ is called sovereign, they trample on His law. Why, then, do they pay Him these empty compliments? Plainly, to draw in ignorant, weak, and worldly Christians, and this is what they achieve. ^ Nothing is more common, than the denial that Free* masonry is a religion. This denial is made by many Masons, and by all Jack-Masons, who bear the burdens of the lodge, while claiming merit for not joining it. But the many distinct avowals, that ''Masonry is a religious institution'' made by the highest Masonic authorities, have been given in their own words. The diabolical craft of the system appears in this; that while ^^traditions,'^ which are man-made religions, crucified ^*^the Son of Gpod,'^ they worship the cross, the tool by which they tortured Him, to make believe they were opposed to His crucifixion and torture, as if the assassin should kneel before the dagger, with which he stabbed his victim. N'or is this all, or the worst: claiming that they unite all religions in one, they renounce and exclude the God and religion of the Bible, as ^^bigoted^' and narrow. They work only in Christian lands, not in barbarous and savage countries; and they denounce as ^^bigoted'^ the religion of the lands where they work. And to crown their falsehood with felony, they steal and falsely appropriate the principles knd fruits of the Gospel of Christ. The quotations which we give below, not only prove that Masonry claims to be a religion, but the true religion, and that its thistles produce figs, that its heathen ritual regenerates, sanctiPROOF THAT MASONRY IS A RELIGIOK'. 453 fies, and saves men. To begin with the Entered Apprentice : ^^There he stands without our portals^ on the threshold of this new Masonic life, in darkness, helplessness and ignorance. Having been wandering amid the errors, and covered over with the pollutions of the outer and profane world, he comes inquiringly to our doors, seeking the new birth, and asking a withdraw^d of the veil which conceals divine truth from his uninitiated sight. * * * There is to be not simply a change for the future, but also an extinction of the past ; for initiation is, as it were, a death to the world, and a resurrection to a new life.'' Mackey's Ritualist, pp, 22-3. This is Satan's travesty and burlesque of Bible conviction of sin, and seeking religion. The Fellow Craft is still compassing Mt. Sinai. Then follows the new birth, or regeneration, not ^^by the Holy Ghost," but by the third, or Master's degree : ^^This has very properlv been called ihQ sublime degree of a Master Mason, as well for the solemnity of the ceremonies which accompany it, as for the profound lessons of wisdom which it inculcates. The important design of the degree is to symbolize the great doctrine of the resurrection of the body, and the immortality of the soul; and hence it has been remiarked-by a learned v/riter of our Order, that the Master Mason represents a man saved from the grave of iniquity, and raised to the faith of salvation." — MacJcey's Ritualist, p. 109. Then follows the Masonic lying-in, in w^hich the devil acts as midwife. The hoodwink falls, the lodge claps and stamps, and the weary, badgered and befooled candidate experiences such a ^change of heart/" 

FREEMASONRY CONFESSEDLY DEISTIC. 455 dwelling place of Him who is the author of purity." — Machey's Ritualist, p. 39. What is professing religion, if this is not? Then also the same writer says of the Shock o'f Enlightenment, or Eite of Illumination : ^This mental illumination,'—this spiritual light, which, after his new birth, is the first demand of the new candidate, is but another name for Divine Truth,— the truth of God and the soul,—the nature and essence of both,—which constitute the chief design of all Masonic teaching." — Machey's Ritualist, p, SS. We add the following, not because needed to prove Masonry a religion, but to show that it is organized deism : ^'^Every important undertaking in Masonry is both begun and completed with prayer. The prayers given in the hand-books of the Blue Lodge, are such, as all Masons, whatever their religious faith, may unite in. In the orders of knighthood the prayers are, as a matter of course, strictly and intensely Christia^. In the third L degree a sublime prayer, adapted from the 14th chapter of Job, is made in American lodges an essential part of the ritual of Eaising." — Morris' Dictionary Art. Prayer. it is evident from the above quotations that Freemasonry claims to he a religion. Kow let Masonic authorities tell us what kind of a religion it is. "The truth, is, that Masonry is undoubtedly a religious institution,—its religion being of that universal kind in which all men agree, and which, handed down through the long succession of ages, from that ancient priesthood who first taught it, embraces the great tenets of the existence of God, and of the immortality of the 456 DEISM IS PRACTICAL ATHEISM. soul; tenets, which by its peculiar symbolic languages, it has preserved from its foundation, and still continues m the same beautiful way to teach. Beyond this for its religious faith, we must not and cannot go/' — MacJcey's Masonic Jurisprudence, page 95, ''The religion then, of Masonry, is pure theism, on which its different members engraft their own peculiar opinions, but they are not permitted to introduce them into the lodge, or to connect their truth or falsehood with the truth of Masonry/' — Macheys Lexicon, Art. Religion, "All the ceremonies of our order are prefaced and terminated with prayer, because Masonry is a religious institution and because we thereby show our dependence on, -and our faith and trust in God." — MacJcey's Lexicon, Art, Prayer. — ''This is the scope and aim of its ritual. The Master Mason represents man when youth, manhood, old age, and life itself have passed away as fleeting shadows, yet raised from the grave of iniquity, and quickened into another and better existence. By its legend and all its ritual it is implied that we have been redeemed from the death of sin and sepulchre of pollution !" Machey's Ritualist, p, 109. These and the like quotations might be continued to any extent and from different authors. But these will suffice to settle the question with all rational and intelligent readers. And if once the ministry and churches* of this country can be possessed of these facts, there will be raised to God one general cry ; as when President Lincoln called the American people to unite in prayer for deliverance from the curse of the slavery war. Deism is practical atheism. For the infinite God cannot be reached by finite minds, but only through a merciful Mediator. 

' • ADOPTS THE MOTTO OF THE JESUITS. 457 But the key to the importance of this 33nd degree, is its Motto: ''Ad majorem Dei gloriam/' Note 370. This is the motto of the Jesuits ; who, with the apostate Ramsay, made these French degrees, falsely called Scottish. This motto was adopted by their founder, Igna^ tins Loyola; and is still the motto of the order which he founded, in an underground chapel of the Holy Martyrs in 1534, seventeen years after Luther nailed his Theses to the church door at Wittenberg, in 1517. The reformation' had only fairly begun, and this underground, secret order of Jesuits met the Eeformation, and has turned it back. Some principalities in Germany, once Protestant, are now under Popish prindes ! That order now rules Popedom, though once prohibited by it, as Masonry is now. The reader will find the above motto on page IJf, of the introduction, and the founding of the order on page 9 of the ''History pf the Society of Jesus,'' Baltimore, 1878. And on pages 13 and 13 he says, that .^ in the village of Lasorta, near Rome, while praying, he I was '^dazzled by a brilliant light ;^^ and ^^the entire J history of the order,'' says the historian^ ^^is but a de- 1 velopment of that vision.'^ ? Now, if that light had been from God, as was that which shone around Paul, at his conversion, Loyola's life would have borne thfe same fruit which Paul's did, instead of the ignorance, superstition, and persecution which has tracked Papacy ever since; and now furnishes saloon-keepers for our cities, and carries their votes to license pauperism, crime, blasphemy, and woe. But if that light was from Satan, who is Christ's rival and counterfeit, then we should expect the fruits, which we see follow the Papacy everywhere. Then that supornatural light was Masonic light, whose fruits are the 458 "they shall be rooted up/^ same. And our Savior has told us: '''By their fruits ye shall Jcnow them/' These lodges are not of God's plantings and we have the word of Christy that 'Hhey shall be rooted up/' (Math. 15, IS,) Let ns look to Him for the fulfillment of that glorious promise.

Scotch Rite Masonry Illustrated Volume 2

by Blanchard 

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

Feb 18-19, 2023

SD ROCKET CON

San Diego Rocket Con is coming up on it's 5th Annual show, February 18th and 19th. This 2 day show is full of various vendors with all kinds of collectibles, comics, toys, and other items fans love! Meet voice actors from your favorite anime such as Dragonball Z, My Hero Academia, and even Naruto, or take a picture with real life Power Rangers! Maybe you want a special sketch of your favorite superhero drawn by famous artists from Marvel and DC. Participate in our cosplay contest and see if you have what it takes to win. There's something for everyone at San Diego Rocket Con!

February 18-19, 2023

Scottish Rite Event Center

10am—6pm — Saturday

10am—5pm — Sunday

https://sdrocketcon.com/

THE NEW AGE

GOD'S PLAN IN AMERICA C. WILLIAM SMITH, New Orleans, La.  September 1950

THERE are three plans in action in America today and they all have different purposes. The first plan is God's plan, a nonsectarian plan; the second is the Roman Catholic plan, and this is a denominational or sectarian plan, and the third is the Communistic plan, an anticapitalist plan.

God's plan is dedicated to the unification of all races, religions and creeds. This plan, dedicated to the new order of things, is to make all things new-s new nation, a new race, a new civilization and a new religion, a nonsectarian religion that has already been recognized and called the religion of "The Great Light."

Looking back into history, we can easily see that the Guiding Hand of Providence has chosen the Nordic people to bring in and unfold the new order of the world. Records clearly show that 95 percent of the colonists were Nordics-Anglo-Saxons.

Providence has chosen the Nordics because the Nordics have prepared themselves and have chosen God. They are not church worshippers, for they worship God's word-the Holy Bible. The Nordics are. the great Bible-reading people of the world today, and the Nordics-Anglo-Saxons -were the first people to print the Holy Bible in great quantity, and they were known as the people of a book, that book being the Holy Bible.

But, in order to read the Bible, it is necessary to know how to read. In the Nordic race there is no illiteracy. In Norway there has been no illiteracy for more than a hundred years. Another fact that shows clearly that the Nordics are God's chosen people this time is they are always looking for more light on the mission of life.

Looking at their station of life, these great Bible-reading people should open the eyes of the world, King Gustaf of Sweden is a great light in the nonsectarian Masonic Brotherhood, and King Haakon of Norway is a Masonic light in Norway.

The late King Christian of Denmark was a Masonic spirit in his Denmark; also King George of England is a Masonic light to his Anglo-Saxon people.  Just as Providence has chosen the Jewish race-the children of Israel-to bring into the world righteousness by carrying the "Ten Commandments" which emphasize 'Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy," so also Providence has chosen the Nordic race to unfold the 'New Age" of the world-a "Novus Ordo Seclorum." One of the first of the Nordics to reach the New World was the Viking, Leif Ericsson. He sailed from Norway to bring his people in Iceland a new message, the message of the Chritian God. But Providence moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform, and so Leif the Lucky was sent by Providence to the New World. From the abundance of grapes found there Leif Ericsson called the place Vinland. It is easy to sense that Leif Ericsson was sent by the Guiding Hand of Providence to bring the Norse spirit of the "All-Father" to the shores of the New World.

The Nordics are the highest branch of the fifth Aryan Civilization.; The Latins are of the fourth Aryan Civilization, and the American race will be the sixth Aryan Civilization. This new and great civilization is like an American Beauty rosebud, ready to open and send its wonderful fragrance to all the world. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Paine and many others of the founders of the New World were Nordics. Thomas Paine, the spark plug of the American Revolution, loved God but hated sectarianism. In 'These Are the times," he wrote: "We have it in our power to begin the world all over again! A situation familiar to the present hath not happened since the days of Noah, till now. The birthday of a New World is at hand."

As stated before, God's Plan in America is nonsectarian plan. Our Constitution is nonsectarian. Our great American Public Schools-God's chosen schools-are nonsectarian. The Great Spirit behind this great nation is nonsectarian.

Our great American Public Schools have never taken away from any child the freedom of will, freedom of Spirit or freedom of mind. That is the divine reason that Great God our King has chosen the great American Public Schools to pave the way for the new race, the new religion and the new civilization that is taking place in America.

Any mother, father or guardian who is responsible for taking away of freedom of mind, freedom of will or freedom of spirit is the lowest criminal on this earth, because they take away from that child the God-given right to become a part of God's great plan in America for the dawn of the New Age of the world."

The Official Organ of The Supreme Council 33° A. & A. Scottish Rite of Freemasonry S. J. U. S. A. PUBLISHED AT 1735 SIXTEENTH STREET N, W. WASHINGTON, D. C.

Sunday August 13, 1961 continued

The ride into Jackson was uneventful. It was dark and few people noticed our being sirened through all the traffic lights by our escort of police cars. The Masonic Temple is located in the middle of downtown Jackson, on Lynch Street. When we entered, it was almost full, a sea of Negro faces (although I became aware later that there were some whites among them, even some Jackson whites, particularly from Temple Beth Israel, the Jewish congregation in Jackson). As we filed to the seats reserved for us, the people of Jackson stood up and cheered us. I felt very strange; I had never been the guest of honor at a larger meeting before, and even sharing the limelight with almost two hundred others, it gave me a feeling of mixed humility and pride.

The opening invocation was given by Freedom Rider who was a rabbi from San Francisco, Joseph Gumbiner, and I was at this point introduced to on of the strangest (to me) aspects of southern Negro audience, their habit of responding aloud to sentiments with which they are pleased. As the rabbi repeated some of the most common and familiar (to me) phrases of Jewish ritual, I heard choruses of "That's right," "We believe," and "A-men!" At first I could not help feeling that this was impolite and inappropriate, but as it continues through the evening I began to get into the spirit too and to shed some of my northern reserve. The speeches, by Reverent C.T. Vivian, Jim Farmer, and various other leaders of the movement from all over the country."

page 113

Chapter 12 "Events"

Freedom Rider Diary

by Carol Ruth Silver

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ySwr5Z2ARlgLZc67EyuyjUR9B7iorZM8/view

In 1843, New York Reform Jews founded the exclusively Jewish Masonic Lodge, B'nai B'rith.

Their institutions and influence grew. At the turn of the 20th century, the B'nai B'rith founded the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Congress and Federations of Jewish Charities.

According to Rabbi Antelman, Reform #Jews who became lawyers were, and still are, active in the subversively oriented National Lawyers Guild. In addition these lawyers were instrumental

in founding the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Once the Frankist-Reform Jews were well established in the illuminated Masonic Lodges, they pushed for civil rights for the downtrodden, primarily for Blacks, according to Antelman, "to

exploit them for their own ends." He further remarks on their influence on the events of the 1960s:

"I have found their descendants in the United States to be very active in Marxist-Leninist and Third World activities. They have attempted to convert the Civil Rights movement into a Black

revolution, and are attempting to further polarize this country by promoting women's liberation. Their children who are prominent in the SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] organize and recruit for the El Fatah, and have succeeded in destroying synagogues and

Jewish institutions by instigating Black radicals mostly concentrated in nine urban centers in the U.S."

Rabbi Antelman lists three steps Reform Jews plan to use to eliminate all Jewry: "The initial thrust was philosophically Karaitic, an attack on the Talmud. [The Karaites were a Jewish sect founded in Babylonia toward the end of the 8th century, who denied the authority of the Oral Law and the Talmud.] The intermediate stage was complete apostasy, an attack on the Torah.

However, the final state is even worse": a complete reversal of all Biblical law. Antelman, writing in 1974, said the Reform "has followers today who are now calling for abolition of capital punishment in our society, who endorse abortion, who seek to justify the tolerance of criminal elements, who approve of adultery and illicit sexual relations and who have even incorporated homosexual congregations into their structure and praise for 'atheistic' rabbis...."

The Reform's planned destruction of traditionally Jewish and #Christian society through Masonic revolution was premeditated. Antelman states that "when attempts were made by the Illuminati,

Jacobins and Frankists to infiltrate the Masons.. .their infiltration did not mean that they harbored any particular love for Freemasonry. On the contrary, they hated it with a passion and only wished to utilize the cover of Freemasonry as a means of spreading their revolutionary doctrines and to provide a place where they could covertly meet without arousing suspicion."

Antelman wrote eight years before the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail exposed Freemasonry as a front for both Sion and the Templars. Now we know that instead of taking over #Freemasonry, as many conspiracy researchers have thought, the Illuminati-Frankist Jews were absorbed, then exploited, by the more powerful Masonic Lodges. Freemasonry learned well the Frankist doctrines and usurped their Reform system to destroy the existing order. Jews such as Moses Mendelssohn, and later Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky, were used by Freemasonry to replace the old order with their own Gentile Masonic New World Order. Should

the conspiracy be exposed, the doctrinally subversive Frankist/Reform Jews would be the scapegoat."

Chapter 8 "The Jewish Connection"

Scarlet and the Beast

by John Daniel

https://ia803001.us.archive.org/28/items/ScarletAndTheBeastJohnDaniel1995/Scarlet%20and%20the%20Beast,%20John%20Daniel%20(1995).pdf

Wednesday, May 31, 1961

In the afternoon mail today I received the material from CORE, some descriptive little pamphlets and a mimeographed form to be signed and returned to them. For the first time I began to learn just who and what CORE is. Actually I never herd of the organization until the beginning of the sit-in demonstrations last year, and I got the impression then that it had been formed not more than a year or so ago, with participation in the sit-ins its primary activity.

On the contrary, CORE has been around for something like twenty years. In the beginning it was a small organization dedicated to bettering race relations by applying Gandhian techniques although I could not get quite clear about what exactly this entailed). Its current ASCENDANCY began with the beginning of the sit-in demonstrations. These broke out like a highly CONTAGIOUS rash over the face of the South after having been started (more or less) by a small group in Greensboro, North Carolina. The students had gone up to a lunch counter together, sat down, and waited for service. The lunch counter closed up.

CORE came in as those in jail or otherwise in need of help. And some of its local chapters began challenge segregation by organizing their own lunch counter sit-ins, or wade-ins at beaches and public pools, stand-ins at movie ticket lines, read-ins at libraries and the like. The method used in all cases was nonviolent resistance, with Martin Luther King, Jr's bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, as the prime example."

page 9

Freedom Rider Diary

by Carol Ruth Silver

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ySwr5Z2ARlgLZc67EyuyjUR9B7iorZM8/view

Chapter 43 The Jesuits — 1960 – 1963 1455 A. Philip Randolph Leading Black Civil Rights Leaders, 1964

Here sit the greatest traitors to American Black People who ever disgraced the sad, tragic history of this generally servile and downtrodden race. With no true Black men loyal to their race allowed to advocate a “Back to Africa” movement or the establishment of a new Black nation in North America—to the exclusion of all White people—, these Jesuit-ruled, Masonic “Uncle Toms” of the Black Pope championed an integrationist agitation that has only antagonized the relationship between American Whites and Blacks for the last sixty years—while further centralizing executive power in Washington! Massive unconstitutional socialism, such as President Johnson’s “War on [Black] Poverty” igniting a sky-rocketing national debt, has given rise to huge, easily-agitated, welfare-dependent, savage, inner-city, Black populations whose bent to illegitimacy, vice and Black-on- White crime has been continually stoked by the Company’s CIA/Mafia gunrunners, illicit drug trade, Jesuit/Knight of Malta-controlled Hollywood theater movies and now “gangster rap.” From the Order’s NAACP headquarters in New York City we see (L-R): Bayard Rustin, co-founder of the Rockefellerfunded University of Chicago’s Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); Jewish Jack Greenberg, NAACP New York lawyer; Masonic Whitney M. Young, Jr., National Urban League executive director; James Farmer, cofounder and national CORE director; Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP later awarded St. Louis University’s “Sword of Ignatius Loyola” in 1976; Martin Luther King, Jr. (groomed for the movement while a student at the all-Blackmale Morehouse College by its Masonic president, Benjamin Elijah Mays) president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; John Lewis, radical chairman of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee; Masonic A. Philip Randolph, “the Chief;” and Courtney Young of Lewis’ student group. Socialist Martin King with his White Master, Pope Paul VI, 1964 #612 Archbishop Paul Marcinkus gazes at King after an “audience” with the Pope. SMOM Henry R. Luce’s Time magazine named King “Man of the Year” in 1964 on orders from Cardinal Spellman, furthering Rome’s Civil Rights agitation. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4737372.stm "

Vatican Assassins Third Edition

by Eric Jon Phelps

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uQl1CmWeLL87RWVtzKttGFKm0frSNR8D/view?usp=sharing

The advertisement billed the December 2 benefit gala as “A Struggle Against Oppression.” Scheduled speakers included rising Assemblyman Willie Brown as the master of ceremonies and funnyman Dick Gregory as the keynote. Supervisor Harvey MILK and other movers and shakers of an oft moved and shaken city crammed their big names into a small font on the flyer. For the bargain of $25—and “tax deductible” at that—influence seekers could seek to influence the mighty of a great American city. In addition to mingling with such power brokers as Brown and Milk, they could corner Sheriff Eugene Brown, physician and newspaper publisher Carlton Goodlett, and Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver at San Francisco’s Hyatt Regency. And doing well meant doing good. The dinner’s proceeds subsidized the Peoples Temple Medical Program.

The Hyatt ballroom remained empty on December 2, 1978. Two weeks earlier, the small staff of the Peoples Temple Medical Program had mixed cyanide with Flavor Aid and administered the poisonous, sugary elixir to hundreds of people in faraway Guyana. The smiling seniors and racial rainbow of children touting the wholesomeness of the agricultural commune in the fundraiser’s promotional literature rotted in piles in the steamy South American jungle. On an airstrip in nearby Port Kaituma, five people, including Congressman Leo Ryan, lay dead, gunned down by Peoples Temple assassins. Others, including future congresswoman Jackie Speier, State Department official Richard Dwyer, and San Francisco Examiner reporter Tim Reiterman, nursed bullet wounds. In Guyana’s capital city, a former Harvey Milk campaign volunteer slashed her children’s throats.

The Reverend Jim Jones, the darling of the San Francisco political establishment, orchestrated the murders and suicides of 918 people on November 18, 1978. The man-made cataclysm represented the largest such loss of civilian life in American history until 9/11 and the largest mass suicide of the modern age. Nothing before or after struck Americans as so bizarre.

The event shocked the world. But the small world surrounding Peoples Temple predicted it—loudly and repeatedly. Not every utterance from Jonestown’s namesake, after all, proved as cryptic as the one block-quoted on the “Struggle Against Oppression” promotional literature: “We have tasted life based on total equality and now have no desire to live otherwise."

https://isi.org/intercollegiate-review/socialists-in-the-kool-aid/

Fire as the agent of Truth

Asha Vahishta is closely associated with fire. Fire is "grandly conceived as a force informing all the other Amesha Spentas, giving them warmth and the spark of life."[27] In Yasht 17.20, Angra Mainyu clamours that Zoroaster burns him with Asha Vahishta. In Vendidad 4.54-55, speaking against the truth and violating the sanctity of promise is detected by the consumption of "water, blazing, of golden color, having the power to detect guilt."

This analogy of truth that burns and detecting truth through fire is already attested in the very earliest texts, that is, in the Gathas and in the Yasna Haptanghaiti. In Yasna 43–44, Ahura Mazda dispenses justice through radiance of His fire and the strength of aṣ̌a. Fire "detects" sinners "by hand-grasping" (Yasna 34.4). An individual who has passed the fiery test (garmo-varah, ordeal by heat), has attained physical and spiritual strength, wisdom, truth and love with serenity (Yasna 30.7). Altogether, "there are said to have been some 30 kinds of fiery tests in all."[28] According to the post-Sassanid Dadestan i denig (I.31.10), at the final judgement a river of molten metal will cover the earth. The righteous, as they wade through this river, will perceive the molten metal as a bath of warm MILK. The wicked will be scorched. For details on aṣ̌a's role in personal and final judgement, see aṣ̌a in eschatology, below.

Fire is moreover the "auxiliary of the truth," "and not only, as in the ordeal, of justice and of truth at the same time."[11] In Yasna 31.19, "the man who thinks of aṣ̌a, [...] who uses his tongue in order to speak correctly, [does so] with the aid of brilliant fire". In Yasna 34-44 devotees "ardently desire [Mazda's] mighty fire, through aṣ̌a." In Yasna 43–44, Ahura Mazda "shall come to [Zoroaster] through the splendour of [Mazda's] fire, possessing the strength of (through) aṣ̌a and good mind (=Vohu Manah)." That fire "possesses strength through aṣ̌a" is repeated again in Yasna 43.4. In Yasna 43.9, Zoroaster, wishing to serve fire, gives his attention to aṣ̌a. In Yasna 37.1, in a list of what are otherwise all physical creations, aṣ̌a takes the place of fire.

Asha Vahishta's association with atar is carried forward in the post-Gathic texts, and they are often mentioned together. In Zoroastrian cosmogony, each of the Amesha Spentas represents one aspect of creation and one of seven primordial elements that in Zoroastrian tradition are the basis of that creation. In this matrix, aṣ̌a/arta is the origin of fire, Avestan atar, which permeates through all Creation. The correspondence then is that aṣ̌a/arta "penetrates all ethical life, as fire penetrates all physical being."[12]

In the liturgy Asha Vahishta is frequently invoked together with fire. (Yasna l.4, 2.4, 3.6, 4.9, 6.3, 7.6, 17.3, 22.6, 59.3, 62.3 etc.). In one passage, fire is a protector of aṣ̌a: "when the Evil Spirit assailed the creation of Good Truth, Good Thought and Fire intervened" (Yasht 13.77)

In later Zoroastrian tradition, Asha Vahishta is still at times identified with the fire of the household hearth.

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

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 until 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

Pope John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus II; Polish: Jan Paweł II; Italian: Giovanni Paolo II; born KAROL Józef Wojtyła, Polish: [ˈkarɔl ˈjuzɛv vɔjˈtɨwa];[b] 18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in 2005.

In his youth, Wojtyła dabbled in stage acting. He graduated with excellent grades from an all-boys high school in Wadowice, Poland, in 1938, soon after which World War II broke out. During the war, to avoid being kidnapped and sent off to a German forced labour camp, he signed up for work in harsh conditions in a quarry. Wojtyła eventually took up acting and developed a love for the profession and participated at a local theatre. The linguistically skilled Wojtyła wanted to study Polish at university. Encouraged by a conversation with Adam Stefan Sapieha, he decided to study theology and become a priest. Eventually, Wojtyła rose to the position of Archbishop of Kraków and then a cardinal, both positions held by his mentor. Wojtyła was elected pope on the third day of the second papal conclave of 1978, and became one of the youngest popes in history. The conclave was called after the death of John Paul I, who served only 33 days as pope. Wojtyła adopted the name of his predecessor in tribute to him.[9]

John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI in the 16th century, as well as the third-longest-serving pope in history after Pius IX and St. Peter. John Paul II attempted to improve the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, and the Eastern Orthodox Church in the spirit of ecumenism, holding atheism as the greatest threat. He maintained the Church's previous positions on such matters as abortion, artificial contraception, the ordination of women, and a celibate clergy, and although he supported the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, he was seen as generally conservative in their interpretation.[10][11] He put emphasis on family and identity, while questioning consumerism, hedonism and the pursuit of wealth. He was one of the most-travelled world leaders in history, visiting 129 countries during his pontificate. As part of his special emphasis on the universal call to holiness, John Paul II beatified 1,344 people,[12] and canonised 483 saints, more than the combined tally of his predecessors during the preceding five centuries. By the time of his death, he had named most of the College of Cardinals, consecrated or co-consecrated many of the world's bishops, and ordained many priests.[13]

He has been credited with fighting against dictatorships for democracy and with helping to end communist rule in his native Poland and the rest of Europe.[14] Under John Paul II, the Catholic Church greatly expanded its influence in Africa and Latin America and retained its influence in Europe and the rest of the world. On 19 December 2009, John Paul II was proclaimed venerable by his successor, Benedict XVI, and on 1 May 2011 (Divine Mercy Sunday) he was beatified. On 27 April 2014, he was canonised together with John XXIII.[15] He has been criticised for allegedly, as archbishop, having been insufficiently harsh in acting against the sexual abuse of children by priests in Poland,[16] though the allegations themselves have been criticised.[17][18] Posthumously he has been referred to by some Catholics as Pope St. John Paul the Great, though that title has no official recognition.[19]

Under John Paul II, two of the most important documents of the contemporary Catholic Church were drafted and promulgated: the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which revised and updated the 1917 Code of Canon Law, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the first universal catechism to be issued since the Roman Catechism.

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

On June 24, 1717, six months after the exile of the Stuarts, four lodges in London (names not given) met at Apple-Tree Tavern and united English Freemasonry under the name "United Grand Lodge," which has been nicknamed the Mother Grand Lodge, or Grand Mother Lodge.

The first French Templar Lodge was founded in 1725 by a contingent of exiled Stuart sympathizers. In 1745 Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, attempted to regain his Scottish throne and was soundly defeated in less than a year. Upon returning to France, the Scottish Templars founded the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, quickly developing it to 32 degrees by 1755. In 1801 all French lodges accepted the Templar Scottish Rite degrees. That same year the Scottish Rite of Charleston, S.C., created the 33rd and final degree in Templar Freemasonry.

On the continent of Europe, French Freemasonry is known as Scottish Rite, Grand Orient, French Grand Lodge, Continental, or Latin Freemasonry. The Templar York Rite in England was transported to America, where it remains to this day. English Freemasonry continued with the three Craft Degrees until 1860, when it adopted the thirty additional degrees of the Scottish Rite, but for competitive reasons refused to call it "Scottish."'

Scarlet and the Beast

by John Daniel

https://ia803001.us.archive.org/28/items/ScarletAndTheBeastJohnDaniel1995/Scarlet%20and%20the%20Beast,%20John%20Daniel%20(1995).pdf

Rito Scozzese

Antioco Ed Accettato

History

The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is the final and the only result of a complex reform that involves various Masonic Systems which developed separately one from another during the XVIII century in the range of the so called Scottish Regime. This regime originated from the advent of the Scottish Masters since about 1738 and continued with the Chapters of Clermont (1754), the Emperors of the Orient and the Western world (1758) which put in practice rituality defined as the Rite of Perfection or the Rite of Heredom. The aim of the reform, that unified all in one single Order, was aside from these veins, also minor branches with more recent manifestation among which the Primitive Rite and others.

The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is the rituality that characterises a particular Masonic Body which it adopts and makes his. This Masonic Body is called “The Supreme Council of the Sovereign Grand Inspector General of the 33 rd and Last Level of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite”.

The first Supreme Council (SC) called Mother of the World was founded in Charleston, Carolina, USA on the May 31st 1801 and presently has headquarters in Washington DC, USA.

In some ten years the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, under the impetus of the SC of Charleston, practically spread to all the world through further Supreme Councils which were formed in national territorial Jurisdictions, each independent and autonomous, jealous of their very sovereignty.

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/

The Wolfcatcher Royal (French: louvetier royal), a position also known historically as the Grand Wolfcatcher (French: grand louvetier) which is now known as lieutenant de louveterie, was established as a prestigious office in the House of the King during the Ancien Régime and Bourbon Restoration of France, tracing its inception to the luparii of Charlemagne. The office had been a fixture of the French crown as early as the reign of Louis XI, when the first recorded holder of the title Pierre Hannequeau reached prominence in 1467, although it had apparently existed in some form since 1308. Wolfcatchers Royal served under the Grand Huntsman and alongside the Grand Falconer and Captain of the Boar-hunt as members of the king's hunting service. They were responsible for organizing all aspects of the wolf-hunt and presided over the royal pack of wolfhounds and their handlers. A number of lieutenants, huntsmen, houndsmen, and valets assisted the Wolfcatcher Royal. By the 18th century Wolfcatchers, who rotated through office in alternate sessions, received stipends worth roughly between 1200 and 1400 livres.

On 9 August 1787 the office was dissolved due to financing issues but was reinstated in 1797. The office was further modified in 1971 and now serves an administrative function regulating vermin and maintaining healthy wildlife populations. Lieutenants often serve as moderators in disputes between the general public, hunters, and the government, keep the police informed of changes or nuances in hunting laws, and promote the use of ethics in hunting. A major focus of the position is the regulation of deer numbers. Wolfcatchers Royal are still required (in theory) to maintain a pack of at least four hounds capable of hunting boar or fox. There are twelve female lieutenants de louveterie in France.

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

Silver Bullet is a 1985 American horror film based on the 1983 Stephen King novella Cycle of the Werewolf. It stars Gary Busey, Everett McGill, and Corey Haim, with Megan Follows, Terry O'Quinn, Lawrence Tierney, Bill Smitrovich, Kent Broadhurst, David Hart, and James Gammon in supporting roles. The film is directed by Dan Attias, written by King and produced by Martha De Laurentiis.

Plot

The rocky relationship between Jane Coslaw and her paraplegic younger brother, Marty, changes after a series of murders begin in their small rural town of Tarker's Mills, Maine, in the spring of 1976.

Railroad worker Arnie Westrum is decapitated by an unseen attacker. Pregnant Stella Randolph, preparing to kill herself, is brutally murdered in her bedroom. An abusive father, Milt Sturmfuller, is killed in his greenhouse, and Marty's best friend, Brady Kincaid, is also slain. Following Brady's death, the townspeople form a vigilante group. Despite Sheriff Joe Haller's attempts to stop them, he relents after Brady's father, Herb, angrily confronts him. Reverend Lester Lowe tries, but fails, to prevent the townsfolk from causing more bloodshed.

While the vigilantes hunt for the killer in the nearby woods, three of them are attacked and killed. The survivors — particularly Andy Fairton — later deny seeing anything unusual. Afterwards, Reverend Lowe dreams he is presiding over a mass funeral, only for the congregation — including the bodies in the caskets — to transform into werewolves and attack him. He wakes up screaming and pleads with God to "let it end."

As the unsolved murders continue to mount, curfews are put in place, canceling the town's Fourth of July celebration. The Coslaws decide to have their own backyard party and invite their mother Nan's alcoholic brother, Red. Red gifts Marty a custom-built wheelchair/motorcycle, which he nicknames the "Silver Bullet," along with a pile of fireworks for his own celebration. Marty sneaks out in the middle of the night to a bridge, where he lights the fireworks. The display draws the attention of the werewolf, who confronts Marty, but he escapes after firing a rocket into the creature's eye.

Marty enlists Jane's help to find someone with a newly injured or missing eye. She soon discovers that Reverend Lowe is missing his left eye. Knowing that no adult would believe his story, Marty sends anonymous notes to Reverend Lowe, telling him that he knows who and what he is, and that he should kill himself to stop the murders. In response, Lowe tries to run Marty off the road. When Marty becomes trapped under a covered bridge, the increasingly deranged Lowe attempts to justify the murders as doing God's work. Just as Lowe moves in for the kill, a passerby arrives, saving Marty.

The siblings manage to convince Red that Lowe is responsible for the murders and tried to kill Marty. Red persuades Sheriff Haller to investigate. That night, Haller, still skeptical but desperate, goes to Lowe's house, only to find the reverend has locked himself in his garage to prevent further killings. Before Haller can arrest him, Lowe transforms into a werewolf and kills Haller with a baseball bat.

Realizing the werewolf will come for them next, Marty and Jane convince Red to take Jane's silver cross and Marty's silver medallion to a gunsmith, who melts them down into a silver bullet.

On the night of the full moon, they wait for the werewolf. It cuts the power to the house and breaks in, attacking Red. In the chaos, the silver bullet is nearly lost, but Marty manages to retrieve it and shoots the werewolf in its right eye. The werewolf reverts to Lowe's human form before dying. As the trio recover, Marty and Jane embrace, with Jane narrating that although she had not always been able to express it, she could now tell Marty that she loved him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Bullet_(film)

Matthew 7

1599 Geneva Bible

7 1 We may not give judgment of our neighbors, 6 Nor cast that which is holy unto dogs. 13 The broad and strait way. 15 False prophets. 18 The tree and fruit. 24 The house built on a rock, 26 and on the sand.

1 Judge [a]not, that ye be not judged.

2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you again.

3 And why seest thou the mote, that is in thy brother’s eye, and perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4 Or how sayest thou to thy brother, Suffer me to cast out the mote out of thine eye, and behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

5 Hypocrite, first cast out that beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

6 ¶ [b]Give ye not that which is holy to dogs, neither cast ye your [c]pearls before swine, lest they tread them under their feet, and turning again, all to rent you.

7 ¶ [d]Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and ye shall find: knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

8 For whosoever asketh, receiveth: and he that seeketh, findeth: and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.

9 For what man is there among you, which if his son ask him bread, would give him a stone?

10 Or if he ask fish, will he give him a serpent?

11 If ye then, which are evil, can give to your children good gifts, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him?

12 [e]Therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do to you: even so do ye to them: for this is the [f]Law and the Prophets.

13 ¶ [g]Enter in at the strait gate: for it is the wide gate, and broad way that leadeth to destruction: and many there be which go in thereat.

14 Because [h]the gate is strait, and the way narrow that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

15 ¶ [i]Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns? or figs of thistles?

17 So every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

20 Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

21 ¶ [j]Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth my Father’s will which is in heaven.

22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not by thy [k]Name prophesied, and by thy name cast out devils? and by thy name done many [l]great works?

23 And then will I profess to them, [m]I never knew you, depart from me [n]ye that work iniquity.

24 [o]Whosoever then heareth of me these words, and doeth the same, I will liken him to a wise man, which hath builded his house on a rock:

25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not: for it was grounded on a rock,

26 But whosoever heareth these my words, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which hath builded his house upon the sand:

27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell, and the fall thereof was great.

28 ¶ And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these words, the people were astonished at his doctrine.

29 For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the Scribes.

Footnotes

Matthew 7:1 We ought to find fault one with another, but we must beware we do it not without cause, or to seem holier than they, or in hatred of them.

Matthew 7:6 The stiffnecked and stubborn enemies of the Gospel are unworthy to have it preached unto them.

Matthew 7:6 A pearl hath his name among the Grecians, for the orient brightness that is in it: and a pearl was in ancient time in great estimation among the Latins: for a pearl that Cleopatra had, was valued at two hundred and fifty thousand crowns, and the word is now borrowed from that, to signify the most precious heavenly doctrine.

Matthew 7:7 Prayers are a sure refuge in all miseries.

Matthew 7:12 A rehearsal of the meaning of the second table.

Matthew 7:12 That is to say, the doctrine of the Law and Prophets.

Matthew 7:13 Example of life must not be taken from a multitude.

Matthew 7:14 The way is straight and narrow we must pass through this rough way, and suffer and endure, and be thronged, and to enter into life.

Matthew 7:15 False teachers must be taken heed of, and they are known by false doctrine and evil living.

Matthew 7:21 Even the best gifts that are, are nothing without godliness.

Matthew 7:22 By Name here, is meant that mighty working power of God, which every man witnesseth that calleth upon him.

Matthew 7:22 Properly powers: Now these excellent works wrought are called Powers, by occasion of these things which they bring to pass, for by them we understand, how mighty the power of God is.

Matthew 7:23 This is not of ignorance, but because he will cast them away.

Matthew 7:23 You that are given to all kind of wickedness, and seem to make an art of sin.

Matthew 7:24 True godliness resteth only upon Christ, and therefore always remaineth invincible.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%207&version=GNV